The origins of these essays lies in the commemoration of the tercentenary of the death in 1716 of the Revd Dr Daniel Williams, the founder of the eponymous library whose collections have been the foundation of so much research on the dissenting tradition. The book is intended to fill a gap in the market for, as the editors point out in the introduction, while there have been numerous recent studies of charity and philanthropy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, none have exclusively examined the contribution of Dissent in its several forms. Here, the editors have not tried to be prescriptive and restrictive in coverage of the numerous forms that charitable generosity could take but, rather, allowed their contributors a loose rein. Overall conclusions are therefore hard to discern, but that perhaps mirrors the way that the various dissenting and Nonconformist connexions evolved their own distinctive philanthropic emphases and traditions: matching up Wesleyans and Unitarians is never going to yield many resemblances. If there was a common thread, it was a preference for voluntary and private charitable impulses and a wariness of the state that by the turn of the twentieth century was fast vanishing as the Nonconformist Churches became, briefly, part of the mainstream of the British state.

In the first essay, ‘Dissent and charity, 1660–1720’, David Wykes notes the dependency of the ministers and their families ejected from parishes in 1662 on voluntary contributions. After the Toleration Act of 1689 was passed, charitable trusts could be legally established and materially assisted the growth of Dissent in all manner of ways, not least the major benefaction of Dr Williams. Jennifer Farooq's subject is the Charity Sermons of c. 1700–50, the collections that they inspired for hospitals, schools and destitute children, as well as the varied motivations behind them. Hugh Cunningham considers the career of that restless traveller and collector of facts, John Howard, the first individual to be described as a philanthropist (1786), one who ‘became the benchmark against whom other would-be philanthropists were measured – and nearly always found wanting’ (p. 74). Cunningham fingers the political significance of philanthropy and its controversial association with reforming causes during the French Revolutionary Wars. These included those fostered by the Unitarians, whose approach to the matter in a pre-denominational era (1750–1820) is expertly delineated by G. M. Ditchfield. With their appeal to the natural rights of the poorest, they conceived of philanthrophy as intrinsically politically liberating.

Moving into the nineteenth century, Stephen Orchard looks at the short (1799–1839) but intense life of David Nasmith, the indefatigable Glaswegian campaigner for societies for benefiting the poor. Nasmith, who defied a denominational label, travelled across North America, Britain and France drumming up notice and funding, and left behind the London City Mission and perhaps the Scottish YMCA as his principal legacies. Clyde Binfield's focus is on Joshua Wilson (d. 1874) and his importance in shaping the nature of Victorian Congregationalism. Wilson's passion was for chapel building and Binfield uses his efforts in Crediton as a case study. David J. Jeremy considers the great crowd-funding exercise that was the Wesley Centenary Fund of 1838. Thanks to the national connectivity afforded by Wesleyan administrative structures, the fund enabled the connexion inter alia to establish two new theological colleges and a new headquarters for the Wesleyan Missionary Society.

Wesleyan denominational identity was secure in the early Victorian era whereas Unitarianism's was finally confirmed following the Dissenters’ Chapels Act (1844) that secured their endowments. In the next essay, Alan Ruston and David Wykes look at the ways in which four major Unitarian charitable trusts helped in that process. John Briggs, in ‘Children and Orphans – some Nonconformist responses to the vulnerable’, ranges across the denominations to compare and contrast the initiatives of George Müller, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Andrew Reed, William Quarrier and Thomas Bowman Stephenson. Mark Freeman confirms the centrality (but also the atypicality) of Joseph and John Rowntree's philanthrophy to the ‘Quaker Renaissance’ of c.1880–1920. Their charitable trusts blended traditional aspects of Friends’ social endeavours and newly perceived societal needs. Finally, in ‘Enriqueta Rylands and and the John Rylands Library’, Elizabeth Gow shows how Rylands, influenced by ideas of Christian Stewardship, combined business acumen with religious faith in a manner most contemporaries associated with masculinity. The eponymous library was a visible token of a lifetime devoted to philanthropic causes.

These are exploratory essays, often with unfamiliar subject matter, and are rewarding in their own terms. There is not much on ordinary givers and their motives, plenty on particular appeals, trusts and individual fund-raisers. Most papers have depth, breadth and variety, but the convergent trajectory of Cunningham and Ditchfield is the exception not the rule. What emerges clearly from the offerings in Protestant Dissent and philanthropy is less the denominational hardening of the nineteenth century, more the enduring overlap and convergence among Nonconformist sects. Above all, the essays show the significance across the mainstream denominations of accumulated wealth among their membership and the vital part played by major benefactors. The reduction in numbers of the latter over the last century and its bearing on denominational decline would repay further scholarly attention.