All kinds of Diocesan work had received his active support, from the establishment of the Order of Deaconesses down to the humble Lenten services, to which toilers were invited to “Come in your working clothes, and welcome.” The Diocesan Conference and the Diocesan Board of Education had flourished during his secretaryship, as, indeed, had many other religious and philanthropic institutions in the Diocese, through his support. But there was still a difficulty in the way of his legal installation into office. According to the charter of King Charles the First, no person could be appointed Warden of the College of Christ, now Cathedral of Manchester, unless he could affix to his name at least the degree of “B.D.,” or “B.C.L.” The Dean-designate, like most of those in the ranks from which he had sprung, was simply an “M.A.,” and a long vacation had to be passed ere Oxford was in full term again. The time, however, arrived, and Oxford, ever ready to confer honour on whom it is due, sent Dean Maclure on his way rejoicing, his name garnished with the all-important “D.D.”
The Dean was still to be the victim of curious—withal amusing—mistakes. Lancashire folk represented “laughter holding both its sides,” when a London evening newspaper announced the appoint ment in such a way as to make the Dean the son of his younger brother, “John William,” and the latter the son of his own son—Mr Stanley Maclure, of the Lancashire Regiment, stationed at Tipperary.
