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Adam and Eve: Gender in the English Free Church Constituency

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2009

Clive D. Field
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Extract

The vital contribution of women to the early development of English dissent, especially during the era of the Civil War and Interregnum, has received considerable scholarly attention since the appearance of Keith Thomas's seminal study in 1958. However, the focus of interest has chiefly been on the roles played by individual women as preachers or church founders, and no concerted attempt has yet been made to replicate analyses of New England Puritanism during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries which have highlighted the disproportionate numbers of women in church membership. There has been a similar lack of effort to document the effects of gender in determining English religious practice in the period after 1700, despite the beginnings of academic preoccupation with women's experience of Christianity in the eighteenth to twentieth centuries, and despite an abundance of evidence from sociologists and statisticians since the Second World War about women's greater performance on most indicators of religious belief and behaviour. This brief article therefore hopes to break new ground in assembling evidence about the strength of female support for Protestant Nonconformity in England from 1650 to the present day, using three distinct assessment criteria: membership, attendance, and profession.

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Articles
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The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , January 1993 , pp. 63 - 79
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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References

1 Keith Thomas, , ‘Women and the Civil War sects’, Past & Present xiii (1958), 42–62Google Scholar and Trevor Aston, (ed.), Crisis in Europe, London 1965, 317–40.Google ScholarA selective bibliography of the subsequent literature, too lengthy to appear here, is available from the author.Google Scholar

2 See, in particular, Mary Maples, Dunn, ‘Saints and sisters: Congregational and Quaker women in the early colonial period’, American Quarterly xxx (1978), 582–601, at pp. 590–1Google Scholar (repr. in Janet Wilson, James (ed.), Women in American Religion, Philadelphia 1980, 27–46);Google ScholarMoran, Gerald F., ‘“isters” in Christ: women and the Church in seventeenthcentury New England’, in James, Women in American Religion, 47–65, at pp. 48–53;Google ScholarShiels, Richard D., ‘The feminization of American Congregationalism, 1730–1835’, American Quarterly xxxiii (1981), 46–62.Google Scholar

3 The two most general works are Johnson, Dale A. (ed.), Women in English Religion, 1700–1925, New York 1983,Google Scholarand Gail Malmgreen, (ed.), Religion in the Lives of English Women, 1760–1930, London 1986,Google Scholarthe former a series of extracts from original sources, the latter a collection of new and reprinted secondary articles. Malmgreen comments: ‘Even the most basic facts about sex ratios in church membership and participation are unknown. We do not know either what proportion of all believers were women, or what proportion of all women were believers’ (p. 2).Google ScholarExamples of specialised monographs are Earl Kent, Brown, Women of Mr. Wesley's Methodism, New York 1983;Google ScholarDeborah M., Valenze, Prophetic Sons and Daughters: female preaching and popular religion in industrial England, Princeton 1985;Google Scholarand Brian, Heeney, The Women's Movement in the Church of England, 1850–1930, Oxford 1988.Google ScholarAlso of note is Hugh McLeod's comparative research on religion and gender in nineteenthcentury England, France, Germany and America, which highlights an apparently growing divergence between Roman Catholic and Protestant experience; for an initial report see his ‘Weibliche Frtömmigkeit – männlicher Unglaube? Religion und Kirchen imbürgerlichen 19.Google ScholarJahrhundert’, in Ute, Frevert (ed.), Bürgerinnen und Bürger: Geschlechterverhältnisse im 19. fahrhundert – Zwölf Beiträge, Göttingen 1988, 134–56.Google Scholar

4 As may be expected, the post-war evidence is voluminous, but for a brief overview, with facts and interpretations, see Michael, Argyle and Benjamin, Beit-Hallahmi, The Social Psychology of Religion, London 1975, 71–9.Google ScholarFor a reasonably complete guide to survey and opinion poll data to 1984 containing disaggregations by sex see Field, Clive D., ‘Nonrecurrent Christian data’, in W. F., Maunder (ed.), Religion (Reviews of United Kingdom Statistical Sources) xx, Oxford 1987, 189–504.Google Scholar

