First published in 1984. The Victorian clergy occupied a uniquely prominent position in English society. Their church generated continual and often rancorous debate and they played an important part in the local provision of education, welfare and justice. Politically, also, they were never negligible. But, while in 1830 the clergy still constituted England’s largest and wealthiest professional body, by 1914 their position was increasingly marginal. This title examines these changes and the issues in which the clergy was facing during this transition. The Victorian Clergy will be of particular interest to students of history.

David Dowland presents one of the first analytical accounts of Anglican theological training during its formative period, the nineteenth century. Until this time Oxford and Cambridge had been recognized as the most desirable sources of Anglican clergymen, but there was to be an upsurgence oflittle-known colleges attended by lower-middle-class ordinands which cut across the assumption that the training received at the fashionable colleges was superior. Dowland discusses the official attitudes towards the innovation of training large numbers of middle-class and lower-middle-class menfor the ministry in an industrial age where a shift of power to the lower classes was widespread.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1860.