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‘Commerce and Christianity’: Providence Theory, The Missionary Movement, and the Imperialism Of Free Trade, 1842–1860*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Brian Stanley
Brian Stanley
Affiliation:
Spurgeon's College, London
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Extract

In February 1842 a wealthy lay congregationalist named Thomas Thompson wrote to the secretaries of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society urging them to do more to interest the young and the working classes in the cause of foreign missions. Missionary advocates were needed, insisted Thompson, who could shew to our manufacturing population that Christianity Civilization & Commerce are only synonimous terms - that the extension of the former will do more for a World recovery - the bonding of distant nations with a Love of amity & good will & do more for the employment of hundreds of thousands, than all the Anti Corn leaguers can ever accomplish, even were they to realise all their members so fully anticipate, & we shall thus obtain the auxiliary aid of a class of countrymen, whom we have hitherto left to the worst foes of our species.

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Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , March 1983 , pp. 71 - 94
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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References

1 Thompson to Wesleyan missionary secretaries, 11 Feb. 1842, W.M.M.S. home letters, Methodist Missionary Society archives, School of Oriental and African Studies (hereafter M.M.S.A.). For Thompson see Thompson, J., Sketches of the life and character of Thomas Thompson (London, 1868).Google Scholar

2 Rev. W. Ellis in D. Coates, Beecham, J., and Ellis, W., Christianity the means of civilization: shown in the evidence given before a committee of the house of commons, on aborigines (London, 1837), p. 175.Google Scholar

3 The ablest recent exposition of this theme is Niel Gunson, Messengers of grace: evangelical missionaries in the South Seas 1797–1860 (Melbourne, 1978), pp. 267–79.Google Scholar

4 This article is not intended primarily as a contribution to the continuing debate regarding the meaning and validity of the concept of ‘the imperialism of free trade’. The article assumes the legitimacy of the term as a device for describing the concern and agitation of British mercantile interests for wider and more secure access to distant markets or sources of raw material in the period under discussion. For the most relevant recent defences of the concept see Farnie, D. A., The English cotton industry and the world market 1815–1896 (Oxford, 1979)Google Scholar; Gatrell, V. A. C., ‘The commercial middle class in Manchester, c. 1820–1857’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge, 1972)Google Scholar; Harnetty, Peter, Imperialism and free trade: Lancashire and India in the mid-nineteenth century (Manchester, 1972)Google Scholar; Silver, A. W., Manchester men and Indian cotton 1847–1872 (Manchester, 1966).Google Scholar

5 See Willmer, Haddon, ‘Evangelicalism 1785 to 1835’ (Hulsean prize essay, 1962, Cambridge University Library), passimGoogle Scholar; also my unpublished Ph.D. thesis, ‘Home support for overseas missions in early Victorian England, c. 1838–1873’ (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 118–55.Google Scholar

6 See Anstey, Roger, The Atlantic slave trade and British abolition 1760–1810 (London, 1975), p. 158CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Willmer, , ‘Evangelicalism’, p. 82.Google Scholar

7 James, M'Cosh, The method of the divine government, physical and moral (2nd edn, Edinburgh and London, 1850), pp. 203, 233–8.Google Scholar

8 Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, 3rd ser., XXIII (1844), 402.Google Scholar

9 Livingstone, David, Missionary travels and researches in South Africa (London, 1857), pp. 673–4. What may have caused some disquiet in evangelical minds was the fact that Livingstone'ss definition of the ‘glorious consummation’ was in terms of ‘amelioration’ and ‘elevation’ without explicit reference to spiritual salvation.Google Scholar

10 Paley, W., Natural theology, in The works of William Paley, D.D. (7 vols., London, 1825)Google Scholar, v, 2, 10–11, and The principles of moral and political philosophy in ibid, iv, 46.

