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Queen Anne's Bounty booklet

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The Church Commissioners' Origins

From before the Norman Conquest, clergy of the Church in England received income from their living. Tax on that income was paid to the Pope and, after the break with Rome in the 1530s, to the Crown instead.

Queen Anne's Bounty

The poverty of many clergy prompted Queen Anne to use that tax revenue to set up "the Governors of the Bounty of Queen Anne for the Augmentation of the Maintenance of Poor Clergy" in 1704. Governors applied funds selectively to improve poor clergy's income and, in time, to provide and repair parsonages for incumbents of small livings.

In 2004 the Church Commissioners marked the tercentenary year of Queen Anne's Bounty with a commemorative service and the publication of an illustrated history.

The Church Building Commissioners

In 1818 the Church Building Commissioners were set up by Parliament to create new parishes and provide new churches in areas which had seen rapid population growth during the years of the Industrial Revolution.

The Ecclesiastical Commissioners

The Ecclesiastical Commissioners were set up by Parliament in 1836 to reorganize dioceses, abolish surplus posts in cathedrals and take over both the responsibility for funding bishops and some cathedral costs, and the assets that had supported those responsibilities. The surplus income was to be used "for the cure of souls in parishes where such assistance is most required". They had a major role in financing churches for the new population centres that grew up in the Industrial Revolution and in supporting the stipends of the clergy who worked there.

In 1856 they took over the work of the Church Building Commissioners and from 1907 they became involved with clergy pensions.

The Church Commissioners

Following a merger in 1948, the Church Commissioners inherited the assets and the work of both Queen Anne's Bounty and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. From 1999, the newly created Archbishops' Council took on some of the Church Commissioners' responsibilities but their duty to manage their funds in support of the Church's ministry remains unchanged.

For general enquiries please contact the Church of England switchboard on (020) 7898 1000.

For historical enquiries, please contact the Church of England Record Centre at archivist@c-of-e.org.uk.

Further details about the work of the Commissioners are available from our Policy Unit: e-mail commissioners.enquiry@c-of-e.org.uk.