‘Building the New City of God’: The Role of Women in John Clifford's Vision for a Christian Society

Abstract

ABSTRACTJohn Clifford was a Baptist pastor and Christian socialist in London from 1858 to 1923. A strong advocate for social reform, throughout his ministry, he supported the inclusion of women in leadership roles in the Church, and he was a strong advocate for female suffrage. This article suggests that his views on the roles of women were grounded in early life experiences, and explores the ways that throughout his ministry he promoted the view that women had an essential part of play in building the kingdom of God.KEYWORDS: John CliffordsuffrageWestbourne ParkMillicent FawcettSarah Bonwick Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.Notes1 The British Congregationalist, 17August 1911 as cited in H. Edgar Bonsall and Edwin H Robertson, The Dream of an Ideal City: Westbourne Park 1877–1977 (York: William Sessions Ltd, The Ebor Press, 1978), 18–20.2 For more on John Clifford’s approach to the Social Gospel see, David M. Thompson, “John Clifford’s Social Gospel,” Baptist Quarterly 31, no. 5 (1986): 199–217 and J. H. Y. Briggs, The English Baptists of the Nineteenth Century (Didcot: The Baptist Historical Society, 1994), 327ff.3 John Clifford, The New City of God Or The Primitive Christian Faith As A Social Gospel, An Address from the chair of the Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland at the Autumnal Assembly in Huddersfield, October 3rd, 1888 (London: Alexander and Shepheard, 1888), 5.4 Clifford, The New City of God, 4.5 Ibid., 9.6 Ibid., 24.7 Sir James Marchant, Dr. John Clifford, C.H. Life, Letters and Reminiscences (London: Cassell and Company, 1924), 9.8 Ibid., 8.9 Ibid., 8.10 Ibid., 12.11 Ibid., 13.12 He obtained a BA, BSC (Logic and Moral Philosophy, Geology, and Palaeontology), MA (coming first in his year), LLB (Principles of Legislation), H. Edgar Bonsall in collaboration with Robertson, The Dream of An Ideal City, 7; Marchant, Dr. John Clifford, C.H. Life, Letters and Reminiscences, 14.13 Richard Pike was the son of the first secretary of the General Baptist Missionary Society. Charles T. Bateman, John Clifford, Free Church Leader and Preacher (London: National Council of the Evangelical Free Churches, 1904), 19.14 He also had three uncles who were Baptist ministers: Elam, Silas and John Stenton. Marchant, Dr. John Clifford, C.H. Life, Letters and Reminiscences, 13.15 Ibid., 13.16 Ibid., 14.17 Ibid., 12.18 Ibid., 31–32.19 Ibid., 38.20 Ibid., 39.21 They married at East Street Baptist Church in Southampton in 1862. They had five children who lived to adulthood: three sons and two daughters, Kate and Edith. Another daughter, Grace, died at the age of three. Marchant, Dr. John Clifford, C.H. Life, Letters and Reminiscences, 175.22 “The Ruling Sex,” in The General Baptist Magazine for 1877, ed. John Clifford, 79th Volume (London: E Marlborough and Company), 384. The words were taken from Tennyson's poem “Perfect Unity”.23 “A Woman on the Fluent Verbosity of Men,” The General Baptist Magazine (1877): 259.24 John Compston (1828–1889) was the second son of the congregational minister, Rev Samuel Compston. He was born at Smallbridge, Rochdale. He served as a Baptist minister at Inskip, Bramley, Barnsley, Leeds and Taunton. He helped edit several school hymn books, but was best known for temperance hymns and songs of which he wrote about twenty. John Julian, A Dictionary of Hymnology (London: John Murray, 1891), 255. For his ministry in Taunton see, W. MacDonald Wigfield, A Short History of the Baptist Churches at Isle Abbots 1801–1968 and Fivehead 1868–1968 (privately published for the centenary of Fivehead Baptist Church, 1968), 13, https://fiveheadbaptist.