Hartwick College
The term Dissenter refers to a number of Protestant denominations –, , , Congregationalists, and others– which, because they refused to take the Anglican communion or to conform to the tenets of the restored in 1662, were subjected to persecution under various acts passed by the Cavalier Parliament between 1661 and 1665. Examples of the attempts which were made to discourage them were the Act of Uniformity, which required all churches in England to use the , and punished those who would not comply, and the Five Mile Act, which prohibited ministers who were ejected because of the Act of Uniformity from coming within five miles of their former parishes or of any town or city.
After the Toleration Act was passed in 1689, Dissenters were permitted to hold services in licensed meeting houses and to maintain their own preachers (if they would subscribe to certain oaths) in England and Wales. But until 1828 such preachers remained subject to the Test Act, which required all civil and military officers to be communicants of the Church of England, and to take oaths of supremacy and allegiance. Though this act was aimed primarily at Roman Catholics, it nevertheless excluded Dissenters as well.
The Bristol 1832 Reform Bill Riots
-A Late Victorian-
Alexander Charles Ewald, F. S.
A serious riot which happened in Bristol . . . more than justified a proclamation that was issued by the Government, denouncing the political unions which had been got up in Manchester, Birmingham, and other large towns as illegal and unconstitutional. Sir Charles Wetherell, the conspicuous opponent of reform, was recorder of Bristol, which on the 29th of October he entered with a display of pomp befitting a judge of assize, and was received by the populace with yells, hootings, and throwing of stones. Having opened the commission of peace in the Guildhall, he threatened to commit to prison any person who could be pointed out to him as contributing to the disturbance that was going on outside. This added fuel to the flame of popular fury, and by the time he reached the Mansion-house the mob had routed the police and were attacking that building.
The impetuous baronet escaped in disguise, clambering over the roofs of neighbouring tenements; but the mayor, a reformer, and his fellow officials were besieged in the Mansion-house. To force their way into it the rioters tore up the iron palisades, and converted them into weapons of destruction. Walls were thrown down to furnish bricks, which were hurled through the upper windows, and straw and other combustibles were placed in the dining-room for the purpose of burning the building. In a few moments more it would probably have been in flames, but at this critical juncture the military appeared, and succeeded in driving off the mob.
On Sunday another attack was made on the Mansion house. During the night it had been barricaded as well as circumstances would admit, but the crowd soon forced their way in. The only persons in it were the mayor, Major Mackworth, the undersheriff, and seven constables, all without firearms or other means of defence. Finding, it necessary to provide for their own safety, the little party made their way out upon the top of the house, through one of the front windows, and hiding themselves from the view of the mob behind the parapets of the buildings, they crawled along till they reached the custom-house, into which they got admission by a window, then quietly descended into a back street, and made their way without molestation to the Guildhall. The mob was now in possession of the Mansion-bouse. Some destroyed the furniture, and threw it out of the windows; others descended into the cellars, and drank and wasted the wine. The troops were now brought back; but the rioters, flushed with victory, maddened with drink, and exasperated by the death of a man who had been shot by a sentinel the night before, received them with a shower of stones, bottles, and bricks. Meanwhile a detachment of the mob bad attacked the bridewell, beaten in the doors, liberated the prisoners, and set the governor's house on fire. The city gaol shared the same fate, as did also the Mansion-house, which was attacked once more. The bishop's palace was next reduced to ashes, two sides of Queen Square were burnt down, and an attempt to set on fire the cathedral was only defeated by the efforts of some of the more respectable citizens. Reinforcements of troops at length arrived, who, charging the rioters and cutting down all who resisted, at length restored tranquillity.
This Bristol mob consisted of not more than 500 or 600 men, mostly young; and they committed all the dreadful havoc which has been described in the face of the municipal authorities and of some 20,000 of the orderly inhabitants, who were attending to their usual and peaceful Sunday duties. Much blame was attributed to the mayor and aldermen, as well as to Colonel Brereton, for their want of decision and co-operation. They were all brought to trial about a year later. The civil officers were acquitted; but the unfortunate colonel, before his trial was concluded, got distracted with the conflict of his feelings, and shot himself through the heart. About the same time that this terrible destruction of life and property took place at Bristol there were riots at Bath, Worcester, Coventry, Warwick, and other towns, with results more or less serious.
