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The Oxford Movement by the End of the Nineteenth Century: The Anglo-Catholic Clergy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

J. E. B. Munson
Affiliation:
Mr. Munson has recently completed an Oxford doctorate of philosophy in late-Victorian Nonconformity.

Extract

To its leaders the Oxford Movement was “the Romance of the nineteenth century” while to its opponents it was nothing less than “disloyalty to Christ and His Truth.” Then, as now, the chief difficulty lay in delineating various characteristics, and this is especially the case with the Anglo-Catholic or “Ritualist” clergy by the end of the Victorian era. The following will be an attempt to place the phenomenon of Anglo-Catholicism, or Ritualism, into its proper historical context while examining more closely its role within the Oxford Movement and especially its tradition of the “slum priest.”

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1975

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References

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24. Salisbury to Queen Victoria, 5 December 1898, Public Record Office, London (from the Royal Archives, Windsor), CAB 41/24/47.

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26. Chamberlain to Salisbury, 31 August 1900, Salisbury Mss., Christ Church, Oxford, No. 184.

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28. See, for example, the difficulties faced by Walter Long, President of the Local Government Board in Salisbury's administration, in his constituency party over Ritualism in Salvidge, S., Salvidge of Liverpool (1934), pp. 3233.Google Scholar

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35. Church Association, Ritualist Clergy List, 3d. ed. (1902), pp. 185188Google Scholar. Of the 98, 76 were from Oxford or Cambridge; 51 were from Oxford.

36. The first four sources are found in the Church Association's Ritualist Clergy List; the fifth is taken from Bowen's, W. E.Ritualism in the English Church (n.d.. [1904])Google Scholar. Other valuable sources used include Bowen's, The Patronage of Keble College (n.d.), Contemporary Ritualism (1902)Google Scholar, and The Crisis in the English Church (1900); also used were Heitland, Linden, ed., Ritualism in Town and Country (n.d. [1902])Google Scholar and the E.C.U.‘s Tourists' Church Guide (1902).

37. Official Year Book of the Church of England for 1902 (1902), pp. xvi-xvii. The actual percentages were 15.4 for incumbents, 14.4 for curates and 15 over-all. Henson's figures were one in six (or 16.5%), Cut Bono?, pp 28–29.

38. Church Association, Ritualist Clergy List, introduction quoting E.C.U. 's Tourists” Church Guide. For their complete figures see Chadwick, , Victorian Church, 2:319Google Scholar. The excess over the number of incumbents is also partially explained by the fact that many incumbencies, notably in rural areas, contained more than one parish church.

39. The percentages are: men in their 20s, 18% in their 30s, 34% in their 40s, 22%; in their 50s, 14%; in their 60s, 9%, and in their 70s, 3%.

40. Chadwick, , Victorian Church, 2:250Google Scholar. The education of the 21,542 deacons ordained between 1872 and 1902 was as follows: Oxford, 6,234 (29%); Cambridge, 6,624 31%); theological colleges, 5,533 (25%); University of Durham, 1,444 (7%), Trinity College, Dublin, 850 (4%); other, 854 (4%). Official Year Book of the Church of England for 1903 (1903), p. xxiii.

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42. The results of the patronage survey were: lay, 1919 (47%), laymen, 658 (33%), trustees, 108 (5%), Lord Chancellor. 83 (4%, the Crown. 63 (3%), lay bodies, for example, City of London, Hon. Grocers' Company, 40 (2%). Protestants often forgot that other criteria than liturgical inclinations influenced the appointment of incumbents, for example, congregational desires, general suitability and family connexions.

43. Official Year Book of the Church of England for 1902 (1902), pp. xvi-xvii.

44. This view is confirmed if we examine the Sunday communions by dioceses. The ten dioceses with the highest number of communions were: London, Winchester, St. Albans, Oxford, York, Norwich, Manchester. Rochester, Canterbury and Peterborough. The dioceses of London, Winchester, St. Albans, Oxford, Rochester and Canterbury were in the Southeast or South of England while Norwich and Peterborough were in East Anglia. York diocese included the eastern part of Yorkshire. The exception was Manchester in the Northwest; Canterbury's number was due to the outlying suburbs of London in the western part of the diocese.

45. Bishop George Ridding of Southwell, The Church and Commonwealth, ed. Lady L. E. Ridding (1906), p. 225.Google Scholar

46. G. A. Cobbold to Riley, 16 November and 20 November 1895, Athelstan Riley Mss., Lambeth Palace Library, Mss. 9:2343 ff 298–303. Not all Ritualist churches used incense by 1901: for example, All Saints, Margaret Street and St. Saviour's Poplar, both in London; the survey must be seen as indicative of the whole, not complete in itself.

47. The percentages were: men in their 20s, 28%; in their 30s, 36%; in their 40s, 20%; in their 50s, 11%; in their 60s and over, 5%. Thus 64% of those surveyed were under 40 while th high church percentage was 52; 28% were in their 20s as opposed to 18% for the high church. Anglo-Catholic priests were noticeably younger men.

48. Of the 114 clerical livings the major holdings were: bishops, 42; clergymen, 35; Oxford colleges, 17; Cambridge colleges, 1; and cathedral chapters, 11. The bulk of lay patronage was as follows: laymen, 52; trustees, 29; the Crown, 8; societies, 4 (for example, Society for the Maintenance of the Faith).

49. SirSlesser, Henry, Through Anglicanism to the Church. The Steps to a Conversion (1948), p. 8Google Scholar. Catholic Truth Society pamphlet C 277.

50. Cities with a population of 2,500 to 10,000 had 7 churches; those with a population of11,000 to 25,000 had 10; those with 26,000 to 50,000 had 21; those with 51,000 to 100000 had 19, and those with 100,000 and above (excluding London) had 33.

51. Memorandum by Fr. B. D. Ringmere in Lady Laura Ridding's personal interleaved copy of her biography of her husband, George Ridding Schoolmaster and Bishop, 2 vols. (1908)Google Scholar. Ridding Mss., Ms. Eng. hist. d 186, ff 84–5, p. 246 D, E.

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55. Inglis, K. S., Churches and the Working Classes in Victorian England (1964), p. 89.Google Scholar

56. See, for example, Carlile, J. C., My Life's Little Day (1935), p. 69 ff.Google Scholar; Selbie, W. B., ed., The Life of Charles Silvester Home (1920), pp. 174 ff.Google Scholar; Lidgett, J. Scott, My Guided Life (1936), pp. 110 ff.Google Scholar; Jackson, George, Collier of Manchester (1923), pp. 4768Google Scholar; for Sackett see Porritt, Arthur, More and More of Memories (1947), p. 39.Google Scholar

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58. Some Memories and Some Reflections in my Old Age (1932), Selborne Mss., Bodleian Library, Oxford. Selborne Mss, 191 ff. 5–6. By courtesy of the Rt. Hon. the Earl of Selborne.

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60. “The Rector of Manaton,” Is Ritualism in the Church of England Popular Amang the Masses? (1894), p. 13.

61. Leslie, Emma, Saved by Love: A Story of London Streets (1897), p. 28.Google Scholar

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63. Martin, Abbe P., Anglican-Ritualism as seen by a Catholic and Foreigner (1881), p. 166Google Scholar. For a concise statement of Anglo-Catholic attitudes see Simmons, A. H., To All That Be in Rome (1965)Google Scholar. Simmons was Master of the Society of the Holy Cross at the time of writing.