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The Beginnings of Church Feminism: Women and the Councils of the Church of England 1897–1919

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Brian Heeney
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Extract

Historians of the Church of England have paid little attention to the women's movement. There have been several serious studies of religious communities for women, and there is increasing interest in churchwomen's part in Victorian philanthropy and moral reform. Studies of Victorian marriage and family life have an important religious dimension. Alan Wilkinson's recent book on The Church of England and the First World War makes a number of references to women's work and aspirations, subjects virtually excluded from Roger Lloyd's standard history of the twentieth-century church. The history of women's place in the management and recognised ministry of the Church of England, in its institutional life at local, regional and national levels, has not been touched.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 33 , Issue 1 , January 1982 , pp. 89 - 109
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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References

1 See: Hill, Michael, The Religious Order, London 1973 Google Scholar; Allchin, A. M., The Silent Rebellion, London 1958 Google Scholar; The Sisters of the Church, A Valiant Victorian: The Life and Times of Mother Emily Ayckbawm, London 1964 Google Scholar; Pope, B. C., ‘Angels in the devil's workshop’, in Bridenthal, Renate and Koonz, Claudia (eds), Becoming Visible: Women in European History, New York 1977 Google Scholar; Harrison, Brian, ‘Philanthropy and the Victorians’, Victorian Studies, ix (1966)Google Scholar; Harrison, Brian, ‘For Church, queen and family: The Girls' Friendly Society, 1874–1920’, Past and Present, lxi (1973)Google Scholar; Orton, Diana, Made of Gold: a biography of Angela Burdett Coutts, London 1980 Google Scholar; Prochaska, F. K., ‘Women in English philanthropy, 1790–1830’, International Review of Social History, xix (1974)Google Scholar; McGregor, O. R., Divorce in England: a centenary study, London 1957 Google Scholar; J. O., and Banks, O., Feminism and Family Planning in Victorian England, Liverpool 1964 Google Scholar; Wilkinson, Alan, The Church of England and the First World War, London 1978 Google Scholar; Lloyd, Roger, The Church of England, 1900–1965, London 1966 Google Scholar.

2 The exception to this general statement was the office of churchwarden. According to Sir Phillimore, Robert, ‘women may be churchwardens’ (The Ecclesiastical Law of England, 2nd edn, London 1895, ii. 1467)Google Scholar. There do not seem to have been many females in this office in the 1890s, and the discovery of the possibility caused the bishops some unease (below, p. 93; Chadwick, Owen, The Victorian Church, London 1970, ii. 201)Google Scholar. See also Keith-Lucas, B., The English Local Government Franchise, Oxford 1952, 13 and 165Google Scholar.

3 The two most numerous categories of women workers in late Victorian England were probably Sunday school teachers and district visitors. According to the Official Yearbook of the Church of England, London 1889 Google Scholar, there were 91,642 females teaching in Sunday Schools and 47,112 district visitors (the huge majority of them female) in 80 % of English and Welsh parishes.

4 The Ministry of Women: a Report by a Committee appointed by His Grace the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, London 1919, 22 Google Scholar.

5 Chadwick, Victorian Church, ii. 222; Booth, Charles, Life and Labour of the People In London. Third Series: Religious Influences, London 1902, vii. 424 Google Scholar; Mudie-Smith, Richard (ed.), The Religious Life of London, London 1904, 267 and 443Google Scholar.

6 I have used the word ‘feminism' in this paper to mean ‘the doctrine of equal rights for women, based on the theory of the equality of the sexes'. See: Evans, R. J., The Feminists, London 1977, 39, 63–9Google Scholar; Cuddeford, Gladys, Women and Society, London 1967, 52ffGoogle Scholar; K. E. McCrone, ‘The National Association for the Promotion of Social Science and the Advancement of Victorian Women', unpublished paper presented to the Canadian Historical Association Meeting in June 1979, passim; Keith-Lucas, B., The English Local Government Franchise, Oxford 1952, 74, 165–8Google Scholar. Keith-Lucas notes that ‘women, if otherwise qualified, were allowed to attend and vote at vestry meetings, and even to hold office' throughout the century (pp. 13 and 165). Reader, W. J., Professional Men, London 1966, chap. 11Google Scholar.

