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What was Christianity in 19th century Britain? The various answers historians have given to this
broad and fundamental question have been central to both the different methodological approaches
taken and the conclusions reached when investigating the theory of 19thcentury British
secularisation. Should Christianity in Victorian Britain be primarily defined in terms of regular church
attendance and practice of its various ceremonies and rituals as a demonstration and reaffirmation
of faith? If so a quantitative approach church attendance rates would be used, revealing a general
decline in attendance in most but not all areas (and with a less certain conclusion about ͚rites of
passage͛ such as baptism). Should a broader view be taken, in which religion is more about individual
subjective experience, capable of being expressed in any way its practitioners find meaningful? Such
a position leads one to comment on the retention of many traditional religious customs and
practices and can counter the teleological link frequently ascribed to ͚modernization͛ and
secularization by seeing Victoria͛s reign (and beyond) as a period of adaption and growing pluralism
rather than simple decline. Such a position would rest heavily on oral history, diaries and other
records of individual experiences. Or is this approach still too narrow? It might be most fruitful to
admit the subjectivity of religious experience, but to look for its presence in different areas in society
ʹ as well as providing pervasive symbols and rituals that played an important part in most Victorians͛
lives Christianity͛s presence in political and even national discourse (often an area seen as in
competition to religious feeling) reveals its resilience, even as church rates were declining and,
formally at least, legislation was being passed eroding the Church of England͛s official place in
society. Thus, by engaging with debates about Victorian Christianity one is compelled to consider the
merits of the various methodological approaches used which in turn hinge on one͛s definition of
Christianity. It will be examined in terms of personal belief, institutional attendance, its complex role
in political discourse, and its position in popular culture and in the construction of group identity,
assuming a definition that conceives of religious experience as subjective, and therefore considers
any professed practice of Christianity to be ͚valid͛. To come up with a fixed conception of Protestant
and Catholic practices and to then look for their continued importance would be to ignore the
considerable change in Christian practice (and the presence of numerous different denominations in
Britain) throughout history.
One of the most common starting points for 19th century British secularisation theorists is church
attendance statistics ʹ urbanisation has been frequently identified with secularisation and so the
urban rates are particularly important. Looking at membership density across the period one does
see a general slide from the end of the 19th century but membership reveals great regional
variations. Thus the Wesleyan Methodist Church registered yearly growth from the mid-nineteenth
century until 1907, followed by a small fall until 1920.1 Though the 1851 Religious Census is usually
used to demonstrate declining church attendance, it shows a link between areas with high numbers
of rural church goers (the east midlands and south-west) and the big cities in those areas (Bristol,
Plymouth and Leicester). These pockets that bucked the trend of declining attendance continued to
exist into the 20th century, so a 1910 royal commission on religion in Wales found that in
Monmouthshire 75% of the population could be counted as Free Church members or Sunday
Scholars or Anglican ͚communicants͛ and Sunday Scholars, meaning that church affiliation (taking
into account non-communicating Free Church attendees) was almost universal.2
However, one trend was fairly clear ʹ the upper-middle class rates of church attendance did drop
rapidly in the second half of the century because of a complex combination of genuine religious
doubt (partly provoked by a combination of science and a change of moral sensibilities), the increase
of leisure time against the resistance of puritan taboos and a decline in social paternalism that had
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seen employers encourage their employees to attend their local denominational church.3 This
largely explains the declining power of parish churches to act as centres for voluntary activity (upper
middle class women were some of the most enthusiastic volunteer) and the alleged shift from
exogenous recruitment by conversion to endogenous religious socialization of the children of
existing churchgoers.4 The upper middle class churchgoers had been key sources of funding and their
declining attendance had led to widespread financial difficulties by the 1890s.
