Durham Cathedral -Rectory?

[ozdelver]

Hi all,
I do hope everyone is staying safe in these troubling times. Genealogy research has been a good way of taking my mind off all the worry for a while.

I have uncovered an ancestor via some old letters, who claims to have been born at the Rectory at Durham Cathedral, and that his father was the Rector, Church of England at Durham Cathedral. I have tried Google to see if there is indeed a Rector at Durham Cathedral, and not had any luck.

He seems also to have been inventive with his name, which contains no less than five christian names to go along with his surname. I also wonder at the British Naval career he was claiming, but let's get his birth sorted out first. I actually think he was born at South Shields, son of a shipwright.

Can anyone out there please help me with this Rectory business? Was my ancestor inventing a history to impress his new bride and her family?

Another claim was a connection to "Tunnicliffe Hall" in Durham, around the 1870's.  Was there such a place in Durham?

[stanmapstone]

A Cathedral does not have a rector, or a rectory. A Parson was originally a Rector, though the term is now applied also to a Vicar. So a Parsonage would be a Rectory, where a Rector lived, and a Vicarage where a Vicar Lived. A Rector was originally an incumbent who received the 'Great Tithes', a Vicar received the 'Lesser Tithes'.

Stan

[arthurk]

Rector and Rectory are terms normally associated with a parish church rather than a cathedral, but the Church of England is full of oddities and anomalies so I wouldn't totally rule it out.

If you can tell us the chap's name, and his father, and their dates, it might be possible to find out what the connection with the cathedral was.

[stanmapstone]

The Staff of Durham Cathedral in the 19th Century was a Dean, nine residentiary Canons, one sub Dean and six minor Canons, there was no Rector. 

Stan

[stanmapstone]

A Rector could be an Honorary Canon of the Cathedral, but he would be a Parish Priest in the Diocese.
If a cathedral was also parish church then it could have a Rector, but Durham Cathedral was not a parish church.
Stan

[Skoosh]

Glasgow Cathedral was the seat of an archbishop before the Reformation, it has a Church of Scotland minister!

http://www.glasgowcathedral.org/

Skoosh.

[stanmapstone]

There are only two cathedrals, now, in England which are also parish churches, these are Ripon and Portsmouth.

Stan

[barryd]

A very complex subject. From the experts on the Internet.

Rectory and vicarage houses, in the sense of parsonages for the resident clergyman, sometimes formed part of the church's original medieval endowment, sited usually (though not always) near the church itself. Some were quite substantial, and were often successively rebuilt on the same site, particularly after the Reformation when, for the first time, clergy required family homes

[stanmapstone]

 A rector, who did not always reside in the parish, was entitled to the whole tithes, and he was compelled to provide and endow a clergyman, known as the vicar, to live in the parish and perform the ecclesiastical duties. The vicars endowment usually took the form of a portion of the glebe, together with the small tithes.
You could have a Lay Rector as well as a Clerical Rector. A Lay Rector was either an individual or corporate body, such as monastic or collegiate foundation, who received the Great  (or Rectorial) Tithes. The rector was responsible for the chancel and the rectory and for providing service books and vestments.

Stan