11 Evangelical Magazine, new ser. xxi (1843), 90.

12 Ibid. 90.

13 See Clarkson, William, India and the gospel: or, an empire for the Messiah (London, 1850), pp. 291–302Google Scholar; Rowley, Henry (ed.), Speeches on missions: by the Right Reverend Samuel Wilberforce, D.D., late Bishop of Winchester (London, 1874), p. 97Google Scholar; Smith, George, Our national relations with China: being two speeches delivered in Exeter Hall and in the Free-Trade Hall, Manchester, by the Bishop of Victoria (London, 1857), pp. 5–7.Google Scholar

14 Cf. Anstey, Atlantic slave trade, pp. 173–5; Cashdollar, Charles D., ‘The social implications of the doctrine of divine providence: a nineteenth-century debate in American theology’, Harvard Theological Review, LXXI, 3–4 (1978), 265–84Google Scholar; P. B. Hinchliff, ‘Mission and Empire (especially in Africa) 1815–1873’ (Hulsean lectures, 1975, Cambridge University Library), p. 18; Jacob, Margaret C., The Newtonians and the English Revolution 1689–1720 (Ithaca, New York, 1976), passim.Google Scholar

15 Jacob, The Newtonians, p. 193.

16 Horne, Melvill, Letters on missions; addressed to the Protestant ministers of the British churches (Bristol, 1794), pp. 77–8.Google Scholar

17 Psalm 76: 10.

18 See Chalmers’ preface to Brown, Thomas's Lectures on ethics (Edinburgh, 1846), pp. xiv–xv, xxGoogle Scholar; and Wardlaw, R., Christian ethics; or moral philosophy on the principles of divine revelation (2nd edn, London, 1834), pp. 228–39. Chalmers’s lectures and publications were probably the most important single channel whereby the tenets of utilitarianism and political economy were mediated to the evangelical world.Google Scholar

19 Jacob, The Newtonians, p. 68; Bradley, Ian, The call to seriousness: the evangelical impact on the Victorians (London, 1976), pp. 24–5; Gunson, Messengers of grace, pp. 33–4, 181–2.Google Scholar

20 See Harris, John, The great commission: or the Christian church constituted and charged to convey the gospel to the world (London, 1842), p. 229Google Scholar; Wardlaw, , Christian ethics, pp. 290–1. For a fuller discussion of the importance of the ‘ reflex’ principle in Victorian missionary theory see my ‘ Home support for overseas missions’, pp. 145–54.Google Scholar

21 Livingstone, , Missionary travels, p. 674. Livingstone's concept of commerce as a providential institution for furthering mutual dependence and human brotherhood was far from novel: see Jacob Viner, The role of providence in the social order: an essay in intellectual history (Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, vol. xc, Philadelphia, 1972), passim. Viner is, however, surely incorrect in his conclusion (p. 50) that the providentialist idea of commerce was rare in the nineteenth century.Google Scholar

22 The Times, 23 Sept. 1857, p. 9.

23 Rowley (ed.), Speeches on missions, pp. 176–7.

24 Ibid. pp. 177–8.

25 Livingstone considered the Indian Mutiny to be the fruit of Britain's neglect of the principle that Christianity and commerce should always accompany one another as agents of civilization; see Monk, W. (ed.), Dr Livingstone's Cambridge lectures (London, 1858), p. 21Google Scholar, and Livingstone to Tidman, 12 Oct. 1855, in Schapera, I. (ed.), Livingstone's missionary correspondence 1841–1856 (London, 1961), pp. 301–2.Google Scholar

26 See Harris, The great commission, pp. 3–11.

27 For two good examples of this belief see Coates et al., Christianity the means of civilization, pp. 167–70, 183; cf. Farnie, English cotton industry, pp. 84–5, Gunson, Messengers of grace, pp. 274–6.

28 The five societies are the Church Missionary Society (C.M.S.), Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (S.P.G.), Baptist Missionary Society (B.M.S.), London Missionary Society (L.M.S.) and Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (W.M.M.S.). Annual totals of applicants to the C.M.S. from 1851 (dated according to the date at which a candidate's application first came before a committee of the society) can be compiled from the register of candidates (C/A Tms), Church Missionary Society archivQp, London (hereafter C.M.S.A.).

29 Deane, Phyllis, ‘New estimates of Gross National Product for the United Kingdom 1830–1914’, Review of Income and Wealth, xiv, 2 (1968), 104–5Google Scholar. The aggregate series of missionary society income was compiled from the following sources: B.M.S. annual reports; The centenary volume of the Church Missionary Society (London, 1902), pp. 714–15; Proceedings of the Church Missionary SocietyGoogle Scholar; Lovett, R., The history of the London Missionary Society 1795–1895 (2 vols., London, 1899), I, 752–4; L.M.S. annual reports; S.P.G. reports; W.M.M.S. reports. For fuller details of the income series used see my ‘Home support for overseas missions’, pp. 74–5.Google Scholar

