Clergy Support Trust is a charity which provides support to Anglican clergy (serving and retired), ordinands, curates, and their families, in the UK, Ireland, Diocese in Europe and Diocese of Sodor and Man. In 2022, they supported over 2,300 clergy households.
The charity exists to provide financial and wellbeing support to serving and retired clergy of the Anglican Communion. The Trust is, however, independent of the Church, their services are confidential and they are completely impartial.
It was formerly known as Sons & Friends of the Clergy. The full official name of the charity is Governors of the Charity for Relief of the Poor Widows and Children of Clergymen.
Foundation
The Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy was established in 1655 in response to the distress of the large number of clergymen who were dispossessed of their livings under the regime of Oliver Cromwell.
One of the main instigators of the charity was Edward Wake, who was uncle of William Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury. The founders were merchants of the City of London and priests of the Church of England, all of whom were themselves sons of clergymen.[1] The first fundraising events were on 8 November 1655, when a Festival Service was held in Old St Paul's Cathedral, followed by a dinner in the Merchant Taylors' Hall. Collections were taken at each and these events have continued ever since. In 2024, the Trust marks the 369th Festival Service.
Royal Charter, and Sons of the Clergy
In 1678, King Charles II granted the charity a Royal Charter. This Charter committed the administration of the “Charity for Releefe of the poore Widdowes and Children of Clergymen” to a “Court of Assistants”. The Court of Assistants consisted of a President, a vice-president, three Treasurers and up to forty-two Assistants, elected each year from the Governors.
A modernised version of the Royal Charter, based on the model articles of association for a charity in England and Wales, was approved by the Governors of the charity in November 2019 and by the Queen (the charity's Patron) through an Order in Council in February 2020. The Court of Assistants is elected at the charity's Annual Assembly (AGM) each year.
As time passed the corporation, maintaining its full name, but commonly operating under the shorter name "Sons of the Clergy", became a wider charity for clerical families and provided support such as the payment of the apprenticeship indentures. The charity obtained properties such as a house in Salisbury Square and other church land, and advowsons.
Clergy Orphan Corporation
St Edmund's, the Clergy Orphan Corporation Boys' School
In 1749, a Society formed for the purpose of founding both a Boys' and Girls' school for the maintenance and education of the orphans of Anglican Clergyman in England and Wales.[2]
This society was incorporated in 1809 as The Governors of the Society for Clothing, Maintaining, and Educating Poor Orphans of Clergymen of the Established Church in that part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain called England, until of Age to be put to Apprentice by Act 49 of George III of 28 April 1809.[3] Its common name was the Clergy Orphan Corporation.
Initially the boys were educated under a master in Thirsk in Yorkshire and the girls in a school-house in Chapel Street, Lisson Grove, Marylebone, London. The boys moved to Acton, London in 1805, and in 1812, both the girls and boys were moved to St John's Wood in London.[2]
The girls' school was compulsorily purchased by a railway company in 1895 and demolished. The girls, after a temporary stay in Windsor, moved to a purpose built school at St Merry Hill Road, Bushey, Hertfordshire, named for Saint Margaret of Scotland. It is now an independent day and boarding school for girls.[5]
The two schools, St Edmund's School Canterbury and St Margaret's School, Bushey were incorporated as limited companies and separate charities on 20 May 1996 and no longer formed part of the Clergy Orphan Corporation.[6][7] The Clergy Orphan Corporation was fully incorporated into the Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy in 1997, via Statutory Instrument 1997 No, 2240 "Charities".[8]
Why the schools were needed
Farr's Life Table No. 3 shows that in the period 1838 to 1864, a man who reached the age of 25, the age at which many young clergymen would have completed their academic training and been ordained, had an roughly one in three chance of dying before he was 55.[9] The risk of a clergyman of 25 dying by age 55 was about one in four in 1861–1871.[10]
By contrast, the latest life table from the UK's Office of National Statistics, Life Table No. 17 based on data in 2010–2012 shows that the risk of man aged 25 dying before 55 was less than one in twenty.[11][12] The significant risk in the 18th and 19th centuries, that a clerical family would lose the main breadwinner before all of the children were launched into the world led to the founding of the Clergy Orphan Schools.
