The Victorian Church


Book Description

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.




Church Building and Restoration in Victorian Glamorgan


Book Description

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.




A Victorian Curate


Book Description

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.




Victorian Reformation


Book Description

In early Victorian England there was intense interest in understanding the early Church as an inspiration for contemporary sanctity. This was manifested in a surge in archaeological inquiry and also in the construction of new churches using medieval models. Some Anglicans began to use a much more complicated form of ritual involving vestments, candles, and incense. This "Anglo-Catholic" movement was vehemently opposed by evangelicals and dissenters, who saw this as the vanguard of full-blown "popery." The disputed buildings, objects, and art works were regarded by one side as idolatrous and by the other as sacred and beautiful expressions of devotion. Dominic Janes seeks to understand the fierce passions that were unleashed by the contended practices and artifacts - passions that found expression in litigation, in rowdy demonstrations, and even in physical violence. During this period, Janes observes, the wider culture was preoccupied with the idea of pollution caused by improper sexuality. The Anglo-Catholics had formulated a spiritual ethic that linked goodness and beauty. Their opponents saw this visual worship as dangerously sensual. In effect, this sacred material culture was seen as a sexual fetish. The origins of this understanding, Janes shows, lay in radical circles, often in the context of the production of anti-Catholic pornography which titillated with the contemplation of images of licentious priests, nuns, and monks.




Unlocking the Church


Book Description

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.




Book of Victorian Churches


Book Description




Victorian Religion


Book Description

Religion permeated almost every aspect of Victorian life and culture, from Parliamentary politics to issues of marriage and sexuality, from class relations to literature and the life of the imagination. In order to understand Victorian culture and writings, modern readers need to understand Victorian religion in its public and its private aspects. But much in Victorian religious life can be baffling for modern readers. The sheer diversity of Victorian religious experience is one source of confusion. Also, doctrinal disputes and discoveries in science or textual criticism that loomed so large for Victorian Christians are now hard for most people to appreciate. The Anglican Church, its hierarchy, and its enormous range of ecclesiastical titles open up further opportunities for confusion. Here, Melnyk offers a lively, thorough introduction to Victorian religious life, including the period between 1828 and 1901. Making sense of the diversity of religious thought and experience in Victorian Britain, she provides readers with a clear understanding of its role in the family and for the individual, the community, and society at large. This entertaining, readable introduction to Victorian religious life and controversies is ideal for anyone interested in Victorian life, literature, and culture.




The Second Disruption


Book Description

The Victorian period in Scotland was remarkable, with rapid changes and immense wealth coexisting alongside entrenched conservatism and great poverty. For the churches also, the Victorian period was a time of transformation - with every assumption being challenged and tested. In this context it is not surprising that some churches fragmented, and the Free Church was one of them.




The Revival of Evangelicalism


Book Description

Explores the revival and impact of evangelicalism within the Church of Scotland after the Disruption of 1843 The Revival of Evangelicalism presents a critical analysis of the evangelical movement in the national Church. It emphasises the manner in which the movement both continued along certain pre-Disruption lines and evolved to represent a broader spectrum of Reformed Presbyterian doctrine and piety during the long reign of Queen Victoria. The author interweaves biographical case studies of influential figures who played key roles in the process of revival and recovery, including William Muir, Norman MacLeod and A. H. Charteris. Based on a diverse range of primary sources, the book places the chronological development of 'established evangelicalism' within the broader context of British imperialism, German biblical criticism, European Romanticism and Victorian print culture. Andrew Michael Jones is Visiting Assistant Professor of European and World History at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia.




Conflict and Crisis in the Religious Life of Late Victorian England


Book Description

Contrary to its popular image as dull and stodgy, the Victorian period was one of revolutionary change. In its politics, its art, its economic aff airs, its class relationships, and in its religion, change was constant. A half-century after Queen Victoria's death, it was said that she was born in one world and died in another. Th e most interesting and valuable studies of the period take the long view, as does Schlossberg, in his fascinating analysis of religious life in this period. For the Victorians, religion was not cordoned off from the push and shove of real life. Th e early evangelicals got off to a shaky start, beset by hostility, but the movement spread within the churches despite the suspicion in which it was held. Evangelicals, frequently called Puritans by those who opposed them, called for fundamental reforms in both the Church and the society; a social ethic was part of their program of religious renewal. Th eir moral sense explains the social activism of both Church of England Evangelicals and Dissenters, including the half-century crusade for the abolition of slavery. Schlossberg shows how religion in England dealt with such issues as science and the eff ect of German scholarship on religious thinking. Church history cannot simply be explained by its response to external forces as much as by the internal responses to those challenges. Th e nature of the religious enterprise itself, its theologians, clergy, lay people--like all people and all institutions--all responded with alternatives. Schlossberg helps us understand the Victorian period, as well as the increasing secularity of English life today.