original diocese becoming extinct. The Diocese of Portsmouth was formed in 1882 by the division of the Diocese of Southwark into the Dioceses of Southwark and Portsmouth. In 1895 the Diocese of Newport and Menevia was divided into the Diocese of Newport (later becoming, in 1916, the Archdiocese of Cardiff) and that of Menevia. Three ecclesiastical provinces Thus, the metropolitan Diocese of Westminster came to have fifteen suffragan sees, the largest number in the world. Accordingly, by the Apostolic Letter Si qua est of 28 October 1911, Pope Pius X erected the new provinces of Birmingham and Liverpool, making these two dioceses metropolitan archdioceses. There remained under Westminster the suffragan sees of Northampton, Nottingham, Portsmouth, and Southwark; to Birmingham were assigned those of Clifton, Newport, Plymouth, Shrewsbury, and Menevia; and to Liverpool, Hexham and Newcastle, Leeds, Middlesbrough, and Salford. It had for many years been felt that a division was necessary, but there had always been the fear of causing disunion thereby, especially if, as in pre-Reformation times, the division would be between north and south. This was obviated by ignoring the precedent of York and Canterbury, and arranging for three instead of two provinces. Under the new Apostolic Constitution, the Archbishop of Westminster was granted the right to "be permanent chairman of the meetings of the Bishops of all England and Wales, and for this reason it will be for him to summon these meetings and to preside over them, according to the rules in force in Italy and elsewhere." He ranks over the other two archbishops. Instead of the natural geographical division into a northern, a midland, and a southern province, formed by drawing a line from the Humber to the River Mersey, and another from The Wash to the Bristol Channel, the Westminster or eastern province and the Birmingham or western province reach from the south-east and south-west to the Humber and Mersey respectively. In this way the northern province is contiguous to both the other two, bringing all three into closer intercommunication. In pre-Reformation times, an attempt was made in 787 to have a third English province, roughly covering the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia, with a metropolitan see at Lichfield, but in 803 this was abandoned and the bishops of central England were again made subject to Canterbury. Notes Joseph William Hendren O.F.M. was actually the first bishop of Clifton but after less than a year