3
CHABTISM AND THE CHURCHES
STUDIES IN HISTORY, ECONOMICS AND PUBLIC LAW
EDITED BY THE FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
Volume LXXIII] [Number 3
Whole Number 173
CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES
A Study in Democracy
BT
HAROLD UNDERWOOD FAULKNER, Ph.D.
it*
THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONGMANS, GREEN & CO., AGENTS
LONDON : P. S. KING & SON, LTD.
1916
>/? S 57 7
COPYRIGHT, 1916
BY
HAROLD UNDERWOOD FAULKNER
PREFACE
THE real significance of the Chartist movement has
only recently been realized. Its apparent sudden col-
lapse under circumstances humiliating to its followers has
enabled the average bourgeois historian to dismiss the
whole subject with a few remarks emphasizing chiefly
some humorous incidents of the closing scene. The in-
fluence of the movement in arousing the English proleta-
riat to a class consciousness and in preparing them for
their inevitable share in the political structure of English
democracy has never been adequately appreciated, while
the part taken by the Chartists and their leaders in the
various reform movements of the time has been almost
ignored. Outside of the interesting and straightfor-
ward history of Gammage, a prominent Chartist, most
of the attention devoted to the subject has been by
French and German scholars, the sum total of which,
however, has been astonishingly small when the impor-
tance of Chartism is considered.
By the religious and political radical the idea that
organized Christianity as represented in the churches has
ordinarily been opposed to progress, especially scientific
and political, has long been accepted as a truism.
Ardent churchmen, on their side, aroused by the taunts
of their opponents and under the spell of an expanding
democracy and new conceptions of social justice, have in
recent years endeavored to picture Christ as the first
great reformer and his teachings as a platform advanced
enough for the most radical. Realizing that a large
469! 5
6 PREFACE [470
clement of truth underlies the arguments of both groups
and with no intention to answer generally any of the
questions involved, the author has thought it worth while
to take some important movement in favor of democracy
and examine as closely as the available sources permitted
the attitude of the various churches toward it. Because
of the slight attention heretofore given it and because
of its unique position as the first distinctly proletariat
agitation of modern times the Chartist movement has
been chosen.
In the preparation of this essay the author is largely
indebted to Professor James T. Shotwell, under whose
direction the work was done and from whose criticisms
the thesis has profited; to Professor Edwin R. A. Selig-
man, who put at his disposal the Chartist collection in
his private library; to Professor William Walker Rock-
well of Union Theological Seminary, who read the thesis
and made numerous suggestions; and to his Father,
Professor John Alfred Faulkner ot Drew Theological
Seminary.
H. U. F.
MADISON, N. J. f April 10 ', 1916.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE. 5
CHAPTER I
ATTITUDE OF CHARTISM TOWARDS THB CHURCH
I. Religion of the Working Classes 9
II. Chartism and Christianity 19
A. Chartist Interpretation of Christianity 19
B. Christianity and Politics 23
III. Attitude of the Chartists Towards the Church and Clergy 28
IV. Program of the Chartists in Respect to the Church 33
V. Visits to the Churches 35
CHAPTER II
CHARTIST SUBSTITUTIONS FOR THE PREVAILING CHRISTIANITY
I. Christian Chartist Churches . 42
II. Education 46
III. Temperance and Teetotalism 52
IV. Other Reforms 56
CHAPTER III
ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES TOWARDS CHARTISM
I. The Church of England 59
A. The Church as a Whole . 59
B. The High Church or Oxford Movement 68
C. The Broad Church 75
II. The Wesleyan Methodist Church and Its Offehoots 80
III. The Other Nonconformist Churches 96
IV. Scotland 107
CHAPTER IV
THE POSITIVE CONTRIBUTION OF THE CHURCH TO THE CHARTIST MOVEMENT
I. The Work of the Clergy no
II. The Complete Suffrage Movement 115
471] 7
g CONTENTS [472
i
FACE
APPENDICES
I. Petition of the Complete Suffrage Conference of April, 1842, to the House
of Commons 121
II. Chartist Gospel A New Revelation 123
III. The Church of England and Chartism 126
IV. A Prayer Recently Delivered At the Opening of a Chartist Church in
London 129
V. Rules and Objects of the East London Chartist Temperance Associa-
tion 131
VI. Charles Kingsley's Appeal to the Chartists of April 12, 1848 .... 133
BIBLIOGRAPHY 135
Edward
CHAPTER I
ATTITUDE OF CHARTISM TOWARDS THE CHURCH
I. RELIGION OF THE WORKING CLASSES
The Reform Bill of 1832 was the first notable result of
the Industrial Revolution upon the constitutional frame-
work of the English Government. It increased the
electorate and recognized the distribution of population
in the awarding of representation. But the Reform Bill
of 1832 was not a democratic measure. Although both
the middle and lower classes had contributed to the
struggle for its adoption only the former benefited from
it. The lower bourgeoisie and proletariat, comprising
the majority of the population, were still left without the
vote, and to them the Reform Bill was to be but the
first step toward an ultimate democracy.
When the smoke of the struggle cleared away, the
great class still disfranchised discovered that not only
had they reaped no benefit from the reform they had so
largely helped to win, but that their lot under a re-
formed Parliament dominated by the doctrines of the
Manchester School seemed to be worse than ever. The
political discontent of the people was at last given voice
in 1838 when the People's Charter was launched under
the supervision of the London Working Men's Associa-
tion. The demands of the People's Charter which
formed the program of the Chartist movement were six
in number and included manhood suffrage, annual par-
liaments, vote by ballot, abolition of property qualifica-
473] 9
I0 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [474
tion for seats in Parliament, payment of members of
Parliament and division of the country into equal electoral
districts. 1
Although the manifestations of Chartism were political,
its causes were largely economic. 3 The unparalleled
social misery of the people 3 gave to the Chartist move-
ment a stimulus which made it in a sense but a sequel to
the agitations for factory reform and in opposition to the
New Poor Law. The attainment of the Charter was
expected to usher in the social millennium. But the most
significant feature of Chartism was that it was the first
distinctive workingmen's movement of modern times, 4
and the Charter contained both their ideal of political
justice and their hope of social amelioration. 5
Gammage, History of the Chartist Movement, new ed. (London,
1894), Appendix B, where the Charter is given.
* Rogers, Six Centuries of Work and Wages, 6th ed. (London, 1901),
p. 440; Walpole, History of England, rev. ed. (London, 1902-5), iv,
50; Carlyle, Chartism, chapter i; Rose, Rise of Democracy (London,
1897), pp. 129, 130 ; Wisconsin Academy of Science, Arts and Letters
(Madison, 1900), xii, 567.
J Parliamentary Papers.
4 Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific (London, 1892), Intro-
duction, p. xxx.
* It is outside the field of the monograph to enter into a history of
the Chartist Movement. The leading studies covering it will be found
in the bibliography under the heading " General Works " under
" Chartism." The chief source is the remarkably interesting but
detailed running account of R. G. Gammage, a prominent participant
in the agitation, in his History of the Chartist Movement, 18371854
(London, new ed., 1894). Failure to consider the social and economic
phases of the movement is its chief weakness. Next in importance to
Gammage is Eduard Dolleans' Le Chartisme,2\o\s. (Paris 1912), strong
in its development of the social and political theories of the proletariat
but disappointing to the student for its lack of footnotes. Tildsley in
his Die Entstehung und die okonomischen Grundsdtze der Chartisten-
bewegung (Jena, 1898) deals intelligently with the economic back-
ground and Dierlamm (Die Flugschriftenliteratur der Chartistenbewef-
4751 ATTITUDE OF CHARTISM TOWARDS CHURCH ZI
In this first great struggle of the proletariat the ques-
tion as to the attitude of organized Christianity, as repre-
sented by the Church of England and the dissenting
bodies, early presented itself. Would these churches
officially keep out of the struggle entirely or would they
line up on one side or the other? With the vast polit-
ical and spiritual power of the churches enlisted in the
cause of democracy success was assured; without their
co-operation the struggle would be infinitely harder.
It is to an examination of the relationship of the English
proletariat to the church during the years of the Chartist
movement that the following pages are devoted.
In a study of the relationship between the Chartist
movement and the church some attention should be given
in the first place to the state of religion amongst the
working class and the type of religion, if any, professed
by them. The extraordinary increase of population fol-
lowing the English industrial revolution, an increase
which in less than 150 years more than quadrupled the
population of England alone, 1 could not fail but have its
effect upon the religious life of the country. If the Es-
tablished and Nonconformist churches were able ap-
proximately to take care of the population in 1750, the
reverse was true seventy-five years later. Population,
especially in the large towns which sprang up with aston-
ishing rapidity 2 all over Great Britain, had long since
ung und ihr Widerhall in der offentlichen Meinung, Leipzig, 1909)
with the pamphlet literature and its effect. Carlyle's Chartism (1839) is
merely an interpretation.
'The population of England in 1750 was about 6,467,000 ; in 1911 about
34,045,290.
8 Weber, Growth of Cities in the Nineteenth Century (N. Y., 1809),
p. 40 et. seq.
I2 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [476
outgrown the antiquated machinery of the State Church. 1
Although the Church of England was taking on a new
lease of life through the enthusiasm engendered by the
Oxford movement, and because parliamentary investiga-
tions and Ecclesiastical Commissions had made it neces-
sary, only a beginning had yet been made in reclaiming
the lost multitude. In Leeds, a parish numbering 150,-
ooo, the parish church had fifty communicants. 2 Nor had
the Dissenters been able to take advantage of the oppor-
tunity; most of the sects by the second quarter of the igth
century represented almost entirely a middle-class con-
stituency. Even the Wesleyan Methodist Church, which
in early days had been preeminently the church of the
manufacturing and mining poor and, but for its mode of
government, might have earned the name of the Church
of the Industrial Revolution, had by the beginning of the
Chartist period also suffered the blight of respectability
and had lost the confidence of the intelligent workingman
because of the conservatism of its political policy, the
Tory affiliations of its leading ministers and the undemo-
cratic form of its government.
The support of the churches in England during this
period was decidedly a middle-class affair. Observers of
all types of religious thought recognized it. " What
struck every cultivated foreigner who set up his residence
in England ", said Engels, who was a close observer,
"was what he was bound to consider the religious big-
otry and stupidity of the English respectable middle
class." 3 Robertson as pastor in his new field at Brigh-
1 Parliamentary Reports of Ecclesiastical Commissions. Perry, A
History of the English Church (London, 1890), vol. iii, p. 260 et seq.
Bloomfield, A Memoir of Charles James Bloomfield (London, 1863),
vol. i, ch. ix.
Perry, op. cit., iii, 262. 8 Engels, Socialism, p. xiv.
477] ATTITUDE OF CHARTISM TOWARDS CHURCH ^
ton found only the middle class faithful. 1 The Chtirch
of England Magazine recognized fully this relation of
the middle class to English religion, 2 while Miall, the
most acute journalist of the Nonconformists, affirmed
that British Christianity was "essentially the Christianity
developed by a middle-class soil " and as such " fast de-
caying" and "void of efficiency." 3
If a monopolization of religion by the bourgeoisie was
admitted, the lack on the part of the proletariat of a
formal religious affiliation with any sect was equally ap-
parent and deplored by ministers of all denominations.
Says Mozley, one of the leaders of the High-Church
movement, " It may be truly said that the whole of
our manufacturing people, the whole of the poorer
classes in our towns, are alienated from the church.
Yet this does not express by any means the sum of their
misery. An enormous proportion, three fourths or nine
tenths, are neither church people, nor of any other reli-
1 Brooke, Life and Letters of Frederick W. Robertson, M. A. (New
York, n. d,) p. no.
v * " Amidst the reports of infidelity reigning, either covertly or openly,
over large bodies of men in Europe, it is satisfactory to find our middle
classes so little affected by the plausibilities of false speculation. Were
they to lose their religious principles, the lower classes would soon
break out into open infidelity, and then ' the beginning of the end '
would be near. Of this catastrophe there appears, at present, no sign ;
though it is to be feared that false notions, and destructive ideas in
morals, have infected numbers of the workmen in the towns and great
factories. Indeed, the middle classes are less likely to fall into such
errors now than twenty years ago, when a dangerous spirit seemed
brooding over the land, waiting for a signal to burst into fearful activity.
It is in the religious activity of the middle classes that we must rely for
the most effective checks to the evils arising from our highly artificial
state of society, and from the spread of luxurious habits consequent upon
the diffusion of wealth." The Church of England Magazine, vol.
xxiii, p. 20, (July 10, 1847).
'Miall, Life of Edward Miall (London, 1884), pp. 151, 152.
I4 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [478
gion. " x " An artizan with his wife and children, " says
the same author, "are seldom seen anywhere ; at church
never. " 2 A workingman, who had given the subject
some thought, and who spoke from personal observation,
believed that a mechanic was " as seldom found in a reli-
gious assembly as a religious man in many of our work-
shops. " 3 The causes for this alienation are not difficult
to ascertain. Christianity was "widely and truly be-
lieved to be as a whole opposed to the social aspirations
of the nation, " and nothing could save it from the
" charge of being obstructive and reactionary. " 4 The
workingmen turned disgustedly away from an Establish-
ment which sought to perpetuate in the government
abuses only too apparent, and from the Dissenters, who,
after they had carried the Reform Bill of 1832, had, as
the workingmen believed, betrayed them.
To take the place of religious enthusiasm the working-
men found an outlet for their feelings in " reforming
clubs, Chartist gatherings, trades unions, and political
debating circles." 5 As regards religion the reaction
from the worn-out evangelicalism of the period devel-
oped itself along two lines. The first of these was infi-
delity. Modern free thought, launched by Herbert of
Cherbury and Hobbes, and taken up enthusiastically on
the Continent, now returned to the land of its birth, but-
tressed with all the learning of the rapidly developing
sciences. But whereas in its early days it was the play-
1 British Critic, vol. 28, p. 346 (1840).
*IMd. t p. 337-
3 The Literature of the Working Men, vol. i, Apr. 1850, p. 5; also
vide The Champion, vol. i, p. 156 et. seq.
4 Hall, The Social Meaning of Modern Religious Movements in Eng-
land (N. Y., 1900), p. 162.
p. 168.
479] ATTITUDE OF CHARTISM TOWARDS CHURCH I5
thing of aristocrats it now became the accepted creed of
thousands of workingmen. " In order to find people
who dared to use their own intellectual faculties with re-
gard to religious matters," said Engels, "you had to go
amongst the uneducated, the ' great unwashed ', as they
were called, the working people, especially the Owenite
Socialists." 1 Kingsley was no less dogmatic. "The
devil has got the best long ago, " he complained, for "the
cream and pith of working intellect is almost exclusively
self-educated, and therefore, also infidel ! " 2 Disraeli de-
scribes St. Lys, his ideal clergyman, as a vicar " who
came among a hundred thousand heathen to preach the
word of God." 3 This spread of infidelity was naturally
distressing to the churchmen, 4 and it was a desire to
win the workingman back to Christianity chiefly that
moved Maurice and Kingsley to their philanthropic ef-
forts for the poor of London.
The growth of infidelity was accentuated by the influ-
ence of the socialistic movement, which, up to that time
in consequence of the well-known views of Owen, had
been largely tinged with unbelief. The fact that many
of the Chartist leaders and great hosts of their followers
were both socialists and infidels gave a handle to the
continued accusations of their enemies. Such Chartist
leaders as Hetherington, Watson, Carlile, Walter Cooper
and Holyoake were actively associated with one or more
of the numerous infidel papers which usually also advo-
cated socialism and incidentally Chartism as the most
1 Engels, Socialism, p. xiv.
1 Charles Kingsley : His Letters and Memories of His Life, ed. by
His Wife, loth ed. (London, 1878), pp. 234, 248; Alton Locke, p. 275.
'Disraeli, Sybil, p. 125.
4 Church of England Magazine, xxiii, 20 ; Christian Guardian, 1847,
p. 325 ; Methodist Minutes, ix, 115, 403.
!6 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [480
practical means at hand for the inaugurating of the new
social order, 1 while Thomas Cooper and others were
active in the propaganda of David Friedrich Strauss,
extremely popular in England among certain classes
after the publication of " Leben Jesu." 2 The works of
Paine, Holyoake and other religious radicals were regu-
larly advertised in many of the leading Chartist journals,
including The Northern Star. The Englishmen of the
upper and middle classes had already learned from French
history to associate political radicalism with infidelity,
and now the development in England seemed only to
prove an inalienable connection between the two. Such
phrases as "infidel democracy," 3 "sedition and blas-
phemy," 4 etc., came soon almost unconsciously to be
part of the intellectual equipment of these two classes.
" Republicans, Infidels, Sabbath-breakers and Blas-
phemers, who are, unhappily, a curse to themselves, a
curse to their Fellow-Countrymen, and a curse to the
land that owns them," 5 is one description of the Chartists,
and of by no means an exceptional type. The charge
of infidelity naturally took its place as a leading stock
argument against Chartism and was continually held up
before the eyes of the horrified bourgeoisie in sermons,
pamphlets and speeches to such an extent that the two
were, in the minds of many, synonymouSi
1 The growth of the infidel press in England during this period is re-
markable. It included such papers as, " The Movement," edited by
Holyoake and Ryall ; "The Reasoner : and Hetald of Progress"
backed by many leading Chartists; " The Union" edited by G. A.
Fleming ; " The Oracle of Reason ," edited by Charles Southworth and
Thomas Paterson ; " The Model Republic " and " Cooler's Journal."
1 Translated by George Eliot, 1846.
8 Wesleyan Meth. Mag., Feb. 1838, vol. xvii, p. 153.
4 The People, i, 333-
4 The Real Chartist, by C. L., 4 ed. (London, 1848) p. 13.
481] ATTITUDE OF CHARTISM TOWARDS CHURCH i 7
The Chartists of course resented this, 1 and justly, for
their ranks included many who, although having no con-
nection or interest in the church, could still be designated
as Christians.
The second reaction against the Christianity of the
time as exemplified in the churches assumed a form far
less violent than infidelity. It took the form of a feeling
of either indifference or absolute hostility to the church
and ecclesiasticism although coupled with loyalty to the
tenets of Christianity. The group of persons actuated
by this feeling undoubtedly far outnumbered either the
infidels or the active church members. 2 The feeling of
many was much like that which Solly puts in the mouth
of his Chartist working man who says :
None of us had any great love for " the cloth." Not that we
had any bad feelings towards them, but I believe we mostly
thought the whole Church Establishment was a matter of
money, and that all clergymen did and said their doings and
sayings merely to get paid. So that we had rather a feeling
of contempt for them because we thought them so uncom-
monly like hypocrites. The same with regard to religion gen-
erally. There was very little real enmity against it, as far as
I could see, among workingmen. We only thought it a hum-
bug, and not worth a sensible man's troubling his head about.*
The characterization of Solly is accurate in all but one
respect. To the leaders, and, it is fair to infer, a majority
of their followers, this attitude seemed too passive. They
were bitterly opposed to the State Church and to the in-
terpretation of Christianity which actuated all of the
denominations, and waged a strenuous campaign in be-
1 The Republican, p. 73 et scq.
*Ibid., p. 76.
3 Solly, James Wood ford (London, 1881), i, 214.
r g CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [482
half of their views. The Chartists had both a distinct
conception of their own as to what Christianity was and
a definite program of church reform.
One student of the movement believes that the ma-
jority of Chartists belonged to the State Church. 1 But
to infer, as he does, that such is the case because they
attended the parish church on occasion is erroneous. One
clergyman upon such a visit went so far as to tell them
that their coming to a church was something out of the
ordinary. 1 It seems nearer the truth to say that the
Chartists, while a majority were decided believers in
Christianity, were indifferent toward all the churches.
The Chartist leaders were drawn from all denomina-
tions. Among the infidels were numbered Hetherington,
Watson, Carlile, Holyoake and Walter Cooper. The
Established Church of England contributed Charles
Westerton, Dr. Arthur S. Wade and Rev. Thomas Spen-
cer; the Established Church of Scotland, Rev. Patrick
Brewster ; and the Secessionists, Dr. John Ritchie. Giles
was a Baptist, Miall a Congregationalist, O'Malley a
Catholic. Sturge and Pierce were Quakers. Rev. J. R.
Stephens started as a Methodist minister, was expelled
for his activities in promoting the separation of Church
and State, 3 and continued as pastor of three chapels near
Ashley built by the workingmen there, 4 800 of the
members of his circuit having seceded with him.
Thomas Cooper as a young man was a Methodist local
preacher. During the Chartist period he drifted to in-
fidelity, but eventually returned to Christianity and be-
'Dierlamm, Die Flugschriftenliteratur der Chartistenbewegung und
ihr Widerhall in der dffentlichen Meinung (Leipzig, 1909), p. 60.
1 Dr. Whittaker's Sermon to the Chartists, p. 14.
Smith, History of Methodism, bk. viii, ch. ii.
4 Gammage, History of the Chartist Movement, p. 56.
483] ATTITUDE OF CHARTISM TOWARDS CHURCH ^
came a minister of the Baptists. 1 Joseph Barker, born
and educated a Wesleyan Methodist, forsook that church
for the Methodist New Connexion, from which he was
expelled on doctrinal grounds. 2 He became a Unitarian,
later a deist, but finally he too returned to Christianity.
Lovett's mother was a Methodist, while he himself was
for a short while a Bryanite (Methodist Bible Christian). 3
A defender of Christianity, 4 he belonged to no church.
When asked by the chaplain, on his admission to prison,
what was his religion, he answered that he " was of that
religion which Christ taught, and which very few in au-
thority practice " if he might judge from their conduct.*
O'Neill in his later life became a Baptist minister 6 as did
Vince. Vincent, while not a member, was a frequent at-
tendant in Quaker meetings and active in their work. 7
Henry Solly and W. J. Fox were both prominent Chart-
ists and leading Unitarian ministers.
ii CHARTISM AND CHRISTIANITY
A. THE CHARTIST INTERPRETATION OF CHRISTIANITY
Although the English Chartist was a stranger to the
church, he was, as a rule, familiar with the teachings of
Christ and soon came to entertain some definite ideas in
regard to Christianity. He reduced it to a formula simple
but practical. He emphasized only the social aspect,
hooper, Life of Thomas Cooper, 2nd ed, (London, 1872), pp. 81, 82.
1 New History of Methodism (London, 1909), i, 525.
' Lovett, Life and Struggles of William Lovett in His Pursuit of
Bread, Knowledge, and Freedom (London, 1876), pp. 7, 22.
4 Ibid., p. 35-
* Ibid., p. 229.
' Gammage, op. cit. p. 402.
' Diet, of Nat. Biog., Iviii, p. 359.
20 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [484
Christianity in his mind being comprised largely in
Matthew xxii, 39; xxv, and similar sections. These he
took seriously. " If one thing is more certain than
another, " said one, " it is this, that it is the duty of
Christians to labour for the welfare of their fellow-
men." 1 The typical Chartist viewpoint was similar to
that of Lovett, who said he had come " to look upon
practical Christianity as a union for the promotion of
loving kindness and good deeds to one another, and not
a thing of form for idlers to profit by, who in their
miserable interpretation of it too often cause men to
neglect the improvement of the present in their aspira-
tions of the future." '
If Christianity could be reduced to a matter of the
Golden Rule 3 what was the use of forms and ceremonies,
of priests and masses ? Why worry about creeds when
the commands for action were so plain? It was not
more churches that England needed, they thought, but
an " increase of pure, practical and undefiled religion ,"
for " church going is but a means to an end." 4 What is
necessary to regenerate the world, says Alton Locke,
" is not more of any system good or bad, but simply
more of the Spirit of God." 5 Consequently when the
Chartists essayed themselves to put their hands to the
task of organizing and running a church, they eliminated
creeds, as such, although retaining baptism and the
Lord's Supper, and put the entire emphasis upon good
works. 6
1 The People, pp. 19, 20.
* Lovett, Life and Struggles, p. 35.
s Chartist Circular, p. 5.
'Livesey's Moral Reformer, p. 133.
6 P. 105.
* Vide infra, p. 42 et seq.
485] ATTITUDE OF CHARTISM TOWARDS CHURCH 2 l
The more they studied the words of Christ, the more
they were struck with the illogicality of the situation as
it existed. The Established Church with its vast wealth,
highly paid functionaries and elaborate ceremonial ap-
peared to them the very antithesis of Christianity ; while
the Dissenters, engrossed in endless differences over
doctrine and church government, and generally aloof to
the needs of social amelioration at their doors, seemed
equally astray. How any professing Christian could
remain indifferent to the miserable condition prevalent
among the manufacturing and agricultural poor was to
the Chartist a mystery. But not only was the church
indifferent to their state but it was accused of joining
hands " with bloodthirsty and deceitful men to render
their misery complete and irremediable." 1
What the Chartists wanted to see on the part of pro-
fessing Christians was some practical demonstrations of
the social teachings of Christ which should take the form
of an effort to improve their lot. Nor was it charity
they demanded so much as justice. 2 Christ and Christi-
anity to them meant the " lifting of heavy burthens and
bringing them freedom and justice as well as soup-tickets
and tracts." 3
Once granted that the mission of Christianity was to
bring to them freedom and social justice, the only ques-
tion remaining to be settled was how this object could
be best promoted. The English workingman had de-
cided that the only hope lay in the People's Charter.
The natural sequence was that Chartism was therefore
divine and ordained of God. 4 " Study the New Testa-
1 Stephens, Sermon on Kennington Common (London, 1839), p. 20.
s Solly, Jamts Woodford, i, 213.
3 Ibid., i, 237, 238.
4 Chartist Circulai , preface, iv ; pp. i, 5, 9, 32, 197.
22 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [486
ment it contains the elements of Chartism," exhorted
one paper. 1 The conception of the connection between
the question of the franchise and Christianity not only
took strong hold of the workingman, but it was one
influence, if not the chief one, in winning for the Chart-
ists what little aid they received from the middle classes.
It was the actuating motive of the so-called " political
preachers," like Stephens, Spencer and Parsons and
furnished the ordinary theme for the sermons of the
Christian Chartist Churches. Joseph Sturge, the leader
of the Complete Suffrage movement, the single concerted
middle-class effort in behalf of the Charter, was brought
to take an active part through this influence. " It is a
distinguishing and beautiful feature of Christianity," said
he, " that it leads us to recognize every country as our
country, and every man as our brother ; and as there is
no moral degradation so awful, no physical misery so
great as that inflicted by personal slavery, I have felt
it my duty to labour for its universal extinction." 2
" Nothing is more certain," says his biographer, " than
that what was called the Chartism of Joseph Sturge
sprung directly from his Christianity." 3 It was also the
keynote of the work of Edward Miall in his editorials
on universal suffrage. The address of the " Council of
the National Complete Suffrage Association to Political
Reformers of all Shades of Opinion, " calling upon them
in September, 1842, to elect representatives to a conven-
tion, is remarkable in that it acts under " that great
Christian obligation " which " calls upon all men to
assist in freeing their brethren from the powers of the op-
1 Chartist Circular, p. 222.
* Richard, Memoirs of Joseph Sturge (London, 1864), p. 299.
l lbid., p. 325.
487] ATTITUDE OF CHARTISM TOWARDS CHURCH 23
pression " and addresses them as " men and Christians,"
desiring not to arouse their passions but simply to
" awake the nobler feelings of justice, humanity and
Christian duty " '
But the Chartists approached the fact that universal
suffrage was based " on the revealed word of God " a from
still another angle. They attempted to prove the " di-
vine origin of liberty " from the laws of nature as ordained
by God, and sought to prove from the Scriptures that
" a simple democracy was the only order of government "
instituted by God. 3 As expressed on one of their banners :
" Every man is born free: God has given to all men equal
rights and equal liberties." 4
Neither of these conceptions was original. The belief
in the divine origin of liberty was much older than Chart-
ism, while the idea of finding a basis for political beliefs
in Christianity of course was not confined to the Chart-
ists. Quotations from the Bible furnished to their op-
ponents some strong weapons.
B. CHRISTIANITY AND POLITICS
Having convinced themselves that democracy was
ordained of God, and that loving one's neighbors as
oneself was vitally connected with political justice, it
seemed to the Chartist that the professing Christian was
in duty bound to do his utmost to advance his cause. If
it was the duty of Christian laymen to aid in the political
emancipation of the proletariat, in a how much greater
degree was it the business of their leaders, the clergy
and pastors, the recognized expounders of the truths of
Christianity !
1 Lovett, Life and Struggles, p. 276, <?/. seq.
1 Chartist Circular, p. 9. s Ibid., p. i.
4 Dolleans, Le Chartisme (Paris, 1912), ii, 466.
24 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [488
But this view again brought them into direct antago-
nism with the church. The simple process of reasoning
which carried the Chartists to their conclusion as to the
duty of a Christian had no weight with the latter in
regard to political matters. A peculiar and widely held
doctrine had taken hold of early nineteenth-century
Christianity in England to the effect that it was " wrong
for a Christian to meddle in political matters." 1 To
concern oneself with politics was almost sure to result
in contamination and was always fraught with danger to
the spiritual welfare of the participant. 2 All of the de-
nominations were particularly careful to disavow any
political affiliation and he who was least concerned with
the " affairs of this world " was considered the most
saintly and worthy of emulation. To be indifferent to
political interests was considered a mark of piety.
Although this feeling that there was something antag-
onistic between Christianity and politics was prevalent in
all of the churches, it found its greatest exponents among
the Wesleyan Methodists. 3 " It is no business of ours
as ' men of God ' who have dedicated ourselves to a
kingdom which ' is not of this world,' " affirmed the Con-
ference of 1836, "to be very eager or prominent in
drawing out these great principles to what we deem
right political conclusions." 4 For a Methodist minister
to engage in political controversy was to act " contrary
to his peculiar calling and solemn engagements." 5 Even
the Congregationalists, unencumbered, as were the Meth-
1 Reformer's Almanac, p. 284.
J Epistles front the Yearly Meetings of Friends, ii, 303, 332.
*Lovett, Life and Struggles, p. 244 ; Davison, Life of the Venerable
William Clowes (London, 1854), p. 241.
