NEW ANGLICAN CHURCHES IN NINETEENTH CENTURY BRISTOL .sx Much has been written on the history and architectural merits of the many churches built in Bristol in the nineteenth century , but the question of how these forty-seven churches came to be built , their origin and funding , has generally been ignored .sx It has to be admitted , however , that the evidence for it has not been easy to handle .sx Because of the interest and neglect of the subject we wish to tackle it in this pamphlet .sx By the early nineteenth century the population of Bristol had spread far beyond the ancient city , and its medieval parishes of St Augustine , St James , St Michael and St Philip & Jacob had greatly increased .sx As a result of the development of Hotwells , Clifton was becoming a large and fashionable suburb ; in contrast there was rather a denser growth in the Bedminster area and east Bristol , where a number of streets had sprung up to house the working classes .sx In 1801 the first census ever attempted in England gave the population of Bristol as 40,800 , and twenty years later it had increased to 59,070 .sx This figure did not include the residents of the parishes of Clifton ( 8,811 ) , St Philip & Jacob Without ( 11,824 ) and Bedminster ( 7,979 ) , which were outside the jurisdiction of the City and County of Bristol , in whose shadow they had developed .sx However , in 1835 , the boundaries of the city were extended to include these parishes as well as St James and parts of Westbury-on-Trym .sx The boundaries remained unchanged until almost the end of the nineteenth century , while the population of Bristol increased rapidly .sx The census figures of 1861 with a population of 154,093 show that Bristol was the sixth largest provincial city in the country .sx The needs of this expanding population could only be met by suburban development and so the city sprawled outwards , particularly in the east part of Bristol .sx By the end of the nineteenth century the population had increased to 328,800 , that is , eight times greater than it was at the beginning of the century .sx Therefore , it is not surprising that during this period , from the 1820's to the close of the century , forty-seven new Anglican churches were built , to say nothing of the many non-conformist churches built in the same period .sx The eighteenth century had been a period of apathy during which there was little building or rebuilding of churches , and this was so in Bristol , although at the time the city was rich and prosperous .sx Christ Church ( City ) , St Michael , St Nicholas and St Thomas , having become ruinous , were rebuilt during the last two decades of the eighteenth century .sx All were paid for either by a church rate , the vestries or by patrons .sx Many of the city churches had closed vestries which were responsible for properties belonging to the parish , as in the case of St Thomas .sx When the church was rebuilt in 1790 , the cost of rebuilding was met by the Church Vestry appropriating pounds1,470 from parish funds , borrowing pounds700 on security of property and raising pounds 3,500 by a special rate .sx Christ Church ( City ) was rebuilt in 1786 at a cost of pounds4,200 of which about one half was raised by church rates .sx The Bristol Corporation gave pounds2,000 towards the Endowment .sx Building new churches and providing them with parishes of their own was much more difficult because it interfered with the legal and financial rights of the incumbent clergy and the patrons of the parishes .sx A substantial part of the incumbent's income came from fees for weddings and funerals .sx A reduction in the number of their parishioners meant that there were fewer fees .sx An Act of Parliament was required to divide a parish , and that involved considerable expense .sx When it was recognised that the parishes of St Philip & Jacob and of St James had become so populous that they needed more churches , the patrons , who were the Corporation of Bristol , took the initiative .sx In the case of St Philip & Jacob , having obtained the Act they appointed a number of Commissioners who met at the Lamb Inn , Lawford's Gate to consider and approve the plans .sx Each Commissioner agreed to pay pounds50 and later every subscriber was expected to contribute pounds50 or upwards .sx In addition to paying pounds300 , the cost of obtaining an Act of Parliament , the Corporation contributed pounds250 towards the building of St George .sx The City Chamberlain kept the accounts , which show that the church and vicarage cost pounds2,854 .sx When in 1784 St Paul , Portland Square was built in the parish of St James , the Bristol Corporation undertook to pay for the Act of Parliament , to grant pounds1,000 towards the building fund and to provide pounds400 towards the endowment of the stipend .sx To raise the rest of the money required , the parish was burdened with a rate of 1s .sx 8d in the pound for the next twenty years .sx The Corporation of Bristol supported the Anglican Church and gave generously to any appeal from the city churches .sx It held the patronage of twelve advowsons , which gave it the right to nominate the incumbents to twelve livings .sx The right then carried with it financial responsibilities .sx When in 1835 the Municipal Corporations Act was passed the Corporation was compelled to sell the advowsons and was statutorily forbidden to spend corporate funds on the church .sx Until the nineteenth century the building of new churches and the rebuilding of old ones was financed largely or in part by a compulsory church rate , a sort of local tax , but church rates were becoming increasingly unpopular , especially amongst the non - conformists , and their enforcement more difficult .sx There was a protracted struggle to get Parliament to abolish church rates , which went on until 1868 , but long before then fewer and fewer churchwardens felt it was worth the trouble and effort to attempt to levy one .sx The last time a Dissenter was taken to court in Bristol for refusing to pay was in 1837 .sx There was a public meeting in Bristol in 1861 to support a Parliamentary Bill for the abolition of church rates at which it was revealed that only three parishes in Bristol continued to raise them St Augustine , St George , Brandon Hill and St Andrew , Clifton .sx The only new church in Bristol which was built in part by a church rate seems to be Christ Church , Clifton .sx In 1844 St Andrew's the mother church levied a church rate .sx In the eighteenth century many churches were maintained to some degree by renting out some of the pews , and when proprietory chapels were built by speculators to supplement the number of parish churches , or to cater for the religious tastes of dissatisfied parishioners , pew rents were charged to repay the capital and provide an income for the owners .sx Surprising as it may seem , collections were not normally taken in churches except for special causes .sx Weekly collections were introduced in the course of the nineteenth century .sx Renting out pews was an obvious way to maintain new churches and to provide an income when there was little or no endowment , and most of the churches in Bristol resorted to this practice , although it was increasingly questioned and was believed to deter the poor from church attendance .sx The offer of a pew in return for a contribution of a certain size was also an obvious inducement to attract subscribers to a new building project .sx It was a method used with some success in Cheltenham for example .sx It had its danger , however , as the case of St Andrew , Clifton illustrates .sx The ancient parish church of Clifton had been rebuilt at the time of the Commonwealth but at the end of the Napoleonic wars it was decided that it needed to be replaced again .sx Much difficulty was experienced in raising the necessary funds , so an Act of Parliament was obtained which provided for the granting of pews in perpetuity to those who contributed a certain sum and the raising of a parish rate of one shilling in the pound , by which pounds2,000 was raised .sx The majority of pews in the best positions were allocated in this way .sx The trouble was that their owners treated them as a freehold property and when they left the parish they put them up for auction .sx A good family pew fetched anything form pounds100 to pounds150 , whilst others were let at large rents .sx in 1863 more money was needed for the upkeep of the church and a rate was discussed , but about eighty of the pew owners refused to pay , including one who owned thirteen pews .sx Later in the century when it was proposed to re-seat the church , many pew owners opposed the plan .sx The only solution was to buy them out and about pounds3,000 had to be raised to do so .sx In 1940 , when the church was destroyed by enemy action , there was still one proprietory pew left .sx To provide churches adequate for the wants of the inhabitants was felt to be beyond the ability of private or parochial contributors - Parliament alone could do it .sx Through the enthusiasm and energy of John Bowdler and a few of his friends , in 1814 petitions were presented to the Bishop of London and the Prime Minister , Lord Liverpool , calling on Parliament to provide the necessary funds .sx At the time Parliament , although sympathetic , felt compelled to postpone the matter , and so in 1818 there was established a voluntary body , the Church Building Society , which in 1828 became the Incorporated Church Building Society .sx At the same time the Prime Minister , prompted by Joshua Watson , secured the passing of the Church Building Act of 1818 by which Parliament granted pounds1,000,000 and a further pounds500,000 in 1824 .sx A Board of Ecclesiastical Commissioners was appointed , of which Joshua Watson was one .sx The Commissioners administered the Fund and laid down certain rules :sx Commissioners' churches were not to cost more than pounds20,000 each ; contributions were to be sought from the parishes ; an agreed number of seats were to be free and ministers were to be paid by pew rents .sx The first church in Bristol to receive a grant was St George , Brandon Hill .sx The site cost pounds2,400 , which was paid for by a church rate , and the Parliamentary Commissioners eventually agreed to pay the entire cost of the building , which was pounds10,042 .sx By 1855 the Commissioners had contributed over pounds25,000 towards the building of eight churches in Bristol , all of which were on the east side of the city with the exception of St George , Brandon Hill .sx In 1857 the Commissioners' powers were transferred to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners .sx As has already been noted the Incorporated Church Building Society was established in 1818 " for promoting public worship and by obtaining additional churches for the middle and lower classes " .sx While the Board of Ecclesiastical Commissioners was building churches , the Society avoided overlapping by devoting its energies mainly to enlarging existing churches , but when the Exchequer grant began to run dry the Society increased its grants and gave advice to those who built new churches .sx In Bristol the Society made grants to twenty-four new churches , amounting to pounds6,440 .sx While the Society made contributions to almost all the new churches in Bristol , it indirectly stimulated a strong feeling in the minds of individual churchmen to build independently of financial assistance from the Society .sx Local initiative was taken in many dioceses by the establishment of Diocesan Associations , which worked in co-operation with the Incorporated Church Building Society .sx Such an Association was founded in Bristol through the enthusiastic work of Bishop Gray .sx The Bristol Diocesan Association was formed in 1827 when a meeting was held in Bristol Cathedral to aid the Incorporated Church Building Society .sx In the Spring sic !sx of 1827 a public appeal was made to the people of Bedminster to build a new church ( St Paul) .sx The Parliamentary Commissioners had promised two - thirds towards the cost , which was estimated as pounds9,796 , and the sum of pounds1,104 was received from private subscriptions .sx Encouraged by this generous response , the Bishop of Bristol convened a further meeting .sx It was decided that the Diocesan Association for Promoting Christian Knowledge should collect the annual subscriptions , which should not be less than ten shillings and sixpence , and that until local wants had been supplied only one quarter of the annual sum collected should be transferred to the parent body .sx