The Autocracy of Love and the Legitimacy of Empire: Intimacy,Power and Scandal in Nineteenth‐Century Metlakahtlah

This paper examines the politics of intimacy, power, and scandal at Metlakahtlah, a Church of England mission village in northern British Columbia, Canada, from 1862 to 1885, in order to cast light on settler colonialism and its aftermath. It particularly examines Metlakahtlah's main missionary, William Duncan, his relationships with young female converts and missionary women, and, perhaps more importantly, the stories that were told about them. Stories of Duncan's relationships with young Tsimshian women that circulated throughout settler society reveal the central place of sexuality to both critiques and defences of imperialism, and cast new light on contemporary politics around the historical experience of Indigenous children in settler colonies like Australia and Canada.     

A Vision of an Anglican Imperialism: The Annual Sermons of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts 1701–1714

This article examines the first two decades of the oldest continuing Anglican missionary society, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, founded in 1710. It argues that, contrary to the prevailing historiography of the British missionary movement, this early eighteenth‐century society was genuinely evangelistic and marks the real beginning of that movement. The society also marks the beginning of a formal, institutional engagement by the Church of England with the British Empire. In the Society's annual anniversary sermons, and influenced by the reports sent by its ordained missionaries in North America, the Church of England's metropolitan leadership in England constructed an Anglican discourse of empire. In this discourse the Church of England began to fashion the identities of colonial populations of Indigenous peoples, white colonists, and Black slaves through a theological Enlightenment understanding.     

The Reverend Dr Louis Giustiniani and Anglican Conflict in the Swan River Colony,Western Australia 1836–1838*

In 1835, the Western Australian Missionary Society appointed the Reverend Dr Louis Giustiniani to establish a Moravian‐style mission in the Swan River Colony. The land grant essential for such a mission was not forthcoming from the government but Giustiniani established a small mission farm employing Aborigines at Guildford and started ministry among the settlers. This change of mission focus set the stage for conflict within the Anglican establishment of the colony, conflict which destroyed Dr Giustiniani's ministry. Giustiniani was well qualified and exerted himself to achieve the mission's objectives and many accusations made against him were essentially false; they reveal much about the prevailing culture and prejudices of the colony. He was defeated, however, because his ideas of church and mission differed from those of the colonial Church and society and because he did not conform to their expectations of the behaviour of a clergyman.     

Richard Bourke: For the Honour of God and the Good of Man

The Church Act (1836) was arguably the most significant ecclesiastical legislation in Australia's history, as it profoundly impacted on the nation's social and political development in its formative years. The Act was instigated by Governor Richard Bourke and was welcomed by the people as establishing “religious equality on a just and firm basis.” However, historically it is often categorised as being part of Bourke's liberal reform agenda where the legislation's attributes of religious toleration have been magnified and its function to expand Christianity minimised. The fact that Bourke was a devout Christian is something that none of his biographers have disputed, but this belief is rarely portrayed as fundamental to his motives. This article explores the nature of Bourke's Christianity and discusses how that influenced his public policy in relation to religion and education. It reveals a complex man who had sincere orthodox Anglican faith, but recognised the part played by other denominations in the Christian mission. This examination will demonstrate the difficulty in differentiating between secular and spiritual motives and intentions in this period.     

The Missionaries' Position: Polygamy and Divorce in the Anglican Communion, 1888–1988

This article explores the Church of England's engagement with polygamy through a survey of policy debates about plural marriage that took place from the 1880s to the 1980s. With few exceptions, nineteenth and early‐twentieth century missionaries refused to allow men in polygamous marriages to convert to Christianity. This decision was formalised at the 1888 Lambeth Conference, but reversed one hundred years later at the 1988 Conference. The article uncovers factors that led to the recognition of alternative forms of marriage, and begin to expose the dynamics of repression and toleration in Anglican marriage discourse. Following recent postcolonial feminist scholarship, it argues that the church's inability to resolve its parallel but conflicting oppositions to polygamy and divorce formed a paradox which implicitly provincialized British Anglican gender understandings, and that the 1988 Lambeth Conference decision represents a tacit acknowledgement of the fundamental epistemic divide represented by this paradox.     

