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The Scottish religious identity in the Atlantic world 1880–1914

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Bernard Aspinwall
Bernard Aspinwall*
Affiliation:
University of Glasgow
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Extract

In the generation before the first world war, Scottish national identity was found not in the church, established or free, but in the town hall; in an ethical Christian community faith rather than ‘churchianity’. For Scotland was a working model of the civic church of W. T. Stead. In particular in Glasgow, that faith of the ‘new’ professional layman proved itself flexible, responsive to urban social problems and readily exportable. Civic patriotism was at once national and international.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 18: Religion and National Identity , 1982 , pp. 505 - 518
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1982

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References

1 Compare Drummond, Henry, ‘The City in many of its functions is a greater church than the church.’ The City Without a Church (New York 1893)Google Scholar quoted in Boyer, Paul, Urban Masses and Moral Order in America, 1820-1920 (Cambridge, Mass., 1978) p 253 Google Scholar. Also see Gladden, Washington, The Church and the Kingdom (London 1894) pp 5–6, 14Google Scholar. Gladden, was a great admirer of Glasgow see his Social Facts and Forces (London 1902)Google Scholar. Rev. John Hunter, congregational minister of the influential Trinity Church, Glasgow spent part of a summer in Columbus, Ohio in 1910. He had also visited Jane Addams at Hull House, Chicago in 1907.

2 Stead, W.T. in Review of Reviews (September 1893) pp 316-19Google Scholar.

3 Rev. Josiah Strong, author of Our Country, 1885, wrote to R. T. Ely, 22 February 1896, ‘What we especially need now is a city well organised which will serve as a practical demonstration of the practicability and value of the work. Such a city would be of inestimable value’. Ely Papers, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin, U.S.A. Also see Aspinwall, [B.], ‘Glasgow Trams and American Politics, 1894-1914’ ScHR, 56 (1977) pp 64–84 Google Scholar.

4 See above.

5 Angell, N., The Great Illusion (London 1912 ed) pxGoogle Scholar.Glasgow was the leading British supporter of his ideas. Also see Peace and the Churches: Souvenir of the visit to England of the Representatives of the German Christian Churches, May 26 to June 3, 1908 including the visit to Scotland 3 June to 7 June 1908 (London 1909) pp 97, 233. One visitor said Glasgow was ‘the Mecca to which municipal pilgrims from all countries came in order to learn and admire as we are doing today’.

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9 See Ross, E.A., Changing America (New York 1912)Google Scholar and The Old World in the New(New York 1914) E. R. L. Gould, an American episcopalian admirer of Glasgow in his The Social Condition of Labour (Baltimore 1893) showed Scots invariably earned more than any other group at home and abroad, p 36.

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11 For example Sir Samuel Chisholm, former lord provost of Glasgow, speech at Alliance of the Reformed Churches holding the Presbyterian System, 9th General Council (New York 1909) ed G.D. Mathers (London 1909) pp 34-35. The sixth meeting was held in Glasgow in 1896. R. M. Wenley, university of Michigan wrote in Educational Review, 1897: ‘Were a constant stream of the select minds of America to be directed towards Scotland, the results could not fail to be of most fortunate augury. I say deliberately Scotland. For here more than in England, the American finds himself at home. Partly by temper, partly by force of circumstances the Scot is a citizen of the world. This is the main reason why he is so popular with Americans. Perhaps they regard him as a member of a nationality which has been downtrodden by the English. But I would remind them that Scotland has been subdued only twice. John Knox conquered her head and Robert Burns won her heart. Otherwise she stands still where Wallace and Bruce put her, and this is yet another reason why the free people of the great republic find it easier to come to terms with her sons. More cautious and for a little seemingly less approachable, the Scot has none of the Englishman’s morgue; poor and less the pray of social conventions, he is, if not more pleasant, than a more suggestive companion. There is more ‘to him’ as the expressive phrase has it. These characteristics have passed from the nation into the university system. Nowhere has so much been accomplished on so little; the income of the four universities is but a bare half of that enjoyed by Oxford. And this has been done by individual effort. This must always be an attractive feature to the quick and independent American. Scotland is for him the best gateway to an understanding of the Scottish people’ Reviews of Reviews (May 1897) p 459.

