'Ye are all one in Christ Jesus': Aspects of unitarianism and feminism in Birmingham, c. 1869-90

Women's History Review

Volumn 9, Issue 4, 2000, Pages 721-742

  Plant, Helen ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF YORK   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 34247322519     PISSN: 09612025     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09612020000200267     Document Type: Review

References (55)

1. H[enry] W[illiam] C[rosskey] (1861) The Position of Woman, English Woman's Journal, 6, pp. 289-297
2. Richard Acland Armstrong (1895) Henry William Crosskey, LL.D., F.G.S.: his life and work, p. 128 (Birmingham: Cornish Brothers)
3. Asa Briggs (1968 reprint edition) Victorian Cities, pp. 184-240 (London: Oldham's Press; first published 1963)
4. Philippa Levine (1990) Feminist Lives in Victorian England: private roles and public commitment, p. 32 (Oxford: Blackwell). Levine estimated that 11% of her sample of 192 leading activists had direct links with Unitarianism. In order to understand this figure in perspective, it must be remembered that the 1851 religious census revealed that Unitarians composed 2% of the population
5. Ruth Watts (1998) Gender, Power and the Unitarians in England, 1760-1860 (London: Longmans)
6. See also, Ruth Watts (1980) The Unitarian Contribution to the Development of Female Education, 1790-1850, Journal of Education, 9, pp. 273-286
7. Ruth Watts (1989) Knowledge is Power: Unitarians, gender and education in the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Gender and Education, 1, pp. 35-50
8. Kathryn Gleadle (1995) The Early Feminists: radical unitarians and the emergence of the women's rights movement, 1831-51, p. 27 (London: Macmillan)
9. Leonore Davidoff & Catherine Hall (1987) Family Fortunes: men and women of the English middle class, 1780-1850 (London: Routledge)
10. Levine, Feminist Lives
11. Sandra Stanley Holton (1994) From Anti-slavery to Suffrage Militancy: the Bright circle, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the British women's movement, in Caroline Daley & Melanie Nolan (Eds) Suffrage and Beyond: international feminist perspectives, pp. 213-233 (New York: New York University Press)
12. Gleadle, The Early Feminists
13. Briggs, Victorian Cities, p. 198
14. Angela V. John & Claire Eustance (Eds) (1997) The Men's Share? Masculinities, Male Support and Women's Suffrage in Britain, 1890-1920 (London Routledge)
15. Report of the First Meeting of the Ladies' Education Association, 1871, Birmingham Reference Library (BRL)
16. Annual Reports of the Birmingham Women's Suffrage Society, 1868-1902, BRL
17. See also Women's Suffrage Journal, vols 1-21, 1870-90
18. Watts, Gender, Power and the Unitarians, p. 106
19. John Seed (1986) Theologies of Power: Unitarianism and the social relations of religious discourse, 1800-1850, in RJ. Morris (Ed.) Class, Power and Social Structure in British Nineteenth-century Towns, p. 131 (Leicester: Leicester University Press)
20. Armstrong, Henry William Crosskey, pp. 247-248
21. Church of the Messiah Calendars, October 1870, November 1873, February 1876, Birmingham City Archives (BCA)
22. BWSS Annual Reports; Church of the Messiah Subscription Books, 1882-86, BCA
23. Church of the Messiah Register of Marriages, 1837-1926. BCA
24. See Women's Suffrage Journal: December 1880, p. 215; December 1882, p. 191; February 1883, p. 31
25. Beatrice Potter (later Webb), a close observer of this circle, wrote of the Kenrick and Chamberlain families as, 'the aristocracy and plutocracy of Birmingham. They stand far above the town society in social position, wealth and culture, and yet they spend their lives as great citizens, taking an active and leading part in the municipal, political and educational life of their town'. Quoted in Patricia Hollis (1987) Ladies Elect: women in English local government, 1865-1914, p. 151ff. (Oxford: Clarendon Press)
26. Information on these family alliances was obtained from: Church of the Messiah Register of Marriages, 1837-1926
27. Mrs W. Byng Kenrick (1932) Chronicles of a Nonconformist Family: the Kenricks of Wynne Hall, Exeter, and Birmingham, genealogical table appended (Birmingham: Cornish Brothers)
28. Peter T. Marsh (1994) Joseph Chamberlain: entrepreneur in politics, pp. 17-19, 32-33 (London: Yale University Press)
29. On Caroline Kenrick's work for the School Board, see Hollis, Ladies Elect, pp. 150-152
30. Church of the Messiah Home Mission Minute Book, 1873-75
31. Church of the Messiah Calendar, December 1873, both in BCA
32. Women's Suffrage Journal, March 1881, p. 41
33. Minute Books of the Ladies' Committee of the Protestant Dissenting Charity School, 1845-1917, 3 vols, BCA
34. Church of the Messiah Subscription Book, 1882-86
35. Typescript, 'Diaries of Rebecca Kenrick, 1839-89', 3 vols, BCA
36. Old Meeting Register of Marriages, 1861-1905, BCA
37. Jane Rendall (1994) Citizenship, Culture and Civilisation: the languages of British suffragists, 1866-1874, in Daley & Nolan, Suffrage and Beyond, pp. 127-150
38. Linda Walker (1987) Party Political Women: a comparative study of Liberal women and the Primrose League, in Jane Rendall (Ed.) Equal or Different-women's politics, 1800-1914, pp. 165-191 (Oxford: Blackwell)
39. Claire Horsfield (1990) Fractured Faith: Liberal Party women and the suffrage issue in Britain, 1892-1914, Gender and History, 2, pp. 173-197
40. J. Parry (1986) Democracy and Religion: Gladstone and the Liberal Party, 1867-1875 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
41. Manuscript, 'Journal of Caroline Mary Kenrick, 1854-9', 3 vols, Austen Chamberlain Papers, Birmingham University Library. Caroline was a hearer of Dawson from at least 1858 when she was 24 years old, and her journal contains several lengthy transcripts of his sermons
42. David W. Bebbington (1982) The Nonconformist Conscience: chapel and politics, 1870-1914 (London: George Allen & Unwin)
43. J. Estlin Carpenter (1905) James Martineau, Theologian and Teacher: a study of his life, work and thought, ch. 9 (London: Philip Green)
44. Ralph Waller (1986) James Martineau: the development of his religious thought, in Barbara Smith (Ed.) Truth, Liberty and Religion: essays celebrating two hundred years of Manchester College, pp. 225-264 (Oxford: Manchester College)
45. James Martineau (1891) The Unitarian Position, in Essays, Reviews and Addresses, Vol. II, pp. 376-377 (London: Longmans)
46. Waller, James Martineau, p. 247
47. Henry W. Crosskey (1873) I Believe in the Communion of Saints: a discourse delivered to the Church of the Messiah, 9th February, 1873 (Birmingham: E.C. Osborne)
48. Crosskey, 'The Position of Woman', p. 288. Although this article pre-dates Crosskey's arrival in Birmingham, it contains the fullest statement of the theological foundations of his feminism
49. Women's Suffrage Journal, May 1877, p. 72
50. Women's Suffrage Journal, May 1875, p. 74
51. Reports and Addresses, 1882
52. Women's Suffrage Journal, December 1882, p. 191
53. H.W. Crosskey, A Citizen of no Mean City: a discourse delivered to the Church of the Messiah, 5th March, 1870 (Birmingham: E.C. Osborne)
54. Johns & Eustance, The Men's Share?
55. George Dawson, quoted in Briggs, Victorian Cities, p. 196