| Arrangement | Each Secretary to a CMS main committee had a department/division at headquarters. These divisions have been allocated a reference letter, for example:
/C: Candidates
/F: Finance
/H: Home
The files of each division have then been divided into groups according to the use which the division gave them, for example:
/A: Administration
/C: Committee work
Where this grouping is very large, notably with the administrative files, there are further sub-divisions, for example:
/C: Correspondence |
| Administrative History | When the Society was founded in 1799 the Committee of Accounts was set up 'to receive subscriptions, to regulate the accounts and to undertake the charge of fitting out and conveying the missionaries to the place of their destination'. The receipt of money, including that derived from legacies, and the keeping of the accounts remain the chief work of the Finance Department today. In 1811 a Committee of Funds was appointed whose task was to augment the Society's funds. This developed into the Funds and Home Organisation Committee in 1881 and, as part of the Home Division (Britain Region in 1980s) the work moved out of the sphere of the Finance Department, though it remained closely linked with it.
In 1842 following a financial crisis a Finance Committee was appointed 'without whose sanction no expense of any kind was to be incurred'. The same year Henry Venn was appointed as an additional Secretary, to be assistant to Dandeson Coates who had been given the title Lay Secretary in 1830. On Coates' death in 1846 another Lay Secretary was appointed, while Venn used the title Honorary Clerical Secretary. From that time there was always a Lay Secretary [from 1922 called Finance Secretary] who was secretary to the Finance Committee and head of the Finance Department at headquarters. Coates and later George Hutchinson treated the office of Lay Secretary as that of the chief Secretary of the Society, but the other holders of the office were always second to the Honorary Clerical Secretary [General Secretary from 1922].
Besides dealing with purely accounting functions, the Finance Department has always been responsible for the Society's property and for special funds set up for specific purposes, mainly connected with foreign work. In 1885 the Church Missionary Trust Association was set up as an incorporated body to hold property all over the world. The land and buildings which had been acquired in the early years of the work for mission purposes were transferred to CMTA. From the 1930s onwards these overseas properties were transferred to the Churches in those countries.
The Finance Secretary has also been responsible for the physical administration and organisation of headquarters and for the payment of salaries and pensions to the staff and missionaries.
Past officers of the Society:
Treasurer:
1799 Henry Thornton MP
1815 John Thornton
1861 Captain Honorable Francis Maude RN
1886 Sir Thomas FoweII Buxton Bt
1895 Colonel Robert Williams MP
1917 Sir Thomas Fowe11 Victor Buxton
1919 S. H. Gladstone
1922 Robert Leatham Barclay
1939 S. Kingsley Tubbs
1972 Sir Henry Mance
1982 Peter A. S. Taylor
Secretary to Finance Committee:
1820-1846 Dandeson Coates
1846-1863 Major Hector Straith
1863-1866 Colonel Michael Dawes
1867-1881 Edward Hutchinson
1881-1889 General George Hutchinson
1889-1894 Major-General Clennell Collingwood
1895-1907 David Marshall Lang
1908-1910 Robert Maconachie
1910-1921 Herbert Lankaster
1923-1925 John Kinahan
1926-1939 Rev. Louis Steele
1939-1949 Oliver Turton
1949-1954 Major-General Donald James Wilson-Haffenden
1954-1966 H. Hayley Busfield
1966-1978 Geoffrey A. Hill
1979-1986 Christopher Fernihough
1986- Peter Dowsett
Assistant Lay (Financial):
1881-1911 S. F. Purday
1912-1927 A. H. Elgie
1927-1946 Samuel W. W. Witty
1946-1954 A. W. Cameron
1954-1973 Alfred E. T. White
Accountants:
1880-1891 William Coulthard
1891-1927 William Alfred Strong
1927-1947 P. W. S. Hannabuss
1948-1957 Eric F. Overbury
1958-1962 Willoughby H. Carey
1962-1966 Geoffrey A. Hill
1966-1976 Kathleen E. Richards
1977- Kenneth A. Gill
Collectors [collector of subscriptions in London]:
1822-1825 Joshua Jackson
1826-1849 John Burningham
1850-1875 James Burningham
1876-1896 Francis Edmund Brewer
Auditors:
1881- Turquand, Youngs and Company
Bankers:
1799- Williams Deacons Bank Ltd.
Solicitors:
1799-1840 John Poynder
1841-1862 John Bridges
1862- Messrs. Bridges, Sawtell amd Company |