ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights the importance of political propaganda in the attempt to bring about the “New Moral World”, and the key role that the Social Missionaries played to that effect within the Owenite movement. From 1834 onwards, the British Owenites developed a nationwide network of local branches. The Social Missionaries were 28 men and three women appointed by the Central Board, each of them assigned with the supervision of political activities and outreach within a given region. As the public faces of the movement, they gave lecture tours, spoke at the annual congresses and sent weekly reports to the New Moral World in an attempt to chart the progress of Owenite ideas and practices. Alexander Campbell was one of the longest-serving Social Missionaries, a charge he performed between 1834 and 1842. Originally a joiner from Glasgow, he was Robert Owen’s secretary at New Lanark for a while and later joined Orbiston community in 1825, where he worked as boy’s schoolmaster.
