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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011
The latter half of the nineteenth century was a time of political mobilisation for religious organisations. This is a well-established fact in the case of English nonconformity – not quite such a well-established fact in the case of the Established Church. My concern in this paper is to trace the response of the Church of England to the extension of electoral politics, a response chiefly evidenced in the work of the Church Institution. This body, founded in 1859 and reconstructed as the Church Defence Institution in 1871, survived until 1896 as the most important independent pressure group acting on behalf of the Established Church in English politics.
I gratefully acknowledge permission granted by the following individuals and institutions to consult manuscripts in their possession: the Archbishop of Canterbury (Tait Papers, Benson Papers, Lambeth Palace Library); the Bodleian Library (Papers of the 2nd Earl of Selborne); the Marquess of Salisbury (Papers of the 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, Hatfield House, Herts.). Particular thanks go to the Central Board of Finance of the Church of England and to the archivist, Church House, Westminster, Mrs B. L. Hough, for permission to consult the papers of the Church Defence Institution and for advice and help given during research.
1 Gilbert, A., Religion and Society in Industrial England, London 1976, 166–8Google Scholar; Norman, E. R., Church and Society in England 1770–1970, Oxford 1976, 186–7Google Scholar.
2 Hamer, D. A., The Politics of Electoral Pressure, Hassocks 1977, 10Google Scholar, 14–15; [Cecil, Lord Robert], ‘The Church in her relations to political parties’, Quarterly Review, cxviii (1865), 210Google Scholar.
3 Church House, Westminster, Minute Books of the Church Institution (hereafter cited as C.I. or, from 1871, C.D.I.), 8 July 1859, 9 March 1860. These Minute Books give a complete record of proceedings of the Institution's executive committee, 1859–96, and of its central council, 1859–69.
4 Sweet, J. B., A Memoir of the Late Henry Hoare, London 1869, 71 and 88Google Scholar. For the upsurge of local Conservative energies in the 1830s, see Stewart, R., The Foundation of the Conservative Party 1830–1867, London 1978, 130Google Scholar. For the National Club, see Stewart, R., The Politics of Protection: Lord Derby and the Protectionist Party 1841–1852, Cambridge 1971, 31 and 109Google Scholar.
5 Sweet, Hoare, 91–105, 190, 304–6, 359. Note also the parallel career of F. H. Dickinson (1812–90), ex-evangelical, ex-Tory MP (‘retired’ 1847), supporter of Convocation revival and a sponsor, with Hoare, of the Church Institution: ibid., 422, 446; Guardian, 1890, at pp. 1196, 1246, 1277.
6 Lambeth Palace Library, Tait Papers (hereafter cited as T.P.), vol. 108, fos. 222–3, H. Hoare to Bishop Tait of London, 22 Feb. 1858; Sweet, Hoare, 99–100; C.I. Minute Books, 9 March 1860.
7 Church Congress Reports, 1861, 44–9.
8 T.P., vol. 108, fo. 224; Hoare, H., Hints on Lay Co-operation, xviii (March 1858)Google Scholar. Negotiations between the two bodies, begun in early 1860 (C.I. Minute Books, 1 Feb. 1860) through the good offices of Lord John Manners, were never brought to resolution. Some prominent individuals, however, belonged to both organisations, notably Hoare, Lord Robert Cecil and (from 1863) John Knott, foundation secretary of the Committee of Laymen.
9 Thompson, D. M., ‘The Liberation Society 1844–1868’, in Hollis, P. (ed.), Pressure from Without in Early Victorian England, London 1974, 217–24Google Scholar; Vincent, J., The Formation of the British Liberal Party 1857–1868, London 1966, 108–11Google Scholar; Machin, G., Politics and the Churches in Great Britain 1831–1868, Oxford 1977, 299Google Scholar.
