Society of the Faith

Its objects are to bring together Christians in communion with the See of Canterbury for mutual assistance, and to support and further charitable undertakings, particularly those that popularise the Catholic faith.

Douglas moved the enterprise to Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire, where a local printer, Henry Rutherford, began producing the stamps.

From 1938 a workshop for joinery and statue work was opened in St Albans, Hertfordshire, with vestments and stained-glass being produced at Faith House.

Faith Press published the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent Book as well as important texts such as Peter Anson's ‘Building up the Waste Places’.

Faith-Craft, using distinguished designers such as John Hayward and Francis Stephens, created high quality stained glass and ornaments.

In the 1970s, the society, led by its secretary, Ivor Bulmer-Thomas, invited the Church Union into Faith House to run the bookshop.

By the late 1990s, the board of trustees knew that it needed to take urgent action to make Faith House self-financing and to provide income to pursue its objects.

It obtained permission from the freeholders to let out the top floor for profit and, although its main tenant was a charity serving young people in developing countries, the income enabled the society to restore its finances.

With Watts and Company now in the basement, the society found itself in the position of that unusual phenomenon, a benevolent landlord, fostering good relations with its tenants, which included a bookshop run by SPCK from 2003 to 2006, followed by the St Stephen the Great Charitable Trust (SSG) until its closure in April 2008.