Rival Jerusalems : The Geography of Victorian Religion

This pioneering book is based upon very extensive analysis of the famous 1851 Census of Religious Worship and earlier sources such as the 1676 Compton Census. The authors stress contextual and regional understanding of religion. Among the subjects covered for all of England and Wales are the geography of the Church of England, Roman Catholicism, the old and new dissenting denominations, the spatial complementarity of denominations, and their importance for political history. A range of further questions are then analysed, such as regional continuities in religion, the growth of religious pluralism, Sunday schools and child labour during industrialisation, free and appropriated church sittings, landownership and religion, and urbanisation and regional 'secularisation'. This book's advanced methods and findings will have far-reaching influence within the disciplines of history, historical and cultural geography, religious sociology and in the social science community general. Figures......Page 10 Tables......Page 12 Preface and acknowledgements......Page 16 Introduction......Page 18 Part 1 Religious geographies: the districts ofEngland and Wales......Page 38 1The 1851 Census of Religious Worship......Page 40 2The Church of England......Page 71 3Old dissent: the Presbyterians, Independents,Baptists, Quakers and Unitarians......Page 110 4The geographies of new dissent......Page 138 5Roman Catholicism and Irish immigration......Page 190 6Denominational co-existence, reciprocity orexclusion?......Page 202 Part 2 Religion and locality: parish-level explorations......Page 216 7A prospect of fifteen counties......Page 218 8From Henry Compton to Horace Mann: stabilityor relocation in Catholicism and Nonconformity,and the growth of religious pluralism......Page 249 9The Sunday school movement: child labour,denominational control and working-classculture......Page 291 10Free or appropriated sittings: the AnglicanChurch in perspective......Page 338 11Conformity, dissent and the influence oflandownership......Page 381 12Urbanisation and regional secularisation......Page 412 Appendix A......Page 440 Appendix B......Page 442 Appendix C......Page 448 Appendix D......Page 455 Appendix E......Page 457 Appendix F......Page 466 Bibliography......Page 470 Index......Page 500 "The book stresses contextual and regional understanding of religion. Among the subjects covered for all of England and Wales are the geography of the Church of England, Roman Catholicism, the old and new dissenting denominations, the spatial complementarity of denominations, and their importance for political history. A range of further questions are then analysed in even greater detail, using massive parish datasets of religious, socio-economic and demographic data for 2,443 English and Welsh parishes. Among the issues treated are regional continuities in religion, the growth of religious pluralism, Sunday schools and child labour during industrialisation, free and appropriated church sittings, landownership and religion, and urbanisation and regional 'secularisation'

This pioneering book, exhaustive in the scope of its computerized analysis, explores many aspects of the geography of religion in England and Wales. It describes the geographical patterns of the major English and Welsh religious denominations, before moving on to explore issues such as regional continuities in religion, the growth of religious pluralism, Sunday schools, child labor, religious seating prerogatives, the effects of landownership, urbanization and regional secularization. It bears especially on the disciplines of history, historical and cultural geography, religious sociology, and religious studies.

Regional contrasts between denominations, and between Wales and England, are persistent themes. The long-term importance of the geography of religion is stressed, for it bears on many crucial modern questions of regional cultures and national identities." "This book's advanced methods and findings will have far-reaching influence within the disciplines of history, historical and cultural geography, religious sociology, religious studies, and in the social science community in general."--Jacket This text is based upon extensive analysis of the famous 1851 Census of Religious Worship and earlier sources such as the 1676 Compton Census. Its scope and modern analytical methods eclipse all previous British works on the subject