Victorian Church and Society

Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet ( 2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations the Pomp and Circumstance marches, concertos for violin and cello and two symphonies. He also composed choral works, including The Dream of Gerontius, chamber music and songs. He was appointed Master of the King’s Musick in 1924 Although Elgar is often regarded as a typically English composer, most of his musical influences were not from England but from continental Europe. He felt himself to be an outsider, not only musically, but socially. In musical circles dominated by academics, he was a self-taught composer; in Protestant Britain, his Roman Catholicism was regarded with suspicion in some quarters; and in the class-conscious society of Victorian and Edwardian Britain, he was acutely sensitive about his humb...

  For much of history the word “superstition” has been used to describe rival religious practices so a fitting modern definition might encompass all religion. Enlightenment thinking promoted science often at the expense of religion. An essay by the Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) entitled “Of superstition and enthusiasm” included the following summary of the meaning of superstition: “ceremonies, observation, mortifications, sacrifices, presents or any practices, however absurd or frivolous which either folly or knavery recommends to a blind and terrified credulity”. According to Hume superstitious people were drawn to priestly mediators, such as those of the Roman Catholic Church. Hume’s understanding of “enthusiasm” referred to those who felt they could experience the divine directly. In previous centuries Protestants had attacked Roman Catholic rituals as being based on superstition but in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the position changed as Enlightenm...

The medieval church supported the installation of chancel screens and rood lofts in parish churches based on the separation between heaven and earth described in the book of Genesis and reflecting the separation of the holy of holies in the early temple as the place where only the priest had access. The rood cross illustrating the crucifixion of Christ would often be flanked by figures of St Mary and St John and the loft would be a place where musicians could be situated. Whilst the placing of a rood and chancel screen at the time of the Reformation was not banned, the installation of both declined in this period. After the restoration of the monarchy after the English Civil War chancel screens returned but often with a coat of arms above them rather than a rood. In the nineteenth century the work of Pugin was influential in the return of chancel screens and the rood, particularly in Roman Catholic Churches from where he received the most commissions for his work. The Cambridge...

  The first Carlist war in Spain took place between 1833 and 1839 between forces loyal to the Regent Maria Cristina (known as Cristeros) and those who wanted Don Carlos the brother of the previous King (Ferdinand VII) to take the Spanish throne. The Carlists were the conservative forces favouring the church and an authoritarian state whereas the Cristeros supported a liberal form of government. Foreign intervention in wars where one side was on the left of the political spectrum became justified in the 1830s due to John Stuart Mill’s “Spanish Essay”. Volunteers were motivated by unemployment, adventure, escape and ideological commitment or by a mixture of these motives. Some said that volunteers joined up just to ensure that they obtained regular meals. Any who did volunteer would discover that alcohol consumption was forbidden on both sides in the Carlist War (and later in the Spanish Civil war of 1936-1939). This was a shock for Northern European recruits and resulted in p...

  Crimes in respect of child stripping were largely committed by women. The nature of crimes that were committed by women were diverse. Some women resorted to theft when they were desperate yet others made a career out of it. Child stripping was a well recognised phenomenon in Victorian England. This crime involved the theft of children’s clothes not from homes or shops but from children themselves. Unlike the twenty first century when children are rarely left out of an adult’s sight, in the nineteenth century it was common for children as young as three years old to be allowed out to go to pay a bill or run an errand alone. Any occasion that saw a child outside of the sight of adult supervision was an opportunity for a child stripper to strike. A woman would approach a single child or two and lure them away into a dark street or deserted alleyway. This could be accomplished by the promise of sweets or money or by the woman saying that she was a friend of their parents. O...

The Quakers or “Society of Friends” was a non conformist group founded by George Fox a Leicestershire Weaver in 1647. They rejected formal church services and sacraments and stressed the “inner voice of God speaking to the soul”. The Quakers were persecuted until the 1689 Act of Toleration allowed them to worship in public. In rural areas of Lancashire and Yorkshire membership was strong and simple meeting houses were constructed. George Fox visited Yorkshire in 1651 and numbers increased in the County to approximately fifteen thousand, mostly localised in areas near to the coast. Fox was vigorously opposed and suffered beatings as a result. In Helmsley and Bilsdale there is no evidence that George Fox preached but many would hear about his preaching. The Quaker Act of 1662 put many Quakers into prison, amid extensive violence but the movement used this to its advantage- appealing to the sense of reason in human beings. After the Declaration of Indulgence in 1687 many Quakers me...

  The first Anglican sisterhood was founded in 1845 (The sisterhood of the Holy Cross, near to Regent’s Park in London) and this ignited the debate within the Church of England about what form any involvement of women in ministry might take. In the 1850a support for the restoration of the Order of Deaconesses began to grow as the need for assistance for clergy ministering in large urban settings increased with industrialisation. The potential of a dedicated women’s order within the Church of England was recognised after observation of such orders which were successful in continental Europe. The institution in Kaiserwerth in Germany in particular was influential in the development of the order in England. It was a Lutheran foundation, started in 1833 to train women for charitable and religious works. Famous English women such as Elizabeth Fry and Florence Nightingale received some of their training there. In 1861 the North London Deaconess Institution was set up with Elizabeth...