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John Minter Morgan's Schemes, 1841–1855

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

W. H. G. Armytage
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One summer's day, 22 June 1841, fifty-nine year-old John Minter Morgan launched a scheme to establish “self-supporting villages” under the superintendence of the Established Church. It was a stirring attempt to rouse the Establishment to its responsibilities in the face of the Owenite challenge, and it secured a respectable response. An admiral (Sir G. Scott), a general (George Norton Eden) and a respectable muster of clergy, mainly from the Ham, East Sheen and West Molesely districts, all rallied to hear what was afoot.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , April 1958 , pp. 26 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1958

References

page 26 note 1 His audience included the Hon. Alg. G. Tollemache, Rev. Jas. Hough, M. A., Capt. Blanchford, Gordon Forbes, Admiral Sir G. Scott, Gen. George Norton Eden, Rev. Thomas Hore and Captain Roberts, R. N., all of Ham; The Rev. Dr. Walmsley and Rev. J. A. Emerson, M. A., of Hanwell; Rev. Geo. Hope, R. N., Rev. G. Trevelyon, M. A., of Malden; Rev. F. J. H. Reeves of East Sheen; Rev. E. A. Omaney, M. A., of Mortlake; Rev. J. P. Mills, A. B., of West Molesely; Dr. Arnott of Bedford Square; and G. Craik Esq.

page 26 note 2 His importance has been recognised by Beer, Max, History of British Socialism (1929), 1, pp. 126, 180, 184, 228–30.Google Scholar The purpose of this paper is to provide further evidence of his activities. Cole, G. D. H., Socialist Thought: The Forerunners 1789–1850 (1953)Google Scholar describes him as “the first to take up Owen's plans of 1817 and advocate their adoption, while rejecting Owen's hostility to religion.”

page 27 note 1 This work shows how the Essenes, (p. 121)Google Scholar, Spenceans, (p. 132)Google Scholar and Shakers, (p. 134)Google Scholar and Moravians, (p. 134)Google Scholar coloured thought on the subject. He republished it in the Phoenix Library in 1850.

page 28 note 1 Letters to the Bishop of London (1830).Google Scholar

page 29 note 1 Stedman Whitwell was at New Harmony (Indiana) with Owen from January to August 1826 where he published A new nomenclature suggested for communities, in: New Harmony Gazette, 12 April 1826, and published an account of it in the Co-operative Magazine (London) in January 1827.

page 29 note 2 Pankhurst, R. K. P., William Thompson, 1775–1833, London 1954.Google Scholar

page 30 note 1 New Moral World, 22 11 1834.Google Scholar

page 30 note 2 Ibid. 29 November 1834.

page 30 note 3 Hampden in the Nineteenth Century (1834). Emerson read it and wrote “The spirit is excellent”. The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1939) ed. Rusk, R. L., IV p. 71.Google Scholar

page 30 note 4 Mistaken by DrBellot, H. Hale, University College, London (1929), p. 141Google Scholar as “a Mr. J. H. Morgan”.

page 31 note 1 The text can be found in Morgan's Christian Commonwealth (1850) pp. 97–8.Google ScholarCowper, W. F. later (in 1848)Google Scholar married Georgina Tollemache of Ham, whose cousin was another of Minter Morgan's supporters (see Note I on p. 26). She edited “Memorials” of his life (privately printed, 1890). From this we learn that in 1838 he was reading Law's Spirit of Love and “liked it very much”. He was a friend and supporter of Laurence Oliphant.

page 31 note 2 Rev. Francis Close 1787–1882, was a diligent pamphleteer who had published his “sermon to the Female Chartists at Cheltenham” in 1839 and issued a sermon “on insipid sermons” in 1867.

page 31 note 3 The Sheffield Iris, 15 04, 1843.Google Scholar

page 32 note 1 Mercury, Leeds, 28 10, 1843.Google Scholar

page 32 note 2 Morgan, J. Minter, The Christian Commonwealth (1845).Google Scholar

page 32 note 3 He published a “Sketch of the State and Progress of the Poor Law Schools at Norwood with reference to Religion” (1843).Google Scholar

page 32 note 4 E. R. Larken. He was so described by Holyoake, G. J. (Sixty Years of an Agitator's Life, 1893, i, p. 237).Google Scholar He had married the daughter of Lord Monson and his rectory was in his father-in-law's park. Linton, W. J., Memories (1895).Google Scholar

page 33 note 1 See The Labourer's Friend, 06 1844.Google Scholar The Labourer's Friend Society was formed in 1831 and had already published Facts and Illustrations demonstrating the important benefits… derived… from possessing small portions of land etc. (1831). Cottage Husbandry; the utility and national advantage of allotting land for that purpose (1835).

