Nineteenth-Century Dissenting Women Writers: Literary Communities, Conviction and Genre Rachel Louise Webster Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds School of English May 2014 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is her own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. © 2014 The University of Leeds and Rachel Louise Webster The right of Rachel Louise Webster to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Acknowledgements Most sincere and important thanks to Dr Richard Salmon for his calm, measured advice and supervision. Without his steady assurances and direction, this thesis would never have reached its potential. The comments I received from Dr Julia Reid during the upgrade process were invaluable in strengthening the overall thesis. I am particularly grateful to Dr. Beth Palmer who supervised my MA dissertation and helped me to carve out a research path towards dissenting religious practice. Thanks are offered to Dr David Higgins, Professor John Whale and Professor Jon Mee for insightful conversations shared during the Creativity Communities Conference held in 2013. I am also grateful to Dr Joshua King for his generosity in allowing me to read his book manuscript in advance of publication. Without the support and encouragement of my fellow peers, this would have been a very different PhD experience. Dr Helen Kingstone, you have been overwhelmingly generous with your time, thoughts and expertise. Abi Mason, Debbie Read and Rachel Mace, you have been supportive, caring and always willing to listen. Richard Whitney, thank you for postcards and for your thoughts on Hannah More. Thanks to Jenny Kohn and Louisa Oates for your input into Chapter Two and Three, and to Dr Bethany Layne and Alys Mostyn for teaching companionship and free advice. I am also grateful to the ladies attending my refugee and asylum seekers reading group whose lives, perspective and unabated joy kept literature fresh and relevant. To the Websters and the Barkers I owe the greatest debt: your love, support, prayers and encouragement got me here. Finally to Paul Whitehead: thank you for sharing all this with me. Abstract This thesis reconstructs the dissenting religious communities of five nineteenth-century women writers: Hannah More, Catherine and Susanna Winkworth, Elizabeth Gaskell and Josephine Butler. The case study approach locates each woman within an active, religious environment, arguing that community played a significant role in her spiritual and literary development. A recent trend in Romantic Studies has examined creativity in collaborations, in order to dismiss once and for all the myth of an individual genius. This thesis extends the preoccupation to consider the presence of sociability and creative communities in the lives of nineteenth-century religious women. Religiosity is an essential identification for all five women, helping to shape their social agenda, but more importantly to inform their textual choices. Diverse political and theological positions were encouraged and contested within each community, using novels, biographies, poetry, hymns, and speeches to disseminate conviction: they addressed the Abolition of the Slave Trade, German Higher Criticism’s threat to the Christian faith, class unrest and the ‘problem’ of the fallen woman. One of this thesis’s innovations has been to view Evangelicals alongside more recognisable dissenting bodies such as the Unitarians. Evangelicalism’s problematic position within the Anglican Church caused it to be ostracised and distrusted, an experience familiar to the dissenter. The close alliances that existed between orthodox convictions, often assumed in childhood, and a dissenting belief owned and experienced in adulthood have blurred the dividing lines between orthodoxy and dissent. Gendered assumptions about female religious community are dismantled and re- imagined, allowing space for female-male collaborations to emerge. Any conclusions about female religiosity are to be understood relationally, with masculine identity crucial for determining a Christian experience. The nineteenth-century emergence of a feminised Christ (simultaneously a radicalised and conservative representation) is a central figure in which to draw conclusions about the dissenting and gendered practices of these communities. Simplistic conclusions about literary communities are avoided, and instead the case studies represent the diversity of religious convictions, the differences in communal activities, and the varying textual products of collaboration. Community proved both enabling and challenging to the development of these five women. TABLE OF CONTENTS ABBREVIATIONS ........................................................................................................... 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 3 Nineteenth-Century Dissenting Women Writers Dissenting Religion ...................................................................................................... 7 Literary Communities ................................................................................................. 13 Female Experience ..................................................................................................... 20 Genre .......................................................................................................................... 25 CHAPTER 1 .................................................................................................................... 31 Hannah More, Abolition and the Evangelicals Evangelical Writings and the Abolition of the Slave Trade ....................................... 33 Cœlebs in Search of a Wife: A Fictional Evangelical Community ............................. 57 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 72 CHAPTER 2 .................................................................................................................... 75 Catherine and Susanna Winkworth: German Translations, Higher Criticism and Male Mentorship Literary Circle ............................................................................................................ 77 Catherine Winkworth and German Hymnody ........................................................... 87 Susanna Winkworth and Fourteenth-Century German Theological Writings ......... 105 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 119 CHAPTER 3 .................................................................................................................. 123 Elizabeth Gaskell and the Manchester Unitarians The Manchester Unitarian Community: Chapel, Sermons and Mary Barton ......... 125 Ruth: The Fallen Woman. ........................................................................................ 140 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 165 CHAPTER 4 .................................................................................................................. 169 Josephine Butler, the Campaign Community and the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts ‘Vital’ Christianity and Butler’s Prophetic Call ...................................................... 172 The Campaign Community: Print Culture, Literary Writings and Dissemination .. 198 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 217 CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................. 219 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................ 225 1 Abbreviations C Hannah More, Cœlebs in Search of a Wife: Comprehending Observations on Domestic Habits and Manners, Religion and Morals, ed. by Patricia Demers (Plymouth: Broadview Press, 2007) CB The Chorale Book for England, collected and translated by Catherine Winkworth, tunes compiled and ed. by William Sterndale Bennett and Otto Goldschmidt (London: Longman Green, 1863) CS Josephine Butler, Catharine of Siena: A Biography (London: Dyer Brothers, 1885) CY John Keble, The Christian Year: Thoughts in Verse for the Sunday and Holidays Throughout the Year (Oxford: W. Baxter, 1827) (I) (II) William Roberts, Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Mrs. H. More, 2 vols (New York, 1834) L Elizabeth Gaskell, The Letters of Mrs. Gaskell, ed. by J. A. V. Chapple and Arthur Pollard (Manchester: Mandolin, 1997) LG Lyra Germanica: Hymns for the Sundays and Chief Festivals of the Christian Year, translated by Catherine Winkworth (New York: Thomas N. Stanford, 1856) LG 2nd Lyra Germanica Second Series: The Christian Life, translated by Catherine Winkworth (London: Longman, 1858) M Margaret J. Shaen, ed., Memorials of Two Sisters: Susanna and Catherine Winkworth (London: Longmans Green, 1908) MB Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Barton, ed., Edgar Wright (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), R Elizabeth Gaskell, Ruth, ed. by