How did the Tories recover
after the 1832 Reform Act?
Rachel Turner, A-Level student,
Rotherham College of Arts and Technology
How did the recover so well after the passing of the in 1832 as to win the general election of 1841? From 1832 onwards the ' popularity as a governing party was in serious decline for various reasons. They were running out of ideas by 1835; there was increasing economic depression developing; defections to the other side of the House occurred; the Whig ministries witnessed the rise of public pressure groups; the Whigs left behind a £ 37 1/2 million budget deficit and were viewed as being cynical and devious after the Litchfield House Compact. In comparison, Conservative Party strength showed a dramatic increase after the passing of the Reform Act due to party organisation under the Carlton Club and Registration Societies, the strength of Peel as a politician and the Conservatives' willingness not to use their power and influence in the House of Lords unconstitutionally.
A major factor in the Tory Party's strength after the passing of the 1832 Reform Act was in fact the Act itself, which united the party against further reform. After the resignation of the Whigs over reform, Peel refused to serve in a Tory Party that pledged reform because he did not see the need for any further reform. The key event in the formation of Peel's Conservatism was the 1832 Reform Act. However, Peel rapidly came to accept parliamentary reform as a fait accompli and in doing so distanced himself from the Ultras. At the same time he recognised the need for a strong government to conserve the fundamental institutions of Britain was imperative, given the strength of Radicalism. As he stated in 1833, “The best position the government could assume would be that of moderation between opposite extremes of Ultra-Toryism and Radicalism”.
Party organisation was another reason for the Tories' success in the 1841 election. In 1832 the Carlton Club was set up under Sir Francis Bonham as the Conservative Party headquarters, which was the nerve centre of information. However, the effectiveness of the club was restricted by the dislike of centralisation and lack of funds. Also, other Conservative associations were founded throughout the constituencies which dealt with registration and canvassing, and sometimes selected and financed candidates. Solicitors were the backbone of constituency organisations, especially for registration.
Peel was the major player in the Conservative Party's recovery. Peel led the Tory Party as a non-factional opposition which supported modest and judicious reform, as laid down in the 1834 Tamworth Manifesto. Peel made the Conservative Party coherent and united and he is seen by Gash as the "founder of modern Conservatism." Peel's strength can be seen in the way he successfully constructed a modern Conservative Party from the Tory fragments shattered by the passing of the great Reform Act. Peel took up the position of Prime Minister in 1834, although he had no majority, out of a sense of duty. He saw himself as the King's Minister. Shortly after becoming PM for the first time, he wrote, “I do not hesitate to say that I feel that I can do more than any man can who means his reforms to work practically and who respects and wishes to preserve the British constitution”.
The incomparable achievement of forming a strong party based on conservative principles brought its reward when Peel was in a clear majority at the 1841 election. As PM, Peel dominated his cabinet and seemed to dominate his party; his masterly performance during his 1841-6 ministry has rarely been equalled. described Peel as the greatest parliamentarian that ever lived, though the remark was not meant as a compliment.
The conservatives never used their power in the House of Lords unconstitutionally to veto Whig legislation and to a great extent supported some Whig legislation. This is another reason for their recovery. As Peel stated in 1832: "I have no desire to replace the Honourable Gentlemen opposite." The Conservatives consequently supported the 1833 Coercion Bill for Ireland, the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act and the 1835 Municipal Corporations Act. Peel used the Conservative majority in the House of Lords as a brake on Whig legislation, but had to rely on Wellington to keep the Lords in line. Peel refused to go for tactical victories to overthrow the Whigs, because that would display the Conservatives' factionalism and lack of conviction to their own principles.
In addition, the foundations of the Conservative recovery began with the movement of reformers across the floor of the House of Commons to the Conservative Party. MPs such as Sir James Graham and Lord Stanley crossed the floor, taking their supporters with them, thus giving the Conservatives added strength. In contrast to such success, the Whigs were clinging on to power on the strength of their own reputation and after 1837, that of the young queen. By 1835 the Whigs were out of steam. They had done everything they set out to do: granted parliamentary reform under the 1832 Reform Act; abolished slavery and passed a measure of factory reform in 1833; changed the costly system of poor relief with the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act; and reformed local government with the 1835 Municipal Corporations Act. As reflected, “I am for holding the ground already taken, but not for occupying new ground rashly”. Melbourne was also not spending his time on the duties of a PM and was more interested in "tutoring" Queen Victoria.
