Minister’s Meat

I continue to pore over the chapel accounts for 1870-1910. They detail the monies paid to the chapel’s ministers. How much to pay a pastor can be a perplexing issue for many a church. Those with limited budgets are in danger of giving him too little. The man has to pay his way and may he not have some beside? On the other hand, I know some churches where the minister is the best paid in all the congregation. They work hard each week to keep him in the pleasant lifestyle to which he has grown accustomed. 

In the 1870s, Salem’s pastor, Peter Howarth, seems to have received two types of payment. The first, bizarrely, is called Minister’s Meat, and is 3/6 per week (three shillings six pence, or £11-£20 in today’s money). Was this a payment towards his food bill, or a preaching fee for the spiritual meat he gave them? It’s a strange expression. In addition, he was paid ‘by cash’ £17, 8 shillings and sixpence each June, and a further £18, 12 shillings each December (£1,090 according to the National Archives, or £2100, according to the Bank of England). Using the latter figure as the basis of calculation, he earned £4200 per year at 2018 values plus his Meat. This doesn’t sound very much, especially when his wife, Sarah Howarth, was having to pay £2, 10 shillings and 3d annual rent for the manse. It’s interesting that they pay the minister but expect his wife to pay his rent.

In 1901, Pastor Duerden was benefiting from a more straight-forward system of remuneration, receiving a monthly salary of £1 10 shillings. From 1903, he was paid £7 10 shillings quarterly, an even simpler arrangement.

Although prices were lower then and pounds went further, it’s fair to say that the pastors at Martin Top were not in it for the money. This can only be a good thing. The curse of America’s prosperity gospel is well established in some large churches and is the downfall of many. On the other hand, a salary relieves a pastor of the need for distraction by secular work, though he mustn’t become so well paid that he becomes the pompous pope of the parish, while others toil and spin.

“You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain” (Deut. 25:4).