Herefordshire Through Time
Herefordshire Through Time
One of the most interesting social documents to emerge from the nineteenth century is the Religious Census of 1851. The census was a unique attempt to establish the extent of religious observance on a given day and while, as a source, it is far from perfect it does offer us a unique insight into mid nineteenth century religious habits.
The results of the census horrified many contemporaries, not least because it showed that only one person out of every two had attended a place of worship. While Horace Mann, the author of the report, pointed his finger squarely at the industrial areas as the places where church attendance was at its weakest, the Anglican church may have been equally concerned when a closer examination of the figures revealed that nearly half of those that did attend did so at a dissenting meeting house. While the census may suggest that society was becoming more secular it also does much to show us the diversity of religion in the mid nineteenth century. It would be a mistake, however, to assume that dissent was strongest in the towns or that non-attendance was particular to the urban industrial environment. Indeed, as the census report for Herefordshire shows, church attendance was, at 49.01 percent, about the national average, moreover, the census also shows that the dissenting denominations were firmly established in the county.
Without doubt the strongest of the dissenting denominations in Herefordshire, and elsewhere, came under the banner of Methodism. Undoubtedly the Methodists gained congregations at the expense of the established Anglican Church during the first half of the nineteenth century. Arguably, the Church of England had grown complacent and never kept pace with a rapidly increasing population, and despite an injection of cash for church building (£1m in 1818 and £0.5m in 1824) it was always going to lose ground. Indeed, compare the average Anglican church building to the Methodist meeting place which was relatively cheap to build, simple to maintain and, more importantly, the emphasis was on religious worship rather than a means of maintaining the social order. As Mingay argues, the layout of church building itself, with its pews, "graduated according to status", the sermon, often delivered in a language inaccessible to many of the rural working class "served only to bring home their own lack of education" and the notion that the overall "assumption of superiority before God of the wealthy and their bringing of class divisions into services" meant that many chose to worship elsewhere. Moreover, the evangelical enthusiasm of the Methodists and the emphasis on individual salvation and a love of God had greater appeal. The fact that the number of Methodists (all types) in England and Wales, which stood at 189,777 in 1816, had grown by 1851 to 490,000 is not only evidence of its popularity but also a reflection of how far the established church had alienated its flock.
One of the main arguments concerning the growth of the dissenting denominations in general and Methodism in particular is the influence it exerted over the working class and how far it promoted radicalism. Essentially there are several schools of thought. The first is that Methodism did quite the opposite and actually discouraged radicalism. With its emphasis on individual salvation through thrift, hard work and sobriety its been argued that far from promoting radical ideas it provided the working class with a social discipline. Methodism, then, promoted social conformity, discouraged political agitation and, ultimately, saved Britain from revolution during the first half of the nineteenth century.
This argument does have a grain of truth in it, indeed Methodism, especially early Wesleyan Methodism, was strikingly conservative and did instill work-discipline. There were, however, plenty of radical leaders who were also active Methodists, which goes some way in showing that political agitation and Methodism could, and did, coexist. A second argument is that the working class took to Methodism in increasing numbers after 1815 because of the failure to gain political reform. Indeed, E. P. Thompson's contention that "any religion which places great emphasis on the after-life is the chiliasm of the defeated and hopeless" is an attractive argument.
While it is dangerous to generalize, Wesleyan Methodism may be seen as the respectable face of religious dissent and appealed largely to the growing lower middle class and skilled artisan. Primitive Methodism, on the other hand, was more proletarian and it emerged in 1811 as a breakaway group from the original Wesleyans, who were, it was claimed, not democratic in the manner of selecting preaching laymen and women. In short the Wesleyans were seen, by their internal critics, as becoming too conservative in their selection of preachers and were, like the established Anglican Church, beginning to preach at, rather than to, their congregations. In Herefordshire, at the time of the census, Primitive Methodism was by far the most popular form of all the dissenting religions. Possibly its popularity was because it was even more evangelical and direct, and the directness and simplicity of its teachings (the preachers were often called "ranters") appealed to the rural working class. The figures for the county show that the Primitive Methodists had by far the most meeting houses, seventy-one; however, it is clear they had the smaller congregations. Indeed, that each meeting house only had an average of fifty-eight worshippers also goes some way in explaining their popularity by illustrating the intimacy and sense of belonging to a community the Primitives gave their flock. The Primitives, however, were unevenly distributed throughout the county. For example, while Hereford itself had seventeen meeting houses the census shows that the Poor Law Union of Weobley boasted no fewer than ten, while Ross and Ledbury only had three each, against nine and four Wesleyan churches, respectively.
Finally, it is impossible to gauge how far Primitive Methodism influenced rural radicalism or protest. It is true that the only man to be convicted during the "Swing" disturbances of 1830-31 in Herefordshire, Henry Williams, a twenty-year-old Welsh tailor, was said to have been a traveling "ranting" preacher. It is also evident that the Primitives were able to whip their congregations into a frenzy, clearly illustrated by the 1832 report in the Hereford Journal which pointed out that after a Bible meeting led by "ranters" "twenty-five feet of heavy coping-stone, strongly clamped together with iron, was forced into the river" at Abbey Dore. However, the evidence is, from Herefordshire at least, thin on the ground. Despite any obvious link between Primitive Methodism and protest it could be argued that the very fact that many rural people chose to worship away from the established church was a slight to the local elite; a local elite who quite often ran many aspects of their lives. After all, if the Church of England was strong in a particular area the dissenting labourer may have been in an awkward situation because his existence may have depended upon the large local farmer, who was often central to the parish church and a trustee to local charities. In short to offend the local elite by going to chapel rather than church may have had repercussions on employment opportunities, charity and welfare. That Methodism was generally more popular in areas where small farms existed, where men actually owned small parcels of land, and areas that supported rural artisan trades is evidence of the hold many large farmers and landowners had on communities.
While it is difficult to establish a link between rural protest and Primitive Methodism it is also clear that dissenting religion did help the working class to forge their own identity. After all many people broke away from the Church of England and their dependency upon the local elite; these congregations had, and built, their own chapels, often from their own pockets. Finally, because they ran their own churches they acquired leadership and organizational skills; skills that would become useful when the agricultural labourers eventually unionized in the 1870s.
© Dr Tim Shakesheff, 2003