Another reason for the Whigs' loss of popularity was the economic depression which developed into the Hungry Forties (1837-42). The electorate held the Whigs responsible for the depression, as they had little understanding of economic philosophy and had no positive programme of social and economic reform. The Whigs also became increasingly unpopular with party members and defections occurred.
1835 onwards marked the rise of public pressure groups. In 1838 Cobden and Bright organised the nation-wide organisation led by the manufactures, the Anti-Corn-Law League, campaigning for the repeal of the . Two years later the working class began to crusade for a political Utopia under Chartism. In addition an Anti-Poor Law campaign led by Tory radicals was in full swing throughout the north of England. Such agitation created a revolutionary atmosphere in the country which the Whigs could not handle and consequently were seen as being weak as they did not deal harshly with the Chartists.
The Whigs also created a government debt of £ 37 1/2 million, which made them even more unpopular with the electorate. The Whigs' only attempt at economic reform, the setting up of a Select Committee on import duties, was a disaster. The Whigs obviously could not "handle the books." The Whigs also managed to disillusion middle-class supporters over factory reform; the Poor Law Amendment Act lost the Whigs their middle-class support in the industrial towns.
The Whigs were viewed as cynical and devious after the Litchfield House Compact. Since issuing the Tamworth Manifesto, Peel strengthened his position as Prime Minister so much so that the Whigs had to resort to a pact with Ireland –the Litchfield House Compact– to remove Peel from office. The Compact made it look as thought the Whigs were office-seeking at any price and they returned to power at the risk of opening up the Irish Question again. In fact the Whigs did nothing for Ireland. The Compact only caused trouble as the Irish were used for English political capital, setting the trend for nineteenth century politics.
In the light of the Whigs' incompetence, the Tory Party from 1832 became the strongest political force in the country. However, the Conservative Party was not as strong as it appeared. After 1841 the Tory Party's strength was starting to decline with friction within the party over Peel's free trade budgets of 1842, '43 and '45, the 1844 Factory Bill and ultimately the repeal of the in 1846. Peel was consciously leading his followers where they did not want to go, pushing them into nineteenth century industrial England. The Conservative Party had apparent rather than real unity and it was only the fears of greater democracy, revolution and being out of office that held the party together. Peel's real offence was to disregard, almost without warning, principles which his supporters cherished and to which he himself professed unquestioning devotion, especially over the Corn Laws, which suggests that his Toryism was only skin-deep.
When Peel, himself a landowner, decided to move towards free trade in his budgets, ending with a total repeal of the Corn Laws, hardly anyone in the party, apart from the Peelites, trusted him, but they knew Peel was the only one who could gain them office and maintain them there. They believed they could control him and keep the party stable. When they discovered they could not, the party collapsed.
Corn Laws
Davy Cody, Associate Professor of English,
Hartwick College
The Corn Laws, in force between 1689 and 1846, were designed to protect English landholders by encouraging the export and limiting the import of corn when prices fell below a fixed point. They were eventually abolished in the face of militant agitation by the Anti-Corn-Law-League, formed in Manchester in 1839, which maintained that the laws, which amounted to a subsidy, increased industrial costs. After a lengthy campaign, opponents of the law finally got their way in 1846 –a significant triumph which was indicative of the new political power of the English middle class.
The Reform Act Crisis
Marjorie Bloy, Ph. D.
Although men such as John Wilkes and Major John Cartwright had made demands for the reform of parliament in the 1760s there had been no systematic reform made in the eighteenth century. Certainly after the French Revolution, no Prime Minister in Britain was prepared to advocate parliamentary reform. The Whig opposition, however, took the issue as one of their electoral platforms and Earl and began to press for a major Reform Bill as early as 1793.
By 1830 two major constitutional changes had been made: the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts and the passing of Catholic Emancipation. Both these pieces of legislation were put through parliament by 's government with the assistance of , his leader in the House of Commons.
