Converting Britannia is one of the most original and important books on evangelical history that has been published in the twenty-first century. At the risk of making some stodgy evangelical accuse me of being sacrilegious, I will say that the book is a revelation. Or, to use a metaphor from an art form that conservative Protestants often denounced, Gareth Atkins takes us backstage to see how the production was actually made.
The members of the Clapham Sect are referred to as the “Saints,” and perhaps this has given them a false aura of being otherworldly about power, politics, and prestige. Everyone knows that William Wilberforce was a member of Parliament, yet too often the assertions of the Saints that they were above politicking have been taken at face value. It is bracing to be reminded that the campaign for Wilberforce to be elected MP for Yorkshire in 1807 had so much money poured into it that it was not only the most expensive parliamentary contest to date but that it even held that record for decades thereafter. We also recall the somewhat comic penchant of evangelicals to address all manner of ills by founding societies. Delightfully, Atkins even includes a table of “Admirals as Philanthropic Patrons” (202). For instance, Baron Gambier, the First Lord of the Admiralty, was active in a staggering thirty-nine different benevolent societies, for nine of which he was president, patron, or governor, and for another eleven he was a vice president. As Sir James Stephen observed: “Ours is the age of societies. . . . For the cure of every sorrow by which our land or our race can be visited, there are patrons, vice-presidents, and secretaries” (250–251). Anglicans did not have a strong culture of freewill giving but—once evangelical innovation set the example—voluntaryism triumphed and vast sums began to flow toward Bible, missionary, and charitable societies.
Atkins, however, goes far beyond the halls of Parliament and Exeter Hall to show the systematic and highly effective ways that evangelicals pursued power, influence, and position in numerous segments of society. One obvious starting point is in the Church of England itself. Again, we know that John Wesley had the doors of the churches closed on him, and we know that by the mid-Victorian period, Lord Palmerston was apt to elevate evangelicals to the episcopacy, but what Atkins brilliantly shows is the high degree of deft, determined, and concerted effort that was exerted to go from one to the other. At great expense, evangelicals systematically bought up livings. They created a pipeline of candidates by funding the education of “serious” young men from humble backgrounds. They worked to infiltrate Oxbridge colleges and turn them into evangelical havens. Ironically, one of these was St. Edmund Hall, Oxford—the very placed that had expelled six students in 1768 because of their “Methodist” sympathies. When a plum position of preferment would come up, they schemed hard behind the scenes to secure it for one of their own. As calculating as any American political operative strategizing about a Supreme Court appointment, Wilberforce contacted the personal physician of a possible candidate for the Dean of York in order to make sure he was not backing someone who would not be likely to have a long incumbency.
Evangelicals worked to place their people in strategic positions in business, banking, the colonial office, the East India Company, and more. One chapter is on the Royal Navy, an institution that was a deep source of pride and national identity for Britons. Evangelicals worked it at every level, from common sailors who were encouraged to, as it were, swear off swearing, to chaplains and captains, and on up the hierarchy. They gloated heartily that one of the nation's greatest naval victories, the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, happened while one of their own, Baron Barham, was First Lord of the Admiralty.
Part of the reason why all of this has been so obscured is that patronage came to be seen as carrying a whiff of corruption in the following period, and so this aspect of the Saints’ achievement was kept out of view by their sympathetic biographers. At the time, however, they relished taking on high society and beating it at its own game. As Henry Thornton reflected: “By becoming a little more respectable, . . . we become much more dangerous.” (19) There was no shame in networking for the causes dear to Christ at London clubs, country houses, and dinner parties. As one evangelical unapologetically quipped: “We shall soon have gout numbered among the privileges of the gospel!” (67). Even John Newton, remembered today as the author of “Amazing Grace,” could strike a rather crass note, as if the Almighty himself was a member of a clique of social climbers: “It would be a pretty exploit if the Lord should enable you to catch a Lord Mayor, & a Sheriff or two in the Gospel net” (28–29). Admittedly, countervailing thoughts would sometimes creep in. Reflecting upon the career of chairman of the East India Company and MP Charles Grant, one evangelical dissenter reflected in his journal: “Reputation is a snare . . . to those who are called to follow Him who made Himself of no reputation” (213).
Atkins might have spent more time in the conclusion consolidating what he had achieved in the main chapters—explaining to the reader how evangelicalism looks differently after this study, exposing the false impressions given in the older historiography, and so on. Instead, he mainly uses the conclusion to explore the dissolution of the pattern he has shown in the decades that followed his period of study (admittedly also a useful theme and contribution).
Converting Britannia is an extremely well-researched book that I hope will serve as a model for future studies on how religious actors in a range of traditions, places, and time periods have networked and organized to deepen their influence in society.
