C of E setting up £100m fund to ‘address past wrongs’ of slave trade links

Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, said he was ‘deeply sorry for these links. It is now time to take action to address our shameful past.’ Photograph: Yui Mok/PA

The Church of England has committed £100m to a fund it is setting up to compensate for its historical benefit from the international slave trade.

A report for the Church Commissioners, the body that manages the C of E’s £9bn-plus endowment fund, traced the origins of the fund partly to Queen Anne’s Bounty, a financial scheme established in 1704 based on transatlantic chattel slavery.