4 Minutes, viii, 105. See also pp. 237, 242 ; x, 260.
6 Minutes, ii, 185.
4 8 9 ]
ATTITUDE OF CHARTISM TOWARDS CHURCH
odists, by conservative traditions, hastened in 1841 to
disclaim any possible political affiliation or interest, after
a session of the Congregationalist Union devoted largely
to a discussion of this subject, 1 and the editor of the
Congregationalist asserted that as regards the redress
of civil grievances " Christian ministers have no especial
concern, and Christian churches and congregations, as
such, no proper concern at all." 2 The maintenance of
Christian virtues, says the Yearly Conference of Friends,
" is much endangered by yielding to political excitement." 3
Deeply grounded as was the feeling that the effect of
politics was detrimental to religion, it was still not so
strong but that most of the churches were willing to be
contaminated a bit when their interests were seen to be
endangered. The Established Church worked effectually
through their representatives in the House of Lords and
other innumerable avenues ; the Methodists maintained
after 1803 a " Committee of Privileges," whose duty it
was to look after those matters pertaining to the civil
rights of their people, while after 1832 the dissenting
churches had many friends in the Lower House. The
political power of the Dissenters was never shown more
effectively than in 1843 when they successfully opposed
the educational clause in Lord Graham's Factory Bill.
By the time of the Chartist period, however, the objec-
tion to active political participation on the part of the
clergy was beginning to break down. The Anti-Corn
Law League succeeded in interesting several hundred
ministers in their cause and in holding a conference of
ministers of religion in Manchester on behalf of cheap
'Waddington, Congregational History 1800-1850 (London, 1878), p.
553-
'/**</., p. 573.
1 Epistle From the Yearly Meetings of Friend's, ii, 303.
2 6 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [490
grain. Ministers of all denominations participated, in-
cluding even one each from the Established Church of
Scotland and the Wesleyan Methodists. 1
The viewpoint of the churches that political matters
were not to be compared in importance to the things
immediately pertaining to salvation 2 was not shared by
the Chartists. Christianity was to them above all prac-
tical, something that must be carried into every walk of
life. Furthermore there was no possibility of divorcing
it from political science. Thus Rev. William Hill, editor
of the Northern Star, in a lecture said :
Politics, then, is the science of human government. It is a
science that teaches men their rights, and the best way of
exercising them, and, digging deep into the foundation of this
science, it may be considered as an essential but much neglected
branch of Christian ethics. We are commanded, for example,
to love our neighbors as ourselves ; this has usually been con-
sidered as applying to our duty so far as the exercise of
charity is concerned; but this command is universal in its
application, whether as friend, Christian or citizen. A man
may be devout as a Christian, faithful as a friend, but if as a
citizen he claims rights for himself he refuses to confer upon
others, he fails to fulfill the precept of Christ ; taking this view
of politics what an important view does it give this subject,
compared with the narrow, partizan ideas usually associated
with the term. 8
But the typical Chartist went through the evolution of
mind similar to that described by the Rev. Joseph Bar-
ker who said :
'Prentice, History of the Anti-Corn Law League (London, 1835),
vol. i, pp. 233 et seq.
* Meth. Minutes, viii, 96.
1 The Life Boat, vol. i, no. 4.
491 ] ATTITUDE OF CHARTISM TOWARDS CHURCH 2 J
Formerly I thought it wrong for a Christian to meddle in
political matters. Formerly I thought it the duty of Chris-
tians to unite themselves together in churches, to shut them-
selves out from the world, to constitute themselves a little
exclusive world, and to confine their labours to the govern-
ment of their little kingdom and to the increase of the num-
bers of its subjects. I now think differently. I have no faith
in church organizations. I believe it my duty to be a man ;
to live and move in the world at large ; to battle with evil
wherever I see it, and to aim at the annihilation af all corrupt
institutions and at the establishment of all good, and gener-
ous, and useful institutions in their places. 1
The most striking attempt of the Chartists to associate
politics and religion was in the Christian Chartist
Churches, where Christianity and radical politics were
brought together and believed to be inseparable. 2 But it
was not confined to these. Solly tells of a friend of his,
a Chartist lecturer by the name of Clarke, who on his
tours alternated his political lectures with sermons. 3
It was the attempt to associate Christianity with
practical politics that was chiefly responsible for the
great popularity of the few preachers who were willing
to brave the storm of public abuse and calumny which
was associated with the term " political preacher." The
Rev. J. R. Stephens was the most famous of this class.
The effect of his discourses upon the multitudes who,
" after a week of toil would stand for hours, regardless
of comfort and health, while the rain fell in torrents to
hear the exhortations fall from his lips" 4 can hardly be
1 Reformer s Almanac, p. 284.
1 Vide infra, p. 42 et seq.
'Solly, These Eighty Years (London, 1893), vol. i, p. 385.
* Stephens, Sermon Preached on Shepherd and Shepherdess Fields
(1839), introduction.
2 g CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [492
imagined. Gifted with great eloquence, his intense
bitterness toward the factory system and the New Poor
Law often led him into extravagant statements of the
most inflammatory kind, 1 which, printed in the Northern
Star and distributed in pamphlet form, gave to him an
influence upon the Chartist movement in its early stages
hardly exceeded by O'Connor himself. Another gifted
preacher of this class was Eustace Giles, a prominent Bap-
tist, who was spoken of as "one of the pioneers who
believed that it is often needful to be political in order
to give expression to one's religious convictions." 2
The Rev. Thomas Spencer, Church of England clergyman,
and the Rev. Henry Solly, Unitarian, both pamphleteers
and preachers, the Rev. Joseph Barker and Rev. William
Hill, editors and lecturers, were other political preachers
who distinguished themselves in the Chartist movement.
Many more, including such names as Edward Miall
and James Scholefield, could be added to the list. The
" political preacher," in the modern sense of the term,
first came into prominence in the agitations incidental to
the Anti-Corn Law and Chartist movements.
III. ATTITUDE OF THE CHARTISTS TOWARD THE CHURCH AND
CLERGY
The bitterness of the Chartists towards the churches and
clergy, especially those of the State Church, approached
almost of unanimity. The periodical and pamphlet liter-
ature and the reported speeches are full of the severest
condemnation. The Established Church is described as
" ungodly " and " plundering," 3 as " villainous," 4 as " old
1 Gammage, op. cit., p. 55 et seq.
2 Carlile, Story of the English Baptists (London, 1905), p. 231.
1 Reformer's Almanac, p. 19. * Reformer's Companion, p. 19.
493] ATTITUDE OF CHARTISM TOWARDS CHURCH 2 g
mother hypocrisy," " hatch houses of fraud and hypocrisy "
and " this country's neglected curse," 1 as a " superstitious
Old Hog," " an administration of Atheism " and " a system
of vile priestcraft, encouraged by the aristocracy, for the
plunder of the church revenues, and for the keeping of the
people in a state of ignorance and suitable slavery and
debasement," 2 as " the most corrupt and oppressive in-
stitution in Europe," 3 and as " one of the greatest bul-
warks of despotism, and barriers of freedom in the annals
of our country," whose " course has been one of mischief,
cruelty and plunder." * The clergy are characterized by
The People as " reckless perjured liars," " vile infernal
cheats," " ministers of the Devil," " blasphemers of God,"
" teachers of fables," " preachers of licentiousness," " anti-
Christs." 6 McDouall refers to them as "infidels," "proud,"
" rapacious," " cruel," " ambitious," " fraudulent," and
" hypocritical." 8 The Reformer's Companion calls them
" vile," 7 and the Weekly Adviser "narrow souled, ignorant,
unreasoning," and " a positive disgrace to English civiliza-
tion, and the bitterest enemies of the people." 8 The
National denounces them as " a sable society of gentlemen,
wearing broad hats and deep garments ; who possess a great
part of the wealth and power in the world, and would have
all, as a reward for keeping mankind in decent ignorance
and bondage." 9
1 McDouall's Chartist and Republican Journal, p. 34.
* Carlile, An Address to that Portion of the People of Great Britain
and Ireland calling Themselves Reformers, on the Political Excitement
of the Present Time, p. 6.
1 Leach, The Workingman's Argument in Favor of the Charter, p. 8.
4 Evenings with the People, p. 2. & The People, p. 10.
9 McDouall's Chartist and Republican Journal, p. 149. Vide also Re-
former's Companion, p. 19, and Reformer's Almanac, p. 19.
1 Reformer's Companion, p. 191.
8 Weekly Adviser and Artisan's Companion, p. 161.
9 The National, p. 241.
3 o CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [494
Although the dissenting churches were not the recipients
of such wholesale and unqualified abuse as was the State
Church they did not wholly escape. The Wesleyan Method-
ists were in particularly bad favor among reformers. It
was a simple matter for the radicals of that period to ac-
count for the enmity of the Establishment but the fact that
the Wesleyan Methodists, whose constituency was largely
amongst the poorer classes, could steadfastly set their faces
against all political reform was incomprehensible and called
down the severest censure upon their administration and atti-
tude. Gammage asserts " that if there is a body of men
in England who are in the service and uphold the principles
of despotism, that body is the Wesleyan Conference 'V
which he describes as a " solemn hypocritical conclave." 2
Barker characterized the " Methodist preachers as a body "
as " afraid of liberty in all its forms " 3 and the denomina-
tion as doing much harm by upholding the tyranny of the
national government and " prejudicing its members against
Reformers; against the advocates of truth and righteous-
ness; and by representing the friends of truth, of justice,
and of liberty, as infidels and anarchists." * Ebenezer
Elliott, who never got over the fact that the Wesleyan
Methodists were the only dissenting church which would not
participate actively in the Anti-Corn Law agitation, cele-
brated their degeneracy in rhyme. 5
1 Gammage, o/>. cit., pp. 55, 56. l Ibid., p. 56.
3 The People, vol. ii, p. 33.
4 Reformer's Almanac, p. 370.
5 " Ask ye if I, of Wesley's followers one,
Abjure the home where Wesleyans bend the knee?
I do because the spirit thence is gone;
And truth, and faith, and grace are not, with me,
The Hundred Popes of England's Jesuitry."
The Ranters, vol. 5, p. 145 of the 1830 ed. of his poems.
495] ATTITUDE OF CHARTISM TOWARDS CHURCH ^
The indictment formulated by the Chartists against the
English clergy was a formidable one. They were, in the
first place, accused of neglect of duty, especially as regards
their poorer parishioners.
We ask [said Stephens], whether the ministers of religion in
these times of savage and relentless, of stiffnecked and auda-
cious tyranny, have faithfully discharged the duties of their
holy office? They have not. Instead of pleading the cause
of the poor, they have joined the league against them. They
have shared in the murderous assault and are dividing the
spoil. 1
It was maintained, in the second place, that the clergy neither
taught the true Christianity nor exemplified it in their
lives. O'Brien found " almost every doctrine of holy writ
falsified " in their lives 2 while Carlile held that the church
had " no authority for (its) present proceedings in the
Bible." 3 Stephens affirmed that if the Gospel were " fairly,
impartially, divinely preached in England for seven days,
the end of the seventh day would behold the end of social
tyranny as it afflicts the people." * Thirdly, the Chartists
found the church and clergy hostile to reform and accused
them of deliberately using their influence to retard progress
and to keep the people in ignorance and superstition.
Spencer, himself a Church of England clergyman, admitted
that " all who advocate the removal of abuses are described
as enemies of the church " and all political reformers, " find-
1 The People's Magazine, p. 180, and vol. ii, p. 27. Vide also, Ste-
phens, Sermon on Kennington Common, p. 25 ; Is There One Law for
the Rich and One for the Poor, by a Workingman ; McDouall's Chartist
and Republican Journal, p. 149.
* McDouall's Chartist and Republican Journal, p. 149.
* Carlile, Address, p. 6.
* Stephens, Sermon Preached on Shepherd and Shepherdess Field, p. 6.
32 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [496
ing the church standing in the way of every reform, desire
its removal in order that they may obtain an extension of
the suffrage and a reformed Parliament, equitable taxation
and just laws." *
You uniformly prostitute religion to the maintenance of civil
tyranny [said O'Brien in a letter to the Established Church
parsons, and continued:] They (the people) see that holy writ
abounds from one end of the volume to the other in denuncia-
tion against usury and tyranny, and in threats of divine ven-
geance against oppressors of all kinds, and yet in the teeth of
these denunciations and solemn menaces, they behold you em-
ploying all the power of your craft to bolster up the system. 2
To maintain, as the Chartists did, that the clergy of
England were remiss in their duty, that they did not preach
Christianity, and that they were the upholders of tyranny
was all very well, but the argument remained in the realm
of uncertainty. On these points it was possible to have
an honest difference of opinion. But the Chartists were
equipped with a more telling and practical criticism. The
unequal distribution of wealth in the Established Church,
resulting in extraordinarily large incomes for the bishops
and higher dignitaries and many sinecures, had been for
years the constant theme of radical reformers. 8 Although
the reforms of 6 and 7 William IV, Chapter 77, had done
something to remedy the evils, 4 the latter were still suffi-
ciently glaring, and the Chartist periodicals never wearied
of expatiating upon the princely incomes of the " servants
of him who ' had not where to lay his head.' " 5 " For our-
1 Spencer, The Pillars of the Church of England, p. ii.
* McDouall's Chartist and Republican Journal, p. 149.
3 Stoughton, Religion in England (London, 1881-4), vol. viii, chap. i.
4 Perry, History of the English Church, 3d Period, p. 233.
6 The People, p. 21.
497] ATTITUDE OF CHARTISM TOWARDS CHURCH 33
selves," says the Weekly Adviser, after giving a list of the
bishops and their salaries, " we have no hesitation in saying
that a highway robber is more worthy of honour than any
one of the consecrated hypocrites named." * The estimated
nine million pounds income per annum 2 of the Established
Church was looked upon as little less than robbery and the
Church was called by one paper, " The Pious Pickpocket." 3
"Are you not paying too much for your whistle?" asks
another. 4 A third paper, after stating that a bishop in a
twelvemonth did but a tithe of the duties, judged on a
basis of utility, done in a single day by the humblest work-
man in its own office, cries : " How long is all this to last ? " 5
IV. PROGRAM OF THE CHARTISTS IN RESPECT TO THE CHURCH
The attitude of the Chartists towards the church early
crystallized into a more or less definite program. There
must be, first of all, an absolute separation of church and state.
On this point there was scarcely a difference of opinion.
Cooper, Lovett, Barker, O'Brien and practically all the rest
of the leaders believed this thoroughly. Among the Chart-
ist papers which strongly advocated it are to be numbered,
The Weekly Adviser? The Model Republic, Power of
Pence, The People? The Reformer? The Divinearian, The
English Republic, 9 Cooper's Journal, Bronterre's National
1 June 10, 1852, p. 12.
2 Lovett, op. cit., p. 266.
* The Weekly Adviser, June 10, 1852, p. 12.
4 The Model Republic, p. 64.
6 Power of Pence, p. 49 (Dec. 2, 1848).
' The Weekly Adviser, p. 2.
7 The People, p. I.
8 The Reformer, p. I.
9 The English Republic, p. 86.
10 Cooper's Journal, p. 143.
34 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [498
Reformer, 1 McDouall's Chartist and Republican Journal
and many more, including The Non-conformist? In con-
junction with the severance of church and state the voluntary
principle must be introduced. "If the preacher must be paid,"
said Ernest Jones, " let him be paid what he is worth and
if he is worthless let him not be paid at all." z Voluntary-
ism should be accompanied by the abolition of the hated
church tithes, the idea of supporting a church whose doc-
trines they detested being especially abhorrent to the Chart-
ists. 4 An absolute cessation of persecution with complete
toleration on the part of the government to all religious
sects was of course an integral part of all reform. 5
The radical doctrines with respect to church reform,
which had been informally set forth many times, 6 were
finally given official sanction at the Convention of 1851,
when the following propositions were recommended:
1st. Complete separation of church and state.
2nd. All church temporalities to be declared national prop-
erty, except such individual endowments as have been volun-
tarily and legally made.
All ecclesiastical buildings, the cost of which can be clearly
shown to have been defrayed from national funds, to belong to
the state. The persuasion now using these edifices to continue
in the enjoyment of them on equitable conditions.
3rd. Tithes and church rates to be abolished.
1 Bronterre's National Reformer, Sat., Jan. 15, 1837, p. 61.
* Miall, Life of Edward Miall, pp. 50 et seq.
* Evenings with the People, p. 28.
* The Radical Reformers of England, Scotland and Wales to the
Irish People, p. 2 (written by Lovett) ; also The Weekly Adviser, p. 2.
1 Lovett, Life and Struggles, p. 320; also The People's Charter by the
Author of The Reformer Catechised, etc., pp. 47, 48.
' For the best examples, see ibid., pp. 47, 48, and Bronterre's National
Reformer for Sat., Jan. 15, 1837, p. n.
499] A TTITUDE OF CHARTISM TOWARDS CHURCH 35
4th. The state not to interfere with the national policy
of any church. All ecclesiastics to be appointed in any way
their respective congregations think fit, and to be paid volun-
tarily by the congregations that employ their services.
5th. Ecclesiastical licences for the purpose of education
unnecessary. 1
V. VISITS TO THE CHURCHES
The protests of the Chartists against the attitude of the
Established, and other churches were not confined to press
or platform denunciation. During the severe government
prosecutions of 1839, when the Chartists found their right of
public meeting infringed upon, they adopted the method of
assembling on the Sabbath and attending the parish churches
in a body for the double purpose of displaying their num-
bers 2 and of registering their dissatisfaction at the position
assumed by the church.
In the midsummer of 1839 this procedure seems to
have been especially popular. In July of that year the
Chartists at Newcastle " went in a body and filled St.
Nicholas church during divine service, to the great annoy-
ance of the regular attendance." a On August 4th a body
" estimated at 1,500 formed in procession and made their
way to Stockport church; and immediately on the doors
being opened, took complete possession of the edifice." *
On the same day about 4,000 visited the church at Black-
burn. 5 The next Sunday at Bolton, " Having met in the
New Marketplace, to the number of 3,000 or 4,000, at an
early hour, they proceeded at half -past nine o'clock, in
1 Notes to the People, vol. i, p. 133; Gammage, op. cit., p. 371.
1 Gammage, op. cit., p. 153.
9 Ibid., p. 149.
4 Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xii, p. 301.
5 A Sermon Preached at the Parish Church, Blackburn, Sunday, Au-
gust 4th, 1839, by the Rev. J. W. Whittaker, D. D., p. 13.
36 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [500
processional order, six abreast, and in a few minutes com-
pletely filled the church." * About 500 men in the same
way on that day went to St. Paul's Cathedral. 2 On August
i8th Pastor Close preached to the Chartists at Cheltenham 3
and on the next Sunday addressed the Female Chartists of
the same place. 4 On November I7th Rev. Evan Jenkins of
Dowlais received a similar visit. These visits were only a
few of the actual number made; for the idea, as Disraeli
said, had much affected the imagination of the multitude. 5
The Chartists usually gave previous intimation to the
clergy of their intention, 6 recommending them to preach
from such texts as, " The husband-man that laboureth shall
be the first partaker of the fruits," " He who will not work
shall not eat," etc- 7 The clergy however
1 Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xii, p. 301. 2 Ibid.
s Close, A Sermon Addressed to the Chartists of Cheltenham.
* Close, A Sermon Addressed to the Female Chartists of Cheltenham.
Rev. Francis Close was one of the leading Evangelicals of that period.
An historian of that party, in speaking of him, says : " The latter
ranked with Stowell and McNeile as one of the orators of the party,
and he ruled Cheltenham from his pulpit throne to such an extent that
the wits described it as ' a Close borough '. He fought the local magis-
trates and stopped the races. No meeting could be held without his
permission. ' He was the Pope of Cheltenham/ said The Times, ' with
pontifical prerogatives from which the temporal had not been severed.
In the bosoms of hundreds and thousands of householders his social
decrees were accepted without the thought of the possibility of oppo-
sition. If a popular preacher is to be presented with a scepter, it may
be admitted that none could have held it more judiciously or more
uprightly'." Balleine, G. R., A History of the Evangelical Party (Lon-
don, 1908), p. 205. The two sermons mentioned here were both strong
denunciations of Chartism and called forth in reply two editorial lead-
ers in the Chartist Circular. Vide vol. i, pp. 193, 205.
6 Disraeli, Sybil, p. 375.
a Gammage, op. cit., p. 153; Whittaker, op. cit., p. 13; Gose, Female
Chartists, p. i.
7 Gammage, op. cit., p. 153.
501 ] ATTITUDE OF CHARTISM TOWARDS CHURCH 37
chose rather to preach upon passive obedience, and the folly
of looking to the things of this life; a doctrine which only
served to exasperate their hearers, who could not always be
restrained from expressing their indignant feelings at the
hypocrisy of the men who could preach this doctrine, while
they were themselves in the enjoyment of every luxury. 1
On one occasion
one clergyman so far forgot discretion and good feeling as to
display his wit in taking for his text, " My house shall be called
the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves."
The Chartists quitted the church in a body upon its announce-
ment; and thus far he triumphed; but he lost an excellent
opportunity of addressing to them what might have benefited
their souls. 2
An excellent example of the sermons preached is the
discourse of Dr. Whittaker to the Chartists at Blackburn.
The latter requested that he preach from the first two verses
of James v, " Go to now, ye rich, weep and howl for your
miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches are cor-
rupted, and your garments are moth-eaten." The clergy-
man complied with their request, and while admitting that
these words might have fitted the old Romans, asserted that
to apply them to the modern rich would be " the height of in-
justice and the grossest falsehood" and an "act of flagrant
false witness." Especially would this accusation be untrue
of England, a land " governed by equal laws, where civil
rights and public guarantees of liberty are secured too firmly
to be shaken except by those who enjoy their benefit." 3
Then, leaving the text, he exhorted the people to " meekness
1 Gammage, op. cit., p. 153.
1 Christian Observer, 1839, p. 574.
8 Whittaker, op. cit., p. 9.
38 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [502
and endurance " and to submission and obedience to the
powers that be, using Romans xiii, 1-7 and I Peter ii, 13-17
to bolster up his contentions. Then followed the usual
tirade against Chartism and the customary confusion be-
tween it and infidelity, and it and socialism.
The clergy had the courage of their convictions as well
as the Chartists. Whittaker coolly told a crowd of 4,000
that there were only 100 Chartists amongst them, the rest
being simply a promiscuous crowd attracted by the public
method thus used to gain notoriety. 1 Close, in his sermon,
said that this mode of approach to the house of God was
" particularly offensive to the Almighty." 2 " Nothing,"
said he, " is more calculated to raise the country against
them or to awaken the feelings of any man who has any
regard for religious decency." 3 The Christian Observer
called it a " mockery of divine worship " and a proceeding
obviously offensive to all classes of the community. 4 It
maintained that it was absurd to say that the Chartists had as
much right to go to church as other people if they proceeded
thither in an orderly manner. To allow " peaceful and
devout worshippers to be put to flight by a revolutionary
mob " was to obscure true liberty in technical phrases. 5
Although the Chartists listened in many cases submissively
enough to the abuses heaped upon them, for which in a
measure they had themselves to blame, having put them-
selves in a position to receive them, disturbances ensued quite
often 6 and arrests became so frequent that a defense fund
1 Whittaker, op. cit., p. 13.
1 Sermon to the Chartists, p. 18.
s Close, Female Chartists, p. 22.
4 Christian Observer, 1839, p. 573.
B Ibid., p. 573. For anti-Chartist sermons, vide infra, p. 60 et seg.
' Chartists tried to break up the meetings of Rev. Norman McLeocl.
McLeod, Life of Norman McLeod (Toronto, 1876), p. 84.
53]
ATTITUDE OF CHARTISM TOWARDS CHURCH
was organized, and collectors were appointed in different
towns to raise subscriptions for the purpose. 1
One of the most serious disturbances of this nature oc-
curred at Norwich in November 1841 at the dedication of
a new church. The Chartists, thinking this an excellent
opportunity for a turn-out, paraded the streets with a band
and many banners and proceeded to the church, which they
intended to fill to the exclusion of every one else. The
police, however, prevented this, but left the Chartists to
obstruct the passage of other people who desired entrance.
When the bishop arrived he had to be literally conveyed
into the churchyard in the center of a body of police. Dur-
ing the preaching service the Chartist band played outside
on the road to the great annoyance of those within. " Once
or twice, the door being opened with a noise, the whole
congregation rose in alarm for some minutes during the
service." While the sermon was being preached four of
the Chartists were taken into custody, a rescue was at-
tempted and during a sharp riot in which several of the
police were severely injured, one regained his freedom.
During the consecration exercises, Hewitt, a prominent
Chartist of that region, came up at the head of a band
playing " God Save the Queen " and, making a halt in
front of the church, played " Old Hundredth." The mayor
and superintendent of police having apprehended Hewitt, a
general rush took place in which three more Chartists were
handcuffed and driven to the station house, the crowd fol-
lowing and threatening to pull down the prison. The
prisoners were heavily fined and, in default of payment, com-
mitted to prison at hard labor. Hewitt was bound over to
take his trial at the sessions. 2
1 Gammage, op. cit., p. 153.
* Anti-Socialist Gazette, no. 3, p. 36, Dec. 1841.
40 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [504
The Chartists, of course, did not confine their operations
entirely to the churches. Frequently they succeeded in
monopolizing public meetings by electing their own chair-
man and diverting the assemblies from their original pur-
pose. In particular they proved a thorn in the side of the
Anti-Corn Law Leaguers, whose meetings were time and
time again broken up by the Chartists. Their procedure
was either to elect a chairman and occupy the time with
their own speakers or else offer an amendment to the free-
trade resolution in favor of the Charter. 1
One of the most interesting instances of this practice
occurred in December 1839 at Carlisle. A meeting was
called at the Coffee House by some of the leading clergy
and evangelical gentlemen,
the object of which was a " better observance of the Sabbath."
Previous to the hour appointed the room was crowded with
Chartists, and the original proposers of the meeting were hardly
able to obtain a standing place. Nevertheless they com-
menced business by moving that Mr. Graham of Edmund-
castle be called to the chair. This was met by an amendment
that Hall, one of their own body and keeper of a pothouse in
Butchergate, be elected chairman, which was carried by ac-
clamation. The gentlemen now endeavored to retreat, but their
escape was prevented, by a crowd of Chartists on every side,
and they were ultimately prevailed upon to remain by an as-
surance from the chairman that order would be preserved, and
every one should have a fair and patient hearing. So, indeed,
they had the evangelicals made their speeches, and Dr. Taylor
replied in a strain of irony and abuse, full of that Chartist elo-
quence for which he is so remarkable. Then Julian Hardy
and Cardo, and other members of the convention made their
speeches, and carried two resolutions, directly opposed to the
1 Prentice, History of the Anti-Corn Law League, vol. i, p. 192;
Memoranda of the Chartist Agitation in Dundee, p. 28; Gammage,
op. cit- p. 102.
55l ATTITUDE OF CHARTISM TOWARDS CHURCH 4I
purpose for which the meeting was convened. They then
passed a vote of thanks to the gentlemen for their kindness
in procuring the use of the room ; saying that they had always
before been unsuccessful in their application for it; and con-
cluded by making a subscription for the patriot Frost, as they
styled him. 1
As a means of advertisement this method was undoubt-
edly a success. As a means of protest it may have accom-
plished something, but in the actual promotion of the cause
of the People's Charter it is probable that these interruptions
did more harm than good, arousing and strengthening, as
they did, the prejudices of large numbers of people.
1 The Chartist Correspondence, p. 8.
CHAPTER II
CHARTIST SUBSTITUTIONS FOR THE PREVAILING
CHRISTIANITY
I. CHRISTIAN CHARTIST CHURCHES
OF all the methods used by the Chartists to identify their
movement with Christianity there was none more striking
than the organization of the " Christian Chartist Churches."
Disgusted with both the State and Dissenting churches for
the lack of sympathy evinced by them toward their cause
and convinced that neither was representing the true primi-
tive Christianity as taught by Christ, they attempted to fill
the gap; and, following the example of many before and
since under similar circumstances, they started churches
of their own.
At least three influences were at work upon the Chartists
to induce them to organize these churches. In the first
place there was the desire to draw the people away from
the influence of the old churches, which were rightly judged
to be hostile to their projects. " Were the Chartists to do
this," said the Circular in regard to the founding of inde-
pendent churches, " ecclesiastical tyranny would soon die a
natural death, and clerical domination be banished from
our land. One great obstacle to the onward progress of the
present movement would thus be put out of the way." 1
In the second place there was the wish to repudiate and dis-
prove by some active move on their part the " ecclesiastical
1 Chartist Circular, vol. i, p. 129.
42 [506
507] SUBSTITUTION FOR CHRISTIANITY 43
bellowing about Chartist infidelity." 1 Lastly there was
undoubtedly a sincere longing to get back to fundamental
principles and practices. 2
These churches, or, as Stephens calls them, " politico-
religious societies," 3 seem to have taken their rise in Scot-
land in the spring of 1840,* perhaps at the suggestion, 5 at
any rate with the enthusiastic backing 6 of the Chartist
Circular, the official publication of the Scotch Chartists/
This publication in its number for May 2, 1840, prints an
extract from the first Chartist sermon preached in Scotland,
the text being taken from the Sermon on the Mount : " Be-
ware of false prophets," etc. The idea evidently appealed
to the people, for its success was instantaneous. In
August, 1840, the same paper announced enthusiastically 8
that " they have now planted their humble places of worship
in almost every corner of the land ", while a year later
Stephens with a little more conservatism testified to their
increase.
What is most worthy of remark in the establishment of
these new religious societies [said he], is that they have
sprung up here and there from Scotland down to the
South of England, in the absence of any previously ar-
ranged plan for their formation, and without the assistance
of any missionary or proselyte-maker acting as the agent of
some distant " parent society." They are not " branches "
or " auxiliaries " worked from a center but separate fellow-
1 Chartist Circular, vol. i, p. 197.
2 Ibid., p. 222 ; Solly, James Woodford, vol. ii, pp. 89 et seq.
8 The People's Magazine, May, 1841, pp. 159 et seq.
* Chart, dr., vol. i, p. 129.
8 Ibid., p. no.
' Ibid., pp. no, 129, 197, 222, 226, 374.
1 1bid., Introduction.
* Ibid., p. 197.
44 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [508
ships of the weighty and strong-minded people, who now
begin in good earnest to ask what is the will of God in these
things that belong as well to their earthly as to their heavenly
weal. 1
Following the successful operation of many of these churches
in Scotland the idea was taken up in England where it was
probably introduced by Arthur O'Neill, 2 a member of the
first Central Committee of Scotland, 3 who established in
Birmingham the most famous of the Christian Chartist
Churches, 4 and also preached in many others. 5
The services were held in private houses, schools, public
halls, any place where a group of people could gather.
