The Failures of Success: Working Class Evangelists in Early Victorian Birmingham

Abstract

Autobiography and statistics appear at first sight to be incompatible sources in any study of religious motivation. The former rarely hint at the sociological factors governing religious commitment. The latter are difficult to interpret in terms of individual conviction. Yet the evangelical revival produced an abundance of both. John Wesley in the Arminian Magazine set a fashion which was followed by evangelicals of every brand who published spiritual autobiographies to edify the faithful. Wesleyan methodism also kept careful membership statistics on which scholars like A. D. Gilbert can base a sociological explanation of the rise and fall of denominational religion. Placed side by side the inward and outward evidence gave the impression that statistical success, in terms of ever increasing membership, depended on intense individual conviction in preacher and convert. The Liverpool minutes of 1820 are but the Wesleyan example of a general pattern. Nevertheless this recipe did not guarantee success. It would seem that the challenge to the individual conscience needed to be combined with a strong appeal to a sense of group or class solidarity for any lasting impression to be made. Unfortunately the places where evangelical religion was successful do not always coincide with available autobiographical sources.