ABSTRACT
This chapter explains distinctive echoes in activities like the parish work of socially minded curates and vicars, the teas and entertainments they and their wives organised to throw the net of 'civilising' influence further afield than simple church attendance. It also talks about reformers who were keen to foster special-interest clubs and reading groups as forms of education, lecturers committed to university extension through local classes in working-class neighbourhoods, and the first polytechnics that aimed at higher education and improving recreation for working people. The chapter considers the cultural mission to the slums as part of this broader context, and demonstrates how fundamentally embedded it was in the conceptions and practices of late-Victorian social work. An opportunity for sociability through clubs, societies and institutes was important theme in late-Victorian social work. But with the introduction of refreshments and light entertainment the later clubs met with greater success, exemplified by Henry Solly's Working Men's Club and Institute Union (CIU) founded in 1862.