30 For a fuller discussion see my ‘Home support for overseas missions’, pp. 25–9.

31 Curtin, P. D., The image of Africa: British ideas and action, 1780–1850 (London, 1965), pp. 298–318Google Scholar; Gallagher, J. A., ‘Fowell Buxton and the new African policy, 1838–1842’, Cambridge Historical Journal, x, 1 (1950), 45–9.Google Scholar

32 Gatrell, ‘The commercial middle class’, pp. 457–8.

33 Active missionary interest in China had arisen only within the decade prior to 1842. The awakening of interest in China was due primarily to the publicity of the free-lance Pomeranian missionary, Karl Gützlaff; see Schlyter, H., Der China-Missionar Karl Gützlaff und seine Heimat-basis: Studien über das Interesse des Abendlandes an der Mission des China-Pioniers Karl Giitzlaff und über seinen Einsatz als Missionserwecker (Uppsala, 1976), pp. 28–37.Google Scholar

34 Church Missionary Intelligencer, I, 19(1850), 444.

35 James, J. A., God's voice from China to the British and Irish churches, both established and unestablished, in The works of John Angell James, edited by his son (17 vols., London, 1862), xvi, 481. In this pamphlet, published in 1858, James denounced both opium wars but insisted that God had made both wars subservient to his purposes.Google Scholar

36 Rowley (ed.), Speeches on missions, p. 98.

37 The evidence is most substantial for the C.M.S. See incoming home letters (G/AC3), Jan. to Mar. 1843, and committee minutes (G/C1), xxi, 406–7,470–1, C.M.S. A. See alsoj. S. Workman to W.M.M.S., 14 Dec. 1842, W.M.M.S. home letters, M.M.S.A.

38 Evangelical Magazine, new ser. xxi (1843), 39–42; L.M.S. annual report for 1842–3, pp. xciv-xcv.

39 Stock, Eugene, The history of the Church Missionary Society: its environment, its men and its work (4 vols., London, 1899–1916), 1, 471–2.Google Scholar

40 Leeds L.M.S. auxiliary, minute book 2 (1834–67), p. 56, L.M.S. auxiliary records, box 2, Congregational Memorial Hall Library MSS, now in Dr Williams’s Library, London.

41 Baptist Magazine, xxxviii (1846), 376Google Scholar; Evangelical Magazine, new ser. xxv (1847), 151.Google Scholar

42 For the parallel disillusionment of commercial expectations see Farnie, English cotton industry, p. 120; Gatrell, ‘The commercial middle class’, pp. 458–60.

43 Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, 5th ser., II (1856), 906.

44 James, God’s voice from China, p. 522.

45 Hodder, E., The life and work of the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, K.G. (3 vols., London, 1886), 1, 467–8; see 3 Hansard, LXVIII (4 Apr. 1843), cols. 362–405.Google Scholar

46 Smith, Our national relations with China, p. 21.

47 Alexander, R., The rise and progress of British opium smuggling, aud its effects upon India, China and the commerce of Great Britain. Four letters addressed to the Right Honourable the Earl of Shaftesbury (London, 1856)Google Scholar; idem, Opium revenue of India: the question answered, that it is not right to break the laws of England and of China, and injure the commerce of both countries, for the sake of temporarily obtaining £3,000,000 sterling, by destroying the lives of, morality and commercial reciprocity of 300,000,000 of our fellow-men(London, 1857).Google Scholar

48 Tait, William, Appeal to the British nation against the opium traffic, in four letters (London, 1858), pp. 14–16. Tait's arguments were used by John Angell James in God's voicefrom China, pp. 518–21.Google Scholar

49 3 Hansard, LXVIII (4 Apr. 1843), cols. 375–6.

50 See my ‘Home support for overseas missions’ pp. 40–2.

51 For the decline of the British abolitionist movement in the 1850s see Lorimer, Douglas A., Colour, class and the Victorians: English attitudes to the Negro in the mid-nineteenth century (Leicester, 1978), pp. 71, 117Google Scholar; Temperley, Harold W., British antislavery 1833–1870 (London, 1972), pp. 221–31.Google Scholar

52 Baptist Magazine, XLVI (1854), 653, XLVII (1855), 331; Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, 5th ser., 1 (1855), 568- Of the five English societies, only the C.M.S. and the W.M.M.S. showed some increase of income in 1854. Fig. 1 suggests that 1854 was a trough in aggregate missionary giving relative to consumer's expenditure.

