A Financial Lifeline from London: the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel

Abstract

As early as the mid-1690s London church officials recognized the need for regular funding for the payment of the salaries of colonial clergymen and to meet other expenses. Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Tenison, an enthusiastic champion of the extension of the church to the colonies, actively sought an appropriation from Parliament for the support of the church and its ministers.¹ As a member of the Privy Council and the Board of Trade and Plantations, Tenison was familiar with the details of colonial affairs and policies. His position was that the establishment of the church overseas was a ‘national concern’.² His efforts were driven by two factors — the forthcoming voyage of Commissary Thomas Bray to Maryland and a design to place the fledgling colonial church on a firm financial foundation. Despite his efforts for several years the archbishop’s plea to Parliament on behalf of the overseas church was unsuccessful. Perhaps that failed experience contributed to Tenison’s energetic endorsement of Bray’s efforts in 1701 to found the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts for the purpose of recruiting, appointing, and providing financial support for ministers assigned to posts in the colonies.³ Until his death in 1715 the archbishop took an active interest in the affairs of the Society and the monthly meetings were regularly held in his library at St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields in London.