Commissioners' church

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Not to be confused with Commission for Building Fifty New Churches.

Church Building Act 1818
Act of Parliament
58 Geo. 3. c. 45
Dates
Royal assent30 May 1818
Church Building Act 1819
Act of Parliament
59 Geo. 3. c. 134
Dates
Royal assent13 July 1819
Church Building Act 1822
Act of Parliament
3 Geo. 4
. c. 72
The entrance face of a church in Neoclassical style, with four columns supporting a pediment, over which is a cupola.
St George's Church, Brandon Hill, a Commissioners' church in a Neoclassical style by Robert Smirke
A large church seen from the northwest, showing a tower with clock faces over arches, an arched window, and crocketted pinnacles.
All Saints' Church, Stand, by Charles Barry in a Gothic Revival style with Early English elements
Church of St George, Chester Road, Hulme, by Francis Goodwin in a Gothic Revival style with Perpendicular elements

A Commissioners' church, also known as a Waterloo church and Million Act church, is an Anglican church in England or Wales 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.

Title

The First Parliamentary Grant for churches amounted to £1 million (equivalent to £77,680,000 in 2021),[1] which is why the 1818 Act that provided for it is sometimes referred to in scholarly literature as the Million Pound Act. The Second Parliamentary Grant of 1824 amounted to an additional £500,000 (£46,810,000 in 2021), so the term "million" cannot apply to all the churches aided by the Commission. The Commission was founded on a wave of national triumph following the defeat of

Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815; hence the suggestion of the word "Waterloo" in the title. But even if this were a factor in founding the Commission, again it could only apply to the earlier phases of building. The term "Commissioners' church" covers the whole of the work of the Church Building Commission and it is the term normally used by architectural historians, including M. H. Port in 600 New Churches, and the authors of the Pevsner Architectural Guides
.

Background

Towards the end of the 18th century the Church of England was facing a number of problems and challenges. Due to factors including the

Congregationalists, and the newer movement of Methodism. The rise of these movements was blamed partly on the lack of accommodation in the churches provided by the state church.[8]

A major impediment to increasing the number of churches in the newly expanded towns was the difficulty in providing a regular income for an incumbent parson. Most parish livings in the Church of England were then primarily supported from agricultural

pew rents. Neither method of finance had proved capable of funding the provision of clergy for poorer urban populations.[citation needed
]

During the early 1810s groups were formed to address these problems by both active parties in the Church of England, the

High Churchmen.[9] Joshua Watson, a layman, was a prominent member of the High Church group; he has been described as "the greatest lay churchman of his day" and was to become "the cornerstone of the [Church Building] Commission", on which he served for 33 years.[10] Because of the legal structure of the Church of England, it was "almost indispensable to obtain an Act of Parliament before a church was rebuilt, or a new one built " and "to divide a parish an Act was essential".[11] There was growing pressure for Parliament to meet the problems. Following the defeat of Napoleon in 1815 there was also a movement to build churches "as a "national thank-offering".[12] In December 1815 Joshua Watson and the pamphleteer John Bowdler, wrote a "memorial" to the prime minister, Lord Liverpool, arguing the case for more churches.[13] There was initial reluctance from the politicians to agree to the proposal, partly because of the financial deficit following the Napoleonic Wars.[14] In 1817 a committee was appointed to form a society for "promoting public worship by obtaining additional church-room for the middle and lower classes".[15] This was successful and at a public meeting on 6 February 1818 in the Freemasons' Hall, London, chaired by Charles Manners-Sutton, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Duke of Northumberland proposed a motion to form the Church Building Society, and this was accepted. This led to Parliament's agreement to provide the First Parliamentary Grant of £1 million for building new churches.[16] The Church Building Act 1818[17] was debated in Parliament and passed later that year.[18]

The Commission

The first Commission consisted of 34 members, both clergy and laity being represented.[19][20] In addition to providing grants of money, the Commission had powers to divide and subdivide parishes and to provide endowments.[21]

The Commission appointed George Jenner as its secretary, and then had to decide how to apportion its funds. It set its maximum sum for a grant at £20,000 (equivalent to £1,550,000 in 2021)

Gothic revival style, with little concern for accurate reproduction of medieval Gothic features. It was common for architects to re-use designs on a number of sites; perhaps varying the window tracery to conform with one or another different period of English Gothic architecture. A few architects - notably Thomas Rickman, Frances Goodwin and Robert Smirke
won a large number of commissions.

Plans of churches to be funded had to be approved by the Commission; and their stipulations conformed to the '

Pews in the body of the nave were expected to be subject to pew rents but the Commission insisted that a substantial proportion of seating, in the galleries and on benches in the aisles, should be free. Nevertheless within two decades, these design principles had been overtaken by the widespread adoption of 'ecclesiological' ideals in church design, as promoted by the Cambridge Camden Society; so that mid-Victorian High Churchmen routinely deprecated the original liturgical arrangements of Commissioners Churches, commonly seeking to rearrange their eastern bays with a ritual choir and chancel
on ecclesiological principles.

By February 1821, 85 churches had been provided with seating for 144,190. But only £88,000 (equivalent to £7,980,000 in 2021)[1] of the original £1 million remained. Applications for 25 more churches had to be postponed and it was clear that more money would be needed from Parliament.[24] Fortuitously in 1824 the Austrian government repaid a £2 million war loan that the British Treasury had written-off within the national accounts, creating an unexpected windfall that could be applied for the purpose. This led to the Church Building Act 1824[25] that provided the Second Parliamentary Grant of £500,000 (equivalent to £46,810,000 in 2021).[26] This money was distributed much more widely and, on the whole the grants supported a smaller proportion of total building costs. The First Parliamentary Grant was shared between fewer than 100 churches;[27] the Second Parliamentary Grant went to more than 500 churches. The highest grant in this second phase was of £10,686 to All Saints Church, Skinner Street in the City of London, but this was exceptional. Most second-phase grants were between £100 and £1,000; on some occasions the grant was a mere £5.[28] The Church Building Commission continued to function until 1 January 1857, when it was absorbed into the Ecclesiastical Commission.[21]

List of churches

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ a b c UK Retail Price Index inflation figures are based on data from Clark, Gregory (2017). "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)". MeasuringWorth. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
  2. ^ Parsons 1988, p. 18.
  3. ^ Port 2006, p. 22.
  4. ^ Port 2006, p. 15.
  5. ^ Best, W. quoted in Port 2006, p. 16.
  6. ^ Parsons 1988, pp. 18–19.
  7. ^ Port 2006, pp. 16–17, 22–23.
  8. ^ Port 2006, pp. 17–18, 24.
  9. ^ Port 2006, pp. 18–19.
  10. ^ Port 2006, p. 19.
  11. ^ Port 2006, p. 23.
  12. ^ Port 2006, pp. 24–25.
  13. ^ Port 2006, p. 25.
  14. ^ Port 2006, p. 27.
  15. ^ Port 2006, p. 28.
  16. ^ Port 2006, p. 29.
  17. ^ Act 58 Geo.3 c.45
  18. ^ Port 2006, pp. 37–43, 363.
  19. Sir John Nicholl, and William Scott
    (the last two were lawyers).
  20. ^ Port 2006, pp. 30–35.
  21. ^ a b Port 2006, p. 12.
  22. ^ Port 2006, pp. 45–51.
  23. ^ Port 2006, pp. 325–329.
  24. ^ Port 2006, p. 54.
  25. ^ Act 5 Geo.4 c.103
  26. ^ Port 2006, pp. 227–229.
  27. ^ Port 2006, pp. 326–329.
  28. ^ Port 2006, pp. 331–347.

Bibliography

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