Church Rates
From BiblePortal Wikipedia
Church Rates [1]
money raised annually in the parishes of England for the maintenance or repair of the parish church, etc. Rates are agreed on by the parish in vestry assembled; and they are charged, not on the land, but on the occupier. The parish meetings are summoned by the church-wardens, who, if they neglect to do so, may be proceeded against criminally in the ecclesiastical courts. (See Church-Wardens). Not fewer than eighteen bills have been before Parliament these last twenty years for the modification or settlement of church-rates. In Ireland, these rates have been altogether abolished by the Church Temporality Act of 1833.
