in 1513. The attached funerary chapel for James Stanley, the Ely Chapel, was destroyed by bombing in 1940. The brass from atop Stanley's tombchest was rescued from the wreckage, and remounted vertically against the rebuilt north wall of the Regiment Chapel. The western chapels are no longer demarcated, as the screens that divided them have been removed giving the appearance of double aisles on either side of the nave. Batch Marriages Until 1850, the Collegiate Church remained the parish church for the whole of Manchester (this is the ancient parish, including almost the whole area of the modern City of Manchester excepting Wythenshawe), an area which in 1821 had a population of 187,031. Within this vast parish there were considerable numbers of chapels of ease and proprietary chapels for parochial worship - as well as other chapels for dissenters and Roman Catholics. Nevertheless, the Wardens and fellows of the Collegiate church maintained their legal right to a fee of 3s. 6d. for all marriages conducted within their parish; so, unless a couple were able and willing to pay two sets of marriage fees, the only place in Manchester where a marriage might legally be contracted was the collegiate church. In practice, this religious duty fell on the pastoral chaplain employed by the Warden and fellows; who from 1790 to 1821 was the eccentric figure of the Revd. Joshua 'Jotty' Brookes. In 1821 a total of 1,924 marriages were solemnized in the collegiate church; commonly in batches of a score or more. The couples to be married were most often desperately poor but Brookes was no respecter of status, so all were subjected to his 'production line' methods. Commonly, the groom and friends would decamp to a nearby ale-house while the bride kept place in the queue; but if there was one groom too few when a group of couples were lined up in front of the altar, Brookes notoriously would countenance no delay, but would continue the marriage with any passer-by (or even one of the other grooms) as a proxy stand-in. Brookes is commonly reckoned to have conducted more marriages, funerals and christenings than any English clergyman before or since. As the population of Manchester increased further; so the numbers of christenings, weddings and funerals celebrated in the collegiate church also grew. In 1838, there were 5,164 christenings, 1,457 funerals, and 2,615 weddings. Cathedral Under the Cathedrals Act 1840,