5 These data are most conveniently tabulated in Robert, Currie, Gilbert, Alan D. and Lee, Horsley, Churches and Churchgoers: patterns of Church growth in the British Isles since 1700, Oxford 1977, esp. pp. 132–52, 161–6; cf.Google ScholarPeter, Brierley, A Century of British Christianity: historical statistics, 1900–1985, with projections to 2000, Bromley 1989, esp. pp. 9–19, 26–7.Google Scholar

6 Methodist records have only been studied for the period up to 1830, as part of a broader survey of the social composition of early Methodism, the results of which will be reported in a separate article, and for the years after 1945.Google Scholar

7 The locations are – Aylesbury: Buckinghamshire Record Office; Bedford: Bedfordshire Record Office; Birmingham: Birmingham Reference Library; Bolton: Bolton Archives Service; Chelmsford, and Colchester, : Essex Record Office; Gloucester: Gloucestershire Record Office; Hertford: Hertfordshire Record Office; Leicester, : Leicestershire Record Office; Lewes, : East Sussex Record Office; London: Dr Williams's Library, Guildhall Library, Waltham Forest Libraries and Arts Department; Luton: Mr Edgar Young; Manchester: John Rylands University Library of Manchester, Manchester Central Library; Northampton: Northamptonshire Record Office; Norwich: Norfolk Record Office; Oxford: Bodleian Library, Regent's Park College. The author is indebted to his father, Mr J. S. Field of Luton, for undertaking preliminary research in several repositories and for the unfailing willingness of archivists and librarians to provide photocopies of materials in their care. It will be readily appreciated that space precludes the citation of references for each of the 667 lists, but details are available upon request.Google Scholar

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9 As an example we may cite the membership list of the Luton Baptist Church in 1707, consulted by permission of Mr Edgar Young. Of the 267 members only 95 (35.6%) were actually resident in Luton, the remaining 172 being recruited from no fewer than 25 other places in Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire.Google Scholar

10 Needless to say, total accuracy is not claimed for these and the following figures, minimal errors arising from the difficulty of deciphering names in some of the lists and from the laxity of contemporaries in distinguishing between male and female forenames with similar spellings (for example, Francis, and Frances, ) or contracted forms (such as Char, and Christ.).Google Scholar

11 Gilbert, Alan D., Religion and Society in Industrial England: church, chapel and social change, 1740–1914, London 1976, 37–8;Google ScholarCurrie, , Gilbert, and Horsley, , Churches and Churchgoers, 147, 151.Google Scholar

12 John, Clifford, ‘Where are the men?’, General Baptist Magazine 78 (1876), 161 and ‘Religious life in the rural districts of England’, Baptist Hand–Book, 1877, 108.Google ScholarI am grateful to Mr.Field, J. S. and to Mrs.Mills, S. J., librarian archivist of Regent's Park College in Oxford, for their assistance in trying to locate additional information about this survey.Google Scholar

13 Dunn, , ‘Saints and sisters’, 590–1; Moran , ‘“Sisters” in Christ’, 49; Shiels, ‘The feminization of American Congregationalism’, 48.Google Scholar

14 Mitchell, B. R., British Historical Statistics, Cambridge 1988, 21.Google Scholar

15 For an excellent attempt at a comprehensive demographic profile of Nonconformity, matching membership and census data, see Rosemary E., Chadwick, ‘Church and People in Bradford and District, 1880–1914: the Protestant Churches in an urban industrial environment’, unpubl. DPhil diss., Oxford 1986, 132–73.Google ScholarFor a similar, but less rigorous, study of the Baptists alone see Taylor, Leonard C., ‘Warwickshire Baptists, 1851–1921’, unpubl. PhD diss., Birmingham 1991, esp. pp. 337, 358, 379; cf. The Annual Monitor for 1849; or, Obituary of the Members of the Society of Friends in Great Britain and Ireland, for the Year 1848, York 1848,Google Scholartable 1, for a breakdown of the national membership of the Society of Friends by sex within age in 1847.Google Scholar

