The Charity Market and Humanitarianism in Britain, 1870–1912 by Sarah Roddy, Julie-Marie Strange, Bertrand Taithe (review)

William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, went out in style in the summer of 1912. One hundred thousand people viewed him lying in state, 34,000 crammed into his memorial service at London’s Olympia exhibition hall, and two million lined the streets to witness the mile-long cortege between central London and the cemetery where he was interred. According to the New York Times, it ranked alongside the funerals of Julius Caesar, Napoleon, and Abraham Lincoln as among the most extraordinary in history. Not bad for a missionary from Nottingham who waged war against poverty and sin.

It is with this anecdote that Sarah Roddy, Julie-Marie Strange, and Bertrand Taithe begin their engaging account of the development of a full-fledged market in philanthropy in the late nineteenth century. “Market” is used advisedly, because it is the authors’ contention that all of the techniques of selling, advertising, branding, and franchising that marketing men were developing to sell Sunlight Soap, Woodbines cigarettes, and Colman’s Mustard were applied equally to charitable endeavours. And the adulation accorded such figures as General Booth is just one indication of the phenomenal success of this commerce in humanitarianism.

The authors’ initial focus is on three organizations—the Salvation Army, Barnardo’s, and Manchester’s Wood Street Mission, exemplifying international, national, and local reach respectively—and the ways in which they deployed distinctively modern advertising and promotional techniques to distinguish themselves in an increasingly crowded field. The authors then turn their attention to what they call “charitable consumption,” the world of the manufacture and sale of commemorative objects, charity calendars, and even safety matches (“Lights in Darkest England”) that reinforced a particular message. Concerts, theatrical productions, balls, and lantern shows that required audiences to part with the price of a ticket for the greater good performed a similar function.

Crucial to the success of any particular charity was the building of an effective brand through name recognition, logos, and slogans. William and Catherine Booth, for example, enjoyed modest success with their spatially limited East End Christian Mission from 1864, but really took off when they rebranded with the strikingly militant name the Salvation Army in 1878. And part of the protection of brands was the policing of fraud. Given the lack of a legal framework, charities were compelled to police themselves—to demonstrate their probity through transparent accountancy and to expose the frauds perpetrated by others. The Charity Organisation Society and maverick radical Henry Labouchère’s journal Truth were particularly important in uncovering scandal and corruption.

The authors devote their final two chapters to the twin themes of aristocratic philanthropy and what they call “franchise fundraising.” Philanthropic networks headed up by aristocrats or industrial magnates and using modern marketing techniques exemplified the marriage of old and new practices. Using the specific example of the Stafford House Committee, led by the Duke of Sutherland, the authors zero in on fundraising during the Russo-Turkish conflict in the 1870s. But this venture proved to be a relative failure, because the committee’s support of the Turks against the Russians was seen as too overtly a vehicle for Conservative Party propaganda against Gladstone’s Liberals and too transparently geared towards promoting Tory business interests in the Ottoman Empire.

The “franchise fundraising” of the Lord Mayor of London’s Mansion House appeals proved to be more successful and better sustained, raising millions of pounds for various forms of disaster relief. The fundraising model involved local mayors across the country striking committees, leveraging local knowledge to exact donations, and remitting the sums raised to the central fund. This was one model of franchising; charities such as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children adopted a rather different model of “franchise replication,” setting up local branches with a...