Following his election success in November 1830, the Duke of Wellington was forced to resign after making a speech in which he pledged not only not to introduce any measure for parliamentary reform but also to oppose any reform proposals. Grey formed a ministry which was pledged to introducing a Reform Bill and he asked Lord John to prepare the legislation. On 1 March 1830 the Bill was presented to the House of Commons, passing its second reading by only one vote at the end of the month. The government was then defeated on an amendment to the Bill and Grey resigned. The ensuing general election was fought solely on the question of reform and saw the return of the Whigs with a massive majority. Grey took this to be a mandate for continuing with the reform proposals.
Since the first Bill had not passed through all the required stages of debate and vote, committee and discussion by the time the parliamentary session had ended in the summer of 1831, Russell had to introduce a new Bill in the new session. This passed the Commons but was defeated in the House of Lords on 8 October 1831. The House of Lords was dominated by the Tories, led by the Duke of Wellington; the Lords deliberately rejected the Bill because the legislation was intended to curtail the power that the Lords previously had exercised over the election of MPs.
Grey was reluctant to ask parliament to discuss the issue of reform yet again but Thomas Attwood and other leaders of the Political Unions organised a huge campaign to demand the passing of the legislation. There were outbreaks of violence in Derby, Nottingham, London and Bristol. Grey attempted to defuse the situation by agreeing to the introduction of a third Bill. The terms of this Bill were so new that only Russell knew what it contained: he was still attempting to dry the ink on the paper as he entered the Commons to present the proposals.
This third Bill passed the Commons and was sent to the Lords on 26 March 1832. The Lords threatened to reject it so Grey resigned. Wellington attempted to form a ministry but was unable to form a Front Bench in the Commons because Peel refused to join the Duke. William IV sent for Grey who agreed to resume office but only on the condition that the king would create sufficient new Peers to ensure the passage of the Bill through parliament.
Whilst the politicians argued and bargained the people resorted again to violence. The Duke of Wellington, always eager to avoid bloodshed, ordered the Tory Lords either to vote for the Bill or to absent themselves from the session when the vote was taken. Over two hundred Tory Lords missed the vote and the Bill passed through the House of Lords on 7 June 1832.
Although the legislation is referred to as the "Great Reform Act" its –although far reaching at the time– were quite moderate.
The Church of England
Davy Cody, Associate Professor of English,
Hartwick College
Protestantism established a precarious toehold in England very shortly after Luther's initial protest in 1517, but for many years Protestants remained a tiny minority, frequently persecuted. There was, however, widespread discontent both at the extent of corruption within the English Catholic Church and at its lack of spiritual vitality. A pervasive anti-clerical attitude on the part of the population as a whole and in Parliament in particular made it possible for Henry VIII to obtain an annulment in 1533 of his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) in the face of papal opposition, and in 1534 the Act of Supremacy transferred papal supremacy over the English Church to the crown. It was not until the 1550's, however, under Edward VI, that the English Church became Protestant in doctrine and ritual, and even then it remained traditional in organization. Under the Roman Catholic Mary I a politico-religious reaction resulted in the burning at the stake of some prominent Protestants and the exile of many others, which led in turn to a popular association of Catholicism with persecution and Spanish domination. When Elizabeth I succeeded to the throne in 1558, however, she restored a moderate Protestantism, codifying the Anglican faith in the Act of Uniformity, the Act of Supremacy, and the Thirty-Nine Articles.
From the time of the Elizabethan settlement on, the Church of England (the Anglican Church) attempted, with varying degrees of success, to consolidate its position both as a distinctive middle way between and and as the national religion of England. Under Charles I, the "popish" High-Church policies of the William Laud alienated the Puritan wing of the Church, and after the victory of Cromwell's (frequently Puritan) parliamentarians over Charles's (frequently Catholic) Royalists in the Civil Wars of 1642-1651, the Anglican Church, by now the Church of England, was largely dismantled.
The Puritan emphasis on individualism, however, made the establishment of a national during the Interregnum impossible, and the Restoration of the Monarchy under Charles II in 1660 facilitated the re-establishment of the Anglican Church, purged of Puritans, who split into various dissenting factions. It remained the official state church until the passage of the Toleration Act in 1690, which permitted to hold meetings in licensed preaching houses. Thereafter it grew both politically and spiritually weaker, and the eighteenth century found it largely unprepared for the serious spiritual challenge which was implicit in the appearance of .
