The recruitment of colonial clergy, c.1790–1850
The recruitment of colonial clergy, c.1790–1850
Chapter one, which examines the recruitment of the foot-soldiers of the institutional Church, draws attention to the sheer variety of clergy who peopled the Church in the British world in the pre-1860 period. The chapter highlights common dynamics in the development of the colonial clerical profession in the three chosen case studies. We will see that the aims of churchmen from across the Church party spectrum were frustrated by a persistent set of recruitment problems back in Britain—the major problem being that was no centralised or coordinated system for recruiting clergy. The first part of the chapter surveys the range of government organisations, voluntary groups and private individuals that played a part in recruitment; the second half provides a detailed examination of the clergy themselves. A number of questions about the recruitment, training, education and social and ethnic backgrounds of the clergy are considered. The recruitment of clergy shows that power was far from being centralised in the colonial Church: this was an institution that was made up a variety of networks and connections; it was also one that allowed a range of actors to have a hand in finding the men who would staff and run the colonial Church.
Keywords: Colonial clergy, Prosopography, Recruitment, Networks, Training, Education, Social backgrounds, National backgrounds
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