God and the Great Reform Act: Preaching against Reform, 1831–32

Abstract The struggle for the “Great” Reform Act was one of the most serious crises of the nineteenth century, stirring controversy not only in Parliament and the political unions but in churches and chapels across the country. For many of its supporters, reform was a holy cause; for its opponents, it was a “Satanic” measure. This article seeks to reestablish reform as a religious controversy, paying special attention to the religious press and to the hundreds of sermons preached by the Anglican clergy. Anglicans mobilized an array of scriptural authorities against the reform bill, contributing directly to the rising temperature of debate. This was a “Constitution in Church and State,” and the church possessed both an authority and an audience that few institutions could match. Restoring it to the center of debate helps us to understand what was at stake in the reform bill and why it aroused such bitter passions.

[1]  G. Herring,et al.  What was the Oxford Movement? , 2020 .

[2]  Edmund Burke.  Reflections On The Revolution In France, And On The Proceedings Of Certain Societies In London, Relative To That Event , 2011 .

[3]  Dominic Erdozain.  The Secularisation of Sin in the Nineteenth Century , 2010, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History.

[4]  W. Fraser.  Chartism in Scotland , 2010 .

[5]  Ryan K. Frace.  The Clerical Profession in the Long Eighteenth Century, 1680–1840 – By W. M. Jacob , 2010 .

[6]  Kathryn Gleadle.  Borderline Citizens: Women, gender and political culture in Britain, 1815-1867 , 2009 .

[7]  G. Pentland.  Radicalism, Reform and National Identity in Scotland, 1820-1833 , 2008 .

[8]  P. Williamson.  STATE PRAYERS, FASTS AND THANKSGIVINGS : PUBLIC WORSHIP IN BRITAIN 1830-1897 , 2008 .

[9]  M. Cragoe.  The Great Reform Act and the Modernization of British Politics: The Impact of Conservative Associations, 1835–1841 , 2008, Journal of British Studies.

[10]  W. Gladstone.  The State In Its Relations With The Church , 2007 .

[11]  W. Jacob.  The Clerical Profession in the Long Eighteenth Century, 1680-1840 , 2007 .

[12]  S. Skinner.  Tractarians and the 'Condition of England': The Social and Political Thought of the Oxford Movement , 2005 .

[13]  S. Skinner.  Tractarians and the 'Condition of England' , 2004 .

[14]  Miles Taylor.  Rethinking the Age of Reform: Empire and parliamentary reform: the 1832 Reform Act revisited , 2003 .

[15]  F. Turner.  John Henry Newman , 2002 .

[16]  D. Macculloch.  Richard Hooker's Reputation , 2002 .

[17]  R. Ellison.  The Victorian Pulpit: Spoken and Written Sermons in Nineteenth-Century Britain , 1999 .

[18]  Nancy Lopatin.  Political Unions, Popular Politics and the Great Reform Act of 1832 , 1998 .

[19]  J. Gascoigne.  The Unity of Church and State Challenged: Responses to Hooker from the Restoration to the Nineteenth–Century Age of Reform , 1997 .

[20]  P. Monod.  From Jacobite to conservative: Reaction and orthodoxy in Britain, c. 1760–1832 , 1995 .

[21]  J. Parry,et al.  The Rise and Fall of Liberal Government in Victorian Britain , 1994 .

[22]  James J. Sack.  From Jacobite to Conservative: Reaction and Orthodoxy in Britain, C. 1760-1832 , 1993 .

[23]  R. A. Soloway,et al.  The age of atonement : the influence of evangelicalism on social and economic thought, 1795-1865 , 1990 .

[24]  R. Hole.  Pulpits, Politics and Public Order in England, 1760-1832 , 1989 .

[25]  D. Bebbington.  Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s , 1989 .

[26]  J. Garnett,et al.  The Age of Atonement: The Influence of Evangelicalism on Social and Economic Thought, 1795-1865. , 1989 .

[27]  R. Brent.  Liberal Anglican Politics: Whiggery, Religion, and Reform 1830-1841 , 1987 .

[28]  I. Newbould.  Sir Robert Peel and the Conservative party, 1832–1841: A study in failure? , 1983 .

[29]  F. Mather,et al.  Lord John Russell. , 1973 .

[30]  J. Cannon.  Parliamentary Reform, 1640-1832 , 1973 .

[31]  C. H. E. Zangerl.  The Social Composition of the County Magistracy in England and Wales, 1831–1887 , 1971, Journal of British Studies.

[32]  E. P. Thompson,et al.  The Making of the English Working Class. , 1965 .

[33]  J. Wolffe.  British Sermons On National Events , 2010 .

[34]  Robert Lee.  Rural Society and the Anglican Clergy, 1815-1914: Encountering and Managing the Poor , 2006 .

[35]  B. Hilton,et al.  A Mad, Bad, and Dangerous People?: England 1783-1846 , 2006 .

[36]  E. Lyon.  Politicians in the Pulpit: Christian Radicalism in Britain from the Fall of the Bastille to the Disintegration of Chartism , 1999 .

[37]  Peter Nockles.  The Oxford Movement in Context: Anglican High Churchmanship, 1760-1857 , 1994 .

[38]  W. Gibson.  Church, State and Society, 1760-1850 , 1994 .

[39]  R. Thorne.  The House of Commons, 1790-1820 , 1986 .

[40]  A. Haig.  The Victorian Clergy , 1984 .

[41]  J. Harrison,et al.  The Second Coming: Popular Millenarianism, 1780-1850 , 1979 .

[42]  R. Morris,et al.  Cholera, 1832: The Social Response to an Epidemic , 1976 .

[43]  E. Norman.  Church and society in England 1770-1970: A historical study , 1976 .

[44]  R. Hooker,et al.  Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity , 1975 .

[45]  Michael Brock.  The Great Reform Act , 1973 .

[46]  J. Morley.  The life of William Ewart Gladstone , 1903 .