No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
The Romance of the slum: Gender and Cross-Class Communication of Religious Belief, 1880–1920*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
Despite relatively low working-class church attendance over the nineteenth century, evidence of religious practice in working-class households and a more diffuse religious mentality have been identified by historians, even until the mid or late twentieth century. Yet little analysis has been undertaken into how such a mentality was created. While Cox noted of late nineteenth- century Lambeth that the most successful churches were those which contained vast philanthropic networks, elsewhere he claimed that ‘philanthropy … did little to promote definite Christian belief. Indeed, both he and Williams regarded schools as the primary agency for conveying religious teaching: Cox claiming that Board schools were more effective than Sunday schools, Williams, that Sunday schools provided not only a means of instilling religious belief in children but a form of ‘religion by deputy’ for their parents.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2006
Footnotes
*
Previous versions of this paper were presented at trie Women’s History Network Tenth Annual Conference, The Women’s Library, London Guildhall University, September 2001, and to the WHN Midlands Region Annual Conference, November 2001. I am grateful to the organizers and participants for their comments and questions, and to Angela John for subsequent comments on the text.
References
1 McLeod, Hugh, Religion and Society in England, 1850–1914 (Basingstoke, 1996), 59–70, 223.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2 Williams, S. C., Religious Belief and Popular Culture in Southwark, c.1880-1939 (Oxford, 1999), 126–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3 Cox, Jeffrey, The English Churches in a Secular Society (Oxford, 1982), 93–128.Google Scholar
4 Brown, Callum, The Death of Christian Britain: Understanding Secularisation, 1800–2000 (London and New York, 2001), 170–5 Google Scholar; McLeod, Hugh, Secularisation in Western Europe, 1848–1914 (Basingstoke, 2000), 7–8.Google Scholar
5 Davie, Grace, Religion in Britain since 1945: Believing without Belonging (Oxford, 1994), 199.Google Scholar
6 Cox, English Churches, 178, 101.
7 Ibid., 187–90.
8 Williams, , Religious Belief 134, 126–62.Google Scholar
9 The seminal text being Mearns, Andrew’s The Bitter Cry of Outcast London (London, 1883).Google Scholar
10 Most recently, Koven, Seth, Slumming (London, 2004).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
11 Behlmer, George K., Friends of the Family: the English Home and its Guardians 1850–1940 (Stanford, CA, 1998), 31–72 Google Scholar; Prochaska, F., Women and Philanthropy in Nineteenth-Century England (Oxford, 1980), 97–137 Google Scholar; Walkowitz, J., City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London (London, 1992), 52–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
12 Koven, , Slumming, 183 Google Scholar; Ross, Ellen, Love and Toil: Motherhood in Outcast London, 1830–1910 (Oxford, 1999), 15–16.Google Scholar
13 For example, in Yates, Nigel, Anglican Ritualism in Victorian Britain, 1830–1910 (Oxford, 1999)Google Scholar; Ross, Love and Toil, 12. For sisterhoods and deaconess orders, see Gill, Sean, Women in the Church of England From the Eighteenth Century to the Present (London, 1994), 146–69 Google Scholar. But see also Morgan, Sue, ‘The Power of Womanhood: Religion and Sexual Politics in the Writings of Ellice Hopkins’, in Hogan, Anne and Bradstock, Andrew, eds, Women of Faith in Victorian Culture (Basingstoke, 1998), 209–25 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Prochaska, Women and Philanthropy, 11, 39, 106, 139, 191.
14 Martin, Mary Clare, ‘Isabella Gilmore, 1843–1923’, in ODNB 22: 307 Google Scholar. Church of England Record Centre (hereafter CERC), ‘Reminiscences of Isabella Gilmore from 1886’, CWMC/19/4, 24–6, 48–9, 51–2.
15 Grierson, Janet, Isabella Gilmore: Sister to William Morris (London, 1962), 9 Google Scholar. CERC, CWMC/16/5, 16 March 1924. Talk on Isabella Gilmore’s Life, Southwark and Rochester Deaconess Institution, 2.
