1901–14—‘The Faith Society’?

2019 ◽  
pp. 109-140
Author(s):  
Clive D. Field
Keyword(s):  
Rites Of Passage ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
Fin De Siecle ◽  
Rural Districts ◽  
Civil Marriage ◽  
Relative Decrease ◽  
Fin De Siècle ◽  
Relative Decline ◽  
Presbyterian Churches

Most contemporaries and several historians have assessed the religious state of Edwardian Britain pessimistically, but Callum Brown has recently contended it was ‘the faith society’. The picture is actually mixed. Relative to population, religious allegiance was reasonably stable, apart from the Free and Presbyterian Churches, which lost ground in terms of both members (whose numbers mostly peaked around 1906) and adherents. Sunday scholars, already in relative decline since the fin de siècle, peaked in 1904–10. Churchgoing also continued its relative decrease and sometimes fell absolutely. This reduction in attendances was across the board, affecting all three home nations, rural districts as well as towns and cities, and all social classes. Adjusting for twicing, weather extremities, and undercounts of Catholic Masses, perhaps one-quarter of adults worshipped weekly and two-fifths at least monthly. Attenders were disproportionately female. Observance of rites of passage remained strong, albeit the minority preference for civil marriage grew.

1880–1901—The fin de siècle

2019 ◽  
pp. 44-72
Author(s):  
Clive D. Field
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Study ◽  
Strong Evidence ◽  
Growth Rates ◽  
Sunday School ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Fin De Siecle ◽  
Free Church ◽  
Fin De Siècle ◽  
Relative Decline ◽  
Religious Crisis

Since at least the 1970s, historians have traced the origins of the decline of organized religion in Britain to the 1880s and 1890s, some even suggesting there was a ‘religious crisis’. Hitherto, there has been no systematic study of the fin de siècle from a secularization perspective. This chapter investigates religious allegiance, the next churchgoing. There is no strong evidence of a ‘crisis’ in allegiance. Notwithstanding the absence of an official census of religious profession, it does not appear there were dramatic changes during the fin de siècle, and the number failing to identify with a religion remained negligible. However, there were early signs of relative decline among the Free Church and Presbyterian constituencies in terms of both profession and membership, while Episcopalian communicants were reasonably flat. Sunday school growth rates also began to slow, although seven-tenths of children were still enrolled. The Roman Catholic community advanced relative to population.

1880–1901—The fin de siècle

2019 ◽  
pp. 73-108
Author(s):  
Clive D. Field
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Rites Of Passage ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Fin De Siecle ◽  
General Decrease ◽  
Fin De Siècle ◽  
The Government

The 1880s are often viewed by historians as the turning-point for British churchgoing, ushering in a period of general decrease. In the absence of attendance data from the government (there was no repeat of the 1851 religious census) and Churches, reliance has to be placed upon local religious censuses, typically undertaken by newspapers throughout the fin de siècle, the biggest cluster being in 1881–2. Expressed as an index of attendance, calculated against overall population, churchgoing was generally receding, except in Wales. Although the index ranged widely from place to place, dependent upon several factors, in the aggregate, excluding Sunday scholars but adjusting for twicing, perhaps one-third of people worshipped on an ordinary Sunday in 1881–2, compared with two-fifths (including scholars) in 1851. Rather more did so intermittently or for special occasions, including rites of passage. Variations by denomination (the Free Churches losing most ground), region, gender, and social class are discussed.

Illustrated Media, the Built Environment and Identity Politics in Fin-de-siècle Catalonia: Printing Images, Making the Nation

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-135
Author(s):  
Lucila Mallart
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Built Environment ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Constitutive Relationship ◽  
Fin De Siecle ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Fin De Siècle ◽  
Late Nineteenth

This article explores the role of visuality in the identity politics of fin-de-siècle Catalonia. It engages with the recent reevaluation of the visual, both as a source for the history of modern nation-building, and as a constitutive element in the emergence of civic identities in the liberal urban environment. In doing so, it offers a reading of the mutually constitutive relationship of the built environment and the print media in late-nineteenth century Catalonia, and explores the role of this relation as the mechanism by which the so-called ‘imagined communities’ come to exist. Engaging with debates on urban planning and educational policies, it challenges established views on the interplay between tradition and modernity in modern nation-building, and reveals long-term connections between late-nineteenth-century imaginaries and early-twentieth-century beliefs and practices.

Medical Humanism and Blackwood’s Magazine at the Fin de Siècle

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Coyer
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Medical Profession ◽  
Fin De Siecle ◽  
Fin De Siècle ◽  
Medical Humanism

If Blackwood’s helped to generate a recuperative medical humanism in the first half of the nineteenth century, what was its legacy? This ‘Coda’ turns to the fin de siècle to trace some key examples of a resurgence of the magazine’s mode of medical humanism at a time of perceived crisis for the medical profession, when many began ‘to worry that the transformation of medicine into a science, as well as the epistemological and technical successes of the new sciences, may have been bought at too great a price’....

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