Edward Vansittart Neale
Edward Vansittart Neale, the only son of Edward Vansittart, rector of Taplow, and his second wife, Anne Spooner, was born in Bath on 2nd April, 1810. His father took the surname Neale under the will of Mary, widow of Colonel John Neale of Allesley Park, his kinsman. Neale was educated at home under the influence of William Wilberforce, a close relative. (1)
Neale was educated at home until he matriculated at Oriel College, on 14th December 1827. After graduating B.A. from Oxford University in 1831, he made a long tour, principally on foot, through France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland, and thoroughly mastered the languages of those countries. He entered at Lincoln's Inn in 1837, and was called to the bar. (2) However, according to his friend John Ludlow, "But he was too subtle for the judges, and wearied them by taking abstruse points which they could not or did not choose to follow." (3)
On 14th June 1837 Neale married Frances Sarah Farrer at St George's, Hanover Square, London. She was the eldest daughter of James William Farrer, master in chancery, of Ingleborough, Yorkshire, and widow of John Scott, eldest son of John, first Lord Eldon. They had five children. Henrietta (1838-1879), Edward (1840-1840), Constance (1841-1926), Henry James (1842-1923) and Edith (1846-1933) (4)
Christian Socialist
Neale was interested in social reform and became aware of the work of Frederick Denison Maurice. After reading Maurice's book, The Kingdom of Christ (1838), "which convinced him that all men were brothers in Christ and that it was the duty of each to live for all." In the book Maurice argued that politics and religion are inseparable and that the church should be involved in addressing social questions. Maurice rejected individualism, with its competition and selfishness, and suggested a socialist alternative to the economic principles of laissez faire. Christian Socialists promoted the cooperative ideas of Robert Owen and suggested profit sharing as a way of improving the status of the working classes and as a means of producing a just, Christian society. (5)
On 10th April, 1848, a group of Christians who supported Chartism held a meeting in London. People who attended included Frederick Denison Maurice, Charles Kingsley, John Ludlow and Thomas Hughes. The meeting was a response to the decision by the House of Commons to reject the recent Chartist Petition. The men, who became known as Christian Socialists, discussed how the Church could help to prevent revolution by tackling what they considered were the reasonable grievances of the working class. (6)
Feargus O'Connor had been making vicious attacks on other Chartist leaders such as William Lovett, Henry Hetherington, Bronterre O'Brien and Henry Vincent who advocated Moral Force. O'Connor questioned this strategy and began to make speeches where he spoke of being willing "to die for the cause" and promising to "lead people to death or glory". O'Connor became the leader of what became known as the Physical Force Chartists, Disturbed by these events members of the Christian Socialist movement volunteered to become special constables at these demonstrations. (7)
Frederick Denison Maurice declared that the term "Christian Socialism" would "commit us at once to the conflict we must engage in sooner or later with the unsocial Christians and the unchristian socialists." (8) Percy Redfern has argued that the Christian Socialists disapproved of the socialism promoted by Robert Owen: "The idea of co-operation, which Owen had proclaimed, was now by most people despised and rejected. The Christian Socialists meant to glorify the Christian idea of brotherhood which they found at the core of it; while, with equal force, they declared themselves not Owenites." (9)
John Ludlow, a lawyer who had been deeply influenced by the socialist writer, Henri de Saint-Simon, was another important figure in the group. He sought to Christianize Socialism as he believed structural change was needed and charity was not enough. He had been a social worker in London and had commented: "It seemed to me that no serious effort was made to help a person out of his or her misery, but only to help him or her in it." (10)
Edward Vansittart Neale studied socialist writers such as Robert Owen, Charles Fourier, Henri de Saint-Simon, and others in the 1840s and later published his analysis, The Characteristic Features of some of the Principal Systems of Socialism. In 1850 he joined the Christian Socialists. (11) Soon afterwards Maurice invited Neale to join the inner group of twelve who formed the Council of Christian Socialists. "Neale's wealth was to prove, throughout his long connection with the cooperative movement, extremely useful to the Promoters, despite the fact that several somewhat resented his generosity at first." (12)
Matthew Lee has argued: "Neale was central in shifting the focus of the movement from promotion of self-governing workshops to co-operation on a larger scale. He funded and founded the first London co-operative stores in Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, and advanced capital for two unsuccessful builders' associations. Initially ignorant of northern co-operation on the Rochdale and redemptionist models, Neale became a swift convert to consumers' co-operation and became allied with many former Owenites." (13)
