ABSTRACT
Karl Marx’s dictum bears repeating: ‘Religion is the sob of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, the spirit of conditions utterly unspiritual. The nexus of religion, status and cultural norms dominated the Nonconformist onslaught on the drinking, gaming and recreational habits of the labouring and residual class. Attacking the landed aristocracy and this majority of working men with fine impartiality, the various sabbatarian and temperance societies created a sharp divide within the labour elite itself. A detailed study of predominantly working-class conversions to unbelief during the second half of the century has shown that religion was disavowed less on theological grounds than as an obstacle to social progress. Indeed, the sense of an upright and determinedly non-cosy morality comes through strongly in these lines from a typical mid-century freethought hymn: ‘Take the spade of perseverance;Dig the fields of progress wide;Every rotten root of factionHurry out and cast aside.’
