Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T21:43:42.407Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Marriage and the Churches in the 1930s: Royal Abdication and Divorce Reform, 1936–7

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2009

G. I. T. Machin
G. I. T. Machin
Affiliation:
Department of Modern History, University of DundeeDD1 4HN
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In a general history of modern England A. J. P. Taylor stated that by the 1920s England ‘had ceased to be, in any real sense, a Christian nation’. He was no doubt referring to declining membership and attendance figures in most Protestant Churches (not the Roman Catholic Church), and may have been implying that there had been substantial abandonment of traditional belief. In regard to traditional morality, based on Christian precepts, he found greater laxity but no very noticeable decline; and this conclusion seems to be generally supported by Church experience in trying to uphold established morality in the inter-war years. Church assembly records and church newspapers show constant concern with familiar moral enemies such as drunkenness and gambling, and possible new dangers in the shape of films, broadcasting and information about birth control. Gambling was increasing because of the popularity of football pools and greyhound racing, but drunkenness appeared less common than before 1914, and the cinema was reasonably harmless (a Cinema Christian Council and other bodies striving to keep it so), as also was television when its broadcasts began in 1936. None the less, the general decline in church attendance was an indication of an increasingly secularised society in which the Churches, taken as a whole, had diminishing influence, and arguably this had a weakening effect on traditional morality.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , January 1991 , pp. 68 - 81
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Taylor, A. J. P., English History, 1914–45, Oxford 1965, 259.Google Scholar

2 Ibid. 399.

3 Elaine, Kaye, ‘ Constance Coltman, a forgotten pioneer’, Journal of the United Reformed Church History Society iv/2 (05 1988), 134–6Google Scholar; Heeney, B., The Women's Movement in the Church of England, 1850–1930, Oxford 1988, 126–38Google Scholar; Soloway, R. A., Birth Control and the Population Question in England, 1877–1930, Chapel Hill, NC-London 1982, 233–55Google Scholar; Barbara, Brookes, Abortion in England, 1900–67, London 1988, 95–127.Google Scholar

4 E.g. Minutes of Dundee Presbytery of the Church of Scotland, 1 Dec. 1937, Dundee City Archives, vol. of minutes for 1935–9, 260–2; Principal Acts of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland, Edinburgh 1937, 697. 5Chronicle of the Convocation of Canterbury, 1936, I/2. 99 (27 05 1936)Google Scholar.

6 Ibid. 87, also 83–5.

7 Ibid. 243, 246–7. Cf. Norman, E. R., Church and Society in England, 1770–1970, Oxford 1976, 345–6.Google Scholar

8 Tear Book of the Church of England, 1937, 242–3.

9 Part. Deb., 5th ser. cccxvii. 2,094.

10 For detailed accounts of the abdication crisis see Middlemas, K. and Baldwin, J. Barnes: a biography, London 1969, 974–1017; Frances Donaldson, Edward VIII, London 1974, 102 ff; Sarah Bradford, George VI, London 1989.Google Scholar

10 Lang's diary, 29 Jan. 1936; Lockhart, J. G., Cosmo Gordon Lang, London 1949, 395.Google Scholar

12 Ibid

13 Ibid. 397–8

14 Ibid. 398

15 Ibid.

16 Ibid. 400

17 Church Times, 4 Dec. 1936, 643; Lang to Blunt, 7 Dec. 1936, Lang Papers, Lambeth Palace Library, 192, fos 366–7

18 Parl. Dec. cccxviii. 1,611–12.

19 Ibid. 2,203–34; Daily Worker, 12 Dec. 1936.

20 Church Times, 4 Dec, 648.

21 Ibid. 11 Dec, 688.

22 Ibid. 18 Dec, 224.

23 Guardian, 18 Dec, 894.

24 Reports to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, 1937, Edinburgh, 1937, 511.Google Scholar

25 Principal Acts, 1937, 694

26 Universe, 11 Dec. 1936, 14; Dec, 14.

27 Tablet, 5 Dec, 768.

28 Church Times, 11 Dec, 688.

29 Tablet, 12 Dec, 824.

30 Congregational Tear Book, 1936, 114–16.

31 British Weekly, 4 Mar. 1937, 503 (article by ‘Ilico’).

32 Ibid. 11 Mar., 526 (letter from C. H. Langley).

33 Ibid. 10 Dec. 1936, 255; Christian World, 17 Dec, 10.

34 Methodist Times and Leader, 17 Dec.

35 Baptist Times, 17 Dec, 979.

36 Daily Worker, 12 12. (article by R. Palme Dutt). Contrast the constitutional rectitude of the Labour New Statesman: ‘Once Mr Baldwin had made it clear that the Government would not support a morganatic marriage, only the enemies of democracy would have urged that the King was still free to make a personal appeal to the country over the heads of his Ministers’: 12 Dec, 965.Google Scholar