However, such a pure quantitative analysis assumes that the local institutional church of whatever
denomination was the locale of religious life of the community and ignores the subjective individual
experiences of Christianity ʹ in Southwark Christianity was combined with folk wisdom in the
Watchnight Services that were held to celebrate the New Year.5 This quasi-anthropological approach
can even explain why church attendance rates may have fallen while religious belief remained ʹ
͚religion by deputy͛ was practised whereby whole families would assume church affiliation through
the attendance of one of their members, or through participation in Sunday School (50% of the
population attended between 1880 and 1914).6 Religious practice primarily through attendance was
part of the middle class definition of church involvement, the same sort of attitude that had caused
other denominations such as the Primitive Methodists, who emphasised the common accessibility of
the Bible, to be more popular with the working classes. A purely quantitative approach could also
lead to misrepresentation of the statistics it uses ʹ thus is one equated civil marriages with growing
irreligious tendencies, one would assume Wales, with its 50% civil level in the 19th century as one of
the least religious areas in the whole of Britain.7 In fact, the source of the high level was the
prevalence of Calvinistic Methodist beliefs, which saw marriage as more of a civil rather than
religious concept. Thus any form church statistics alone are insufficient to demonstrate religious
decline, even if they can illuminate a general fall in upper middle class attendance.
A second teleological devise is to use a narrative of a ͚crisis of faith͛ caused by the gradual erosion of
the principles that underpinned belief. Although there was awareness of such a ͚crisis͛ in the last
quarter of the 19th century with the publishing an article entitled ͚Do we believe?͛ in
1904, its origins have been traced back to the enlightenment, to Comte͛s positivism, and perhaps
most convincingly yet paradoxically, to the evangelical revival from the turn of the 19th century to
the 1830s and 1840s. Though it would be scientific naturalists who would attack the very concept of
a spiritual and non-mechanical world and reject subjective religious experience as hallucinations or
illusions,8 it was the evangelicals who provided the for the rejection of faith ʹ autobiography
was the most common medium to write about ͚conversion͛ from a nominal religious life to a real but
harder one, the same format evangelicals had used to describe the opposite process.9 The
evangelical identification of religious education with the family led to personal conflicts taking on a
religious dimension that led any act of rebellion to be also seen as a breach of faith, and any
deviation of faith a personal injury.10 Thus, ͚the trunk and the seed of the Victorian crisis of faith was
nurtured and sustained in and by the faith that was lost.͛11
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Though the origins of a loss of faith may have had roots in the evangelical movement, any ͚crisis͛ was
certainly not a simple product of the rise of scientific method. Indeed Wallace and Romanes, both
scientists, were unsatisfied with the absolutism of scientific naturalism that ruled out the very
possibility of the study, let alone the belief, in any kind of ͚spiritual͛ life. Myers, man of letters who
similarly rejected both Christianity and scientific naturalism argued in 1893 that there were many
who ͚while accepting to the full the methods and results of science, will not yet surrender the
ancient hopes of our race.͛12 Such hopes included questions about the meaning of human existence
and humankind͛s place in the universe.
Non-Christian spiritualism could provide a powerful challenge to scientific methodology ʹ the
scientific basis of the séances of Daniel Dunglas Home was never discovered, even though senior
members of the Royal Society such as Crookes and Huggins, attended them. 13 Indeed, their failure to
observe the alleged ͚trickery͛ behind the séances led to their criticism as poor observers (and
therefore poor scientists) at a time when scientists as a body were trying to earn the reputation of
being objective and superior witnesses to experiments. The entire validity of their empirical
methodology rested on such a claim so it was vital to show that Crookes, even though he went on to
be President of the Royal Society, must be an imperfect practitioner of that method. The séances
were so problematic because the ͚facts͛ pointed to Home͛s work being genuine, yet many scientific
naturalists had ruled out the possibility of a spiritual world. Usually séances were seen to be a
solution for those who had suffered a crisis of faith ʹ they filled a spiritual gap left by non-belief, but
they were better seen as caused by a ͚crisis of evidence͛. Thus there was a pluralism of different
non-religious challenges to belief, none of which could be said to be a ͚master-factor͛ that
underpinned secularisation in general. However, the séances do reveal that there were increasing
concerns for ͚evidence͛ in general ʹ converts to spiritualism were always emphatic that their
experiences left them no choice but to believe. While this challenged the idea that observation could
ever be objective, it still rested on the rational idea that belief must be based on evidence, an idea
antithetical to Christian belief centred in faith, revealing an intellectual environment increasingly
sympathetic to the necessity of proof.