Neale's support of cooperative stores brought him into conflict with other Christian Socialists because he challenged the assumption that all associations had to be producer co-operatives rather than consumer ones. Thomas Hughes supported Neale, but John Ludlow was furious seeing it as a betrayal of the fundamental principles of the Society. Ludlow presented an ultimatum at the Promoters' Council meeting, that either Neale and Hughes went or he did. However, Frederick Denison Maurice, managed to persuade Ludlow to withdraw the threat. (14)
Ladies' Cooperative Guild
In 1851 Neale and Thomas Hughes, without the direct sanction of the Christian Socialist Council, they established the Central Co-operative Agency, which anticipated the Co-operative Wholesale Society. Some of the members strongly disapproved of this experiment. The publication of an address to the trade societies of London and the United Kingdom, inviting them to support the agency as "a legal and financial institution for aiding the formation of stores and associations, for buying and selling on their behalf, and ultimately for organising credit and exchange between them" brought matters to a crisis, and an attempt was made to exclude Neale and Hughes from the council. (15)
In 1852 Edward Vansittart Neale gave support to Caroline Southwood Hill and her daughters, including Octavia Hill, in the forming the Ladies' Cooperative Guild, a co-operative craft workshop for girls. Its aim was to give training to disadvantaged girls and young women in the making of ornamental glass and toy furniture. Based at 4 Russell Place, Bloomsbury, it was an early important initiative supporting the drive to increase women's employment opportunities. Southwood was appointed manager and book-keeper. (16)
Southwood Hill, published an article about the venture in Household Words, a magazine owned by Charles Dickens. "There is a large, light, lofty workshop, situated in one of the best thoroughfares of the town, in which are occupied about two dozen girls between the ages of eight and seventeen. They make choice furniture for dolls houses. They work in groups, each group having its own department of the little trade... A young lady whose age is not so great as that of the majority of the workers - only whose education has been infinitely better - rules over the little band; apportions the work; distributes the material; keeps the accounts; stops the disputes; stimulates the intellect, and directs the recreation of all." She compares her power to the Tsar of Russia "but the two potentates differ in this, that the one governs by fear, the other by affection." (17)
Frederick Denison Maurice offered to take a Bible class for the children working in the toy factory. The prospect of Maurice coming to the Ladies' Cooperative Guild horrified the evangelical ladies who supported it, and who sent to it the toymaker children from the Ragged School Union. They threatened to withdraw all support if Maurice gave his Bible class. Caroline Southwood Hill protested, and she was dismissed in late 1855. The Guild did not last long after her departure, although the toymaking carried on for a few more months. (18)
Edward Vansittart Neale continued to be a passionate supporter of the cooperative movement and in the early 1850s he put over £60,000 into launching twelve co-operative workshops for various trades. (19) Neale prophesied that "an incalculable amount of good of every sort will arise... The great thing to impress upon the minds of the workers is the importance of seeking to raise the position of their class instead of limiting their efforts to raising their own position as individuals." (20)
Cooperative Union
Despite his investments all these co-operative workshops were no longer in existence by 1855. He continued to be involved in the Christian Socialism movement, now centred on the Working Men's College, where he took a class in political economy for two terms. Neale also supported the Amalgamated Society of Engineers in their struggle with their employers. Frederick Denison Maurice refused to get involved in the dispute but Neale believed it was important to link the trade union movement and the Christian Socialist movement together. (21)
When the men were forced to return to work on the employers' terms, Neale purchased the Atlas Ironworks, Southwark, where he established several of the leading engineers as a productive association. The scheme ended in total failure. The Central Co-operative Agency was at the same time involved in difficulties, and the loss on both schemes fell entirely on Neale, who is said to have spent £40,000 in his efforts to promote co-operation. (22)
Neale became very involved in the work of the Co-operative Union. He drew up petitions, lobbied the House of Lords and the House of Commons, and personally conducted the correspondence from London. "Had he charged a minimum of 6s.8d. every time he put pen to paper in their interests the cost of the legislation vastly would have exceeded the £44. 19s. 7d. (less £19 balance in hand) which was the total expense.... Neale, compelled at this time to make some absurdly modest charge, asks that five out of a sum of seven guineas be deducted from his account in favour of the Cotton Famine Relief Fund." (23)
On occasion Neale found himself in conflict with other leaders of the Cooperative Wholesale Society (CWS). In order to compete with other workshops the CWS began employing men on low wages. At the Cooperative Congress in 1870 Neale argued: "The noble idea of regenerating society from top to bottom, by an effort springing from the united exertions of those whom it consigns to the lowest rooms, has given way to the idea of obtaining good articles at the cheapest possible price." (24)