16 Census of Great Britain, 1881 RG 12/75, P. 23; 1891 RG 13/89, p. 25, fol. 16.
17 Freeman, F. L., Religious and Social Work Amongst Girls (London, 1901), 138.Google Scholar
18 Martin, Mary Clare, ‘Flora Lucy Freeman, 1869–1960’, ODNB 20: 925.Google Scholar
19 Freeman, F. L., Thoughts on St Francis of Assisi: Selected and Arranged for Every Day of the Year (London, 1925).Google Scholar
20 Personal information, with thanks, from the Rt Rev. G. H. Thompson.
21 Peterborough Citizen, 23 Nov. 1920. Annual Reports of the National Council for the Abolition of the Death Penalty, 1925–47.
22 Osborne, Charles E., The Life of Father Dolling (London, 1903)Google Scholar; Dolling, R. R., Ten Years in a Portsmouth Slum (London, 1898), 74.Google Scholar
23 Martin, , ‘Gilmore’, 307–8.Google Scholar
24 Deaconess Gilmore: Some Memories Collected by Deaconess Elizabeth Robinson (London, 1924), 31 and 34.Google Scholar
25 Lambeth Palace Library (hereafter LPL), G4423 R6, Deaconess Institution for the Diocese of Rochester, Annual Report of the Head Deaconess, 27 Jan. 1893, 5.
26 LPL, Annual Report, 27 Jan. 1893, 6.
27 CERC, Gilmore, , ‘Reminiscences’, 27 Google Scholar; Freeman, , Religious and Social Work, 29, 77.Google Scholar
28 Freeman, F. L., Our Working Girls and How to Help Them (London, 1908), 10–24.Google Scholar
29 Freeman, F. L., ‘How to Start a Local Club Union’, Girls’ Club journal 1. 3 (October 1909), 60–1 Google Scholar. The London Girls’ Club Union was founded in 1880.
30 Federation of Working Girls’ Clubs Handbook, No. 1, 12.
31 Martin, , ‘Freeman’, 924–5.Google Scholar
32 Freeman, , Religious and Social Work, 120–34.Google Scholar
33 Ibid., 76–7.
34 Catholic Women’s League Magazine: the Organ of the Catholic Women’s League (hereafter CWL Magazine), April 1924, No. 150, 9.
35 Guide Association, archive dept., Warrant returned by Miss F. L. Freeman, captain of 6th Hove C.W.L., 12 March 1923, WR, 12.6.1924.
36 CWL Magazine, April 1919, No. 90, 7; ibid., April 1924, No. 150, 9.
37 Westminster Abbey Muniments (hereafter WAM), Donaldson Papers, 10, Diary of the Rev. F. L. Donaldson (personal), 8 May 1888; Bettany, F. G., Stewart Headlam: a Biography (London, 1926), 83.Google Scholar
38 WAM, Donaldson Papers, 5, St Mark’s Parish Magazine, 1905.
39 Collette, Christine, For Labour and For Women: the Women’s Labour League, 1906–1918 (Manchester, 1989), 54, 137, 196 Google Scholar; Peterborough Citizen, 23 November 1920; Annual Reports of the National Council for the Abolition of the Death Penalty (1925–47).
