Church Estates Commissioners

CEC

Church Estates Commissioners

1850-1962

Includes foundation, corporate and financial records. Also includes reports and records generated by the Commissioners’ property and investment management activities (deeds and ledgers).

When the Ecclesiastical Commissioners began to take over the estates and manage them, there was concern expressed that private individuals affected as lessees might find the Commissioners' terms onerous and might then be without redress, since there was nobody in the House of Commons directly representing the Ecclesiastical Commissioners (no provision to report to Parliament had been included in the acts before 1850). Therefore, an Act (13 & 14 Vic. ch. 94), was subsequently passed adding three additional laymen to be known as the Church Estates Commissioners. Of the three, two were to be paid (one being appointed by the Crown as the First Church Estates Commissioner and the other being appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury as the Third Church Estates Commissioner), their duties involved the management and control of the day to day business of the Commissioners. While the third (being the Second Commissioner) was a member of Parliament and unpaid in his role as Church Estates Commissioner; his duty is to answer for the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in the House of Commons. This Second Church Estates Commissioner always resigns from his post when the government leaves office and a new Second Church Estates Commissioners is appointed with each incoming government. The three Church Estates Commissioners are joint Treasurers of the Commission, and act by any two of their number.*

General International Standard Archival Description (ISAD[G]), 2nd edition, 1999.

*Admin taken from: Brown, J. R.., 'NUMBER ONE MILLBANK: The Story of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners', (London, SPCK, c. 1950s), pp. 10 & 25-26. Other useful publications are as follows: Best, G. F. A., TEMPORAL PILLARS, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1964). Dibdin, L. T. & Downing, S. E., 'THE ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSION: A Sketch of Its History and Work, (London, MacMillan and Co. Ltd, 1919). E.J. Robinson, 'The Records of the Church Commissioners' in JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF ARCHIVISTS, vol. III, no. 7, April 1968, (offprint).

CEC

English

10 series