16 Glass, David V., ‘Two papers on Gregory King’, in idem and Eversley, D. E. C. (eds), Population in History: essays in historical demography, London 1965, 211.Google ScholarThe national aggregate, however, conceals important local variations; cf. Roger, Thompson, Women in Stuart England and America: a comparative study, London 1974, 31–5.Google Scholar

17 Mitchell, , British Historical Statistics, 15. The figures for each census are: 52.3% in 1821; 51.9 in 1841; 51.7 in 1851; 52.1 in 1861; 52.1 in 1871; 52.1 in 1881; 52.3 in 1891; 52.4 in 1901; 52.4 in 1911; 53.2 in 1921; 52.9 in 1931; 52.8 in 1951; 52.5 in 1961.Google Scholar

18 Unpublished research by the author. Figures for each quarter century are: 1751–75, 57.4%; 1776–1800, 56.5% (1.7 more than the Baptists and Congregationalists); 1801–25, 57–7%.

19 The Annual Monitor for 1849, table 1;Google ScholarFox, cf. Joseph J., ‘On the vital statistics of the Society of Friends’, Journal of the Statistical Society of London 22 (1859), 208–31, at pp. 209–10.Google Scholar

20 Easter communicant data for the Church of England are relatively scarce and very localised. Within the diocese of Oxford, to give just two examples, women constituted 53.0 % of communicants at Bucknell in 1700–1723 and 54.5% at Lower Heyford in 1732–1780: Bodleian Library, MS Top. Oxon. e. 11, fo. 50.Google Scholar

21 ‘Events of the month’, British Magazine xii (July–Dec. 1837), 350, 472, 597–8;Google ScholarCharles, Mackie, Norfolk Annals: a chronological record of remarkable events in the nineteenth century, compiled from thefiles of the ‘Norfolk Chronicle’, Norwich 1901, 1. 366.Google ScholarThe five dioceses are Bath and Wells, Lincoln, Norwich, Ripon and York.Google Scholar

22 Neuss, R. F. (ed.), Facts and Figures about the Church of England [2], London 1962, 53.Google ScholarIt should be noted that no data are available for 1941–7 inclusive.Google Scholar

23 The sample derives from a total of thirty–seven printed lists, the vast majority published by the Catholic Record Society. As indicators of actual religious practice confirmation statistics have some degree of equivalence to Nonconformist membership data. They have therefore been used in preference to the papist returns of 1767 which furnish evidence about the Roman Catholic population at the level of confessional allegiance. 50.8% of those identified by Anglican incumbents as Catholics aged twenty and over in that year were women:Google ScholarJean-Alain, Lesourd, Sociologie du calholicisme anglais, 1767–1851, Nancy 1981, 36Google Scholarfor a summary table; Worrall, E. S. (ed.), Returns of Papists, 1767 (Catholic Record Society, occasional publication, i–ii), 2 vols [London] 1980–1989,Google Scholarfor the individual parochial returns.Google Scholar

24 The data are extracted from unpublished reports in the author's possession except for: Baptist (1978): Signs of Hope: an examination of the numerical and spiritual state of churches in membership with the Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland, London 1979, p. xiv;Google ScholarBaptist (1987): Parkinson, Christine E., Baptists in the Inner City of Birmingham, Birmingham 1988, 17;Google ScholarCongregational (1966): Sissons, Peter L., ‘Ethical, Social and Theological Diversity in Contemporary Manchester Congregationalism’, unpubl. MA diss., Manchester 1967, 58–9; United Reformed Church (1979): The Final Report of the Priorities and Resources Group, with Resolutions of the General Assembly, 1980, London 1980, 23;Google ScholarQuaker (1964–1965): Kathleen M., Slack, Constancy and Change in the Society of Friends, London 1967, 80.Google Scholar