At the time of the birth of the Methodist movement in the late eighteenth century, there were 13,500 Anglican priests in England, but only 11,700 livings (fixed incomes derived from Church lands and tithes and attached to a particular parish) to support them, and many of the livings paid so poorly that many priests held more than one. Some priests, too, thanks to political and social influence, controlled more than one of the wealthy livings. In addition, the Church was far too dependent upon political and economic interests to reform itself: half of all livings were granted by landowners, and the government had the right to appoint all bishops, a number of prebends, and hundreds of livings, so that it is not exaggerating too much to say that the Church became, to a considerable degree, the preserve of the younger sons of members of the aristocracy who had little interest in religion and less interest in the growing numbers of urban poor. There were, in consequence, over 6,000 Anglican parishes with no priests at all, and it was into this void that the Methodist evangelicals stepped.
In the nineteenth century the Church of England remained a middle way, but had to widen its doctrines considerably. This process was facilitated to a considerable degree in part because many upper-class Anglicans, tired of doctrinal disputes, wanted only a rational, moderate, practical religion which would permit them to worship in peace. This "Latitudinarian" outlook made it possible for the Church to absorb not only the which, fuelled by the same energies which had given birth to Methodism, broadened the Anglican Low-Church faction, but also the which, fuelled by the same activist impulses, presided over the revival of a High-Church faction at the other extreme. During the greater part of the nineteenth century the Evangelicals remained dominant among the clergy, but the universities had become bastions of the High-Church faction. At the same time, the emancipated Catholics, and this put still more pressure on the Church, as . Meanwhile, the faction received governmental support which was out of all proportion to its size. In the mid-nineteenth century, then, the Church of England was disorganized. Though its adherents were largely conservative, a considerable portion of its leadership was, ideologically speaking, perilously close to Catholicism, and the religious census of 1851 showed that it was reaching only about fourteen percent of the population of England.
Although the real authority of the Church diminished thereafter, evangelical fervour diminished as well, and there was a considerable movement of industrial wealth from the old Nonconformists to the established church. The and the universities, even after they were freed of religious restrictions, remained bastions of Anglicanism, and in 1919 the Church attained a still greater degree of unity when, after the passage of an act which effectively separated Church and State, it established an assembly which would, fifty years later, become the main legislative body of the Church.
Roman Catholicism in
Nineteenth-Century Great Britain
George P. Ladow, Professor of English and Art History,
Brown University
The Roman Catholic Church, which forms the largest body of Christians in the world, had a comparatively minor role in nineteenth-century England, Wales, and Scotland. Ever since Henry VIII founded the (or Anglican Church), the Catholic minority who had remained faithful to the Church of Rome often found themselves looked upon with suspicion and denied many civil rights, including that of serving in Parliament, owning certain kinds of property, and attending Oxford, Cambridge, and other major universities, which existed in large part to train Church of England clergy.
Several nineteenth-century events markedly changed the position of British Catholics and their church. First, , including the right to serve in the legislature. In 1840 Parliament followed this dramatic change in the condition and power of Roman Catholics by disestablishing –or removing the official tax-supported status of– the Anglican Church in predominantly Catholic Ireland. The , began as a reaction to what , , , and others believed was an illegal and unchristian interference by government in the affairs of God's Church. Ironically, it ended by defending many Catholic practices and rituals, such as elaborate ritual, confession, celibacy, and monastic orders, long rejected by British Protestants. As Newman and some of the other Tractarians attempted to distinguish Protestant from Catholic positions on the basis of church history and traditions, they found themselves drawn to the faith they had initially attacked and ended by converting to a religion considered subversive and fundamentally anti-British. When in 1850 Pope Pius IX , including parishes and dioceses, many in Protestants feared the worst, and their fears only increased when the Vatican Council of 1869-70 declared the Pope's pronouncements on morals and doctrine , or incapable of error.
Puritanism in England
David Cody, Associate Professor of English
George P. Landow, Professor of English and Art History
Brown University
The Puritan movement was a broad trend toward a militant, biblically based Calvinistic Protestantism –with emphasis upon the "purification" of church and society of the remnants of "corrupt" and "unscriptural" "papist" ritual and dogma– which developed within the late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century . Puritanism first emerged as an organized force in England among elements –Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists, for example– dissatisfied with the compromises inherent in the religious settlement carried out under Queen Elizabeth in 1559. They sought a , and advocated, in consequence, the attacks upon the Anglican establishment, the emphasis upon a disciplined, godly life, and the energetic evangelical activities which characterized their movement. The wing of the Puritan party was eventually defeated in Parliament, and after the suppression in 1583 of Nonconformist ministers, a minority moved to separate from the church and sought refuge first in the Netherlands and later in .
