Stewart Headlam
Encyclopedia
Stewart Duckworth Headlam (January 12, 1847 – November 18, 1924) was a priest
of the Church of England
who was involved in frequent controversy in the final decades of the nineteenth century. Headlam was a pioneer and publicist of Christian socialism
, on which he wrote a pamphlet for the Fabian Society
. He is noted for his role as the founder and warden of the Guild of St. Matthew and for helping bail Oscar Wilde
out of prison at the time of his trials.
, Liverpool
and educated at Eton College
and Trinity College, Cambridge
.
After ordination he was curate
of St John's Church in Drury Lane
in central London. The vicar, Richard Graham Maul, admired Headlam's work and shared his Christian Socialist principles. But when Headlam insisted on preaching the possibility of universal salvation, Maul became alarmed and dismissed him. John Jackson, the evangelical Bishop of London, was even more troubled by Headlam's views than Maul, and there followed a series of clashes between the bishop and the wayward curate that became personalised and would eventually leave Headlam without a parish
and unable to officiate at services.
In 1873, after leaving St. John's, Headlam received a curacy from Septimus Hansard, the rector of St Matthew's Church in Bethnal Green
, in London's East End, where poverty was the intrusive fact of social life. His response, in the form of a synthesis of ideas going back a generation to the Oxford Movement
with socialist thinking, was startling although not entirely original. He attributed it in part to Charles Kingsley, but especially to F. D. Maurice, whose incarnational theology he embraced while a student at Cambridge University. He added to the ideas of these early Christian Socialists a profound commitment to the creeds and to sacramental worship which he drew from the Anglo-Catholic ritualists whose work in the London slums he deeply admired. He was also a harsh critic of evangelicalism, condemning it as individualistic and otherworldly. He befriended working-class secularists and their leader, Charles Bradlaugh
, even as he fought secularism
itself. He also championed the arts in a broad sense, including the theatre, at a time when many clergy regarded it as morally suspect, and more scandalous still, the music hall, where alcoholic beverages were sold and ballerinas danced in flesh-colored tights. Politically, from the time he left Cambridge, Headlam regarded himself as a socialist of sorts. While he was in Bethnal Green his politics took a more radical turn, and in the years that followed he joined his socialism to an enthusiastic support for Henry George's 'single tax'. Yet because of his belief in individual liberty and his hostility to political sectarianism, he remained a member of the Liberal Party. These ideas formed a heady mixture and his preaching of it, in a form often directed frankly against 'the rich', kept open the quarrel with Bishop Jackson and would inspire yet another with Jackson's successor, Frederick Temple
.
In 1877 he founded the Guild of St Matthew in Bethnal Green as a parish communicants' society. After he left St. Matthew's, the guild did not disband, becoming instead a fellowship of clergy and laity who shared Headlam's sacramental radicalism. It has been called the first modern socialist society in England. At its height in 1895, it had 364 members of whom 99 were Anglican clergy. Its principal voice was a monthly newspaper, The Church Reformer, that Headlam published from 1884 to 1895, typically combining social and political comment with reflections on the theatre and the dance. The guild attracted a significant number of followers who went on to be important church figures, among them James Adderley, Percy Dearmer, Charles Marson, Conrad Noel, and Frank Weston.
Headlam was dismissed from St. Matthew's, Bethnal Green by his rector in 1878 after getting into in an angry dispute with Bishop Jackson over the propriety of the music hall. Unrepentant, almost as soon as he obtained another curacy, this one at St. Thomas', Charterhouse, Headlam founded the Church and Stage Guild to defend the right of churchgoers to enjoy the theatre as either performers or spectators. When the vicar, John Rodgers, died at the end of 1880, Headlam was dismissed, as was customary. He was soon hired by his friend, Henry David Nihill, the ritualist vicar of St. Michael's, Shoreditch. But Headlam's radical politics and his defense of the right of atheists like Bradlaugh to serve in the House of Commons, so distressed conservative parishioners that Nihill was forced to let him go in December 1882. A trial curacy in 1884 at St. George's, Botolph ended when Headlam spoke at a rally where he called for the abolition of the House of Lords. It was then, when he asked Bishop Jackson for a general license to officiate in the diocese, that Jackson refused.