Rise and Fall of the Brotherhood of St Andrew in the Anglican Diocese of Dunedin: Charting the American Influence in New Zealand's Religious History

In recent years, scholars have begun to highlight American influences upon New Zealand's religious history. They have demonstrated that even at the height of the British Empire, many non-episcopal churches maintained close ties to their coreligionists in the United States. This article contributes to this field of research by analysing American influences within the Anglican Church of New Zealand, usually portrayed as a thoroughly English institution before the Second World War. It takes as a case study the activities of the American Brotherhood of St Andrew in the Diocese of Dunedin from 1906 to 1915. The article demonstrates that Bishop Samuel Tarratt Nevill invited the Brotherhood because he had great admiration for the Episcopal Church, and that many of his flock accepted the Brotherhood for the same reason. Eventually, the Brotherhood was eclipsed by an English rival, the Church of England Men's Society. But this transition took place not because local Anglicans lost interest in America, but because the Edwardian Era witnessed a surge in imperial loyalty and because the local leader of the CEMS, Canon William Curzon-Siggers, deliberately sought to undermine the influence of the Brotherhood.     

Business and British Decolonisation: Sir Ronald Prain,the Mining Industry and the Central African Federation

One of the most intractable challenges to emerge during British decolonisation was the need to reconcile the competing political aspirations of settler and African populations in Central Africa. During the 1950s Britain sought to construct a ‘multiracial’ Central African Federation, financed largely by Northern Rhodesia's copper industry. Of the two major mining groups involved, the Rhodesian Selection Trust, under the chairmanship of Sir Ronald Prain, arguably played an important and unusual role in the Federation's politics and eventual demise. Having supported the Federation at its inception, Prain quickly reassessed the Federal project and concluded that its expected benefits had failed to materialise, and that a new political orientation was necessary for Northern Rhodesia, his companies' host country. Whereas expatriate business interests were often ‘weak’ political actors during decolonisation, Prain, through pragmatic readjustment, evolved a forward-thinking strategy of accommodation to the rise of African nationalism, and to the corresponding eclipse of settler power. Adapting with unusual success to political change, he became actively involved in the political developments which led to Zambian independence in 1964.     

An Irish Conservative Perspective on the Defence of the Church of Ireland, 1865–1868

This article provides an analysis of the range of arguments used by senior members of the Irish Conservative party to defend the Established Church of Ireland from 1865 to 1868. The position of the Anglican Church in Ireland came under increasing threat following the death of Lord Palmerston, the British Prime Minister and the leader of the British Liberal party, in October 1865. Throughout his career, Palmerston, who had close connections to Ireland, had been a staunch defender of the privileges of the Church of Ireland. The first section of this article looks at the historical context in which this attack on its privileged position in Ireland arose. The second part traces some of the key arguments which leading members of the Irish Conservative party used in their defence of the Established Church. The final part of the paper considers some of the divisions which existed within the Conservative party, both in Britain and in Ireland, on the question of the future status of the Church of Ireland and at the effects that these divisions had in weakening its case against it.     

Transcending Gender Roles,Crossing Racial and Political Boundaries: Agnes Hill’s Fight for her Inheritance in German Southwest Africa

ABSTRACT

Agnes Hill, the unmarried daughter of a British landowner and farmer and his mixed-race wife, was living a ‘white’ farmer’s life in the colony German South West Africa. In 1908, she was suddenly classified as ‘native’, due to the enforcement of radical racial legislation in the German colony degrading the offspring of mixed-race people as ‘bastards’. The new classification would have had dire consequences for the whole family, especially in respect to their landownership. However, Agnes fought for her family, with the support of solicitors and – as a daughter of a British father coming from the Cape Colony – with the help of the British consul residing in the German colony. She finally succeeded in securing the estate for the family, even if she was an unmarried woman in a predominantly patriarchal settler society. Using mainly material from the court cases, the article traces Agnes Hill’s fight for the Hill inheritance, thereby investigating various crucial issues of colonial societies. It points at the changing boundaries between ‘white’ and ‘non-white’ and the ambiguity of racial classifications. The article argues that women such as Agnes Hill could play a significant role in colonial settler societies and were able to transcend gender-role boundaries.     

Balancing and Limiting Episcopal Power: Bishop Thomas Barlow’s Use of Common Law in Disputes with Arminian Anglican Clerics

Thomas Barlow was a Reformed theologian simultaneously fighting on three fronts against Catholic, Dissenting Protestant and Arminian Anglican opponents. The first two of these groups threatened the Church of England from the outside, while the last group was transforming Anglican doctrine through its domination of the most important posts in the episcopal hierarchy. Barlow could not argue directly against the power of bishops without assisting the external opponents, yet he had to find a way to prevent other bishops from interfering in his continued support for Reformed theology. In order to reduce their power within the Church of England, Barlow had to look outside the institution for ways to limit his superior’s power. This essay examines two arguments in which Barlow ventured into polemics about the secular law of England in an effort to maintain limits on his Anglican opponents’ exercise of power.     

