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- i.d d"'!.:q,%- 4 :*,a to Social Progress in a En - Some Notices of this Book THE UNITARIAN CONTRIBUTION Mr. Holt's "book is a valuable contribution to its subject and nobody can fail to appreciate the main lesson he seeks to teach." The Times Literary Supple- ment. TO SOCIAL PROGRESS "In his interesting book" Mr. Holt "shows how, in one sphere after another IN ENGLAND -factory reform, local government, education and democracy-Unitarians are to be found among the men of mark and leadership." J. L. Hammond in The Manchester Guardian. "A tribute of justice long overdue and most ably presented." British Weekly. BY "Free from any suspicion of praising up the form of belief which he holds at the expense of other points of view." Church QuarLrly Review. RAYMOND V. HOLT Mr. Holt "is no blind partisan." Th Christian World. B.Litt., M.A. (OX&) l "Bristles with biographical material of immense interest." The Friend. 1 Smhyk Ku~alEssay prirnruur "It is an important work and has behind it much painstaking research, some in tlrr? UniuMsity of Oxfmd, I@ of the difficulties of Which can only be understood by those who have them- Ptim$d of thc U. selves attempted it." The Battist Quarter&. CoZItgc, Manchesttr in Xlu History of Doctrh "Enlightened by erudition and humour." R. H. Mottram in Z'h Inquirer. tcCk#er in the Universi~of Manchester THE LINDSEY PRESS 14 GORDON SQUARE, LONDON, W.C. X FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1938 SECOND REVISED EDITIOZV' 7952 TO MY WIFE All rights reserved PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY BUTLER 8 TANNER LTD., FROME AND LONDON CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE PREFACE I I r THE UNITARIAN CONTRIBUTION TO - SOCIAL ,PROGRESS-A GENERAL SURVEY I3 2 THE UNITARIAN CONTRIBUTION TO THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 29 g THE UNITARIAN CONTRIBUTION TO PARLHAhaE1\I$JTARY REFORM AND OTHER MOVEMENTS FOR FREEDOM 69 4. THE UNITARIAN CONTRIBUTION TO A MEW SOCIAL ORDER 156 5 THE UNITARIAN CONTRIBUTION TO LOCAL GOVERNMENT 214 6 THE UNITARIAN CONTRIBUTION TO EDUCATION 242 7 THE CREATION OF THE UNITARIAN TRADITION 2 75 8 THE STRUCTURE OF UPJIT~H~- ISM NINETEENTH-CENTURY CHANGES 329 INDEXES Index of Places Index of Persons PREFACE T~Sbook aims at bringing out the spirit or ethos of the members of a religious group by describing the ways in which their faith-found expression in social life and thought. There are two methods of treating the contribution of a group to the social life of a larger community. One is to what must become, more or less, a catalogue of all the particular activities of the members of such a group ; the other is to place these activities in a wider context. ~h~~ghthis second method demands more space, it has been adopted because the life of a group is onljr seen in its true penpective as part of the larger life of the nation. The history of English life can only be adequately written further investigation both into family history and into local history and the writer hopes that this book may stimulate further research in both these directions. In a book of this kind, there must be many references to political parties and to religious bodies and these references must often be of a critical nature. All these must be under- stood, of course, to refer only to the parties and groups as they existed at the time in question and not to parties and groups bearing the same names which exist at the present day. For everyone has learnt something in the last hundred years, and the historian at least has to learn a wide tolerance, for he sees again and again how even the most enlightened men and women have been blind to some things which, later, everyone could see and how even the blindest people have had a vision of some truth worthy of preservation for the good of mankind. To prevent endless repetition of the word Unitarian, the names of Unitarians and of Unitarian Congregations are placed in italics. In some cases this raises problems, the nature of which is explained in the last two chapters on "The Creation of the Unitarian Tradition," and ''Mine- teenth-century Changes." In this book the word is used in the widest sense to include every variety of Unitarian. Only in exceptional circumstances are the names of the living Unitarians included. I I UNITARIAN CONTRIBUTION TO SOCIAL PROGRESS The book was originally equipped with several appendices THE UNITARIAN CONTRIBUTION containing a full series of notes on the text, together with lists of Unitarian congregational histories, Unitarian bio- TO SOCIAL PROGRESS IN ENGLAND graphies, and books on social subjects by Unitarians. In order to reduce the cost of publication, these have been CHAPTER I omitted. One of them, a complete list of Unitarian congre- gational histories, will