Church briefs, or, Royal warrants for collections for charitable objects by Wyndham Anstis Bewes, London: A & C Black, 1896. [LINK TO BE ADDED]
For centuries there was in England a system of officially recommended charity collections conducted through the state church hierarchy. Several times a year or more, as and when needs were brought to the attention of government, a royal document would be signed, printed and circulated to all the churches of the realm, recommending the relevant charity for people to give to, and commanding church ministers to mention it to their congregations on one or more given Sundays. They were to include this as a separate revenue in the collection procedure, and forward the proceeds and accounts to an office in London.
Eventually, it was realized this system was too costly to administer and it was discontinued in 1828 by a UK statute, 9 Geo 4, c 42.
This book is a catalogue of all such royal endorsements of charitable collections from 1642 to 1828. It covers a wide variety of charity types which users can research.