CURATES AND PENSIONS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
have read with considerable surprise your article in the Spectator of September 4th upon "Curates and Pensions," inasmuch as it entirely ignores the existence of the Clergy Pensions Institution and the work it has been doing during the past ten years. I remember that, when it was first started, you were kind enough to find in your columns a place for a communication on the subject from my pen, and to supplement it with some encouraging remarks.
The record of its progress is surely a satisfactory one. The two Archbishops are its joint-Presidents, and most of the Bishops are Vice-Presidents. It has branch Associations in the majority of the dioceses, under influential Committees of clergy and laymen ; its Central Board of Directors is similarly constituted. The amount of its invested funds has now reached almost a quarter of a million, of which sum about £55,000 has been contributed by the laity and others for the augmentation of the annuities purchased by the clergy as provision for their old age. At present the pensions granted are at the rate of £35 a year, but this sum does not include such further augmentation as the Diocesan 'Committees may think fit to grant out of the funds placed at their disposal. We hope to increase it. Without claiming for the Clergy Pensions Institution that it has wholly solved the difficult problem which your article sets forth, I venture to think that its attempt to do so is worth recognition.—I
am, Sir, &c., CHARLES J. ROBINSON, Vice-Chairman of the Clergy Pensions Institution. Warren House, Eridge Green, Tunbridge Wells, Sept. 6th.
[We are very glad that the Clergy Pensions Institution has done, and is doing, so much good work. But this is very far from covering the ground in that comprehensive way which can alone meet so great a need.—En. Spectator.]
Previous page