By the 1660s Puritanism was firmly established amongst the gentry and the emerging middle classes of southern and eastern England, and during the Civil Wars the Puritan "Roundheads" fought for the parliamentary cause and formed the backbone of Cromwell's forces during the Commonwealth period. After 1646, however, the Puritan emphasis upon individualism and the individual conscience made it impossible for the movement to form a national Presbyterian church, and by 1662, when the Anglican church was re-established, Puritanism had become a loose confederation of various Dissenting sects. The growing pressure for religious toleration within Britain itself was to a considerable degree a legacy of Puritanism, and its emphasis on self-discipline, individualism, responsibility, work, and asceticism was also an important influence upon the values and attitudes of the emerging middle classes.
Puritan Attitudes Towards Culture
George P. Landow, Professor of English and Art History,
Brown University
According to 's History of England from the Accession of James II, which points out many otherwise impressive qualities of the Puritans, their ideology left no room for many forms of innocent pleasure: "It was a sin to hang garlands on a Maypole, to drink a friend's health, to fly a hawk, hunt a stag, to play at chess, to wear lovelocks, to put starch into a ruff, to touch the virginals [a predecessor of the piano], to read the Fairy Queen. Rules such as these, rules which would have appeared insupportable to the free and joyous spirit of Luther, and contemptible to the serene and philosophical intellect of Zwingle, threw over all life a more than monastic gloom. The learning and eloquence by which the great reformers had been eminently distinguished, and to which they had been, in no small measure, indebted for their success, were regarded by the new school of Protestants with suspicion, if not with aversion. Some precisions had scruples about teaching the Latin grammar because the names of Mars, Bacchus, and Apollo occurred in it. The fine arts were all but proscribed. The solemn peal of the organ was superstitious. The light music of Ben Jonson's masques was dissolute. Half the fine paintings in England were idolatrous, and the other half indecent."
Presbyterianism
Davy Cody, Associate Professor of English,
Hartwick College
The term Presbyterianism pertains to a church of Calvinistic origin. In England and in Scotland it involved a system of church government by presbyteries of ministers and elders. No higher rank than that of presbyter or elder was recognized, and all elders were ecclesiastically of equal rank. Each Presbyterian congregation was governed by its session of elders, each session was subordinate to provincial presbyteries, and these were, in their turn, subordinate to the General Assembly of the Church. Episcopacy, abolished in Scotland after the Covenant in 1638, was re-established after the Restoration in 1662, and the result was open warfare between the Calvinist and the government which was resolved in favour of the Covenanters only after the Glorious Revolution of 1688. The Church of Scotland ("the kirk") adopted a fully Presbyterian system of church government in 1690, but the government successfully avoided the imposition of a Presbyterian theocracy. During the eighteenth century the Church, less and less severely Calvinistic, was challenged on one side by the Episcopalians and on the other by the remnants of extreme Presbyterianism. Presbyterianism was also the most prominent branch of the English Nonconformist or before weakened it in the eighteenth century. Jacobites were supporters of the claim to the British
Methodism
Davy Cody, Associate Professor of English,
Hartwick College
Methodism was a religious movement, led by Charles and John Wesley and by George Whitefield, which originated as a reaction against the apathy and the emphasis on logic and reason that characterized the in the early eighteenth century. The term was originally applied to a religious society which was established at Oxford University in 1729 by Whitefield and the Wesley brothers (nicknamed the "Holy Club," its members were pious young men who, in order to promote piety and morality, observed strict rules of fasting and prayer). Subsequently, it was applied to a variety of evangelical religious groups who took their original inspiration from the movement's founders, whose views on certain subjects were very different. Whitefield, for example, accepted many traditional Calvinistic views, while the Wesleys tended toward and rejected, in particular, the Calvinist doctrine of predestination, insisting that if a man could acquire through the intercession of the Holy Ghost the conviction that Christ loved him and had sacrificed himself for him, his sins would be forgiven. Conservative members of the Church of England in the mid-eighteenth century found the Methodist emphasis on private revelation and religious enthusiasm repugnant, but that same enthusiasm would become a central aspect of nineteenth-century
John Wesley, the central figure in the Methodist movement, was a man of considerable intellect and enormous energy. During his lifetime he travelled, mostly on horseback, over a quarter of a million miles, and preached over forty thousand sermons, many in the open air, before audiences which were frequently hostile. He built up an enormous following, however, among the labouring poor of the new industrial areas, whom the established Church of England had tended to neglect, and by the late eighteenth century there were hundreds of Methodist chapels, presided over by itinerant lay preachers. Methodism was very much a religion of the poor, and had a great deal to do with a revolution in English religion which was as radical in its effect, in its way, as was the Industrial Revolution itself.