In West Bromwich, England, one of the iron masters him-
self lent O'Neill a large room. 6 In these places lay preach-
ers, chosen from amongst the local societies, or Chartist
" missionaries," absolutely without pay, held forth on
politico-religious subjects 7 and administered the rites of
baptism and the Lord's Supper and, in Scotland, marriage. 8
The usual method of procedure was to pick out some ap-
propriate text from the Bible after the manner of a sermon,
and with that as a starting point launch into a discussion
of political and economic problems attempting to find
the solution in the teachings of Christianity. 9 According
1 The People's Magazine, p. 159.
* Solly, James Woodford, vol. ii, p. 89.
8 Chart, dr., preface.
4 Gammage, op. cit., p. 196; Solly, op. cit., pp. 89 et seq.; Solly, These
Eighty Years, vol. ii, p. 222.
5 Parliamentary Reports, 1843, vol. xiii, Report of the Midland Min-
ing Commission, paragraphs 608 et seq.
* Report of the Midland Mining Commission, par. 608.
1 The People's Magazine, pp. 159, 160.
8 Chart, dr., pp. no, 222, 226, 374.
9 Midland Mining Commission, par. 610.
509] SUBSTITUTION FOR CHRISTIANITY 45
to the testimony of Mr. Slater, a Wesleyan minister who
calls the mild-mannered and earnest O'Neill " the wretch 'V
the latter introduced into his sermon " unmeasured abuse
of Her Majesty and the Constitution, about the public ex-
penditure, and complete radical doctrines of all kinds." 2
The Chartists had their own hymnbooks which they used
at these services. 2
The congregations were, of course, made up almost en-
tirely of workingmen, a who were, in Birmingham, largely
Baptist and Methodist. 4 The English operatives and col-
liers, when they were anything, were mostly members of
these two denominations and it was principally from them
that the membership of the Chartist Churches was recruited.
This may explain to some extent the hostility of the
Methodists.
Both Churchmen and Dissenters combined to condemn
these attempts to return to primitive Christianity, 5 or, to
put it in their language, an attempt to set up " pretended
churches, and proceeding to dispense pretended sacraments,
on the ground of a political creed." 8 The opposition was
due partially to loss of membership, but, especially in the case
of the State Church, also to a conflict in theory of or-
ganization and polity, a church depending entirely upon
lay preachers being hardly likely to commend itself to a
1 Midland Mining Commission, par. 479.
1 Ibid., par. 608.
s The People's Magazine, May, 1841, p. 159.
4 Solly, fames Woodford, vol. ii, p. 90.
* Mid. Min. Com., par. 608 et seg.; English Review, vol. i, p. 70;
Christian Remembrancer, vol. v, p. 737; British Critic, vol. xxvii, pp.
340, 34i.
Marshall, The Duty of Attempting to Reconcile the Unenfranchised
with the Enfranchised Class, p. 12.
4 6 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [$ L o
priesthood claiming an uninterrupted succession from the
Apostles. 1
Yet these same critics admitted the success of the Chart-
ist Churches, although seeking to explain it by the reli-
gious rather than the political element in their activities. 2
Mr. Slater testified that at West Bromwich the Chartists
had a large room " which used to be crowded to suffocation
every Sabbath afternoon from half -past two to a quarter
past four." * In Birmingham by the assiduous pursuit
of all Christian duties the Chartist Church was able to
live down so far the obloquy of its origin even among the
Wealthy classes as actually to obtain contributions from them
for its work. 4
II. EDUCATION
If the Chartists were dissatisfied with the social program
of the churches in England their criticism was not of a
merely negative character. To take the place of what they
considered the neglect of the church they formulated a more
or less distinct plan for intellectual and social betterment.
In this program the education of the masses occupied the
foremost place. According to Lovett the aim of Chartism
was " to purify the heart and rectify the conduct of all, by
knowledge, morality, and love of freedom." 5 While the
churches in England were squabbling as to who should con-
trol education, the Chartists stood out unequivocally for
secular education. 6 The Chartists instinctively felt that the
1 Chart, dr., vol. i, pp. 374, 222.
* English Review, vol. i, p. 70 ; M id. Min. Com., par. 608 et seq.
3 Mid. Min. Com., par. 608.
* Solly, James Woodford, vol. ii, p. 90; Solly, These Eighty Years,
vol. i, p. 383.
4 Lovett and Collins, Chartism, Introduction, p. 9.
' Weekly Adviser, vol. i, p. 2; Chartist Circular, Vol. i, p. 72; Lovett,
Life and Struggles, pp. 141, 145, 326.
5II ] SUBSTITUTION FOR CHRISTIANITY 47
churches were more interested in the brand of religion that
was to be imparted to the children of the working classes
than either the quality of the instruction or the truthful-
ness of the knowledge. 1 Even such a representative paper
as The Chartist Circular, which is pervaded with a decidedly
Christian tone, bitterly denounces the education in vogue.
There is no tyranny so paralyzing to the public mind [it says],
as the despotism of priestcraft. Wherever an established
priesthood has existed, the people have been mentally and poli-
tically enslaved ; and, if philosophy at any time has triumphed
over superstition it was after long and bitter struggle with
bigotry, intolerance, and selfishness of ignorant priests. If you
read the history of priestcraft in the dark ages, you will re-
spond to my opinions. Priests have never encouraged the
people to study the truths of natural philosophy, or political
science ; nor have they taught them to understand and demand
their civil, religious and natural rights. 2
The English working class became first thoroughly
aroused on the subject of education about 1830 when the
agitation for an " Unstamped Press " became loud and per-
sistent. 3 In this fight to remove the " tax on knowledge,"
as it was called, Henry Hetherington and John Cleave took
the leading part,* while their efforts were ably seconded
by such men as James Watson, William Lovett, and Bron-
terre O'Brien. The connection of the unstamped press
fight with the Chartist movement is easy to trace. It was
Hetherington, Cleave, Watson and Lovett who were later
the heart and soul first of " The National Union of the
1 Lovett, op. cit., p. 135.
* Chartist Circular, vol. i, p. 72; also pp. 39, 40, 59; Kingsley, Alton
Locke, p. 47.
s Lovett, Life and Struggles, pp. 54 et seq.
4 Ibid., pp. 54, 91.
4 g CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [512
Working Classes and Others "/ then of " The London
Working Men's Association," which fathered the Charter.
It is interesting to note that of the six men appointed to
represent the Working Men's Association in drawing up the
Charter, three of them Hetherington, Watson and Cleave
had suffered imprisonment more than once in the cause
of an untaxed press. 2 Of the other three, Lovett was then
prominently active, Moore later defended the same proposi-
tion, 3 while Vincent was still too young to be conspicuous.
Lovett was actually engaged in educational efforts as
early as 1829, when he drew up a " petition for the opening
of the British Museum, and other exhibitions of Art and
Nature, on Sundays." 4 In 1831 the National Union of the
Working Classes and Others, which stood for universal
manhood suffrage, did valiant service for the unstamped
press, convinced as it was that " the wide spread poverty, the
drunkenness, vices, and crimes of society were clearly traced
to the absence of mental and moral light." 5 The London
Workingmen's Association, founded in 1836, which launched
the People's Charter, had also as its objects:
To devise every possible means, and to use every exertion,
to remove those cruel laws that prevent the free circulation of
thought through the medium of a cheap and honest press.
To promote by all available means the education of the
rising generation and the extirpation of those systems which
tend to future slavery.
To form a library of reference and useful information, etc. 8
1 Lovett, op. cit., pp. 68 et seq.
1 Ibid,, p. 62.
8 Ibid., p. 89.
4 Ibid., p. 57.
6 Ibid., p. 134-
Ibid., p. 93. ' ")
5 ! 3 ] SUBSTITUTION FOR CHRISTIANITY 49
The connection between education and Chartism prior
to 1838 is thus clearly seen. But even in the heat of the
Chartist agitation the educational side was not forgotten.
It was continually kept in mind by the little group of
London agitators and taken up with enthusiasm in many
sections. The Weekly Adviser pledges itself to " advocate
the establishment of a national system of education on purely
secular grounds." x The Reformer says that " Popular edu-
cation will occupy a large share of our attention ", 2 while
the Chartist Circular strongly urges upon the Scotch Chart-
ists the advisability of forming schools. 3 Feargus
O'Connor, who could not bear to see anything prosper which
he did not originate and who represented the worst element
of the movement, dubbed the educational efforts of Lovett
and his friends " knowledge Chartism " and through his
great influence was able to do them much harm. 4
While imprisoned in Warwick Gaol, Lovett occupied him-
self with writing a little work entitled Chartism, or a New
Organisation of the People, which was published under
the joint names of Lovett and Collins when they were re-
leased. In the words of Lovett:
The chief object of this work was to induce the Chartists of
the United Kingdom to form themselves into a National As-
sociation for the erection of halls and schools of various kinds
for the purpose of education for the establishment of li-
braries ; the printing of tracts ; and the sending out of mission-
aries ; with the view of forming an enlightened public opinion
throughout the country in favor of the Charter, and thus better
1 Weekly Adviser, a>l. i, p. 2.
1 The Reformer, p. I.
8 Chartist Circular, p. 40.
4 Lovett, op. cit., pp. 250, 251 ; Gammage, op. cit., p. 196.
CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [514
preparing the people for the exercise of the political rights
we are contending for. 1
Lovett had figured out that if each person who signed
the National Petition would contribute even less than
a penny a week, in one year eighty schools at 3,000
each could be erected, equipped with playground, pleas-
ure gardens, museums, laboratories, workshops and baths,
where lectures, readings, discussions, musical entertain-
ments and dances could be held; 710 circulating
libraries at 20 each started; 4 missionaries at 200 per
annum employed and 20,000 tracts per week distributed. 2
Not a mere cultivation of the intellect but a " judicious de-
velopment of all their qualities " * was the object sought.
The publication of Chartism was shortly followed by
an address " To the Political and Social Reformers
of the United Kingdom," signed by eighty-one of the
leading radicals of Great Britain, including Collins,
Hetherington, Cleave and Mitchell of London, urging the
formation of a " National Association of the United King-
dom " * to carry out the projects embraced in the pamphlet
of Lovett and Collins. " There was in this plan," says
Gammage, " all the elements of the people's regeneration,
supposing it to be faithfully and honestly carried out" 5
Although there was no intention on the part of the pro-
moters to oppose associations already formed, 8 the project
met the bitterest opposition from O'Connor 7 and made
but little headway in the provinces. It led in London,
however, to the formation of a body known as " The Lon-
don Members of the National Association," the first two
I
1 Lovett, op. cit., p. 236. z Ibid., p. 249, 250.
8 Ibid., p. 143. * Ibid., pp. 232, 236, 249.
6 Gammage, op. cit., p. 196. 6 Lovett, op. cit., p. 248.
7 Ibid., pp. 251, 255.
515] SUBSTITUTION FOR CHRISTIANITY ^
secretaries of which were Henry Hetherington and Charles
Westerton. A weekly periodical, The National Association
Gazette, was issued by the society * while in 1842 a building
was rented, in which a library was installed, courses of lec-
tures were delivered, music and dancing classes organized
and in 1843 a Sunday School started. 2 A day school was
finally established in 1848 through the generosity of a
friend.*
The Chartists put themselves officially on record in 1851
when in the convention of that year they carried a pro-
position which " laid down the principle of national, secular,
gratuitous, compulsory education." *
Important as was the work of the London radicals in the
field of education, it was not to be compared in extent to the
salutary effect on the intellectual life of the English pro-
letariat of the great number of cheap Chartist periodicals
which sprang up all over England during these years, the
literary standard of which, everything considered, was re-
markably high. It should also be noticed here that Joseph
Barker was the editor and publisher of Barker's Library of
three hundred volumes on religious, political and ethical
subjects, which were up to that time the cheapest collec-
tion ever published. Indeed he is credited with being the
originator of cheap literature in England. 5 Nor is the work
on the lecture platform of W. J. Fox, Thomas Cooper,
William Lovett, Henry Vincent, Robert Lowery and many
others, covering a long period of years, to be forgotten. The
purely educational effect of this alone was considerable.
1 Lovett, op. fit., p. 259.
J Ibid., pp. 287, 288.
a Ibid., p. 334.
*Gammage, op. cit., p. 371.
5 Dictionary of National Biography, vol. iii, pp. 205 et seq. This
may be true of nineteenth- century literature, but Wesley was a pioneer
in this field of the eighteenth. New History of Methodism, vol. i, p. 220.
2 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [516
III. TEMPERANCE AND TEETOTALISM
Chartism ought not to be considered entirely as a political
movement; it contained too many elements which looked to
the moral regeneration of the working classes. Next in
importance to its educational phase must be reckoned its
endeavor to inculcate habits of temperance and even tee-
totalism.
At least three motives contributed to bring the question
of temperance to the front. There was in the first place an
earnest desire on the part of many of the leaders of the
working class to rescue their followers from the demoraliz-
ing effects on health and morals of a habit whose influence
could be only too plainly seen. 1 The time and energy con-
sumed and the money wasted in drink were a decided im-
pediment to an efficient agitation for political rights, 2 while
the ignorance and crime engendered by the excessive use of
alcohol gave some ground for the accusation so often made,
that the lower classes were unprepared to exercise the
franchise. Last of all the Chartists believed that not only
did drink help to enslave them politically by debasing them
morally, but that the excise duties on liquor and tobacco
actually furnished sinews of war to their oppressors. 3 The
loss of revenue to the treasury which would result from
abstinence on the part of the working classes from excisable
articles would in the minds of many Chartists be of sufficient
importance to " bring the misrule of our government to an
end." * " We shall never get our rights," says Devildust,
whom Disraeli pictures as an especially keen Chartist of the
ranks, " till we leave off consuming excisable articles." 5
1 Lovett, Life and Struggles, pp. 57, 95 ; Eng. Chart, dr., pp. 6, 23, 35,
etc.; Alton Locke, p. 84.
* Eng. Chart, dr., pp. 35, 46.
3 Ibid., pp. 6, 35, 40, 42, etc.
4 Reformer's Almanac, p. 238. 5 Disraeli, Sybil, p. 115.
517] SUBSTITUTION FOR CHRISTIANITY 53
Vincent, the Chartist whose name above all others is
connected with the temperance agitation, sums the whole
matter up when he concludes his "Address to the Working
Man " with the following words :
By adopting this course, the habits of the people will be at
once changed. New hopes and new desires will be awakened
in the breasts of millions intellect will start forth to dispute
the arrogant pretensions of our corrupt rulers the poorest
man will derive solid benefit myriads of wives and children
will be better housed, fed, and clad the people will become
too proud to wear the degraded livery of a policeman, or to
enlist as soldiers, to murder at the bidding of an aristocrat
their unoffending brothers for a shilling a day our rulers
will be deprived of an immense revenue and, to crown all,
no government can long withstand the just claims of a people
who have had the courage to conquer their own vices. 1
In its connection with Chartism the agitation for temper-
ance, like that for education, traces its beginnings to the
Working Men's Association of London. As early as 1829
Lovett began to take an active interest in temperance, 2
When the London Working Men's Association was formed
a few years later they sought " to make the principles of
democracy as respectable in practice as they are just in
theory, by excluding the drunken and immoral " 3 and those
who " drown their intellect amid the drunkenness of the
pot house." * And lest the members might succumb to
temptation they avoided holding their meetings at public
houses because " habit and associations are too often formed
at those places which mar the domestic happiness, and de-
1 English Chartist Circular, p. 35.
1 Lovett, Life and Struggles, p. 57.
* Ibid., p. 94.
4 Ibid., p. 95.
54 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [518
stroy the political usefulness of the millions." * If no better
place offered they were to meet at one another's houses. 2
Still later one reason given for the founding of the National
Association of the United Kingdom a was the establishment
of public halls where the workingmen " might be taken out
of the contaminating influence of public-houses and beer-
shops places where many of their meetings are still held,
in which their passions are inflamed, their reasons drowned,
their families pauperized, and themselves socially degraded
and politically enslaved." * The same group who fig-
ured so prominently in educational efforts Hether-
ington, Cleave, Lovett and Watson in January, 1840,
established The English Chartist Circular and Temperance
Advocate for England and Wales, which was edited by
James Harris and served as the official organ for the Chart-
ist Teetotal Societies.
Vincent, who was perhaps the greatest orator which the
Chartist movement produced, 5 had during his imprisonment
become convinced that teetotalism was the prime requisite
for success in obtaining the Charter. Upon his release in
January, 1841, he issued 8 an Address to the Workingmen
of England, Scotland, and Wales in which he called upon
them to adopt the Teetotal Pledge and " to form themselves
into Chartist Teetotal Societies in every city, town and
village." 7 The address was signed by many of the most
prominent Chartists in all parts of the kingdom. Vincent
followed it up by lecture tours and public propaganda of
1 Lovett, op. cit., p. 65. * Ibid., p. 96.
8 Ibid., pp. 248 et seq.
4 Ibid., p. 254.
5 Gammage, op. cit., p. n.
Dictionary of National Biography, vol. Iviii, p. 359.
7 English Chartist Circular, p. 35.
519] SUBSTITUTION FOR CHRISTIANITY 55
all kinds. In this he was ably aided by Thomas Cooper, 1
Rev. William Hill, Joseph Barker 2 and others, and by such
Chartist publications as the English Chartist Circular, the
Chartist Circular (Scotch), 3 Reformer's Almanac,*' etc.
O'Connor himself was inclined to throw ridicule upon
the movement 5 but the editor of his paper, Hill, was
ardently for it 6 and O'Connor's influence was thus in a
measure neutralized. Vincent and his followers went into
the proposition whole-heartedly. Temperance and moder-
ate drinking they were opposed to only absolute teetotal-
ism would suffice.
The idea of teetotalism took hold for a time, at least, and
during the early months of 1841 numerous Chartist Tee-
total Societies were formed in England which sought to
combine an advocacy of the principles of the Charter and
total abstinence. The reports of their activities may be
partially followed in the files of the Chartist Circular. At
the outset much enthusiasm was manifested and Vincent
reported the administering of the pledge to numerous fol-
lowers, while Cooper in Leicester succeeded in persuading
several hundreds to " promise to abstain, etc., until the
People's Charter becomes the law of the land." 7 Towards
the latter part of 1841 the reports cease to come in and it is
probable that the Chartist Teetotal Societies declined rapidly.
The work of the Chartist Teetotalers did, however, con-
tribute something positive to the cause of temperance and
the general moral uplift of the English workingman.
1 Cooper, Life of Cooper, pp. 164 et seq.
1 New History of Methodism, vol. i, p. 525 ; The People, p. I.
8 Chartist Circular, pp. 285, 286.
4 Reformer's Almanac, p. 238.
B Gammage, op. cit., p. 196.
6 English Chartist Circular, p. 46.
7 Cooper, Life of Cooper, p. 165.
^6 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [520
IV. OTHER REFORMS
The effort " to generate a moral stamina in the ranks of
the millions " * was not confined to temperance and educa-
tion. Alongside of these there developed a higher concep-
tion of the mission of women. 2 In an address issued by the
Working Men's Association to their "working class brethren
in America " Lovett writes,
We seek to make the mothers of our children fit instructors
for promoting our social and political advancement, by reading
and conversing with them upon all subjects we may be ac-
quainted with; and thus by kindness and affection to make
them our companions in knowledge and happiness, and not,
as at present, mere domestic drudges and ignorant slaves of
our passions. 3 '
Their co-operation in the struggle for the Charter was
welcomed and Female Chartist Societies were formed *
which contributed not a little to the strength of the move-
ment. 8
Although chiefly concerned with economic and political
reforms the Chartists were nevertheless usually to be found
in the forefront of all progressive agitation. Thus the
movement for the abolition of the death penalty found
warm supporters in the Chartist ranks. 8 Militarism was
particularly obnoxious, especially to those who had en-
joyed a taste of it. Standing armies were declared by
the London Convention of 1851 to be "contrary to the
1 Lovett, op. dt., p. 133.
2 See Lovett's "Woman's Mission"; Gammage, op. cit., p. II.
* Solly, James Woodford, vol. i, pp. 75, 76.
* English Chartist Circular, vol. i, p. 6.
8 Gammage, op. cit., pp. 82, 188.
6 Dierlamm, Die Flugschriftenliteratur der Chartistenbewegung, p. 45 ;
Gammage, op. cit., p. 372; The Reformer, p. i.
5 2l] SUBSTITUTION FOR CHRISTIANITY 57
principles of Democracy, and dangerous to the liberty of the
people." 1 The group of Chartist leaders who were the
backbone of the London Working Men's Association were
ardent pacifists. To Lovett, speaking on behalf of the
association, war was but a " barbarous means for brutaliz-
ing the people" and an instrument " to gratify aristocratic
cupidity, selfishness, and ambition," 2 the result of which is to
lead thousands to slaughter and to death, to increase the
national debt and leave the stigma of cruelty and injustice
upon the national character. "If war is the only path to
civilization," cried Lovett, " what a mockery is it to preach
up the religion of Christ." 3 Most of the arguments of the
present-day pacifists were known and used by the Chartists.
The majority of the reforms and innovations advocated
by the Chartists were obviously laudable. Others were
honestly debatable. None were actually revolutionary.
Their program, taken broadly, was a scheme for the politi-
cal, intellectual and moral regeneration of the masses, and
so it was considered by most of the reformers of the day
who, perhaps, might differ as to some of the details. The
attitude toward the advocates of these innovations on the
part of the upper and middle classes, while not exceptional
in the history of radical movements, is an interest-
ing instance of the mind of the conservative. The prevail-
ing feeling toward the Chartists, says Solly, was one of
" horror and disgust." * " By highly respectable and most
pious folk," observes Linton, " Chartism was considered
vulgar and disreputable." 5 Although the idea of the aver-
1 Gammage, op. cit., pp. 371, 372.
ILovett, Life and Struggles, pp. 265, 266.
8 Lovett, op. cit., p. 307, in An Apology of Peace from the London
Working Men's Association; also p. 320.
4 Solly, These Eighty Years, vol. i, p. 345.
* Linton, Memories, pp. 75, 76.
^8 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [522
age Englishman in regard to Chartism was undoubtedly
very hazy, 1 he was sure it was something evil and to be
avoided. To become associated with " the lawless demo-
crats " and " the enemies of law and order," as they were
frequently called, entailed usually the loss of the friend-
ship of former associates and frequently of the means of
livelihood itself. 2 To advocate political freedom at a time
when Europe was restless with revolution, secular education
at a time when instruction was largely exploited by sectarian
interests, teetotalism when intoxicating liquors were the or-
dinary beverage of all, and the separation of church and
state at just the time when the influence of the Oxford
movement was beginning to make itself felt, was to arouse
the bitter antagonism of all classes. The aristocracy and
bourgeoisie found the whole subject too painful to contem-
plate and sought refuge in government prosecutions and in
the abridgement of common-law liberties. Yet the Chart-
ists, who had found in this agitation for political, economic,
social and religious reformation a substitute for religious
enthusiasm, firmly believed that they were not only trying
to fulfill the teachings of Christ but were actually engaged
in a work which rightfully belonged to the church.
1 Parker, A Preacher's Life, p. 16.
2 Contemporary Review, May, 1904, p. 733 ; Solly, These Eighty Years,
vol. i, pp. 394, 398.
CHAPTER III
ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES TOWARD CHARTISM
I. THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
A. The Church as a Whole
THE unsavory reputation which the clergymen of the
Established Church had acquired amongst the political radi-
cals * was, on the whole, deserved. With even more vehem-
ence than they had manifested against the Reform Bill of
1832 they now took up the fight against Chartism. Almost as
one man they stood opposed to further extension of the
suffrage and the Chartists recognized in the clergymen of
the Church of England their bitterest enemies.
This clerical opposition was first naturally expressed in the
most convenient means at hand. Innumerable sermons were
Jpreached on such subjects as " The Sin of Despising Domin-
ion," * " Great Britain's Happiness," 3 " The Powers that be
are Ordained of God," 4 " Obedience to Lawful Author-
ity," 5 " Fear God and Honor the King," 6 etc. Of the
printed political sermons some mention Chartism by name
1 Supra, pp. 20 et seq.
J Sermon of Rev. John Haigh, M. A., reviewed in The People, p. 39.
* Sermon of Rev. 'Robert Sutton, Canon Redemptionary of Ripon,
reviewed in The People, p. 169.
4 Sermon of Rev. J. Slade, of Bolton, reviewed in The People, p. 283.
5 Sermon of Rev. E. B. Were, Ch. of Eng. Mag., vol. x, p. 216.
* Disraeli, Sybil, p. 392.
523] 59
60 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [524
and some only by implication but all are " published with
the view of checking the spread of democratic principles
and the growth of democratic feeling." * They seldom at-
tempt to argue out the proposition but are characterized by
the most indiscriminate denunciation of all political reform-
ers, who are referred to as " children of the devil ; as bad,
immoral, and unprincipled men; as filthy dreamers," and the
like. 2
A number of sermons were preached expressly on Chart-
ism, usually upon the visit to a church of the Chartists
in a body. 3 Some half-dozen of these sermons were printed
and had a large circulation, being distributed as tracts by
the Religious Tract Society. 4 One of them has already
been briefly examined. 5 It will suffice to glance at another,
that by the Rev. Evan Jenkins, Incumbent Minister of Dow-
lais, entitled Chartism Unmasked, which, according to
the title page, reached nineteen editions. Jenkins begins
by affirming that " The doctrines taught and urged by the
Chartist leaders, are as diametrically opposed to the doc-
trines revealed in the eternal word of God, as the North is
to the South." 6 " The Chartist leaders," says he, " preach
and teach the doctrine of ' equality ' ; but we have no such
doctrine taught us by the Book of Nature or the Book of
God." After illustrating inequality in nature he shows
how it exists in every field of human life and government,
quoting Exodus xvm. 20, 21, 22; Judges n. 16; I Sam-
uel n. 7; Proverbs vin. 15; 16; Daniel in.; and Romans
xin. i, to prove that the doctrine of " gradations " has
1 The People, p. 169.
f Ibid., p. 39.
8 Supra, pp. 35 et seq.
4 Chartist Circular, p. 193.
6 Supra, p. 37.
' Jenkins, Chartism Unmasked, pp. 5 et seq.
525] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 6r
the divine sanction. The second Chartist doctrine op-
posed to the word of God, he continues, is " the following,
namely, that poverty is not the result of the everlasting
purpose of a Sovereign God, but is only the result of unjust
human laws, and of the oppression of unfeeling, selfish,
hard-hearted, and grinding rich men." This is disproved
also by the Bible which says that " The poor shall never
cease out of the land." "Ask yourself who is right and
who is wrong?", cries Jenkins, "the all- wise God or the
Chartist leaders."
The points of the Charter were, in his mind, easily dis-
posed of. Annual parliaments meant simply " annual
squabbles, annual turmoils, annual upsetting and destruc-
tion of the peace, tranquillity, unity and trade of the coun-
try." x Universal suffrage would bring nothing but uni-
versal confusion with father divided against son and the
mother against the daughter. " Vote by ballot would be
nothing but a law for rogues and knaves, nothing but a
cloak for dishonesty, insincerity, hypocrisy and lies!" To
pay members of Parliament would only make inefficient
members more idle and would turn the Parliament into a
group of adventurers whose whole interest would be, "How
to advance their own wages."
Not only is poverty appointed by God, said Jenkins, but
so also is "work and labour" (Genesis in. 19; Exodus
xx. 9). But if God has ordained poverty and labor he has
also made abundant provision for the present comfort and
eternal happiness of the poor : ( I ) He has commanded the
rich to contribute liberally toward their wants (Deut. xv.
7-11; vi. 17-19; i John in. 17-18); (2) God himself has
promised that the pious poor shall have a sufficiency ( Psalm
LXVIII. 10; cxxxn. 10; Isaiah XLI. 17; Matt. vi. 26,
1 Jenkins, Chartism Unmasked, pp. 10 et seq.
62 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [526
28-30) ; (3) God has made a further and better provision
for the poor, a spiritual one, because (a) Jesus was poor;
(b) the ministry of Christ was in a peculiar manner the
ministry of the poor (Matth. xi. 4-6) ; (c) the salvation
of the poor is much easier to obtain than that of the
rich (Mark x. 23; Romans n. 4-6; i Tim. vi. 9; I Cor.
i. 26-28; James n. 5).
Having established this relationship between the Gospel
and the poor he entreated the people that they turn from
the Chartist leaders, 1 cease from reading " their inflamma-
tory publications publications that speak as highly of Tom
Paine as they do of Jesus Christ!", that they " never attend
Chartist and political meetings ", and " have nothing to do
with secret societies and secret oaths ", that they " never,
except upon some urgent business, be seen in one of the
beer houses ", and above all that they should " embrace re-
ligion." He closes with a plea for an adequate number
of churches and devoted ministers. The Church of Eng-
land, he says, "and Chartism totally oppose each other "*
and
a sufficient number of churches, with the blessing of God ac-
companying and resting upon the ministrations of His servants,
would soon prove an invincible barrier to the progress of
Chartism, and all similar proceedings ; and, would cause them
to wither and die, by changing the minds, the feelings, the
hearts, and consequently the actions of the people.
These sermons, of course, did not go unchallenged. The
Chartist Circular printed a series of three articles, each en-
titled "A Tilt with the Parsons ", s while Joseph Barker in
1 Jenkins, Chartism Unmasked, pp. 22 et seq.
* Appendix III.
8 Chartist Circular, pp. 193, 205, 237.
527] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 63
a series of five articles in The People * reviews a sermon by
Rev. John Haigh, of Huddersfield, and in eight articles 2
headed " Our Admirable Constitution in Church and
State," takes the Rev. Robert Sutton, Canon Redemptionary
of Ripon, to task for his sermon on " Great Britain's Hap-
piness." With such a skilled political controversialist
as Barker the clergy could hardly hope to hold their own.
Although the Chartists did not have Romans xui. to serve
as a basis for their arguments, they had what was of much
more practical value, namely, a fairly accurate idea of the
actual state of the country politically and economically. In
the mere matter of abuse and the calling of names the Char-
tists proved as facile as the clergy.
