Professor Criticizes Church of England’s Flawed £100m Reparations Plan

Debate Over Church of England’s Reparations Plan Intensifies

The Church of England’s £100 million reparations initiative, known as “Project Spire,” has sparked controversy over the historical accuracy of its foundations. Criticism has been voiced by Professor Richard Dale, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, who describes the plan as being based on “deeply flawed” historical analysis.

In response to a report from the Church Commissioners, which outlined supposed connections between the Church and the transatlantic slave trade, the reparations plan was announced over three years ago. A critical focus of this historical debate is the Queen Anne’s Bounty, established in the early 1700s to support less affluent clergy in the Church of England. The central question remains: did this fund benefit from the slave trade?

A study by accountants Grant Thornton concluded that Queen Anne’s Bounty had invested in the South Sea Company, a company known for transporting 34,000 enslaved individuals across the Atlantic. At the time when slave trading stopped in 1739, the Bounty’s investments were valued at £443 million in today’s currency.

Contrarily, Professor Dale argues that the Church Commissioners’ findings are incorrect, claiming “there is incontrovertible evidence that Queen Anne’s Bounty’s investments earned not one penny from the slave trade.”

Writing for History Reclaimed, Dale explained that the South Sea Company was divided into two distinct entities in the early 18th century. One entity participated in the slave trade, while the other focused on government bond investments, the latter being the one Queen Anne’s Bounty invested in.

Dale, an expert on the South Sea Company’s history, asserts that it is “an outlandish error” to confuse these two similarly named companies. He criticized the report, stating, “The Commissioners’ advisers have confused two different companies… the report is guilty of an elementary gaffe by conflating two legally separate entities.”

According to Dale’s analysis, the Bounty’s investments in either stock or annuities did not garner profits from the slave trade.

A survey conducted last December revealed a lack of support for the Church of England’s reparations plans. Eighty-one percent of 500 Anglican churchgoers preferred that the Church allocate its financial resources to local parishes, with nearly two-thirds (64%) believing it is “not the role of the Church Commissioners, using funds in their care, to atone for previous injustice such as slavery.”

Professor Nigel Biggar, an Anglican theologian at Oxford, has also criticized Project Spire. Writing in The Critic, he questioned the ethical foundation of the Church’s slavery reparations.

“For example, why pick out British involvement in African enslavement as something extraordinary?” Biggar pointed out the broader historical context of slavery, including the involvement of the Fulani people in operating large plantations with African slaves.

He further questioned whether the conditions faced by slaves in the West Indies were significantly worse than those of industrial workers in early Victorian England, and emphasized the efforts of Anglicans who dedicated their lives to abolishing slavery.

Biggar also raised concerns about the notion of ‘intergenerational trauma’ and questioned the comparative socioeconomic progress of descendants of African slaves in different regions.