‘A Tempest in the Teapot’: London Churchgoing in 1913 — The Census That Never Was

Abstract

Late Victorian and Edwardian London had a reputation for relatively low levels of religious practice, as evidenced in the census of church attendance conducted in the capital by the Daily News in 1902–03. In 1912–13 its successor, the Daily News and Leader, attempted to replicate this census but was forced to abandon it at an early stage in the face of concerted opposition from both Anglicans and Nonconformists. In its place was substituted a survey of the religious and social work of the metropolitan churches, which was published in 1914. The story of ‘the census that never was’ is here pieced together for the first time, and the reasons for its significance explained, within the context of the broader scholarly debate about whether Edwardian Britain was a ‘faith society’.