From Persecution to Prosperity - The Dissenters (Volume II)

From persecution to prosperity
The Dissenters: Volume II
The Expansion of Evangelical Nonconformity 1791-1859
By Michael R. Watts
Clarendon Press. 911 pages. £75.00

The first volume of Michael Watts' projected three-volume history of English and Welsh Dissent appeared in 1978-The Dissenters: From the Reformation to the French Revolution.
This second volume has been eagerly awaited. Watts has conducted a vast amount of research into the primary sources and his work must now be the standard text for any historian dealing with Nonconformity in this period. He deals with the evangelical dissenters: the Independents, Baptists and Methodists, but also with the Unitarians and Quakers. At many points the contrasts between these two groupings are fascinating. The enormous expansion of Nonconformity between 1791 and 1851 is analysed. Pages 682-870 consist of detailed tables and maps, laying out the information of the 1851 census for every area in England and Wales.
The beginning of the modern missionary movement is outlined. The home mission endeavour is also described. Sunday Schools, itinerant preaching, associational endeavour to support church planting, and similar 'means' were employed with great energy and success.
Meeting places are vividly portrayed: barns, octagons and 'temples' in the earlier period; an increasing tendency to large Gothic-style building in the later period. Equally interesting is the section on finances. In the earlier part of the period 'begging tours' were commonplace: ministers would itinerate with the object of collecting funds, often for church buildings. Pew rents were an accepted part of nonconformist life.

Preachers and preaching

Attention is given to ministerial education, training, pay, and social status. The shift from the heroic days of itinerant preaching in all weathers and conditions to the respectable image of 'the reverend' is clearly depicted. There are striking accounts of the persecution endured by some dissenters until well into the period. Intimidation of local preachers could take forms as diverse as drawn swords, rotten eggs or imprisonment with hard labour, but Watts shows such opposition to have been counterproductive, in some cases increasing general sympathy for the subjects of persecution.
There is an informative section on preaching and praise in the Non-conformist community, dealing with styles of preaching and the progress of hymnody. The decision to introduce organs (commonly regarded as ' adjuncts of popery') in churches unloosed controversy as vicious as that attending the introduction of congregational hymn singing in an earlier generation and the introduction of ' modern' worship songs in our own time (pp.185-186).
The 'psychology of conversion' is examined. The growth of the Evangelical Nonconformists (the Independents, Baptists, and Methodists) is seen to be a result of their clear belief in eternal punishment and eternal life. The decline of the ' liberal' non-conformists (the Quakers and Unitarians) was in proportion to their abandonment of this and any other firm belief in the supernatural elements of Christianity. (see also: Why did the English stop going to church? by Michael Watts, cost £2.26 incl. p&p from Dr. Williams's Library, 14 Gordon Square, London WC1H OAG. Cheques payable to Dr Williams's Library.) The discussion of conversion statistics is helpful in that they take into account drop-out statistics: large numbers of sudden conversions could be followed by large scale backsliding (cf.p.647). There are a number of commonly repeated opinions concerning Nonconformity during this period, and this work is particularly helpful in using hard evidence to critique these views.

Fallacious opinions

1. 'Nonconformity was a bourgeois movement'

As far back as 1844, Engels wrote that 'the workers have no religion and do not go to church' (p.303). Since then, the myth that nonconformity was essentially ' bourgeois' and made little impact on the working class has been repeated by successive writers, with little statistical evidence to support it. Watts superintended the examination of nonconformist birth and baptismal registers housed in the Public Record Office for every county in England and Wales, for the period 1790-1837. County record office registers were examined for the post-1837 period. The statistics show that the majority of chapel goers were drawn from the working class, in both rural and urban areas.

2. 'Calvinism led to capitalism'

The 'Weber' thesis expounded in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism linked Calvinism and Methodism with business success. Watts subjects this thesis to vigorous scrutiny, and finds that it needs many qualifications. Watts finds that Webers' insistence on Calvinism as the driving force for capitalist development is too simplistic. He documents the far greater business success of the Quakers and Unitarians, who rejected Calvinism, than the Congregationalists and Particular Baptists who embraced it.

3. 'Nonconformity saved England from revolution'

Another widely repeated thesis is that of Halevy, who argued that evangelical religion, particularly Methodism, protected England from revolution. The nonconformists produced a spirit of respect for the social order, and a general ethical conformity, which prevented violent unrest at a time when revolutionary upheaval spread over the rest of Europe. Here, Watts gives evidence to support this thesis. Evangelical non-conformity in the first half of the nineteenth century ' did not prevent political upheaval, radical protest, or growing class conflict; but it did guarantee that most of that protest and conflict would be contained within constitutional limits, accompanied by a minimum of violence, and expressed for much of the time in the language of the Bible' (p.377).

4. 'Nonconformist Sunday Schools were an instrument of social control'

E.P. Thompson, in his influential The Making of the English Working Class (1968) was scathing in his criticism of Sunday Schools, seeing them as an instrument of indoctrination to force acceptance of the factory system. Watts offers a sober discussion of the Sunday School movement, and argues: 'The ability to read, the distinction between right and wrong, the virtues of probity, thrift and sobriety, which were emphasised by the Sunday school and temperance movements alike, were indeed values cherished by a substantial section of the Victorian middle class, but that does not make them specifically 'bourgeois' values. They were values which were embraced with even greater enthusiasm by enormous numbers of the nineteenth century working class. (p.303). Thus, nonconformity was a genuinely working class as well as middle class movement, and had a tremendously positive social impact on those involved.

5. 'Nonconformists failed to support social reform'

Another controversy which is discussed in a clear and responsible manner is the accusation that humane efforts at factory reform (such as efforts to limit child labour) were supported by evangelical Anglicans but often opposed by hard-headed nonconformist industrialists. Yes, many prominent Unitarian and Quaker manufacturers were adamant in opposition to factory reform. But there were dissenters who supported reform; and there were sterling efforts by nonconformist industrialists to ameliorate conditions for their workers. However there is enough evidence brought forward to suggest that there is at least some truth behind the uncomfortable statement: 'The failure of the majority of nonconformist leaders to support the working class on issues such as factory reform and the poor law constitutes the most glaring failure of compassion in the whole history of Dissent' (p.487). Watts argues that the great strength of evangelical nonconformity 'was that it offered consolation, companionship, and ultimately eternal salvation to a working class threatened by disease, natural disaster, and early death' (p.511). But conversely, a weakness of orthodox Dissent was its tendency to pietism, and the inability to convincingly engage with the great issues opened up by the industrial revolution.

6. 'Philanthropy was paternalistic and self-serving'

More positively, Watts gives a wealth of information concerning the philanthropic enterprises of 19th-century nonconformists. He demolishes the argument of E.P. Thompson and his followers that religion was used as a weapon to keep the workforce under control and concludes: 'Philanthropy revealed nonconformity at its best.' (p.634) ' The elderly, the sick, the orphaned, the imprisoned, were all beneficiaries of Dissenting philanthropy...' (p.638). Nonconformity brought to multitudes a 'sense of freedom, joy, and often material improvement' (p.647); it had a transforming effect on whole communities (pp. 649-651).

This immense work is readable and inspiring, and serves to advance our understanding of nonconformity during this vital period.

This review is abbreviated from a longer review article which appeared in Reformation Today No. 156, March-April 1997.

From Persecution to Prosperity - The Dissenters (Volume II)

The Expression of Evangelical Non-Conformity 1791-1859