ABSTRACT
This chapter presents formal religion existed within at least three sharply differentiated contexts those of the working class, of the middle class and of the gentry. Even within these basic status-groups there were further significant differences between the suburban and the West End gentry, between Protestant and Catholic working men. Church attendances on a single Sunday were counted in the national census of 1851 and in two newspaper censuses, those organised by the British Weekly in 1886-7, and the Daily News in 1902-3. The association between Anglican church-going and wealth, between Nonconformity and modest prosperity was common knowledge. The pattern is established by the Anglicans, the number of whose worshippers rises at first gradually and then steeply with each step up the social ladder, ranging from 1.6 per cent in Somers Town to 34.5 per cent in South Kensington. The size of the church-going population stated with a fair degree of accuracy, and its approximate social composition can be deduced.