25 This ageing process has been well documented through a study of Methodist death rates in the twentieth century:Google ScholarCurrie, , Gilbert, and Horsley, , Churches and Churchgoers, 46–8, 51–2, 181–8;Google ScholarRobert, Currie, Methodism Divided: a study in the sociology of ecumenicalism, London 1968, 100–1.Google ScholarFor the more general relationship between religiosity and ageing see Argyle and Beit–Hallahmi, The Social Psychology of Religion, 58–70.Google Scholar

26 James Edwin, Bradley, ‘Whigs and Nonconformists: Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Baptists in English Politics, 1715–1790', unpubl. PhD diss., University of Southern California 1978, 2. 596, 601;Google Scholarcf. Watts, , The Dissenters, 493–5.Google Scholar

27 Dr Williams's, Library, London, MS 38.4, 104–5.Google Scholar

28 Richard, Edmonds, ‘A statistical account of the parish of Madron, containing the borough of Penzance, in Cornwall’,Google ScholarJournal of the Statistical Society of London 2 (1839–1840), 232–3.Google Scholar

29 Salmon, D. J. (ed.), Malton in the Early Nineteenth Century (North Yorkshire County Record Office Publications xxvi), Northallerton 1981, 80.Google ScholarIt should be noted that this source cites only ratios, not the raw data.Google Scholar

30 St James's, Gazette, 13 June 1881 and ‘Census of congregations of the City churches and chapels’, Journal of the Statistical Society 65 (1881), 596–601.Google Scholar

31 Cf. Jeffrey, Cox, The English Churches in a Secular Society: Lambeth, 1870–1930, New York 1982, 25–7, 282, 288–92.Google Scholar

32 See appendix for details of sources. Attention should also be drawn to two other local censuses carried out in the 1900s, at Dewsbury and in three districts of Liverpool, whose published results are too incomplete to warrant inclusion here:Google Scholarsee George, Coates, ‘Temperance notes’, Methodist New Connexion Magazine civ (1901), 81;Google ScholarRowland, Wilfrid J., The Free Churches and the People: a report of the work of the Free Churches in Liverpool by the special commissioner... together with recommendations of the Commission of Enquiry, statistical tables, map, –126;Google Scholarwomen comprised 54.1 % of attenders at meetings for worship and mission meetings (50.9% at meetings for worship alone).Google Scholar

33 The unusually low proportion of women in West Cumberland congregations in 1902 may well be due, at least in part, to the fact that the census was taken on an exceedingly stormy day when attendances were widely reported to have been as low as one-third of the average. In such a rural area, with indifferent transport and road conditions, bad weather could possibly have deterred women from going to church more than men. In a major conurbation, by contrast, where transport and roads presented no real problem, adverse weather may have had the opposite effect, women proving relatively more loyal to their churchgoing than men. Certainly, amongst the Baptists of London County in 1902–1903, there was a higher proportion of women in the congregations on wet and stormy days (61.6%) than on fine ones (58.5%); calculated from Richard, Mudie-Smith (ed.), The Religious Life of London, London 1904, passim.Google Scholar

34 This figure conceals an interesting variation by age group, the proportion of women in the Nonconformist worshipping constituency falling from 62.3% for 17–24 year olds, to 56.8% for 25–49 year olds, to 54.7% for the 50 and over category. For another, but confusingly presented, disaggregation of churchgoers by sex within age, deriving from a questionnaire survey in 56 Liverpool churches in 1930–1931,Google Scholarsee Jones, D. Caradog (ed.), The Social Survey of Merseyside, Liverpool 1934, 3. 332.Google Scholar

