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John Trevor and the Labor Church Movement in England, 1891–1900

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Stanley Pierson
Stanley Pierson
Affiliation:
University of Oregon
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Extract

In the history of Protestant Christianity, sectarian movements have often served to bridge the gulfs which have opened between conventional forms of religious life and new secular aspirations among the lower classes. The emergence of the Labor Church movement in England during the closing decade of the last century may be seen in part as an attempt at such a reconciliation. For it was dedicated to the idea that the emancipation of the working classes from capitalism was a religious movement, that the improvement of social conditions was as important as the development of personal character. And yet its leader, John Trevor, repudiated the dogmatic implications of the sectidea and viewed the Labor Church as a search for a truly free religion. In fact it quickly severed all ties with the traditional faith and embarked on a quest for radically new religious meaning.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 29 , Issue 4 , December 1960 , pp. 463 - 478
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1960

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References

1. There are two published accounts of the Labor Church movement. Henry Pelling's excellent chapter on “Labour and the Churches” in his Origins of the Labour Party, London 1954Google Scholar, examines the movement as a “transfer of social energy from religion to politics.” His picture is corrected at significant points however, in an article by Inglis, K. S., “The Labour Church Movement,” appearing in the International Review of Social History, III (12 1958) 445–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The present article treats the movement primarily as religious history and concentrates on the thought and role of its founder.

2. The impact of intellectual forces has been treated by Glover, Willis B., Evangelical Nonconformists and Higher Criticism in the Nineteenth Century, London 1954Google Scholar. For the ethical rejection see Murphy, Howard R., “The Ethical Revolt Against Christian Orthodoxy in Early Victorian England,” American Historical Review, LX, No. 4, 07 1955.Google Scholar

3. Sometimes called the “aristocracy of labor,” this section of the working classes provided not only significant Nonconformist support but also the chief following for Charles Bradlaugh's secularist crusade against orthodoxy. A definition and historical analysis of this social category has been attempted byHobsbawm, Eric, “The Labour Aristocracy in 19th Century Britain,” in Democracy and the Labour Movement, edited by John, Saville, London 1954.Google Scholar

4. For an examination of the political aspects see Glaser, John F., “English Nonconformity and the Decline of Liberalism,” American Historical Review, LXIII, No. 2, 12 1958.Google Scholar

5. Labour Leader, February 17, 1900.

6. Methodist Times, October 20, 1892.

7. Trevor's autobiography, My Quest for God, London 1898 (2nd ed. 1908)Google Scholar is one of the most frank and revealing accounts of the spiritual searching of a late Victorian. Citations which follow are from the second edition.

8. Ibid., 220.

9. Ibid., 226.

10. Hobson, S. G., Pilgrim to the Left, London 1938, 38–9.Google Scholar

11. Wallis, Lena, Life and Letters of Caroline Martyn, London 1898, 89.Google Scholar

12. Paton, John, Proletarian Pilgrimage. London 1935, 116.Google Scholar

13. Trevor, op. cit., 235.

14. Ibid., 239.

15. Ibid., 241.

16. Herford, op. cit., 220.

17. Workman's Times, October 9, 1891.

18. Ibid., October 16, 1891.

19. Ibid., October 23, 1891.

20. Brockway, Fenner, Socialism Over Sixty Years, The Life of Jowett of Bradford, London 1946, 31.Google Scholar

21. Labour Prophet, May 1892.

22. Although the Labor Church movement drew to some extent from discontented members of all branches of British Christianity, a disproportionate number seemed to come from those denominations, like Unitaria.nism and Congregationalism, which were marked by very loose notions of the church. The Labor Churches themselves were organized along congregational lines and the degree of local autonomy was always so great as to ensure not only great diversity but the absence of any- effective leadership by Trevor or others.

23. Labour Prophet, May 1892.

24. Ibid., July 1894.

25. Clarion, January 11, 1893.

26. In 1894 the ILP Executive recommended to its local branches that they establish Labor Churches. Pelling, op. cit., 145.

27. Files of the Clarion and the Labour Leader between 1891 and 1910 disclose that more than one-hundred and twenty Labor Churches were founded in Great Britain. Most of these died within a few months. There were also two Labor Churches in America, one at Lynn, Massachusetts, the other at Providence, Rhode Island.

28. Birmingham Labour Church Minute Books, November 1903. In possession of Birmingham Central Library.

29. Lowe, David, From Pit to Parliament, London 1923, 192.Google Scholar

30. Spectator, April 21, 1894.

31. Letter from Mr. Waidegrave to David Summers, September 25, 1953. Used by courtesy of Mr. Summers. Mr. Summers has recently completed a doctoral dissertation at Edinburgh University on the Labor Church movement and has been most kind in answering inquiries and loaning material.

32. Conversation with Mrs. Annie Hilton of Middleton, Lancashire, on March 5, 1954. Mrs. Hilton was active in the formation of several Labor Churches in the Manchester area.

33. Labour Prophet, June 1895.

34. McMillan, Margaret, The Life of Rachel MoMillan, London 1927, 75–7.Google Scholar

35. Labour Prophet, September 1894.

36. Fred Henderson, Plitfrs in the Pulpit, Manchester N. d.

37. Laboar Prophet, January 1897.

38. Ibid., August 1893.

39. Ibid., November 1896.

40. Trevor, John, Labour Church Traots, No. 4, “The Labour Church in England,” London 1896, 59.Google Scholar

41. Labour Prophet, March 1893.

42. Labour Church Tracts, op. cit., No. 3, “Our First Principle,” 38.

43. Clarion, August 11, 1893.

44. Labour Church Tracts, op. cit., No.4, 53.

45. Ibid., No. 3, 46.

46. Ibid., No. 1, “Theology and the Slums,” 13.

47. Ibid., No. 4, 52.

48. Clarion, August 11, 1893.

49. Labour Prophet, December 1892.

50. Ibid., July 1896.

51. Labour Church Tracts, op. cit., No. 2, “Prom Ethics to Religion,” 17.

52. Workman's Times, November 7, 1891.

53. Labour Prophet, December 1892.

54. Labour Church Tracts, op. cit., No. 4, 60.

55. Ibid., No. 3, 45.

56. Ibid., No. 3, 35.

57. Lalour Prophet, February 1895.

58. Ibid., February 1893.

59. Hobson, op. cit., 41.

60. Lowe, David, Souvenirs of Scottish Labour, Glasgow 1919, 97.Google Scholar

61. Labour Prophet, October 1893.

62. Ibid.

63. Ibid., February 1894.

64. Ibid., September 1894.

65. Trevor, Quest for God, op. cit., 262–4.

66. Ibid., 268. William James cites this experience in his Varieties of Religious Experieiwe.

67. Herford, op. cit., 225.

68. Labour Prophet, December 1896.

69. Ibid., January 1897.

70. Clarion, September 22, 1897.

71. Labour Prophet, July 1898.

72. Ibid., February 1898.

73. Ibid., July 1898.

74. Ibid., September 1898.

75. Labour Church Record, January 1899. (This publication, a quarterly, replaced the Labour Prophet at the end of 1898.)

76. Labour Annual, Manchester 1900. See the article on the Labor Churches.

77. Clarion, September 20, 1900.

78. Redfern, Percy, Journey to Understanding, London 1946, 106.Google Scholar

79. Ibid., 102.

80. Ibid., 203.

81. Spiller, Gustav, The Ethical Culture Movement in Great Britain, London 1934, 144.Google Scholar

82. Clarion, July 20, 1906.

83. John Trovor, The One Life, A Free Occasional Paper, No. 1, November 1909, worsted Keynes, Sussex, 20.

84. Ibid., 21.