Campaigns for moral reform were a recurrent and distinctive feature of public life in later Georgian and Victorian England. Anti-slavery, temperance, charity organisation, cruelty prevention, 'social purity' advocates, and more, all promoted their causes through mobilisation of citizen volunteer support. This 2004 book sets out to explore the world of these volunteer networks, their foci of concern, their patterns of recruitment, their methods of operation and the responses they aroused. In its exploration of this culture of self-consciously altruistic associational effort, the book provides a systematic survey of moral reform movements as a distinct tradition of citizen action over this period, as well as casting light on the formation of a middle-class culture torn, in this stage of economic and political nation-building, between acceptance of a market-organised society and unease about the cultural consequences of doing so. This is a revelatory book that is both compelling and accessible.

Winner of the Royal Historical Society's Whitfield Prize 2004.

"Roberts has performed a valuable service...[A] solid, stimulating book..." T.L. Crosby, Wheaton College, CHOICE

"...this study is an important exploration of a form of civic engagement, outside the organized structures of government but within the wider polity." - American Historical Review, Penelope J. Corfield, University of London

"This is an extremly fine and thoughtful book, based on an impressive range of sources...It is bursting wiht ideas and information based on a colossal amount of reading and research." Victorian Studies Susan Mumm, The Open University