ABSTRACT
Attempts to influence working-class consciousness across a broader spectrum did not abandon the institutions of religion: indeed parochial and congregational organisations, particularly schools and schoolrooms, provided the core of many of the more secular intellectual initiatives. Nevertheless, these represented merely a small part of the multiplicity of cultural institutions which emerged as the middle classes sought to widen the scope of their moral imperialism. Indeed, as John Garrard has commented, '[t]here seem...to have been few institutions or activities in the Victorian industrial town which do not have the transmission of appropriate values as part of their intended or hoped-for function'.1