Jackson died on 6 January 1885, but this did not end Headlam's woes. Jackson's successor was Frederick Temple, the broad church bishop of Exeter. As a young man Temple had contributed to Essays and Reviews the book that introduced biblical criticism to the British general public, and Headlam hoped that the new liberal-minded prelate would reverse Jackson's decision. But Temple was as opposed to the music hall as Jackson had been, if not more so. After a tense meeting with the Church and Stage Guild council, Temple, like Jackson, refused to license Headlam. "The Bishop of London," he wrote, "regrets that Mr. Stewart D. Headlam appears to be doing serious mischief, and holding this opinion, the Bishop is not able to give Mr. Headlam facilities for doing more mischief."
In December 1886, Headlam joined the Fabian Society and for several years served on the Fabian executive committee. In 1888, he and Annie Besant
were elected to the London School Board as members of Progressive Party, a broad coalition of London liberals, radicals, and socialists. In 1902 the Conservative government abolished school boards across England and transferred their responsibilities to the county councils. Although this was a reform designed in large part by his fellow Fabian, Sidney Webb, and endorsed by the Fabian Society, Headlam, like many others on the Left, denounced it as undemocratic. The new Education Act spared the London School Board, but only temporarily. It too was abolished in 1904. And despite his expectation that he would be able run as a Progressive candidate for the London County Council that year and be given a seat on the education committee, the Progressives did not nominate him, perhaps because of pressure from Webb and his allies. It was not until 1907 that he was elected to the Council where he continued to be a tireless advocate for working-class children and their teachers. In the same year he published The Socialist's Church. He continued as a political figure for the rest of his life.
During the 1890s Headlam became well-known to some of the Rhymers' Club
group of poets. In 1906 he launched the Anti-Puritan League, an ephemeral group that numbered among its members Cecil Chesterton and G. K. Chesterton. Although he did not defend Oscar Wilde's sexual conduct, he put up half of the £5000 bail
money set for him when he was remanded for criminal trial. At this time Wilde was not known to him personally. Later in 1897 Wilde came to Headlam's house in Upper Bedford Place, Bloomsbury
on his way from Pentonville
Prison, from where he was released, to the boat train he caught before leaving the country never to return.
Priest
A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...
of the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
who was involved in frequent controversy in the final decades of the nineteenth century. Headlam was a pioneer and publicist of Christian socialism
Christian socialism
Christian socialism generally refers to those on the Christian left whose politics are both Christian and socialist and who see these two philosophies as being interrelated. This category can include Liberation theology and the doctrine of the social gospel...
, on which he wrote a pamphlet for the Fabian Society
Fabian Society
The Fabian Society is a British socialist movement, whose purpose is to advance the principles of democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist, rather than revolutionary, means. It is best known for its initial ground-breaking work beginning late in the 19th century and continuing up to World...
. He is noted for his role as the founder and warden of the Guild of St. Matthew and for helping bail Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
out of prison at the time of his trials.
Life
He was born at WavertreeWavertree
Wavertree is an area of Liverpool, in Merseyside, England, and is a Liverpool City Council ward. It is bordered by a number of districts to the south and east of Liverpool city centre from Toxteth, Edge Hill, Fairfield, Old Swan, Childwall and Mossley Hill....
, Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
and educated at Eton College
Eton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....
and Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...
.
