An impressive number of socialist priests and intellectuals were formed by the Anglo-Catholic tradition in the first half of the twentieth century, including Percy Dearmer, F.D. Maurice, R.H. Tawney, J. N. Figgis, Henry Scott Holland, Frank Weston, Conrad Noel, Albert Mansbridge, Charles Gore, Ken Leech, and John Hughes.

The Centre for Theology, Law, and Culture at Pusey House will organise a colloquium to discuss what can be learnt from Anglo-Catholic socialism as a tradition that still bears relevance for our time.

The colloquium will consider:

-- To what extent did theological doctrines, such as the Incarnation or the Real Presence in the Eucharist, involve and shape how Anglo-Catholics understood the importance of solidarity, the common good, subsidiarity, or social justice?

-- Were Anglo-Catholics drawn to socialist politics more than low churchman, and if so, why?

-- Is there anything distinctive about Anglo-Catholic socialism that sets it apart from the social teachings of the Popes, and even corrects some problems with Catholic social teaching?

-- What were some of the major intellectual influences on the Anglo-Catholic socialists? What was the influence of Ruskin and Morris?

-- The famous survey made by Labour MPs in 1906 by W.T. Stead, to ask what books most influenced their political beliefs, found that Ruskin was mentioned most frequently, followed by the Bible. This may have given rise to the aphorism that the Labour Party owed more to Methodism than to Marx. Is that saying true? Does it underestimate the influence of the Anglo-Catholics or does it reflect the greater influence of nonconformism among Christian socialists?

-- Can we trace the influence of Anglo-Catholic socialism on any current or recent parliamentarians?

-- What were some of the particular social or economic policies that Anglo-Catholics advocated and campaigned for, and are any of these policies still relevant today?

-- Are there any parallels between the Anglo-Catholic socialists from the early-twentieth century and the post-liberal thinkers of our time?

The conference will be preceded by a public lecture by Dr Jon Cruddas, former MP for Dagenham and Rainham, and author of The Dignity of Labour (Polity, 2021), at 4pm on Tuesday 10th February:

"Catholicism and the Labour Party"

Abstract

The lecture will seek to address a major omission in the history of the Labour Party: the lack of substantial work on the Roman Catholic contribution to it. Within the study of the origins of the Labour Party, this omission is often accounted for by factors such as the politics of Irish nationalism and home rule, prior to 1922 and the achievement of Irish self-government, the instruction of the clergy and traditional clerical suspicion of socialism, opposition to Labour Party policy over issues such as Catholic schooling prior to the 1918 Education Act, and the product of a restricted franchise and limited Roman Catholic participation at elections. Consequently, the Catholic contribution is a neglected area of study, often replaced either by a deterministic secularised Labour history, or one that emphasises the role of dissenting Protestant traditions in helping shape this history. This neglect also extends to the pre-history of Labour, the period the historian Stephen Yeo has described as the era of the ‘religion of socialism’ – the 1880s and 1890s. Yet this is when Catholic Social Teaching truly developed, particularly with the 1891 Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum. There were also numerous Roman Catholic leaders within the late-nineteenth-century labour movement such as Pete Curran, Tom McCarthy and James Sexton.

The lecture is part of a wider project to reinsert the Roman Catholic contribution within Labour’s history. It will examine debates over Catholic marginalisation, alongside theological developments within Catholic Social Teaching and its links to questions of ideological renewal throughout labour history, from the era of the ‘religion of socialism’ to the present day significance of the so-called ‘Blue Labour’ movement. It will acknowledge key Catholic figures within Labour history, such as its forgotten leader J.L Clynes; the great Red Clydeside leader and founder of the Catholic Socialist Society, John Wheatley; TUC General Secretary, George Woodcock; the former Education Secretary, Shirley Williams; and Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair. It will also address the role of Catholics and wider questions of public policy and social reform integral to the history of the British welfare state.