In addition to sermons, several pamphlets appeared from
the pens of Anglican clergymen. The Rev. Hugh Stowell,
M. A., in his pamphlet, No Revolution: A Word to the
People of England, with the Biblical text, " Meddle not
with them that are given to change", on the title page,*
strikes a new chord when he appeals against the Chartists on
the ground that many of their leaders are Irish Papists
Jesuits perhaps. Others are traders in agitation. He main-
tains that there is no slavery in England, nor is there one
law for the rich and another for the poor. If some of the
workingmen are starving it is no fault of the masters, for
the interests of both are identical. He closes in the cus-
tomary strain : " May you never cast off your reverence
for that Book which teaches you that ' the powers that be
are ordained of God ', and that ' he that resisteth the power,
resisteth the ordinance of God ' ! May you never set at
naught the counsel of the wisest of men, ' Fear God and
1 The People, pp. 39, 45, 73, 105, "3.
1 Ibid., pp. 169, 177, 185, 201, 219, 233, 246, 289; see also p. 283.
3 Third edition, Manchester, 1848.
64 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [528
the King; and meddle not with them that are given to
change '." x
Another anti-Chartist pamphlet is entitled, A Few
Words to the Chartists by a Frie'nd- Says the author, as
he begins, I must
at once tell you the worst of myself those particulars, I
mean, which may incline you the most to dislike and suspect
1 This was immediately answered in a pamphlet entitled, Is There
One Law for the Rich and Another for the Poor? Being a Reply by
a Working Man to ' No Revolution ' lately published by the Rev. Hugh
Stowell. On the title-page appears the text, " When the righteous
are in authority the people rejoice; but when the wicked beareth rule
the people mourn." Prov. xxix, 2. The Working Man answers that it
is unfair to raise the cry of " No Popery " to stifle public opinion. He
calls it slavery for a large class " to produce and yet have not," and
" for the working bees to toil, and procure honey for the idle drones
to devour." That there is class legislation, he says, is only too evident,
and the most deplorable feature of the whole affair is that the clergy-
men of the Established Church are responsible for it. In answer to
the plea for " patience " and " trust in God," he answers : " Patience
ought to have its limits, and that in addition to trust in God he ought
to have his powder dry. The Bible tells us having food and raiment,
therewith be content, but does not say having neither food or raiment
we must be content" (p. 6). Then follows a refutation of the biblical
quotations used by Stowell with a number of texts to strengthen the
other side. In summing up he says: "That good subjects ought to
have good government, that the laws of England ought to be in
accordance with the laws of God, that the working man is stamped as
much in the image of his Creator as the terrible and proud aristocrat,
repeat that beautiful passage from Holy Writ contained in the second
chapter of Malachi. It reads thus: 'Have we not all one father?
hath not one God created us? then why do we deal treacherously,
every one with his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers?'
Do not tell us that divine providence has placed us in this wretched
situation, while we know that it is base and wicked laws, made by base
and wicked men. Do not show us the rough and thorny way to heaven,
while you yourself the primrose path of dalliance tread. If our reward
in heaven is to be in proportion to our sufferings on earth, if the
greater our tribulations here, the greater our reward hereafter, tell the
rich churchmen and over-paid parsons to change situations with us,
and great will be their reward in heaven" (pp. 7, 8).
529] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 65
me. I am an old man : and therefore, you may probably con-
clude, fixed in all notions, and desirous to keep all matters as
they are I also am a clergyman; and consequently you may
set me down as a bigoted partisan in all church concerns.
Again: I am an elector; and so may be disposed to have no
disposition to increase the number and, farther, I am in the
middle class of society. 1
He is opposed to all points of the Charter. The people,
he says, do not know enough to vote and would not send
the best men to represent them. As to property qualifica-
tion, those having property are the best to make laws con-
cerning it. What is the use of paying members when you
can get good men to serve for nothing? Annual parlia-
ments would unnecessarily stir up the country. Secret
ballot would not prove secret and it would separate the
member from his constituents. He would hold the suffrage
from the uneducated but he " distinctly and solemnly " *
states that he imputes no blame to the working class be-
cause of their ignorance.
Still another was a tract by the Vicar of Rotherham
entitled Modern Politicians: A Word to the Working
Classes of Great Britain. The object of this pamphlet, ac-
cording to Barker, appeared to be "to support existing evils,
by throwing reproach and ridicule on the advocates of re-
form ". 3
The prevailing feeling among the clergy of the State
Church was echoed in its papers representing both the High
and Low Church schools. On examining the High Church
papers it is discovered that the Christian Guardian and
the Church of England Magazine is concerned because
Satan and the " emissaries of evil " are spreading " politi-
cal discontent and impatience of the control of religion "
1 P. 3. *P. ii.
8 Reformer's Almanac, p. 353.
66 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [530
in the manufacturing districts. 1 To the Christian Remem-
brancer, " Radicalism and Chartism are impossible for
Christians and Churchmen ", and, they trust, for England.*
The English Review admits that,
It is a sad but certain truth that vast masses of our labouring
population, some hundreds of thousands in number, are banded
together in an association, which professes, for the moment,
only to seek for Universal Suffrage, and the centralization of all
power in the working classes; but which at the same time
demonstrates, through all its organs, its impatient eagerness to
overthrow every institution of our country and create an abso-
lute despotic democracy on the ruins of individual freedom
and imperial greatness. 3
Liberty, according to the English Review, is synonymous
with division of power, and it is under this liberty
that the people now live. If the middle classes have
the House of Commons and the aristocracy the House
of Lords, the unfranchised have great power too, " be-
ing directly represented by public meetings, the right of
petition, the show of hands at nomination, the press, etc."
It is therefore the duty of all to teach the laboring classes
to prefer " the true individual freedom which they at pres-
ent enjoy " to a political change which would bring only
" democratic despotism." 4 Three years later, in 1851, this
same paper feels called upon to dispel the " agreeable delu-
sion " that Chartism is defunct. It is more dangerous than
ever now, it asserts, because orderly. " For we have noth-
ing to fear from democracy, the pike in its hand,
everything from its gradual, and, if we may say ' constitu-
tional ' demolition of our Constitution in Church and
1 Vol. for 1847, p. 332. * Vol. viii, p. 683.
Vol. ix, pp. 194, 195.
4 English Review, vol. ix, pp. 194-196.
53 1 ] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 67
State." 1 Any increase of the suffrage is to be dreaded
as tending to establish the supreme authority in a single
branch of the legislature, thus upsetting the equilibrium of
balance of power. 2
The Low Church organs were equally hostile. Although
the Church of England Magazine attributed the riots of
1842 to a lack of religion which would have made the oper-
atives " satisfied with their position in life," 9 it still had a
wholesome fear of Chartism. 4 The editor of the Christian
Observer was greatly alarmed over the " Chartists and the
very refuse of society who cannot, or will not, distinguish
between the excellency of an institution and the casual tem-
porary defects of its administration ", 5 and in the year
1839 he mentions them almost every month in the depart-
ment called " View of Public Affairs ". 6 The secular re-
views like the Quarterly and the Edinburgh, which con-
tained, however, numerous religious articles, were in a
similar manner opposed to Chartism. 7
Sometimes in the daily rounds of pastoral duty a clergy-
man would find an opportunity to express his feelings in
regard to the Chartist demands. Rev. J. T. Brown of
Northampton, upon finding a Chartist tract in the house of
a parishioner, tore out six leaves and threw them in the
fire, afterwards asserting that any other tracts found in his
district teaching sedition and blasphemy would be treated
in a similar manner. 8 Joseph Parker tells of one man who
1 English Review, vol. xvi, p. 56.
3 Ibid., vol. xvi, p. 85. See also British Critic, vol. xxvii, pp. 340, 341.
* Church of England Magazine, vol. xvi, p. 368.
* Ibid., vol. xx, p. 215. 5 Christian Observer, vol. lix, p. 446.
6 Ibid., pp. 381, 446, 510, 640, 817, and especially 573.
7 Quarterly Review, vol. Ixv, pp. 483 et seq.; vol. Ixvi, pp. 461 et seq.;
vol. Ixxxv, p. 293 ; vol. Ixxxix, pp. 491 et seq.
8 The People, vol. i, p. 333.
68 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [533
proposed that the Northern Star be taken into a public news
room, upon which " he was expelled for his insolence, the
vicar and several persons of property passing him on the
road as if he had lost any little character which he might
have had." 1
Kingsley, when he drew what he considered a type of
the average Church of England clergyman of high rank,
put in his mouth the words, " What's that about brother-
hood and freedom, Lillian? We don't want anything of
that kind here." It was exactly that attitude which separ-
ated so decidedly the clergy from the working-class radi-
cals. It is true that in the opposition to the New Poor Law
and in the fight against the factory system an occasional
point of contact was established. In the struggle for a
greater democracy in church and state and in the emphasis
placed upon Christianity the Chartists found little in com-
mon with the Church of England or its representatives.
B. The High Church or Oxford Movement
Although the chief influence of the High Church move-
ment was felt along theological and doctrinal lines, yet
there was in it a distinctly political element which it
is impossible to ignore. 3 This political feature was par-
ticularly in evidence during the early years of that move-
ment, for the political situation then called it into be-
ing. The Reform Bill of 1832 developed two distinct
parties in the English Church, one of which decided to
accept the inevitable and make the best of it, the other,
later developing into the High Church Party, was " op-
posed to liberalism in church and state ", 4 and was unwill-
ing to remain passive under the attacks of the government.
1 Parker, A Preacher's Life, p. 54. * Alton Locke, p. 154.
* Tulloch, Movement of Religious Thought in Britain during the
Nineteenth Century, p. 105.
1 Ibid., p. 88.
533] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 6g
To this party the Reform Bill had come as a horrible night-
mare, and was looked upon as a logical sequence to the anti-
church measures already passed. 1 The composition of the
first reformed parliament was not such as to allay their
fears, and the ministry itself was thought to be " connected
with all that was dangerous in religious principle, zealous
friends of Rationalists, Deists, Socinians, Dissenters, and
Roman Catholics, all of whom were equally bent on the
destruction of the Church." 2 The fears of Churchmen that
further measures detrimental to the Establishment might be
introduced were soon confirmed. Early in 1833 a the gov-
ernment in consequence of a motion of Mr. Ward, mem-
ber for St. Albans, brought in a bill to reduce the number
of Irish bishops from twenty-two to twelve, and to tax the
Irish clergy and apply the proceeds to the extinction of
church-cess, a rate levied to keep the church buildings in
good condition. It was this bill with the accompanying
admonition of Lord Grey to the prelates to set their house
in order that galvanized the High Church Party into action
and caused the founding in 1833 of the " Association of
Friends of the Church ", 4 the beginning of the Oxford
Movement and the publication of the Tracts for the Times*
These circumstances led Dean Stanley to ascribe to the
movement an " origin entirely political ". 5 The fol-
lowers of Pusey and R. H. Froude fought every hostile
movement on the part of the government, to the extent of
1 The High Churchmen looked upon the repeal of the Test and Cor-
poration Acts of 1828 and the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 as
anti-church measures. Vide Overton, The Anglican Revival, p. 9.
* Palmer, Narrative of Events Connected with the Publication of
Tracts for the Times, p. 38.
3 Ibid., pp. 44, 101 ; Molesworth, History of England, vol. i, p. 286.
* Palmer, op. cit., pp. 95 et seq.
8 Church, The Oxford Movement, pp. i, 2, note; Edinburgh Review,
1880, pp. 309, 310.
7 o CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [534
opposing in 1836 the reform of the English Church, 1 and
so exerted an influence political as well as spiritual. 2
The politics of the Oxford Movement were ultra-Tory.
Froude " was a Tory of the old Cavalier stamp." s To
Newman, revolutionary Paris was so distasteful that he
kept indoors when his boat stopped at Algiers so as not to
look upon the Tricolor. 4 Keble was a " Tory of the Old
School ". 5 Ward in his college days at Oxford moved at
the Union : " That an absolute monarchy is a more desir-
able form of government than the constitution proposed by
the Reform Bill of Lord John Russell ". 6 Rose, Palmer
and Percival were equally conservative. 7 In fact to be a
High Churchman was synonymous with being a Tory. 8
" It was a new Toryism or designed to be such, as well as a
new sacerdotalism ", 9 says Professor Tulloch. It was in-
deed a new Toryism of a particularly vital kind, not a
mere helpless attempt to maintain the status quo. The
glories of the medieval state as pictured by Scott 10 and of
the medieval church as drawn by Ward in The Ideal Church
seem to have been continually before the minds of the
Oxford leaders. With " its bases in a deep distrust of
democracy ", " the High Church party stood for the asser-
1 Palmer, op. cit., p. 63.
3 Ibid., pp. 105 et seq.
3 Newman, Apologia, p. 48 (Everyman's Library edition).
* Tulloch, op. cit., p. 105.
5 Ibid., p. 87; also Letters and Correspondence, ed. by Anne Mozley,
P. 32.
6 Ward, William Ward and the Oxford Movement, p. 20.
7 Overton, The Anglican Revival, p. 32.
8 Mozley, Reminiscences Chiefly of Oriel College and the Oxford
Movement, vol. i, p. 188.
9 Tulloch, op. cit., p. 105.
10 British Critic, April, 1839, vol. xxv, p. 399.
535] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 7!
tion of paternalism in government " and " of a more or less
paternal ecclesiasticism "/ The Catholic idea that unques-
tioning obedience is a virtue in itself was firmly embedded
in the doctrine of Puseyism. A reverence for authority,
especially ecclesiastical, was fundamental, while unstinted
condemnation was meted out to the spirit of lawlessness of
the times. 2 The attitude of the Oxford Movement to the
liberalism of the day is nowhere better set forth than in
the first part of Tract 83, published in 1840, where most of
the reform projects of the time are ascribed to Satan's
efforts to bring about an apostasy from the Church of
Christ. It says:
He promises you civil liberty; he promises you equality; he
promises you trade and wealth; he promises you a remission
of taxes; he promises you reform. This is the way he con-
ceals from you the kind of work to which he is putting you;
he tempts you to rail against your rulers and superiors; he
does so himself, and induces you to imitate him ; or he promises
you illumination he offers you knowledge, science, philosophy,
enlargement of mind. He scoffs at times gone by, he scoffs
at every institution that reveres them," etc. 3
These are the characteristics of the " Times of Antichrist "
to which the Oxford Movement is unalterably opposed.
But not only did Puseyism have political antecedents and
teach a definite political doctrine but it had its recognized
ally in the political arena of the day. Partially through its
influence a new party was growing up, known as " Young
England ". What the Oxford Movement would do for the
1 Hall, Social Meaning of Modern Religious Movements in England,
pp. 219, 222, 23O.
1 Ibid., p. 229; Tracts for the Times, no. 86, pp. 39, 50, 84 et seq., and
no. 87, p. 121.
* Tracts for the Times, no. 83, pp. 13, 14.
72 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [536
Church, Young England would do for the state. 1 Repu-
diating Conservatism, Whiggism and Radicalism as all
alike inadequate to the needs of the time the Young Eng-
land Party, like the Oxford, stood for a new Toryism, a
Toryism with a program. An examination of the platform
of the Young England Party as promulgated by Disraeli in
his Sybil (1844) and Coningsby (1845) shows an unmis-
takable affinity between the purposes of the two movements,
which was generally conceded at the time. 2 In secular
politics Young England would abolish class legislation,
recognize the authority of public opinion and restore to the
sovereign his lost prerogatives,* attaining progress with-
out change in the form of government. 4 In ecclesiastical
matters they would restore the church to its medieval glory
of freedom from the state, of emphasis upon forms, of
democracy and of friendship for the people. 5
To Young England the social question was a most im-
portant one. The attitude of this group is unmistakably
expressed in Disraeli's Chartist novel, Sybil or The Two
Nations. Stirred by what he considered the two great
evils of the time, namely, " the oppression of the church
and the degradation of the people ", 6 Disraeli held that the
working class, as a class, were entitled to certain privileges
as much as any class in England and those privileges con-
sisted of at least food, clothing and shelter. In support of
this he said :
the rights of labor were as sacred as those of property; that
if a difference were to be established, the interests of the
1 Edinburgh Review, vol. 81, pp. 504, 505.
1 Christian Remembrancer, June, 1844, p. 678.
1 Disraeli, Sybil, pp. 314, 489. * Ibid., p. 335.
6 Eclectic Magazine, 1844, p. 51.
e Disraeli, Sybil, pp. 67, 69, 128, 129.
537] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 73
living ought to be preferred . . . the social happiness of the
millions should be the first object of a statesman, and that, if
this were not achieved, thrones and dominions, the pomp and
power of courts and empires, were alike worthless. 1
He would " bring back strength to the Crown, liberty
to the Subject, and announce that power has only one
duty; to secure the social welfare of the People". 2 This
prosperity of the people he would bring back not by
increasing the franchise but by educating the wealthy and
the churches up to a sense of their duty. The nobility
should look upon the tenantry as human beings rather than
as so much wealth, while the church, as in the middle
ages, should turn to wholesale and lavish charity. The
noble was to be " father of the poor and chief of the neigh-
borhood ". Disraeli's ideas were taken up enthusiastically
by many. " Doles were formally given out at stated hours
to all who would come for them at the castle gate ", 8 while
' Young noblemen played cricket with the peasants on their
estates and the Saturnian age was believed by a good many
to be returning." 4 In other words the whole scheme was
that of a great paternal and benevolent despotism. Dis-
raeli has infinite sympathy for the poor and oppressed, but
no faith in Chartism as a means of bettering their lot.
Although the combination of the activities of these two
parties, the State and Church Puseyites, caused an out-
break of social activity and philanthropic work similar to
that accompanying the Methodist revival, 5 yet this was not
what the Chartists wanted. Undoubtedly the idea of Dis-
1 Disraeli, Sybil, p. 337. 2 Ibid., p. 315.
1 McCarthy, A History of Our Own Times, vol. i, p. 328.
* Ibid., vol. i, p. 329.
6 Hall, op. cit., pp. 221, 224, 225 ; Palmer, op. cit., pp. 258, 259.
7 4 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [538
raeli's paternal despotism might have appealed to such men
as Stephens or even O'Connor or O'Brien, 1 but it had no
place in the thought of the school of Lovett. Dierlamm well
says : " The striving toward social, political and intellectual
independence of the workers one of the fundamental prin-
ciples of Chartism stood diametrically opposed to the
thought of Disraeli ". 2 The Times newspaper, which was
considered as the special mouthpiece of the Young Eng-
land party, 9 was most bitterly hated by the Chartists. 4
There was, however, a superficial similarity between the
ideas of one group of Chartists, and the followers of the
Oxford Movement and 'Young England in at least one
respect. Dierlamm makes a strong point when he maintains
that the real division in the Chartist ranks was not that be-
tween the physical and moral force wings (this division
is to be found in all movements), but in the division be-
tween those who, like O'Connor and O'Brien, were forever
looking backward to the former prosperous days of the
English laborer and seeking to restore conditions which
had forever passed away, and those who, like Lovett and
Cooper, accepted the changes of the industrial revolution
and sought a remedy in the intellectual and moral develop-
ment and regeneration of the workingman. 6 It was the
futile endeavor to bring back the good old days, which
probably never existed, and the continuous looking back-
ward that bound in a measure one group of Chartists to the
1 Dierlamm, Die Flugschriftenliteratur der Chartistenbewegung, p. ig.
2 Ibid., p. 87. " Das Streben nach zozialen, politischen und intellectu-
ellen Selbstandigheit des Arbeiters eine des Grundideen des Chartis-
mus stand der Gedanken Disraeli's diametral entgegen."
3 Ed. Rev., vol. Ixxxi, p. 504.
4 Dierlamm, op. cit., p. 80.
6 Dierlamm, op. cit., p. g.
539] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 7,5
two aristocratic 1 movements in church and state. But the
average Chartist wanted first political justice, thinking that
having once acquired this, he would be in a position to de-
mand and obtain social justice. With the ultra-Toryism
and the benevolent despotism of the Oxford Movement and
Young England, Chartism had always little sympathy. One
Chartist, Charles Westerton, " rendered great service to the
Liberal cause by his opposition to Puseyism ", 2 while Lovett
and other leaders were equally hostile. The whole Chartist
conception of Christian worship as exemplified in their re-
ligious dogma 3 and in the Chartist Churches 4 was the exact
opposite to that held by the Oxford Movement and its
allies in parliament.
C. The Broad Church
While the High Churchmen, sighing for an idealistic
medievalism, sought a solution for the social problem in a
return to the conditions of bygone days, another branch of
the Church of England with a viewpoint more practical
was making itself felt. This was the Broad Church move-
ment, which traces its line from Coleridge and Arnold
through Maurice and Kingsley to Ruskin and Toynbee.
The leaders of this school were actuated by a willingness to
accept the inevitable developments in science and democ-
racy, 5 but meant, if possible, to bring them in line with
Christianity.
What transformed the Broad Church movement from
the dilettante musings of a few philosophically inclined
1 Palmer, op. cit., p. 60.
* Lovett, op. cit., p. 259.
8 Supra, pp. 19 et seq.
4 Supra, pp. 42 et seq.
5 Charles Kingsley: His Letters and Memories of His Life, vol. i, p.
MX.
76 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [540
literary men and ministers to a vital factor in the life of
England was the almost incredible growth of infidelity par-
ticularly amongst the working classes. The real struggle
of the day, said Maurice, was between Atheism and Christ, 1
while Kingsley thought that in the approaching political
and social crisis, " religion, like a rootless plant, may be
brushed away in the struggle ". 2 The workingmen, wear-
ied with the cant phrases of the orthodox churchmen and
disgusted with their unwillingness or failure to meet
squarely the questions of the religious radicals from Paine
and Priestley to Mill and Holyoake, seemed to be drifting
entirely away from the influence of the church. " In plain
truth," said Kingsley, " the English clergy must Arnold-
ize, if they do not wish to go either to Rome or to the work-
house, before fifty years are out ". a It was toward an
attempt to reconcile science and religion and to win the free-
thinkers back that the Broad Churchmen directed their
activities.
In the purely intellectual field such men as Whately,
Arnold of Rugby, Hampden, Stanley, Milman and Thirl-
wall rendered " vast assistance to men struggling with the
evident contradictions between modern criticism, history,
and philosophy and the systems of religious belief common
in their day ", 4 But the inevitable alliance of liberalism
in politics and religion soon drew the attention of the
Broad Church leaders to the social problem, for " the now
threatening danger of English life was the identification of
all social change with extreme radicalism in religion ". 5
This truth seems to have been first intensely felt by Fred-
1 Charles Kingsley, vol. i, p. 142. *Ibid., vol. i, p. 142.
8 Ibid., vol. i, p. 143.
4 Hall, op. cit., p. 181.
5 Ibid., p. 182.
541 ] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 77
erick Denison Maurice, but the facts were so obvious and
the need for action so great that he was soon surrounded
by an ardent band of co-workers, the most important of
whom were Charles Kingsley, Archdeacon Hare, William
Ludlow and Thomas Hughes, 1 while Robertson of Brigh-
ton, although not in sympathy with the socialism of these
men, held closely to their views in other respects. 2
This group had been considering for some time the best
method of approach to the workingmen, when the revolu-
tion of 1848 on the Continent and the renewed activity of
the Chartists at home gave them an opportunity which they
at once seized. To the Chartists, disappointed after the
fiasco on Kennington Common, Kingsley came with his
appeal of April I2th. a This was followed on May 6th by
the first number of Politics for the People* to which
Maurice, Kingsley, Ludlow, Archdeacon Hare, Professor
Conington, Archbishop Whately and Sir Arthur Helps
were important contributors. 5 Politics for the People
(1848) was far from being a Chartist publication; it was
almost conservative. Physical Force Chartism was de-
nounced even to the extent of condemning monster meet-
ings, whether lawful or not, as senseless and criminal, 6 and
" the demand for universal suffrage by men who had neither
education or moral self-government to qualify for the
vote " 7 was vigorously opposed.
1 Seligman, " Owen and the Christian Socialists," Political Science
Quarterly, vol. i, pp. 221, 239.
* Brooke, Life and Letters of Frederick W '. Robertson, chap. ix.
3 Appendix VI; Charles Kingsley, vol. i, pp. 156, 157.
* Charles Kingsley, vol. i, p. 162 ; Maurice, Life of Frederick D.
Maurice, vol. i, p. 474.
5 Seligman, op. cit., p. 226.
6 Life of Maurice, vol. i, p. 472.
T Charles Kingsley, vol. i, p. 162.
78 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [542
The relationship of such men as Maurice, Kingsley.
and Robertson to the Chartist movement is easily mis-
understood. It is true that Kingsley wrote a Chartist
novel in which he pleaded passionately for justice to the
lower classes, and he and Maurice addressed frequent
groups of Chartists, 1 as did Robertson. 2 But not one of
the three had any faith in Chartism as a political creed, or
believed that the Six Points would remedy the social evils
or materially ameliorate the lot of the workingman. Mau-
rice speaks of the " unrighteous pretensions " 3 of Chart-
ism and offers himself as a special constable for the loth
of April. 4 Robertson admits that the Chartists refused to
own him as a brother. 5 It is true that Kingsley proclaimed
himself a Chartist one time at a public meeting, 6 but he
never advocated any of its points or apparently had any faith
in them. As he himself said, " But my quarrel with the
Charter is, that it does not go far enough in reform." He
was not bitterly opposed to it ; he simply thought that, as a
method of reform, it failed to touch the real need of the
people. He chides the Chartists with the mistake " of
fancying that legislative reform is social reform, or that
men's hearts can be changed by Act of Parliament ", and
goes on to say :
If anyone will tell me of a country where a charter made the
rogues honest, or the idle industrious, I shall alter my opinion
of the Charter, but not till then. It disappointed me bitterly
when I read it. It seemed a harmless cry enough, but a poor,
bald, constitutionmongering cry as I ever heard. That French
1 Charles Kingsley, vol. i, pp. 205 et seq.; Life of Maurice, vol. i, pp.
519, 536, 537, 538, 539, 542.
1 Brooke, Life of Robertson, Appendix, pp. 743, 748.
3 Life of Maurice, vol. i, p. 278. 4 Ibid., p. 472.
'Life, p. 170.
6 Charles Kingsley, vol. i, p. 166.
543] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 79
cry of " Organization of Labour " is worth a thousand of it,
and yet that does not go to the bottom of the matter by many
a mile. 1
In Alton Locke the failure of Chartism does not concern him
greatly. In fact he looks upon it almost as a just retribu-
tion for the sins of the Chartists, and as an event which
should bring them back to better and more certain ways of
gaining their rights. 2
What then had the Broad Churchmen to offer the lower
classes in place of the Charter? Two things primarily
education and cooperation. In January, 1840, Maurice
said that Chartism " could only be crushed by education ". 3
Robertson's advice was : "Reform yourselves and institutions
will reform themselves." 4 " Workers of England," wrote
Kingsley, " be wise, and then you must be free, for then
you will be fit to be free." 5 The emphasis was upon a
reform of the individual not upon the government. A
practical beginning in education was made at Little Ormond
Yard, " a place so disorderly that no policeman liked to
venture there at night ". 6 By 1860, Workingmen's Colleges
were established in at least eleven cities. 7 The educational
work of Toynbee Hall, of Morris and of Ruskin was in a
measure an outgrowth of the efforts of Maurice and his
fellow-laborers. 8
As a more immediate method of alleviation, Maurice and
1 Charles Kingsley, vol. i, p. 163.
2 Alton Locke, chap. xl.
8 Life of Maurice, vol. i, p. 278.
4 Brooke, Life of Robertson, p. 748.
5 Charles Kingsley, vol. i, p. 157.
' Life of Maurice, vol. i, p. 482.
7 Ibid., vol. i, p. 378.
8 Hall, op. cit., p. 197.
go CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [544
Kingsley, aided by Ludlow, Hughes and others, proposed
cooperation. They called themselves "Christian Socialists"
and desired to organize the trades into cooperative societies
on a Christian basis. A beginning was made with the
tailors in 1850,* and several societies were formed. Al-
though cooperation has made progress in England these
organizations soon disappeared. The history of the Chris-
tian Socialists and their activities resembles closely that of
the London Working Men's Association, whose early co-
operative efforts eventually gave way to education.
The influence of the Broad Church movement upon the
social life of England was important. By helping the
workingmen find a solution for their religious doubts, and
by demonstrating that the church had an interest in their
welfare, it was able to retain many of them for Christianity.
It also infused into the institutions of Owen the inspir-
ation of a religious altruism, 2 and by infecting the spirit
that propagated socialism with " a deep distrust for
either sharply cut class lines or of intensely dogmatic posi-
tions ", 2 it greatly hindered the development of a strong
socialistic party in England. Its value here is, of course,
an open question. To the Chartist movement after 1848 it
contributed indirectly by (i) bringing to the classes of
England a better understanding of one another, and (2) by
preparing through education the English workingman for
an eventual successful attainment of his desires.
II. THE WESLEYAN METHODIST CHURCH AND ITS OFFSHOOTS
The fact that the Established Church took up a position
bitterly opposed to Chartism, can surprise no one. It might
1 Life of Maurice, vol. ii, p. 40.
2 Hall, op. cit., p. 204.
545] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES g x
be supposed, however, that the Methodists, if not actually
cooperating with the Chartists, would at least be in sym-
pathy with them, and this for several reasons. In the first
place, speaking broadly, Methodism was the religion of the
poorer classes, 1 as Chartism was their politics. " Metho-
dism," said Lecky, " has long since taken its position as pre-
eminently and almost exclusively the religion of the middle
and lower classes of society." 2 The great majority of
Wesleyan preachers were recruited from the poorer people,
from the promising local preachers who, with their intelli-
gence and antecedents, might be expected to support any
scheme for the political or social advancement of the people.
Again, Methodism won its greatest successes amongst the
operatives and miners, 3 the classes particularly favorable
to Chartism. Finally, even the enemies of Methodism and
Chartism were the same, namely, that " hereditary wealth
and influence, whether landed, manufacturing or mercan-
tile." 4 Why was it, then, that Methodism, at least the official
Methodism of the largest branch, the Wesleyan Methodists,
assumed an attitude so uncompromising in opposition to the
democratic innovations of the Chartists? To answer this
question it is worth while to run back briefly over the con-
nexional history and general political outlook of the Metho-
dists.
The Wesleyan Methodist Church, as it developed, assumed
the form of a " connexion," which has been defined as " a
number of societies who have agreed to unite themselves
in a common bond of doctrine and discipline, under a com-
1 Minutes, vol. x, p. 102.
1 Lecky, England in the Eighteenth Century, vol. ii, p. 640.
3 Quarterly Review, no. 139, p. 167.
4 Rigg, The Connexional Economy of Wesleyan Meth. (London,
PP- 2 r . 2O2 -
8 2 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [546
mon code of regulations and usages, and under a common
government." 1 This sounds harmless enough; but in the
form it took under Wesley and his successors it resembled
far more the closely-knit organization of the Episcopal and
Catholic than that of the Independent and other nonconform-
ist churches of England. Over the classes, societies, circuits
and districts were appointed teachers, lay preachers, minis-
ters, superintendents, and over these the conference and
Legal Hundred, 2 " oversight, as in the Society of Jesus,
being reduced to an exact science." * Power was almost
exclusively in the hands of the ministers, the control of the
laymen being almost a minus quantity. As a natural con-
sequence, the history of Wesleyan Methodism since the
death of Wesley has been largely a record of revolts and
attempts to introduce more democracy into the government
of the church.
