Recreating the Godly Commonwealth: Urban Mission and Social Reform

Abstract

Chapter Seven examines the social activism of the dissenting churches both within Scotland’s cities and in reform societies, in particular focusing on how Thomas Chalmers’ ideal of the godly commonwealth was reinterpreted in its new voluntary context, following the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1845. That Act removed an important pillar of the Church of Scotland’s control over Scottish society and placed Scotland’s dissenters on an equal footing with the Establishment, providing an opportunity for co-operation – and competition – on social issues, in particular urban evangelisation. However, the results were decidedly mixed. Did the increasingly urban middle-class character of the Free Church, traditionally associated with Scotland’s older dissenting churches and at odds with the new church’s claim to represent all Scots, hamper Chalmers’ aim to instil the godly commonwealth ideal throughout Scotland and create a national church that appealed to all classes? By assessing the attempts to recreate Chalmers’ dream of a church-led urban mission and the co-operative efforts made by dissenters on social issues such as housing, this chapter examines the attempts of the dissenting churches to reclaim Scotland’s ‘sunken’ masses, and questions whether a dissenting social vision was possible in the post-godly commonwealth period of the mid-nineteenth century.