Great Church Crisis,” Public Life, and National Identity in Late-Victorian and Edwardian Britain
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The “Great Church Crisis,” Public Life, and National Identity in late-Victorian and Edwardian Britain Author: Bethany Tanis Persistent link: http://hdl.handle.net/2345/1969 This work is posted on eScholarship@BC, Boston College University Libraries. Boston College Electronic Thesis or Dissertation, 2009 Copyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. Boston College The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Department of History THE “GREAT CHURCH CRISIS,” PUBLIC LIFE, AND NATIONAL IDENTITY IN LATE-VICTORIAN AND EDWARDIAN BRITAIN a dissertation by BETHANY TANIS submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2009 © copyright by BETHANY MICHELE TANIS 2009 Dissertation Abstract The “Great Church Crisis,” Public Life, and National Identity in late-Victorian and Edwardian Britain Bethany Tanis Dissertation Advisor: Peter Weiler 2009 This dissertation explores the social, cultural, and political effects of the “Great Church Crisis,” a conflict between the Protestant and Anglo-Catholic (or Ritualist) parties within the Church of England occurring between 1898 and 1906. Through a series of case studies, including an examination of the role of religious controversy in fin-de-siècle Parliamentary politics, it shows that religious belief and practice were more important in turn-of-the-century Britain than has been appreciated. The argument that the onset of secularization in Britain as defined by both a decline in religious attendance and personal belief can be pushed back until at least the 1920s or 1930s is not new. Yet, the insight that religious belief and practice remained a constituent part of late-Victorian and Edwardian national identity and public life has thus far failed to penetrate political, social, and cultural histories of the period. This dissertation uses the Great Church Crisis to explore the interaction between religious belief and political and social behavior, not with the intent of reducing religion to an expression of political and social stimuli, but with the goal of illuminating the ways politics, culture, and social thought functioned as bearers of religious concerns. The intense anti-Catholicism unleashed by the Church Crisis triggered debate about British national identity, Erastianism, and the nature of the church-state relationship. Since the Reformation, Erastians – supporters of full state control of the church – and proponents of a more independent church had argued over how to define the proper relationship between the national church and state. This dissertation demonstrates that the Church Crisis represents a crucial period in the history of church-state relations because the eventual Anglo-Catholic victory ended Parliamentary attempts to control the church’s theology and practice and, therefore, sounded the death knell of political Erastianism. In short, tensions between Protestant and Catholics reached a high water mark during the years of the Great Church Crisis. These tensions catalyzed both a temporary revival of Erastianism and its ultimate descent into irrelevance. Table of Contents Acknowledgments . viii Introduction . 1 • The Church Crisis in Historical Context • Thesis • Historigraphy • Methodology • Chapter Outline Chapter 1: An Old Religion for a New Britain . 34 • The Growth of Catholicism • The Appeal of Catholicism: Biblical Higher Criticism and Science • The Appeal of Catholicism: Progressive, Cosmopolitan, and Tolerant • The Appeal of Catholicism: Mysticism and Aestheticism • The Appeal of Catholicism: Mitigation of Individualism and Anarchy through Community and Authority • Conclusion Chapter 2: Never Trust a Clergyman in Black: . 77 British Anti-Catholicism during the Great Church Crisis • The Protestant Anti-Ritualists and Anti-Catholic Activists • Theological Anti-Catholicism • Patriotic Anti-Catholicism • Moral Anti-Catholicism • Ethnic, Class, Gender, and Generational Catalysts of Anti-Catholicism • Conclusion Chapter 3: Protestant Paranoia and Catholic Conspiracies: . 129 Protestant and Catholic Perspectives on the Second Anglo-Boer War • Protestant Perspectives on the South African War • Catholic Perspectives on the South African War • The Spread and Influence of a Religious View of the War: The Case of the Church Association • Conclusion Chapter 4: “The Mass and the Masses”: . 164 Christian Socialism, The Labour Movement, and the Church Crisis • The Labour Movement and Christian Socialism v • Part I: Christian Socialism o Religion, Christian Socialism, and the Labour Movement o The Rainbow Circle: An Example of the Interaction between Christian Socialism and the Progressive Party • Part II: Socialism and Anglo-Catholicism o Stewart D. Headlam: A Catholic Socialist • Part III: The Church Crisis and Socialism • Conclusion • Appendix to Chapter 5: Prominent Christian Socialist Groups Founded in or prior to 1906 • Appendix to Chapter 5: Major Socialists and Labour Leaders, c. 1880- 1906, and their relationship to Christianity and/or Christian Socialism Chapter 5: Conniving Jesuits and Captive Nuns: . 