53 The numbers of L.M.S. recruits sent to the field dwindled almost to nothing in the mid-1850s; see my ‘Home support for overseas missions’, p. 64. The C.M.S. received only 36 applications from candidates in Great Britain and Ireland in 1855, compared with an average of over 60 per annum for the previous three years, and complained in January 1856 of ‘an absolute dearth of candidates’ (register of candidates 1850–1859 (C/ATm5), C.M.S.A.;Church Missionary Intelligencer, VII, 1 (1856), 15).

54 Seaver, G., David Livingstone: his life and letters (London, 1957), pp. 281–7.Google Scholar

55 The Times, 10 Sept. 1857, p. 10. Sir James Watts was mayor of Manchester at the time, and took the chair at the meeting. Turner was a correspondent of Livingstone's and may have been his main contact with the Manchester commercial community; see Clendennen, G. W. and Cunningham, I. C. (eds.), David Livingstone: a catalogue of documents (Edinburgh, 1979), p. 234.Google Scholar

56 The Times, 10 Sept. 1857, p. 10.

57 Seaver, Livingstone, pp. 287–91; for reports of the Glasgow and Edinburgh meetings see The Times, 18 Sept. 1857, p. 10, and 23 Sept. 1857, p. g, respectively; for Livingstone's Cambridge lectures see Monk (ed.) Livingstone's Cambridge lectures; and for a general assessment of Livingstone's appeal see Chadwick, Owen, Mackenzie's grave (London, 1959), pp. 13–16.Google Scholar

58 See Farnie, English cotton industry, pp. 30–1, 43; Lorimer, Colour, class and the Victorians, pp. 121–2; Silver, Manchester men, passim.

59 The Times, 18 Sept. 1857, p. 10.

60 Livingstone, Missionary travels, pp. 677–8; Monk (ed.), Livingstone’s Cambridge lectures, pp. 43–4.

61 See Short, K. R. M., ‘English Baptists and the Corn Laws’, Baptist Quarterly, new ser. xxi, 7 (1965–1966), 309–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

62 Farnie, English cotton industry, p. 43.

63 Livingstone, Missionary travels, pp. 678–9; The Times, 10 Sept. 1857, p. 10, 12 Sept. 1857, p. 6, 18 Sept. 1857, p. 10, 23 Sept. 1857, p. 9; cf. Lorimer, Colour, class and the Victorians, pp. 70–2.

64 Jeal, Tim, Livingstone (London, 1973), pp. 168–9.Google Scholar

65 Of the funds contributed by the E. Lanes. L.M.S. auxiliary for the Zambezi mission, the only recorded donations of £5 or over were: T. Barnes - £ 100; S. Fletcher - £ 50; R. Topp - £ 30; Sir E. Armitage (the only one of the four whom I have identified as a member of the cotton interest) - £5 (L.M.S. annual report for 1857–8, pp. 1-lii). This level of contribution is in marked contrast to the response to the special India fund in 1858–60; see n. 102 below.

66 Gatrell, ‘The commercial middle class’, pp. 319–21, 364–6, 400, 412; Silver, Manchester men, p. 158; but cf. Farnie, English cotton industry, p. 87.

67 L.M.S. annual report for 1857–8, p. 2.

68 Livingstone to Wilberforce, 23 Nov. 1857, Bodleian MS Wilberforce c. 12, fos. 83–4. This is the earliest of several letters from Livingstone to Wilberforce listed in Clendennen and Cunningham (eds.), David Livingstone, p. 251.

69 Rowley (ed.), Speeches on missions, pp. 157–8.

70 See David Neave, ‘Aspects of the history of the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa, 1858–1900’ (unpublished M. Phil, thesis, York, 1974), chs. I and II. The name ‘Universities’ Mission to Central Africa’ was not used until 1865.

71 Rowley (ed.), Speeches on missions, pp. 31–2, 157–8, 183–4, 213–14.

72 Ibid. p. 31. This letter is not listed in Clendennen and Cunningham (eds.), David Livingstone, and is presumably therefore not extant.

