ABSTRACT
While the primary focus of this work is on the attitudes to land, housing and planning within the working class radical and socialist movement, the role of liberal, radical and socialist intellectuals cannot be discounted. The social reformers of the mid-19th century can be viewed as following Benthamite principles. The Christian Socialist group was progressive Christian philanthropists, who in response to both the Chartist agitation in England and the 1848 revolution in Paris decided to provide active assistance to working class organisations. The positivists were a group of progressive Oxford-based academics who were followers of the French philosopher Auguste Comte. Comtism offered an optimistic social theory free of religious trappings, based on moral concepts which had a religious tone to them. The National Association for the Promotion of Social Science was established in 1857 'to unite together as far as possible the various efforts now being made for the moral and social improvement of the people'.