35 Prospects for the Eighties: from a census of the Churches in 1979 undertaken by the Nationwide Initiative in Evangelism, London 1980, 23–46;Google ScholarPeter, Brierley, Prospects for the Nineties: trends and tables from the 1989 English church census, London 1991, 21–47;Google Scholarcf. Peter, Brierley, ‘Christian’ England: what the 1989 English church census reveals, London 1991, 79–90, 209.Google ScholarFor more detailed criticisms of the 1979 census see Field, ‘Non–recurrent Christian data’, 193–4, 237–8; Church Growth Digest v (1984), 8; and, especially, an unpublished memorandum prepared in Dec. 1980 by Alan, Isaacson, research officer for the census.Google ScholarFor equivalent studies in Wales and Scotland see Peter, Brierley and Byron, Evans, Prospects for Wales: report of the 1982 census of the churches, London 1983, 28–61;Google ScholarPeter, Brierley and Fergus, Macdonald, Prospects for Scotland: report of the 1984 census of the churches, Bromley 1985, 38–103.Google Scholar

36 Hugh, McLeod, Religion and the Working Class in Nineteenth-Century Britain, London 1984, 14;Google Scholaridem. ‘New perspectives on Victorian class religion: the oral evidence’, Oral History xiv (1986), 31–49, at pp. 33–4.Google Scholar

37 Field, ‘Non-recurrent Christian data’, 389–404.Google Scholar

38 The 1963 figures have been calculated from a line-printer analysis of the dataset prepared for the author by arrangement with Clive Payne of Nuffield College, Oxford in 1976. A copy of the dataset has since been made available through the ESRC Data Archive at the University of Essex (study number 1090). The 1989 figures derive from a set of unpublished tabulations of Social Surveys (Gallup Poll) Limited which was supplied by the Bible Society Research Department.Google Scholar

39 For a brief guide to the sources see Field, ‘Non-recurrent Christian data’, 284–5 and the references cited therein. It is especially unfortunate that, outside of Northern Ireland, a census of religious profession has never been undertaken as part of the decennial civil census, despite attempts to legislate for this possibility in connection with the censuses of 1861–1891;Google ScholarMichael, Drake, ‘The census, 1801–1891’, in Wrigley, E. A. (ed.), Nineteenth–Century Society: essays in the use of quantitative methods for the study of social data, Cambridge 1972, 17–19.Google Scholar

40 For details of those conducted up to 1982, indicating the availability of analyses by sex, see Field, ‘Non-recurrent Christian data’, 365–87.Google Scholar

41 Based upon unpublished data from the archives of Mass-Observation at the University of Sussex (1948) and Social Surveys (Gallup Poll) Limited in London (1978 and 1992). Fieldwork dates and job numbers are as follows: Apr.–May 1948 (48c), 22 Feb.–17 Apr. 1978 (CQ608–15A), and 3–10 Mar. 1992 (CQ210/A/B/C). It should be noted that the questions asked on each occasion were not strictly comparable. In1948 information about denominational allegiance appears to have been sought within the context of churchgoing, however irregular, whereas in 1978 and 1992 the question was of the ‘What is your religious denomination?’ type. This doubtless explains why more than three times as many respondents claimed to have no religion in 1948 (25.5%) than in 1978 (8.3%).Google Scholar

42 Susan, Budd, Varieties of Unbelief: atheists and agnostics in English society, 1850–1960, London 1977, 94–5;Google ScholarEdward, Royle, Radicals, Secularists and Republicans: popular freethought in Britain, 1866–1915, Manchester 1980, 130–1;Google ScholarCampbell, Colin B., ‘Membership composition of the British Humanist Association’, Sociological Review n.s. 13 (1965), 327–37, at p. 331.Google Scholar

43 For example, Sheils, W. J., ‘Oliver Heywood and his Congregation’, in Sheils, W. J. and Diana, Wood (eds), Voluntary Religion (Studies in Church History 13, 1986), 269.Google Scholar