Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby apologised on June 16 after research (pdf) found links to the 18th-century transatlantic slave trade in a Church of England predecessor fund.
Welby said he’s “deeply sorry” for the links, calling it “a source of shame.”
Research commissioned by the Church Commissioners for England found that “significant amounts” of the Queen Anne’s Bounty, a fund set up in 1704 to augment the salaries of the poor clergy, were put into the South Sea Company, which “traded in enslaved people,” the charity said on June 16.
It also said the fund has “received numerous benefactions, many of which are likely to have come from individuals linked to, or who profited from, transatlantic chattel slavery or the plantation economy. ”…