A secularizing society? Case studies of English northern industrial towns in the 1950s

The religious historiography of Britain during the 1950s remains underdeveloped. Such scholarship as there is has drawn disproportionately upon national church statistics and opinion polls. In this article, the findings of three contemporaneous studies of religion in northern industrial towns are presented: Rawmarsh and Scunthorpe (1954–6), Billingham (1957–9), and Bolton (1960). Sundry indicators are illuminated, including churchgoing and rites of passage. No support is found for the claim that the 1950s were a decade of ‘religious revival’. Mainstream Protestantism was at an increasingly low ebb, and Catholicism was soon to feel the chill winds of secularization also.