More nineteenth-century Britons associated socialism with Robert Owen than with Karl Marx (of whom many had never heard). In the early Victorian period, Owen had a remarkable gift for creating ideas, movements, and institutions that owed their existence to his inspiration even if they were not always successful or enduring. These included trade unions, the Co-operative movement, and utopian communities in the United States. One element of Owenism, however, that was shocking for many (and rendered it illegitimate) was its association with secularism and atheism (although it is worth noting that these are not the same thing). There is now a considerable historical literature on Victorian freethought and infidelity that usually takes in Owenism. In his new monograph, Edward Lucas does not undermine this linkage, but he makes the case for a more complex interpretation.

The emphasis on Owenism and atheism has been reinforced by a focus on Owen himself and on subsequent influential figures such as George Jacob Holyoake. They were clearly heirs to the Paine-Carlile tradition within radicalism. But what happens if we widen the aperture a little? We find supporters of Ownenite initiatives such as Arthur Savage Wade, an Anglican minister, who campaigned to establish a co-operative association to be led by Owen in 1831. We also discover the Anglican philanthropist John Minter Morgan, who supported the Co-operative movement and had no trouble distinguishing between Owen’s atheism and his socialist proposals. These were not isolated examples. Edward Lucas therefore examines the role of religion in Owenite socialism, which was clearly an important element of its make up.

Historians such as Edward Royle and J.F.C. Harrison have written about the religiosity of Owenite socialism, comparing it to the wave of millenarian sects that existed in the early nineteenth century. Lucas takes a different approach. He argues that Owenism represented the attempt to rethink the nature of religion through knowledge of the natural world. Lucas shows that “their ambitions of religious reform were grounded in the philosophical preoccupations which animated their socialism” (19). In this view, socialism was a form of religious virtue.

Early British Socialism is mainly a study in political thought rather than the movement culture of Owenism. Lucas devotes his second chapter to “The State of the Literature,” and much of his book constitutes an argument with the existing historiography. The study is grounded in a deep reading of the New Moral World (1836) and other Owenite publications to determine what Owenites really believed. What Lucas uncovers is a deep engagement with Christianity. It is true that Owenism was not preoccupied with religious practices including denominations, theology, and worship. Owenites also differed over what they understood by religion. Nevertheless, the New Moral World not only drew on Christian language, but it explicitly denied, when, challenged, that socialism was irreligious. Lucas insists that this was not merely a pragmatic maneuver to seem respectable. Religion was integral to the creation of the social harmony and happiness that Owenites longed for.

The New Moral World, in line with other Owenite publications, was in favor of “rational religion,” preferring not to get involved in the arguments between different Christian churches that had so disfigured the society it wished to leave behind. Owenites belonged, however, to the world of nonconformist dissent, despite the Anglican figures noted above. They distrusted the conservative Church of England, which was still very much structured around class hierarchy and was a bastion of the established order. A clergyman, for example, had read the Riot Act at Peterloo in 1819. Owenites were also at odds with the Evangelical revival with its focus on Biblical fundamentalism and individual redemption. Lucas argues that Owenites reconceptualized religion as something that led to what he describes as the “moralisation of human relations” (112).

The socialist Halls of Science which sprang up in a number of cities were viewed by followers as a new form of church. In the Owenite view, the search for knowledge was not antithetical to religion which underpinned the movement’s promotion of social science. An Owenite (adopting the name “A Student in Realities”) championed the “instinctive wish to know” and challenged orthodox Christians by proclaiming “we are much more religious than you ever were” (115). Owenites drew on a tradition of natural theology (associated particularly with William Paley) which stressed the way in which greater understanding of the natural world would lead to an enhanced understanding of the divine plan. It also had its roots (as we have seen) in the deism associated with Thomas Paine, in Rational Dissent (opposition to the Established Church) and the inchoate world of “popular religion” which stressed the importance of trying to be good on a day-to-day basis rather getting hung up on doctrines. Owenites were, however, distinctively Protestant in that they considered their focus on social and religious reform made them heirs to the Reformation.

There is one oddity in this book. It does not have an acknowledgements page. This is of course not essential, but such pages do send useful signals to the reader. At a deeper level, a study that is (rightly) concerned with the provenance of ideas should be explicit about the provenance of its own ideas and intellectual journey.

A feature of modern secular societies is that they have often struggled to provide the feeling of solidarity that societies with a stronger religious base enjoy. Depending on how you define it (and one should recognize the complexities of this), religious societies seem to enjoy higher levels of community bonding and even happiness. What Edward Lucas’s book shows is that the early socialists recognized this exact problem and addressed it. They also held that socialism needed to be more than an economic critique. This is why they still seem to be ahead of their time.