Church Pastoral Aid Society

The Church Pastoral-Aid Society (CPAS) was founded in the Committee Room of the Church Missionary Society 19 February 1836 for "the purpose of benefiting the population of our own country by increasing the number of working clergymen in the Church of England, and encouraging the appointment of pious and discreet laymen as helpers to the clergy in duties not ministerial". In about 1974 the Society dropped the hyphen from the name.

Reference: G. R. Balleine, A History of the Evangelical Party in the Church of England (London, 1908).

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