So far we have rejected any teleological arguments that equate either urbanisation or scientific
developments as the ultimate causes of secularisation but it is now time to consider the wider
presence of Christianity in society. A strong political identify, nationalism and racial theory are often
seen as replacements for religion ʹ as belief faded, replacement communities were needed and
political, national, and racial alternatives were turned to. There does appear to be a fundamental
contradiction between missionary work and racial ideas ʹ the former is based on the idea of equality
before God and the idea that His Word has the power to lift anyone out of their conditions and rise
them up to the level of civilization while the latter ridicules such an egalitarian conception of
mankind as unscientific. It would not be physically possible for all races to achieve such a high
degree of civilization, with or without Christianity. There are several counters to such a position ʹ
firstly, while there may be a logical incongruity between race and religion that did not necessarily
mean that the two could were not compatible in the public consciousness. Indeed, race,
Protestantism and nation were frequently bound together in a long narrative that covered the
Reformation, the Spanish Armada, the Glorious Revolution and wars again Louis XIV and Napoleon
(albeit the latter was conceived of as being against irreligion rather than Catholicism). Many of the
major national heroes such as General Dir Henry Havelock, David Livingston and General George
Gordon were so well respected because of their religious devotion. As part of Britain͛s ͚civilizing
mission͛ Christianity was vital ʹ it was even offered as the explanation for Britain͛s past success by
Welldon, the Bishop of Calcutta in 1898, though such a position was being criticised by racial
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theorists as unscientific. Political identity could also be bound with religious identity ʹ 91% of
Nonconformist MPs in 1910 were Liberal or Labour, and the dissenting tradition seeped into class
politics as well. In Wales, local churches even helped coordinate strike action. Thus nationalism,
political identity and even racial theory did not necessarily contribute to secularization, on the
contrary, they borrowed from religious language and traditions to give their causes more authority
even as the Anglican Church was becoming increasingly disestablished.
There is a final important aspect of religion to consider ʹ popular culture. Even if official religious
attendance was on the wane, through its continued appearance in symbols and its use in rituals,
Christianity continued to heavily influence every generation of Victorians and Edwardians. Rituals
such as churching and baptism actually became normalised and increased, along with Sunday School
attendance, throughout the period. The Bible remained the most important single book in most
homes (and the only book in many) and hymns were sung even by ͚heathen͛. Even potential
challenges to the time of church worshipers like sport were adopted into church life ʹ in 1880
Birmingham 83 out of 344 local football clubs were religiously affiliated. This type of argument is
extremely intangible but extremely important ʹ it is an indication of the pervasiveness of Christianity
right to the end of the period that those who were neither strong believers nor convinced
unbelievers still observed the Christian rites of passage. However, whether or not Christianity
remained the framework through which people chose to base their lives is a more difficult thing to
establish ʹ it may have become a simple matter of personal choice rather than an almost
compulsory mark of respectability.
Ultimately McLeod is correct in saying that pluralism is a better model than ͚decline͛ for Christianity
in 19th century Britain. Anglicans competed with Nonconformists and Primitive Methodists, who all
competed with scientific naturalists and spiritualists. The key is that there was no single model of
either belief or unbelief and all of them were competing for converts or simply trying to retain their
members. One can point to a removal of churches from formal political life but not political
discourse, one can argue there was lower church attendance but not that this inevitably meant a
lower degree of belief, one can argue science and spiritualism competed with Christianity, not that
either was teleologically destined to replace it and one can point to increasing national and imperial
discourse but not eliminate Protestantism from that language. Culturally, Christianity still formed a
major part of most peoples͛ lives, even if this was indirectly and represented a retreat from the all-
encompassing framework it had provided for people a century earlier.
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