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17 W. T. Stead, Reviews of Reviews (October 1893 and January 1893).

18 Review of Reviews (September 1893) p 314.

19 Ibid p 315 The full programme is in the September 1893 issue pp 316-19.

20 Houghton Library, Harvard University, Robert A. Woods Papers, R. A. Woods to Rev. Mr. Wragge, 22 June 1891. Wood’s articles appeared in the Modern Church, 9 April, 2 May, 16 July, 10 September, 19 November 1891 and 3 March 1892. Other regular contributors included R. M. Wenley. A reverend G. B. Stafford was a regular American contributor.

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23 Bryce, James, The Government of British Cities (New York 1912) p 15 Google Scholar stressed the virtual absence of party politics in Scottish city government.

24 Wade, Louise C., Graham Taylor, Pioneer for Social Justice, 1851-1938 (Chicago 1964) p 126 Google Scholar.

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26 Blackwell, Elizabeth, ‘On the decay of municipal government’, Essays on Medical Sociology, 2 vols (London 1902) pp 176–210, p 181Google Scholar, and The Religion of Health (Edinburgh 1888). Also Follett, [Mary P.], [The New State] (London 1918, 1934 ed) p 161 Google Scholar.

27 Howe, F.C., The British City: the beginnnings of democracy (London 1907) pp 145, 166Google Scholar. Sir Samuel Chisholm 1836-1923, city councillor, Lord Provost. JP, leading temperance advocate, whose second wife was the widow of the founder of the Anchor Line shipping company with considerable links with the USA; Who Was Who 1836-1923. Sir Daniel Macaulay Stevenson, 1851-1944. Coal exporter, city councillor 1892-1914, Lord Provost, chairman of the Glasgow Workman’s Dwelling Company, a model housing body, founded the chairs of citizenship, Spanish and Italian at Glasgow University, International History, London University, the Directorship of the Institute of International Affairs, and endowed scholarships for Scottish students in Europe; Who Was Who.

28 New York Public Library, Albert Shaw Papers, W. J. Ashley to A. Shaw, 11 January 1895.

29 See Mavor, James, My Window on the Street of the World, 2 vols (London 1923)Google Scholar. J. H. Muirhead, 1855-1940, educated Glasgow University, MA. 1875, contemporary of Sir Henry Jones and John Maccunn; Professor at Birmingham 1896-1922; visited USA twice; very important in establishing Birmingham University; married to the sister of Graham Wallas. DNB; Watson, David, Chords of Memory (Edinburgh 1936)Google Scholar; The Life of C. S. Horne, M.A., M.P. ed W. B. Selbie (London 1920): R. M. Wenley, 1861-1929, graduated 1884, studied in Paris, Rome and Germany, and after a spell at Glasgow became professor at Michigan in 1896. Largely responsible for establishing the university extension movement in Scotland. Author of numerous religious and philosophical works. Who was Who in America, 1897-1942; Wenley, R.M., The University Extension Movement in Scotland (Glasgow 1895)Google Scholar; William Smart 1853-1915, first professor of political economy in Glasgow, active in civic debates; F. H. Stead, 1857-1928, congregationalist minister, warden of Browning Hall, London, author of several books including The Story of Social Christianity, and a driving force in the movement for old age pensions.

30 Shaw, A., Municipal Government in Great Britain (New York 1895)Google Scholar; E. R. L. Gould, 1860-1915 published widely on housing, temperance and civic reform, see necrology in The Johns Hopkins Alumni Magazine November 1915 pp 82-4. I am indebted to Dr T. J. Jacklin for this reference; Howe, [F.C.], [European Cities at Work] (London 1913)Google Scholar.

31 For example Shaw, Albert, Municipal Government in England (Baltimore 1899) pp 3–8 Google Scholar. ‘I think the experience of Glasgow is full of lessons for our new communities that are springing up all over the United States’. There are numerous eulogies of Glasgow in the Albert Shaw Papers, New York Public Library, New York. Americans invariably felt at home in Scotland and with Scots. Hamilton, Alice, Exploring the Dangerous Trades (Boston 1943) p 85 Google Scholar found English radicals intolerable snobs.