218 Fin-de-siècle Popular Protestant and Catholic Literature • Protestant Fiction from the Mid-Victorian Period to the Edwardian Period • Emily Sarah Holt • Joseph Hocking • Victorian English Catholic Fiction • Guy Thorne • Conclusion Chapter 6: William Harcourt’s Protestant Erastianism: . 274 Church and State, 1898-1900 • Disestablishment, Erastianism, and the Great Church Crisis • The Onset of the Great Church Crisis • The Benefice Bill Debates and Aftermath: To What Extent Should Parliament Legislate Church Patronage? • Harcourt in History • Anti-Ritualism in the Context of Harcourt’s Erastianism and Liberalism • The Popularity of Anti-Ritualism • Political Effects of Anti-Ritualism: Harcourt’s Resignation • Gedge’s Amendment and the Church Discipline Bill, 1899: Erastianism Ascendant? • Preparation for the Next General Election: The Erastian Call for “Protestantism before Politics!” • The General Election, October 1900: A Khaki and Orange Election • Harcourt’s Legacy • Conclusion • Appendix to Chapter 5: The Church Association’s Account of the Election Results • Appendix to Chapter 5: Members Elected in 1900 Publicly Pledged to Support a Church Discipline Bill vi Chapter 7: Arthur Balfour . 341 and the Triumph of Ecclesiastical Independence, 1900-1906 • Balfour Historiography • Balfour the Philosophical Theist • Balfour and the Church Crisis • A New Front in the Church Crisis: The 1902 Education Act • The Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Discipline • The Scottish Church Crisis • The Report of the RCED and the Education Act, 1906: The Dissolution of the Anti-Ritualist Erastian Political Alliance • Conclusion • Appendix to Chapter 7: The Church Association’s positive assessment of bye- elections up until June 1903 Conclusion . 391 • Appendix to Conclusion: Terminology Bibliography . 411 vii Acknowledgments I would like to thank my family and friends for providing the love and support necessary for me to write and finish this dissertation. I especially want to thank my parents, Laura and Dan, my grandmother Alda, my brother Michael, and my uncle Kim and aunt Beth. Thanks to my roommates, friends, and colleagues – especially cohort members Brooke Barbier, Amanda Bidnall, Sarah K. Nytroe, and Greg Walsh – for tolerating me for six years of graduate school. I would also like to thank Jack Kilcrease for his love and encouragement. Thanks as well to my congregational family – especially Pastor Ingo Dutzmann and the Student Young Adult Fellowship group – at First Lutheran Church of Boston for providing spiritual care and lots of free food. Thanks as well to Luther- Tyndale Memorial Church, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church – Tottenham, and Redeemer Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Bronx for providing spiritual care while I was away from Boston. Many thanks to the residents of 15 LC (including Hannah Davis and Peta- Jean Kerr) and especially Deaconess Karen Rubel for making the necessary sacrifices to provide me with housing in London during a research trip. Thanks to Susan Pedersen and the participants in the 2007 Mellon Seminar on Modern British History for close readings and helpful critiques of my dissertation proposal and a chapter. Thanks to the British and European Reading and Writing group at BC for also closely reading and critiquing a chapter. Thanks to the faculty members of the Boston College History Department who went out of their way to either read my work or provide mentoring even though they were not on my committee, including Robin Fleming, Kevin Kenny, Prasannan Parthasarathi, and Stephen Schloesser, S.J. Finally, of course, thanks to my committee members: Jeffrey Cox, who flew to Boston from Iowa for my defense; James viii O’Toole, who provided needed commentary on Roman Catholic history and American comparisons; and my advisor Peter Weiler who never missed a stray comma in a footnote, corrected more dangling modifiers than I care to admit, and generally ensured that I eventually produced a credible piece of scholarship. Soli Deo Gloria ix Introduction In 1898 Liberal MP Samuel Smith declared that one issue “LAY MORE AT THE ROOT OF THE NATION’S WELFARE THAN ALL THE OTHER QUESTIONS THAT WERE BEING AGITATED.”1 This issue, rocking the nation at the century’s end was not such obvious disputes as the massive engineering strike the year before or the Fashoda incident that was just unfolding, or even the expanding suffrage movement. Rather, the problem was the introduction of incense into services