This chapter explores the challenges faced by friends of the Established Church as they sought to reassert it in the late-Georgian period. Providing more churches was widely seen as crucial, but this was to be church building in the most inauspicious circumstances. That so much was achieved, and so many outstanding churches were built, was truly remarkable.

The title of this chapter comes from a book published in 1815 by the Revd Richard Yates, an eloquent commentator on the obstacles that confronted the Church of England in the second decade of the nineteenth century, but the issues he raised would have been equally valid a generation earlier. His publications will be more fully addressed later in this chapter. Yates set out in stark terms the threats which it faced; his emotive title implied – and many would have claimed not unreasonably – that the very future of the Church of England could no longer be taken for granted; and without the Church of England, what would be left of the fabric of the country? Although there had been earlier calls for action, Yates’ plea was central in stimulating wide debate and galvanised opinion. His principal concern was the lack of church accommodation, one to be solved by more buildings (see Fig. 1.1). However, this problem, serious as it was, was merely part of the challenge faced by the Church of England. As an institution, it was big and cumbersome, its regulation by Parliament made local initiatives difficult, privilege in the church was entrenched and endemic, and change might be obstructed by vested interests and the comfort provided by the status quo to those in authority. And while the Church of England enjoyed protection as the Established Church, it was not, arguably, a national Church, as so many in the lower classes felt alienated from it. Furthermore, the ‘protection’ afforded by its role as the Established Church also hindered, and in some cases altogether precluded, well-intentioned efforts.

The challenges

he challenges were massive and there were many clergy in the 1820s for whom the future seemed bleak.