Friends of the Clergy
In 1820, another charity was established for the relief of poor clergymen and their families. Founded by Phyllis Peyton and the writer Mary Lamb, the "Clothing Society for the Benefit of Poor Pious Clergymen" grew rapidly, and following several changes of name (and amalgamations with smaller charities, culminating in the Friends of the Clergy Corporation Act 1972), became the Friends of the Clergy Corporation.[1]
The extent of clerical poverty
Austen's church at SteventonAusten's church at Deane
Only a fifth of the Anglican clergy active in 1839 had links to the Gentry or Peerage. Presumably, these had some inherited wealth. The others depended on what they could earn. About one quarter of the clergy were considered to be comfortably off, with at least £500 per annum in 1830.[13] Ordained Church of England ministers had a number of potential sources of income:
Direct employment as a curate, teacher, chaplain, or tutor. For example, Charles Kegan Paul, the founder of the publisher C. Kegan Paul, was employed as a tutor to pupils travelling to Germany for a year.[14] He then appointed to a chaplaincy at Eton College and then to the new post of Master in College for which he was paid £120. He was allowed to supplement this by taking on two private pupils.[15] Many clergy took private pupils as a way of supplementing their income.[16]
Benefices commonly called livings, most of which benefited from Tithes and the Glebe, but some of which were Perpetual Curates. About half of the 10,500 livings were in the gift of the local squire. The remaining half were controlled by the crown, bishops, cathedral chapters, the universities of Oxford or Cambridge, and other institutions. In 1805, just over half (55%) of young clergymen could obtain such livings. A parliamentary inquiry in 1802 found that about 1,000 livings were worth less than £100 a year, and another 3,000 worth between £100 and £150.[17] The picture was the same 30 years later and a tenth of beneficed clergymen received less than £100 a year.[13] Of course, a clergyman might hold more than one living. This was known as pluralism. Jane Austen's clergyman father, George Austen, held two livings, at Steventon, Hampshire and at Deane, Hampshire.[18] The Pluralities Act of 1838 forbade clergymen having more than one benefice except under specific conditions.[19] The desirable minimum income for a clergyman was thought to be £400, which was an upper middle-class income.[13] Jervis reported that 6,750 parochial benefices were worth less than £300.[20]
The poverty of many benefices
Value of Benefice
Number
<£50
294
£50 to <£100
1,621
£100 to <£150
1,591
£150 to <£200
1,325
£200 to <£300
1,964
Total
6,795
Amalgamation of charities
During the twentieth century, the Sons of the Clergy Corporation and the Friends of the Clergy Corporation found increasing opportunities to support each other's work and to cooperate.
In 2005, they committed to finding a route to permanent union, with widespread sharing of resources.
In 2006, they began a process of "common trusteeship" whereby the same people were appointed as Trustees of both charities.
In 2007, the two Corporations moved into a single headquarters together, with a totally unified staff, remaining separate entities only in a legal and accountancy sense.
The process of formally amalgamating the two Corporations was complex, but was completed in December 2012, when the Corporation of the Sons & Friends of the Clergy (or 'Sons & Friends of the Clergy") came into being.
In March 2019, the charity changed its working name to Clergy Support Trust, to reflect the fact that almost a third of those in ordained Anglican ministry are now women, and the 'Sons & Friends' name was off-putting to many female clergy.[21]
Charitable objects
The charity's objects, as enshrined in its 1678 Royal Charter as subsequently amended by Order in Council in 1971, 2012, 2017 and 2020, are to support eligible beneficiaries in:
...the relief or prevention of poverty or hardship or for the relief of illness and the promotion of health, whether physical or mental
"Beneficiaries" are defined as follows:
...members of the clergy, ordinands and the spouses, former spouses, children and dependants of living or deceased members or former members of the clergy or of ordinands.
Chatsworth Gardens
Chatsworth Gardens, Eastbourne, incorporating the former Clergy Holiday Homes of the Corporation of the Sons and Friends of the Clergy.
During the 1970s and 1980s, the charity maintained and operated Chatsworth Gardens in Eastbourne as a clergy holiday home. This large house, donated by the elderly owner during her lifetime, was converted into a series of apartments, and whilst the donor continued to live in one herself, the others were maintained by the charity as clergy holiday flats. Many clergy families of that era have common memories of the Eastbourne clergy holiday homes. Chatsworth Gardens was however an expensive asset, and was eventually sold.
Modern operations
Today, Clergy Support Trust is the largest charity helping Anglican clergy and their families in times of hardship.
The charity is based in a Grade 2 listed building at 1 Dean Trench Street, Westminster, which address was for a while after WW1 the home of Winston Churchill.
In 2022, the Trust helped more clergy households than ever before, with £4.96m provided in grants. Since 2019, their workload has quadrupled, from 1,600 grants to an estimated 6,500 in 2023.
2022 also saw them launch their series of Wellbeing Workshops - free, specialist programmes, facilitated by expert and trusted partner organisations, allowing dioceses to book their clergy on sessions ranging from Mental Health First Aid to leadership training, stress and resilience to trauma-informed ministry.