English Evangelicals,Protestant National Identity,and Anglican Prayer Book Revision, 1927–1928

This paper examines English Anglican and Free Church evangelical reactions to the Church of England's Prayer Book revision proposals in 1927–1928, arguing that their responses reveal the resilience of Protestant national identity and anti‐Catholicism within English evangelicalism during this period. The concept of a Protestant nation, reformed heritage and Protestant constitution remained integral to the English evangelical identity. The robust “no‐popery” response of evangelicals in 1927–1928 points to the durability of the Protestant national narrative in English culture and society beyond the nineteenth century and suggests that the liberal Anglican vision of a broadly Christian national identity had a significant ideological rival in the interwar period.     

The ‘Sleepiness’ of George Sarawia: The Impact of Disease on the Melanesian Mission at Mota,c. 1870–1900

George Sarawia, ordained in 1873 as the Melanesian Mission’s first Indigenous priest, was a pioneering figure in the mission’s plans for an Indigenous-led Anglican Church in the region. Sarawia founded Kohimarama, a mission station on Mota in the Banks Islands, Vanuatu, where he taught Mota Islanders and hosted visiting teachers and clergy. By the 1890s, some of the European missionaries had become critical of Sarawia and his flock on Mota, underlining their ‘natural, sleepy condition’ and recommending more intensive European supervision. This article will explore the role of epidemic and endemic disease, as well as the shortage of water on Mota, in creating substantial challenges for Sarawia and his mission. As he grew more incapacitated in later life, these challenges were insufficiently acknowledged by Sarawia’s critics.     

Anglican Evangelical Theology,c. 1820–1850: The Case of Edward Bickersteth

The period between the 1780s and the 1830s is widely acknowledged to be a formative one for Anglican Evangelical identity. It was the age of Simeon, Wilberforce, and the Clapham Sect, a time when polite culture became imbued with moral seriousness, and when pious causes came to the centre of the political stage. Yet while it is equally well known that the late 1820s witnessed a significant change in mood and direction, prompted by the passing of an earlier generation of leaders, missionary failure and theological fragmentation, the Anglican Evangelical movement in the second quarter of the nineteenth century has received comparatively little attention. Evangelicals appear frequently in work on the Oxford Movement and Broad Church, but often only as two‐dimensional reactionaries ripe for the protagonists to trample. Edward Bickersteth (1786–1850) is therefore a particularly interesting figure, having risen to prominence in the 1810s and 1820s but in the 1830s and 1840s becoming one of the movement's acknowledged leaders. By showing how the coming man of the earlier period negotiated rockier territory later on, this article seeks to explore not just the changes but also the striking continuities in Evangelical thought. For even if, as Grayson Carter has argued in an excellent recent study, the ecclesiastical changes of the 1820s and 1830s forced Anglican Evangelicals, like others, to reconsider their place in the Church of England, Bickersteth was among the most prominent of the majority who, while unhappy with developments in politics and theology, remained loyal to their Church.     

The Politics of Caring for the Poor: Anglican Responses in 1890s Tasmania

Relieving poverty amongst skilled but unemployed workers during the Tasmanian economic collapse in the 1890s challenged both a conservative government's policy of avoiding public debt by initiating minimal relief and the limited financial and human resources of voluntary philanthropic agencies, the Anglican Church amongst them, whom the Tasmanian governments expected to carry the burden of delivering relief to those deemed to deserve it. With labour organisations too weak to lead, and amidst the silence of church leaders, it fell to individuals like the Reverend Archibald Turnbull to articulate a Christian socialist critique of government policies and values and to advocate the desperate plight of the poor. In this context, this study examines how contemporary government and Anglican Church leaders responded to Turnbull's political and pastoral initiatives in Hobart in 1893–96.     

