58 Facts About Stewart Headlam

Stewart Duckworth Headlam was an English Anglican priest who was involved in frequent controversy in the final decades of the nineteenth century.

Stewart Headlam is noted for his role as the founder and warden of the Guild of St Matthew and for helping to bail Oscar Wilde from prison at the time of his trials.

Stewart Headlam was born on 12 January 1847 in Wavertree, near Liverpool, the elder son and third of four children of Thomas Duckworth Stewart Headlam, underwriter of Liverpool.

Maurice's teaching and example shaped Stewart Headlam's life, starting with his decision to be ordained.

Years later, Stewart Headlam told colleagues in the Fabian Society: that he had been delivered from "the belief that a large proportion of the human race are doomed to endless misery" by Maurice's teachings.

Stewart Headlam received another years training under Charles Vaughan who recommended him for ordination as a deacon and found him a curacy at St John's, Drury Lane, London.

Stewart Headlam was ordained deacon by Bishop John Jackson in 1869 and in 1871 as priest.

Stewart Headlam had five parish assignments, but he was dismissed from all of them.

Stewart Headlam was never "beneficed" and after being "constantly dismissed" with no curacy he could hold services only when friendly clergy invited him.

The parishioners to whom Stewart Headlam ministered included "working people, actors, actresses, and artisans".

Stewart Headlam, who was "notorious for his defence of the down-trodden of every sort," set out to remedy the situation by making dancing socially acceptable.

Stewart Headlam recognized that social acceptance of dance depended on "an appreciation of ballet as an autonomous aesthetic form".

Stewart Headlam adopted a threefold strategy to accomplish this goal: provide an "authoritative exposition of the dance technique itself", form the Church and Stage Guild, and formulate a theology of dance.

In spite of what they had in common, Stewart Headlam fell foul of Maul who asked him to leave the parish in 1873.

In 1873, Stewart Headlam left Drury Lane for St Matthew's, Bethnal Green.

Bethnal Green was an area of extreme poverty and Stewart Headlam was assigned to the most impoverished area.

Stewart Headlam went to see the "cheap theatres" his parishioners attended rather than church services.

The problem for Stewart Headlam was that his "defence of the Music Hall and the ballet as being worthy occupations and uplifting pastimes" was an "anathema" to the puritan and political climate.

Disturbed by the appalling living conditions of his parishioners Stewart Headlam used his sermons to attack the wide gap between rich and poor.

Stewart Headlam presented Jesus Christ as a revolutionary and when John Jackson, the Bishop of London who had long been concerned about Headlam's teaching, heard about this, he threatened Headlam with dismissal.

Stewart Headlam challenged workers to unite to strike down "the customs and circumstances" that make them "mere hands" for the production of goods.

Stewart Headlam's socialism was only one of Headlam's conflicts with authorities.

On 24 January 1878, Stewart Headlam married Beatrice Pennington at St Augustine's Church, Queensgate.

Stewart Headlam was left with no prospect for employment, but in 1879 he was offered a curacy by John Rodgers, vicar of St Thomas's Charterhouse.

In 1878, Stewart Headlam became a curate at St Thomas's under the vicar, the Revd John Rodgers.

Rodgers was "the most understanding incumbent" under whom Stewart Headlam would serve and even defended him in letters to Bishop Jackson.

Rodgers had served on the London School Board as Stewart Headlam was to do later.

From 1882 until its demise in 1903, Stewart Headlam sat on the London School Board.

Stewart Headlam took an active role in the promotion of evening classes for adults, especially as chairman of the Evening Continuation Schools Committee from 1897.

In 1884, Stewart Headlam used own money to buy and later to finance a newspaper, The Church Reformer: An Organ of Christian Socialism and Church Reform, that became virtually the voice of the Guild of Saint Matthew.

In 1873, after leaving St John's, Stewart Headlam received a curacy from Septimus Hansard, the rector of St Matthew's Church in Bethnal Green in London's East End, where poverty was the intrusive fact of social life.

Stewart Headlam attributed it in part to Charles Kingsley, but more especially to F D Maurice, whose incarnational theology he embraced while a student at Cambridge University.

Stewart Headlam added to the ideas of these early Christian Socialists a profound commitment to the creeds and to sacramental worship which he drew from the Anglo-Catholic ritualists whose work in the London slums he deeply admired.

Stewart Headlam was a harsh critic of evangelicalism, condemning it as individualistic and otherworldly.

Stewart Headlam befriended working-class secularists and their leader, Charles Bradlaugh, even as he fought secularism itself.

Stewart Headlam championed the arts in a broad sense, including the theatre, at a time when many clergy regarded it as morally suspect, and more scandalous still, the music hall, and ballerinas danced in flesh-coloured tights.

Politically, from the time he left Cambridge, Stewart Headlam regarded himself as a socialist of sorts.

Stewart Headlam formed the Guild of St Matthew on 29 June 1877.

When Stewart Headlam was dismissed from St Matthew's in 1878, he took the Guild with him.

In 1884, Stewart Headlam used his own money to buy and edit a newspaper, The Church Reformer: An Organ of Christian Socialism and Church Reform, which became "virtually the mouthpiece of the Guild".

In spite of dissatisfaction and defections in the membership, Stewart Headlam acted as warden of the Guild throughout its existence and his beliefs were reflected in its "proceedings and policies".

Stewart Headlam did not consult with others and acted as if the Guild should act according to his ideas.

Stewart Headlam's arrogating control of the Guild constituted the primary reason for the dissatisfaction and defections.

Stewart Headlam recalled two women, members of his congregation in Drury Lane, who kept their profession as actresses a secret for many months, fearing that he, as a clergyman, would despise them.

Stewart Headlam was critical of the quality of music hall songs.

At St Thomas's on 30 May 1879, Stewart Headlam continued his defence of popular theatre, and especially the ballet, by forming the Church and Stage Guild.

In December 1886, Stewart Headlam joined the Fabian Society and for several years served on the society's executive committee.

Stewart Headlam continued as a political figure for the rest of his life.

Stewart Headlam stated his motive as "concern for the arts and freedom".

When Wilde was released after serving his sentence, Stewart Headlam was there to meet him at six o'clock in the morning on 19 May 1897.

Central to Stewart Headlam's activity was his work within the voluntary organisations of his Guild of St Matthew and the Fabian Society.

Stewart Headlam addressed the 3rd Lambeth Conference in 1888 arguing that Christian socialism is biblical, but the bishops gave him "little heed".

In January 1898, Stewart Headlam was granted a general licence to preach by the new Bishop of London, Mandell Creighton.

Stewart Headlam had long viewed education as essential for social transformation, So in 1882, he was elected to the London School Board, an activity that he continued the rest of his life.

The London School Board was absorbed into the London County Council in 1903, so Stewart Headlam ran for and was elected to the London County Council for the Progressive Party in 1907 as a way of continuing his work in educational reform.

In 1906, Stewart Headlam began the Anti-Puritan League, but it gained only few members.

In October 1924, during his terminal illness, Stewart Headlam received a letter from Randall Davidson the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Stewart Headlam was a prophetic figure, whose passion for social justice was to inspire the small group of Anglican clergy exploring the political application of Christian social concern in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.