Some illustrations of the condition of Reader ministry at the end of the nineteenth century are contained in the first edition of the magazine called the Readers' Work. Its lead story describes a discussion in the Upper House of the Convocation of Canterbury on the issue of admitting Readers to a permanent office in the church rather than admission for an unspecified period to a diocese or parish. Mention is also made of the need to provide information about the different regulations in the different dioceses, the developments in Chester where there were sixty-nine Readers following the admission of two new Readers who had effectively replaced one who had been ordained and one who had left the diocese, and an innovative idea of the Bishop of Rochester who invited all of his Readers to his house for prayer and discussion.

3.4 Consolidation.

The Reader movement continued to expand and the Readers together with other lay ministries such as the evangelists and catechists were controlled on a local basis. The diversity of the period is evidenced by Williams' history of the movement which devotes sixty-two per cent of the content to individual diocesan histories and decisions. King (p.108) points out the result of the diversity was significant divergence between the practice in the parishes and the central regulations.