William Temple: Christianity and the Life of Fellowship

Abstract

William Temple is best known for his contribution to the forging of a social consensus that resulted in the foundation of the post-war British welfare state following his untimely death in 1944 after only two years as Archbishop of Canterbury. Widely regarded as the most theologically gifted holder of that office since Anselm, his pioneering contribution to the elucidation of a methodology for Christian social ethics which emphasized the role of ‘Principles’ that should inform Christian social action and reflection reinvigorated the Church of his generation in the task of bringing to bear the Christian message on social problems. What is less well appreciated is how he was not only the spokesperson for the most advanced Christian witness in the inter-war years, but that he also provided a basis for Christian ethics that brought together the strengths of the Anglican incarnational theology stemming from F. D. Maurice with the British tradition of philosophical social idealism. Often moving from the circumference to the centre, he sought to relate philosophical questions and insights to the richness of the revelation of God in the person of Jesus Christ. He was as at home in this task as he was in leading a mission on a Blackpool beach and the British public loved him for it. He was, as Winston Churchill said at the time of his elevation to Canterbury, "the half-crown article in a penny bazaar."     

Lessons in Seeing: Art,Religion and Class in the East End of London, 1881–1898

In 1881 the Reverend Samuel Barnett, Anglican incumbent of St Jude's Church, Whitechapel, established the Whitechapel Fine Art Exhibitions with his wife Henrietta. These quickly became an important part of the parochial programme ofSt Jude's. The Barnetts followed the art theories of John Ruskin and Matthew Arnold and argued that exhibiting famous and beautiful paintings would revive the spirituality of poor East Enders. In order to test this theory, they introduced the practice of ‘Voting for Your Favourite Picture’. The result, however, did not bear out straightforwardly the Barnetts' belief that paintings are ‘Windows into the other World’. The gap between the intended outcome and the actual reception of the Whitechapel Exhibitions reveals that, although they may not have adopted the Barnetts' religious aestheticism, working-class visitors were keen to engage with art on their own terms.     

An Anglican Clergyman on the Frontier: Benjamin Glennie on the Darling Downs 1848–1860

Benjamin Glennie was an Anglican clergyman on Queensland's Darling Downs from 1851 to 1876. From 1848 until 1860 he kept a diary of his ministry. Using this diary as its primary source, this article considers how Anglicanism was fostered in a frontier society. It argues that being a clergyman in a frontier society was arduous work. Environmental and social conditions made clerical work considerably more challenging than in places were the Church of England enjoyed the privileges of Establishment. Furthermore, the attitude towards religion on the part of frontier settlers is examined. Religious practice was compromised by the exigencies of frontier life, and adherence to religious forms and rituals did not always conform to clerical expectations.     

‘Underhand Dealings with the Papal Authorities’: Disraeli and the Liberal Conspiracy to Disestablish the Irish Church

During the parliamentary election of 1868, Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli sent a ‘gentleman spy’ to Ireland to seek evidence showing that William Gladstone had agreed to disestablish the Church of Ireland in return for the Vatican's promise of Irish catholic votes. Proof of this conspiracy, Disraeli hoped, would prompt an anti‐catholic backlash and tip the election to the Conservatives. Disraeli's spy spent four weeks interviewing various Liberal politicians and Irish catholic prelates and claimed to have discovered not only a secret agreement between Gladstone and the bishops, but also a vast Vatican conspiracy to use Irish nationalist agitation to undermine the English constitution. Unfortunately, he never found written proof of any either scheme. The Liberals won the election by a large margin and soon passed an act disestablishing the Church of Ireland. Although out of office, Disraeli remained in contact with his secret agent, using him for further missions in England and on the continent. Despite its failure, the spy's mission offers fresh insight into Disraeli's character and policies. Disraeli combined opportunistic political scheming with a weakness for conspiracy theories. His agent's mission to Ireland was certainly an intrigue meant to turn the political tables on the Liberals but was based on Disraeli's belief that Rome actually had conspired with Gladstone. Recognition of Disraeli's faith in the existence of papal conspiracies helps to make his public statements about disestablishment more comprehensible and suggests a new explanation for his ongoing inflexibility in regard to Irish grievances and reforms.     

Keeping the Spiritual Home Fires Burning: Religious Belonging in Britain during the First World War

The religious impact of the First World War on the home front in Britain is assessed in terms of churchgoing and church membership and affiliation. Church attendance rose briefly at the start of the war but fell away thereafter in the Protestant tradition, accelerating a pre-existing trend, which was not reversed after 1918. The disruption caused by the war to the everyday life of organized religion probably accounts for the decrease, rather more than loss of faith. Church membership also declined during the war in the Anglican and mainstream Free Churches, albeit not for other denominations and faiths, but it temporarily revived after the war. This was not the case for non-member adherents and Sunday scholars whose reduction was more continuous.