Colonial and Continental Church Society
The Greater Britain Messenger was the magazine of the Colonial and Continental Church Society
The Diocese of Jamaica
A Short Account of Its History, Growth and Organisation
By J.B. Ellis, M.A.
London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1913.
from Chapter XII
Perhaps this is the most suitable place in which to say a few words on the connection of the Colonial and Continental
Church Society with Jamaica. Before disestablishment this Society had helped to maintain Church of England schools, but had
decided to make no additional grants, believing that the Jamaica Government would make sufficient provision for elementary
education. In 1870, partly induced thereto by the late Rev. C. D. Marston, of St. Paul's, Onslow Square, a Jamaican by birth,
the Society added Jamaica to its list of Colonial Dioceses, and has since that date regularly contributed towards the maintenance
of four or five, and sometimes more, clergy. The Society's grants, being supplementary to voluntary offer, ings, have enabled
the Church to continue her work in many a poor parish which otherwise could not possibly be self-supporting. The grants are
not necessarily made to places, but to clergy, approved of both by the Society and by the Bishop, who can be transferred to
other districts if their services are required without the grant lapsing; while on the other hand, in case of a parish beoming
self-supporting, the grant can be transferred to a clergyman working in a district where it is more urgently needed. The continued
and substantial interest taken by the Colonial and Continental Society in Jamaica has been of invaluable service, both in
ordinary times and in times of crisis and disaster. Thus in 1897, when it was in contemplation that the grant should be annually
reduced, with a view to gradual and complete withdrawal, the Society, bearing in mind the commercial depression then existing
in Jamaica, agreed not merely to continue but to increase its help. So also in more recent years (1903 and 1907) special grants
were made to meet urgent needs of clergy who had suffered by hurricane and earthquake. Neither the amount of the grant nor
the proportion in which it is distributed is anything like enough to dispense with voluntary effort, but both are sufficient
to enable work to be carried on and to prevent either individual distress or congregational collapse. The list of clergy who
have been on the Society's list since 1870 is a very long one, but as most of them are still living and working I do not insert
their names here.
