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Squires in the Slums: Settlements and Missions in Late Victorian London
Contemporary Review, Winter, 2007
Squires in the Slums: Settlements and Missions in Late Victorian London. Nigel Scotland. I.B. Tauris. [pounds sterling]47.50. xiii + 266 pages. ISBN 978-1-84511-336-0. Of the many imaginative ways in which the churches responded to the creation of an urban society in the Victorian era, 'institutional churches' (usually associated with Nonconformists) and 'settlements' (almost totally a Church of England creation) are the most important.
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Their aim was to reach the lower ranks of the working-classes in the inner cities, the 'unchurched' through practical help. These settlements or centres, run by university undergraduates and then students, began with the Rev Samuel Barnett's 'Toynbee Hall', still in operation. They tended to be High Church, with an inclination to Christian Socialism. The numbers rose to over fifty by 1901 and were, as Mr Scotland writes, 'a vibrant expression of practical Christianity'. In this excellent history the author sets the background and then discusses Barnett's work, settlements by Oxford and Cambridge colleges, missions set up by the public schools, the Nonconformist contribution, women's settlements, and finally the 'non-sectarian' settlement. There is also a summing up of what was achieved. (J.M.)
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