Evangelicalism and the socialist revival: a study of religion, community and culture in nineteenth century Airdrie

Abstract

This thesis explores the relationship between Evangelicalism and the Socialist Revival by way of a study of religion, community and culture in the Scottish town of Airdrie, 1790-1914. Chapter One presents an overview of Evangelicalism in the nineteenth century. The links between Evangelicalism and the Socialist Revival are discussed in Chapter Two where it is argued that Socialist Revivalism, especially as manifest by the Independent Labour Party, was a product of Evangelical-mission culture. Chapter Three looks at the development of Airdrie as a weaving community from the 1790s to 1820s, and Chapter Four examines the role of Evangelicalism and dissent in the construction of community and culture in weaving Airdrie. Chapters Five and Six outline the transformation of Airdrie from a weaving to an industrial town. As in introductory survey of the space that religion occupied in Airdrie from the 1820s, Chapter Seven paves the way for detailed examination, in Chapters Eight and Nine, of the continuing importance of Evangelicalism and dissent in shaping community and culture at Airdrie during the 1830s and 1840s. Chapter Ten considers the impact of the Disruption and of the 1859 revival in Airdrie, and suggests that these events consolidated the burgh's Evangelical Protestant and dissenting identity. Chapter Eleven outlines the development of Airdrie during the late nineteenth-early twentieth centuries and examines the efforts of the ILP to establish a foothold in the town. It is argued that the failure of the ILP in Airdrie was as much a consequence of the embeddedness of Evangelicalism and dissent in local culture as of party political or organisational weakness. Chapter Twelve brings this argument to a conclusion through a consideration of the diffusion of Evangelicalism throughout Airdrie's rich associational culture. It is suggested that because the ILP was competing in Airdrie as just one more Evangelical-revivalist organisation against other, older, better-established Evangelical organisations, its progress was hindered. There was no room for it in Airdrie's Evangelical-mission culture.