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being a capital sum, the income from which was to be applied to a specified purpose. Of those purposes the maintenance of the clergy themselves loomed so large that in the course of further evolution bequests made for that purpose were taken over by a body established in 1836 ('The Ecclesiastical Commissioners') were invested by them and the income therefrom devoted to the provision of clergy stipends (C1) .
The Ecclesiastical Commissioners also "amassed considerable funds by suppressing redundant offices, and acquired big estates formerly owned by bishops and cathedral chapters, thus creating a large revenue to be used for the general good of the Church" (T2) . In 1948 these
two financial structures - Queen Anne's Bounty and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners - were merged into a single body under the name of the Church Commissioners (T2) who were charged with responsibility for
maintenance of the clergy, and all the resulting income applied to the one purpose. (A useful exposition of the Church Commissioners present role is contained in the eighth in the series of reports 'The Church's Needs and Resources' (B14) .
So large was the income received by the Church Commissioners that for many years, when combined with those payments still received by clergy direct from parochial sources (see Appendix D on the mechanics of clergy pay), it was sufficient to provide an adequate level of stipend. But gradually technical factors, among which inflation predominates, although others such as de facto and de jure constraints on investment policy were also involved, reduced the yield in real terms to such a degree that it became necessary for the dioceses to augment stipends by raising what amounts to a levy on parishes. In the Diocese of Bradford this first occurred in 1973, and the subsequent trend is as shown in Figure 1. |
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