73 Rowley (ed.), Speeches on missions, pp. 187–216; Neave, ‘History of the U.M.C.A.’, p. 41.

74 Oxford, Cambridge, Dublin and Durham Mission to Central Africa: report to the 31st December 1860 (London, 1861), p. 69; Neave, ‘History of the U.M.C.A.’, p. 41, computes that the mission received £ 1180 in contributions from Liverpool, £740 from Manchester, and £200 from Leeds.Google Scholar

75 Oxford, Cambridge Dublin and Durham Mission to Central Africa: report to the 31st December 1860, pp. 62—79; see the table of Liverpool contributions in my ‘Home support for overseas missions’, pp. 66–8.

76 Livingstone to Tidman, 22 Feb. 1858, L.M.S. ‘Africa Odds’, box 10A, Council for World Mission archives, School of Oriental and African Studies (hereafter C.W.M.A.).

77 See, for example, Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, 5th ser.iii (1857), 1028–37, 1130–2, and Church Missionary Intelligencer, viii, ii (1857), 241–51.

78 The assertion that the heathen found an ‘ impartial’ religious policy incomprehensible and unworthy of respect was a frequent missionary response to government insistence on neutrality and non-interference. See Communications relating to the connexion of the government of British India with idolatry, or with Mahometanism (Parl. Papers, 1851, XLI), p. 322; Correspondence relating to missionaries and idolatry (East India) (Parl. Papers, 1857–8, XLII), p. 331.

79 Bearce, G. D., British attitudes towards India 1784–1858 (London, 1961), pp. 233–9, notes the shift in public opinion from demands for revenge to a recognition that British Indian policy had been at fault, but is surely wrong to describe the day of humiliation as ‘the apex of British resentment toward India’ (p. 236); see n. 80 below.Google Scholar

80 The best indication of Christian responses to the Mutiny is provided by the numerous reports of humiliation day sermons in The Times, 8 Oct. 1857, pp. 5–9. A few sermons were preoccupied with the call for vengeance; a few accepted that the Mutiny was a judgement but held it a presumption to specify what sins had occasioned the judgement; but the majority adhere to the interpretation here described.

81 Jenkins to Osborn, 9 Oct. 1857, W.M.M.S. home letters, M.M.S.A.

82 Jenkins to Osborn, 29 Oct. 1857, W.M.M.S. home letters, M.M.S.A. See also Hoole, Osborn and Arthur to Jenkins, 3 Dec. 1857, W.M.M.S. copies of outgoing letters, box 25, M.M.S.A., in which the missionary secretaries assure the departing Jenkins that ‘The results of recent painful occurrences will probably prove most salutary in many respects, and amidst the attention now so widely awakened to Indian affairs generally, the Churches of Christ planted there cannot be exempt.’

83 See Lord Shaftesbury reported in The Times, 2 7 Nov. 1857, p. 10; Baptist Magazine, L (1858), 209, 323; Stock, History of the C.M.S., 11, 217–18; Anderson, Olive, ‘The growth of Christian militarism in mid-Victorian Britain’, English Historical Review, LXXXVI, 1 (1971), 49–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

84 Stock, History of the C.M.S., 11, 217.

85 The computed regression analysis indicated tht 1843 and 1858 were the years in which actual missionary giving was furthest above the values which would be predicted from the level of consumers’ expenditure.

86 Stock, History of the C.M.S., 11, 263.

87 See p. 83 above.

88 Evangelical Magazine, new ser., 1 (1859), 330–1.

89 L.M.S. Board minutes, box 33, p. 551, C.W.M.A. The observation was made by Arthur Tidman, the Foreign Secretary, in the context of a report on a recent tour to Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds, ‘& other places’, where Tidman had met a generous response to the society's special India appeal, notwithstanding the recent commercial crisis.

90 Register of candidates 1850–1859 (C/A Tm5), C.M.S.A.

91 L.M.S. annual report for 1857–8, p. 1.

92 ‘National sins the sources of national calamities’, Church Missionary Intelligencer, viii, 11 (1857), 241–51; for a fuller discussion of the evangelical concept of idolatry see my ‘Home support for overseas missions’, pp. 129–36.Google Scholar

93 See The Times, 10 Oct. 1857, p. 4; Papers connected with the case of the sepoy... at Meerut (Parl. Papers, 1857–8, XLiii), pp. 163–4; Mayhew, Arthur, Christianity and the government of India (London, 1929), pp. 158–9.Google Scholar

94 Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, 5th ser., iii (1857), 1036.

