ANTHONY WARD
Anthony is a gardener, political campaigner and a follower of the Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. He says: 'I've always loved writing and being published and consider myself to be an experienced and creative writer but I've never published a book – until now!'
Anthony is a gardener, political campaigner and a follower of the Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. He says: 'I've always loved writing and being published and consider myself to be an experienced and creative writer but I've never published a book – until now!'
THE BIRTH OF THE SOCIAL GOSPEL IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
Charles Mansfield and the Christian Socialist Brotherhood
A5, 132 pages
Privately published, 2016
£6.75
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THE MAGNETIC MR MANSFIELD: PASSIONATE TRUTH SEEKER, TROUBLED GENIUS.
When he died in 1855 aged 35, Charles Mansfield was one of the most promising pioneer research scientists in Britain. Passionately dedicated to the radical 'politics for the people' of the Christian Socialist Brotherhood, which he helped found in 1848 with friends Charles Kingsley, John Malcolm Ludlow, and 'The Master' – Frederick Maurice.
The Brotherhood came together alarmed by the threat of revolution posed by the Chartist movement in Britain, and appalled by the hunger, poverty and oppression of the working classes – and the lack of a Social Gospel for compassionate action on their behalf.
This book explores Mansfield’s hidden role at the heart of Christian Socialist initiatives, from experiments in working class schooling at Ormonds Yard in Bloomsbury to Sanitation and Public Health work in Bermondsey, culminating in the Brotherhood's greatest achievements – the setting up of 12 Working Men’s Associations and the passage through Parliament of the Industrial and Provident Societies Act of 1852, which provided a legal framework for the establishment of workers cooperatives in the United Kingdom.
This book also highlights Mansfield’s remarkably sympathetic and sensitive personality, and his intimate role in reconciling the growing personal conflicts between 'the four friends'; the movement splintered at the height of its success in 1851–52, and was eventually diverted by Frederick Maurice into the narrower mission of the Working Men’s College in 1854.
However, it is also a journey into the heart of the mystery of Charles Mansfield’s brief but extraordinary life – the life of a troubled but fiercely compassionate genius and inspirational truth seeker and polymath, who though much loved by friends such as John Ludlow and Charles Kingsley was little understood and often alienated and depressed.
Much heartache came from his mysterious secret marriage in 1842 to one Catherine Shafto, a marriage in name only which left the passionate Mansfield unable to have relationships with women of his own class. This led to scandal within the Brotherhood in 1852, when the failure of a love affair led to his departure for a 'sabbatical' in South America. A book on his travels to 'Brazil, Paraguay and the Plate' was posthumously published, as was a futuristic book on Aerial Navigation inspired by Mansfield’s friendship with aeronautical pioneer Sir George Cayley.
On leaving University he had ambitions to be a doctor, but three years walking the wards left him appalled by 'medico quacks' and 'ophthalmic poisoning shops', and he became a vegetarian, a supporter of homoeopathy, and an enthusiastic practitioner of hands on healing or 'animal magnetism'. One chapter is dedicated to Mansfield’s nursing of Charles Kingsley during his breakdown in 1848–49, and his use of magnetism as part of a seaside 'rest cure'.
Between 1846 and 1855 he dedicated most of his working life to research into coal tar at the Royal Institute of Chemistry, but on his return from South America he determined to complete his researches and then find a more human profession. He signed on as a teacher at the Working Men’s College in 1854, and had plans to study to be a lawyer, but his life was cut short by a chemical accident at his lab in Regents Park in February 1855.
THE MAGNETIC MR MANSFIELD: PASSIONATE TRUTH SEEKER, TROUBLED GENIUS.
When he died in 1855 aged 35, Charles Mansfield was one of the most promising pioneer research scientists in Britain. Passionately dedicated to the radical 'politics for the people' of the Christian Socialist Brotherhood, which he helped found in 1848 with friends Charles Kingsley, John Malcolm Ludlow, and 'The Master' – Frederick Maurice.
The Brotherhood came together alarmed by the threat of revolution posed by the Chartist movement in Britain, and appalled by the hunger, poverty and oppression of the working classes – and the lack of a Social Gospel for compassionate action on their behalf.
This book explores Mansfield’s hidden role at the heart of Christian Socialist initiatives, from experiments in working class schooling at Ormonds Yard in Bloomsbury to Sanitation and Public Health work in Bermondsey, culminating in the Brotherhood's greatest achievements – the setting up of 12 Working Men’s Associations and the passage through Parliament of the Industrial and Provident Societies Act of 1852, which provided a legal framework for the establishment of workers cooperatives in the United Kingdom.
This book also highlights Mansfield’s remarkably sympathetic and sensitive personality, and his intimate role in reconciling the growing personal conflicts between 'the four friends'; the movement splintered at the height of its success in 1851–52, and was eventually diverted by Frederick Maurice into the narrower mission of the Working Men’s College in 1854.
However, it is also a journey into the heart of the mystery of Charles Mansfield’s brief but extraordinary life – the life of a troubled but fiercely compassionate genius and inspirational truth seeker and polymath, who though much loved by friends such as John Ludlow and Charles Kingsley was little understood and often alienated and depressed.
Much heartache came from his mysterious secret marriage in 1842 to one Catherine Shafto, a marriage in name only which left the passionate Mansfield unable to have relationships with women of his own class. This led to scandal within the Brotherhood in 1852, when the failure of a love affair led to his departure for a 'sabbatical' in South America. A book on his travels to 'Brazil, Paraguay and the Plate' was posthumously published, as was a futuristic book on Aerial Navigation inspired by Mansfield’s friendship with aeronautical pioneer Sir George Cayley.
On leaving University he had ambitions to be a doctor, but three years walking the wards left him appalled by 'medico quacks' and 'ophthalmic poisoning shops', and he became a vegetarian, a supporter of homoeopathy, and an enthusiastic practitioner of hands on healing or 'animal magnetism'. One chapter is dedicated to Mansfield’s nursing of Charles Kingsley during his breakdown in 1848–49, and his use of magnetism as part of a seaside 'rest cure'.
Between 1846 and 1855 he dedicated most of his working life to research into coal tar at the Royal Institute of Chemistry, but on his return from South America he determined to complete his researches and then find a more human profession. He signed on as a teacher at the Working Men’s College in 1854, and had plans to study to be a lawyer, but his life was cut short by a chemical accident at his lab in Regents Park in February 1855.