10 T.P., vol. 114, fos. 153–9; C.I. Minute Books, 11 Oct. 1859.
11 T.P., vol. 108, fos. 231–4; vol. 116, fos. 46–64; C.I. Minute Books, 19 Dec. 1859, 8 Feb. 1860, 29 Feb. 1860, 9 March 1860; Hope, A. J. B. Beresford, Church Politics and Church Prospects, London 1865, 7Google Scholar.
12 Church Institution figures from Minute Books, 19 Jan. 1864, Annual Report, 1868; Liberation Society figures from Mackintosh, W. H., Disestablishment and Liberation: the movement for the separation of the Anglican Church from state control, London 1972, 52–3Google Scholar, 120. In 1868–9 both organisations were raising ‘special funds’ in addition to the regular income cited here, but the ascendancy of the Liberation Society was as marked in this field as in the field of regular income. Neither organisation could tap funds on a scale to compare with the funds available to the political party machines: Stewart, Foundation of the Conservative Party, 331, estimates that Conservative central organisers spent £50,000 subsidising selected constituency campaigns in the 1859 general election.
13 C.I. Minute Books, 14 April 1863, 4 Dec. 1866, 30 July 1867. Cf. Mackintosh, Disestablishment and Liberation, 120.
14 C.I. Circular, xxvii (Dec. 1862), 76–7.
15 Ibid., xxxix (Feb. 1864), 74–5, claims 450 rural deaneries of 710 in England and Wales in association. This figure seems to mark the maximum expansion of the pre-1871 Institution. Of the.450, however, 200 had given the Institution no financial support in the previous year.
16 Thompson, ‘Liberation Society’, 229; C.I. Minute Books, e.g. 28 Nov. 1860, 26 Jan. 1864, 30 Oct. 1866. For problems of establishing the Institution in the north (esp. Lancashire), cf. Minute Books 15 Oct. 1861, 5 March 1867, C.I. Circular, xxxvii (Dec. 1863), 40ff.
17 For parallel contemporary attitudes among Conservative party organisers and leaders, see Stewart, Foundation of the Conservative Party, 325–9.
18 C.I. Minute Books, e.g., 9 March 1860; T.P., vol. 124, fos. 30–7, H. Hoare to Thos. Alcock MP, 25 Feb. 1861.
19 Ibid., vol. 124, fo. 16, H. Hoare to Bishop Tait, 17 July 1861.
20 C.I. Circular, xii (May 1862), 236. 414 MPs voted in the first 1859 division, 609 in the 1862 division which restored a majority to the supporters of church rate for the first time since the mid-50s.
21 C.I. Minute Books, 7 Jan. 1861, 25 Feb. 1862; C.I. Circular, xxvii (Dec. 1862), 84–5, xxxiv (July 1863), 271–2. Cf. Machin, Politics and the Churches, 316–9; Stewart, Foundation of the Conservative Party, 345–6; Southgate, D. in Butler, R. (ed.), The Conservatives: a history from their origins to 1965, London 1977, 130Google Scholar.
22 C.I. Minute Books, 9 June 1863, 31 May 1864; C.I. Circular, xxix (Feb. 1863). 129ff., xxxix (Feb. 1864), 72ff.
23 C.I. Minute Books, 2 Dec. 1864; C.I. Circular, xxix (Feb. 1863), 133–5. Cf- Machin, Politics and the Churches, 322–4; Thompson, ‘Liberation Society’, 224–5.
24 Ibid.; C.I. Minute Books, 22 June 1865.
25 Ibid., 22 Nov. 1870, 13 Dec. 1870.
26 Ibid., 19 May-7 July 1868, and 25 Jan., 22 March, 18 Oct. 1870; H.J. Hanham, Elections and Party Management: politics in the time of Disraeli and Gladstone, 2nd edn, Hassocks 1978, 214; Machin, Politics and the Churches, 367–8.
27 Ibid.; Bell, P. M. H., Disestablishment in Ireland and Wales, London 1969, 141–54Google Scholar; C. I. Minute Books, 4 and 18 Feb. 1868.
