Foulness Island passing of the Ministry of Defence Act 1946 and the subsequent rationalisation of five agencies in 1971, ownership of the island passed from the War Office to the Ministry of Defence. In 2003, a contract to manage the testing of munitions was awarded to the defence contractors QinetiQ, and they also control access to the island. In the 1850s, the South Essex Estuary and Reclamation Company proposed a grand scheme to reclaim around of land on the Essex coast, which would have included most of Foulness Sands and Maplin Sands. The civil engineer Sir John Rennie produced the plans, and
Saint Mary the Virgin, Foulness Island chaplain to celebrate Mass service on a daily basis in a chapel on Foulness. She also managed to secure the payment of church dues towards the upkeep of the chapel, rather than having the islanders’ payments going towards the various mainland parishes among which the island had been split. Some 150 years later, the Chantry was dissolved under the massive religious upheaval resulting from Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries. The chapel’s land and possessions were confiscated. However, the desire for local services remained and within three years Foulness became a separate ecclesiastical parish. The old chantry chapel was demolished