The archive of the Parish and People movement has been catalogued due to a grant from the Trustees of Lambeth Palace Library. This makes available an important resource for researchers wishing to study the process of reform in the Church of England as it responded to changing demands in the second half of the 20th century. The Parish and People movement was founded in 1949 as a British response to the ‘Liturgical Movement’ which influenced many denominations in continental Europe, popularising the parish communion as the main act of collective worship at a parochial level. After Parish and People merged with the Keble Conference Group in 1964 the movement also promoted grassroots growth in team ministry, synodical government and church unity and its range of publications encouraged new thinking and practice in liturgy, collaborative ministry and training. The movement therefore represents an important reformist strand in the history of the 20th-century Church. The collection is formed of papers from four leading members of the movement: Canon Peter Croft, Bishop Henry de Candole, Bishop Hewlett Thompson and the Reverend Dr David Thomson. The main bulk of the collection is therefore arranged in series according to the records’ provenance with these churchmen. There is an additional series for the main minutes of the organisation. The largest part of the collection is formed by two libraries of resources regarding team ministry and deaneries respectively that were created and maintained by Peter Croft. The records first entered the collection in 1992 so it is pleasing that these 40 boxes of material are now available for research.

For more information please see the online archives catalogue (collection ref: PAP). The collection is available in the Reading Room at the Church of England Record Centre. Other material relating to Parish and People is available in the printed books catalogue.