32 Gladden, Washington, Social Facts and Forces, (London 1966) pp 158, 172-4, 189Google Scholar.

33 See Aspinwall, B., ‘Scottish Trams and American Politics 1894-1914’ ScHR 66 (1977) pp 64–84 Google Scholar; Bryan, W.J., The Old World and Its Ways: A Tour Around the World and Journeys through Europe (St. Louis 1907)Google Scholar; The Letters and Journal of Brand Whitlock, ed $$Allan Nevins (New York 1936) pp 157, 169; Typescript speeches of mayor Jones, 3 August 1898 and 26 July 1899 in Toledo Public Library, Toledo, Ohio, Jones Papers; municipal ownership would awaken the social conscience and ‘arouse a pure and noble conception of patriotism’.

34 Howe, p 273. Quoted in Stewart, George R. Jr., Bret Harte: Argonaut and Exile (Boston 1931) p 285 Google Scholar.

35 See also Adams, Brooks, The New Empire (Cleveland 1967 ed 1902) p 196 Google Scholar. Bon, G.Le, The Crowd (London 1952 ed 1896) p 185 Google Scholar; Maccunn, J., The Ethics of Citizenship (Glasgow 1894) p 84 Google Scholar.

36 Bruce, A.B., The Providential Order of the World (London 1897) p 293 Google Scholar. Also see his The Moral Order of the World (London 1898). Bruce was a professor in the free church college in Glasgow. On the tradition and background see Tuveson.

37 Among the now massive literature see for example Thernstrom, Stephan, The Other Bostonians, 1880-1970 (Cambridge, Mass., 1973)Google Scholar and Chudacoff, Howard P., Mobile Americans: Residential and Social in Omaha, 1880-1920 (New York 1972)Google Scholar. Recent writers have challenged these views. For example, Briggs, John W., An Italian Passage: Immigrants in Three American Cities, 1890-1930 (New Haven 1978)Google Scholar.

38 Lasch, Christopher, The New Radicalism in America, 1889-1963: The Intellectual as a Social Type (London 1966)Google Scholar and Bledstein, B.J., The Culture of Professionalism: The Middle Class and the Development of Higher Education in America (New York 1976)Google Scholar.

39 Quoted in Louise C. Wade, Graham Taylor, p 126.

40 Patten, [Simon N.], The Theory of Prosperity (New York 1902) p 208 Google Scholar. See also pp 206-23.

41 Rauschenbusch, [Walter], [Theology for the Social Gospel] (New York 1917) p 52 Google Scholar.

42 Bascom, John, Sociology (New York 1887) p 159 Google Scholar

43 Harrison, Frederic, The Philosophy of Common Sense (London 1907) pp 349-50Google Scholar and Patten, Theory of Prosperity p 207.

44 Munsterberg, Hugo, The Americans (London 1905) p 5 CrossRefGoogle Scholar

45 Drummond, Henry, The Ascent of Man (London 1894)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

46 Patten, [Simon N.], The Development of English Thought, (New York 1899) p 388 Google Scholar and Theory of Prosperity p 206.

47 The Development of English Thought p 363

48 Bon, Gustave Le, The Crowd (London 1952 edition) p 71 Google Scholar

49 Quoted in Tims, Margaret, Jane Addams of Hull House, 1860-1935 (London 1961) p 61 Google Scholar.

50 Royce, Josiah in ‘The Philósophy of Loyalty’ in The Basic Writings of josiah Royce ed McDermott, John J., 2 vol (Chicago 1969) 2, pp 952-3Google Scholar. Also see his essay ‘Provincialism’ ibid pp 1067-88; Patten, The Development of English Thought, p 6, where ‘a sharply defined’ locality meant ‘men reared in such an environment would have an overflow of energy and activity’; Ely, R.T., Socialism (London 1895) pp 328, 350-52Google Scholar. A. Cameron Corbett, MP and generous benefactor of Glasgow with parks and country estate in the west highlands as part of his temperance campaign gave an almost identical address on receiving the freedom of the city in 1908. A. Cameron Corbett collection, Glasgow University archives. I am indebted to Dr John McCaffrey for this reference.

51 Rauschenbusch p 49.

52 Lloyd, H.D., Man, the Social Creator (New York 1906) p 11 Google Scholar.

53 Follett p 161.