Rural Society and the Anglican Clergy, 1815–1914: Encountering and Managing the Poor (review)

In this well-researched and forcefully written study of the Anglican clergy in the 600 parishes of rural Norfolk, Robert Lee focuses on their role as "managers" of the poor: as magistrates, Poor Law Guardians, administrators of charities, founders and managers of schools, political activists, and so on. It was through these roles, he argues, that they most often came into contact with the farm workers, their wives, and their children, who made up a major part of the county's population. While granting that the clergy were not a homogeneous body, Lee presents them as agents of modernisation—a modernisation that most of the poor disliked.

The clergy in the nineteenth century tended, Lee suggests, to be hostile to rural traditions and pastimes that their predecessors had encouraged. Their schools, which promoted patriotism and deference to social superiors, encountered condemnation from radicals and apathy from many other parents who would have preferred their children to be out earning money. These clergy administered class-biased laws, seldom voicing any protest. They often lived in grandiose rectories that offered a blatant contrast to their parishioners' hovels. Anti-clericalism was rife, reflected sometimes in religious and political radicalism, sometimes in the threats, verbal abuse, or physical indignities that were visited on some of the clergy. Lee's style often resembles that of the counsel for the prosecution, and he has three star witnesses: Joseph Arch, the Methodist preacher and union leader, and Annie and Tom Higdon, the socialist and nonconformist teachers who were locked in a long drawn-out battle with the archconservative incumbent of Burston, the Reverend Charles Eland. But he also has a surprise witness in the form of "The King of the Norfolk Poachers," who had no discernible political or religious agenda but was equally hostile to the clergy. His criticisms focused on their role in enforcing the Game Laws and on their affluent lifestyle and alleged preoccupation with money. While Lee attributes more weight than is justified to this particular evidence, it plays an important and innovative role in his argument.

Going beyond the familiar attacks on the clergy by religious and political radicals, Lee has uncovered several episodes of conflict between the rural clergy and their parishioners. He recounts with gusto such tales as that of the incumbent who was forced to climb into his church with the aid of a ladder after it had been locked by a rebellious sexton supported by many of the local working class. Along with these anecdotes, Lee also provides valuable details, often backed by statistical data, on many aspects of the life and work of the clergy. He describes tithe disputes as well as conflicts surrounding church restorations and the introduction of organs and choirs. He shows how clerical magistrates could often be at the centre of controversy, though he also notes that the proportion of Norfolk magistrates who were clergymen fell from thirty-two percent in 1837 to seventeen percent in 1883 and five percent in 1908. (It has usually been assumed that trends of this kind were associated with a decrease in rural anti-clericalism in the second half of the nineteenth century, whereas Lee claims an increase: here, as elsewhere, it is a pity that he does not enter into more explicit dialogue with other historians in the field.) He demonstrates the key role of Anglican clergy in the establishment of rural schools—but he also criticises these schools for doing little to broaden the children's horizons—and he traces connections between clergymen and members of the gentry. His conclusion is that "Somewhere during the course of the nineteenth century, despite its ubiquitous involvement, the Church of England lost contact with rural society and lost its relevance to the lives of the labouring poor" (184).

Lee's arguments that the clergy were central to the rural authority structure and that their secular roles were potential...