In this thoughtful and important book Carys Brown builds on the recent historiography on interconfessional relations in early modern England bringing to her study the work of Naomi Tadmor and others on sociability and friendship. In doing so she provides a fresh understanding of the tensions which existed between members of differing religious persuasions in the half century following the Act of Toleration. That Act, which granted freedom of worship to most Protestant dissenters whilst still placing barriers before them in certain spheres of public life, particularly in those quintessential establishment institutions of the law and the universities, was itself riven with contradiction, made apparent in the disputes over the control of ‘public religion’ in the years following 1689. In theory the Act widened participation for dissenters in parochial government, recognising their equality in the matter of local office-holding, but practice was often slow to follow the law. This was especially true where Quaker presence was strong, as in Hertford in 1738 where the official of the archdeaconry court determined it ‘very Improper for members of the Church to put the Care of their Church and of its Service under those who Dissent from It’ (p81) when faced with a potential Quaker churchwarden. That case went to court but such exclusion could also be less formal; in the vestry minutes of Yardley, also in Hertfordshire, in 1719 dissenters were literally marginalised in the listing of residents, being placed at the bottom and lined off from the main listing, though it is fair to acknowledge that in the case of one family at least they were described as ‘good natured people’. Dissenters were not always the victims of a grudging authority, but actively sought to exploit the opportunities offered by the Act to claim their place in public life, legitimating the rivalry between dissent and the Established church. This rivalry was especially strong in the growing suburbs of the capital and in other urban centres, and nothing could be more public than the erection of a new church or chapel. Thus in 1714 the parishioners of St Mary Magdalene, Bermondsey petitioned for a new church on the grounds that many people were forced to attend the dissenting meeting house for want of a church of their own at the far end of the parish. Bureaucratic hurdles meant the church remained unbuilt in 1725 so that, ‘The Dissenters gain greatly upon us under this Misfortune’ and they had in fact increased the number of meeting houses in the parish in the intervening years. Despite the attempts of the authorities to place hindrances in their way, in this religious market-place dissent proved very effective. At Denton in Norfolk a large Independent meeting house was built in the centre of the parish attracting a congregation of over 180, much to the exasperation of the vicar who found himself left with a congregation of ‘not more than 20’. Meeting houses remained contested territory throughout the period, but their success in maintaining a strong and vocal presence at the heart of many communities demonstrates the extent to which the Act enabled dissenters to claim a public and inclusive role in national life.
This public success was significant, but what of more private spaces? Here we turn from the consideration of neighbours to that of friends. Brown opens her study with an arresting extract from the diary of a young Presbyterian, Anne Dawson, who was invited to a social meeting of her peers in a house in Rochdale in 1722. Clearly, they were from families who were known to each other in the town but, hoping for agreeable conversation Anne was appalled by the appearance of a pack of cards. Refusing to play, she and her sister attended to their needlework and, on arriving home, Anne recorded her discomfiture. While Dissenters could claim success in achieving public recognition, social practices were less easily negotiated. As has been remarked often politeness, or civility, were important markers of membership of society, and this posed problems for Anne Dawson and others like her. As formal recognition of Dissenters’ rights became common, so languages of social interaction became powerful tools for exclusion, hence the discomfiture of young Miss Dawson. Her scruples might lead to a charge of impoliteness from her peer group and, in more tense political contexts, even one of hypocrisy. These were difficult boundaries to negotiate: to be recognised as a neighbour was one thing, to be recognised as a friend another. Most church goers could probably agree on the undesirability of drinking alcohol in excess, but practices such as cards and dancing were more ambiguous measures of irreligion. The dilemma for dissenters was to show full participation in the state by sharing somewhat in the prevailing culture whilst at the same time preserving their own cultural identity, given that it was now less easy to identify themselves through ‘sufferings’. In such circumstances social activities tended to become ghettoized, even the coffee-house was not immune. In 1707 a violent pamphlet war broke out in Exeter between churchmen and dissenters in which the loyalties of particular coffee houses were deemed to a major source of the unrest. Of course there were several cases of adherents of differing denominations attending such places, but it is important to mark out the significant proportion of the middling sort who did not engage with the prevailing culture of consumption and pleasure with which these years have been associated. It meant that many dissenters maintained a clear distinction between their neighbours and their friends. As revealed in many diaries of the time, most social interactions were with co-religionists. The difficulty here was that overscrupulousness risked the accusation of hypocrisy, and it is at this point that we encounter Catholicism, if not Catholics.
It had long been a trope of some High Churchmen that, whether willingly or not, Dissent was in cahoots with Popery by allowing Catholics to exploit divisions within the Protestant nation. One purpose of the Act was to strengthen the nation against popery by drawing the dissenting churches more fully into the life of the nation. In this context the charge of hypocrisy was potentially very damaging. When applied to Catholicism, the charge was directed not at individuals but at its institutions; clergy, sacraments, papacy. It was one of professing loyalty to one institution, the state, whilst holding loyalty to another, the papacy. For many individual Catholics questions of sociability carried no difficulty, especially among the gentry. Easy relations between the Constable family and their non-Catholic peers in the East Riding were well recognised in the 1730s, and were essential to survival more generally in the difficult years after 1715 and 1745. Hunting, dining and gentlemanly pursuits could produce benefits for Catholics in ways which were beyond the pale for dissenting gentlemen.
Death was the one event which all faced, and the social practices associated with that provide us with insights into the power of the categories discussed above. Funerals were community events and it was important to recognise the passing of individuals properly, thus they were a good test of the strength of inter confessional relations. It is clear that denominational mixing was both common and expected at funerals, the pious Anne Dawson attended the funeral of her local vicar in 1712, drawing comfort from the event, and in 1733 the Dissenting minister Peter Walkden was surprised that the local gentleman had restricted attendance at his funeral to his own tenants, thus preventing other neighbours from paying their respects. Even Quakers anticipated that neighbours who were not Friends would attend their burials, and Hardshaw Monthly Meeting recorded the attendance of ‘many friends and others’ at funerals in 1719 and 1723. The Dissenting minister Matthew Henry attended the funeral of his local vicar who ‘sent to desire that I would pray for him’ and later his own funeral in 1714 was ‘attended by large numbers’ (p100). There were some cases, however, of High Church clergy refusing burial to dissenting parishioners and, to some degree, the growth in licensed burial grounds following the 1689 Act, gave them grounds for such exclusion, but these disputes were probably the exception and often brought criticism from other Anglican clergy. As we know from northern parishes Anglican clergy were often willing to connive at, or at least turn a blind eye to, burials of their Catholic parishioners in the churchyard, even with the presence of a priest on occasion. Furthermore a funeral gave the family of the deceased the opportunity to demonstrate their public affirmation of loyalty to the state and their commitment and generosity to their neighbours by the provision of hospitality and even charity on the day of the funeral, as did the Catholic Salvin family at Durham soon after the accession of George I. Dr Brown has provided a rich narrative and a finely nuanced argument welding together diverse strands in recent historiography into a major contribution to lively field of historical debate to religious, social and political historians, as well as those concerned with shifts in cultural practices. There is much to be pondered in this excellent book.
