ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the philanthropic gift of culture was not an isolated and eccentric endeavour. Rather, it was deeply embedded in a range of social, educational, and recreational activities mounted at various centres of moralising reformist effort. It explains cultural philanthropy was a progressive project of individual emancipation through adult education and the imagined potential of an integrated, participatory civic life. The People's Palace Institute made provision for adolescents and young adults through clubs and special interest societies. The fellowship and mutual interest that reformers hoped to inculcate by club activities also animated the sociable events that quickly became the hallmark of the settlement movement. The entertainments and social occasions hosted by the settlements in Whitechapel and Bermondsey aimed to encourage personal connections and friendship in small and intimate ways, humanising a dreary setting of urban routine.
