One of the key narratives in colonial Anglican historiography of the second third of the nineteenth century concerns the Church's difficult transition towards voluntarism in the wake of the constitutional revolution of 1828–32. with the substantial dismantling of the confessional state by 1832, church leaders justified metropolitan establishment on the ground that the Church was the ‘natural educator of the nation’. For those concerned with the colonies and the empire, the Church's self-understanding became increasingly grounded in episcopal authority or in mission, rather than in establishment. Colonial Anglicans showed how the Church could operate outside establishment and with greater lay involvement. The historiography of this experience, however, has focused on institutions and bishops, with little attention to the impact of wider reforms and transformations at the local parish level of clergyman and colonial chaplain. Consequently, the following chapters examine the impact of these transitions on clergy and their evolving relationships with government, bishops and laity during 1836–50. They also capture something of the texture and ‘lived experience’ of clerical life, to enrich our understanding of clerical life in both metropole and colony during this period of significant change and reform.

An obvious measure of this change is the effect on clergy of dwindling state provision. Various Church Acts and Church Temporalities Acts reconfigured funding of clergy stipends during 1836–47. Colonial governments still provided significant funding, although this varied considerably according to colony. It is therefore more accurate to describe the shift to voluntarism as one to ‘semi-voluntarism’. These arrangements significantly altered traditional sources of clergy support such as glebes and parsonages, as well as government funding for sextons, clerks and the upkeep of churches and schools. with the withdrawal of government funding, the burden of these provisions fell on both clergymen and laity.