95 [Emma Edwardes], Memorials of the life and letters of Major-General Sir Herbert B. Edwardes K.C.B., K.C.S.I., by his wife (2 vols., London, 1886), ii, 247Google Scholar; see also Baptist Magazine, XLIX (1857), 759.Google Scholar

96 Noel, B. W., England and India: an essay on the duty of Englishmen towards the Hindoos (London, 1859), p. 25Google Scholar. Stokes, Cf. E. T., The English Utilitarians and India (Oxford, 1959), pp. 33–4.Google Scholar

97 Church Missionary Intelligencer, xi, 7 (1860), 151.

98 The Times, 18 Sept. 1857, p. 6.

99 The Times, 18 Dec. 1857, p. 6; The Times had begun to change its attitude to the missionary response to the Mutiny as early as October 1857; see 6 Oct. 1857, p. 6, 7 Oct. 1857, p. 8.

100 See Stock, History of the C.M.S., ii, 235–61; Moore, R. J., Sir Charles Wood's Indian policy 1853–66(Manchester, 1966), pp. 118–20Google Scholar. For a markedly different view of the impact of the Mutiny on British opinion to that advanced in this article see Metcalf, T. R., The aftermath of revolt: India, 1857ndash;1870 (Princeton, 1965), pp. 92–121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

101 Harnetty, Imperialism and free trade, p. 38; Silver, Manchester men, pp. 97–101, 158.

102 L.M.S. annual reports for 1858–9, p. liv, for 1859—60, p. lv. Donors to the L.M.S. special fund for Indian extension included Sir Elkanah and William Armitage; John Cheetham, M.P.; Sir James Watts and S. Watts, Esq.; J. Dilworth, Esq.; and J. and S. Rigby.

103 Harnetty, Imperialism and free trade, p. 79; Jenks, L. H., The migration of British capital to 1875 (London, 1927), p. 219.Google Scholar

104 MacPherson, W. J., ‘Investment in Indian railways, 1845–1875‘, Economic History Review, 2nd ser., viii, 2 (1955), 181; cited in Harnetty, Imperialism and free trade, p. 79.Google Scholar

105 See Church Missionary Intelligencer, xii, 11 (1861), 247, 256–7; XIII, 7 (1862), 159.Google Scholar

106 Arthington to Prout, 12 Jan. 1859, L.M.S. home office incoming letters, C.W.M.A. For Arthington see Chirgwin, A. M., Arthington’s million: the romance of the Arthington trust (London, n.d.). It is worthy of note that Livingstone and Arthington corresponded in 1865; see Clendennen and Cunningham (eds.), David Livingstone, p. 91.Google Scholar

107 Harnetty, Imperialism and free trade, pp. 69–70.

108 Cotton, Arthur, Public works in India, their importance; with suggestions for their extension and improvement (2nd edn, London, 1854), pp. 81–2, 95–6, 100–1; see also, for Cotton's estimate of the missionary prospects and significance of the Godaveri, Proceedings of the Church Missionary Society for 1859—60, pp. 158–60, and Church Missionary Intelligencer, xi, 7 (1860), 151–3.Google Scholar

109 See Lady [Elizabeth Reid] Hope, General Sir Arthur Cotton, R.E. K.C.S.I., his life and work (London, 1900), p. 70.Google Scholar

110 Stock, History of the C.M.S., iii, 191.

111 South India mission book, vol. xxvii, 1860–2 (C12/M27), pp. 206–11, C.M.S.A.

112 Stock, History of the C.M.S., 111, 191–2.

113 Proceedings of the C.M.S. for 1859–60, p. 158; South India mission book, vol. xxvii 1860–2 (CI2/M27), p. 206, C.M.S.A.

114 Harnetty, Imperialism and free trade, pp. 73–7.

115 [C.A.]Haig, Memories of the life of General F. T. Haig by his wife (London, 1902), p. 29; cited in Harnetty, Imperialism and free trade, p. 70n.Google Scholar

116 Redford, A. and Clapp, B., Manchester merchants and foreign trade vol. II: 1850–1939 (Manchester, 1956), p. 22; Silver, Manchester men, p. 158; but cf. Farnie, English cotton industry, p. 87.Google Scholar

117 Hughes, J. R. T., Fluctuations in trade, industry and finance: a study of British economic development, 1850–1860 (Oxford, 1960), p. 96.Google Scholar

118 Simpson to Prout, 12 and 18 Nov. 1859, L.M.S. home office incoming letters, C.W.M.A.

119 Simpson to Prout, 18 Nov. 1859, L.M.S. home office incoming letters, C.W.M.A. Kershaw was a regular and generous contributor to L.M.S. funds.