28 H. StRaikes, J., The Life and Letters of Henry Cecil Raikes, London 1898, 58CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Of previous leaders, Hoare had died in 1866 from injuries received after leaning out of a train window. His most active ally, J. M. Clabon, solicitor and parliamentary agent, retired from the chairmanship early in 1868, worried by the decline in intimacy between the Institution and the Church hierarchy, C.I. Minute Books, 21 Jan. 1868. For the general disappointment of pre-1868 Institution leaders at their inability to influence Conservative parliamentary leaders, see their reaction to Conservative acceptance of Gladstone's bill to resolve the church rate issue, ibid., 14 May 1866, 17 July 1866.
29 Ibid., 14 May 1866, 15 Dec. 1868, 22 Feb. 1870; Joyce, P., Work, Society and Politics: the culture of the factory in later Victorian England, Brighton 1980, 250–61Google Scholar, 280, 288.
30 C.I. Minute Books, 5 May 1868, 2 March 1869, 11 May 1869.
31 Ibid., 13 Oct. 1868 (Edward Akroyd MP), 15 Dec. 1868 (Sir Walter James).
33 Ibid., 27 April 1869; [Revd] Page, J. R., The Question for the Electors: an address delivered at late public meetings, promoted by ‘The Church Institution’, London 1868Google Scholar. Cf. Bell, Disestablishment, 96–108; Hanham, Elections and Party Management, 212–15; Machin, Politics and the Churches, 372–9.
33 C.I. Minute Books, 27 Dec. 1870.
34 Ibid., 17 and 24 Jan. 1871; Church House, Westminster, C.D.I., Minutes of the Special [Church Defence] Committee [1871], 10 Feb. 1871; Feuchtwanger, E. J., Disraeli, Democracy and the Tory Party, Oxford 1968, 45Google Scholar.
35 C.D.I. Minute Books, 15 Aug. 1871.
36 Special Committee Minutes, 20 March 1871, 8 May 1871 and letter (Raikes to Ellicott, [?8] May 1871) inserted after minutes of 17 July 1871.
37 Ibid., 6 March 1871; C.I. Minute Books, 7 March 1871, 23 May 1871.
38 The National Church, 1872, 71. Note also, in 1872, Disraeli's successful and widely publicised tour of Lancashire, and the related by-election success of F. S. Powell (a member of Ellicott's 1871 committee) in capturing a West Riding seat for the Conservatives: ibid., 50; Southgate, in Butler (ed.), The Conservatives, 176–7.
39 Hanham, Elections and Party Management, 221; Hatfield House, Herts., Salisbury Papers, Wilbraham Egerton to Salisbury, 24 June 1874; Church Congress Reports, 1871, 125–31, and 1873, 175–8. The Institution voted £500 to cover election expenses for the 1874 campaign: C.D.I. Minute Books, 27 Jan. 1874.
40 Special Committee Minutes, 5 June 1871; C.D.I. Minute Books 6, 13, 20June 1871; Gilbert, Religion and Society, 167.
41 H. C. Raikes (1838–91), Conservative MP 1868–80, 1882–91, chairman of council, National Union of Conservative Associations 1870–5, C.D.I, chairman 1868–74. He resigned as C.D.I, chairman in 1874 to take up a post in Disraeli's government, nominating Egerton as his preferred successor to ensure ‘the continuity of that active policy’ of Church defence already initiated, Raikes, Life, 96; Wilbraham Egerton (1832–1909), Conservative MP 1858–83, second Baron Egerton 1883, first Earl Egerton and Viscount Salford 1897, C.D.I, committee member from 1870 and chairman 1874–96; Revd Alfred T. Lee (1829–83), C.D.I, secretary 1871–83 after previous work on behalf of Church of Ireland; Francis S. Powell (1827–1911), Conservative MP 1857–9, 1863–8, 1872–4, 1881, 1885–1910, first baronet 1892, Ellicott committee member 1871, C.D.I, treasurer from 1874 and notable contributor to its funds 1870s–90s.