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/History-of-Fivehead-Baptist-Church.pdf.25 J. Compston, “The New School Hymnal: Conversation in a Pastor’s Family,” The General Baptist Magazine for 1881, ed. John Clifford (London: E Marlborough & Co, 1881), 138.26 Since the lease on Praed Street had not run out, for a time the two chapels functioned as one. W. S. Stroud, “John Clifford,” Baptist Quarterly 6, no. 7 (1933): 304.27 H. Edgar Bonsall in collaboration with Robertson, The Dream of An Ideal City, 23–7.28 For example, Bloomsbury Baptist Church also had a Gymnastics Society. Faith Bowers, A Bold Experiment: The Story of Bloomsbury Chapel and Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church 1848–1999 (London: Bloomsbury Baptist Church, 1999), 213.29 Westbourne Park Church Record (WPCR) November (1892), 166.30 WPCR November (1892), 166–7. For more on Farningham see, Linda Wilson, Marianne Farningham: A Plain Woman Worker (Milton Keynes: Paternoster Press, 2007).31 WPCR (1910), 135.32 The other book commented on by Clifford was a children’s book by Miss Isabel Hornibrook, Jujube; a Story of Humanity (1887).33 WPCR (1893), 46.34 WPCR (1893), 87.35 Charles H.H. Parry, Sir Robert Ball, Sir Fredrick Bridge, Alfred Fison, Phillip H. Wicksteed, G.K. Chesterton, and Lady Hamilton were some of those invited to give lectures.36 Stawell studied, and later taught, classics at Newnham College in Cambridge. See, Glenda Slugs, “From F. Melian Stawell to E. Greene Balch: International and Internationalist Thinking at the Gender Margins, 1919–1947,” in Women's International Thought: A New History, ed. Katharina Rietzler and Patricia Owens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 223–43.37 In 1891, the Monthly Record of the Church reported that ‘Mrs Bonwick's paper on George Eliot possessed great literary merit’. For more on Bonwick see, Colin A. Cartwright, “Sarah Bonwick (1849–1924), the Baptist Women's League and the Women's Suffrage Movement in England,” Baptist Quarterly 53, no. 2 (2022): 66–80.38 WPCR (1893), 77–8.39 WPCR (1890), 4–6.40 Clifford, Typical Leaders (Horace Marshall and Son, 1898), 273–4. See also, Christine E. Joynes, “John Clifford, Edward Burne-Jones and the Service of Art to Religion,” Baptist Quarterly 54, no. 4 (October 2023): 242–3.41 WPCR (1891), 108–9.42 Sarah Anne [Southall]Tooley (1856–1946) was the daughter of Thomas Southall, glass and china dealer in Kingswinford, Staffordshire, and his wife, Anne, [Lewis] Southall. Her parents died when she was young and she was educated at the Hannah Maria Moorhouse school in Stourbridge, Worcestershire and then studied literature at University College, London. In 1882 she married George Walter Tooley (1850–1916) a Baptist minister. After his death she developed a career as a journalist and author. See Terri Doughty, “Tooley [née Southall], Sarah Anne (1856–1946), Journalist and Author,” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. June 14, 2018, https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-107345 (accessed October 13, 2023).43 WPCR (1893), 87.44 BWA Proceedings (1905), 73.45 See K.E. Smith, “British Women and the Baptist World Alliance: Honoured Partners and Fellow Workers?” Baptist Quarterly 41, no. 1 (January 2005): 32–3.46 Free Church Suffrage Times, February 1915, 1. For more on Clifford’s support for the suffrage movement see, K.E. Smith, “Co-Operation Not Separation’: British Baptist Women and Suffrage,” in Re-Membering the Body: The Witnes of History, Theology and the Arts in Honour of Ruth M.B. Gouldbourne, ed. Anthony R. Cross and Brian Haymes (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2021), 67–94.47 Millicent Fawcett, What I Remember (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1924), 241.48 Royden was the assistant to Joseph Fort Newton, a Baptist from Texas who had been educated at Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville and Harvard University; he was a theological liberal. He had been opposed by the deacons there … mainly because he was American. Royden was an Anglican, but was prohibited from preaching by the Church of England. In the free atmosphere on the City Temple, however, she was welcomed by the Church, Daughters of Dissent, ed. Elaine Kaye, Janet Lees, Kirsty Thorpe, et al. (London: The United Reformed Church, 2004), 7.49 WPCR (1919), 20.50 WPCR (1919), 20.51 Marchant, Dr. John Clifford, C.H. Life, Letters and Reminiscences, 289.52 A version of this paper was first presented at a day conference held at Regent's Park College, Oxford on 18th March 2023 which explored John Clifford's life and legacy as a way of marking the centenary of his death. I am very grateful to J.H.Y. Briggs who kindly read and offered comments on the paper which have contribute to this enhanced version for publication.