William Hewins has argued: "From this time until he succeeded to the Bisham Abbey estate (November 1885) he was a poor man; but failure seemed only to make him cling more tenaciously to the cause of co-operation, in which he saw the promise of great improvement in the condition of the working classes... He frequently acted as legal adviser to co-operative societies, which sought his aid in the revision of rules for registration. " (25)
In 1875 Neale succeeded William Nuttall as general secretary to the Co-operative Union. He received a salary of £250 a year for his official work, but acted gratuitously as legal adviser to the central board until 1878, when his remuneration was increased to £350 . Devoting himself entirely to his work he took lodgings in Manchester, visiting his family only once a week. His succession to the Bisham Abbey estate in November 1885 made no difference to his routine, and his tireless work for co-operation earned him the respect of all those involved in the movement. (26)
John Trevor, the minister of the Upper Brook Street Free Church in Manchester, and leader of the Labour Church, became friends with Neale in the 1880s and later wrote about him in his book, My Quest for God (1897): "One of the principal opponents, as of the kindest, was the warden of the church - perhaps the greatest man I have ever known - Edward Vansittart Neale. In the gentlest, yet warmest, manner the veteran co-operator - so near his end - told me I was wholly wrong. I feel the pathos of it now more than I did then. All of us put together did not seem worth the little finger of that man, who only sought to serve, and whose soul was the soul of a child... Listening Sunday after Sunday to sermons which must often have made him sad, though he never said a word, as one of the innumerable examples he gave of a simplicity and grace of character quite marvellous in a man whose opinions were so thoroughly thought out and so tenaciously held, and to which he sacrificed all his time and all his wealth. Indeed, I cannot imagine a character in which strength of purpose and childlikeness of heart could be more lightly developed and more perfectly combined." (27)
In 1888 Neale and Thomas Hughes published the important Manual for Co-operators. (28) Neale resigned the general secretaryship of the Co-operative Union on 11th September 1891, at the age of eighty-one. Even then he did not entirely give up work in the cause of co-operation. On the formation of the Christian Social Union he became a member of the Oxford University branch of that organization. (29)
Edward Vansittart Neale died at 6 Bentinck Street, Manchester Square, London, on 16th September 1892, and was buried in Bisham churchyard, Berkshire. He left effects valued at £14,080 10s, but the value of his estate was 'resworn' in May 1893 as £14,533.17s. (30)
Primary Sources
(1) William Hewins, Edward Vansittart Neale: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (1900)
Keenly interested in social reform, Neale had obtained a firm grasp of the theoretical bases of the systems of Fourier, St. Simon, and other writers. In 1850 his attention was attracted by the Working Tailors' Association, which was started in February of that year by the Society for Promoting Working Men's Associations. He became acquainted with the work of the Christian socialists, and, on the invitation of F. D. Maurice, joined the council of promoters... The efforts of the promoters had hitherto been directed to the establishment of self-governing workshops on the lines of the Paris Associations Ouvrières. Neale's accession to their ranks immediately had an important influence on the movement. He desired to try experiments in co-operation on a larger scale, and his wealth enabled him to realise his wish. He founded the first London co-operative stores in Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square. He established the Central Co-operative Agency, which, so far as the state of the law at that time admitted, anticipated the Co-operative Wholesale Society. Some of the promoters strongly disapproved of this experiment.
(2) David Simkin, Family History Research (30th January, 2025)
Edward Vansittart Neale's 5 children
1) Henrietta (born 15th July 1838 - died 1879) 1864 Married Henry Dickinson
2) Edward Ernest (born 23rd January 1840 - died 3rd Qtr of 1840)
3) Constance (born 3rd Qtr 1841 - died 16th February 1926, aged 84) - never married.
4) Henry James (born 30th November 1842 - died 15th July 1923) 1887 Married Florence (not Ellis as printed in the Dictionary of National Biography)
5) Edith (born 1st Qtr 1846 - died 1933, aged 87 - never married)
(3) John Trevor, My Quest for God (1897)
One of the principal opponents, as of the kindest, was the warden of the church - perhaps the greatest man I have ever known - Edward Vansittart Neale. In the gentlest, yet warmest, manner the veteran co-operator - so near his end - told me I was wholly wrong. I feel the pathos of it now more than I did then. All of us put together did not seem worth the little finger of that man, who only sought to serve, and whose soul was the soul of a child... Listening Sunday after Sunday to sermons which must often have made him sad, though he never said a word, as one of the innumerable examples he gave of a simplicity and grace of character quite marvellous in a man whose opinions were so thoroughly thought out and so tenaciously held, and to which he sacrificed all his time and all his wealth. Indeed, I cannot imagine a character in which strength of purpose and childlikeness of heart could be more lightly developed and more perfectly combined.