While Wesley lived he was able to exercise a paternal
absolutism through the force of his superior personality
and intellectual gifts and through his position as the foun-
der of a new movement. But the control which he pos-
sessed as father of the movement did not rest so gracefully
on the shoulders of his legal successors, the Hundred Min-
isters, and troubles were not long coming. In 1795 Kil-
ham, not satisfied with the reforms of the " Plan of Paci-
fication," published his pamphlet, The Progress of Liberty
Among the People Called Methodists, was expelled, and
started the Methodist New Connexion. In 1806 the " Band
Room Methodists " broke away, and in 1810 Bourne and
'Watson, An Affectionate Address, p. 4.
2 By a Deed of Declaration in the Court of Chancery, February 28,
1784, Wesley passed on his power at his death to a conference of one
hundred ministers, in whom was vested the full government of the
Wesleyan Methodists.
1 Faulkner, in New International Encyclopedia, 2d ed., vol. xv, p. 505.
ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 83
his companions, having been expelled during the camp-meet-
ing controversy, 1 started the Primitive Methodists a body
of earnest followers of Wesley, who have increased largely in
the nineteenth century. O'Bryan in 1815, after his expulsion,
organized his societies into what were later called Bible
Christians. In 1828 the Leeds Organ case; in 1834 the ex-
pulsion of J. R. Stephens; in 1835 the Warren controversy
and the affair of the Rochdale petitioners; and in 1836 the
secession of the Arminian Methodists, caused considerable
loss and some few concessions. When in 1849 even free
speech became impossible under Bunting and his followers,
the most important agitation of all, that of Everett, Dunn
and Griffith, resulted in a membership loss of 100,000 and
a revenue loss of 100,000 in three years.
Concerning these secessions two facts stand forth pre-
eminently. In the first place, all of them, with one minor
exception (that of the Arminians in 1835), were on political
and administrative, not doctrinal grounds, and caused by dis-
satisfaction with the form of government. Secondly, the
agitations in the church were closely associated in point of
time with periods of political and revolutionary agitation in
England and Europe. The Methodist agitations were
grouped around three periods: first, the period of the
French Revolution when the followers of Kilham broke
away; second, the period of the agitation for the Reform
Bill when the Leeds Organ case and the \Varren affair dis-
turbed the church; and third, the revolutionary period of
1848 which resulted in the Wesleyan Reform Movement.
"The revolutionary ideas of the Chartist Period (1840-
1848) and of Continental politics (1848-1849) reacted
1 Minutes for 1807 and 1810.
84 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [548
upon Wesleyan Methodism as the political ideas of 1791
and 1831 had done in these epochs." *
Along with this distrust of democracy in church govern-
ment there was a distinctly conservative policy in political
matters. This was inherited from Wesley himself, who, as
a Tory, always stood for the status quo in government and
for the powers that be, his writings apparently lacking
any sympathy for popular government. 2 In the rules of
1797 the Wesleyan Methodists put themselves on official
record with the following : " None of us shall, either in
writing or conversation, speak lightly or irreverently of the
government under which we live. The oracles of God com-
mand us to be subject to the higher powers; and ' honour
the King ' is there connected with the fear of God." A
similar tone is evinced elsewhere. 3 If we are to believe
official promulgations, the Methodists avoided assiduously
any political affiliations. Number twelve of the Liverpool
Minutes of 1820 seeks to impress upon the people that they
"do not exist for purposes of party." 4 The conference
never tires of impressing upon the ministers and people that
their business is not of this world and demanding that they
keep themselves apart from political agitation. 5 The prob-
lem was fought out and decided, at least to the satisfaction
of those in authority, in 1834, when J. R. Stephens, later
famous in the Chartist movement, was suspended from the
1 J. H. Rigg, in Enc. Brit., gth ed., vol. xvi, p. 198.
* See his pamphlets, "Thoughts on Liberty," Works, vol. xi, pp. 34-46 ;
"Free Thoughts on Public Affairs," vol. xi, pp. 14-34; "Thoughts
Concerning the Origin of Power," vol. xi, pp. 46-53 ; and J. A. Faulk-
ner's " Socialism of John Wesley," in Social Tracts for the Times.
8 Minutes, vol. ii, p. 61 ; vol. in, p. 303 ; vol. viii, pp. 236, 247, 371 ; vol.
ix, p. 119, etc.
* Minutes of 1820; Williams, The Constitution and Polity of
leyan Methodism (London, 1880) , appendix iii.
8 Minutes, vol. viii, pp. 105, 237, 242 ; vol. x, p. 260.
549] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 85
connexion for actively associating himself with the move-
ment in favor of separation of church and state. 1 At this
time it was officially enunciated again that " Methodism
does not exist for the purpose of party," and that " a Wes-
leyan minister who takes a prominent political position and
occupies his time and thought in furthering the ' purposes
of party ' acts ' contrary to his peculiar calling and solemn
engagements as a Methodist preacher '." 2 This policy was
carried so far that the Wesleyan Methodists were the only
dissenting church which would not cooperate in the Anti-
Corn Law agitation. 3
With such conservative antecedents it was hardly likely
that the Chartist movement would be very popular with the
controlling element of Wesleyan Methodism. The reasons
may be collected under three heads :
I. Chartism was a democratic movement. From a church
whose whole previous ecclesiastical existence had been largely
devoted to the hopeless task of fighting off democratic in-
novation, Chartism could hope for little favor. Those in
the church, like Griffith, who were sympathetic toward
Chartism, were also in favor of a more popular adminis-
tration in church government. This in itself was enough
to condemn Chartism with those in power. " Methodism,"
Jabez Bunting is reputed to have said, " hates democracy as
much as it hates sin," * and its foes were not reticent in
1 Minutes, vol. vii, pp. 417 et seq., 436; Gregory, Handbook, pp. 200
et seq.
1 In actual practice, however, they did not hesitate to interfere in sec-
ular politics when their interests appeared to be endangered. Vide
New History of Methodism, vol. i, pp. 402, 416 ; Pierce, The Ecclesias-
tical Principles and Polity of the Wesleyan Methodists, 3d ed. (London,
J 873), pp. 498 et seq.; Minutes, vol. ii, p. 185.
* Prentice, History of the Anti-Corn Law League, vol. i, pp. 233, 234.
'* Methodism as It Is, p. ii.
86 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [550
dwelling on this point. 1 Several historians have recog-
nized this conservatism of the Methodists 2 and have testi-
fied to its becalming influence upon political life, Taine go-
ing so far as to claim that it saved England from a revolu-
tion similar to the French.* This policy they were deter-
mined to continue.
II. Periods of political agitation had heretofore proved
themselves detrimental to the propagation of the Gospel and
to the welfare of the connexion. 4 In the opinion of the
Wesleyan Methodists political agitation led " to the wreck of
all piety." 5 During the Chartist period emigration was very
heavy and seriously depleted the ranks of the Wesleyans. 6
The years 1837, 1842, 1848 and 1852 showed actual de-
creases in membership, although the total period from 1838-
1848 gave an increase. 7 The Primitive Methodists, how-
ever, a branch democratically administered, more than
doubled their membership during the Chartist period. 8 The
great agitations within the church, as has been pointed out,
ran parallel with the democratic movements in secular
policies, and the most serious of all with the Chartist move-
ment, which undoubtedly influenced it. The Chartist
churches also drew from Wesleyan Methodist membership.
1 Supra, p. 22; Jubilee of the Methodist New Connexion (London,
1848), p. 384.
2 Lecky, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 637.
3 New History of Methodism, vol. i, pp. 362, 371.
4 Avery, Memorials of Rev. John Henley (London, 1844), p. 389;
Beech, The Good Soldier (London, 1848), p. 93.
1 Minutes, vol. iv, p. 414 ; vol. x, p. 560.
8 Minutes, vol. viii, p. 308; vol. ix, pp. 114, 257, 268, 420, 427, 564, 575;
vol. ix, pp. 128, 132, 310, 500.
7 In 1838 there were 296,800; in 1848, 338,860.
8 For 1833 there were 48,421 ; in 1850, 104,710.
551] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 87
III. The attitude of the Chartists in regard to ecclesias-
tical and religious matters was unacceptable. If the demo-
cracy of Chartism was to be condemned how much more
was its religious heterodoxy! * The infidelity associated
with the movement 2 was made much of, 3 while its good
works went unnoticed. The doctrine of separation of
church and state, 4 which was an actual platform of the Con-
vention of 1851 5 and a generally accepted belief among the
Chartists, was not in much favor among the Wesleyans.
The latter were rather " in favor of its being maintained," 6
regarding the Establishment " as one of the main bulwarks
of the Protestant faith." T The fate of Stephens, when he
implicated the Methodists in the dispute, has been recounted. 8
Furthermore the humor of such a typical Chartist battlecry
as " More pigs and fewer parsons " 9 appealed as little to
the Methodists 10 as to the Anglicans.
The official pronouncements of the Wesleyan Methodists
on the Chartist movement are to be found in the yearly pas-
toral letters to the people, signed by the president and sec-
retary of the conference. Although Chartism as such is
not mentioned by name the implications are unmistakable.
In these letters the Methodists are repeatedly urged to keep
1 Solly, fames Woodford, vol. ii, p. 9.
2 Supra, pp. 14 et seq.
3 Minutes, vol. ix, pp. 115, 125, 403, 410; vol. x, 112, 127, 137; Wes.
Meth. Mag., 3d series, vol. xvii, p. 153.
4 Supra, pp. 34 et seq.
6 Gammage, op. cit., p. 371.
' Bunting, Life of Jabez Bunting (London, 1878), p. 289.
7 Minutes, vol. iv, p. 557.
8 Supra, p. 18.
9 Anti-Socialist Gazette, Dec. 1841, p. 36.
10 Gregory, Sidelights of the Conflicts of Methodism (London, 1808),
P- 344-
88 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [552
out of political agitations, 1 to remain loyal to the throne. 2
to beware of democratic innovators (who are, of course,
infidels) 3 and are assured that the " only effectual remedy
for the ills and sufferings of our fallen world and our un-
happy country is to be found in the glorious gospel of the
blessed God." * While much concerned over the fact that
" Some portions of our laboring population have been in-
toxicated and deluded by the ravings of lawless demo-
crats," 5 and " disloyal and disaffected men have been en-
deavoring to allure the humbler classes of our fellow-coun-
trymen to take part in their schemes," the writers yet
have received " unspeakable pleasure " 6 in the attachment
to the throne and constitution which their followers have
evinced.
The platform of the Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, the
official organ of the church under the editorship of Thomas
Jackson (1839-41) and George Cubitt (1842-50), corres-
ponded on social questions closely to that of the ruling
powers, as laid down in the letters. The same concern over
such questions as slavery and Catholicism, and the same
lack of comprehension and understanding of the more
serious evils close at hand are seen here as in the minutes. 7
The same inability or disinclination to discriminate between
democracy and infidelity and the same distrust of democracy
are apparent. While its policy was to " conscientiously
1 Minutes, vol. viii, pp. 96, 105, 237 ; vol. ix, pp. 414 ; vol. x, p. 566.
J Minutes, vol. viii, pp. 247, 272, 371 ; vol. xi, p. 119.
* Minutes, vol. ix, pp. 115, 403.
4 Minutes, vol. xi, p. 501.
* Minutes, vol. ix, p. 125.
* Minutes, vol. xi, p. 119.
1 Third series, vol. xvii, p. 153. Also vol. xix, p. 955; vol. xix. head-
ings under Socialism ; vol. xxiii, p. 155.
Edward
553] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 89
stand aloof from all politics " * yet an expression of
opinion would inadvertently crop out* Convinced that
" Infidelity and democracy convert human beings into
fiends", 3 the Wesleyan Methodist Magazitie offers Chris-
tian education as a cure, for
A people thoroughly educated on Christian principles can
neither be the slave of a despot, nor the tools or puppets of
some arbitrary government, on the one hand ; nor can they be
restless, dissatisfied murmurers, insurrectionary anarchists, the
instruments by which the political adventurers seek to gain
power, whom he flatters and despises, and on whom, finally,
in the hour of triumph he tramples. 4
The traditional policy of the Wesleyan Methodists was
loyally upheld by those who controlled their destinies during
these years. Such men as Jabez Bunting, 5 John Beecham, 6
James Dixon, 7 George Cubitt, Joseph Fowler, 8 John Han-
nah, 9 Thomas Jackson, 10 Robert Newton, 11 and F. J. Jobson"
could find nothing to favor in Chartism.
The preceding discussion, it should be borne in mind, has
reference only to the Wesleyan Methodist Church and not
to its numerous offshoots. These branches, as we have
seen, developed primarily because they could not fit in with
I Wes. Meth. Mag., 4th series, voL iv, p. 463.
* /&* voL xviii, pp. 41, 313. * Ibid., vol. xvii, pp. 153, 295.
* Fourth series, voL i, March, 1845, in " Christian Retrospect"
* Tobson, A Tribute, pp. 70, 71 ; Bunting, Life of Bunting, voL ii, p. 291.
* Methodism as It Is, voL ii, p. 881.
T Gregory, op. cit^ p. 197; Dixon, Life of James Dixon, pp. 214, 222,
225, 230.
* Gregory, op. cit., p. 328; Minutes, voL xi, p. 118.
' Jobson, The Beloved Disciple, p. 107 ; Minutes, vol. ix, p. 125.
w Minutes, voL viii, p. 37; Wes. Meth. Mag., voL xix, p. 955.
II Pastoral Letters for 1840 and 1842.
M Hurst, History of Methodism, voL iii, p. 1360.
9 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [554
the conservative constitutional policy of the older church.
An expanding democracy in the state demanded its coun-
terpart in the church, and the result is seen in the attitude of
such branches as the Primitive Methodists and the Metho-
dist New Connexion. In a semi-official publication the
latter church is found standing for " representation of all
interests, freedom of commerce, voluntary support of re-
ligion, liberty of thought, enlightened piety, Christian
union, and strong solicitude for the welfare of the masses
in humble life." 1 Perhaps the most noted of the ministers
of the Methodist offshoots who became actively associated
with the Chartist movement was James Scholefield, Bible
Christian, of Manchester. In an attempt to break up an
Anti-Corn Law meeting held in Manchester, March 19,
1841, he was nominated by the Chartists as chairman,
but, as it was claimed that the mayor of the city also re-
ceived the show of hands, both had desks on the platform. 2
A couple of years later a Chartist conference of factory
operatives was held in his chapel, and he was among those
tried at the Lancaster assizes of March, 1843 f r sedition
and incitation to riot, but found not guilty. 3
Furthermore, while the foregoing statements have been
true of official Methodism and of an overwhelming majority
of its ministers, there was undoubtedly in the rank and file a
more liberal spirit pervading. The numerous agitations are
a striking proof of the continued dissatisfaction. The
radicals, while they condemned the ruling powers in the
Methodist church, were free to admit that aid might be ex-
pected from the ranks, if the people were only free agents.
1 Jubilee of the Methodist New Connexion, pp. 386, 387. See also p.
384.
1 Prentice, History of the Anti-Corn Law League, vol. i, p. 184.
8 Gammage op. cit., pp. 232, 235, 427.
555] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 9 !
Thus Archibald Prentice, Chartist and free-trader, said that
many Wesleyans " were willing to give their aid in promot-
ing cheapness and plenty " but for the hostile influence of the
leaders. 1 The Eclectic Review 2 goes so far as to say that
Had the people who compose the body free scope for the mani-
festation of their sentiments, we cannot doubt that the influ-
ence of Wesleyanism would be freely given to all measures for
the reform of abuses, for the improvement of the physical
and moral condition of the community, and for the abolition
of every law and every institution which interferes with the
fullest extension of our civil and religious liberties. But tied
down as the Wesleyans are by laws which prevent them from
moving hand or foot, and by usages which beget a servile spirit,
the country and the legislature must receive their notions of the
state of opinions in the Wesleyan church from the conference
and its commissions. Nor can we expect that those who have
tried to build ever upon the foundation of this voluntary prin-
ciple, so compact a structure of priestly authority in their own
favor, will ever exert their political influence in support of
any line of state policy, which might afterwards be quoted
as a precedent for the entire submission of this lordly hierarchy.
During the Chartist period Methodist discontent with the
despotic administration of Bunting and his followers grew
apace. Finally, in 1849, upon the expulsion of Everett,
Dunn and Griffith, an agitation was started which in its
form and procedure was remarkably similar to that of
Chartism, even to the phraseology of its war-cries- One of
the demands was for " The Bible, the Whole Bible and
nothing but the Bible ". These demands in the form of
a petition were called " The People's Declaration ", 3 Such
1 Prentice, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 233, 234.
2 August, 1846, article " Methodism as It Is."
3 Wesleyan Vindicator, p. 120.
9 2 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [556
methods of arousing the people were evidently successful,
for the followers of Bunting and the old system were
strong in their denunciation of them. The following quo-
tation will show how strikingly the method resembled that
of the Chartists.
To succeed in this attempt [said the Wesley an Vindicator},
Christian agitators resorted to the most unchristian means.
Public meetings were called, composed of all classes of the
British community. Not only deluded Methodists, but
worldly politicians, and notoriously ungodly men and women
were appealed to for judgment on Wesleyan rule and govern-
ment. Calumny, slander, and reviling, were poured forth in
concert upon the most eminent and beloved ministers. A
monster Petition and " Bill of Rights " as it was called was
hawked about in parts, which were afterwards to be put
together, and to astonish the Connexion by the vast amount
of signatures it should have secured. Secret pledges were
received to " stand or fall " by the leading agitators, and their
plans for Wesleyan Reform ; and the meetings held by pre-
tended Delegates to discuss the questions at issue and to secure
the appointment of "A Committee of Privileges for the
People " to care for their rights and liberties. 1
The reformers were accused of associating with themselves
dissenters and political agitators of all kinds, 2 including
Chartists, and there is every reason to believe the accusa-
tion was true. " Red Republicans " and " Chartists " were
frequent epithets 3 used by the discomfited members of the
old church to describe their seceding brethren. Additional
force was given to the accusation by the fact that Wil-
liam Griffith, one of the three leaders in the Wesleyan
Reform agitation, " was politically a radical of the most
1 Wesleyan Vindicator, p. 207.
3 Ibid., p. 21. *Ibid., pp. 30, 67, 86.
557] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 93
extreme type, and took no pains to conceal his principles." *
During the agitation he was continually referred to as a
Chartist but so far from resenting this he apparently gloried
in it " If I am a Chartist," he said, 2 " I got my principles
from the Bible. That book is my political pocket-book. I
hold no opinions but what I find in the book of God." In
another place 31 he expresses himself as follows: "As long
as I believe in the Bible, a Chartist of that school I will be,
and I will teach the workingman to think that he is a man
and that it is his own fault if he is not as noble, as respect-
able as any man who walks the face of the earth." " His
political opinions," he said, " were all drawn from the
Bible, and he must have a new Bible before he could have a
new political creed." 4
If the attitude of Wesleyan Methodism toward political
matters was conservative no such charge can be brought
forward in regard to its philanthropy. The great out-
burst of philanthropy which accompanied the origin of
Methodism 5 had enough vitality to extend itself partially
through the so-called " middle period " of the church. This
benevolence, combined with a religious generosity in regard
to tenets of salvation 6 regarding all who loved God as the
elect, put enough heart into the followers of Wesley to
effect some practical results which influenced indirectly their
political life. The most notable of this philanthropic work
must be reckoned the activity of the Methodists in factory
reform. Richard Oastler, Michael Thomas Sadler and
Rev. J. R. Stephens, the men who made factory reform a
1 Bunting, Life of Jabez Bunting, vol. ii, p. 346.
* Methodism as It Is, vol. ii, p. 415.
8 Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 241, 242.
4 Ibid., vol. ii, p. 343.
6 North, Early Methodist Philanthropy (New York, 1914).
Holyoake, Life of J. R. Stephens (London, 1881), p. 78.
9 4 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [558
great cause, were all nurtured in the Methodist Church. 1
The agitation for the ten-hour bill and factory reform,
which these three instituted, was a distinct contributing force
to the organization of the Chartist movement, 2 as was also
the opposition to the New Poor Law which found its
mouthpiece in Stephens and Oastler. 3
It was only a step from the opposition to the New Poor
Law to Chartism, and, although Stephens reiterated that he
was no Chartist, 4 he was a frequent speaker at Chartist
meetings. At Kersall Moor he seconded a resolution in
favor of the Charter and he was elected a representative
from Ashton to the Convention of 1839 5 which he attended. 6
He gave momentary adherence to the Charter because no
other course seemed open whereby the people could be
helped. 7 Tory as he was, his Toryism was of that brand
which considered the welfare of the people the most im-
portant issue. 8 The earnestness with which he believed this
often led him into the most extravagant and inflammatory
language, entirely unrestrained by prudence. Incitement to
the use of arms was the distinguishing burden of many
of his orations. 9 Arrested on December 27, 1838, on three
separate charges of attending illegal meetings and using
1 Holyoake, op. cit., pp. 78 et seq.
2 Tildsley, Die Entstehung und die okonontischen Grundsdtze der
Chartistenbewegung, pp. 16 ft seq.
1 Ibid., p. 28.
4 Holyoake, Life of J. R. Stephens, pp. 146, 155, 171 ; Lovett, op. cit.,
P- 195.
5 Gammage, op. cit., pp. 57, 59, 61, 62, 92, 96.
Lovett, op. cit., p. 207 ; Holyoake, op. cit., p. 143.
7 Holyoake, op. cit., p. 232.
8 Ibid., pp. 18 et seq.
Gammage, op. cit., pp. 56, 95; Lovett, op. cit., p. 291.
5591 ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 95
seditious language, 1 he was sentenced in August, 1839, to
eighteen months' imprisonment, thus having the " honour
of being the first man on whom the government sought to
wreak the vengeance of the law " 2 for participation in the
Chartist movement. One of the best known and popular
leaders at the time of his arrest, he severed himself from
Chartism 3 upon his release but remained throughout his
life active in social work.
Other prominent Chartists also had their first religious
affiliation with the Methodists. Lovett's mother was a most
devoted Methodist, 4 while he for a while belonged to the
Bryanites or Bible Christians. 5 Thomas Cooper had acted
as a local preacher for the Methodists in Lincoln but was
suspended for protesting at the appointment of a super-
intendent, 6 voluntarily resigned from the connection and
soon drifted into free thought. Joseph Barker, another
erratic genius prominent in Chartism, started with the Meth-
odists. 7 Educated at Methodist schools, he served his ap-
prenticeship with them as a local preacher but forsook the
Wesleyans for the Methodist New Connexion. From this
branch he was expelled in 1841 for denying the divine ap-
pointment of baptism. With him seceded twenty-nine
churches and 4,348 members. 8 He likewise soon drifted
to free-thought, but after a stormy career as a political and
religious radical he returned to Christianity. 9
1 Gammage, op. cit., p. 48.
* Ibid., pp. 99, 100.
8 Holyoake, op. cit., p. 228.
4 Lovett, op. cit., p. 7.
' Ibid., p. 22.
* Cooper, Life of Thomas Cooper, pp. 101, 102.
7 Dictionary of National Biography, vol. Hi, p. 205.
8 Neva History of Methodism, vol. i, p. 525.
* Barker, Modern Skepticism: a Life Story, passim.
96 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [560
III. THE OTHER NONCONFORMIST CHURCHES
Although the membership of the other Nonconformist
churches was recruited largely from the bourgeoisie, there
was, broadly speaking, among both pastor and people of these
denominations a more tolerant attitude toward a further
extension of the franchise than that evinced by either the
State Church or the Wesleyan Methodists. The committee
appointed to organize the Complete Suffrage Movement and
call the conference reported a constantly growing class,
" which included many ministers of religion ", of those who
had
long been dissatisfied with the manifest injustice of any system
of representation that excluded the majority from all share in
their own government, but who have hitherto kept aloof from
taking any active share in public affairs, partly because they
wish to avoid the strife of men and tongues and partly because
no practical remedy had yet been offered which there appeared
much chance of attaining. 1
The committee further reported that " Nearly, if not more
than two hundred ministers of religion, of almost all de-
nominations, have signed the declaration or memorial ", and
continued with an optimism hardly warranted, " there is
every reason to believe that the greater number of those not
endowed by the state will do so when called on." 2
While the cooperation of so many dissenting ministers in
the holding of a Complete Suffrage Conference was one
of the most significant facts in the whole problem of the
relationship between the Chartist movement and the church,
it should not be overestimated. The signing of the memor-
ial did not bind them to endorse the proceedings of the
conference nor did it make Chartists of them. Complete
1 Proceedings of the Conference, p. 5. * Ibid., p. 7.
5 6l] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 97
suffrage was, while the most important, only one of the
Six Points. The state of mind of the average dissenting
minister, liberally inclined, was nowhere better expressed
than in a speech delivered by the Rev. Andrew Marshall
in Edinburgh on December 16, 1840, and later published
as an Address to the Dissenting Ministers of Scotland
(United Secession Synod). The working classes, said
Marshall, have long since been alienated from the State
Church and have long regarded its clergy as their enemies.
They are now coming to look upon the dissenting ministers
in the same light. It is the duty of the latter, as the best
qualified, to stem the current and save the masses to the
church and to morality, peace and order. The only way
that this can be done is to show some sympathy toward their
efforts for an extended franchise. This the ministers
should do, not by political agitation for the Charter
nor by making speeches or holding meetings, but simply
by avowing " on all proper occasions " that they were " in
favor of a more extended suffrage "- 1 As to the Chartists,
he condemns their methods and states that there are prob-
ably few dissenting ministers anywhere more obnoxious to
them than himself, several having left his church because
of his attitude. 2 This speech when delivered caused great
excitement in the meeting and the interruptions were so
frequent that Marshall had to stop before he had finished
it. 3 It expressed, nevertheless, the prevailing sentiment
of those ministers who signed the Complete Suffrage Me-
morial. The Nonconformist ministers, as they were for
the most part responsible only to their own congregations,
were often in a position to enter actively into political agi-
1 Marshall, The Duty of Attempting to Reconcile the Unenfranchised
-with the Enfranchised Classes, p. 14.
* Ibid., p. 10.
3 Ibid., p. 15.
gS CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [562
tation if they could carry a majority of their people with
them, and some felt themselves in duty bound to do so.
The difference between the political attitude of the leaders
of Wesleyan Methodism and of Congregationalism was not
very great. Although it is true that several Congregation-
alists participated in the Anti-Corn Law Conference, 1 but
few of the leaders, especially those in London, would enter-
tain for a moment the idea of the denomination, as such,
concerning itself in political matters. This feeling was
carried to the extent, that even in the matter of the separa-
tion of church and state any active political agitation was
firmly opposed by such men as Conder and Vaughan, who
were able to obtain the support of the Congregational Maga-
zine and the official promulgations of the Congregational
Union. 2
The conservatism of the majority and of the London
leaders, however, was decidedly distasteful to a small but
active and growing minority in the provinces. Unable
longer to keep silence under what was considered " the be-
trayal of their sacred trust ", 3 this group, with the aid of
the advocates of voluntaryism of all denominations, deter-
mined upon the establishment of a weekly newspaper in
London, " having for its aim the faithful and persistent
exposition of the principles of civil and religious liberty." 4
Consequently, on April 14, 1841, the first issue of the Non-
conformist appeared under the editorship of Edward Miall,
who quickly developed into one of the most brilliant jour-
nalists of the time- Although proposed principally to give
voice to the Disestablishment movement, the Nonconform-
1 Waddington, Congregational History, Continuation to 1850, pp. 557
et seq.
2 Ibid., pp. 548, 551, 553 et seq., 572, 574 et seq.
*Ibid., p. 551.
* Miall, Life of Edward Miall, p. 3%.
563] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES 99
ist soon became the exponent of liberalism on all lines. The
question of the suffrage was taken up with characteristic
vigor in a series of editorials, the influence of which was so
great that it became the official organ of the National Com-
plete Suffrage Union. 1 Its success was immediate, its circu-
lation jumping from a few hundreds to two thousand at the
end of the first year, 2 showing that the radicalism of Miall
was far from offensive to many Nonconformists. Although
warmly welcomed and frequently quoted by the Chartist
press and by liberal papers of all shades of opinion, it en-
countered great opposition in religious circles. " The
authorities were clearly against it," said Miall, while " all
mention of it was studiously avoided in those periodical
publications which Dissenters are wont to consult." 3 Natur-
ally it was not long before the Nonconformist met direct op-
position from the Congregational Magazine*' and the powers
in the church. 5 Fortunately Miall found an ally in the
Eclectic Review, edited by Dr. Price, which, while not
going so far in its political views as the Nonconformist,
yet put itself unhesitatingly on the side of both political and
religious reforms. 6 The aim of Dr. Price was " to win the
mass of the people by advocating their cause in relation to
political rights." 7
To counteract the influence of the Eclectic, Vaughan and
his associates of the conservative Congregational school de-
cided a new periodical was necessary, and the British Quar-
terly Review was the result. 8 The number of Congrega-
1 Miall, Life of Edward Miall, p. 87. See infra, p. 113.
2 Ibid., p. 54-
* Ibid., p. 54.
4 Waddington, op. fit., p. 572. 8 Ibid., p. 553.
' April, 1843.
7 Waddington, op. cit., p. 578.
8 Ibid., pp. 537. 578.
I0 o CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [564
tional journals was also augmented all this time by Dr.
John Campbell (1795-1867) who was in turn editor of the
Christian Witness, the Christian Penny Magazine, and the
British Banner. Campbell was inclined to take a middle
course. While believing that there was no great discontent
in the country, 1 he was yet willing to advocate a reformation
of the House of Lords and triennial parliaments. Uni-
versal suffrage, however, was entirely out of the question;
the utmost that could " rationally be expected, or prudently
desired ", said he, " is Household Suffrage." 2
In this manner each type of political thought had repre-
sentatives upon the Congregational press. While the con-
servatives were decidedly predominant in official circles,
the radicalism of the Miall school was slowly forcing its
way to the front and was destined in later years to affect
greatly the policies of the denomination.
