page_title: Clergy Support Trust
section_title: The extent of clerical poverty
hierarchical_section_title: Clergy Support Trust / Friends of the Clergy / The extent of clerical poverty
caption_attribution_description: English: West tower and south porch of All Saints' parish church, Deane, Hampshire, seen from the southeast
context_page_description: Clergy Support Trust is a charity which was formerly known as Sons & Friends of the Clergy. The full official name of the charity is Governors of the Charity for Relief of the Poor Widows and Children of Clergymen. The present charity resulted from an amalgamation of two Anglican clergy support charities in December 2012. The two parent organisations, the Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy and the Friends of the Clergy Corporation, date from 1655 and 1820 respectively. The charity exists to provide financial and other support to serving or retired clergy of the Anglican Communion, with a main focus on clergy in the British Isles. It also provides assistance to clergy widows, children, orphans, and other dependants.
context_section_description: Only a fifth of the Anglican clergy active in 1839 had links to the Gentry or Peerage. Presumably, these had some inherited wealth. The others depended on what they could earn. About one quarter of the clergy were considered to be comfortably off, with at least £500 per annum in 1830. Ordained Church of England ministers had a number of potential sources of income:
  Direct employment as a curate, teacher, chaplain, or tutor. For example, Charles Kegan Paul, the founder of the publisher C. Kegan Paul, was employed as a tutor to pupils travelling to Germany for a year. He then appointed to a chaplaincy at Eton College and then to the new post of Master in College for which he was paid £120. He was allowed to supplement this by taking on two private pupils. Many clergy took private pupils as a way of supplementing their income. Paul's father had been forced to take on private pupils when the income from his West Indian holdings dried up. Curates might only be paid £50 a year, along with their board.
  Benefices commonly called livings, most of which benefited from Tithes and the Glebe, but some of which were Perpetual Curates. About half of the 10,500 livings were in the gift of the local squire. The remaining half were controlled by the crown, bishops, cathedral chapters, the universities of Oxford or Cambridge, and other institutions. In 1805, just over half (55%) of young clergymen could obtain such livings. A parliamentary inquiry in 1802 found that about 1,000 livings were worth less than £100 a year, and another 3,000 worth between £100 and £150. The picture was the same 30 years later and a tenth of beneficed clergymen received less than £100 a year. Of course, a clergyman might hold more than one living. This was known as pluralism. Jane Austen's clergyman father, George Austen, held two livings, at Steventon, Hampshire and at Deane, Hampshire. When George Austen retired he installed his son James as curate for both the livings he held, but retained the tithe income from Steventon as a form of pension. James Austen already held his own parish and with the curacies in Steventon and Deane, he now held three parishes, and was offered a fourth. The Pluralities Act of 1838 forbade clergymen having more than one benefice except under specific conditions. Charles Kegan Paul considered that the living he has been presented to by Eton College at Sturminster Marshall was a living of small value, bring worth less than £300. Paul supplemented his income by taking six pupils at £100 each per year. However, he noted that the presence of such unrelated young people in the home destroyed family life sadly. The desirable minimum income for a clergyman was though to be £400, which was an upper middle-class income. Jervis reported that 6,750 parochial benefices were worth less than £300.
  Tithes a tenth part of the increase, from the profits on the land, the stock upon lands, and the personal industry of the inhabitants. Tithes were levied on everyone, regardless of whether they were member of the established church or not. However, the clergyman had to negotiate with his parishioners for the payment of the tithe. It is perhaps for this reason that there was a clerical charity called the Tithe Redemption Trust which assisted in the redemption of Tithe.
  Profits from the Glebe lands. The area was an area within the parish used to support the parish priest. However, the Glebe lands were often small, and George Austen's Steventon living had only 3 acres in the Glebe. The Darne parish, where Austen also held the living, had 57 acres of Glebe land and Austen rented a farm of 195 acres from his patron Thomas Knight.
  Profits from farming. George's Austen's income from farming was equal to his tithe income. However, very few farmed any land other than their glebe.
  Stipends were paid to Perpetual Curates because their parishes had been created by elevating chapelries to parish status without splitting the tithes or glebe of the original parish. The stipend was often from an endowment, but might also be from fees, pew rents, and collections.
  This is
caption: Austen's church at Deane
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