Religion in the Victorian City
The census of religious worship taken in England and Wales in 1851 gives a unique insight into the religious habits of our Victorian predecessors which, as Bruce Coleman explains, is very much at variance with the popular image of them.
Most of us retain simplified images of Victorian England. It is still widely believed that the majority of people at that time attended church or chapel regularly, and the term 'Victorian' is used to denote social proprieties of which religious practice was an integral part. In recent years, however, a number of historians have challenged this view and promoted an almost diametrically opposite conclusion – that Victorian England, and in particular its cities, experienced a breakdown of religious practice and what amounted to a secularisation of social consciousness and behaviour. Most of this argument has concentrated on the cities, the fastest-growing sector of Victorian society and, by the end of the nineteenth century, the apparently dominant one.
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