ABSTRACT

The Women's movement of the late twentieth century, together with the feminist criticism which emerged from it, has weighted the vocabulary of fatherhood and paternalism with issues of exploitation: patriarchy and patriarchal attitudes have become terms of abuse; fatherland has even darker historical connotations. Like a tightly-bound spring William Yonge would then leap into decisive action; in the best paternalist tradition, he would shoulder burdens: Keble could 'lean on' him for his help in the wider community. The four words used by roundell Palmer – 'strenuous, ardent, impulsive, constant' – configure a quick-silver temperament, hard-working, motivated not by self-interest but by passion, fired with commitment to the task in hand. Trev Lynn Broughton and Helen Rogers use the term 'social fatherhood' to describe this type of paternalistic involvement in the community, and suggest that 'it was a means of articulating and mediating relationships between men of different social status'.