The Victorian Church

This is a reassessment of the phenomenon of church architecture in the 19th century. It presents a range of interpretations that approach Victorian churches as products of institutional needs, socio-cultural developments, and economic forces.

Dr Geoffrey Orrin's study contains a detailed account of all those Anglican churches within the county of Glamorgan that were built, rebuilt, restored or re-modelled in any significant way during the Victorian period, 1837-1901. It includes as well as the churches within the county that were part of the diocese of Llandaff, those Anglican places of worship within the deanery of Gower in the western part of that county which was included within the diocese of St David's. The author has closely studied and observed every church in person in addition to assembling all the relevant material he could find amid a wide range of manuscripts and printed sources relating to the work undertaken on the churches. Many churches now demolished or redundant are included in this work. The whole is arranged parish by parish, set out in alphabetical order. The result is the standard work of reference for all those interested in church building and restoration in Victorian times for local historians, students of church history in Glamorgan, clergy, parishioners, librarians and architectural historians. The work is illustrated by 60 monochrome photographs, some of which have never been published before.

Unlocking the Church is the story of a revolution. The Victorians transformed how churches were understood, experienced, and built. Initially controversial, this revolution was so successful, that it has now been forgotten. Yet it still shapes our experience of church buildings and also helps make sense of what we should do with them now.

Fr. Richard Schiefen collection.

Organised religion played such a central part in Victorian life that it is impossible to understand this era without some reference to it. Yet the question, which worried the Victorians, still remains, how religious was the mass of Victorian society? Recent scholarship has challenged the orthodoxy that the working classes, and the working classes of large urban centres in particular, were irreligious. Yet Liverpool, with its large migratory population, including Roman Catholics from Ireland and Nonconformists from Wales and Scotland, appeared to offer unpromising ground for the Anglican Church to sow its seed. Within the city, Liverpool’s notorious slums seemed to offer the most barren ground of all. What strategies did the Anglican clergy employ to make their churches work at a grassroots level? How could they overcome the problems they faced, which ranged from the hostility of the local community to severe financial constraints? How helpful was the advice dispensed by Church handbooks in dealing with these challenges? More important, is it now possible to estimate the success in gaining not only worshippers, but a wider penumbra of working class adherents to church-based activities? Some of Liverpool’s more aristocratic churches were overwhelmed by the encroaching city slums, and the reaction of at least one clergyman was to retreat within his vicarage, and ‘shut up shop’. However, other clergy set about energetically working the slums. Largely Oxbridge men, with a very different background in social and educational terms to their flock, they made surprising progress. By drawing upon a variety of local sources, including many hitherto unused, this book contends that it is possible to evaluate the success of the Anglican Church in the slums. The Church had successes not only to be judged solely by the number of working class worshippers, but also by the uses the local community made of rites of passage, philanthropic activities and the clubs and societies offered by the Anglican Church in Liverpool. This book is aimed at readers interested in researching family and local history as well as those following wider national trends in religious history.

Greatly to be welcomed. This meticulously researched and richly documented account provides fresh insights into theological controversy and social prejudice and should be read by all serious students of the Victorian Church.Greatly to be welcomed. Richard Sharp The Rev. Dr John Hunt (1827-1907) was not a typical clergyman in the Victorian Church of England. He was Scottish, of lowly birth, and lacking both social connections and private means. He was also a witty and fluent intellectual, whose publications stood alongside the most eminent of his peers during a period when theology was being redefined in the light of Darwin’s Origin of Species and other radical scientific advances. Hunt attracted notoriety and conflict as well as admiration and respect: he was the subject of articles in Punch and in the wider press concerning his clandestine dissection of a foetus in the crypt of a City church, while his Essay on Pantheism was proscribed by the Roman Catholic Church. He had many skirmishes with incumbents, both evangelical and catholic, and was dismissed from several of his curacies. This book analyses his career in London and St Ives (Cambs.) through the lens of his autobiographical narrative, Clergymen Made Scarce (1867). David Yeandle has examined a little-known copy of the text that includes manuscript annotations by Eliza Hunt, the wife of the author, which offer unique insight into the many anonymous and pseudonymous references in the text. A Victorian Curate: A Study of the Life and Career of the Rev. Dr John Hunt is an absorbing personal account of the corruption and turmoil in the Church of England at this time. It will appeal to anyone interested in this history, the relationship between science and religion in the nineteenth century, or the role of the curate in Victorian England.

Falls Church, Virginia, was settled in 1699 and named for its first church. Located near Washington, D.C., this rural farming community grew into an important crossroads during the 19th century. Prior to World War II, its most significant growth occurred during the Victorian era. The area and lifestyle of its residents were significantly impacted by the Northern migration into the South for better farmland; the Civil War; the expansion of railway service; the developing role as a suburb of Washington; and military buildup during the Spanish-American War. This collection of vintage images portrays the people, places, and events that are central to the Victorian heritage of Falls Church.

Concerned here broadly with the period 1829-59, Professor Chadwick writes of the church's precarious position at the start of the period, and the problems of dissent; the Whig reform of the Church by the ministries of Peel and Melbourne; the Oxford Movement, the influence of Newman and the development of ritual; the relations of church and government under Lord John Russell; the growth of the seven principal dissenting bodies; the theory and practice of Church and State at mid-century, and the troubles that arose over eucharistic worship; and finally the unsettlement of faith and the several attempts at restatement at the close of the period. The history is completed in The Victorian Church, Part II 1860-1901.