42 C.D.I, information from Minute Books, 21 March, 14 Nov. 1871, and from Annual Reports; Liberation Society figures from Hamer, Politics of Electoral Pressure, 329–35. In addition to this recurrent income for central purposes, both societies raised money for special appeals and money to finance branch activities. Cf. 1881 income of the National Liberal Federation (£1,900) and of the National Union of Conservative Associations (£900), to which should be added in each case ‘ordinary expenditure of the party headquarters’ of c. £10–15,000 p.a., Hanham, Elections and Party Management, appendix iv.
43 C.D.I. Minute Books, 3 Dec. 1872, 24 June 1873, 2 March 1880.
44 Ibid., 2 March 1880, 28 March 1881, 24 May 1887.
44 The National Church, 1874, 5; Verbatim Report of the Birmingham Church Defence Conference held…January 18th, 1875, Warwick 1875, 55–6.
46 C.D.I. Minute Books, 5 Dec. 1871, 3 and 17 Dec. 1872.
47 Ibid., 7 Nov. 1871, 6 March and 8 May 1877, 11 March 1884, 17 March 1885. Yorkshire leaders effectively joined in co-operation with London in 1877 but negotiations with the Northern Church Defence Association (centred on Manchester) were never completed, the work of the N.C.D.A. having been judged by the C.D.I, to be ‘in some degree of a political character’. In 1885 the C.D.I, finally gave up hope of an alliance with local church defence organisations in the Manchester region and moved in to set up its own branches with the encouragement of the bishop and of local clergy.
41 Ibid., 17 Jan. 1871, 14 Feb. 1873; Special Committee Minutes, 10 Feb. 1871; Report of the Birmingham Church Defence Conference… 1875, 55.
49 The National Church, 1874, 204, 228; Hamer, Politics of Electoral Pressure, 140–5.
50 The National Church, 1874, 108–9 and 1880, 110–11; C.D.I. Minute Books, 19 May 1874; Blake, R., Disraeli, London 1966, 719Google Scholar; Church Congress Reports, 1881, 188–90.
51 Ibid., 1871, 139–40; Special Committee Minutes, 20 March 1871; The National Church, 1872, 103 and 1873, 12.
52 C.D.I. Minute Books 9 Feb. 1875.
53 Hanham, Elections and Party Management, p. xxiv; Stewart, Foundation of the Conservative Party, 130. For the continued interest of a core of four bishops in C.D.I, work, see Minute Books, 13 July 1876.
54 Ibid., 12 Feb., 2 and 10 March 1880; Hamer, Politics of Electoral Pressure, 145–51. Cf. Feuchtwanger, Disraeli, Democracy and the Tory Party, 137–44.
55 The National Church, July 1880 (Supplement); Davidson, R. T. and Benham, W., Life of Archibald Campbell Tait, Archbishop of Canterbury, London 1891, ii. 532Google Scholar. In spite of disowning the archbishop, the executive committee itself faced difficulty in salvaging its reputation from the attacks of provincial clergy who alleged secret betrayal by London, The National Church, 1880, 183, 229–30.
58 A transcript of proceedings at the Lambeth meeting is inserted in C.D.I. Minute Books, 22 March 1881. See also Salisbury Papers, Egerton to Salisbury, 25 March 1881.
57 The ‘atheism’ charge was presumably based on a combination of fears about the outcome of the Bradlaugh Case (then before the House of Commons) and fears about the supposedly increasing influence of secular rationalists in the Liberation Society: Thompson, ‘Liberation Society’, 232–3; C.D.I. Minute Books, 17 May 1881.
58 Ibid., 3 May 1881; C.D.I. Annual Report, 1881, 12–16.
59 C.D.I. Minute Books, 20 July 1880, 27 May 1884, 27 Jan. 1885, and see note 47. A speaker at the Lambeth meeting in 1881 (see note 56) estimated that nine out often subscribers to The National Church at that time were clergy.
