What we know

The Church Commissioners for England has learned from research it commissioned that Queen Anne’s Bounty, a predecessor fund of the Church Commissioners’ endowment, had links with African chattel enslavement.

The Church Commissioners is deeply sorry for its predecessor fund’s links with African chattel enslavement.

The Church Commissioners wants to learn about its past better to understand its present and continue to support the Church of England’s work and mission in the future as best it can. In 2019 the Church Commissioners decided to conduct research into the source of the endowment fund to gain an improved understanding of its history. We worked with forensic accountants and academics to analyse early ledgers and other original documents from Queen Anne’s Bounty. This phase of the research is complete.

The full report provides details of the findings of this research. An interim report published in 2022 provided a high-level overview of the findings. The press release about the interim report can be found here.

• The endowment fund managed by the Church Commissioners has part of its origins in Queen Anne’s Bounty, which was founded in 1704.
• Queen Anne’s Bounty had links with African chattel enslavement. In the 18th century, it invested significant amounts of its funds in the South Sea Company, a company that traded in enslaved people. It also received numerous benefactions, many of which are likely to have come from individuals linked to, or who profited from, African chattel enslavement and the plantation economy.
• Queen Anne’s Bounty was used to supplement the income of poor clergy. This was done either through buying land from which the clergy received the income or through an annuity stream paid by Queen Anne’s Bounty.
• Queen Anne’s Bounty funds were subsumed into the Church Commissioners’ endowment when it was created in 1948, perpetuating the legacy of Queen Anne’s Bounty’s linkages to African chattel enslavement.
• Every human being is made in the image of God, and Jesus teaches us that he came so that we all may have life in all its fullness. Chattel enslavement, where people made in the image of God have their freedom taken away to be owned and exploited for profit was, and continues to be, a shameful and horrific sin.