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The Glasgow Universalist Church and Scottish Radicalism from the French Revolution to Chartism: A Theology of Liberation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2009

Joan Christodoulou
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The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 43 , Issue 4 , October 1992 , pp. 608 - 623
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

1 Meek, D. E., ‘The land question answered from the Bible: the land issue and the development of a highland theology of liberation’, Scottish Geographical Magazine 103 (1987), 84–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarBrown, Callum G., ‘Protest in the pews: interpreting Presbyterianism and society in fracture during the Scottish economic revolution’, in Devine, T. (ed.), Conflict and Stability in Scottish Society 1700–1830, Edinburgh 1990, 84–101, also contests the orthodox views. He writes of worldly Presbyterians who combined support for the economic order and the opportunities it afforded with protest at its injustices.Google Scholar

2 Stedman Jones, G., Languages of Class: studies in English working class history 1832–1982, Cambridge 1983, ch. 3; idem. ‘The language of class’, in James, Epstein and Dorothy, Thompson (eds), The Chartist Experience: studies in working-class radicalism and culture, 1830–60, London 1980, 12;Google ScholarHovell, M., The Chartist Movement, Manchester 1918, repr. 1997, 7.Google Scholar

3 Yeo, E., ‘Christianity in Chartist struggle, 1832–42’, Past and Present 111 (1981), 109–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Faulkner, H. U., Chartism and the Churches, 1916, 19–22, 26–7. These included William Lovett, Joseph Sturge, Edward Miall, William Hill, Joseph Burke and J. R. Stephens.Google Scholar

5 Bebbington, D. W., Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, London 1989, 17, 92–3;Google ScholarCallum, Brown, ‘Protest in the pews’, 87, 90.Google Scholar

6 Wilson, A., ‘Chartism in Glasgow’, in Briggs, A. (ed.) Chartist Studies, London 1967, 249–87.Google ScholarPubMedJohn, Fraser (1794–1879) was a convert and close friend of Neil Douglas who shared his political views. He was imprisoned for his part in the Radical agitation of 1820, but later exonerated:Google ScholarWilson, A., Chartist Movement in Scotland, Manchester 1970, 26;Google ScholarWright, L. C, Scottish Chartism, Edinburgh 1953, 38;Google ScholarEllis, P. B. and MacA'Ghobhain, S.s, The Scottish Insurrection 0f 1820, London 1969, 22–8, 155ff.Google Scholar

7 John, Fraser's biography of Douglas, The Universalist, 2, Liverpool 1851, 347–62;Google ScholarKirkland, W., ‘The Impact of the French Revolution on Scottish Religious Life and Thought’, unpubl. PhD diss., Edinburgh 1951, 129, 134, 179.Google Scholar

8 Sermons on Important Subjects, Edinburgh 1789.

9 Meikle, H. W., Scotland and the French Revolution, Glasgow 1912, 210.Google Scholar

10 Monitory Address, 184–6.

11 Kirkland, , ‘Impact of the French Revolution’, 156;Google ScholarMarwick, A., ‘Social heretics in the Scottish Churches’, Records of the Scottish Church History Society 11 (1951–1953), 227–39.Google Scholar

12 Kirkland, , ‘Impact of the French Revolution’, 136.Google Scholar

13 Journal of a Mission to part of the Highlands of Scotland, Edinburgh 1799, 62.

14 Ibid. 177, Douglas quoting a Coventry minister'sletter to the Scottish press rebutting those charges. See also Kirkland, , ‘Impact of the French Revolution’, 168–70.Google Scholar

15 Ibid 137

16 The Universalist, ii. 351. The leader of the Edinburgh Universalists, James, Purves (1734–95), had published two radical tracts: Observations on Prophetic Time and Similitudes, 1777, which combined antinomian opposition to civil authority with the neo_platonic symbolism of Ramsay, and A Treatise of Civil Government, 1791,Google Scholar on the French Revolution as confirmation of millennial prophecies. See too Rowell, G., ‘The origins and history of Universalist societies in Britain, 1750–1850’, this JOURNAL 22 (1971), 49–51.Google Scholar

17 The Universalist, ii. 353–7. MacWhirter, A., ‘Unitarianism in Scotland’, Records of the Scottish Church History Society 13 (1957–1959), 101–44, refers to the visit of Richard, Wright from the Unitarian Universalist society in Parliament Court, London, to a Unitarian group at the Andersonian Institute in 1809. This was probably Douglas's group, but it was always Trinitarian.Google Scholar

18 Johnston, T., History of the Working Classes in Scotland, East Ardsley 1974, 271;Google ScholarYoung, J. D., The Rousing of the Scottish Working Class, London 1979, 58–9.Google Scholar

19 Trial of Neil Douglas 26 May 1817 for sedition, Edinburgh 1817, 5–18 and MS note.

20 Ibid 22–8;Kirkland, ‘Impact of the French Revolution’, 202;Google ScholarMarwick, , ‘Social heretics’, 229.Google ScholarPeter, MacKenzie, Reminiscences of Glasgow, Glasgow 1865, 446–54, often heard Douglas denounce from the pulpit George, III and his son, Castlereagh and Sidmouth, and the corruption of the House of Commons. He claimed that the hot fire of his eloquence was ‘better than Mr Kean’, and that if the hall had held a hundred thousand it would have been full.Google Scholar

21 Address appended to Trial, 28.

22 The Gospel Communicator or Philanthropist's Journal (1823) i. 2–8; ii. 18.

23 Ibid ii. 391; Whittemore, T., The Modern History of Universalism, London 1830, 299.Google Scholar The Rellyans had let their chapel on Sunday afternoons and evenings, and Pierre Baume started to use it as the ‘Optimist Chapel’ for his society for Promoting Anti_Christian and General Instruction. By 1830 the regular speakers there included the radical carpenter and Spencean, Henry, Medlar, a member of the Rellyan group: I. Prothero, Artisans and Politics, London 1979, 261. Medlar is named in several spies' reports of 1818 and 1819, as PRO HO 42/177, 29 June 1818; HO 42/189, 15JUI. 1819; HO 42/190, 26Jul. 1819.Google Scholar

24 James, Edmunds's journal, Dr Williams's Library and family possession.Google Scholar

25 His evidence is not included in the published minutes, in which all the witnesses are men of long standing in the trade: Parliamentary Papers xiii (1823).

