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‘She succeeds with cloudless brow …’ How Active was the Spirituality of Nonconformist Women in the Home during the Period 1825–75?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Linda Wilson
Linda Wilson*
Affiliation:
Open Theological College, Cheltenham
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Extract

He role and place of women in the nineteenth century has been the subject of much recent debate. In their influential book, Family Fortunes, Davidoff and Hall traced the development of separate spheres, which, they argued, was linked to the process of industrialization and the emergence of the middle class during the period 1780–1850. They emphasised that both nonconformists and evangelical Anglicans had played a determining role in this development. Amanda Vickery, amongst others, has questioned this thesis. She believes that the premises are flawed, and that early modern studies have shown that neither industrialization, nor the development of separate spheres, can be located at the end of the eighteenth century. Additionally, Helsinger and others have pointed out that there was a contemporary debate over the issue of women, with several varieties of ideology under discussion. Whilst these criticisms of Davidoff and Hall need to be recognized, nevertheless, as Helsinger acknowledges, the ideal of the passive, home-based woman was a major influence in mid-nineteenth-century society.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 34: Gender and Christian Religion , 1998 , pp. 347 - 359
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1998

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References

1 Davidoff, L. and Hall, C., Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780–1850 (London, 1987), p. 74.Google Scholar

2 Vickery, A., ‘Golden age to separate spheres? A review of the categories and chronology of women’s history’, Hist], 36 (1993), pp. 383–414 Google Scholar. See also Kerber, L. K., ‘Separate spheres, female worlds, women’s place: the rhetoric of women’s history’, The Journal of American History, 75 (1988), pp. 9–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Helsinger, E. K., Sheets, R. L., and Veeder, W., The Woman Question (Chicago, 1989), pp. xiv–xv Google Scholar.

4 Ruskin, J., ‘Of Queen’s Gardens’, in his Sesame and Lilies (London, 1871), pp. 95–158.Google Scholar

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6 W. Stott, The Memoir of a Beautiful Life (London, 1908), p. 15.

7 Ibid., p. 32.

8 D. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain (London, 1989), p. 3.

9 Methodist Magazine [hereafter MM], 94 (1871), p. 287.

10 Christian Witness [hereafter CW], 7 (1850), p. 207.

11 MM, 93 (1870), p. 573.

12 Primitive Methodist Magazine [hereafter PMM], 31 (1850), p. 188.

13 CW, 7 (1850), p. 207.

14 Baptist Magazine [hereafter BM], 44 (1852), p. 106.

15 BM, 43 (1851). p. 228.

16 BM, 66 (1874), p. 239.

17 CW, 17 (1860), p. 45.

18 Sec L. Sweet, The Minister’s Wife (Philadelphia, PA, 1983), for a discussion of the role of ministers’ wives in America.

19 PMM, 31 (1850), p. 127.

20 Ibid., p. 62.

21 J. Gilbert, Memorials of Mrs Gilbert (London, 1878), pp. 373–4.

22 PMM, 51 (1870), p. 47.

23 BM, 59 (1867), p. 319.

24 See Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, pp. 175, 181, for a discussion of professional motherhood.

25 See, e.g., John Angell James, Female Piety (London, 1852), p. 267 (‘Encouragement to Praying Mothers’); BM, 42 (1850), p. 745.

26 CW, 7 (1850), p. 60.

27 PMM, 51 (1870), p. 47.

28 M. Farningham, A Woman’s Working Life (London, nd), p. 19.

29 C. H. Spurgeon, Autobiography, 4 vols (London, 1897), 1, p. 68.

30 CW,% (1851), p. 462.

31 CW, u (1854), p. 305.

32 Gilbert, Memorials, pp. 284–5.

33 PMM, 51 (1870), p. 47.

34 PMM, 31 (1870), p. 47; MM, 94 (1871), p. 289.

35 CW, 18 (1861), p. 116.

36 CW, 8 (1851), p. 462.

37 Farningham, Woman’s Working Life, p. 34.

38 I. Bradley, The Call to Seriousness (London, 1976), ch. 10.

39 CW, 13 (1856), p. 13.

40 PMM, 31 (1850), p. 74.

41 BM, 44 (1852), p. 697.

42 MM, 98 (1875), p. 388.

43 CW, 6 (1849), p. 315.

44 Revd J. S. Simon, A Manual for Class Leaders (London, 1892), p. 148.

45 VMM, 31 (1850), p. 131.

46 MM, 95 (1872), p. 92.

47 MM, 75 (1852), p. 112.

48 MM, 93 (1870), p. 573.

49 PMM, 51 (1870), p. 47.

50 H. Piggot, Memoir of Elizabeth George (London, 1858), p. 29.

51 BM, 47 (1858). p. 368.

52 M. C. Martin, Women and philanthropy in Walthamstow and Leyton 1740–1870’, London Journal, 19 (1995), p. 119.

53 CW, 6 (1849), p. 347.

54 PMM, 31 (1850), p. 122.

55 BM, 49 (1857), P. 236.

56 BM, 47 (1855), p. 370.

57 BM, 48 (1856), p. 166.

58 BM, 42 (1850), p. 500.

59 MM, 93 (1870), p. 284.

60 PMM, 31 (1850), p. 73.

61 Ibid., p. 250.

62 CW, 7 (1850), p. 414.

63 BM, 46 (1854), p. 111.

64 Evangelical Magazine, ns 4 (1873), p. 467.