Welsh Journals

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A COURSE OF INJECTIONS During the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the Fund received many donations from individuals and legacies too. A solicitor used to be retained to watch for bequests in wills as they were published and he was also paid commission. A few legacies were earmarked. Mrs Powell's Gift (1767) gave the interest on £ 100 for the minister at Hereford "providing he be of Calvinist principles," and Mr Holt's (1759) provided f5 p.a., for the minister at Godalming while William Brees(e) of Dartford left £ 100 capital (1778) to pay the minister of Llanbrynmair (or his substitute) to teach and instruct "ten poor children born of Welsh parents four months in every year." In the passage of time this became impractical and led to strained relations between the church and the Board until the matter was settled by handing over the trust to the Official Trustee. On 6 October 1788 the treasurer reported that, William Fuller Esq. of Lombard Street, Banker, had transferred £ 1000 3% Annuities in Trust. the dividend thereof to be disposed of by the Board to six Ministers at £ 5 each for ever. Seldom had any news delighted the Board so much; it forthwith elected Fuller an honorary member (the only one the writer can recall in the history of the CFB). The Board and the donor were no strangers. Fuller was the Board's banker. Moreover, for a while he had been a messenger from his church. Thomas Peter's, known (incredibly) as Three Cranes. Being a staunch Calvinist and evangelical, Fuller fell out with his minister's teaching which became increasingly Sandemanian. Faith without works was hardly likely to have much appeal for this benefactor and he and friends left the church and joined the Little St Helens congregation. Fuller was a generous contributor to the foundation of the Heckmondwike and Northowram Academy, the protégé of the Northern Education Society, of which he was treasurer. He took an active role in the King's Head Society and took the chair at meetings of the joint committee of the KHS and CFB to find a successor to Gibbons as Tutor at Homerton. Fuller gave the Board eight injections of capital over eight years. £ 2400 in Consols was to help Welsh ministers; £ 4000 to provide £ 10 a head to "Congregational Ministers who are incapable to continue their labours through age or indisposition"; £ 4000 to provide £ 10 each to ministers "in the Country" with particular regard "to their characters and their families"; and a like amount for the poor of London churches, £ 10 per church, "where the doctrines frequently called Calvinistic and contained in the Assembly's Catechism are faithfully preached." These gifts were customarily made to contributing churches. Evidently Fuller believed in charity beginning at home. After a ballot the first gifts of f5 were sent to three ministers in Essex and three others living in Suffolk, Buckinghamshire and Yorkshire. Every year a different