| AdminHistory | George I succeeded Anne on 1 August 1714, and died 11 June 1727. He continued, with some irregularity, to pay grants; in 1718 he cited the precedents set by William and Anne, but it cannot be said that he was over-enthusiastic about following them. In 1726 he cut the rate of grants by over 2/5ths. In the same year a change also took place in the administration of the grant which up to that time had followed the general pattern set up under Anne.
The first grant to be made by George I out of his own revenues was under a warrant of 22 December 1715, and the money was received by the Committee in February and November 1716. The second grant was under a warrant of 2 April 1717.
In a warrant of 24 June 1718, the King declared that the £30,000 paid out since the accession should be taken as his annual bounty for the 2 years ended Michaelmas 1716; and that the yearly sum of £15,000 (reckoning the first year to commence from Michaelmas 1716) should be paid until the royal pleasure was signified to the contrary. There were in fact grants for the period September 1717-September 1718, and others later at irregular intervals, up to December 1722. But no grants have been traced for the 3 subsequent years, and in a warrant of 24 June 1726 arrears of the total grant were put at £53,750.
By the same warrant these arrears were deemed to be no more than £26,511.15.0 at Lady Day 1726. By the same warrant the annual grant of £15,000 was cancelled, and a new one instituted at the rate of £8,591 yearly as from Lady Day 1726. O f this sum £1718.4.0 was to be applied for the relief and support of 'poor distressed French ministers and converts from the church of Rome being in holy orders'. This meant that from Lady Day 1726 the grant of £8,591 a year was divided between Ministers and laymen in the proportion of 1/5 to 4/5, i.e. £1718.4 for Ministers and £6872.16 for laymen.
The phrase 'converts from the church of Rome being in holy orders' harks back to a warrant of 1717 in which it first appears; in this same warrant is a reference to 'lay proselytes'. These innovations indicated a change in the system of relief to proselytes inaugurated in that year.
Payments by the French Committee of relief to 'ecclesiastick' proselytes first appear in the acquittances of December 1698. This relief was paid out of the £12,000 put at the disposal of the French Committee under an Act of 1696, not out of the £3,000 earmarked by the same Act for poor ministers; and it continued to be so paid up to 1716.
By a warrant of George I of April 1717, £3,000 of the grant of £15,000 was ordered to be applied not only for the relief of poor distressed French ministers but also for the relief of 'converts from the Church of Rome being in holy orders' residing in England; and the remaining £12,000 for the support of 'French Protestants and lay proselytes'. Consequent upon this warrant, a special Commission was set up on April 1717, entrusted with the distribution of relief to all proselytes, both lay and clerical. The funds put at the disposal of this Commission amounted to £400: £80 from the £3,000 allocated to the clergy and £320 from the £12,000 for the laity. In 1726 when the royal grant was reduced to £8,591 the funds put at the disposal of the Commission for both lay and clerical proselytes were reduced in proportion.
The exact method of the transfer of this £400 to the new Commission is not clear. Accounts and papers of the French Committee 1717-1718 to 1722 include sums at the rate of £400 p.a. gross paid out to proselytes in the form of block grants. Some light on the allocation of the £400 as between the lay and clerical grants appears in a memorandum prepared by Captain Stephen Deguilhon (or Degulhon) writing some years later.
Captain Deguilhon was a man of some standing, a prominent member of the French Committee, one of the 26 Commissioners appointed in 1717 for the Proselytes, and a member of the Committee appointed by the Commissioners to administer the fund. According to his own account he was appointed in 1705 by the Lords Commissioners to distribute the £3000 for poor French ministers. Up to 1717, he said, no proselyte had any part of it; all proselytes, both ecclesiastic and lay, applied to the lay Committee for relief and were supported out of the £12,000 allowed to lay refugees. In 1717, when the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London set up a Society for the relief of proselytes, they ordered the lay Committee to give £400 a year to it. But Captain Deguilhon prevailed with the Lords Commissioners to pay 1/5 of this £400 out of the £3,000 grant to Ministers; and this sum he had paid to the Treasurer of the Society for the proselytes up to the reduction of the royal bounty [1726]. Since that time he had paid it proportionally to the Secretary of the lay Committee, who was appointed to distribute the money allowed to the proselytes. The Commission came to an end in 1730. |