The social and political impact which the movement exerted upon its main constituency was, however, rather ambiguous. Wesley, who advocated a was politically and socially conservative, and many Wesleyan leaders supported child labour and opposed the teaching of writing in Sunday Schools. On the other hand, other Methodists were much more openly democratic and concerned with working-class issues, taking an active role in the development of trade unions and in radical political activities. The movement remained officially within the Church of England, on however precarious a basis, until after John Wesley's death in 1791, after which it splintered into a number of factions of various sizes which were not reintegrated until the united Methodist Church of Great Britain was established in 1932.
Evangelicalism
Davy Cody, Associate Professor of English,
Hartwick College
Evangelical, a term literally meaning "of or pertaining to the Gospel," was employed from the eighteenth century on to designate the school of theology adhered to by those Protestants who believed that the essence of the Gospel lay in the doctrine of salvation by faith in the death of Christ, which atoned for man's sins (see .) Evangelicalism stressed the reality of the "inner life," insisted on the total depravity of humanity (a consequence of the Fall) and on the importance of the individual's personal relationship with God and Savior. They put particular emphasis on faith, denying that either good works or the sacraments (which they perceived as being merely symbolic) possessed any salvational efficacy. Evangelicals, too, denied that ordination imparted any supernatural gifts, and upheld the sole authority of the Bible in matters of doctrine. The term came into general use in England at the time of the revival under Wesley and Whitefield, which had its roots in Calvinism and which, with its emphasis on emotion and mysticism in the spiritual realm, was itself in part a reaction against the "rational" Deism of the earlier eighteenth century. Early in the nineteenth century the terms "Evangelical" and "" were used indiscriminately by opponents of the movement, who accused its adherents of fanaticism and puritanical disapproval of social pleasures. The Evangelical branch of the Anglican Church coincided very nearly with the "Low Church" party.
Baptists
Glenn Everett, Associate Professor of English,
University of Tennessee at Martin
The first English Baptist congregation (practicing adult baptism by total immersion) was founded by John Smyth in Holland in 1608. The movement, like other , grew in strength during the Interregnum (1649-60). After that time theological differences provoked a split between Particular and General Baptists that was not reconciled until 1891.
The Doctrines of Evangelical Protestantism
George P. Landow, Professor of English and Art History,
Brown University
The of the Church of England (the established church) flourished from 1789 to 1850, and during that time increasingly dominated many aspects of English life and, with its dissenting or nonconformist allies, was responsible for many of the attitudes today thought of as "Victorian." These heirs of the seventeenth-century Puritans believed:
➢that human beings are corrupt and need Christ to save them [thus the emphasis upon puritanical morality and rigidity]
➢that (in sharp contrast to the High Church Tractarians) the church hierarchy and church ritual are not as crucial to individual salvation as a personal conversion based on an emotional, imaginative comprehension of both one's own innate depravity and Christ's redeeming sacrifice [thus the emphasis upon an essentially Romantic conception of religion that stressed imagination, intensity, and , and also upon the Bible, which could provide such imaginative experience of the truths of religion] What effects would you guess Evangelicalism had upon fiction? Poetry?
