Looking Back: Is it Goodbye to the Manse?

From May 1974

If a report and recommendation from the Church and Ministry Department are accepted by the General Assembly all Presbyteries and Kirk Sessions will be asked to comment on the possibility of ministers becoming house-owners.

Such a scheme would mean the end of the manse in its traditional form. It would be based on the sale of many manses and the use of the proceeds to form a ministers’ housing loan fund.

A working party has reported that such a scheme would be possible but adds: “Only the Church can say whether it is desirable that there should be such a complete change in a system which has obtained for so long.”

The working party also recognised that some congregations would be unwilling to sell their manses, that some ministers would not wish to buy houses, and that the position of rural manses is quite different from that in cities and towns. The aim of the report is to set in motion procedures by which the Church Courts, boards, and congregations can decide on the question:

“Does the Church desire this change and consider it essential in present circumstances when ministers find it impossible to buy houses for their retirement?”

OWN HOMES

The report on “Housing for the Ministry” also includes a memorandum from the Church’s general treasurer on the legal, ministerial, and financial factors that would have to be considered in detail before the Church could embark on such a scheme for housing active and retired ministers. It is on the basis that the scheme is only viable if a central loan fund is created, if retired ministers and widows are given increased loan facilities, and if urban ministers are given the option of obtaining loans.

The Church and Ministry report says that the working party was set up on the initiative of the general treasurer, Mr W.G.P. Colledge. Its chairman was Mr M.A. Spencer-Nairn, convenor of the General Finance Committee. The report draws attention to the concern about retired ministers expressed at recent General Assemblies and in Life and Work.

Among the points in the Colledge Memorandum are:

-          To make the scheme viable 500 out of 600 city and large burgh manses would have to be sold.

-          Maximum loans envisaged are £10,000 for urban ministers and £7,500 for retired ministers and widows.

-          Problems would arise with rating remissions and income tax concessions.

-          The scheme would inevitable create two types of ministry, rural and urban.

-          Problems would arise affecting the mobility of ministers and difficulties would exist when a congregation that wanted to keep its manse proposed to call a minister who wanted his own house.

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