26 Edmunds's, journal. One at least of the congregation must have been a freemason, as Edmunds records that he was made a master mason of the Grand Thistle Lodge in 1829, but found the ritual ridiculous and offensive. His journal does tend to play down his radical sympathies.Google Scholar

27 Drummond, A. L. and Bulloch, James, The Scottish Church 1688–1843, Edinburgh 1973, 194–219. Erskine's theology also influenced the Christian Socialist F. D. Maurice.Google Scholar

28 Buchanan, F. S., ‘The ebb and flow of Mormonism in Scotland, 1840–1900’, Brigham Young University Studies 27 (1987), 27–52.Google Scholar

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30 The Mechanic's Claim, Glasgow 1829, 6.

31 Ibid 12–14.

32 Glasgow Courier, 2 Apr. 1829. Lovett advanced similar arguments for a just wage in his Address to the London Trades Committee, London 1838, 5, in which he warned that without combination workers would be reduced to starving point, since employers could not resist the temptation to reduce wages to increase profits.

33 Johnston, , History of the Working Classes, 244–6;Google ScholarYoung, , Rousing of the Scottish Working Class, 78–81;Google ScholarWilson, , Chartist Movement in Scotland, 26–34.Google Scholar

34 Edmunds's, journal; Brown, J., Religious Denominations in Glasgow, Glasgow 1860, 116.Google Scholar

35 Fraser's, sermon in Gospel Communicator, 3, 201–7.Google Scholar

36 Wilson, Chartist Movement in Scotland, 26–56; Johnston, , History of the Working Classes, 246–8;Google ScholarYoung, , Rousing of the Scottish Working Class, 84–6.Google Scholar

37 Tony, Clarke, ‘Early Chartism: a “moral force” movement?‘, in Devine, , Conflict and Stability in Scottish Society, 106–19.Google Scholar

38 Mechie, S.,The Church and Scottish Social Development, London 1960, 100'17.Google ScholarMacWhirter, A., ‘Unitarianism in Scotland’, Records of the Scottish Church History Society 13(1957–1959), 135, has a reference to an Universalist society in Paisley founded by Douglas, in 1813.Google Scholar

39 Marwick, , ‘Social Heretics’, 231. For Brewster see too Donald C. Smith, Passive Obedience and Prophetic Protest: social criticism in the Scottish Church, 1830–1945, New York 1987, 175–82.Google ScholarSmith, finds dissenters guilty of‘tragic prophetic silence’ and of justifying class inequality: p.58.Google Scholar However, Brown, Callum G. argues that dissent proved a focus for social contest in pews and patronage: ‘Protests in the pews’, 83–105. He argues a fourth approach to Scottish religious historiography which recognises an indigenous plebeian religious culture, at once ‘conformist and protesting’: p. 89.Google Scholar

40 Chartist Circular iv (1837–41) for this meeting.

41 Wilson, ‘Chartism in Glasgow’, 255–6.Google Scholar

42 Chartist Circular iv.Google Scholar

43 Ibid. 30 Nov. 1839, 40.

44 Ibid. 21 Dec, 50.

45 Ibid. 23 Nov., 35–6. See too Faulkner, Chartism and the Churches, 56, on the higher conception of women generally in Chartism, and the formation of Female Chartist Societies. Lovett wanted to make mothers instructors for social and political advancement, companions, not mere drudges, and ‘slaves of our passions’.

46 Ibid. 4 Jan. 1840, 59.

47 Ibid. 25 Jan., 72. This longing to return to fundamental principles and practice was a characteristic of Chartist Christianity: Yeo, ‘Christianity in Chartist struggle’, 122–14.

48 True Scotsman, 16 Feb., 16 Mar. 1839.

49 Wilson, , ‘Chartism in Glasgow’, 260.Google Scholar

50 Gospel Communicator iii 2 Jul. 1827, 208.

51 Lovett, William and Collins, John, Chartism, London 1840, 1–2. Lovett, with James Watson, was a member of the Universalist society at South Place: S. Budd, Varieties of Unbelief, London 1977, 17.Google Scholar

52 Cheap Salvation, preface, 1–17. See too Poor Man's Guardian passim, for Hetherington's universalist principles, for example 25 Apr. 1855, 2, on the ‘natural equality of mankind, equality of condition, founded on the equality of rights and privileges for one and all’.

53 Carwardine, R., Transatlantic Revivalism, Connecticut 1978, 94–7.Google Scholar

54 Meek, ‘The land question’, 84–9.Google Scholar

55 Yeo, Christianity in Chartist Struggle, 132–8;Google ScholarWilson, , Chartist Movement in Scotland, 1426ff.Google Scholar

56 Chartist Circular, 29 Aug. 1840, 197.

57 Ibid