40 WAM, Donaldson Papers, 5, Goodwill, 3 May 1903, 43.
41 Clayton, J., Father Dolling: a Memoir (2nd edn, London, 1902), 11, 15.Google Scholar
42 Dolling, , Ten Years, 24.Google Scholar
43 Ibid., 43.
44 Osborne, , Dolling, 267–8.Google Scholar
45 Clayton, , Dolling, 22, 116–17.Google Scholar
46 Ibid., 123.
47 Grierson, , Gilmore, 150–2.Google Scholar
48 Ibid., 114–16.
49 Ibid., 125.
50 CERC, Gilmore, , ‘Reminiscences’, 35–7.Google Scholar
51 Ibid., 33.
52 Ibid., 41.
53 Grierson, Gilmore, 123.
54 LPL, Annual Report, 27 Jan. 1893, 8.
55 LPL, Annual Report, Jan. 1889, 3.
56 Grierson, , Gilmore, 113.Google Scholar
57 Freeman, , Religious and Social Work, 70.Google Scholar
58 Ibid., 2–12.
59 Ibid., 74, 94.
60 Freeman, F. L., Polly: a Study of Girl Life (London, 1904), 78, 154—5.Google Scholar
61 Ibid., 96, 100, 104.
62 Ibid., 99.
63 Freeman, , Religious and Social Work, 75.Google Scholar
64 Ibid., 77–8, 101.
65 Freeman, F. L., On the Right Trail: Friendly Counsel for Catholic Girl Guides (London, 1921), 31–3, 80, 102.Google Scholar
66 GCJ, Jan. 1909, Vol 1, No. 1, 21; CWL Magazine, Feb. 1922, No. 124, 3.
67 Letter Sarah Louise Donaldson to Euan Donaldson, 12 March 1924. Possession of the Rt Rev. G. H. Thompson.
68 The League Leaflets, 1913.
69 Butler, B. J., ‘Frederic Lewis Donaldson and the Christian Socialist Movement’, unpublished M.Phil. thesis, University of Leeds, 1970, 148–9 Google Scholar. Letters SLD to ED, 12 March, 8 April 1924.
70 WAM, Donaldson Papers, 5, St Mark’s Parish Magazine, 1905.
71 Bettany, , Headlam, 96.Google Scholar
72 Personal information, December 1990, from Eanswythe Thompson (1897–1993).
73 Peterborough Citizen, 23 Nov. 1920.
74 WAM, Donaldson Papers, 5, St Mark’s Parish Magazine, 1906.
75 Sarah Louise Donaldson, ‘Lady Wimborne and Ceremonialism’, Church Times (1903, repr., author’s possession).
76 WAM, Donaldson Papers, 4d (Mrs Donaldson’s Papers), The Spiritual Welfare of the Child, National Baby Week Council, No. 62.
77 Collette, , For Labour and for Women, 58–92.Google Scholar
78 Sarah Louise Donaldson, Women’s Place in the Nation (author’s possession).
79 Letter SLD to ED, 1924. Possession of the Rt Rev. G. H. Thompson.
80 Dolling, , Ten Years, 50 Google Scholar; Yates, W. N., The Anglican Revival in Victorian Portsmouth (Portsmouth, 1983)Google Scholar, Portsmouth Papers, No. 37,12, citing Hampshire Telegraph, 15 Feb. 1896.
81 Osborne, , Dolling, 49 and 85.Google Scholar
82 Dolling, , Ten Years, 45.Google Scholar
83 Portsmouth City Record Office, CHU 10/3A, Winchester College Mission (St Agatha’s), Annual Reports 1883–1894, No. 8, Annual Report by Rev R.R. Doiling 1894, Vicar Designate, 6.
84 Bell, G. K. A., Randall Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury (Oxford, 1935), 211–12.Google Scholar
85 McLeod, Hugh, Piety and Poverty: Working-Class Religion in Berlin, London and New York, 1870–1914 (London and New York, 1996), 155–6.Google Scholar
86 Martin, , ‘Freeman’, 924–5.Google Scholar
87 CWL Magazine, Sept. 1920, No. 107, 2–3.
88 Bettany, , Headlam, 224.Google Scholar
89 See Hascombe, Alan, Robert Dolling, Mission Priest: a Biographical Sketch (London, 1907), 22–3.Google Scholar
90 See dedication to Osborne, Dolling.
91 Ibid., 84.
92 Cox, , English Churches, 270–4.Google Scholar
93 See also Williams, , Religious Belief, 134–6.Google Scholar
94 Grierson, , Gilmore, 204–27 Google Scholar; Yates, , Anglican Ritualism, 283 Google Scholar; Collins, Marcus, Modern Love: an Intimate History of Men and Women in Twentieth-Century Britain (London, 2003), 63–8 Google Scholar. CWL Magazine, Jan 1929, No. 207, 5. Leicester Evening Mail, Sat April 23, 1932.