Faith in the Town

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Across eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century northern England, religious faith continued to affect the lives of men, women, and children in profound ways. Rather than abandoning their faith in the face of increasing urbanisation and industrialisation - as is often assumed was the case - town dwellers across the social and denominational spectrum commonly understood their relationships with their families, households, and the world within a framework of religious duty and virtue. For urban middling and labouring individuals, religious practice and the influence of faith was not limited to time spent in church or chapel but extended into all areas of activity and experience: the workplace, the streets and other public spaces, and the home. The importance of faith in the lived experience of town dwellers was not something that existed in spite of change; faith was promoted by the new conditions of urban life. Faith in the Town explores key decades of this transformational period, encompassing almost a century of urban development between 1740 and 1830. By placing lay religious belief centre-stage, this book demonstrates that many of the developments associated with 'modernity', specifically industrialisation, urbanisation, population growth, and Enlightenment thinking, were not inimical to faith. Instead, religious belief and lay piety was a crucial element in the formation of urban economy, society, and culture during the 'long' eighteenth century, meaning that northern towns were not only places where faith could both be nourished and flourish, but that these urban centres were themselves shaped by faith.