Queen Anne's Bounty

Last updated

Queen Anne's Bounty was a scheme established in 1704 to augment the incomes of the poorer clergy of the Church of England, and by extension the organisation ("The Governors of the Bounty of Queen Anne for the Augmentation of the Maintenance of the Poor Clergy") which administered the bounty (and eventually a number of other forms of assistance to poor livings).

Contents

Original structure

The bounty was originally funded by the annates monies: "first fruits" (the first year's income of a cleric newly appointed to a benefice) [1] and "tenths" – a tenth of the income in subsequent years traditionally paid by English clergy to the pope until the Reformation, and thereafter to the Crown. Henry VIII, on becoming the recipient of these monies had had them carefully valued and specified as sums of money. This valuation was never revised, and in 1920 the income from First Fruits and Tenths was between £15,000 and £16,000. [2] : 17 

The bounty money was to be used to increase the income of livings yielding less than £80 a year. It was not paid directly to incumbents, but instead used to purchase land (generally £200-worth), the income from which augmented the living. The livings to be augmented were selected by lot from those with an annual income less than £10, or (in the early years of the bounty) those where augmentation by a third party was offered conditional upon augmentation by bounty funds. Parishes worth less than £20 a year were included in the ballot in 1747, those worth less than £30 a year in 1788, those under £50 in 1810. [2] : 38–9 

Later developments

Augmented parishes came to find it more convenient to not actually purchase land, but to leave the purchase money deposited with the bounty, who paid a guaranteed but moderate rate of interest. The money held by the bounty was invested at higher rates of interest, the difference between interest paid the bounty on their investments, and that paid by the bounty to parishes going to meet the running costs of the bounty and to increase the funds available for augmentation. [2] : 22  In 1829 the purchase money deposited with the bounty amounted to over £1m, which was invested in bank annuities (financial instruments of fluctuating value, then worth over £1.3m); [2] : 24  by 1900 the bounty was holding over £7m credited to various augmented livings. [2] : 31 

The original (first fruits and tenths) income and that from interest rate differences on money on deposit with the bounty, had by 1815 allowed the allocation of nearly £1.5m of capital (securing nearly £0.5m of third-party benefactions) to augment the income of 3,300 livings. [2] : 43  To accelerate augmentation, between 1809 and 1820 Parliament made annual grants to the bounty of £100,000; £1.1m in total. As a result, by 1824 all livings under £30 a year had been augmented and there were funds in hand to permit the augmentation of all livings worth under £50 a year. By 1841, it was estimated, the operations of the bounty (discounting the effects of the Parliamentary grants of 1809-20) had secured additional church income over ten times that of the first fruits and tenths. [2] : 45 

The Ecclesiastical Commission reported (1836) the following data on low-income livings: [3]

Annual income of livingLess than £50£50 - 100£100 - £150£150-£200
Number of livings2971,6281,6021,354

(As a rough comparison, in Queen Anne's reign, 3,800 livings had been worth less than £50 a year and therefore excused (in perpetuity) payment of first fruits and tenths.) [2] : 12 

After 1836, bounty augmentations were generally to match third party benefactions to livings worth less than £200 a year. In 1890, the total amount distributed was £176,896.

On 2 April 1947, by the Church Commissioners Measure 1947, the functions and assets of Queen Anne's Bounty were merged with the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to form the Church Commissioners. [4] The archives of Queen Anne's Bounty are now held by the Church of England Record Centre; specific documents may be consulted by appointment.