In the same year, their Visiting Caseworker service was launched, providing more detailed in-person follow-ups to support applications. In their first year, the Visiting Caseworkers helped clergy families secure £280,000 in external funding, including Disabled Living Allowance, Personal Independence Payments (PIPs) and Disabled Facilities Grants. They have provided debt support, mental health support, emotional support, helped with EHCP (education, health and care plans) and tribunals, and supported with home aids and adaptations, as well as occupational therapy assessments.
In partnership with JR Corporate Health, Clergy Support Trust now offers a confidential counselling service for training, serving and retired clergy and their partners, supporting with issues such as anxiety and depression, separation, bereavement and pastoral issues. Similarly, the Trust have partnered with Sleepstation to offer an online sleep therapy programme, facilitated by expert sleep coaches, therapists and clinicians.
The Festival
Combined choirs at the 2016 Sons & Friends Festival Service at St Paul's
The annual Festival service at St Paul's Cathedral, which began on 8 November 1655, has continued ever since, and is a major event annually in the calendar of the charity and of the cathedral.[22] Senior clergy and City figures, including the Lord Mayor of London or their representative, are usually involved in the event, and in the life of the charity, with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Archbishop of York and Bishop of London serving as Presidents.[23] With two cathedral choirs joining the choir of St Paul's, and with several composers such as Charles Villiers Stanford, Hubert Parry and Edward Elgar having written pieces for the event, the Festival is now one of the oldest and best known choral events in the Anglican Communion.[24]
Festival cathedral choirs since 2000 (in addition to the Choir of St Paul's)
2000: St Albans and the Temple Church Choir
2001: Carlisle and St George's Chapel, Windsor
2002: Chelmsford and Newcastle
2003: Ely and Hereford
2004: Various cathedral choirs (350th Festival)
2005: New College, Oxford, and York
2006: Derby and Winchester
2007: Guildford and Christ Church, Oxford
2008: Ripon and Truro
2009: Exeter and Salisbury
2010: Lincoln and Westminster
2011: Edinburgh and Worcester
2012: Bristol and Southwell
2013: Norwich and Tewkesbury Abbey
2014: Peterborough and Wakefield
2015: Manchester and Portsmouth
2016: Birmingham and St Edmundsbury
2017: Chester and Chichester
2018: Chelmsford and Gloucester
2019: Canterbury and Coventry
2020: Cancelled
2021: Online (due to the COVID-19 pandemic)
2022: Liverpool and Southwark
2023: Leicester and Llandaff
2024: Durham and Rochester
Executive leadership
Register of the Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy
From 1716 to 2017 the post of President was always held ex officio by the Archbishop of Canterbury. In November 2017 Archbishop Justin Welby became Honorary President.
Vice Presidents (usually a senior judge)
1678 to 1683: Sir Christopher Wren (also held office from 1722 until his death in March 1723)
Over the many years of history of this charity, its legal status has changed several times, and a large number of smaller charities have been incorporated into it by merger, amalgamation, or takeover. The following former clergy charities are all now incorporated into the current day Corporation of the Sons & Friends of the Clergy:
Charity for Relief of the poor Widows and Children of Clergymen
Clergy Orphan Corporation
Clothing Society for the Benefit of Poor Pious Clergymen
Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy
Curates Augmentation Fund
Friends of the Clergy Corporation
Poor Clergy Relief Corporation
Poor Parochial Clergy Society
Society of Stewards and Subscribers for Maintaining and Educating Poor Orphans of Clergymen
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References
1 2 3 "Clergy Charities". Clergy Charities United Website. Archived from the original on 21 June 2015. Retrieved 22 September 2014.
1 2 3 Clergy Orphan Corporation (1857). "Account of the Corporation". An Account of the Corporation for Clothing, Maintaining, and Educating Poor Orphans of Clergymen of the Established Church. London: Gilbert and Rivington, Printers. p.5. Retrieved 2020-07-17– via Google Books.
↑ Clergy Orphan Corporation (1857). "Act for Establishing & c.". An Account of the Corporation for Clothing, Maintaining, and Educating Poor Orphans of Clergymen of the Established Church. London: Gilbert and Rivington, Printers. p.11. Retrieved 2020-07-17– via Google Books.
PEARCE, Ernest Harold The Sons of the Clergy, 1655-1904. London: John Murray, 1904 ISBN1-3318-5121-1
COX, Nicholas Bridging the Gap: A History of the Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy Over 300 Years, 1655-1978. Oxford: Becket Publications, 1978 ISBN0-7289-0002-5.
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