7 Thompson, K. A., Bureaucracy and Church Reform, Oxford 1970, 92 Google Scholar.

8 Church Congress Report (hereafter cited as CCR) (1885), 80ff. (speech by Miss Weston) and 164 (speech by Harvey Goodwin).

9 Chadwick, Victorian Church, ii. 359–60.

10 Thompson, Church Reform, 138.

11 Chronicle of Convocation (Canterbury) (hereafter cited as CC) (1897), 227 and 213. The bishop of Salisbury was John Wordsworth (1843–1911); the bishop of Chichester was E. R. Wilberforce (1840–1907).

12 CC (1898), 123–7; CC (1897), 227 (Resolution 5).

13 For evidence that women did sometimes sit on PCCs, see Guardian, 29 November 1905 (speech by Bishop Gore in Representative Church Council: Report of Proceedings (hereafter cited as RCC report); Guardian, 24 Nov. 1911 (speech by Earl Nelson in RCC report).

14 CCR (1899), 127–8.

15 Smith, P. V., Church Self-Government, London 1920, 8 Google Scholar. Balfour was Leader of the House of Commons in 1899. Jebb (1841–1905) was a Conservative, ‘strongly opposed to legislative interference with the Established Church'. ( Stenton, Michael and Lees, Stephen, Who's Who of British Members of Parliament, Hassocks 1978, ii. 191 Google Scholar). P. V. Smith (1845–1929), a distinguished ecclesiastical lawyer and ardent churchman, calculated that ‘out of 217 Church bills introduced into the House of Commons between 1888 and 1913, 33 were passed, 183 were dropped, and one was negatived'. (Church Self-Government, 8.)

16 The Upper and Lower Houses of both Convocations, together with the two Houses of Laymen.

17 CC (1904), Committee Report Number 385, p. 5.

18 CC (1903), Committee Report Number 377, p. 3.

19 Ibid. Report of Joint Meeting of the Members of the Convocations of Canterbury and York (Sitting in Committee) and of the Houses of Laymen, held on July 9 and 10, 1903, p. 51. Lord Hugh Cecil, Baron Quickswood (1869–1956), was a prominent and controversial Conservative MP and author of Conservatism (1912). A prominent member of the Representative Church Council, he continued as a leading member of the Church Assembly between the wars. He took a far more detached (to a degree even a supportive) view of women's parliamentary suffrage than he did of the parallel Church issue (see Harrison, Brian, Separate Spheres, London 1978, 242 Google Scholar).

20 CCR (1903), pp. 123–4, 127.

21 CC (1904), pp. 35, 11–12, 13–14.

22 RCC (1904), p. 42.

23 Guardian, 8 Nov. 1905. Henry Wace (1836–1924) was dean of Canterbury from 1903 and formerly principal of King's College, London. He is described in the DNB as ‘a strong partisan', and ‘an outspoken opponent of innovation'. J. L. Darby, an Irishman, was dean of Chester from 1886.

24 The Church Times, i Dec. 1905.

25 Guardian, 24 Nov. 1911. Under the 1905 arrangement, in some dioceses parochial councils elected delegates to ruridecanal conferences which, in turn, elected to diocesan conferences. In other dioceses the deanery step was omitted.

26 RCC (1914), pp. 25, 63–4.

27 RCC (1914), pp. 20 and 42.

28 Claude Hinscliff to Archbishop Davidson, 5 Aug. 1912. Davidson Papers, W16. Lambeth Palace Library. Maude Royden (1876–1956) was a prominent suffragist and editor of Common Cause. For a time assistant preacher at the City Temple, she was a well-known Anglican Church feminist and preacher and a member of the first Church Assembly. Edith Picton-Turbervill (1874–1958) was an officer of the Y.W.C.A. in England, a suffragist, Church feminist and preacher. From 1929 to 1931 she was a Labour MP. Louise Creighton (1850–1936), widow of the bishop of London, was an author and a leader in the missionary movement, the Pan-Anglican Congress of 1908 and of the women's movement in the Church. She was a member of the Church Assembly, 1920–30, and three times president of the National Union of Women Workers (later the National Council of Women). A member of the Joint Commission of Insurance Commissioners (1912), she was also appointed to the London University Commission.

