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The National Politics and Politicians of Primitive Methodism: 1886-1922

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The National Politics and Politicians of Primitive Methodism: 1886-1922 THE UNIVERSITY OF HULL The National Politics and Politicians of Primitive Methodism: 1886-1922. being a Thesis submitted for the Degree of PhD in the University of Hull By Melvin Johnson M.A. (Oxon), P.G.C.E., Diploma in Special Education (Visual Handicap). November 2016 1 Contents Abbreviations 4 Abstract 5 Acknowledgments 7 Introduction 8 Chapter One: The Politics of Primitive Methodism up to 1885. 29 1.1 Introduction 29 1.2 The increasing acceptance of political action 29 1.3 The main issues and political allegiances 33 1.4 A representative campaign of the 1870s and 1880s 41 Chapter Two: ‘As a people we are not blindly loyal’: 1886-1898 44 2.1 Introduction 44 2.2 The political allegiances and agendas of Primitive Methodism 46 2.2.1 The institutional response 46 2.2.2 The wider debate: the Connexional publications 48 2.2.3 The background, political allegiances and proclivities of Primitive Methodist MPs 54 2.3 Political issues 58 2.3.1 Labour and Capital 58 2.3.2 Temperance, gambling and smoking 66 2.3.3 Disestablishment and ecclesiastical matters 69 2.3.4 Education 71 2.3.5 Military matters 74 2.3.6 Ireland and other imperial matters 77 2.3.7 Land and landowners 81 2.3.8 Women’s suffrage and related issues 85 2.3.9 Other suffrage and constitutional issues 87 2.4 Heresy? 89 Chapter Three: ‘The social lot of the people must be improved’: 91 1899-1913 3.1 Introduction 91 3.2 The political allegiances and agendas of Primitive Methodism 93 3.2.1 The institutional response 93 3.2.2 The wider debate: the Connexional publications 97 3.2.3 The background, political allegiances and proclivities of Primitive Methodist MPs 103 3.3. Political Issues 110 3.3.1 Labour and Capital 110 3.3.2 Temperance, gambling and smoking 119 3.3.3 Disestablishment and ecclesiastical matters 123 3.3.4 Education 125 3.3.5 Military matters 132 3.3.6 Ireland 140 3.3.7 Free Trade and Protection 141 3.3.8. Old age pensions and related matters 143 2 3.3.9 Women’s suffrage and related issues 148 3.4 ‘God Save the People’. 153 Chapter Four: ‘All political colours are among us’: 1914-1922 156 4.1 Introduction 156 4.2 The political allegiances and agendas of Primitive Methodism 157 4.2.1 The institutional response 157 4.2.2. The wider debate: the Connexional publications 159 4.2.3 The background, political allegiances and proclivities of Primitive Methodist MPs 166 4.3 Political issues 168 4.3.1 Labour and Capital 168 4.3.2 Temperance, gambling and smoking 176 4.3.3 Disestablishment and ecclesiastical matters 181 4.3.4 Education 183 4.3.5 Military Matters 185 4.3.6. Ireland and other imperial matters 193 4.3.7 Women’s suffrage and related matters 198 4.4 A brief overview of the Church’s political engagement during its final decade 202 Conclusion 207 Appendix: ‘PM made me an MP’: the social, occupational, and denominational background of the MPs. 211 Bibliography 229 3 Abbreviations Bristol Mercury – BM Christian Messenger – CM Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough – DGM Derby Daily Telegraph – DDT Dictionary of Labour Biography – DLB Durham Miners’ Association – DMA Holborn Review – HR Independent Labour Party – ILP The Journals of the House of Common – JHC1 Labour Representation Committee – LRC Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser – MCLGA Manchester Guardian – MG Methodist Times – MT Miners’ Federation of Great Britain – MFGB Morpeth Herald – MH National Agricultural Labourers’ Union – NALU Northampton Mercury – NM Northern Echo – NE Nottingham Evening Post – NEP Oxford Dictionary of National Biography- ODNB Primitive Methodist Consolidated Conference Minutes – PMCM Primitive Methodist Leader – PML (Includes references to the paper after it changed its name to Methodist Leader.) Primitive Methodist Magazine – PMM Primitive Methodist Quarterly and Christian Ambassador – PMQ Primitive Methodist World – PMW Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society – PWHS Sheffield Daily Telegraph – SDT Shields Daily Gazette – SDG Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette – SDESG The Hull Daily Mail – HDM The Hull Packet and East Riding Times – HP The Primitive Methodist – PM Trades Union Congress - TUC Western Daily Press – WDP Western Morning News – WMN Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer – YPLI 1 Most volumes cover one year although, occasionally, there is a small overlap of a few months. Consequently, the Volume, rather than year, is given e.g. V143. The online index details the period that each volume covers: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmjournal.htm 4 Abstract The National Politics and Politicians of Primitive Methodism: 1886-1922 This thesis, which assists our understanding of the interaction between religious