On 16 June 2022 the Church Commissioners published an interim report on research into links between Queen Anne's Bounty and the Atlantic slave trade. The report said that Queen Anne's Bounty had invested significant sums in the South Sea Company, which transported 34,000 slaves to the Spanish Americas in the 18th century, and had received benefactions from people with links to slavery, including Edward Colston. Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, apologised for the links with slavery identified in the report. [5] [6] In January 2023 the Church Commissioners announced that they were setting up a fund of £100 million to be spent over the next nine years on addressing historic links with slavery. [7]

Legislation

The Queen Anne's Bounty Acts 1706 to 1870 is the collective title of the following Acts: [8]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Irish Church Act 1869</span> United Kingdom legislation

The Irish Church Act 1869 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which separated the Church of Ireland from the Church of England and disestablished the former, a body that commanded the adherence of a small minority of the population of Ireland. The Act was passed during the first ministry of William Ewart Gladstone and came into force on 1 January 1871. It was strongly opposed by Conservatives in both houses of Parliament.

The Regium Donum in British history was an annual grant to augment the income of poor Nonconformist clergy. There were separate grants for English Dissenters and for Irish Presbyterian clergy. The money originally came from the monarch's privy purse as an ex gratia donation, but it later became an annual grant voted by Parliament.

Annates were a payment from the recipient of an ecclesiastical benefice to the ordaining authorities. Eventually, they consisted of half or the whole of the first year's profits of a benefice; after the appropriation of right of consecration by the Vatican, they were paid to the papal treasury, ostensibly as a proffered contribution to the church. They were also known as the "first fruits", a religious offering which dates back to earlier Greek, Roman, and Hebrew religions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Church Commissioners</span> Body managing the historic property assets of the Church of England

The Church Commissioners is a body which administers the property assets of the Church of England. It was established in 1948 and combined the assets of Queen Anne's Bounty, a fund dating from 1704 for the relief of poor clergy, and of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners formed in 1836. The Church Commissioners are a registered charity regulated by the Charity Commission for England and Wales, and are liable for the payment of pensions to retired clergy whose pensions were accrued before 1998.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">English Reformation Parliament</span> 16th-century English legislature

The English Reformation Parliament, which sat from 3 November 1529 to 14 April 1536, was the English Parliament that passed the major pieces of legislation leading to the Break with Rome and establishment of the Church of England. In Scotland, the 1560 Parliament had a similar role. Sitting in the reign of King Henry VIII of England, the Reformation Parliament was the first to deal with major religious legislation, much of it orchestrated by Thomas Cromwell.

The Ecclesiastical Commissioners were, in England and Wales, a body corporate, whose full title was Ecclesiastical and Church Estates Commissioners for England. The commissioners were authorized to determine the distribution of revenues of the Church of England, and they made extensive changes in how revenues were distributed. The modern successor body thereof are the Church Commissioners.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slave Compensation Act 1837</span>

The Slave Compensation Act 1837 was an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom, signed into law on 23 December 1837. It authorised the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt to compensate slave owners in the British colonies of the Caribbean, Mauritius, and the Cape of Good Hope, in the amount of approximately £20 million for freed slaves. Based on a government census of 1 August 1834, over 40,000 awards to slave owners were issued. Since some of the payments were converted into 3.5% government annuities, they lasted until 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Perpetual curate</span>

Perpetual curate was a class of resident parish priest or incumbent curate within the United Church of England and Ireland. The term is found in common use mainly during the first half of the 19th century. The legal status of perpetual curate originated as an administrative anomaly in the 16th century. Unlike ancient rectories and vicarages, perpetual curacies were supported by a cash stipend, usually maintained by an endowment fund, and had no ancient right to income from tithe or glebe.

An Appropriation Act is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which, like a Consolidated Fund Act, allows the Treasury to issue funds out of the Consolidated Fund. Unlike a Consolidated Fund Act, an Appropriation Act also "appropriates" the funds, that is allocates the funds issued out of the Consolidated Fund to individual government departments and Crown bodies. Appropriation Acts were formerly passed by the Parliament of Great Britain.