Of all the Nonconformist denominations, with the pos-
sible exception of the Unitarians, the Baptists probably
showed the most sympathy toward the democratic schemes
of the Chartists. This was partially due to the fact that
the whole tone of the church was more radical than that,
for instance, of the Congregational. This was excellently
illustrated during the effort for the separation of church and
state. While only a small advanced party of Congrega-
tionalists were in favor of an active political campaign for
this reform, an overwhelming majority of Baptists were
committed to it. At the Conference of the Liberation So-
ciety in 1844 the Baptists were the only denomination to
send delegates. 3 In a similar manner the Eclectic Review,
1 Reformer's Almanac, p. 200.
1 Ibid., p. 205.
8 Carlile, Story of the English Baptists, p. 227.
565] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES IQI
a liberal paper favorable to an increase in the suffrage, 1 was
the literary periodical of only the radical wing of the Con-
gregationalists, but of the great majority of the Baptists.
Still more radical than the Eclectic Review were the Non-
conformist, largely supported by the Baptists, and the Church
Baptist Penny Magazine founded in i848. 2 The liberal in-
fluence of these papers was greatly augmented by the well-
known advanced political views of many of the leading
ministers of the denomination. Among these men were
George Dawson, 3 one of the most famous of nineteenth-
century English preachers; J. P. Mursell, 4 prominent in the
Complete Suffrage Conference; Eustace Giles, one of the
founders of the Baptist Union and one of the best friends
the Chartists had amongst the middle class; John Jenkin-
son of Kettering, active in Chartism ; 5 and William Jack-
son of Manchester, who was sentenced to eighteen months
imprisonment for " maliciously conspiring and inciting the
people of this country to make riots, to arm with weapons
of offense, and with divers other acts for the promotion of
rebellion." The Baptists were also fortunate in having
at their head such men as Dr. Steane who were willing to
take the lead in social reform.
Carlile, a leading Baptist historian, goes so far as to say
that the sympathies of the Baptists for Chartism were
expressed by Thomas Cooper. 7 Although this is an exag-
1 Minutes of the Proceedings of the Conference of Representatives of
the Middle and Working Classes, p. 7 ; Eclectic Magazine, April, 1843.
1 The Republican, p. 40, favorably reviews it, saying " that its political
tendency is toward Democracy."
* Afterwards left the Baptists and started an independent church.
4 English Chartist Circular, p. 181.
5 Gammage, op. cit., p. 37.
6 Ibid., pp. 178, 179; also 152.
7 Carlile, Story of the English Baptists, pp. 224, 225.
I0 2 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [566
geration, there is no doubt that Chartist principles made
considerable headway in the denomination. O'Neill ob-
tained a large part of the membership of his Christian
Chartist Church from the Baptists, 1 and Disraeli in his
Chartist novel makes one of the inner circle of conspirators
a Baptist teacher. 2 It is also interesting to note that two of
the leading Chartist agitators, Cooper 3 and O'Neill, 4 later
became ministers in that denomination, as did also Charles
Vince. 8
In proportion to their membership the Quakers had un-
doubtedly surpassed all denominations of English Chris-
tians in their philanthropy. The names of Joseph Lancaster
and William Allen in education, Clarkson and Gurney in
the anti-slavery movement, and Elizabeth Fry in prison
reform, are sufficient to indicate in a slight degree this fact.
It was not a mere accident that four of the six partners
whom Owen associated with himself in the New Lanark
scheme in 1813 were Quakers. 8
The emphasis upon benevolence was encouraged in the
official promulgations of the society, issued at the Yearly
Meetings in London 7 which are filled with wholesome
advice upon all sorts of subjects including the con-
duct of business. In these epistles the society does not hesi-
tate to state boldly its detestation of war, 8 of the slave
1 Solly, James Woodford, vol. ii, p. 90.
1 Disraeli, Sybil, p. 375.
3 Cooper, Life of Cooper, pp. 380, 381.
*Gammage, History of the Chartist Movement, p. 402.
* Richard, Memoirs of Sturge, p. 328.
6 Podmore, Life of Owen, vol. i, p. 97. Owen, however, accuses
Allen, one of the four, of secretly trying to undermine his views and
authority. Owen's Life, vol. i, p. 141.
1 Christian Discipline, pp. 125-130.
8 Ibid., pp. 153, 158.
567] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES
trade, 1 of oaths, and of tithes and all ecclesiastical assump-
tion, 2 yet desires it to be known that the Quakers, where
conscience is not infringed, are anxious to be considered
amongst the " quiet in the land " and in full subjection to
the civil government. 3 While ambitious that the members
should cooperate in every benevolent scheme, the epistles
are in great fear lest these endeavors may involve them in
party politics which endanger the virtues they hold dear 4
and have a tendency to lead them " away from that patient
exercise of spirit and that quiet self-examination, which
are not only conducive but necessary to a growth in grace." 5
Notwithstanding the frequent warnings of the Yearly
Meetings many Quakers felt it their duty actively and
strenuously to enter the arena of party politics in behalf
of the Factory Acts and in opposition to the Corn Laws. 6
It was not at all illogical, then, that when the attempt was
made to reconcile the middle and lower classes on a
basis of complete suffrage, Joseph Sturge, the most noted
philanthropist of his time and a Quaker, should be chosen
almost by tacit consent to lead the movement. The honesty
of his motives was too obvious to be questioned by either
Chartist or Tory, while the unselfishness with which he had
previously cooperated in philanthropic labors assured for
any scheme which he might advocate at least a hearing from
all parties. 7 With the same enthusiasm he had shown
1 Christian Discipline, pp. 159-163. * Ibid., pp. 137 et seq.
8 Ibid., pp. 132 et seq. * Epistles, vol. ii, p. 303.
5 Ibid., vol. ii, p. 314; also vol. ii, pp. 301, 332.
* Emmott, The Story of Quakerism, p. 179.
T " In such case your name is the very best in all England to head the
list. I say this without compliment, or even views of doing you justice,
but simply with an eye to policy. You have so much of established
reputation to fall back upon that your standing with the middle class
would not be endangered by a course which might peril the character
and endanger the usefulness of most others. You should carry with
CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [568
in the emancipation agitation, Sturge threw himself into
the activities of the Complete Suffrage Union, notwith-
standing the fact that this political move was observed with
sorrow and disapproval by many members of his own re-
ligious society. 1 Among the delegates at the Complete
Suffrage Conference was the Quaker, John Bright, des-
tined to do even more than Sturge in the cause of democ-
racy. Among the Chartists, Vincent seems to be the only
one of prominence who inclined toward the Quakers, 2 al-
though George Binns was of Quaker parentage. 3
The bugbear of Catholicism was ever present in the minds
of Englishmen during the first half of the century. 4 Poli-
ticians had but to raise the cry of papal aggression, and
Churchmen and Dissenters would both for the time being
forget their differences in the face of this greater danger.
It was consequently to be expected that in the heat of re-
crimination some one would endeavor to prove a connec-
tion between the Chartist movement and Catholicism. It
so turned out and the charge was not infrequently made.
It had a touch of plausibility about it because several of
the leaders, like O'Connor and O'Brien, were Irishmen.
Even O'Connell in the early days of Chartism had pro-
fessed to give it his support. 5 But O'Connell soon changed
his stand and became a bitter opponent. 6 O'Neill, another
you the philanthropists of the religious world, or at least neutralize
their opposition, and without their aid no moral victory can be achieved
in this age and country." Letter to Sturge from Cobden, Nov. 21,
1841. Memoirs, p. 299.
1 Richard, Memoirs of Sturge, p. 330.
1 Dictionary of National Biography, vol. Iviii, p. 358.
8 Gammage, op. cit., p. 32.
* New History of Methodism, vol. i, pp. 349, 399; Methodist Minutes,
vol. ix, pp. 103, in, 112.
5 Gammage, op. cit., p. 6. e Ibid., p. 7.
569] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES IC >5
Chartist leader with an Irish name, ended his career as a
Baptist minister, while neither O'Connor nor O'Brien could
be reasonably accused of being Jesuits * by any one who
had chanced to read the fiery denunciations of priestcraft
which frequently appeared in their periodicals. 2
The Catholics, like the Protestants, were not slow in
making their influence felt in politics if their interests
demanded it. The difference was that they wasted no time
in pious protestations that it was no business of theirs
as men of God. 2 Catholicism in Ireland had always been
recognized as a leading influence in politics, and this influ-
ence Catholics did not hesitate to exert in England. Several
Catholic priests attended and addressed the Anti-Corn Law
Conference, and one, Rev. Thaddeus O'Malley, the famous
Irish radical, became prominent in the latter stages of the
Chartist movement, being elected delegate from Notting-
ham * to the National Assembly which met in London on
May i, 1848.
The poorest and most degraded part of the population of
many of the English cities was composed largely of Irish
immigrants, who were Catholics, of course, and often Char-
tists. But the participation of Catholicism in the Chartist
movement was always casual and incidental, never in any
way general or official.
With the adoption of more radical political views came
the transition on the part of many Chartists to more radical
religious views. Rev. Henry Solly and Rev. Joseph Barker,
both leading Chartists, left the Presbyterian Church and the
1 Stowell, No Revolution.
* The Movement, p. 303 (Aug. 24, 1844), reprints article from North-
ern Star. For O'Brien, see The Social Reformer, pp. 29, 84, and
McDouall's Chartist and Republican Journal, pp. 149, 150.
* Meth. Min., vol. viii, p. 105.
4 Gammage, op. cit., pp. 322, 324,
I0 6 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [570
Methodist New Connexion, respectively, for Unitarianism.
As with the ministers so with the workingmen. The wide
range of thought allowed to Unitarians and the cultural
emphasis in their teaching were very appealing to the Chart-
ists and are excellently portrayed in Alton Locke* A cor-
respondent of The People writes of a village in Scotland
(Tillicoultry) in which Unitarianism was the popular reli-
gion, due largely to the exertions of Mr. Browning, the
Unitarian minister, who was a " Chartist, a Teetotaler, a
Peace Advocate, and a true friend of Education ". W. J.
Fox, noted Anti-Corn Law lecturer and political reformer,
was perhaps the leading Unitarian minister in England.
The Tillicoultry correspondent, while admitting that not
a few Unitarian Christians endeavor to make the profes-
sion of " their boasted recognition of the brotherhood of
man " the standard for their political practice, yet fears that
the habit is not so general as could be wished. He goes on
to say that in the ten years he has been a Unitarian he has
won more converts than many ministers and that he has suc-
ceeded best among the Chartists. This success he attributes
chiefly to the fact that he endeavored " to make Christianity
a practical thing ". 2
Barker felt the opposition of the conservative Unitarians
in an attack made upon him by the Inquirer, a Uni-
tarian paper, in which he was characterized as " a destroyer
of peace and order " and " an organ of discord and vio-
lence ", whose object was to stir up enmity among his fellow
citizens and set the poor at war with the rich. 3 To this tirade
Barker replied that the Inquirer no longer represented the
1 Kingsley, Alton Locke, chap. xxii.
2 The People, vol. i, p. 22.
3 Ibid., p. 22.
57 1 ]
ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES
feelings of the majority of the Unitarians as it had under
the editorship of William Hincks, but only of a small class
of the less enlightened. To the group who were offended
with his political proceedings and who believed that he was
bringing dishonor upon the denomination, 1 he replied in a
series of five articles 2 in which he sought to justify himself
and vindicate Chartism in a discussion of each of its points.
If the testimony of Barker is to be considered at all trust-
worthy it would seem that the Six Points found favor with
a large class, if not a majority, of his denomination. In
respect to this question as to many others of this discussion
the sources are too meagre to allow of any definite statement.
IV. SCOTLAND
With the Scottish church torn by a religious strife which
resulted in the secession of 1843 an( ^ * ne formation of the
Free Church of Scotland there was little chance of the
Chartist cause receiving much attention from either the
wrought-up clergy who seceded or those who remained
in the Establishment. The latter received, as in England,
only abuse and condemnation from the Chartist press 3 and
on the Chartist platform. 4
The Established Church of Scotland did, however, boast
of at least one political radical who stayed with it at the
time of the secession. This was the famous Patrick Brews-
ter (1788-1859) of Paisley. Noted among the free traders
as the only member of the Established Church of Scotland
who attended the Conference of Ministers at Manchester,
he was equally beloved by the Chartists for his active and
1 The People, vol. i, p. 4.
*Ibid., pp. 4, 13, 28, 49, 57-
' Chartist Circular, p. 109.
4 Memoranda of the Chartist Agitation in Dundee, pp. 34, 38; Gam-
mage, op. cit., p. 81.
I0 g CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [572
unceasing cooperation. As early as the fall of 1838 he had
assumed a leading position amongst the Moral Force
Chartists of Scotland, and was on this point a strong anta-
gonist of Feargus O'Connor, whom he thought an honest
man but mistaken as to methods. 1 Brewster was a member
of both the Complete Suffrage Convention and the Scottish
Chartist Convention of 1842. As an advocate of teetotal-
ism, 2 abolition of the slave trade, repeal of the Corn Laws,
a national system of education, and the Charter, his whole
life was a continual succession of disputes. The preach-
ing of a series of sermons on Chartism and Militarism
aroused the antagonism of the Paisley authorities. In con-
junction with the Glasgow Presbytery they petitioned the
Synod that he be removed on the charge of having preached a
sermon in the Christian Chartist Church in Glasgow and
thereby " giving countenance to a body of men, whose prin-
ciples were unchristian and demoralizing ", conduct " highly
censurable in any minister of the Gospel, involving a viola-
tion of the Ecclesiastical order, a contempt of decency, a pro-
fanation of the Lord's day, a desecration of the Christian
ministry, and a mischievous encouragement of a system of
disorganization and misrule both in Church and State." s
The charge was dismissed but the Presbytery soon found op-
portunity for further complaint on the ground that Brewster
had libelled the military. For this offense he was illegally
suspended for a year, notwithstanding a memorial signed
by 1, 600 of his parishioners denying the charges and ap-
proving the discourses. The proceedings were eventually
cancelled. 4 In the charges he had been accused of " per-
1 Gammage, op. cit., pp. 84, 198.
1 Chartist Circular, pp. 284, 285.
1 The Seven Chartist and Military Discourses, p. 410.
4 Ibid., p. 412.
573] ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCHES IO g
version and prostitution of the ordinance of preaching "
by introducing into his discourses, " worldly and secular
politics and affairs ", particularly " corn laws, poor laws
and the administration thereof, statements and sentiments
calculated to render those to whom they are addressed dis-
contented with their condition and to excite their passions". 1
Always ready to do battle for the wrongs of the people,
Brewster carried his fight in behalf of the poor even into
the Assembly of the Church of Scotland. 2 His ministry in
Paisley covered about forty-one years. 3
Although the Chartists naturally expected little sympathy
from the Established Church, they did on at least two occa-
sions, endeavor to interest the secessionists, believing that
men with liberal ideas as to church government might be
affected similarly in regard to secular government. Added
force was given to this idea by the fact that Rev. John
Ritchie of Edinburgh, a universal suffragist, was a leader
in the secession movement. Consequently the Universal
Suffrage Central Committee of Scotland addressed a
memorial to the Relief Synod 4 and also to the United Seces-
sion Synod 5 urging upon the members in the name of all
that Christianity stood for to be " neither neutral nor in-
active in this great and holy warfare of principle ". 6 It is
not recorded that these memorials made any impression or
met with any success.
1 The Seven Chartist and Military Discourses, p. 416.
2 Ibid., p. 421.
3 Dictionary of National Biography, vol. vi, p. 304.
4 Chartist Circular, p. 141.
6 Ibid., p. 161.
* Ibid., p. 141.
CHAPTER IV
POSITIVE CONTRIBUTION OF THE CHURCH ro THE
CHARTIST MOVEMENT
I. THE WORK OF THE CLERGY
HAVING attempted to diagnose the attitude of the aver-
age English workingman towards Christianity as exempli-
fied in the British churches and having examined the gen-
eral feeling on the part of the churches towards the Chartist
movement, it remains in the final chapter only to gather the
threads together and to put into concrete form the actual
contributions of the church to the agitation for the People's
Charter and " the first workingmen's party of modern
times "- 1 Although " both chapel and church were largely
hostile to the Chartist movement ", 2 there was, as we have
seen, on the part of not a few individuals officially connected
with organized Christianity a sympathy for a more complete
democracy and a willingness to work and suffer in the cause.
The most obvious way to be of service was to aid in
public meetings and, especially in the early years of the
movement, it was not an infrequent spectacle to behold min-
isters of various denominations gracing the stage at the
huge open-air gatherings and torch-light processions. Rev.
Arthur S. Wade of London, clergyman of the Established
Church and one of the deputies of the London Working-
men's Association appointed to attend a Glasgow demon-
1 Engels, Socialism Utopian and Scientific, Intro., p. xxx.
1 Hall, op. cit., p. 173.
-ic [574
575 ] POSITIVE CONTRIBUTION OF THE CHURCH ZII
stration, 1 addressed a meeting estimated at 2OO,ooo, 2 and
in September of the same year was one of the speakers at
the Palace Yard meeting in Birmingham. 3 Patrick Brewster
of the Scotch Establishment did not confine his Chartist
discourses to his pulpit but was a frequent speaker at Chart-
ist gatherings, thereby incurring the wrath of O'Connor,
whose Physical Force ravings he strenuously opposed, es-
pecially in a speech at Carl ton Hill, Edinburgh.* Rev. W.
J. Fox, Unitarian, was a speaker with Wade at the Palace
Yard meeting, while Rev. J. C. Meeke, Unitarian, and Rev.
John Jenkinson of Kettering addressed the Chartists of
Northampton in 1838 from the same platform. 5 Rev.
William Hill, Swedenborgian and O'Connor's right-hand
man, was a prominent orator during the entire period.
Joseph Barker came forward as a Chartist lecturer during
the revival of i848. 6 J. R. Stephens, however, was un-
doubtedly the most noted minister in any way connected
with the movement. 7 Many others were occasional speakers.
The prominence of these ministers in the cause of reform
led the Chartists in several instances to elect them to official
standing in the movement. To the first and most famous
convention which met in London in February, 1839, one
clergyman of the Church of England and one Dissenting
minister were elected. 8 Dr. Wade represented Nottingham 9
and took a leading part in the convention until he with many
1 Gammage, op. fit., p. 21.
3 Ibid., p. 20.
s Ibid., p. 47. 4
4 Ibid., p. 84.
1 Ibid., p. 37.
6 Ibid., p. 323.
7 Ibid., pp. 56 et seq.
8 Lovett, op. cit., p. 201.
9 Gammage, op. cit., p. 68.
II2 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [576
others, resigned when the Physical Force party became
dominant. 1 Stephens was elected for Ashley z but later
resigned, 3 although he seems to have been present at the
convention. 4 To the National Assembly which met on May
i, 1848, Joseph Barker and Thaddeus O'Malley, the latter
a Catholic priest and political radical, were elected to repre-
sent Leeds and Nottingham respectively. 5 At the London
Convention of 1851, Rev. A. Duncanson, Congregationalist,
represented the Paisley district. Patrick Brewster repre-
sented Paisley in the Scottish Convention of 1842. On the
Birmingham provisional committee for the Complete Suf-
frage Conference of 1842 was the Rev. James Alsop, while
the following ministers were listed as attending: J. Jenkin-
son, of Kettering; Noah Jones, Derby; Charles Kirkland,
Newark; Edward Miall, Stoke Newington; T. Harwood
Morgan, Stourbridge; J. P. Mursell, Leicester; John Ritchie,
Edinburgh; Henry Solly, Yeovil and Bridport; Thomas
Spencer, Bath; William Thomas, Fairfield, and Arthur S.
Wade, London. 6
Not only were ministers occasional representatives to
Chartist conventions but in several instances the conven-
tions were held in churches. The Scotch Chartist Conven-
tion which met August 15, 1841, at Glasgow, met in the
Universalist Church, 7 and the Scotch convention of 1842
was also held in a church. 8 The conference of operatives
held in Manchester on August i2th, which preceded the
1 Gammage, op. cit., p. 156.
'Ibid., p. 62. 3 Idid., p. 67.
4 Lovett, op. cit., p. 207 ; Holyoake, Life of Stephens, p. 143.
5 Gammage, op. cit., pp. 322, 324.
6 Minutes of the Conference, p. 41. See below for discussion of Com-
plete Suffrage Conference, p. no.
7 Chartist Circular, preface, p. iv.
6 Ibid., p. 511.
577] POSITIVE CONTRIBUTION OF THE CHURCH
Lancashire riots of 1842, seems to have been held at the
chapel of Scholefield. 1
In the field of journalism some notable work was ac-
complished in the cause of democracy by ministers. William
Hill, until his quarrel with O'Connor, edited the Northern
Star, the most popular of the Chartist periodicals. Edward
Miall permitted the Nonconformist to be used as the official
organ of the Complete Suffrage Union and brilliantly up-
held in its columns the principles of universal suffrage.
Joseph Barker was the publisher of The People, a weekly
periodical with a circulation of 20,000, and The Reformer's
Almanac. J. R. Stephens edited The Champion, a radical
paper for workingmen, although hardly an advocate of
Chartism.
Not only as editors did many of the ministers assist the
Chartists but as pamphleteers as well. Some of the edi-
torials of Miall were reprinted as pamphlets and issued by
the National Complete Suffrage Union. 2 This association
published other tracts from the pens of clergymen, among
which were The Suffrage Demonstrated to be the Right of
All Men, by an Appeal to Scripture and Common Sense,
being the substance of a lecture delivered March, 1843, by
Rev. J. E. Giles of Leeds, and The People's Rights, and
How to Get Them, by Rev. Thomas Spencer, M. A. 3
1 Gammage, op. cit., pp. 218, 235.
1 See also National Reform Tracts, nos. 18, 19, 20.
8 See Dictionary of National Biography, loc. cit., for a list. The fol-
lowing is the list of what Spencer considers the people's rights: "(i)
The right to earn a living with the fewest possible impediments. (2)
The right to keep property when acquired with the fewest possible
demands upon it. (3) The right of every man to worship God accord-
ing to his conscience. (4) The right of good government. (5) The
right to self-government by full, fair, and free representation." Under
this head he recognizes the necessity of practically all of the demands
of the Charter- The People's Rights, and How to Get Them.
CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [578
Spencer wrote a long series of pamphlets of an extremely
radical type, on political and church reform, which aroused
the Christian Remembrancer to demand how it happened
that a clergyman " should be allowed to propagate such
pestilential opinions . . . without being made to feel the
just punishment for his apostasy by being degraded and
excommunicated "- 1 Benjamin Parsons, Congregationalist,
also wrote a series of pamphlets on reform called Tract?
for the Fustian Jackets and Smock Frocks. 2 Rev. Henry
Solly wrote at some length on What Says Christianity to
the Present Distress?, while Rev. Alexander Duncanson
wrote a tract on The Political Rights of the People. Brews-
ter's political sermons were published in book form under
the title of The Seven Chartist and Military Discourses
Libelled by the Marquis of Abercam, and Other Heritors of
the Abby Parish. Most of these tracts written by ministers
are an attempt to reconcile democracy with Christianity and
to prove that support of universal suffrage is demanded
from a professor of Christianity.
At least two ministers were imprisoned for their activities
in the Chartist movement. J. R. Stephens on August 10,
1839, was convicted of using seditious language at Hyde
and sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment and the
giving of sureties for five years. 3 W. V. Jackson was con-
victed of seditious conspiracy on March 24, 1840 at Liver-
pool assizes and sentenced to two years imprisonment and
the finding of sureties for three years. 4 Several others were
1 Christian Remembrancer, vol. v, p. 441.
* Hood, The Earnest Minister (London, 1846), pp. 271 et seq.; also
appendix of his Life, p. 500.
3 Parliamentary Accounts and Papers, 1840, vol. xxxviii, no. 600, p. 4;
Gammage, op. cit., p. 157.
4 Parliamentary Accounts and Papers, 1840, vol. xxxviii, no. 600, p. 8;
Gammage, op. cit., pp. 178, 179.
579] POSITIVE CONTRIBUTION OF THE CHURCH
arrested and hailed into court but finally discharged, among
whom were William Essler, dissenting minister, for con-
spiracy, 1 William Davies, dissenting minister, for harboring
his nephew, a traitor, 2 and James Scholefield, with fifty-eight
others, because he
did unlawfully aid, abet, assist, comfort, support, and encourage
certain evil-disposed persons to continue and persist in unlaw-
ful assemblies, threats, intimidation, and violence; and in im-
peding and stopping of the labour employed in certain trades,
manufactories, and business with intent thereby to cause terror
and alarm in the minds of the peaceable subjects of this realm,
and by the means of such terror and alarm, violently and un-
lawfully to cause and procure certain great changes in the
constitution of this realm, as by law established. 31
Joseph Barker was arrested in 1848 on the charge of con-
spiracy and sedition but was offered his discharge on condi-
tion of entering into his own recognizance to appear when
called upon. Having fifty witnesses ready he refused and
demanded a trial. " The Attorney General fumed and
fretted, and the judge insulted; but at last they gave up
the task ", and the former entered a nolle prosequi.*
<1
II. THE COMPLETE SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT
The Complete Suffrage movement has already been men-
tioned several times. It was the single part of the struggle
for democracy during the last hundred years in England in
which the influence of the clergy and ministers was im-
portant, if not dominant. The Complete Suffrage move-
ment, in the words of its founders, was simply an attempt
1 Parliamentary Accounts and Papers, 1840, vol. xxxviii, no. 600, p. 6.
1 Ibid., p. 6.
3 Gammage, op. cit., pp. 232, 235.
4 Ibid., p. 343; Barker, Modern Skepticism: A Life Story, p. 252.
U6 CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [580
" to unite two dissevered classes, on the question of par-
liamentary reform ", and " by peaceful and Christian
means alone " effect " a full, fair, and free representation
of the people in the British House of Commons "- 1 It was
distinguished from Chartism in its demands in that it in-
sisted primarily upon only one of the Six Points; uni-
versal manhood suffrage. In its antecedents it emanated dis-
tinctly from the middle class, and included the members: of
the bourgeoisie who believed that the Reform Bill of 1832
fell short of a just and ideal representation.
Many middle-class clergy and laymen had long deplored
the distrust evinced toward them by the working classes and
the consequent alienation of those classes from all institutions
looked upon as characteristically bourgeois, in particular
the church. It was this situation that led Edward Miall in
the Nonconformist to urge upon his middle-class constitu-
ency the justice of the new demands, and their duty as Chris-
tians of healing the breach between the two classes by
actively aiding in the fight for universal suffrage. The
Eclectic Review, another church magazine which cooperated
with Miall, bluntly reduced the matter to an affair of politi-
cal expediency when it said : " To expect to make head
against a Tory government with divided forces is chimeri-
cal ; and to work for a cooperation of the industrious classes
without an equitable regard to their claims is to insure to
ourselves defeat and ruin." 2
The work begun by Miall in his notable articles was taken
up by Joseph Sturge upon his return from America, when he
assumed the leadership as the one man in England best cal-
culated to conciliate all classes. The campaign to bring all
classes together on the basis of a reform of the franchise
1 Minutes of the Proceedings of the Conference, p. 3.
2 April, 1843.
581] POSITIVE CONTRIBUTION OF THE CHURCH
was begun at a conference of Anti-Corn Law deputies on
Wednesday, November 17, 1841, at the conclusion of which
Sturge, in an especially convened meeting, brought forward
his project. It was determined that a declaration should
be drawn up and distributed and a conference held of its
supporters. The idea was enthusiastically approved and
the conference convened on April 5th at Birmingham, com-
posed of middle-class reformers and Moral Force Chartists
to the number of eighty-seven from England and four
from Ireland, including seventeen ministers. On the execu-
tive committee were Rev. Noah Jones, Rev. Thomas Spen-
cer, Rev. Henry Solly and Rev. Edward Miall. The plat-
form of this conference was set forth in a Bill of Rights
which, in order to hold the Chartists, included each of the
Six Points, later embraced in a petition to the House of
Commons. 1 Much emphasis was laid in the conference
upon the conception of Christian duty in its relation to the
suffrage and the conciliatory spirit shown on both sides in-
sured the meeting's success. Addresses were issued to
both the middle and working classes. Sharman Craw-
ford, a few days later (April 21, 1842) on behalf of the
conference tested the complete suffrage strength in the
House. For the motion to consider the proposition he se-
cured seventy- four votes.
The conference of April, however, was only preliminary
to a bigger convention which met in December of the same
year. To this convention the enfranchised and unenfranchised
were allowed an equal number of delegates, but the bicker-
ings over representation augured ill for the success of the
impending assembly. The spirit of the April gather-
ing was lacking in December and a break came on the very
first motion made, that to make the Bill of Rights, accepted
1 Vide appendix i.
CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [582
in April, the basis of the discussion of the conference.
To many Chartists the Bill of Rights was unknown, while
many others who had worked and suffered for the Charter
were unwilling to give up even the name. Lovett, to the
surprise of many, opposed the motion and moved for a
consideration of the Charter. A long discussion followed
in which Miall, Brewster and Spencer spoke for the Bill
of Rights and Wade for the Charter. The Complete Suf-
frage party refused a compromise and neither side would
back down. A vote being taken, which resulted in a
victory for the Charter, Sturge announced that he and his
followers felt bound to retire and sit in a separate body.
The Chartists after a period of confusion and strife broke
up. The Complete Suffrage party likewise failed to make
much headway and the failure of the two classes to come
to a mutual understanding at this conference put any hope
of a near success of the Charter out of the question. The
Sturgeites laid the blame of the result upon the Chartists,
maintaining that they had sacrificed the reality of a great
political gain for the sentiment of a name. 1 The Chartists
accused the middle class of lack of sympathy and of at-
tempting by a strategical political move to hold them at
arm's-length. 2
The Complete Suffrage movement, says Sturge's biog-
rapher, " breathed for the first time since the return of the
Stuarts, a Christian principle into political action ". 3 There
is a large element of truth in this statement, but the plea for
a close connection between Christianity and politics which
was made so much of during the convening of the confer-
1 Solly, These Eighty Years, vol. i, p. 408.
2 Cooper, Life of Thomas Cooper, p. 222.
3 Richard, Henry, Memoirs of Joseph Sturge, p. 329.
583] POSITIVE CONTRIBUTION OF THE CHURCH 119
ences, the launching of the new movement, 1 and the April
gathering, was sadly lacking in the Birmingham conference
of December. A trifle more of it might have turned the
scale 2 and given a different history to what resulted in dis-
mal failure. 3
In the study of the relationship between the Chartist
movement and the church two facts stand forth preemi-
nently. In the first place, none of the denominations seemed
to be able to break away from the prejudices and viewpoint
of the class which it represented, or to put itself in
the attitude of the Chartists who thought that Christianity
was vitally concerned in giving them what they considered
their just rights and a chance to help themselves. The
churches which did not go on record as absolutely opposed
to Chartism looked upon it coldly and with suspicion.
