Labour Colonies for Gentlemen: Philanthropic Settlements and the Making of the Social Reformer in London, 1884-1914
Date
2019
Authors
Duthie, Emily Nora
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Abstract
This thesis examines a program of reform that was directed at the
gentlemanly philanthropists of London’s first two university
settlements, Toynbee Hall and Oxford House. Shifting the focus of
previous scholarship on the role of the settlements in promoting
moral and cultural improvement amongst East London’s poor, this
study analyses the ways in which Toynbee Hall and Oxford House
also sought to shape the social reformers who came to live and
work in the urban slums. Residency in London’s East End was
intended to be a transformative experience that could regenerate
Oxbridge men and their West End counterparts, while also
providing opportunities and networks for personal development and
career advancement.
Both Toynbee Hall and Oxford House embraced a two-fold agenda.
This included a systematic effort to elevate the urban poor and
to redress social problems in surrounding neighbourhoods, and a
more introspective program that was concerned with the
improvement or advancement of the ‘settlers’ themselves.
While mainstream historiography on these settlements has focused
primarily on their attempts to study, transform and ‘improve’
East End communities, this study shifts attention away from the
campaign aimed directly at the poor in order to explore the
‘making’ of the social reformer as it occurred within these
institutions.
This component of the settlements’ mission was widely
recognised during the era of their creation. Popular
representations of Toynbee Hall and Oxford House as
‘settlements’, ‘colonies’ or ‘labour refuges’ for
gentlemen drew upon reformist discourses and practices that were
typically directed at the urban poor and colonial subjects during
this period. The labour colony was advocated in philanthropic
circles as a training centre where the unemployed could reside
and receive practical education and moral guidance before finding
work in Britain or abroad. Drawing upon the image of a labour
colony, this thesis argues that Toynbee Hall and Oxford House
settlers became the subjects of a parallel educational and
vocational project, though the nature of that project varied
between the settlements in ways that reflected differences
between the ethos of each institution. The chapters that follow
consider the settlements as sites for the cultivation, training
and networking of gentlemen.
This thesis, unlike much of the historiography upon this topic,
does not cast Toynbee Hall and Oxford House men primarily as
agents of reform. It treats them as the targets of a settlement
program. The task of producing social reformers may appear at
first glance to be an auxiliary aspect of the settlement houses,
but it was inextricably linked both to the goal of redressing
problems in the East End and to a wider project designed to form
a new generation of leaders and bureaucrats for Britain and its
empire.
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Settlement houses, social reform, London, nineteenth century, Toynbee Hall, Oxford House
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Thesis (PhD)
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