37 Bouquet to Lang, 11 Dec. 1936; Lang Papers, 22, fos 416–17.

38 Lang's secretary to Bouquet, 14 Dec; ibid. fo. 419.

39 Lockhart, Lang, 405.

40 Cf. Geoffrey, Dawson, editor of The Times, to Lang, enclosing newspaper extract, 17 12, Lang Papers, 22, fos 421–2;J.Google Scholar Fox, White Mischief, Harmondsworth 1984, 27, 34, 49.Google Scholar

41 Lockhart, op. cit. 405; New Statesman, 12 Dec, 968.

42 Astor to Lang, 13 Dec; Lang Papers, 192, fo. 370.

43 Sykes to Lang, 13 Dec, ibid. fo. 377; Temple to Lang, 20 Dec, ibid. fo. 425; also ibid. fo. 381.

44 Micklem to Revd Alan Don (Lang's chaplain), 17 Dec; ibid. 22, fo. 423, also 424.

45 Reith to Lang, 14 Dec, ibid. 192, fo. 380.

46 Quoted in Guardian (Church of England newspaper), 18 Dec, 894.

47 Ibid. 1 Jan. 1937, 9–10; 8 Jan., 25.

48 Mew Statesman, 19 Dec. 1936, 1,024.

49 Ibid. 26 Dec, 1,059.

50 Lockhart, Lang, 407.

51 For a detailed account of the bill's origin and progress see Herbert, A. P., The Ayes Have It: the story of the Marriage Bill, London 1937Google Scholar. See also idem, Independent Member, London 1950, 83–5.Google Scholar

52 Parl. Deb. cccxvii. 2,081–3 (Herbert's speech).

53 Mathew to Revd Alan, Don, 22 Jan. 1937, Lang Papers, 152, fo. 301; Universe, 24 12. 1936, 12, 23 04. 1937, 14.Google Scholar

54 Parl. Deb. cccxvii. 2,091.

55 Resolutions of upper house of York Convocation, 21 Jan. 1937, year Book of Church of England, 1938, 238; and upper house of Canterbury Convocation, 2 June 1938, Chronicle of Convocation of Canterbury, 1938, i/4. xii; Lang Papers, 159, fos 297–8 (printed letter, 29 Jan. 1938)Google Scholar; Smyth, C., Cyril Forsler Garbett, Archbishop of York, London 1959, 391–3Google Scholar.

56 Acland to Lang, 26 Nov. 1937; Lang Papers, 148, fos 9–11.

57 Pad. Deb. cccxvii. 2,100 (Sir Francis Acland), 2,104 (Sorensen), cccxxiv. 585–9 (Sorensen).

58 Ibid, cccxxiv. 593.

59 Ibid, cccxvii. 2,118–19. Cf. D. N. Pritt: ‘If it is really true that the dissolution of civil marriages… morally breaks up a nation, why is it that most people in Western Europe recognise that, on the whole, the Swedes and the Danes are among the best, the cleanest, and the most sound and moral people in Europe? They have a wide divorce law, far wider than anything in the Bill’: ibid, cccxxiv. 602.

60 Ibid, cccxxiv. 578–80, 589–93, 604–8, 614–16.

61 Ibid. 580–3 (Commander Bower).

62 Ibid. 630–3.

63 Herbert, The Ayes Have It, 178–90; Parl. Deb. cv. 730–86, 812–48, cvi. 566–94.

64 Revd Alan Don to Mrs Theodore, Woods, 23 Jan. 1937, Lang Papers, 152, fo. 303; printed leaflet, Mar. 1937,Google Scholaribid. fo. 317; Church Times, 27 11. 1936, 616, 4 12, 644, 11 12, 683, 5 03. 1937, 280, 284–5.

65 Lockhart Lang, 235.

66 Parl. Deb. cccxvii. 2,112 (Lieut.-Commander Agnew). Cf. ibid. 2,116–17, and cccxxiv. 632 (E. Thurtle); cccxxiv. 595 (Mrs Mavis Tate).

67 Year Book, 1938, 250–1, 259–61