120 See n. 102 above.

121 Taylor to Hoole, 2 May 1860, W.M.M.S. home letters, M.M.S.A.

122 See Evangelical Magazine, new ser., xxxvi (1858), 617, new ser., 1 (1859), 185–8; Baptist Magazine, LI (1859), 333–5, 377–8.

123 James, God's voice from China, pp. 481–3.

124 James to Prout, n.d. [1858], L.M.S. home office incoming letters, box ii, C.W.M.A.

125 Gatrell, ‘The commercial middle class’, p. 454.

126 James, God’s voice from China, pp. 495, 553.

127 Miller, S. C., ‘Ends and means: missionary justification of force in nineteenth century China’, in Fairbank, John K. (ed.), The missionary enterprise in China and America (Cambridge, Mass. 1974). PP. 280–1.Google Scholar

128 Evangelical Magazine, new ser., 1 (1859), 253–71; Baptist Magazine, LI (1859), 377, 527–8; but cf. Proceedings of the C.M.S. for 1859–60, 177.

129 For the view that millennial expectations were an important stimulus to a wide variety of mid-nineteenth century reforming and free trading movements see Alexander Tyrrell, ‘ Making the millennium: the mid-nineteenth century peace movement’, Historical Journal, xxi, 1 (1978), 75–95- The ‘millennial’ views held by the majority of early Victorian evangelicals were of a ‘post-millennial’ kind (i.e. the millennium is to be introduced by human agency and precedes the return of Christ). They were thus susceptible of a loose and secularized interpretation which reduced the expectation of the ‘millennium’ to nothing more than a coming age of universal goodwill and brotherhood.

130 Farnie, English cotton industry, p. 121.

131 Ibid. pp. 138–45.

132 Ibid. p. 167.

133 Silver, Manchester men, pp. 242–3, 290–1.

134 For a fuller discussion of the effect of the cotton famine on missionary giving see my ‘ Home support for overseas missions’, pp. 56–8.

135 See Baptist Magazine, LVII (1865), 671; Stock, History of the C.M.S., 11, 337, 357. The B.M.S. annual report for 1865–6 referred to a notion which had ‘somehow extensively prevailed that the interest taken by the churches in the Mission has declined, and, consequently, their contributions have declined too’. The report believed this impression to be mistaken, but the prevalence of the impression must itself be significant (Baptist Magazine, LVIII (1866), 327–8).

136 Neave, ‘History of the U.M.C.A.’, p. 135.

137 Boer, J. H., Missionary messengers of liberation in a colonial context: a case study of the Sudan United Mission (Amsterdam, 1979), p. 175.Google Scholar

138 See Porter, Andrew,‘Evangelical enthusiasm, missionary motivation and West Africa in the late nineteenth century: the career of G. W. Brooke’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History,vi, 1 (1977), 23–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Walls, A. F., ‘Black Europeans, white Africans: some missionary motives in West Africa’, in Baker, D. (ed.), Religious motivation: biographical and sociological problems for the church historian (Studies in Church History, vol. 15, Oxford, 1978), pp. 339–48. The case of the Sudan United Mission, however, suggests that Livingstonian attitudes to commerce remained more influential in late nineteenth-century evangelical missions than Porter and Walls imply; see Boer, Missionary messengers, pp. 99–105.Google Scholar

139 See Farnie, English cotton industry, pp. 87–8; Tyrrell, ‘Making the millennium’, pp. 82–3, 89–91.

140 It would appear from the L.M.S. annual reports, for example, that the donations to the special India fund in 1858–60 from cotton magnates such as Sir Elkanah Armitage and Sir James Watts were not matched by ordinary donations to the L.M.S. in the neighbouring years. However, both Armitage and Watts were congregationalists, and therefore likely to support the L.M.S. in any case. It was quite possible for individuals to contribute in various ways to a missionary society without their names appearing in a subscription list.

141 house, Cf. D. K. Field, Economics and empire 1830–1914 (London, 1973), pp. 54–5.Google Scholar

142 Cf. Stokes, English Utilitarians, pp. 306–8.