What cooperation or sympathy the movement received was
mainly from the small group of ministers whose activities
have just been recounted, who either believed in democracy
for its own sake or else had become convinced, with the
Chartists, that it was the duty of all Christians to aid in the
political emancipation of their fellow-men.
The second point is no less significant than the first.
Although these pages are not intended as a vindication of
Chartism or any other democratic movement, it is interest-
ing to note that the " lawless " and " dangerous " demo-
crats were the leaders in their day in the movement not
only for a reform in the government, but also for one
in the church, for universal and secular education, for
teetotalism, pacifism, the abolition of the death penalty,
1 Supra, pp. 22, 23.
a Cooper, op. cit., p. 222.
3 On the Complete Suffrage Movement, see Gammage, op. cit., pp. 241
et seq.; Cooper's Life, pp. 221 et seq.; Solly, These Eighty Years, vol. i,
PP- 376-384, 404-408, and the Eclectic Review for April, 1843.
CHARTISM AND THE CHURCHES [584
direct taxation and many other principles which to-day
are either accepted without question or are still goals
of endeavors. Even the Charter itself has largely been
incorporated into the law of England. Organized Chris-
tianity deliberately refused the leadership in political and
social reformation, and the burden was taken up by the
proletariat. The necessity thrown upon the workingmen
of leading the fight for reform in all departments gave to
Chartism an intellectual and ethical stimulus which made it
probably the most important social movement in nineteenth-
century England.
APPENDIX I
PETITION OF THE COMPLETE SUFFRAGE CONFERENCE OF
APRIL, 1842, TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
Sheweth,
That in the opinion of your petitioners, every member of
society has an equal right with every other member to have
a voice in making the laws which he is called upon to obey.
That this just principle has already been recognized in the
British Constitution, for by various ancient statutes it is pro-
vided, " that no person be compelled to pay any tax or make
any loan to the king against his will," and by a statute of King
Edward III, it is declared, that " such laws are against reason
and the franchise of the land," which enactments are confirmed
and expounded by the celebrated petition of right, which pro-
vides that " no man be compelled to make or yield any gift or
tax, without common consent, by act of parliament."
That the principle is further sanctioned by the dictates of
that holy religion, which teaches men to do to others, as they
would that others should do unto them.
That in carrying out this principle, only such limitations
or restrictions should be allowed as naturally arise out of the
right itself, as are necessary to its practical exercise, and as
are equally applicable to all classes of the community.
That, therefore your petitioners, after due deliberation,
have arrived at the conviction, that the elective franchise ought
to be extended to every man of twenty-one years of age, who
is not deprived of his rights of citizenship, in consequence of
the verdict of a jury of his countrymen.
That a false principle of representation namely, that of
property and not persons having been acted on for a great
length of time in this country, many abuses have thereby arisen
and been perpetuated ; and that as the removal of these abuses
585] 121
122 APPENDIX I [586
is necessary in order to render complete suffrage, as defined
in the preceding propositions, practically beneficial, your peti-
tioners are of the opinion that the details embodied in the
following propositions are essential for rendering the repre-
sentation of the people on the fundamental principle already
declared, full, fair, and free.
That every man ought to be able and willing to give an
open and conscientious vote yet under the present circum-
stances of the country, and with the general prevalence of
bribery and intimidation, that the system of voting by ballot
should be adopted, in order effectually to secure the free exer-
cise of the suffrage, which free exercise is sanctioned by acts
of parliament declaring that " elections ought to be free."
That for the purpose of securing a fair and equal representa-
tion -of the people, it is necessary that the whole country be
divided into districts each containing, as nearly as may be, an
equal number of electors.
That all legal election expenses, and a reasonable remuner-
ation to Members of Parliament for their services, ought to be
borne at the public expense.
That it is of great importance to secure and maintain the
responsibility of members to their constituents, and your peti-
tioners are of the opinion that annual parliaments are a proper
means for securing this object.
May it therefore please the Commons to resolve itself into
a committee of the whole house, to take these premises into
its deliberate consideration, or adopt such other measures as
shall secure a full, fair, and free representation of the people,
according to the fundamental principles hereinbefore stated.
Your petitioners, in conclusion, would express their heart-
felt prayer, that Almighty God may direct your councils, for
the happiness of the nation, the welfare of mankind in general,
and for His own glory.
From the Minutes of the Proceedings at the Conference of Repre-
sentatives of the Middle and Working Classes of Great Britain, Held
First at the Waterloo Rooms, and Afterwards at the Town Hall, Bir-
mingham, pp. 19, 20, 21.
APPENDIX II
CHARTIST GOSPEL A NEW REVELATION
THE BOOK OF THE CHRONICLES OF THE DEMOCRATS
Chapter I
1. Victoria being Queen of the Isles and of extensive coun-
tries abroad, Sir Robert Peel being Prime Minister, Sir James
Graham being Secretary for the Home Department, and the
Earl de Grey being Governor of the Land of Erin.
2. In those days came Feargus O'Connor, preaching to the
whole people of the United Queendom of Great Britain and
Ireland.
3. Saying, the day of justice draweth nigh, for the masses
are awakening from their sleep.
4. But when he saw the Tories, and the Whigs, and the
Corn-Law Repealers, come to hear, he said unto them, O gener-
ation of vipers, what hath induced you to fleece and rob the
people.
5. And think not to say unto yourselves we are just before
God ; Amen, I say unto you, Repent lest you may be punished
for your evil deeds.
6. For reason is gone abroad and will soon penetrate the
minds of all men, and will force them to become lovers of
liberty.
7. And thus did Feargus O'Connor harass the tyrants, and
despots and oppressors of every kind, even from the days of
William the Foolish and the sixth year of the reign of Victoria.
8. And the lawyers, and chief priests, and factory masters
conspired together to put him to death, but they could not for
fear of the people.
587] 123
124 APPENDIX II [588
9. But they put him into prison for the long space of six-
teen months ; even in York castle did they confine him :
10. So that his fame extended to all parts of the world
where democracy is known; from the banks of the Thames
to the banks of the sire of rivers.
11. In the sixth year of the reign of Victoria, the first
and last, he went to the city of long chimneys and cotton
factories to instruct the people, and thousands of thousands
of people came from the surrounding towns to hear him.
12. And he opened his mouth and taught them saying;
13. Ye Chartists are the salt of the earth: Ye are the light
of the world : let your light so shine before men that they may
see the truths of the Charter, and seeing believe.
14. Think not I am come to destroy the Constitution; no,
but to restore it: nor to injure life; no, but to preserve it. I
am come to assist the needy, to instruct the ignorant, to confirm
the timid, to raise you from slavery, and to establish justice.
15. No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate
the one and love the other, or he will hold to the one and
despise the other. Ye cannot serve Whiggism and Toryism
with Chartism.
1 6. Judge not rashly or unjustly, lest that you yourselves
might be so judged; for most assuredly will the people hold
those that dispense justice responsible for their acts.
17. Beware of false teachers and pretended friends who
come to you in sheep's clothing, but who inwardly are ravenous
wolves.
18. Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine,
and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man who built
his home upon a rock and the storms arose and prevailed not
against it.
19. And it came to pass as Feargus O'Connor sojourned to
an inn for refreshment, he saw Jonathan Bairstow; and he
said unto him, Follow thou me. And when he sat down to
eat with working men, and when the Whigs and Tories saw
it, they marvelled amongst themselves that he should do this.
589] APPENDIX II I2S
20. And the names of a few of the great apostles of Chart-
ism were F. O'Connor, the son of Roger and nephew of
Arthur, and James Leach, and Peter Murray McDouall, and
John Campbell and J. A. R. Bairstow, and R. K. Philp, and
William Hill and James Scholefield, and Morgan Williams,
and George Julian Harney, and George White, and Thomas
Cooper, and Christopher Doyle, and Bernard McCartney, and
Thomas Clarke, and James McArthur, and John Duncan, and
Robert Lowrie, and William Beesley, and Ruffy Ridley, and
Thomas Wheeler. And there were hundreds of disciples of
this great party in all parts of the Western Isles.
The Penny Democrat and Political Illuminator, pp. 17, 18 (no date).
APPENDIX III
That the Church of England and Chartism totally oppose
each other, produce wholly different effects, and lead to widely
and utterly different destinations, will appear if we just con-
sider to what they each lead.
Chartism
Leads to unholy desires,
wicked counsels and unjust
works.
to perils, dangers, evil
and mischief.
The Church of England
Leads us to pray to that
God from whom "All holy de-
sires, all good counsel and all
just works proceed."
" us to pray to be kept
from all perils and dangers,
from all evil and mischief."
" to battle, murder and
sudden death."
us to pray and be deliv-
ered " from battle, and mur-
der and sudden death."
us to curse and oppose
the magistrates in the execu-
tion of their duties, in punish-
ing wickedness and vice.
all nations to war, hatred
and discord.
us to beseech God, " to
bless and keep the magistrates,
giving them grace to execute
justice and maintain truth."
us to ask God " to give
to all nations, unity, peace,
and concord."
men out of the way of
truth, into error and deception.
126
us to pray that God
" may bring into the way of
truth, all such as have erred
and are deceived."
[590
APPENDIX III
Chartism
to danger, necessity, and
tribulation; and leaves those
that are led by it helpless and
comfortless.
127
The Church of England
us to beseech God that
He " may be pleased to re-
cover, help, and comfort, all
that are in danger, necessity
and tribulation."
to the murder of fathers
and husbands; and leaves the
fatherless children and wid-
ows desolate and oppressed.
us to ask God " that it
may please Him to defend
and provide for the fatherless
children and widows, and all
that are desolate and op-
pressed."
to the disturbance of pub-
lic worship, to the immediate
dispersion of the congregation
when in the middle of their
devotions, at the sight of the
pike, pistol, scythe, gun, etc.
us to pray thus, " Grant
O Lord we beseech Thee, that
the course of this world may
be so peaceably ordered by
thy governance, that thy
Church may joyfully serve
thee in all godly quietness."
to scepticism, infidelity, us to pray God " to grant
and disbelief of the Scrip- us grace to hear, read, mark,
tures. learn, and inwardly digest
them."
to evils which we, on ac-
count of our sins have right-
eously deserved.
us to beseech God " gra-
ciously to hear us, that those
evils, which the craft and sub-
tilty of the devil or man work-
eth against us, be brought to
naught."
128
APPENDIX III
[592
Chartism
professors of religion to
bring reproach upon the Gos-
pel, by their wicked and evil
deeds.
to anarchy; to disobey
and rebel against the powers
that be ; and to the subversion
of all good government.
to poverty, misery, and
transportation ; the gallows,
death and hell.
The Church of England
us to ask Almighty God,
to " grant unto all them that
are admitted into the fellow-
ship of Christ's religion, that
they may eschew those things
that are contrary to their pro-
fession and follow all such
things as are agreeable to the
same."
us and all subjects duly
to consider whose authority
the Queen hath, that we may
" faithfully serve, honor, and
humbly obey her."
to wealth, peace, free-
dom, pardon; and beseeches
the Lord in his boundless
mercy and love to " deliver
us from wrath and from ever-
lasting damnation."
Jenkin's Chartism Unmasked, ipth ed., pp. 25-27 (Merthyr Tydvil,
1840).
RECENTLY DELIVERED AT THE OPENING OF A CHARTIST CHURCH
IN LONDON
O Lord, the fountain of all goodness, by whom our valleys
at this time are covered with corn, and our hills teeming with
innumerable flocks, the Maker of one blood of all nations that
dwell upon the face of the earth, and who hath declared Thy-
self no respecter of persons by levelling crowned- heads with
beggars in one mighty sepulchre, and mingling the dust of
proud and haughty tyrants with that of the meanest slave.
Ere our lips give utterance, thou art acquainted with our
desires and the interests of our hearts, the cruel and wicked
judgments of which the tribunals of the land resound, are all
naked before Thee, and no secret can be hid. Hear the prayer
of Thy persecuted servant, and the silent breathings of the
oppressed that surround him, on behalf of those of our brethren
by whom Thy violated law hath spoken out and for which
they are now breathing the polluted air of the dungeon, re-
duced to skeletons, with the months of their harsh and rigor-
ous endurance. Be Thou with them, support them, preserve
them, and teach them, that they may come forth from the
prison cell, as giants refreshed with new wine, mighty in power
to the pulling down of the strongholds of corruption, and in
boldness and self possession work out the political redemption
of the British People. O Lord, hasten the long wished for
period, when such men as honest O'Connor, Vincent, Lovett,
Collins, and many others, shall shake the Senate House by
their eloquence, and direct the realm by their wisdom, that
iniquity may be compelled to hide her head, and the iron rod of
593] 129
1 30 APPENDIX IV [594
despotism be for ever broken; when the laws for the separa-
tion of husband and wife shall be no more; when those ties
that have been so rudely broken, shall again be united; when
bastiles, the monuments of wicked legislation, shall tumble to
the ground, and peace be proclaimed upon earth, and good will
amongst men. Hear us, O Lord, on behalf of a wicked and
persecuting church, which exists by violence and plundering
of goods, instead of the freewill offerings of the heart ; con-
vert our bishops and clergy to Christianity, and release the
martyr Thorogood from gaol. May tithe-barns cease to be
their temples and money their God. May they abandon all
choice schemes which tend to the destruction of liberty and
genuine knowledge. While thus assembled to offer prayers
to Thee, we supplicate for her who sits upon a human bone-
and-blood built throne, swaying the sceptre of this mighty em-
pire ; may she henceforth counsel her wicked councilors, and
teach her foolish senators wisdom ; that her people's requests
may be granted, and herself in reality be Queen Victoria by the
grace of God, instead of queen of slaves. Hear us on behalf
of the countless thousands of India, whom designing men are
seeking to destroy by the game of horror and war ; may we, as
a nation and a people, refuse to take part in the shedding of
human blood, and show the world, by our lives and conduct,
we are determined to obey God rather than man. We pray
for all sorts and conditions of men, for all spies, for all false
witnesses, for all perjured jurors, for all unjust judges, and
for all the victims made now at home and abroad; aid and
assist us in the mighty work we have to perform ; prepare us
to brave persecution, and enable us to surmount every diffi-
culty and may we never relax our exertions until our birth-
right, the Charter, do come. That on earth, as in heaven, Thy
will may be done. To this may all our hearts respond, and
every tongue exclaim Amen.
The Chartist Circular, p. 211 (Sept. 19, 1840).
APPENDIX V
RULES AND OBJECTS OF THE EAST LONDON CHARTIST
TEMPERANCE ASSOCIATION
(Recommended by the English Chartist Circular, p. 19, vol.
i, to its constituents for the formation of similar associations.)
1. That this association be denominated the Chartist Temper-
ance Association.
2. That the affairs of this Association shall be managed by a
Committee of ten, chosen from the first members who join it.
3. That the Members and Committee shall be elected every
three months. Seven to be a quorum.
4. That the Committee shall meet once a week; or oftener,
if necessary.
5. That there be a general meeting of the Association once
every month for the admission of Members to receive reports
and for the transaction of general business.
6. That no rule or article shall be altered without the con-
sent of a majority of the Members, all of whom shall receive
a week's notice of the same.
7. That each Member be recommended to subscribe One
Penny per week to defray the expenses of the Association.
8. That it be the duty of this Association to advance the
moral and intellectual welfare of the Members; by lectures,
discussions, or any other means.
9. That the members of the Association are earnestly re-
commended to take an interest in the welfare of each other by
trading with, and endeavoring to procure employment for, any
of the Members who are in want of the same; and in order
to facilitate this object a record of each member's trade or
occupation be kept by the Secretary, and read over at the
general monthly meetings of the Association.
595] 131
1 32 APPENDIX V [596
10. That as early as the Funds will allow, a convenient place
shall be hired for the use of the Association : and a library of
useful books be established in order that the Members may
spend their leisure hours profitably, and set a good example.
n. That the Members of this Association adopt as their
motto the following beautiful rule of justice "Do unto
others as ye would they should do unto you."
12. In order that harmony of sentiment and unanimity of
action may characterize the Association, all discussion on
questions of Theology is expressly forbidden.
13. That persons desirous of becoming Members of this
Association must abstain from all intoxicating drinks for one
week previous to their admission, in order to try the principle
and prevent a relapse.
14. That to prevent embarrassment in the pecuniary affairs
of the Association, the Committee will not allow the debts of
the Association to exceed at any time the sum of ten shillings,
except by the consent of the majority of the Members, given
at any public meeting.
15. That the following be the pledge and qualification of
membership.
I voluntarily consent to abstain from all intoxicating
liquors, except prescribed by a medical person; and, as
temperance applies to all things, I renounce the use of
tobacco as a common habit, injurious alike to health and
good morals, and pledge myself not to use it, except as a
medicine; and do further declare that I will use all moral
and lawful means to cause the People's Charter to become
the law of the land.
APPENDIX VI
CHARLES KINGSLEY'S APPEAL TO THE CHARTISTS, APRIL
12, li
WORKMEN OF ENGLAND
You say that you are wronged. Many of you are
wronged; and many besides yourselves know it. Almost all
men who have heads and hearts know it above all, the work-
ing clergy know it. They go into your houses, they see the
shameful filth and darkness in which you are forced to live
crowded together; they see your children growing up in
ignorance and temptation, for want of fit education; they see
intelligent and well-read men among you, shut out from a
Freeman's just right of voting; and they see too the noble
patience and self-control with which you have as yet borne
these evils. They see it, and God sees it.
Workmen of England! You have more friends than you
think for. Friends who expect nothing from you, but who
love you, because you are their brothers, and who fear God,
and therefore dare not neglect you, His children ; men who are
drudging and sacrificing themselves to get you your rights;
men who know what your rights are, better than you know
yourselves, who are trying to get for you something nobler
than charters and dozens of Acts of Parliament more useful
than this " fifty thousandth share in a Talker in the National
Palaver at Westminster " can give you. You may disbelieve
them, insult them-^-you cannot stop their working for you,
beseeching you as you love yourselves, to turn back from the
precipice of riot, which ends in the gulf of universal distrust,
stagnation, starvation.
You think the Charter would make you free would to
597] i33
APPENDIX VI
God it would! The Charter is not bad; if the men who use
it are not bad! But will the Charter make you free? Will it
free you from slavery to ten-pound bribes? Slavery to beer
and gin? Slavery to every spouter who flatters your self-
conceit, and stirs up bitterness and headlong rage in you?
That, I guess, is real slavery; to be a slave to one's own
stomach, one's own pocket, one's own temper. Will the
Charter cure that? Friends, you want more than Acts of
Parliament can give.
Englishmen! Saxons! Workers of the great, cool-headed,
strong-handed nation of England, the workshop of the
world, the leader of freedom for seven hundred years, men
say you have common sense ! then do not humbug yourselves
into meaning "license," when you cry for "liberty" ; who would
dare refuse you freedom? for the Almighty God, and Jesus
Christ, the poor Man, who died for poor men, will bring it
about for you, though all the Mammonites of the earth were
against you. A nobler day is dawning for England, a day of
freedom, science, industry!
But there will be no true freedom without virtue, no
true science without religion, no true industry without the
fear of God, and love to your fellow-citizens.
Workers of England, be wise, and then you must be free,
for you will be fit to be free.
A WORKING PARSON.
Charles Kingsley, His Letters and Memories of His, Life, edited by
his wife, loth ed. (London, 1878), vol. i, pp. 156-157.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
LIBRARIES
Most of the periodicals and pamphlets listed below were consulted
in the private library of Professor E. ,'R. A. .Seligman. There are, how-
ever, quite a few Chartist pamphlets on the shelves of the New York
Public Library, while several of the important periodicals are to be
found in the Columbia Library. The Yale Library also contains a few
of the sources. The library of the Drew Theological Seminary is par-
ticularly rich in Methodist literature, containing, as it does, the Osborn
and Tyerman collections of early pamphlets. The Union Theological
Seminary library contains a collection of the works of Joseph Barker,
as well as a large number of nineteenth century Catholic pamphlets.
REFERENCE WORKS
Parliamentary Accounts and Papers.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Ninth Edition, 1887. Article on Methodism.
Also Eleventh Edition (N. Y., 1911).
New International Encyclopedia, Second Edition, 1914-1916.
Dictionary of National Biography. Edited by Leslie Stephens, 1885-1912.
CONTEMPORARY CONDITIONS IN ENGLAND
Engels, Frederick, The Condition of the Working Class in England in
1844 (London, ed. 1892).
, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific. Translated by E. Aveling
(London, 1892).
Gibbins, H. de B., Industry in England, 7th ed (New York, 1912).
Knight, Charles, A Popular History of England (London, 1863-1868).
Lecky, W. E. H., History of England in the Eighteenth Century, 8 vols.
(1878-1890).
McCarthy, Justin, A History of Our Own Times from the Accession
of Queen Victoria to the General Election of 1880, 4 vols (London,
1880). Three additional vols. bring this down to 1901 (London,
1897-1905).
Marriott, J. A. R., England Since Waterloo (N. Y. and London, 1913).
Martineau, Harriet, A History of the Thirty Years' Peace, 1816-1846
(London, 1877).
5991 135
136 BIBLIOGRAPHY [600
Molesworth, William, The History of England (London, 1874).
Political History of England, ed. by Wm. Hunt and R. L. Poole in
twelve volumes. Vol. 12, by S. Low and L. C. Sanders, covers the
period from 1837-1901.
Prentice, Archibald, History of the Anti-Corn Law League, 2 vols.
(London, 1853).
Rose, J. Holland, The Rise and Growth of Democracy in Great Britain
(London, 1897).
Rogers, J. E. T., Six Centuries of Work and Wages, 6th ed. (London,
1901).
Seligman, E. R. A., " Owen and the Christian Socialists," Political
Science Quarterly, vol. i, pp. 208-249.
Slater, 'Gilbert, The Making of Modern England. Revised edition (Bos-
ton and New York, 1915).
Traill, H. D., and J. S. Mann, Social England. Illustrated edition, 6
vols. in 12 (London, 1909).
Walpole, Spencer, A History of England from the Conclusion of the
Great War, 6 vols. (London, rev. ed., 1902-5).
Weber, A. F., Growth of Cities in the Nineteenth Century (N. Y., 1899).
CHARTISM
i. General Works
Brewster, Patrick, The Seven Chartist and Military Discourses Libeled
by the Marquis of Abercam, and the Other Heritors of the Abbey
Parish (Paisley, 1843).
Carlyle, Thomas, Chartism (1839).
Dierlamm, Gotthilf, Die Flugschriftenliteratur der Chartistenbewegung
und ihr Wider hall in der offentlichen Meinung (Leipzig, 1909).
Dolleans, Edouard, Le Chartisme, 2 vols. (Paris, 1912).
Gammage, R. G., History of the Chartist Movement, 1837-1854 (Lon-
don, new ed., 1894).
Jones, E. D., Chartism A Chapter in English Industrial History.
Transactions of the Wisconsin Society of Sciences, Arts and
Letters, vol. xii, part ii (Madison, 1900).
Schliiter, Hermann, Die Chartisten-bewegung ; ein Beitrag zu sozial-poli-
tischen Geschichte Englands (N. Y., 1916).
Tildsley, John L., Die Entstehung und die okonomischen Grundsatze
der Chartistenbewegung (Jena, 1898).
2. Novels
Disraeli, Benjamin, Coningsby, or The New Generation (London, 1844,
new edit on, 1871).
, Sybil, or The Two Nations (London, 1845, new edition, 1871).
Gaskell, Elizabeth G., Mary Barton (1848).
6oi] BIBLIOGRAPHY
Kingsley, Charles, Alton Locke (New York edition, 1850).
, Yeast (London, 1851).
Solly, Henry, James Woodford, Carpenter and Chartist, 2 vols. (Lon-
don, 1881).
3. Biographies
Bamford, Samuel, Passages in the Life of a Radical, 2 vols. (London,
1844).
Barker, J. T., The Life of Joseph Barker (London, 1880).
Barker, Joseph, Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of
Doubt and Back Again. A Life Story. (Philadelphia, 1874.)
, Teachings of Experience (London, 1869).
Cooper, Thomas, The Life of Thomas Cooper, 2d ed. (London, 1872).
Garnett, Richard, Life of W. J. Fox (N. Y. and London, 1910).
Holyoake, G. J., Life of Rev. Joseph Rayner Stephens (London, 1881).
, The Life and Character of Henry Hetherington (London,
1849).
-, Sixty Years of an Agitator's Life, 2 vols. (London, 1900).
Linton, W. J., Memories ((London, 1895).
Lovett, William, Life and Struggles of William Lovett in His Pursuit
of Bread, Knowledge, and Freedom (London, 1876).
McCabe, Joseph, Life and Letters of George Jacob Holyoake, 2 vols.
(London, 1908).
Muirhead, J. H. (Editor), Nine Famous Birmingham Men (Birming-
ham, 1909).
Monypenny, W. F., Life of Benjamin Disraeli (London, 1910- ).
Morley, John, Life of William Ewart Gladstone, 3 vols. (London and
N. Y., 1903).
Richard, Henry, Memoirs of Joseph Sturge (London, 1864).
Solly, Rev. Henry, These Eighty Years, or The Story of an Unfinished
Life, 2 vols. (London, 1893).
Stanton, Henry B., Sketches of Reforms and Reformers of Great
Britain and Ireland (N. Y., 1849).
Trevelyan, G. M., The Life of John Bright (London, 1913).
Watkins, John, Life, Poetry and Letters of Ebenezer Elliott, the Corn-
Law Rhymer (London, 1850).
4. Periodicals
The Antidote. Ed. by John Brindley (Chester, 1842).
Anti-Socialist Gazette. Ed. by John Brindley (Chester, 1841-1842).
The Beacon, A Weekly Journal of Free Inquiry. Pub. by Henry
Hetherington (1844).
Bronterre's National Reformer in Government, Law, Property, Religion
and Morals. Ed. by James Bronterre O'Brien (1837).
The Building Societies Record and Provident Man's Manual (1846).
138 BIBLIOGRAPHY [602
The Champion of What is True and Right and for the Good of All.
Ascribed to Richard Oastler but really edited by Rev. J. R. Stephens
(1849-1850).
The Christian Investigator, and Evangelical Reformer for the Promo-
tion of Sound Religious Knowledge, and the Inculcation of Tem-
perance and Peace, and the Whole Religion of Christ, vol. i (Lon-
don, 1862).
Chartist Circular. Published under the supervision of the Universal
Central Committee for Scotland. Ed. by William Thompson (Glas-
gow, 1839-1842).
Cooper's Journal: or, Unfettered Thinker and Plain Speaker for Truth,
Freedom, and Progress (1850).
The Commonweal (London, 1845).
The Communist Chronicle and Communist Apostle. Ed. by Goodwyn
Barmby.
The Divinearian. Ed. by James E. Duncan. (Commenced in London,
1849).
The English Republic. Ed. by W. J. Linton (London, 1851-1854).
The English Chartist Circular. Ed. by James Harris (London, 1841-42).
The Evangelical Reformer, and Young Man's Guide, vol. i (1838),
vol. ii (1839-40). Edited by Joseph Barker (London).
Evenings with the People. Ed. by Ernest Jones (London, 1856).
Fleet Papers. Ed. by Richard Oastler while in the Fleet prison, 1840-44.
The Herald of Redemption. Changed to the Herald of Cooperation,
beginning with April, 1847. Ed. by James Hole (1847-1848).
Herald of the Future (1839-1840).
The Labourer: A Monthly Magazine of Politics, Literature, Poetry,
etc. Ed. by Feargus O'Connor and Ernest Jones (1847-48).
The Life Boat: A Weekly Political Pamphlet. Ed. by William Hill
(started in 1843).
The London Chartist Monthly Magazine (started in June, 1843).
The London Democrat. Ed. by George Julian Harney and others
(started April 13, 1839).
McDouall's Chartist and Republican Journal. Ed. by P. M. McDouall
(Manchester, 1841).
The Model Republic. Published by the Society for the Encouragement
of Socialist and Democratic Literature.
The Monthly Circular of the Cooperative League. (Isle of Man and
London.)
The Moral Reformer. Ed. by J. Livesey (London, 1838-1839).
The Movement, Anti-Persecution Gazette, and Register of Progress:
A Weekly Journal. Ed. by G. J. Holyoake, assisted by M. G.
Ryall (1843-1845).
The National: A Library for the People. Ed. by W. J. Linton (Lon-
don, 1839).
603] BIBLIOGRAPHY
The National Instructor (London, 1850-1851).
The New Age, Concordium Gazette and Temperance Advocate (Lon-
don, 1843-1844).
Notes to the People. Ed. by Ernest Jones. 2 vols. (1851-1852).
The Oracle of Reason: or Philosophy Vindicated. Ed. by Thomas
Paterson, vol. i (London, 1842). Originally edited by Charles
Southwell until sentenced to prison, Jan. 15, 1842, for blasphemy.
The People: Their Rights and Liberties, Their Duties and Their In-
terests. Ed. by Joseph Barker (Wortley, 1849-1852).
The People's Press and Monthly Historical Newspaper. Ed. by Wil-
liam Shirrefs (1847).
The People's Magazine. Ed by J. R. Stephens (Leeds, 1841-1842).
The Political Economist; and Journal of Social Science (1856-1857).
The Power of Pence. Ed. by O'Brien (1848-1849).
The Precursor of Unity. A Monthly Magazine for the Many (started
January, 1844).
The Puppet Show ( 1848) .
The Reasoner. Ed. by G. J. Holyoake (1849 et seq.).
The Reasoner: and Herald of Progress.
The Reformer. Ed. by Washington Wilkes. No. i of the new series
appeared Jan., 1846.
The Reformer's Almanac and Companion to the Almanacs, for 1848.
Ed. by Joseph Barker.
The Republican: A Magazine Advocating the Sovereignty of the People.
Ed. by C. G. Harding (London, 1848).
Reynolds Weekly Newspaper. Ed. by G. W. M. Reynolds.
The Shepherd. Ed. by Rev. J. E. Smith (London, 1834-1837).
The Social Pioneer: or Record of the Progress of Socialism. Ed. by
Epicurus (1839).
The Social Reformer. Ed. by J. Bronterre O'Brien and Friends (Lon-
don, 1849).
The Spirit of the Times; or the Social Reformer. Published by Luke
Hansard (London, 1847).
The Standard of Freedom. Published by J. Cassell (London, 1848).