➢that converted believers must demonstrate their spirituality by working for others [thus Evangelical zeal in missionary work, Bible societies, anti-slavery movements, and many social causes]
➢that the converted will be persecuted and that such persecution indicates the holiness of the believer (since Satan has much power over man and his world) [thus Evangelical willingness to speak on behalf of unpopular causes and, rather annoyingly to many contemporaries, to take any political, social, or religious opposition as a martyrdom]
➢that God arranged history and the Bible, of which every word was held to be literally true, according to elaborate codes and signals, particularly in the form of typology, an elaborate system of foreshadowings (or anticipations) of Christ in the Old Testament [thus Evangelical emphasis upon complex integrated symbolism and upon elaborate interpretation of everything from natural phenomena and contemporary history to works of art and literature]
Quakers
The Society of Friends in Victorian Britain
Suzanne Keen, Assistant Professor of English,
Washington and Lee University
Origins
Funded in England in the seventeenth century by George Fox (1624-1691), the Society of Friends is a radical (pacifist) Protestant sect with roots in the period of the English revolution. Their quaint-sounding thees and thous, and their practice of keeping hats on indoors derive from George Fox's determination not to make signs of obeisance to any man, including the king. Since Quakers understand the spiritual life in entirely inward terms, they do not employ sacraments or other outward forms in worship.
Inward Light
The doctrine of the Inward Light justifies Quakers' speech as the prompting of the Spirit. As any member may be "moved by the Spirit" to witness, all members at meeting for worship are potential ministers, and Quaker women preached or spoke in meeting from early days, eliciting Dr. Johnson's remark:
Sir, a woman preaching is like a dog walking on its hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.
More positive views of Quaker worship can be found in Charles Lamb's essay, "A Quakers' Meeting" (The Essays of Elia).
Quakers in the Eighteenth Century
In the eighteenth century Quakers developed the style of primarily silent worship and plain living that characterizes them in the popular imagination. They grew prosperous as tradesmen, bankers, and merchants, and the fervour of early Quakerism solidified into more rigid practices, as the sect became quietist theologically, and by extension, politically.
Quakers in the Nineteenth Century
Celebrated causes such as the abolition of slavery and prison reform made Quakers more prominent in the nineteenth century, although their membership shrank until the 1860s, when the automatic "disownment" of Friends who married non-Quakers ceased. Membership stayed near 16,000 during the Victorian period, growing very modestly towards the end of the century. Quakers' eschewing of sacraments (including baptism), their silent worship, and their extremely close-knit, well-to-do communities made conversion to membership in the Society of Friends as unusual as it was difficult to achieve.
Faith and Practice
Unlike other Christians, Quakers do not have a creed, but they answer in quarterly meetings a set of Queries concerning their faith and practice. (Five editions of the Friends' Book of Discipline record the changes made during the Victorian period.) Queries of particular relevance to Victorian Quakers included those regarding opposition to paying church rates, bearing arms, smuggling, and slavery. Though resigned his cabinet post in 1882 in protest of the British attack on Alexandria (having opposed British policy in the Crimea three decades earlier), the peace testimony associated with twentieth-century Friends was not a prominent cause for Victorian Quakers.
Two Victorian Friends
The that touched some Victorian Friends influenced the character of Quakers' philanthropic activities begun or inspired by the work of Elizabeth Gurney Fry. By far the most famous British Quaker in the Victorian period, Mrs. Fry in fact ceased her public work soon after Victoria ascended the throne. Between 1813, when she first visited the women prisoners in Newgate, and her death in 1845, Mrs. Fry earned an international celebrity. To Victorians, she was an icon of philanthropic reform, celebrated for her work with women prisoners in jails and on transportation ships, with the insane, the homeless, with prisoners on hulks, and with juvenile offenders.
In the political realm, rose to prominence as a leader of the Anti-Corn-Law League. Bright's opposition to legislation protecting factory workers reflects his allegiance to free trade, for he was a manufacturer and adherent of the "Manchester School" of economics, as well as an advocate of many reform causes.
Quakers and Victorian Literature
Two women writers of the Victorian period, Mary Howitt and Sarah Stickney Ellis, were raised in the Society of Friends. Mrs. Ellis, author of The Women of England (1839), converted to Congregationalism upon marriage, but remained friendly to Quakers. While editor of Fisher's Drawing Room Scrapbook, she honoured Mrs. Fry. The autobiography of the poet Mary Howitt conveys many details of Quaker life in the Victorian period. F. D. Maurice employs a Quaker interlocutor as a device in his theological work, The Kingdom of Christ; or hints respecting the Principles, Constitution, and Ordinances of the Catholic Church (1838; rev. 2nd. ed 1842). Quaker characters appear in 's Sylvia's Lovers (1863), and makes a Quakeress his heroine in Marion Fay (1871-72).