page 33 note 2 Letters to a Clergyman, (1846), p. 5.Google Scholar

page 34 note 1 Op. cit.

page 34 note 2 For a full report of the conference op. cit., pp. 155–192 and The People's Journal I (1846), Annals of Industry 46.

page 36 note 1 Rusk, , The Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1949), p. 352.Google Scholar

page 36 note 2 Raven, C. E., Christian Socialism (1920), p. 140.Google Scholar

page 36 note 3 Writing to Lady Cowper-Temple on 29 October 1888, Thomas Hughes said, “It is all but forty years since we first met in Lincoln's Inn Chapel, in the early days of Christian Socialism, of which movement then so vehemently and widely denounced, he was from the first an avowed and liberal supporter, and from his social and public position, ranked more than all the rest of us put together. Memorials printed for private circulation, 1890, p. 151.

page 36 note 4 Buckingham was not only a pioneer town planner in England (Mumford, Lewis, The Culture of Cities, London 1940, p. 394Google Scholar) and the first M. P. for Sheffield, but a pioneer of self-government for the colonies (Cambridge History of the British Empire, Cambridge 1940, ii, p. 405).Google Scholar He was also a notable publicist and founded The Athenaeum, The Sphynx and The Oriental Herald and Colonial Review.

page 38 note 1 It is significant that he included his friend Charles Hall's The Effects of Civilisation (1805) in the series. Hall, who died in 1820, was practically unknown till Morgan produced this edition. Cole, G. D. H., op. cit., p. 35.Google Scholar

page 38 note 2 It should in fairness be said that there were a number of similar schemes in the air. In 1845 a London architect called Moffatt proposed to form an association for the erection of villages within four to ten miles of the metropolis to house 350,000 people at a cost of £ 10,000,000.

page 38 note 3 Pemberton, in this plan, shows himself a disciple of John Hinter Morgan, for not only did he quote Morgan in The Happy Colony in 1854 (on page 209) but in his Address of the following year, To the Bishops and Clergy of all denominations and to all Professors and Teachers of the Christian World, he shared Morgan's hope that the established churches would come to his aid in the project. Indeed, he shows his allegiance, by mentioning Morgan as his friend on page 21 of this work. — Before the Happy Colony, Pemberton had written three other tracts. The Attributes of the Soul from the Cradle, and the Philosophy of the Divine Mother, Detecting the false basis, or fundamental error of the schools and developing the perfect education of man (1849); The Natural Methods of Teaching the elements of grammar for the nursery and infant schools (1851); and The Natural Method of Teaching the Technical Language of Anatomy for the Nursery and Infant Schools (1852). — Afterwards he wrote six more: An Address to the Bishops and Clergy of all denominations, and to all professors and teachers of the Christian World, on Robert Owen's proclamation of the millenial state to commence this year (1855); The Infant Drama: a model of the true method of teaching all languages (1857); (a letter by R. Pemberton on his system of teaching languages) 1857; Report of the proceedings at the inauguration of Mr. Pemberton's new Philosophical Model Infant School, for teaching languages… on the natural or euphonic system (1857); The Science of Mind Formation, and the reproduction of genius elaborated; involving the remedy for all our social evils (1858); An Address to the people on the necessity of Popular Education, in conjunction with emigration, as a remedy for all our social ills (1859).

As might have been expected from these, Pemberton's main interest lay in education. His Address to the Bishops said: “Our present civilisation, under the boarding schoo1 system, is obtained at the cost and sacrifice of health, and muscular and nervous energy, producing empty heads and useless hands. All must be genteel, and consequently useless; and every species of useless occupation must be inverted for the educated classes; but the burden of feeding, clothing, and housing this multitude of useless beings falls on the workmen. This state of villainy or corrupt imbecility cannot last. Every child of man is worth all the stars and worlds in the heavens; but every man that is bred to genteel idleness, is worse than a savage and does indirectly more mischief to society, by reason that others follow like a flock of sheep, the bad example.”

As to the future he was very gloomy: “Excess of population in Great Britain will of necessity bring about a dreadful crisis sooner or later. The gentleman-and-lady imbecile education, by which the nation is of necessity governed, combined with our commercial gambling mania, will if continued, produce ruin and destruction to Great Britain.”

The only tangible result of his labours was the establishment of a school at 33, Euston Square, N.W……, opened on 22nd August 1857, where his son Robert Markham and his two daughters, Charlotte Delia and Elizabeth Mary, taught. This school essayed to practise the ideas embodied in his writings. Languages were to be taught by sound. “Sound”, he wrote, “will become the giant power that will harmonise the human race.” He said that his school possessed a “chromatic barrell organ” to accustom the child to music from birth, and a system of cards for teaching grammar.

page 42 note 1 Balgarnie, R., Sir Titus Salt; His Life and Lessons (1873).Google Scholar