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‘The day of Compromise is past’: The Oxford Free Churches and ‘Passive Resistance’ to the 1902 Education Act

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2020

Martin Wellings
Martin Wellings*
Affiliation:
Oxford
*
*26 Upland Park Rd, Oxford, OX2 7RU. E-mail: martin.wellings@oxfordmethodists.org.uk.
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Abstract

Balfour's Education Act of 1902, abolishing directly elected school boards and making rate aid available to denominational schools, provoked a storm of opposition from the Free Churches in England and Wales. One response was to refuse to pay the portion of the rate designated for the support of denominational schools; this led to Free Church representatives appearing in court and facing distraint and even imprisonment for non-payment. This article offers a case study of ‘passive resistance’ in Oxford, where opposition to the act was co-ordinated by a Citizen's Education League and the Free Church Council. It sets out the case made by the Free Churches, explores the personnel and denominational identities of the resisters, and assesses the impact of the campaign between 1903 and the First World War.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 56: THE CHURCH AND THE LAW , June 2020 , pp. 455 - 470
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2020

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References

1 ‘Passive Resistance in Oxford: Determined Protest against the Education Act’, Oxford Chronicle (hereafter: OC), 31 July 1903, 8.

2 J. E. B. Munson, ‘A Study of Nonconformity in Edwardian England as revealed by the Passive Resistance Movement against the 1902 Education Act’ (DPhil dissertation, University of Oxford, 1973), 256. Of those imprisoned, 39 were gaoled for a second time.

3 Koss, Stephen, Nonconformity in Modern British Politics (London, 1975), 38–54Google Scholar.

4 For accounts of Nonconformity in this period, see Munson, James, The Nonconformists. In Search of a Lost Culture (London, 1991)Google Scholar; Watts, Michael, The Dissenters, 3: The Crisis and Conscience of Nonconformity (Oxford, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Sacks, Benjamin, The Religious Issue in the State Schools of England and Wales, 1902–1914 (Albuquerque, NM, 1961)Google Scholar; Cruickshank, Marjorie, Church and State in English Education, 1870 to the Present Day (London, 1964)Google Scholar; James Murphy, Church, State and Schools in Britain 1800–1970 (London, 1971).

6 J. R. Fairhurst, ‘Some Aspects of the Relationship between Education, Politics, and Religion from 1895 to 1906’ (DPhil dissertation, University of Oxford, 1974).

7 Pugh, D. R., ‘The 1902 Education Act: The Search for a Compromise’, BJES 16 (1968), 164–78Google Scholar; idem, ‘Wesleyan Methodism and the Education Crisis of 1902’, BJES 36 (1988), 232–49; idem, ‘English Nonconformity, Education and Passive Resistance, 1903–06’, History of Education 19 (1990), 355–73.

8 Munson, ‘Nonconformity in Edwardian England’, 277–85.

9 Day, C. J., ‘Modern Oxford’, in Crossley, Alan and Elrington, C. R., eds, A History of the County of Oxford, 4: The City of Oxford, VCH (Oxford, 1979), 181–259Google Scholar, at 182.

10 Fairhurst, ‘Education, Politics, and Religion’.

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13 Ibid. 608.

14 Sacks, Religious Issue, 16; Fairhurst, ‘Education, Politics, and Religion’, 205.

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16 Munson, ‘Unionist Coalition’, 611.

17 For a concise description of the problems, see Fairhurst, ‘Education, Politics, and Religion’, 10–30.

18 Munson, ‘Unionist Coalition’, 635–41; Machin, Politics and the Churches, 261–5.

19 Munson, ‘Unionist Coalition’, 635–6.

20 Munson, Nonconformists, 6–34, with statistics at 9, 10; Koss, Nonconformity, 38. For a more cautious appraisal, see Machin, Politics and the Churches, 220–1.

21 E. K. H. Jordan, Free Church Unity: History of the Free Church Council Movement, 1896–1941 (London, 1956), 53, 55.

22 Munson, Nonconformists, 228–30.

23 D. W. Bebbington, The Nonconformist Conscience: Chapel and Politics 1870–1914 (London, 1982), 142.

24 Thus OC, 18 September 1903, 6, quoting the Marquess of Londonderry; ‘Passive Resisters in Court’, Oxford Times (hereafter: OT), 1 August 1903, 7.

25 Munson, ‘Nonconformity in Edwardian England’, 68–9.

26 Pugh, ‘Wesleyan Methodism’, 232–49.

27 The Times, 5 April 1902, 8.

28 W. B. Selbie, The Life of Andrew Martin Fairbairn (London, 1914), 272–7; Bebbington, Nonconformist Conscience, 143.

29 Machin, Politics and the Churches, 266.

30 Munson, ‘Nonconformity in Edwardian England’, 190–1; Charles T. Bateman, John Clifford, Free Church Leader and Preacher (London, 1904), 242–86.

31 Munson, Nonconformists, 347.

32 ‘Oxford Education Committee’, OC, 10 July 1903, 3.

33 Nesta Selwyn, ‘Education’, in Crossley and Elrington eds, History of the County of Oxford, 4: 442–62, at 442–3.

34 Malcolm Graham, ‘The Suburbs of Victorian Oxford: Growth in a Pre-Industrial City’ (PhD thesis, University of Leicester, 1985), 411–19; cf. ‘Oxford School Board’, OT, 4 July 1903, 7, a largely sympathetic account of the board's history.

