Civic Gospel

George Dawson led the call for radical reform of Birmingham from the pulpit

The Civic Gospel was a philosophy of municipal activism that emerged in Birmingham, England in the mid-19th century. Tracing its origins to the teaching of independent Non-conformist preacher George Dawson,^[1] who declared that "a town is a solemn organism through which shall flow, and in which shall be shaped, all the highest, loftiest and truest ends of man's moral nature",^[2] it reached its culmination in the mayoralty of Joseph Chamberlain between 1873 and 1876.^[3] After Dawson's death in 1876 it was the Congregationalist pastor R. W. Dale who took on the role as the movement's leading non-conformist spokesman.^[4] Other major proponents included the Baptist Charles Vince and the Unitarian H. W. Crosskey.^[5]

During its early years in the 1850s and 1860s the concept of the Civic Gospel combined Dawson's liberal theology with a social and political vision of civic brotherhood that saw a city as having a communal interest that transcended those of its constituent social classes and other groupings.^[6] Under Dale it evolved into a more systematic and thorough philosophy, less dependent on Dawson's idiosyncratic theology.^[7] In its mature form its position was essentially that a city was a closer and more significant form of community than a nation or a religion, and thus it was a municipality, more than parliament or the church, that had most to contribute to the health, welfare and fairness of urban society.^[8]

Dawson's congregation included some of the most influential cultural and political leaders of Victorian Birmingham^[9] and the effect of the Civic Gospel was to transform Birmingham from the inactive and backward municipal borough that had emerged from the Municipal Reform Act of 1835, into a model of progressive, enlightened and efficient local government.^[10]

Chamberlain's reforms were influential on Beatrice Webb, one of the leaders of the Fabian movement, which laid the foundations of the Labour Party in the United Kingdom.

Beatrice Webb's husband, Sidney Webb, wrote in Socialism in England, published in the 1890s:

It is not only in matters of sanitation that this 'Municipal Socialism' is progressing. Nearly half the consumers of the Kingdom already consume gas made by themselves as citizens collectively, in 168 different localities, as many as 14 local authorities obtained the power to borrow money to engage in the gas industry in a single year. Water supply is rapidly coming to be universally a matter of public provision, no fewer than 71 separate governing bodies obtaining loans for this purpose in the year 1885-86 alone. The prevailing tendency is for the municipalities to absorb also the tramway industry, 31 localities already owning their own lines, comprising a quarter of the mileage in the Kingdom.

References

1. Briggs 1963, p. 195
2. Briggs 1963, p. 196
3. Briggs 1963, p. 197
4. Parsons 1988, p. 48
5. Parsons 1988, p. 47
6. Parsons 1988, p. 47
7. Parsons 1988, pp. 47-48
8. Parsons 1988, p. 48
9. Parsons 1988, p. 47
10. Parsons 1988, pp. 46-47

Bibliography

• Briggs, Asa (1963), "Birmingham: The Making of a Civic Gospel", Victorian Cities, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press (published 1965), pp. 184–240, ISBN 0-520-07922-1, retrieved 2011-07-10
• Parsons, Gerald (1988), "Social Control to Social Gospel: Victorian Christian Social Attitudes", Religion in Victorian Britain: Controversies, Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 39–62, ISBN 0719025133, retrieved 2014-10-14