appear in the "Transactions of the THE UNITARIAN CONTRIBUTION TO SOCIAL Unitarian Historical Society." The others may be published PROGRESS-A GENERAL SURVEY later as part of a more detailed study. The author wishes to express his thanks to the Hibbert UNITARIANShave been leaders in most of those changes Trustees and to their Secretary, Dr. W. H. Drummond, both which have transformed the England of the eighteenth for the publication of this work and for much consideration century into the England of the present day. Towards the shown to the author in its preparation. The thanks of the middle of the nineteenth century they thought of themselves author are due also to Principal Herbert McLachlan, D.D., as "the Vanguard of the Age." This is the title given to the and to the. Rev. Felix Holt, B.A., for correcting the whole of collection of portraits painted on the walls of the main hall the proofs, and to Mr. Ernest Axon, F.S.A., and Mr. Lawrence in the building that was once University Hall, London, Hall for revising the sections dealing with Manchester and and is now the home of Dr. Williams's Library. This fresco Liverpool respectively. has recently been reproduced in Edith J. Morley's Henry RAYMOND V. HOLT Crabb Robinson. The claim to be the vanguard of the age OXFORD July path? 1937 was not an arrogant one and was not unjustified, though it would be ridiculous, as well as untrue, to pretend that PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION Unitarians shared none of the limitations of their age. Civil and Religious Liberty, Education in all its forms, SOMEexplanation of the lay-out of the book has been found Local Government, and better Public Wealth have been advisable. The first chapter contains a general sketch of the objects of their special concern. They were also among the Unitarian Contribution to Social Progress in broad outline, men who changed the economic life of England in the picking out some of the most outstanding illustrations. Mast long-drawn-out Industrial Revolution. This Chapter will of the information given in this chapter is repeated in the illustrate the nature of their contribution. The value of the fuller treatment of each aspect which follows. changes they helped to bring about will be discussed each The last two chapters deal with the creation of the in its proper place. Unitarian tradition and the structure of Unitarianism. On The English "Dictionary of National Biography" gives the a strict interpretation of the title these two chapters might biographies of over two hundred Unitarians. But in many seem to be out of place, but they are necessary to complete cases there is no indication that the men and women in the picture and have been found helpful. question were Unitarians. There are several reasons which The author regrets that it has not been found possible to explain this omission. print the lists of books on Unitarian congregations and of Part of the explanation is that many of the oldest Uni- books on and by individual Unitarians. RAYMOND V. MOLT tarian congregations which sprang out of the Puritan MANCHESTER movement of the seventeenth century were known for a time January 12th, 1952 I2 I UNITARIAN CONTRIBUTION TO SOCIAL PROGRESS UNITARIAN CONTRIBUTION TO SOCIAL PROGRESS as Presbyterians and this has misled historians not versed in the reader can only discover with extreme difficulty the fact the complexities of Unitarian history. that Wedgwood was a Unitarian. Part of the explanation is that Unitarians have been known The great factory owner, John Fielden, M.P., who, along by a variety of other names. Unitarians would have preferred with Shaftesbury, led the agitation for the Factory Acts, was to be called just "Christians," but this was not to be. Con- a unitarian. His sons built the Unitarian Church at Tod- temporaries tried to label them according to their supposed rnorden. Professor J. H. Clapham, in the "Cambridge resemblance to certain early Christian heretics like the ~~~~~mic~i'storyof Great Britain," has described him as Arians or called them Socinian after the Italian leader of Quaker The explanation of the mistake is that Fielden's the Unitarian Church in Poland. Many Unitarians dislike father was a Quaker. William Smith, M.P., who, along with the word Unitarian because it seems to them to emphasize wilberforce and Clarkson, led the movement for the eman- a particular doctrine rather than a spirit. They forget that cipation of the slaves, was a Unitarian. Professor Sir Reginald the significance of a word is given by its life history not by coupland in his life of Wilberforce described Williapn Smith its etymology or by the definitions that compilers of dic- as a Quaker. To write the life of a man who had been a tionaries try to impose upon it.

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