‘Free from Tractarian Error’: Formal Pew-Renting Churches After 1818

By the second decade of the nineteenth century, England had comparatively few new churches. During the reign of Queen Anne a century or so before, nonconformist chapels in London were said to be overflowing with congregants, and Parliament had passed legislation to create 50 new churches in the metropolis. But although some churches were rebuilt, under the Commissioners in charge of the project only a few new ones actually appeared. Realising the need, in 1818, Parliament enacted the first of the Church Building Acts, creating a Church Building Commission to partly fund and coordinate efforts for the construction of new churches in order to provide ‘much free seating for the poor’, with pew-renting to pay the new incumbents a salary. The Church Building Commission lasted nearly 40 years, when it was merged into and its role taken over by the Ecclesiastical Commission. At first, formal pew-letting was envisioned as a temporary measure for new churches to raise funds, but then to be subsequently curtailed and eventually abolished. By the 1831 Act, though, that idea had gone by the wayside, since pew-rents by then were an essential part of many churches’ funds and obviously would be for the foreseeable future. When awarded a monetary contribution from the Commission a church was authorised to legally rent sittings without a private parliamentary act. Some churches accordingly sought grants from the Commissioners in any amount—even a mere £5—just so their sittings could be let. Overall, though, the Commissioners had authorised pew-renting with a grant and a scale in less than a sixth of the churches built and consecrated from 1818 to 1877.