The Death of Christian Britain
The Death of Christian Britain
The Death of Christian Britain
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— Personal Testimony and Religion 1800–1950 —<br />
And when we were old enough we had to go to church with him<br />
[father] on a Sunday morning. We used to walk four miles. We were<br />
all brought up, right from children, to go to Sunday school, and you<br />
never forget it, no. ... We weren’t allowed to gallivant about on a<br />
Sunday, you know. Oh no. You had to get a book and sit. Oh there<br />
was nothing done on a Sunday. 113<br />
In Roman Catholic communities, chapelgoing by the late nineteenth<br />
century was very strong. Arthur Turner from Hankey Park in Manchester<br />
recalled: ‘Well, nearly everybody in street went to church Sundays you<br />
know. Oh aye, nearly all Catholics near there.’ 114 William Pugh recalled<br />
life in a North Wales farming valley where virtually every living soul<br />
was shackled to the chapel. On Sundays, with a three mile walk to chapel,<br />
his sixty-nine-year-old grandfather went in the morning, both his parents<br />
went morning and evening, and William went three times (attending the<br />
Sunday school in the afternoon). His father led the chapel singing, there<br />
was family worship morning and night during the week conducted by his<br />
grandfather, and grace was said before all meals. For household reading<br />
the family took the evangelical newspaper <strong>The</strong> Banner and, though mother<br />
was too busy ‘from rise to bedtime’ to read, ‘my father and grandfather<br />
used to sit by the fire and read. And they’d read biographies. <strong>The</strong> stories<br />
<strong>of</strong> people.’ 115<br />
Between the 1880s and 1940s, many homes had important religious artefacts.<br />
<strong>The</strong> family Bible was common, and multiple Bibles for different<br />
members <strong>of</strong> the family were usual in better-<strong>of</strong>f families. Households had<br />
some special books brought out on Sundays ‘as a treat’: ‘the very big Bible<br />
with the pictures in. Oh David, the very big giant with blood gushing out<br />
<strong>of</strong> his forehead where the stone had hit him, you know, and it was marvellous.<br />
I loved that.’ 116 Magazines <strong>of</strong> a religious, ‘improving’ and domestic<br />
nature were widespread: <strong>The</strong> <strong>Christian</strong> Herald, Home Journal, Home<br />
Words, Home Notes, Good Words, <strong>The</strong> Penny Illustrated, the Boy’s Own<br />
and Girl’s Own Papers. Dora Bucknell born in 1882 in Hull recalled<br />
Horner’s Penny Stories: ‘<strong>The</strong>y were very sentimental. Very sentimental sort<br />
<strong>of</strong> love stories, and a bit <strong>of</strong> religion in them as well, these books had. I<br />
used to skip the religion and the romantic bits and get on with the story<br />
[laughter].’ 117 Asked if there were any books in her household, a woman<br />
from a very poor family in Preston recalled: ‘We had our books. We got<br />
a Sunday school prize, you see, and we had to read them and the first book<br />
I ever remember reading was Jessica’s First Prayer, or something like that.<br />
I had that book for years.’ 118 For books, Dickens, Scott and Thackeray,<br />
usually recited as a threesome, clearly outnumbered the rest in the British<br />
household <strong>of</strong> 1900. Decoration was also important. Whilst Catholic and<br />
some Anglican homes displayed crucifixes, many Nonconformist homes<br />
had religious pictures. Mr Wash, born 1899 in Halstead in Essex, lived in<br />
141