Politics for the People
In April 1849, Charles Kingsley wrote to his wife about the plan for the Christian Socialist movement to publish a political newspaper. "I really cannot go home this afternoon. I have spent it with Archdeacon Hare, and Parker, starting a new periodical, a Penny People's Friend, in which Maurice, Hare, Ludlow, Mansfield, and I are going to set to work to supply the place of the defunct Saturday Magazine. I send you my first placard. Maurice is delighted with it. I cannot tell you the interest which it has excited with everyone who has seen it.... I have got already £2.10.0 towards bringing out more, and Maurice is subscription hunting for me." (1)
The following month Charles Kingsley, Frederick Denison Maurice, Thomas Hughes, Charles Blachford Mansfield and John Ludlow began publishing a penny journal, Politics for the People, and this was considered the starting-point of the Christian Socialist movement. It was "sympathetic to the poor and based upon the acknowledgment that God rules in human society... They addressed themselves to workmen. They confessed that they were not workmen, but asked for workmen's help in bridging the gulf that divided them". (2)
The journal was selling at about 2,000 copies an edition. (3) Charles Kingsley wrote several articles for the journal. He took the signature ‘Parson Lot,' on account of a discussion with his friends, in which, being in a minority of one, he had said that he felt like Lot, "when he seemed as one that mocked to his sons-in-law." (4) Charles Blachford Mansfield adopted the pseudonym Will Willow-wren. Mansfield agreed with other members of the group that the essays were designed to help the working man escape from "dull bricks and mortar and the ugly colourless things which fill the workshop and the factory." (5)
Charles Kingsley made it clear he was a supporter of Chartism: "My only quarrel with the Charter is, that it does not go far enough... Instead of being a book to keep the poor in order, it (the Bible) is a book, from beginning to end, written to keep the rich in order. It is our fault. We have used the Bible as if it was a mere special constable's handbook - an opium-dose for keeping beasts of burden patient while they were being over-loaded." (6)
Charles Blachford Mansfield's theology was based more on a rationalist concept of a Divine Idea than on a clear Christian faith. When his father heard of his involvement in the Christian Socialist movement he immediately cut his allowance, and Mansfield adopted the vegetarian diet and simple lifestyle for which he became renowned. However, it had a serious impact on his ability to finance the group's publishing ventures. (7)
During the summer of 1848, Charles Blachford Mansfield, Charles Kingsley, Thomas Hughes and John Ludlow would have editorial meetings at the house of Frederick Denison Maurice. Important socialists of the day, including Robert Owen, the owner of the New Lanark Mills and Thomas Cooper, one of the leaders of the Chartist movement, sometimes took part in these discussions. (8)
Politics for the People was an expensive journal to produce and by July 1848, after seventeen editions, the decision was taken to stop publication. However, the group continued to meet, generally in Ludlow's chambers, and a result of their discussions was the foundation of a night school in Little Ormond Yard. (9)
Primary Sources
(1) The Daily News (1st April 1850)
The case of the working tailors... is... to some extent, a remedial one; provided, however, the sufferers do not allow themselves to fall into the hands of persons who seek to turn their case into an illustration that humanity and political economy are irreconcilable, and to erect on their unfortunate workshops of Christian Socialism, as Mr Maurice, of King's College, in the Strand, is pleased to term his hostility to the principle of commercial competition, about which he seems to know as much as it is to be presumed he does of single stitch. Already there are attempts to connect the working tailors' case with the teaching of the Communist doctrine .
(3) 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. (page 10)