First published in 2006. A listener to sermons, and even a reader of respectable history books, could easily think that during the nineteenth century the habit of attending religious worship was normal among the English working classes.

Contrary to our perception of the centrality of the churches in English life in the nineteenth century, the disappointing results of the 1851 Religious Census led religious leaders to seek a variety of ways to increase religious allegiance as the century progressed. The apparent apathy and lack of interest in formal religion on the part of the working classes was particularly galling, and the various denominations tried hard to attract them through evangelical missions as well as social and charitable ventures which sometimes competed with religious concerns, to the latter’s detriment. This book traces the motivations, concerns and efforts of the churches, particularly in the period between 1870 and 1920, and the ambivalent responses of ordinary people. The Education Act of 1870 led to the churches losing their hold on the education of the young, a consequence foreseen by many church leaders, but unable to be prevented. By 1920 it was apparent that the churches’ optimism regarding an increased role with a war-weary population would not be fulfilled. The focus is on the city of Leeds, representative of the industrialised urban areas with burgeoning populations which proved to be such a challenge to the churches, at the same time stimulating them to ever-greater efforts.

"It might have been little more than an annotated bibliography. It is in fact an important independent study in its own right." The Expository Times

The Condition of the Working Class in England is one of the best-known works of Friedrich Engels. Originally written in German as Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England, it is a study of the working class in Victorian England. It was also Engels' first book, written during his stay in Manchester from 1842 to 1844. Manchester was then at the very heart of the Industrial Revolution, and Engels compiled his study from his own observations and detailed contemporary reports. Engels argues that the Industrial Revolution made workers worse off. He shows, for example, that in large industrial cities mortality from disease, as well as death-rates for workers were higher than in the countryside. In cities like Manchester and Liverpool mortality from smallpox, measles, scarlet fever and whooping cough was four times as high as in the surrounding countryside, and mortality from convulsions was ten times as high as in the countryside. The overall death-rate in Manchester and Liverpool was significantly higher than the national average (one in 32.72 and one in 31.90 and even one in 29.90, compared with one in 45 or one in 46). An interesting example shows the increase in the overall death-rates in the industrial town of Carlisle where before the introduction of mills (1779–1787), 4,408 out of 10,000 children died before reaching the age of five, and after their introduction the figure rose to 4,738. Before the introduction of mills, 1,006 out of 10,000 adults died before reaching 39 years old, and after their introduction the death rate rose to 1,261 out of 10,000.