After ordination he was curate
Curate
A curate is a person who is invested with the care or cure of souls of a parish. In this sense "curate" correctly means a parish priest but in English-speaking countries a curate is an assistant to the parish priest...
of St John's Church in Drury Lane
Drury Lane
Drury Lane is a street on the eastern boundary of the Covent Garden area of London, running between Aldwych and High Holborn. The northern part is in the borough of Camden and the southern part in the City of Westminster....
in central London. The vicar, Richard Graham Maul, admired Headlam's work and shared his Christian Socialist principles. But when Headlam insisted on preaching the possibility of universal salvation, Maul became alarmed and dismissed him. John Jackson, the evangelical Bishop of London, was even more troubled by Headlam's views than Maul, and there followed a series of clashes between the bishop and the wayward curate that became personalised and would eventually leave Headlam without a parish
Parish
A parish is a territorial unit historically under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of one parish priest, who might be assisted in his pastoral duties by a curate or curates - also priests but not the parish priest - from a more or less central parish church with its associated organization...
and unable to officiate at services.
In 1873, after leaving St. John's, Headlam received a curacy from Septimus Hansard, the rector of St Matthew's Church in Bethnal Green
Bethnal Green
Bethnal Green is a district of the East End of London, England and part of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, with the far northern parts falling within the London Borough of Hackney. Located northeast of Charing Cross, it was historically an agrarian hamlet in the ancient parish of Stepney,...
, in London's East End, where poverty was the intrusive fact of social life. His response, in the form of a synthesis of ideas going back a generation to the Oxford Movement
Oxford Movement
The Oxford Movement was a movement of High Church Anglicans, eventually developing into Anglo-Catholicism. The movement, whose members were often associated with the University of Oxford, argued for the reinstatement of lost Christian traditions of faith and their inclusion into Anglican liturgy...
with socialist thinking, was startling although not entirely original. He attributed it in part to Charles Kingsley, but especially to F. D. Maurice, whose incarnational theology he embraced while a student at Cambridge University. He added to the ideas of these early Christian Socialists a profound commitment to the creeds and to sacramental worship which he drew from the Anglo-Catholic ritualists whose work in the London slums he deeply admired. He was also a harsh critic of evangelicalism, condemning it as individualistic and otherworldly. He befriended working-class secularists and their leader, Charles Bradlaugh
Charles Bradlaugh
Charles Bradlaugh was a political activist and one of the most famous English atheists of the 19th century. He founded the National Secular Society in 1866.-Early life:...
, even as he fought secularism
Secularism
Secularism is the principle of separation between government institutions and the persons mandated to represent the State from religious institutions and religious dignitaries...
itself. He also championed the arts in a broad sense, including the theatre, at a time when many clergy regarded it as morally suspect, and more scandalous still, the music hall, where alcoholic beverages were sold and ballerinas danced in flesh-colored tights. Politically, from the time he left Cambridge, Headlam regarded himself as a socialist of sorts. While he was in Bethnal Green his politics took a more radical turn, and in the years that followed he joined his socialism to an enthusiastic support for Henry George's 'single tax'. Yet because of his belief in individual liberty and his hostility to political sectarianism, he remained a member of the Liberal Party. These ideas formed a heady mixture and his preaching of it, in a form often directed frankly against 'the rich', kept open the quarrel with Bishop Jackson and would inspire yet another with Jackson's successor, Frederick Temple
Frederick Temple
Frederick Temple was an English academic, teacher, churchman and Archbishop of Canterbury from 1896 until his death.-Early life:...
.
In 1877 he founded the Guild of St Matthew in Bethnal Green as a parish communicants' society. After he left St. Matthew's, the guild did not disband, becoming instead a fellowship of clergy and laity who shared Headlam's sacramental radicalism. It has been called the first modern socialist society in England. At its height in 1895, it had 364 members of whom 99 were Anglican clergy. Its principal voice was a monthly newspaper, The Church Reformer, that Headlam published from 1884 to 1895, typically combining social and political comment with reflections on the theatre and the dance. The guild attracted a significant number of followers who went on to be important church figures, among them James Adderley, Percy Dearmer, Charles Marson, Conrad Noel, and Frank Weston.
