Industrial Day-Dreams: S. E. Keeble and the Place of Work and Labour in Late Victorian and Edwardian Methodism

Abstract

Discussion of the use of time in industrial Britain hardened in the nineteenth century into debates about the morality of work and its rewards, about the ethics of labour and the exploitation of the labourer, issues neglected in a Methodism dominated by the prevailing social thought of evangelicalism which persisted throughout most of the century. While much valuable work has been done recently on a re-assessment of the place of Wesleyan Methodist businessmen’s influence in politics, commerce, and industry in the heyday of Victorian and Edwardian Britain, not so much has been done on the attitudes to poverty and wealth, work, and wages from within the Church establishment, or investigation of how ministers were shaping or reflecting social and political attitudes. This paper seeks to identify the particular contribution of one pivotal figure, Samuel Keeble (1853-1947) whose work deserves a more detailed biography than the Wesley Historical Society lecture published in 1977. His mentor, Hugh Price Hughes, a Wesleyan revivalist but less clearly a Christian socialist, created the environment in which the Wesleyan Methodist Union of Social Service (WMUSS) emerged, through which Keeble was able to channel much of his energies in the promotion of social issues, including those concerning work and labour. It is their contribution that this essay seeks to highlight.