History SPOT blog post

Abstract

In 1863 Bishop Tait established the Bishop of London’s Fund as a reinvigoration of his predecessor’s London Diocesan Church Building Society.  The Fund made grants to Anglican projects and voluntary organisations carrying out missionary work in London. This covered a wide scope: from the salaries of missionary workers, the hiring of mission rooms, to the building of schools, churches, and parsonages.  The Fund acted simply as a funding body; it did not carry out any of work itself.
 
This paper will examine philanthropy from two angles: the funding of the organisation and the funding by the organisation.   It will look at the demographic composition of, and the stories behind, the philanthropists that funded the Bishop of London’s Fund through subscriptions, donations and bequests. And it will examine the work that their money funded through the grants made by the Fund.
 
This paper forms part of a wider thesis that researches the connection between ‘Philanthropy and Secularisation’ by examining the financial health of a number of Anglican religious voluntary organisation in London in the period 1860 to 1914.