Religion and community: frameworks and issues

The history of religion in Britain has been dominated by the concept of secularisation. This suggests that the working classes in the cities led a move away from the churches in the second half of the nineteenth century, if not before. Recent work, however, presents a growing challenge to this account, instead stressing continuities of religious practice and belief into the 20th century. This article reviews this revisionism. It asks why revival occurred when and where it did, which groups were associated with 19th century denominations and how religious identities changed. In doing this it also suggests areas for further local research. The periods before the 1840s and after the 1910s, regions and localities outside London, and the patterns of everyday religious practice and belief, are themes on which community historians can address a host of under researched issues

Medievalism, Modernity and Memory: Cropthorne Church, 1892–1910

Recorded in the Domesday Survey for Worcestershire (1086), the Church of St. Michael in Cropthorne, Worcestershire is an ancient building with a rich history. Drawing on surviving manuscript and visual sources, this article examines the repairs, restoration and refurbishments made to the interior of St. Michael’s between 1890 and 1910. This was a period in which the ownership of the village shifted from the Anglican Church to private patronage and a time which witnessed many changes to the fabric of the building; notably the extensive refurbishments carried out to the chancel in 1894 by Francis Holland, the Lord of the Manor and the restoration of the rest of Cropthorne church which took more than eighteen years to complete. Highlighting the significance of the Church in rural areas as a place for personal and community memory, this article will consider how these changes to a sacred space used for communal worship were linked to the social changes experienced by the rural community that worshipped within it: moving beyond a purely architectural survey of the building, it will identify the agents of these changes; the processes involved in accomplishing them; and, responses to these alterations. Consequently, the alterations and additions to the interior of St. Michael’s made at the instigation and expense both of the Holland Family of Cropthorne Court and the people of Cropthorne will be analyzed in the context of the changing religious, technological, social, economic and political conditions of the period, which include the effects of the Agricultural Depression and the devastating impact of war

The fraternity of female friendly societies

In this chapter, the structured reciprocity of female friendly societies, even those with overt patrons, is presented as a categorization which is also applicable to men’s societies. The first part addresses the notion of independence, then the focus is on the financial aspect of the Southill Female Friendly Society, SFFS, which existed between 1844 and 1948 for women of that Bedfordshire village in England who were of ‘a good and honest character’, in good health and aged between 14 and 45 when they joined. Members had few other opportunities to reduce the risks associated with illness other than accept the uneven reciprocity of the SFFS. The patrons may also have seen the SFFS as an investment opportunity. Then the attractions of Southill, with its healthy housing and relatively liberal interpretation of relief legislation, are presented as evidence of another important attribute of successful friendly societies, their centrality to social networking. Next is considered how far mutuality and philanthropy were interwoven within the SFFS and elsewhere. An assessment of the roles of civil engagement and moral regulation within friendly societies follows and the final section suggests that a notion of fraternity which emphasizes flexible reciprocity can net together both vast international brotherhoods and tiny village societies in a way which illuminate understandings of nineteenth-century society