History

Sons

The charity now known as the Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy was founded in 1655 by a group of merchants in the City of London and clergymen who were all sons of the cloth. During the Commonwealth, persecution of clergy who had remained loyal to the Crown was widespread and many who had been deprived of their livings by Cromwell were destitute. The charity's foundation dates from a recognition by a body of sons of clergymen that action was required to meet a pressing need among clergy families for charitable help. The charity's present name is often felt to be a misleading one, but it is in fact an accurate description of its founding fathers.

When the Monarchy was restored and Charles II came to the throne, a message of loyal greeting was sent by the supporters of the charity. Official recognition of the charity as a corporate body was made by the King in 1678, when he granted the charity a Royal Charter (which still governs the Corporation today). 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 met for the first time on 15 July 1678 in the Jerusalem Chamber at Westminster Abbey when an oath was administered by the Lord Chancellor. The Corporation's first President was John Dolben who was, perhaps remarkably, at the same time both Bishop of Rochester and Dean of Westminster, and Sir Christopher Wren was its first Vice-President.

In the1990s the Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy became the trustee of the Clergy Orphan Corporation (the “COC”) and assumed responsibility for its administration.  The COC had previously owned and run two schools, St Edmund’s, Canterbury (for boys) and St Margaret’s, Bushey (for girls). However, in 1997 the schools were hived off from the COC into two separate and independent charities and the remainder of the COC’s work was effectively amalgamated with that of the Sons of the Clergy, with the COC becoming a subsidiary charity of the Sons.

In the early days, the Sons' funds were derived from the Festival Service and Dinner. The Stewards of the Festival in times past organised the Festival. The Corporation has always had eminent and influential persons espousing its cause both as Stewards and as Governors and their generosity and hard work over many generations have built the Corporation into the major charity it is today.

Friends

In 1820 Phyllis Peyton and Mary Lamb, disturbed by the extreme poverty of some clergy, started to collect clothing and distribute it to 12 families in their neighbourhood. Within a few years their ‘Clothing Society for the Benefit of Poor Pious Clergymen’ was collecting from a wide area, and bringing bales by canal boat from London to their homes in Mount Sorrel, Leicestershire. By 1900 the ‘Poor Parochial Clergy Society’, as it had sensibly been re-named, was taking in 2,500 boxes and parcels a year and making distribution to over 250 families. This work was later carried on by the Poor Clergy Relief Corporation from its offices at 27 Medway Street, Westminster and it continued in this form until 1969, when the provision of goods and clothing was replaced by grants of money.

By the mid-nineteenth century, middle-class compassion and resources were being mobilised on an increasing scale. They were spurred on by articles and tracts such as ‘The Wolf at the Church Door’ by Charles Dickens and the novels of Trollope, which brought home the utter degradation and poverty suffered by some clergy families. Three of the present charity’s predecessors arose in this period, the Friend of the Clergy Corporation, giving annuities to widows and orphans; the Poor Clergy Relief Corporation, giving cash grants in cases of extreme need; and the Curates Augmentation Fund, which gave an annual sum (originally £100 p.a. after 15 years’ service) to curates of very long standing, whose conditions gave rise to much comment and criticism.

By the mid 1960s, these charities were on a converging course. Improved stipends and pensions, together with the increasing role of the state, meant that small annual gifts were no longer a viable means of helping the clergy. After much deliberation, the Poor Clergy Relief Corporation and the Friend of the Clergy Corporation amalgamated to form the current Friends of the Clergy Corporation pursuant to the Friends of the Clergy Corporation Act 1972.

In 1980, the Curates Augmentation Fund came to lodge with the Friends of the Clergy Corporation and it soon became clear that greater benefits would accrue from an amalgamation. This was achieved in 1985 when the Curates Augmentation Fund transferred its assets to the Friends of the Clergy Corporation and was then wound up.

Recent developments

For many years the Sons and the Friends worked closely together in their grant work. It was recognised, however, that the maintenance of two separate charities with their own staffs and premises but serving an almost identical beneficiary class meant that there was a duplication of administration and related overhead costs. It was against this background that at the beginning of 2005 they embarked on a process of closer collaboration in order to make more effective use of their resources and provide a better service for clergy and their families.

The first step in this closer collaboration was the appointment of the same people, drawn equally from the Sons and the Friends, as the trustees of both organisations. With this “common trusteeship” it was possible for the two charities to begin to be run on a more unified basis, particularly in their central function of grant-making.

Then in early 2007 the staffs of the two organisations came together under a single roof and they now work as a single team serving both charities. The benefits of these arrangements are already being seen and they offer an exciting opportunity to enhance the work of the two organisations and their ability to respond effectively to the changing needs of the clergy and their families in the 21^st century.