The Church Commissioners maintain their predecessor institution, the Queen Anne’s Bounty, had connections to the slave trade, resulting in a moral duty to make substantial reparative payments today.
The claimants firmly dispute this, arguing the degree to which the Commissioners’ assets were ever “tainted” by slavery profits remains a deeply contested question among historians.
Several distinguished academics have wholly rejected the Church’s own assessment of these purported links.
However, the archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally, defended the plans, saying: “Project Spire does not diminish the church’s support of or investment in parish ministry or clergy… far from it, support for dioceses and parishes continues to increase.”
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