(4) Percy Redfern, The Story of the CWS: 1863-1913 (1913)
In this narrative we shall need to visit Rochdale more than once. Upon the solid basis of success which the Pioneers laid in 1844 the Rochdale corn mill was erected in 1850, and the experience gained through this federal mill largely contributed to the shaping of the Wholesale Society. But for the moment we must turn aside to discover another movement separated from pure Owenism. Removed from Rochdale and its weavers, this second development proceeded during the same period. In 1844 Frederick Denison Maurice was joined by Charles Kingsley, and within the next few years the adhesion of Ludlow, Mansfield, Hughes, Neale and others increased the brilliance and distinction of the little band of Christian Socialists. Nowadays there are rectors, deacons, and even bishops who would call themselves socialists simply; but in 1850 the term had a different meaning. Maurice and his friends felt it necessary to assert their position. Writing to Ludlow in January, 1850, Maurice declared that the term "Christian Socialism" would "commit us at once to the conflict we must engage in sooner or later with the unsocial Christians and the unchristian socialists." The idea of co-operation, which Owen had proclaimed, was now by most people despised and rejected. The Christian Socialists meant to glorify the Christian idea of brotherhood which they found at the core of it; while, with equal force, they declared themselves not Owenites....
It is natural and yet striking that these two widely-different movements of working-class co-operators and middle-class churchmen soon discovered each other. Early in 1850, following some conferences with London chartists and others, the Christian Socialists organised themselves in a Society for the Promotion of Working Men's Associations, with a Council of Promoters. When Edward Vansittart Neale joined the Council very shortly afterwards, the Northern co-operators were already in correspondence with the new society. He may have perceived some immediate possibilities of the Lancashire and Yorkshire beginning. At any rate, he brought new ideas into the Council, and, as Hughes said, soon "forced the running." At his own cost, and independently of the Council, he founded the Central Co-operative Agency....
Equally responsible with the Lancashire committee for the good work done were the friends in London, of whom the foremost was E. V. Neale. He it was who drafted the Bill, who drew up the petitions, who lobbied Lords and Commons, who personally conducted the correspondence from London. Had he charged a minimum of 6s.8d. every time he put pen to paper in their interests the cost of the legislation vastly would have exceeded the £44. 19s. 7d. (less £19 balance in hand) which was the total expense. It is pleasant to think of these two men, Cooper, the Rochdale worker, secularist, and ex-chartist, and Neale, the London barrister (27) and churchman, working together so steadily, each practically as personally disinterested as the other. In another matter also they both possessed one spirit. Notwithstanding the privations occasioned by the American Civil War, Cooper stood out uncompromisingly for the abolition of American slavery. And Neale, compelled at this time to make some absurdly modest charge, asks that five out of a sum of seven guineas be deducted from his account in favour of the Cotton Famine Relief Fund.
Student Activities
References
(1) Matthew Lee, Edward Vansittart Neale: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (26th May 2005)
(2) William Hewins, Edward Vansittart Neale: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (1900)
(3) John Ludlow, Economic Journal (December 1892)
(4) David Simkin, Family History Research (30th January, 2025)
(5) Bernard Reardon, Frederick Denison Maurice: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (25th May, 2006)
(6) Alan Wilkinson, Christian Socialism (1998) page 16
(7) Chris Bryant, Possible Dreams: A Personal History of the British Christian Socialist (1996) page 34
(8) Frederick Denison Maurice, letter to John Ludlow (January, 1850)
(9) Percy Redfern, The Story of the CWS: 1863-1913 (1913) page 10
(10) Alan M. Suggate, William Temple and Christian Social Ethics Today (1987) page 20
(11) Percy Redfern, The Story of the CWS: 1863-1913 (1913) page 11
(12) Chris Bryant, Possible Dreams: A Personal History of the British Christian Socialist (1996) page 53
(13) Matthew Lee, Edward Vansittart Neale: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (26th May 2005)
(14) Chris Bryant, Possible Dreams: A Personal History of the British Christian Socialist (1996) page 54
(15) Thomas Hughes, Economic Journal (January 1893)
(16) Gillian Darley, Octavia Hill: A Life (1990) page 41
(17) Caroline Southwood Hill, Household Words (17th May 1856)
(18) Gillian Darley, Octavia Hill: A Life (1990) page 51
(19) Alan Wilkinson, Christian Socialism (1998) page 19
(20) Percy Redfern, The Story of the CWS: 1863-1913 (1913) page 28
(21) Chris Bryant, Possible Dreams: A Personal History of the British Christian Socialist (1996) page 57
(22) Edward Vansittart Neale, Economic Journal (December 1892)
(23) Percy Redfern, The Story of the CWS: 1863-1913 (1913) page 27
(24) Philip N. Backstrom, Christian Socialism and Cooperation in Victorian England (1974) page 93
(25) William Hewins, Edward Vansittart Neale: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (1900)
(26) Matthew Lee, Edward Vansittart Neale: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (26th May 2005)
(27) John Trevor, My Quest for God (1897) pages 245-246
(28) Chris Bryant, Possible Dreams: A Personal History of the British Christian Socialist (1996) page 69
(29) William Hewins, Edward Vansittart Neale: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (1900)
(30) David Simkin, Family History Research (30th January, 2025)