60 Hamer, Politics of Electoral Pressure, 157–8; Southgate, in Butler (ed.), The Conservatives, 205; Simon, A., ‘Church disestablishment as a factor in the general election of 1885’, Historical Journal, xviii (1975), 791–820CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. pp. 816–19.
61 Salisbury Papers, Egerton to Salisbury, 29 July 1885, 10 Dec. 1885; Benson, A. C., The Life of Edward White Benson, London 1899, ii. 62–4Google Scholar.
62 The National Church, 1885, 61–2.
63 C.D.I. Minute Books, 15 Dec. 1885.
64 Ibid.; C.D.I. Annual Report, 1886, 8–11. The new upper-class supporters in 1885 were Whig-Liberal defectors from Gladstone. They included Lords Selborne and Grey.
65 The C.D.I., unlike the Liberation Society, had little inclination or opportunity to ‘permeate’ the political party of its choice through branch activity, Lambeth Palace Library, Benson Papers (hereafter cited as B.P.), vol. 21, fos. 204–6, Revd H. G. Dickson (C.D.I. Secretary) to Archbishop Benson, 3 Dec. 1885. Cf. Hamer, Politics of Electoral Pressure, 144–5, 152–5. The first and, so far as I can discover, only C.D.I, officer to use his church defence work as a qualification for a parliamentary career was the veteran lecturer, H. B. Reed, elected MP (Cons.) for East Bradford in 1886: C.D.I. Annual Report, 1886, 15. Other C.D.I, officers who became MPs qualified themselves in more traditional ways (see e.g., note 41 above).
66 Salisbury Papers, Egerton to Salisbury, 29 July 1885; B.P., vol. 21, fos. 209–12, Earl Grey to Egerton (copy), 28 Nov. 1885. Cf. Hamer, Politics of Electoral Pressure, 157–8; Sellers, I., Nineteenth-Century Nonconformity, London 1977, 84Google Scholar.
67 C.D.I. Annual Report, 1886, 5. The rate of financial growth in 1885–6 should be compared with the far more modest rate of growth in indices of membership during 1885–6: annual subscriptions to the central body 2,600 (up 850 over the year); circulation figures for The National Church 17,500 (up 2,500).
68 C.D.I. Minute Books, 12 Jan. 1886; B.P., vol. 21, fos. 160–227, esp. fos. 204–6, and see note 65 above.
69 C.D.I, figures from Annual Reports; Liberation Society information from Mackintosh, Disestablishment, 294.
70 C.D.I. Minute Books, 24 May 1887; Annual Report, 1887, 5; Hamer, Politics of Electoral Pressure, 158–64; and see Yeo, S., Religion and Voluntary Organisations in Crisis, London 1976, chap. 3Google Scholar.
71 C.D.I. Minute Books, 29 May 1894; Annual Report, 1895, 5: Salisbury Papers, Egerton to Salisbury, 2 May 1894. See also Bell, Disestablishment, 226ff.; Morgan, K. O., Wales in British Politics 1868–1922, 3rd edn, Cardiff 1980, 76ffGoogle Scholar.
72 Hanham, Elections and Party Management, p. xxxi; Cornford, J., ‘The transformation of Conservatism in the late 19th century’, Victorian Studies, vii (1963), 66Google Scholar.
73 Marsh, P. T., The Discipline of Popular Government: Lord Salisbury's domestic statecraft, 1881–1902, Hassocks 1978, 166Google Scholar; Gilbert, A., The Making of Post-Christian Britain, London 1980, 87Google Scholar.
74 Cornford, ‘Transformation of Conservatism’, 41–51; Read, D., England 1868–1914, London 1979, 321Google Scholar.
75 Church House, Westminster, C.D.I., Minutes of the Special Committee appointed by His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury in re Central Church Committee and Church Defence Institution [1896], 23 March 1896, fo. 39; Marsh, Discipline of Popular Government, 197–8.
