Description
A ground-breaking study of the place of the Christian religion in an industrial city. Wickham’s book offers a close investigation – both historical and sociological – of Sheffield in the vital years of its nineteenth-century industrial growth, and considers the plans and practice of organised religion in the city at that time. Where did it fail with the Broad Churchmen ‘working classes’? What were the reasons? And what do the lessons of the past mean for today?
The book is as important for those involved with urban ministry as it is for historians of religion and of society.
Contents
Preface
Introduction
1. Sheffield in the Early Nineteenth Century
2. Church and People, From the English Civil War to the French Revolution
3. Church and People in the ‘Bleak Age’, 1800-1850
4. Church and People in the Years of Religious Boom, 1850-1900
5. Church and People in the Years of ‘Decline and Fall’, 1900 to the Present
6. The Mission of the Church in an Industrial Society
Conclusions
I. Theological Perspectives
II. Industrial Mission
III. The Missionary Structure of the Local Church in an Industrial Society
Appendices
I. Details of the Religious Census in Sheffield in 1881
II. Plan of Town of Sheffield in 1771
III. Gallery and Ground Floor Pew Plans of the Parish Church of Sheffield
in 1806, with notes
IV. Historical Chart Showing the Provision of Churches of all Denominations
within the Ancient Parish, and the City of Sheffield up to 1841
V. Historical Chart Showing the Provision of Churches of all Denominations
within the Ancient Parish, and the City of Sheffield 1841 to 1955
Bibliography
Index
Endorsements and Reviews
His style is forthright, energetic, and eminently readable. The prose is fresh and his arguments clearly expressed. Another strength of the book is the energetic economy of writing with which he brings the history of the churches and City of Sheffield alive over a 200-year period.
Practical Theology
