Stewart Headlam's radical Anglicanism : the Mass, the masses, and the music hall / John Richard Orens.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Orens, John.

Contributor:

Charlton Yarnall Fund.

Yarnall Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Series:

Studies in Anglican history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Headlam, Stewart D. (Stewart Duckworth), 1847-1924.

Headlam, Stewart D.

Physical Description:

xii, 184 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Urbana : University of Illinois Press, [2003]

Summary:

Standing in stark contrast to the conservative clergy of Victorian Britain, the Anglican priest Stewart Headlam was a passionately progressive reformer, a champion of the working poor -- especially women -- a defender of the music hall performers his colleagues attacked as licentious, and, in short, a man of God who remained firmly and controversially engaged with the society in which he lived and worked. This book, the first significant study of Headlam since 1928, paints a rich and complex picture of this larger-than-life religious, impassioned figure, charting the trail Headlam blazed across the social, political, and religious landscape of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain.

Dissatisfied from an early age with his family's Evangelical faith, Headlam became an Anglican curate, but his political views were increasingly radicalized as he befriended working-class atheists and trade union leaders. This book details Headlam's repeated conflicts with establishment Anglicans over his defense of music hall ballet performers' right to reveal their legs, his role in the early years of the Fabian society, his antipuritanism, and his rigorous socialism. Headlam was even instrumental in having Oscar Wilde bailed out of prison following the writer's arrest for committing homosexual acts.

With this intellectual biography, John Richard Orens places Headlam's life, beliefs, and actions in the context of his period, contributing to the ongoing debate about the proper relationship between Christianity, on the one hand, and society, sexuality, and the arts on the other.

Contents:

Anglican difficulties

The curate's progress

The bishop and Mr. Bradlaugh

Building Jerusalem

Christ at the Alhambra

The banner of Christ in the hands of the socialists

Headlong and shuttlecock

Triumph, tumult, and scandal

Prigs and bureaucrats

The age to come.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [159]-178) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Charlton Yarnall Fund.

ISBN:

0252028244

OCLC:

50738198