Headlam was dismissed from St. Matthew's, Bethnal Green by his rector in 1878 after getting into in an angry dispute with Bishop Jackson over the propriety of the music hall. Unrepentant, almost as soon as he obtained another curacy, this one at St. Thomas', Charterhouse, Headlam founded the Church and Stage Guild to defend the right of churchgoers to enjoy the theatre as either performers or spectators. When the vicar, John Rodgers, died at the end of 1880, Headlam was dismissed, as was customary. He was soon hired by his friend, Henry David Nihill, the ritualist vicar of St. Michael's, Shoreditch. But Headlam's radical politics and his defense of the right of atheists like Bradlaugh to serve in the House of Commons, so distressed conservative parishioners that Nihill was forced to let him go in December 1882. A trial curacy in 1884 at St. George's, Botolph ended when Headlam spoke at a rally where he called for the abolition of the House of Lords. It was then, when he asked Bishop Jackson for a general license to officiate in the diocese, that Jackson refused.
Jackson died on 6 January 1885, but this did not end Headlam's woes. Jackson's successor was Frederick Temple, the broad church bishop of Exeter. As a young man Temple had contributed to Essays and Reviews the book that introduced biblical criticism to the British general public, and Headlam hoped that the new liberal-minded prelate would reverse Jackson's decision. But Temple was as opposed to the music hall as Jackson had been, if not more so. After a tense meeting with the Church and Stage Guild council, Temple, like Jackson, refused to license Headlam. "The Bishop of London," he wrote, "regrets that Mr. Stewart D. Headlam appears to be doing serious mischief, and holding this opinion, the Bishop is not able to give Mr. Headlam facilities for doing more mischief."
In December 1886, Headlam joined the Fabian Society and for several years served on the Fabian executive committee. In 1888, he and Annie Besant
Annie Besant
Annie Besant was a prominent British Theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator and supporter of Irish and Indian self rule.She was married at 19 to Frank Besant but separated from him over religious differences. She then became a prominent speaker for the National Secular Society ...
were elected to the London School Board as members of Progressive Party, a broad coalition of London liberals, radicals, and socialists. In 1902 the Conservative government abolished school boards across England and transferred their responsibilities to the county councils. Although this was a reform designed in large part by his fellow Fabian, Sidney Webb, and endorsed by the Fabian Society, Headlam, like many others on the Left, denounced it as undemocratic. The new Education Act spared the London School Board, but only temporarily. It too was abolished in 1904. And despite his expectation that he would be able run as a Progressive candidate for the London County Council that year and be given a seat on the education committee, the Progressives did not nominate him, perhaps because of pressure from Webb and his allies. It was not until 1907 that he was elected to the Council where he continued to be a tireless advocate for working-class children and their teachers. In the same year he published The Socialist's Church. He continued as a political figure for the rest of his life.
During the 1890s Headlam became well-known to some of the Rhymers' Club
Rhymers' Club
The Rhymers' Club was a group of London-based poets, founded in 1890 by W. B. Yeats and Ernest Rhys. Originally not much more than a dining club, it produced anthologies of poetry in 1892 and 1894...
group of poets. In 1906 he launched the Anti-Puritan League, an ephemeral group that numbered among its members Cecil Chesterton and G. K. Chesterton. Although he did not defend Oscar Wilde's sexual conduct, he put up half of the £5000 bail
Bail
Traditionally, bail is some form of property deposited or pledged to a court to persuade it to release a suspect from jail, on the understanding that the suspect will return for trial or forfeit the bail...
money set for him when he was remanded for criminal trial. At this time Wilde was not known to him personally. Later in 1897 Wilde came to Headlam's house in Upper Bedford Place, Bloomsbury
Bloomsbury
-Places:* Bloomsbury is an area in central London.* Bloomsbury , related local government unit* Bloomsbury, New Jersey, New Jersey, USA* Bloomsbury , listed on the NRHP in Maryland...
on his way from Pentonville
Pentonville (HM Prison)
HM Prison Pentonville is a Category B/C men's prison, operated by Her Majesty's Prison Service. Pentonville Prison is not actually within Pentonville itself, but is located further north, on the Caledonian Road in the Barnsbury area of the London Borough of Islington, in inner-North London,...
Prison, from where he was released, to the boat train he caught before leaving the country never to return.