belief and political activity, presents a study of the politics of the Primitive Methodist Church and the MPs associated with it between 1886 and 1922. This was the zenith of the Church’s political activism. It traces Primitive Methodism’s evolution from an apolitical body, preaching individual salvation and with a particular mission to the working classes, to one that also promoted social salvation through progressive politics. The Church’s emphasis on individual moral improvement during its early decades receded and it increasingly advocated collectivist solutions to social ills, eventually espousing a balanced and synergetic combination of the two principles. This increasing engagement with progressive national politics manifested itself in the election of December 1885. In the wake of the franchise extension of 1884, 12 working-class MPs were elected, five of whom were closely associated with the Church. Although two working men, including Thomas Burt, the son of a Primitive Methodist local preacher, had preceded them in 1874, this influx of plebeian MPs was an event unprecedented in parliamentary history. The proportion drawn from a minor religious denomination was also notable. All told, my research has identified 44 MPs associated with Primitive Methodism between its foundation in the first decade of the nineteenth century and 1932, when the Church merged with other Methodist denominations. Although it frequently asserted that it was not wedded to any one political party, the reality was different. Initially, the Church and its MPs were firmly Liberal. However, the Liberal allegiance gradually diminished and an increasing number of Primitives supported other political parties, particularly the emergent Labour Party. Historians have often focused on the importance of Primitive Methodists in the foundation and leadership of a number of early trade unions, particularly those for coal miners and agricultural labourers. The historian Eric Hobsbawm deduced from this that the Church experienced a ‘partial transformation … into a labour sect’: mutating from a purely religious organization into one that provided the Labour Movement with leaders.2 However, he lamented the lack of detailed inquiry into the religious background of the early generation of working-class MPs. This thesis remedies that deficiency in relation to the Primitive MPs, within the context of the Church’s own parliamentary agenda. The core of this study begins in 1886 with the election of the group of Primitive MPs and ends in 1922 as the Church’s leadership began to realise that political activism was no 2 Eric Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels, Studies in Archaic Forms of Social Movements in the 19th and 20th Centuries (New York: Norton Library, 1959), 126-149. 5 longer a harmonising force for its members. It explores the Church’s official parliamentary aims and priorities as expressed at its Annual Conferences and District Meetings, the spectrum of members’ views articulated in Church publications, and the activities of its MPs in and out of Parliament. These are considered in the context of Primitive Methodism’s social and occupational composition, its geographical distribution, and theological foundations. Although necessary to understanding the Church’s political trajectory, lack of space has restricted discussion of the Church’s political activism from 1923 to 1932 to a brief overview. 6 Acknowledgements I am greatly indebted to Dr. Douglas A. Reid and Dr. Jenny Macleod, my supervisors, for their acceptance of and support for a student whose long absence from historical research could have deterred the faint hearted. Although any errors of fact and interpretation are purely my own, I am grateful to the following for their suggestions, provision of hard to source publications and opportunities to share and develop my thinking: Dr. Peter Catterall, Professor David Bebbington, Professor Martin Ceadel, Professor Ross M. Martin, Dr. Clive D. Field OBE, Dr. Jill Barber, Dr. Ingrid Hanson, Dr. David Ceri Jones, Rev. Dr. Peter Howson, Jack Steel, Peter and Jim Simmons, Ned Newitt and Lord Clark of Windermere. The professionalism of staff at John Rylands Library (Manchester), Hull History Centre, The Bodleian Library (Oxford), The People’s History Museum (Manchester), Hull Central Library, Englesea Brook Primitive Methodist Museum, and the online Hansard has made my life as a researcher as stress free as possible. In particular, Dr. Graham Johnson and Lorraine Coughlan of John Rylands Library went beyond all expectations, helping me to unravel the changing names, locations and cataloguing of Primitive Methodist publications. However, Professor Sir Brian Harrison deserves my greatest gratitude for almost half a century of kindness and critical friendship to this old ‘History Boy’. 7 Introduction The Primitive Methodist Connexion3 emerged as an offshoot of the mainstream Wesleyan
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