76 B.P., vol. 21, fos. 120–47, 190. See also C.D.I. Minute Books, 28 April 1885.
77 Benson, Life, ii. 62–4, 69–71, 102–3. For the declining influence of ‘the Church interest’ over Conservative MPs and for explanation of the economic and social changes underpinning it, see Hanham, Elections and Party Management, 2nd edn, p. xxx; Marsh, Discipline of Popular Government, 166–9.
78 Benson, Life, ii. 72–3, 93. Church autonomy was most eagerly sought by high churchmen but, by the 1880s, had become acceptable in some form to a wide range of churchmen. See, e.g., the attitude of H. C. Raikes, former C.D.I, chairman, Raikes, Life, 163–4, 243.
79 B.P., vol. 122, fos. 271–2, Revd. H. Dickson (C.D.I. Secretary) to Benson, 19 June 1894.
80 Ibid., vol. 122, fos. 275–7, 299, 320–3; C.D.I. Minute Books, 3 July 1894. The C.D.I, had in fact tried to sponsor a women's auxiliary in 1880 but without much success. Cf. Yeo, Religion and Voluntary Organisations in Crisis, 177–9.
81 There was some justice behind Benson's financial bargain. In 1885 National Church Sunday (endorsed by some bishops since 1874) had brought the C.D.I. £3,549 from parish offertory proceeds, or almost a third of its income, and offertory proceeds in the years following averaged nearly £1,000 p.a.
82 C.D.I. Minute Books, 3 Dec. 1894; B.P., vol. 122, fos. 408–51, esp. fos. 443–4, and vol. 123, fos. 28–9.
83 Benson, Life, ii. 520, 546–9, 574; Special Committee Minutes, 23 March 1896, fos. 63–4, and 30 March 1896, fos. 38–40.
84 B.P., vol. 122, fos. 278–81, 284–5, Selborne (1st earl) to Benson, 20 June 1894, and reply, 21 June 1894; Bodleian Library, Oxford, Selborne (2nd earl) Papers, vol. 88, fos. 21–8, Benson to Selborne, 27 August, 10 Oct., n Nov. 1895.
85 Special Committee Minutes, 23 March 1896, fos. 36–40, 30 March 1896, fos. 35–6, 41–2, 58 and 13 April 1896, fos. 58–9.
86 B.P., vol. 122, fos. 398–401, Egerton to Benson, 14 Nov. 1894; Selborne Papers, vol. 88, fos. 29–30, Benson to Selborne, 18 Jan. 1896.
87 Church House, Westminster, C.D.I. Central Council Minute Books, 30 June and 16 July 1896. The C.C.C. was indeed more ‘representative’ than the C.D.I, in the sense that it deliberately set out to recruit members of both sexes, all social ranks and all geographical regions, but this could only be achieved by making it a Council of clerical nominees, B.P., vol. 122, fos. 366–7; Special Committee Minutes, 23 March 1896, fo. 45. Cf. Thompson, K., Bureaucracy and Church Reform, Oxford 1970, 103Google Scholar.
88 C.D.I. Central Council Minute Books, 16 July 1896, fo. 34.
89 Sellers, Nonconformity, 68, 78–9; cf. Thompson, ‘Liberation Society’, 233–6.
90 Crosby, T., English Farmers and the Politics of Protection 1815–1852, Hassocks 1977, 130–89Google Scholar; Harrison, B., Drink and the Victorians, London 1971, 279–85Google Scholar; Dingle, A., The Campaign for Prohibition in Victorian England, London 1980, 38–40, 139–40Google Scholar; Brown, K. (ed.), Essays in Anti-Labour History, London 1974, esp. 208–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bristow, E., ‘The Liberty and Property Defence League and individualism’, Historical Journal, xviii (1975), 761–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
91 Hamer, Politics of Electoral Pressure, viii–ix, 10, 38–57.
92 Thompson, Bureaucracy, 126–8.