APPENDIX I. Aggregate Summary of Revenues of Church of England.[308]
Reading edition
APPENDIX I. Aggregate Summary of Revenues of Church of England.[308]
Gross income of property derived from
Ancient Endowments. Private Benefactions since 1703.
I. Archiepiscopal and Episcopal Sees 87,827 11,081
II. Cathedral and Collegiate Churches 192,400
III. Ecclesiastical Benefices 3,941,057 272,605
IV. Ecclesiastical Commissioners 1,247,827
V. Queen Anne’s Bounty 700
5,469,171 284,386
5,753,557
Its capitalized value is about £140,000,000.
The return deals only with the permanent sources of revenues. Hence it omits fees, pew-rents and Easter offerings. The return was made from values in 1886. The Commissioners’ own gross income in 1890 was £1,320,000, and not £1,247,827. The gross income of the beneficed clergy is by this return £4,810,662 or gross £344 a year each, net £262. To find net income, I have allowed £1,140,000 to cover depreciation and expenses out of £2,592,000 tithe-rent charge, 1890.
The total rateable value of the episcopal, capitular and parsonage houses = £11,151 + £18,928 + £518,054 respectively = £548,133. The rack-rental value is about £800,000 a year.
Dealing with the fluctuating part of the beneficed clergy’s income, we may safely estimate fees, pew-rents and Easter offerings at £1,000,000 a year. In arriving at this amount I have been guided by certain well-known official data. (1) The average fluctuating incomes of the 115 rectors in the old parish of Manchester were, for 1890, £142 each. (2) The 987 benefices of Wales and Monmouth had, in 1890, £10 each. My conclusion, therefore, is that 4,600 benefices get, like Manchester, £653,000; 4,600 get £300,000; and 4,779 get the Welsh rate, viz., £48,000. Total, £1,000,000. It varies from one to one and a half millions a year.
In 1890 we may safely take the following as the correct gross aggregate revenues of the beneficed clergy:—£3,941,057 + £272,605 + £617,000 (C.F.) + £1,000,000 = £5,830,662 or £415 each; net £334 calculated like the net £262 above. But £6,000,000 a year for the 13,979 incumbents is nearer the truth. Add to 11,667 with parsonages, a rental of £52 a year for house = net average for each of the 11,667 £386. We have, at last, a correct idea of the immense wealth of the beneficed clergy alone.