Ideals in Urban Mission: Episcopalians in Twentieth Century Glasgow

Abstract

At the beginning of this century Glasgow was romantic. It was a successful city, and it was growing rapidly. The 1901 census had shown that Scottish cities were growing faster than English, and Glasgow had increased by fifteen per cent in ten years.Much of this increase came from England, and from urban England at that. The bishop of Glasgow and Galloway said of his flock in 1901, ‘I can never find a west of Scotland man who is a hereditary episcopalian. The church seems to have been wiped away just as a man wipes a dish, and turns it upside down’. Instead they had migrants who ‘have come bringing no money with them, requiring us to provide religious ministrations for them. We have done our best.’ It was estimated that there were fifty thousand episcopalians and Anglicans in Glasgow, of whom only fourteen thousand were known to the clergy. In 1894 a census of four areas rated episcopalians at six per cent of die population, and another census in Govan at ten per cent. In a famous speech to the representative church council of 1901, Anthony Mitchell admitted ‘a feeling of dejection’ at the size of the problem, though he added that nowhere else would missionary work find ‘a readier return’. The bishop substantiated this, saying that Glasgow people were ‘not hostile to religion . . . many of them are thirsting after it’, as shown by the crowds attracted by street preachers. The rural dioceses in Scotland were asked to support the work as their migrants were in Glasgow, though in fact these were probably not a significant number.