The Death of Christian Britain
The Death of Christian Britain
The Death of Christian Britain
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— <strong>The</strong> Salvation Economy —<br />
brought the making <strong>of</strong> music within the reach <strong>of</strong> not only middle-class<br />
families but, by the 1850s and 1860s, many working-class communities as<br />
well. 68 From the 1850s, and more especially the 1870s, came the dramatic<br />
rise <strong>of</strong> the brass band, the vast bulk <strong>of</strong> which used predominantly religious<br />
and temperance music. Brass and silver bands were initially associated with<br />
temperance organisations, but by the 1880s many congregations, especially<br />
Nonconformist ones, had bands playing as part <strong>of</strong> worship. <strong>The</strong>se bands<br />
together with the bands <strong>of</strong> the Salvation Army, factories and town councils<br />
took their music to the streets, public parks and festive occasions,<br />
especially on Saturdays and weekday evenings. Bands toured working-class<br />
areas, standing on street corners, as a symbolic evangelisation, playing overwhelmingly<br />
religious and temperance tunes which remained from the 1880s<br />
to the 1920s a prominent feature <strong>of</strong> the popular culture <strong>of</strong> working-class<br />
communities. 69<br />
Religious music was a vital part <strong>of</strong> the growing popularity <strong>of</strong> music in<br />
Victorian and Edwardian popular culture. Music symbolised so much <strong>of</strong><br />
the character <strong>of</strong> the evangelical discursive culture. It was loud, powerful<br />
(and, as we shall see in a later chapter, masculine), uncompromising in its<br />
auditory symbolism <strong>of</strong> battle with evil (especially drink), richly militaristic,<br />
and at the same time resolutely communal in its role in streets and bandstands<br />
<strong>of</strong> public parks. It was a clarion call which reminded the hearer<br />
unequivocally <strong>of</strong> the complex discourses on religiosity which we explore<br />
in the next two chapters. And above all it bred esprit de corps in the<br />
evangelical ranks.<br />
Music also symbolised something greater about the salvation industry:<br />
its optimism. <strong>The</strong> religious magazines <strong>of</strong> the nineteenth century held<br />
pr<strong>of</strong>oundly optimistic general views <strong>of</strong> ‘progress’. Optimism was doctrine:<br />
‘How rapid is the progress <strong>of</strong> time! How fast eternity approaches! How<br />
soon will the period arrive when our opportunities for religious improvement<br />
in this state will be for ever gone! . . . During the past year, it has<br />
pleased the Sovereign Disposer <strong>of</strong> all events, to continue to us the outward<br />
means <strong>of</strong> grace.’ 70 In 1835, the Congregationalist minister in Pentonville,<br />
John Blackburn, told the London Missionary Society that moral evils had<br />
declined over the previous hundred years and that ‘a national reformation’<br />
was being achieved by evangelical action. Violence and venality had<br />
decreased, sales <strong>of</strong> Bibles were booming, and ‘<strong>The</strong> social vices <strong>of</strong> pr<strong>of</strong>ane<br />
swearing – Sabbath breaking – drunkenness – and <strong>of</strong> brutality, as once<br />
displayed in popular sports and pastimes; are, in my judgement, greatly<br />
decreased.’ 71 In 1867, the Wesleyan <strong>Christian</strong> Miscellany summed up the<br />
previous thirty years:<br />
Drunkenness has decidedly decreased, and habits <strong>of</strong> sobriety and<br />
moderation have become much more general among all classes. Duelling<br />
is abolished. <strong>The</strong>re is far less <strong>of</strong> horrid pr<strong>of</strong>anity and blasphemy.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re are few open exhibitions <strong>of</strong> brutal passion and disgusting vice.<br />
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