Thomas Cromwell established the Court of Augmentations, also called Augmentation Court or simply The Augmentation in 1536, during the reign of King Henry VIII of England. It operated alongside three lesser courts following the dissolution of the monasteries. The Court's primary function was to gain better control over the land and finances formerly held by the Roman Catholic Church in the Kingdom of England. The Court of Augmentations was incorporated into the Exchequer in 1554 as the Augmentation Office.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Queen Anne's Bounty Act 1714</span> United Kingdom legislation

The Queen Anne’s Bounty Act 1714 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain. It was one of the Queen Anne's Bounty Acts 1706 to 1870.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Commissioners' church</span> Type of C19 Anglican church in the UK

A Commissioners' church, also known as a Waterloo church and Million Act church, is an Anglican church in the United Kingdom built with money voted by Parliament as a result of the Church Building Acts of 1818 and 1824. The 1818 Act supplied a grant of money and established the Church Building Commission to direct its use, and in 1824 made a further grant of money. In addition to paying for the building of churches, the Commission had powers to divide and subdivide parishes, and to provide endowments. The Commission continued to function as a separate body until the end of 1856, when it was absorbed into the Ecclesiastical Commission. In some cases the Commissioners provided the full cost of the new church; in other cases they provided a partial grant and the balance was raised locally. In total 612 new churches were provided, mainly in expanding industrial towns and cities.

First Fruits and Tenths was a form of tax on clergy taking up a benefice or ecclesiastical position in Great Britain. The Court of First Fruits and Tenths was established in 1540 to collect from clerical benefices certain moneys that had previously been sent to Rome.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Short Titles Act 1896</span> United Kingdom legislation

The Short Titles Act 1896 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It replaces the Short Titles Act 1892.

The Board of First Fruits was an institution of the Church of Ireland that was established in 1711 by Anne, Queen of Great Britain to build and improve churches and glebe houses in Ireland. This was funded from taxes collected on clerical incomes which were in turn funded by tithes. The board was replaced in 1833 by the Board of Ecclesiastical Commissioners.

John Bacon F.S.A. (1738–1816), was a British clerk and editor, who edited a revised edition of John Ecton's Thesaurus. He spent much of his working life in the first-fruits department of the office Queen Anne's Bounty in the Temple, London.

John Ecton, was an English compiler.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Queen Anne's Bounty Act 1703</span> United Kingdom legislation

The Queen Anne's Bounty Act 1703 was an Act of the Parliament of England, granting "in Perpetuity the Revenues of the First Fruits and Tenths" for the support of the poor clergy of England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tithing in Mormonism</span>

Tithing is a commandment accepted by various churches in the Latter Day Saint movement. In practicing tithing, adherents make willing tithe donations, usually ten percent of their income, to their church. It is based on both the biblical practice of paying tithes and modern revelation given to Joseph Smith and his accepted successors. For many of these churches, the law of tithing replaced or supplemented the law of consecration. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints emphasized tithing in the 1900s and 1960s to assist in paying church debts.

References

  1. ↑ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Annates"  . Encyclopædia Britannica . Vol. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 64.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Le Fanu, William Richard (1921). Queen Anne's bounty, a short account of its history and work. London: Macmillan. Retrieved 4 November 2015.
  3. ↑ "First Fruits". Hansard House of Commons Debates. 38: cc530-9. 4 May 1837. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 17 November 2015.
  4. ↑ "The Church Commissioners". The Church Commissioners Measure 1947. Archived from the original on January 12, 2011. Retrieved April 19, 2006.
  5. ↑ Sherwood, Harriet (16 June 2022). "C of E paid poor 18th-century clergy with 'abominable' slave trade funds". The Guardian . Archived from the original on 18 June 2022. Retrieved 18 June 2022.
  6. ↑ Williams, Hattie (16 June 2022). "Church Commissioners acknowledge that slave trade boosted early funds". Church Times . Retrieved 18 June 2022.
  7. ↑ "Church of England announces £100m fund after slavery links". BBC. 10 January 2023.
  8. ↑ The Short Titles Act 1896, section 2(1) and Schedule 2

Wikisource-logo.svg  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain :  Wood, James, ed. (1907). "Queen Anne's Bounty". The Nuttall Encyclopædia . London and New York: Frederick Warne.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.