City Parochial Foundation: How CPF was established

Our assets derive from the philanthropy of the people of London. Around 1,400 separate charitable gifts and bequests, some of them 400 years old, were held by the 112 parishes within the City of London, their income to be used for the benefit of the churches or, more often, the poor of those parishes.

Our assets derive from the philanthropy of the people of London. Around 1,400 separate charitable gifts and bequests, some of them 400 years old, were held by the 112 parishes within the City of London, their income to be used for the benefit of the churches or, more often, the poor of those parishes.

During the 19th century, the City grew to be a world financial centre and the income of these charities, many endowed with City properties, rose substantially. In contrast, the number of poor beneficiaries fell; some parishes had no residents at all.

In 1878, a Royal Commission was appointed to investigate the parochial charities of the City of London. Its report resulted in the City of London Parochial Charities Act, 1883. This provided that the five largest parishes should continue to manage their own charitable endowments, but that the bulk of the remainder should be administered by a new corporate body. The Act defined the area of benefit as the City of London and the Metropolitan Police District of London. The outcome was a Scheme declared in 1891 which brought all the endowments together into two funds - a City Church Fund and a Central Fund. Together these constituted the City Parochial Foundation.

Throughout our history we have been guided by two major principles:

ÿ an awareness of, and a need to guard against, the tendency for funding intended for the poor to fall into the hands of a somewhat higher income class;

ÿ a concern not to support schemes which can be financed by local or central government, so that charitable funds are, in effect, used to subsidise the statutory authorities.

Many of the changes in the Foundation’s policies since 1891 have resulted from the practical implementation of these principles.

Posted by cpadmin on June 8, 2005 1:37 PM to City Parochial Foundation
http://www.cityparochial.org.uk/cpf/about/how_cpf_was_established.html