35 ‘Oxford School Board’, OC, 9 May 1902, 3.

36 ‘The Local Elections’, OC, 7 November 1902, 6.

37 ‘Passive Resistance’, John W. Embury to the editor, OT, 10 October 1903, 3.

38 Michael Hopkins, Spires and Meeting Houses: A History of the Origins, Growth and Development of Congregationalism in and around Oxford (Milton Keynes, 2011), 33–112; Rosie Chadwick, ‘“Every one of us is called to be a missionary”: The New Road Chapel Home Mission, 1882–1916’, in eadem, ed., A Protestant Catholic Church of Christ (Oxford, 2003), 171–200; Elaine Kaye, Mansfield College, Oxford: Its Origin, History and Significance (Oxford, 1996), 69–90.

39 ‘Dr Massie and Mansfield College’, OC, 1 May 1903, 12; Ian Machin, ‘Massie, John (1842–1925)’, ODNB, 2007, online at: <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/58254>, accessed 25 January 2019.

40 ‘The Government Education Bill: Why it should be opposed’, Oxford and District Free Church Magazine (hereafter: ODFCM), May 1902, 18.

41 ‘Our Free Churches and the Education Bill’, ODFCM, August 1902, 34.

42 John Massie, ‘Church v. Education’, ODFCM, January 1903, 1–2.

43 ‘Mr R. W. Perks, MP, in Oxford’, ODFCM, May 1903, 23; ‘Mr R. W. Perks, MP, in Oxford’, OC, 24 April 1903, 7. For Perks, the ‘member for nonconformity’, see O. A. Rattenbury, rev. Clive D. Field, ‘Perks, Sir Robert William, First Baronet (1849–1934)’, ODNB, 2006, online at: <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/35481>, accessed 24 May 2019.

44 Oxford, Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Minute Book of the Free Church Council Executive, 9 October 1902.

45 ‘Oxford and District Free Church Council and the Education Bill’, ODFCM, October 1902, 41–2.

46 Free Church Council Executive minutes, 4 March 1903.

47 ‘An Apologia for Passive Resistance’, OC, 1 May 1903, 7; ‘Passive Resistance: The Oxford Apologia’, OC, 8 May 1903, 7.

48 ‘Apologia for Passive Resistance’, 7.

49 ‘The Education Rate: Conscientious Objectors’, OC, 5 June 1903, 8.

50 ‘The Free Churches and the Education Act’, OC, 5 June 1903, 8; compare ‘Oxford and District Free Church Council Annual Meetings’, ODFCM, June 1903, 29.

51 ‘Out and About’, OC, 4 September 1903, 6.

52 ‘Passive Resistance: Distraints at Oxford’, OC, 25 September 1903, 7.

53 ‘Passive Resistance: Another Stage’, OC, 31 July 1903, 6; ‘Out and About’, OC, 4 September 1903, 6; ‘Oxford Education Distraints’, OC, 2 October 1903, 7.

54 ‘Passive Resistance at Oxford’, OC, 31 July 1903, 8; 25 September 1903, 7.

55 Munson, ‘Nonconformity in Edwardian England’, 300.

56 ‘Distraints and Sales’, OC, 25 March 1904, 7; OC, 18 November 1904, 7; ‘Rev. John Leach’, Aldersgate Primitive Methodist Magazine n.s. 8 (1909), 380–1, at 381.

57 ‘John Leach’, Minutes of the Ninety-Third Annual Conference of the Primitive Methodist Connexion (London, 1912), 26.

58 ‘Passive Resistance in Oxford. Release of the Rev. J. Leach from Prison’, OC, 18 November 1904, 7.

59 OC, 24 April 1903, 7.

60 ‘Passive Resistance: Distraints at Oxford’, 7. The 1904 list included Tom Skinner and Walter Slaughter, both Wesleyan local preachers; both paid before distraint: OC, 25 March 1904, 7.

61 A point noted by Embury, ‘Passive Resistance’, 3.

62 ‘Oxford Education Committee’, OC, 10 July 1903, 3.

63 Lists appeared in OC, 5 June 1903, 8; 31 July 1903, 8; 25 September 1903, 7; 25 March 1904, 7.

64 Using the ODFCM and the indexes of Hopkins, Spires and Meeting Houses; Chadwick, ed., Protestant Catholic Church of Christ.

65 Munson, ‘Nonconformity in Edwardian England’, 285–6, 294–5.

66 ‘A Question of Conscience’, OC, 1 May 1903, 6; ‘The Progress of Passive Resistance’, OC, 18 September 1903, 6.

67 ‘The Farce of Passive Resistance’, OT, 16 May 1903, 7

68 ‘Free Churchmen and the Education Act’, Jackson's Oxford Journal, 1 August 1903, 6.

69 ‘The Municipal Elections’, OT, 7 November 1903, 3.

70 ‘Oxford Passive Resisters: Continued Protest’, OC, 17 July 1914, 7.

71 Munson, ‘Nonconformity in Edwardian England’, 396–7.