The Ten Hours Advocate and Journal of Literature and Art (1846-
1847).
The Truth Teller. Published by B. S. Treanor ( Stalybridge, 1848).
The Uxbridge Spirit of Freedom: and Workingman's Vindicator.
Conducted by Workingmen (1849).
The Weekly Adviser and Artisan's Companion (iStoke-upon-Trent,
1852).
The Voice of the People. A Supplement to All Newspapers (April 22,
1848, to May 13, 1848).
140 BIBLIOGRAPHY [604
The Working-Man's Charter; or the Voice of the People, Advocating
Their Spiritual and Moral Improvement (London, 1849).
The Working Man's Friend, and Family Instructor.
5. Pamphlets
The Speech of Lord Ashley, M. P., in the House of Commons on Tues-
day, Feb. 28, 1843, on " The Moral and Religious Education of the
Working Classes" 38 pp. (London, 1843).
Barker, Joseph. Eight bound volumes of pamphlets in the Union The-
ological 'Seminary Library.
, The Gospel Triumphant: or a Defense of Christianity against
the Attacks of the Socialists; and an Exposure of the Infidel
Character and Mischievous Tendency of the Social System of
Robert Owen (Lancaster, 1839).
Bayley, R. S., History and Objects of the People's College, Sheffield.
A Lecture delivered at the Eastern Institution on Thursday eve-
ning, Dec. 18, 1845.
Beard, J. R., The Religion of Jesus Christ Defended from the Assaults
of English Chartism. In nine lectures (London. No date).
Brown, George, An Address to All Classes of Reformers, But Especi-
ally to Those who are Unjustly Excluded from the Franchise. 16
pp. (Leicester, 1848).
Carlile, Richard, An Address to that Portion of the People of Great
Britain and Ireland Calling Themselves Reformers, on the Political
Excitement of the Time (Manchester, 1839).
The Chartist Correspondence (reprinted from the Free Press), serial
no. xiii.
Close, Rev. F., A Sermon Addressed to the Chartists of Cheltenham,
Sunday, August 18, 1839, on the Occasion of Their Attending the
Parish Church in a Body (London, 1839).
, A Sermon Addressed to the Female Chartists of Cheltenham,
Sunday, August 25, 1839, on the Occasion of Their Attending the
Parish Church in a Body (London, 1839).
The Contract: Monopolies and Monopolists Tested by the Example of
Jesus Christ by a Member of the Conference of Ministers of Re-
ligion of All Denominations, lately held in Manchester (London,
1842).
Cooper, Thomas, Two Orations Against Taking Away Human Life,
under Any Circumstance; and in Explanation, and Defense, of the
Misrepresented Doctrine of Non-Resistance. 56 pp. (London, 1846).
Craig, E. T., The Irish Land and Labour Questions Illustrated in the
History of Ralahine and Cooperative Farming (London, 1882).
DeBary, R. B., A Charm Against Chartism (London, 1839).
The Designs of the Chartists, and Their Probable Consequences. A
605] BIBLIOGRAPHY
letter addressed to Mr. James Ibbetson, Bookseller, Bradford.
(Copied from the Leeds Mercury of August 3, 1839.) 12 pp.
A Narrative of the Experiences and Sufferings of William Dodd, a
Factory Cripple. Written by Himself. 45 pp. (London, 1841).
An Earnest Plea both for the Poor and for the Rich. A Letter to the
Right Honourable Sir Robert Peel, Bart., In Which it is Shown
How the New Poor-Law Machinery May be Made the Instrument
of Diffusing Immediate and Universal Blessings Throughout the
Land. By a Parochial Clergyman. 15 pp. (1842).
England and Physical Force Chartism ( 1838) .
A Few Words to the Chartist by a Friend. 16 pp.
A Few Words with Henry Vincent by a Radical Conservative (1840).
Finsbury Lectures. Reports of Lectures Delivered at the Chapel in
South Place, Finsbury, by W. J. Fox (London, 1835).
A Friendly Appeal, or Word of Advice, to the Middle and Working
Classes of Great Britain, etc. (London, 1839).
Gore, Montague, A Letter to the Middle Classes on the Present Dis-
turbed State of the Country, Especially with Reference to the
Chartist Meetings (London, 1839).
The Trial of George Jacob Holyoake on an Indictment for Blasphemy.
Notes taken by Mr. Hunt (London, 1842).
Hunt, Thomas, Chartism, Trades Unionism, and Socialism; or, Which
is the Best Calculated to Produce Permanent Relief to the Working
Classes? A Dialogue. 20 pp. (London, 1840).
Jenkins, Rev. Evan, Chartism Unmasked, I9th ed., Merthyr Tydvil, 1840.
Jones, Ernest, The Right of Public Meeting: A Letter Addressed (be-
fore sentence) to Lord Chief Justice Sir Thomas Wilde (reprinted
in 1887).
A Letter from One of the Special Constables in London on the Late
Occasion of their being Called Out to Keep the Peace. 23 pp. (Lon-
don, 1848).
Jones, William, Speech on the Charter. 16 pp.
Larkin, Charles, A Letter to the Reformers of South Shields on the
Elective Franchise. 20 pp. (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1837).
Leach, J., The Working Man's Arguments in Favor of the Charter.
8pp. (Manchester, 1848).
Letters to the Mob by Libertas. 21 pp. (London, 1848).
A Letter to the Radicals and Chartists of Manchester and Lancashire
on the Position of the Chartists and Corn-Law Repealers by a Corn-
Law Repealer and a Chartist (Manchester, 1840).
Letter from Mr. Lovett to Messrs. Donaldson and Mason. Containing
his Reasons for Refusing to be Nominated Secretary of the Na-
tional Charter Association. 4 pp.
Lovett, William, Address from the Members of the National Associa-
142 BIBLIOGRAPHY [606
tion for Promoting the Political and Social Improvement of the
People to the Working Classes of France, on the Subject of War,
2d ed. (London, 1846).
Lovett, William, Cabinet-maker, and John Collins, Tool-maker, Chart-
ism: A New Organization of the People. 2d ed. (London, 1841).
, Justice Safer than Expediency: An Appeal to the Middle
Classes on the Question of the Suffrage (London, 1848).
, Social and Political Morality (London, 1853).
The Radical Reformers of England, Scotland and Wales to the
Irish People. Voted to be written and sent by a meeting of dele-
gates in Palace Yard, London, Sept. 17, 1838.
The Trial of William Lovett, Journeyman Cabinet-maker, for a Se-
ditious Libel, Before Mr. Justice Little dale, at the Assizes of
Warwick, on Tuesday, the 6th of August, 1839. ippp. (London,
1839).
Speeches Delivered at the Soiree, Held at the National Hall, Holborn,
on Wednesday, Feb. 23, 1848, upon the Occasion of the Presenta-
tion of a Testimonial to William Lovett. 33 pp.
Manifesto of the General Convention of the Industrious Classes, signed
by Hugh Craig, Chairman, and William Lovett, Secretary.
Marshall, Andrew, The Duty of Attempting to Reconcile the Unen-
franchised with the Enfranchised Classes (Edinburgh, 1841).
Trial of Peter Murry McDouall, Surgeon of Lancashire, and Member
of the National Convention from Ashton-under-Lyne, in the Crown
Court at the City of Chester, on Friday, the i6th of August, for a
Misdemeanor. Before Baron Gurney. Revised and Corrected by
Peter Murry McDouall. 64 pp. (1839).
The Members of the Working Man's Association to their Fellozv
Workers of All Trades. 4 pp.
Memoranda of the Chartist Agitation in Dundee. 80 pp. (Dundee).
Minutes of the Proceedings of the Conference of Representatives of
the Middle and Working Classes of Great Britain, Held First at
the Waterloo Rooms, and Afterwards at the Town Hall, Birming-
ham; April $th, 1842, and Three Following Days. 42 pp. (Birming-
ham, 1842).
Moral Force: A Reply to an Address Entitled "Physical Force." By
a Workingman. 15 pp. (Leicester, 1848).
Morgan, John Minton, The Christian Commonwealth.
Metcalf, John James, Temporal Prosperity Ensured to Mankind by the
Practice of Christianity, and Proposals for Establishing a Society
to be Entitled, "The Practical Christian Union" (London).
Munns, Rev. Thomas, A Letter to the Right Hon. Lord Ashley, on the
Condition of the Working Classes in Birmingham, Considered in
Reference to Improvement in the Condition of the Same Classes in
607] BIBLIOGRAPHY
Manufacturing Districts, and Large Towns Generally (Birming-
ham, 1842).
A Night with the Chartists, Frost, Williams, and Jones. A Narrative
of Adventures in Monmouthshire. 15 pp. (London, 1847).
Jones, William, Speech on the Charter. 16 pp.
Mr. O'Brien's Vindication. His Defense of the Actions of the Char-
tists from the Denunciations of O'Connor. 24 pp.
O'Connor, Arthur, State of Ireland (London, 1843).
Trial of Feargus O'Connor, Esq., and 58 other Chartists on a Charge
of Seditious Conspiracy. Wednesday, March i, 1843. (Lancaster.)
What May be Done with Three Acres of Land, Explained in the Fol-
lowing Letter by Feargus O'Connor, Esq., M. P.
Pearson, Rev. George, The Progress and Tendencies of Socialism. A
Sermon Preached before the University of Cambridge on Sunday,
November 17, 1839 (Cambridge, 1839).
Peel, Frank, The Risings of the Luddites, Chartists and Plug-Drawers.
3d ed. (Brighouse, 1895).
Robert Kemp Phelp's Vindication of His Political Conduct and an Ex-
planation of the Misrepresentations of the Northern Star, Together
with a Few Words of Advice to Chartists. 28 pp. (Bath).
The People's Charter; an Abstract from "The Rights of Nations" by
the Author of " The Rights of Nations," etc. 2d ed. (London,
1832).
The People's Charter and Old England Forever (London, 1839).
Political Monopoly Hostile to the Spirit and Progress of Christianity.
By a Norwich Operative. 12 pp.
The Question, " What is a Chartist ?" Answered. By the Finsbury
Tract Society.
The Real Chartist; Patriotically Addressed to the Consideration of All
Republicans, Chartists, Reformers, Radicals, Whigs, Tories, and
Conservatives by C. L., a Working Man. 4th ed. (London, 1848).
Report of the Conference of Ministers of All Denominations on the
Corn Laws Held in Manchester, August ifth-soth, 1841, With a
Digest of the Documents Contributed during the Conference (Lon-
don, 1841).
The Rise and Fall of Chartism in Monmouthshire. 90 pp.
Reflections upon the Past Policy and Future Prospects of the Chartist
Party. Also, A Letter Condemnatory of Private Assassination, as
Recommended by Mr. G. J. Harney. By Thomas Clark, Provisional
Secretary to the National 'Charter Association. 16 pp. (1850).
The Rejected Letters. By William Hill. 8 pp. (1843).
Rowlings, J., Animadversions upon a Sermon Preached by Mr. John
Warburton, Minister of the Gospel at Zion Chapel, Union Street,
Trowbridge, Sunday Morning, May 26, 1839, upon the Doctrine of
Non-Resistance to the Higher Powers. 23 pp.
144 BIBLIOGRAPHY [608
Rules and Regulations of the General Convention of the Industrious
Classes. 12 pp. (1840).
Short Review of the Political Events of the Past Year, as Contained
in the Second Annual Report of the Glasgow Conservative Opera-
tives' Association. Read at the Annual Meeting, on Tuesday Eve-
ning, January 29, 1839 (Glasgow, 1839).
Slaney, Robert A., Reports of the House of Commons on the Educa-
tion (1838) and on the Health (1840) of the Poorer Classes in
Large Towns, with Some Suggestions for Improvement (London,
1841).
Socialism. A Commentary on the Public Discussion on the Subjects
of Necessity and Responsibility, between M. A. Campbell, Social
Missionary, and the Rev. J. T. Bannister, of Coventry. By Jona-
than Jonathan, late of the United States. 42 pp. (Coventry, 1839).
Lectures Against Socialism. Delivered under the Direction of the
Committee of the London City Missions (London, 1840).
Spencer, Thomas, The Pillars of the Church of England (1840).
, Religion and Politics (1840).
, Practical Suggestions on Church Reform (1840).
, Clerical Conformity and Church Property (1840).
, The Prayer Book Opposed to the Corn Laws (1841).
, Want of Fidelity of Ministers of Religion Respecting the New
Poor Law, four parts (1841).
, The Reformed Prayer Book of 1842 (1842).
, The Second Reformation ( 1842) .
The People's Rights and How to Get Them (1843).
State of the Question between the People, the Middle Classes and the
Aristocracy. By a Member of the Northern Political Union. 24 pp.
(Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1839).
Stephens, J. R., A Sermon Delivered at Hyde, in Lancashire, on Sun-
day Evening Last, February 17, 1839.
, Sermon Preached on Shepherd and Shepherdess Fields (Lon-
don, 1839).
, Sermon on Primrose Hill (1839).
, Sermon on Kennington Common (1839).
, A Sermon Preached in his Chapel at Charlestown on Sunday,
January 6, 1839, Being the First Sabbath After His Release from
the New Bailey at Manchester (London).
The Political Christian Pulpit.
Stowell, Rev. Hugh, A Plea for the Working-Man: Do Not Lower
His Wages: Adressed to Employers. 8 pp. (Manchester, 1848).
, No Revolution. A Word to the People of England. 3d ed.,
7 pp. (Manchester, 1848).
609] BIBLIOGRAPHY I45
Is There Not One Law for the Rich and Another for the Poor? Being
a Reply by a Workingman to the "No Revolution," Lately Pub-
lished by the Rev. Hugh Stowell. 8 pp. (Manchester, 1848).
Trevelyan, Arthur, To the People: Moral Lunacy or Our Class Legis-
lators, and Their Supporters, Demonstrated ('London, 1849).
The True Briton of the Nineteenth Century: Government Aids of
Chartism, Socialism, and Popery. 16 pp. (London, 1840).
A Voice from the Millions. By a Norwich Operative. 4th ed., 20 pp.
A Word to the Masses on Their Right to the Franchise, and the Means
of Attaining It. By a Norwich Operative. 2d ed., 16 pp.
Watkins, John, The Five Cardinal Points of the People's Charter Sep-
arately Explained and Advocated. 15 pp.
, Impeachment of Feargus O'Connor (London, 1843).
, Lovettism vs. Chartism. A Chartist Sermon.
Whiggery, Chartism, and Truth. Being an Exposure of the Whigs.
A Reply to the Misstatement of the Sunderland Herald, and a De-
fense of the Chartists ( Sunderland, 1839)
White, John, England and Her Interests; the "Times" and the Gov-
ernment and the Anti-Corn Law League Considered (London, 1843).
Whittaker, J. W., A Sermon Preached at the Parish Church, Blackburn,
on Sunday, August 4, 1839. 18 pp. (Blackburn, 1839).
CHARTISM IN THE REVIEWS
Black-wood's Magazine, vol. xxvi, pp. 289 et seq. (Sept. 1839), and voL
Ixiii, p. 660 (May, 1848).
Contemporary Review, article on Gerald Massey, in May, 1904.
Edinburgh Review, vol. 95, pp. 240 et seq., and vol. 88, pp. 375 et seq.
Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xii, p. 301.
THE CHURCHES
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
i. History
Balleine, G. R., A History of the Evangelical Party ((London, 1908) .
Church, R. W., The Oxford Movement (London, 1897).
Cornish, F. W., The English Churfh in the Nineteenth Century. 2 vols.
(London, 1910).
Legg, J. Wickham, English Church Life from the Restoration to the
Tractarian Movement (London, 1914).
MacCaffrey, Rev. James, History of the Catholic Church in the Nine-
teenth Century. 2 vols. (Dublin, 1909).
McCarthy, Michael, Church and State in England and Wales (London,
1906).
146 BIBLIOGRAPHY [610
Overton, J. <H., The Anglican Revival (Chicago and N. Y., 1898).
, The Church in England. 2 vols. (London, 1897).
Palmer, William, A Narrative of Events Connected with the Publica-
tion of the Tracts for the Times (London, 1883).
Patterson, Rev. M. W., A History of the Church of England (London,
1909).
Perry, G. G., A History of the English Church. Third Period (Lon-
don, 1890).
Rogers, J. G., The Church Systems of England in the Nineteenth Cen-
tury (London, 1881).
Spence, Very Rev. H. D. M., The Church of England. 4 vols. (London,
1897-98).
Thureau-Dangin, Paul, The English Catholic Revival in the Nineteenth
Century. 2 vols. (London, 1914).
2. Biography
Abbott, Edwin A., The Anglican Career of Cardinal Newman (Lon-
don, 1892).
Arnold, Frederick, Robertson of Brighton (London, 1886).
Bloomfield, Alfred, A Memoir of Charles James Bloomfield, D. D.,
Bishop of London, with Selections from His Correspondence. 2
vols. (London, 1863).
Brooke, Stopford A., Life and Letters of Frederick W. Robertson, M. A.,
Incumbent of Trinity Chapel, Brighton, 1847-53. 2 vols. (London,
1865). One vol. ed. (N. Y., no date).
Denison, George Anthony, Notes of My Life, 1805-1878. 3d ed. (Lon-
don, 1879).
Fitzpatrick, W. J., Memoirs of Richard Whately. 2 vols. (London,
1864).
Guiney, Louise I., Hurrell Froude, Memoranda and Comments (Lon-
don, 1904).
Hare, Augustus J. C, The Story of My Life. 2 vols. (N. Y., 1896).
Hutton, W. H., Letters of William Stubbs (London, 1904).
Kaufmann, M., Charles Kingsley (London, 1892).
Charles Kingsley: His Letters and Memories of His Life. Edited by
His Wife. loth ed., 2 vols. (London, 1878) .
Liddon, H. P., Life of Edward B. Pusey, 4 vols. (London, 1893).
Lock, Walter, John Keble. 3d ed. (London, 1893).
Maurice, Frederick, The Life of Frederick Denison Maurice Chiefly
Told in His Own Letters. 2 vols. (N. Y., 1884).
Mozley, Anne (editor), Letters and Correspondence of John Henry
Newman during His Life in the English Church (London, 1890).
Mozley, Rev. T., Reminiscences Chiefly of Oriel College and the Ox-
ford Movement. 2 vols. (London, 1882).
6li] BIBLIOGRAPHY
Newman, J. H., Apologia Pro Vita Sua (London, 1864; Everyman's
edition, 1913).
Overton, J. H., and Elizabeth Wordsworth, Christopher Wordsworth,
Bishop of London, 1807-1885 (London, 1888).
Pattison, Mark, Memoirs (London, 1885).
Purcell, E. S., Life of Cardinal Manning, Archbishop of Westminster.
2 vols. (N. Y., 1896).
Stephens, W. R. W., The Life and Letters of Walter F. Hook, D. D.
2 vols. (.London, 1880).
Stanley, A. P., Addresses and Charges of Edward Stanley, with a
Memoir (London, 1852).
Ward, Wilfred, The Life of John Henry Cardinal Newman. 2 vols.
(London and N. Y., 1913).
, William George Ward and the Catholic Revival (London, 1893).
, William George Ward and the Oxford Movement (London,
1890).
Wordsworth, Charles, Annals of My Life. 2 vols. (London, 1891, 1893).
Whately, E. Jane, Life and Correspondence of Richard Whately, D. D.,
Late Archbishop of Dublin. 2 vols. (London, 1866).
3. Church of England Periodicals
British Critic.
The English Review.
The Christian Guardian and Church of England Magazine.
The Christian Remembrancer: A Monthly Magazine and Review.
The Christian Observer.
The Church of England Magazine.
Quarterly Review.
Tracts for the Times. Especially No. 86
THE METHODIST CHUKCH
I. History
A New History of Methodism. Edited by W. J. Townshend, 'H. B.
Workman and George Ayres. 2 vols. (London, 1909).
The Jubilee of the Methodist New Connexion. By Thomas Allen, Wil-
liam Cooke, Samuel Hulme and Philip James Wright (London,
1848).
Baxter, M., Memorials of the United Methodist Free Churches, With
Recollections of the Rev. Robert Eckett and Some of His Contem-
poraries (1865).
Gregory, Benjamin, Sidelights on the Conflicts of Methodism during
the Second Quarter of the Nineteenth Century, 1827-1852 (London,
1898).
148 BIBLIOGRAPHY [612
Hurst, J. F., History of Methodism. 7 vols. (N. Y., 1902-04). Vol-
umes I to III on British Methodism are written by T. E. Brigden.
Methodism as It Is, With Some of its Antecedents, its Branches and
Disruptions; Including a Diary of the Campaign of 1849, Pro-
tracted during a Period of Seven Years; With Special Reference
to the Character, Power, Policy and Administration of the " Mas-
ter Mind " of John Wesley's Legislative Succession. Published
anonymously but written by James Everett. 2 vols. (London, 1863-
1865).
North, E. M., Early Methodist Philanthropy (N. Y., 1914).
Petty, John, The History of the Primitive Methodist Connexion. New
ed. (London, 1880).
Smith, George, History of Wesleyan Methodism. 3 vols. ( London, 1861 ) .
Stevens, Abel, History of Methodism. 3 vols. (1858-1861).
2. Polity
Gregory, Benj., A Handbook of Scriptural Church Principles and Wes-
leyan Methodist Polity and History (London, 1888).
Kendall, H. B., Handbook of Primitive Methodist Church Principles,
History and Polity (London, 1905).
Pierce, William, The Ecclesiastical Principles and Polity of the Wes-
leyan Methodists. 3d ed. (London, 1873).
Rigg. J- H., The Connexional Economy of Wesleyan Methodism in its
Ecclesiastical and Spiritual Aspects (London, 1879).
Skewes, J. H., A Complete and Popular Digest of the Polity of Metho-
dism (London, 1869).
Wansborough, Charles E., Handbook and Index to the Minutes of the
Conference: Showing the Growth and Development of the Wes-
leyan Methodist Constitution from the First Conference, 1744, to
1890 (London, 1890).
Watson, Richard, An Affectionate Address.
Williams, H. W., The Constitution and Polity of Wesleyan Methodism
(London, 1880).
3. Biography
Avery, John G., Memorials of the Rev. John Henley (London, 1844).
Beaumont, Joseph, The Life of the Rev. Joseph Beaumont, M. D.
(London, 1856).
Beech, John H., The Good Soldier (London, 1856).
Bunting, T. P., The Life of Jabez Bunting, D. D. 2 vols. (London,
1859, 1887).
Chew, Richard, James Everett: A Biography (London, 1875).
Dixon, R. W., Life of James Dixon, D. D. (London, 1874) .
Davison, John, Life of the Venerable William Clowes (London, 1854).
6i3]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Faulkner, J. Alfred, The Socialism of John Wesley, in "Social Tracts
for the Times." 24 pp. (London, no date).
Memoirs of Rev. Joseph Entwisle by His Son (London, 1854).
Everett, James, Memoirs of the Life, Character and Ministry of Wil-
liam Dawson (Philadelphia, 1843).
, Wesleyan Takings, Centenary Sketches of Ministerial Char-
acter. Published anonymously (1841).
Jackson, Thomas, Recollections of My Own Life and Times (London,
1873).
Jobson, Frederick J., A Tribute to the Memory of Rev. Jabez Bunting,
D. D. (London, 1858).
, The Beloved Disciple: A Sermon Preached in Wesley Chapel,
Lincoln, Jan. 26, 1868, on the Death of Rev. John Hannah, D. D.,
With a Biographical Sketch of the Deceased (London, 1868).
Macdonald, Frederic W., The Life of William Morley Punshon. 3d ed.
(London, 1888).
MCullagh, T. M., The Earnest Life: Memorials of the Rev. Thomas
Keysell (London, 1867).
M'Owan, John, A Man of God; or, Providence and Grace Exemplified
in a Memoir of the Rev. Peter M'Owan (London, 1873).
4. Magazines
The Wesleyan Methodist Magazine.
The Wesleyan Association Magazine.
The Methodist New Connexion Magazine.
The Primitive Methodist Magazine.
The Wesleyan Vindicator. Published during the crisis of 1849.
The Minutes of the Wesleyan Methodist Conference.
THE OTHER NONCONFORMIST CHURCHES
Carlile, J. C, The Story of the English Baptists (London, 1905).
Dale, R. W., History of English Congregationalism (N. Y. and Lon-
don, 1907).
Book of Christian Discipline of the Religious Society of Friends in
Great Britain (London, 1883).
Epistles from the Yearly Meeting of Friends, Held in London, to the
Quarterly and Monthly Meetings in Great Britain, Ireland, and
Elsewhere; from 1681 to 1857, Inclusive: With an Historical In-
troduction, and a Chapter Comprising Some of the Early Epistles
and Records of the Yearly Meetings. 2 vols. (London, 1858).
Emmott, Elizabeth B., The Story of Quakerism (London, 1908).
Miall, Edward, The British Churches. 2d ed. (London, 1850).
150 BIBLIOGRAPHY [614
Stoughton, John, History of Religion in England. 8 vols. (London,
1881-84).
Waddington, John, Congregational History. Continuation to 1850
(London, 1878).
Adamson, William, The Life of Joseph Parker (London and Edin-
burgh, 1902).
Arnot, William, Life of lames Hamilton (London, 1870).
Memoirs of the Life of Elizabeth Fry, with Extracts from Her Letters
and Journal. Edited by Two of Her Daughters. 2 vols. (Phila-
delphia, 1848).
Hood, Edwin P., The Earnest Minister: A Record of the Life and
Selections from Posthumous and Other Writings of the Rev. Ben-
jamin Parsons, of Ebley, Gloucestershire (London, 1846).
Macleod, Donald, Memoirs of Norman Macleod (Toronto, 1876).
Miall, Arthur, Life of Edward Miall (London, 1884).
Parker, Joseph, A Preacher's Life (London, 1899).
Stoughton, John, Recollections of a Long Life (London, 1894).
The Eclectic Review.
The Evangelical Magazine.
The Nonconformist.
GENERAL RELIGIOUS THOUGHT
Hall, T. C., The Social Meaning of Modern Religious Movements in
England (N. Y., 1900).
Tulloch, John, Movement of Religious Thought in Britain during the
Nineteenth Century (London, 1885).
INDEX
Alton Locke, 20, 79
Anti-Corn Law Agitation, 30, 40,
85, 103
Anti-Corn Law Conference, 25, 98
Baptists, 45, 100
Barker, Joseph, 19, 28, 33, 51, 62,
.63, 95, 105, 106, 107, in, 115
Binns, George, 104
Brewster, Rev. Patrick, 18, 107,
in, 112, 114, 118
Bright, John, 104
Broad Church Movement, 75, 80
Bronterre's National Reformer, 34
Bunting, Rev. Jabez, 83. 85, 89
Carlile, Richard, 15, 18
Catholic Church, 104
Chartism Unmasked, 60
Chartist Circular, 42, 47, 49
Chartist Teetotal Societies, 54, 55,
131
Christian Chartist Churches, 22,
27, 42, 102, 108
Christian Guardian and Church
of England Magazine, 65
Christian Observer, 38, 67
Christian Remembrancer, 66
Christian Socialists, 80
Church of England Magazine, 13,
67
Cleave, John, 47. 48, 54
Complete Suffrage, 22, 96, 101,
115, 121 ^
Congregational Church, 24, 98
Congregational Magazine, 98
Coningsby, 72
Cooper's Journal, 33
Cooper, Thomas, 16, 18, 33, 51, 55,
95, 101, 102
Cooper, Walter, 15, 18
Convention of 1851, 34, 56
Disraeli, Benjamin, 72
615]
Eclectic Review, 99, 116
Education, 46
Elliott, Ebenezer, 30
Engels, Frederick, 12, 15
The English Chartist Circular, 54
Established Church, n, 26, 28, 58,
62, 87, 126
Established Church of Scotland,
107
Female Chartist Societies, 56
Fox, W. J., 19, 51, 106, in
Frost, John, 41
Giles, IRev. Eustace, 10, 18, 28, 113
Griffeth, Rev. William, 83, 91
Hetherington, Henry, 15, 47. 50, 54
Hill, Rev. William, 26, 28, 35, in,
H3
Holyoake, G. J., 15, 18, 76
Jackson, 'Rev. William, 101, 114
Jenkinson, Rev. John, 101, 112
Kingsley, Rev. Charles, 15, 68, 75,
133
London Working Men's Associa-
tion, 9, 53, 56, 80
Lovett, William, 19, 33, 46-54, 57
Manchester Conference of Minis-
ters, 107
Maurice, Rev. F. D.. 15, 75-79
Methodist New Connexion, 82, 90,
95, 106
Miall, Rev. Edward, 13, 18, 22, 98,
99, 112, 113, 116-118
Militarism, 56
National Complete Suffrage
Union, 09
New Poor Law, 10, 94
151
152
INDEX
[616
The Non-Conformist, 34, 98, 99,
101, 113, 116
Northern Star, 16, 26, 68, 113
Oastler, -Richard, 93
O'Brien, Bronterre, 31-33, 47, 74,
104
O'Connor, Feargus, 28, 49, 50, 74,
104, 108, nr
O'Malley, Rev. Thaddeus, 18, 105,
112
O'Neill, Arthur, 19, 44, 102
Oxford Movement, 12, 58, 70, 71,
75
People, The, 29, 106, 113
Politics for the People, 77
Presbyterian Church, 105
Primitive Methodists, 83, 86, 90
Quakers, 102
Reform Bill, 9, 14, 59. 68, 70, 83
Reformer, The, 33, 49
Reformer's Almanac, 55, 113
Ritchie, Rev. John, 18, 109, 112
Robertson, Rev. F. W., 12, 78, 79
Sadler, M. T.. 93
Scholefield, Rev. James. 28, 90,
ii3, US
Solly, Rev. Henry, 17, 19, 27, 28,
57, 105, 114, 117
Spencer, 'Rev. Thomas, 18, 22, 28,
31, 112, 113, 117, 118
Stephens, Rev. J. R., 18, 22, 27, 31,
83, 84, 87, 93, in, 113, 114
Sturge, Joseph, 18, 22, 103, 104, 116
Sybil, 72
Temperance and Chartism, 52
Unitarian Church, 106
Wade, IRev. Arthur S., 18, in,
112, 118
Watson, James, 15, 18, 47. 48, 54
Weekly Adviser, 29, 33, 49
Wesleyan Methodist Church, 12,
19, 24, 26, 30, 33, 45, 80-95
Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, 88
Wesleyan Reform Movement, 83
Young England, 71, 72, 75
UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL UBRAI
A 000 825
