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THE DEAN OF MANCHESTER
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Archdeaconry of Manchester and the Deanery of Manchester. While the Canon's name was still being mentioned in connection with the Deanery, rendered vacant by the death of Dr Oakley, Bishop Moorhouse, who, five years previously, had succeeded Bishop Fraser—had offered him the Archdeaconry, vice Archdeacon Anson, resigned. A curious position arose. Canon Maclure had been accepted as the Archdeacon-designate, when it was announced that Lord Salisbury had received the Queen's approval to his appointment as the Dean of Manchester. General surprise, coupled with the profoundest satisfaction, in Lancashire, at anyrate, was evinced, for there had been some fear that a well-known Southerner—none other than Archdeacon Farrar—would receive the post, and Lancashire men were clannish enough to wish to keep the Southerner out. But what was Canon Maclure to do? On the one hand, there was the express wish of the Bishop and the offer of the work of the Archdeaconry; on the other, larger opportunities and scope for work in the great northern metropolis—the Canon's native city—at the invitation of the Crown. So the Deanery came to be accepted. Thus it happened that, just as the late Bishop of Liverpool (Dr Ryle) never entered upon his duties as Dean of Salisbury, through Lord Beaconsfield's subsequent choice of him for the episcopate, so Canon Maclure was never collated to the Archdeaconry of Manchester.