29 Claude Hinscliff to Archbishop Davidson, 3 May 1912. Davidson Papers, W16. Lambeth Palace Library.

30 Elizabeth Metzler to Archbishop Davidson, 9 March 1912. Davidson Papers, W16; Guardian, 1 Dec. 1909, letter from Elizabeth Hallowes; Guardian, 20 Dec. 1912; Hinscliff to Davidson, 5 Aug. 1912. Davidson Papers, W16; Susan Villiers to Archbishop Davidson, 3 Aug. 1914. Davidson Papers, Women's Suffrage, 1908–14.

31 Bell, G. K. A., Randall Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury, London 1952, 668–9Google Scholar; Davidson Papers, Women's Suffrage, 1908–14, passim.

32 Alice Kidd to Archbishop Davidson, 14 June and 29 Oct. 1914, Davidson Papers, Women's Suffrage, 1908–14.

33 Emma Paget to Archbishop Davidson, March 1914. Davidson Papers, W16. See also letters in Guardian, 3 Feb. 1911, and Guardian, 31 Jan. and 27 June 1913. M Guardian, 25 March 1915.

34 See Guardian,

35 March 1915, letter from ‘X’. Guardian, 20 July 1916, letter from Athelstan Riley; see the correspondence that follows continually up to 31 Aug. 1916. See also Archbishop Davidson to Athelstan Riley, 11 Aug. 1916, Davidson Papers, R 11.

36 Guardian, 24 Nov. 1911, speech of Earl Nelson. Guardian, 14 July 1909, speech of Lewis Dibdin. Guardian, 4 July and n July 1913, letters from H.W. Johnston and Ernest B. Savage.

37 Iremonger, F. A., William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury: his life and letters, London 1948, 220ffGoogle Scholar.

38 Scott, Carolyn, Dick Sheppard, a biography, London 1977, 93 Google Scholar.

39 Central Committee of Women's Church Work. Minutes, 1909–19. 23 Oct. 1917. Church House Archives, Westminster, vol. 178.

40 Report of the Committee of the Representative Church Council on the Report of the Archbishops' Committee on Church and State, London 1918, 15 Google Scholar.

41 Guardian, 6 March 1919.

42 Smith, Church Self-Government, 20.

43 National Assembly of the Church of England. Report of Proceedings, 1920, London 1921, 6 Google Scholar. Prestige, G. L., The Life of Charles Gore, London 1935, 191 Google Scholar.

44 Harrison, Separate Spheres, 21.

45 RCC (1914), pp. 27–8. Torr (1864–1935) was a lawyer and a Lincolnshire JP.

46 CC (1904), p. 15. See also RCC (1911), p. 123 (David Howard); RCC (1914), pp. 27 (Henson), 29 (Torr), 34 (Wace).

47 Report of Joint Meeting… (1903), p. 51. See also RCC (1911), p. 125 (Lord Halifax).

48 Report of Joint Meeting… (1903), p. 51; RCC (1911), p. 123 (David Howard); RCC (1914), p. 30 (Torr). Compare this with the view expressed by Dean Gregory in the all-clerical Canterbury Convocation in 1898 (above, p. 94).

49 CC (1904), p. 146; RCC (1904), p. 48; RCC (1914), p. 28.

50 Guardian, 30 July 1914 (letter from W. Paige Cox). See also CC (1904), p. 148 (Canon Bankes).

51 Guardian, 6 March 1919 (leading article and report of RCC debates).

52 Guardian, 8 May 1919, Lambeth Conference Proceedings. July 8 1920. L.C. 106, pp. 50–1. Lambeth Palace Archives.

53 Guardian, 6 March 1919, RCC debate report; CC (1904), p. 145; Guardian, 20 July 1913, report of Canterbury conference.

54 CC (1904), p. 145; RCC (1914), p. 46; Guardian, 1 July 1915, letter from E. B. Trotter; CC (1904), p. 146.