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Cardinal Manning, Campaigner for Children's Rights

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

D. E. Selby
Affiliation:
Gartree High School, Oadby, Leicester

Extract

The 1880s witnessed a remarkable upsurge in public concern over the question of child welfare. Not only were two important Acts of Parliament passed providing children, for the first time, with effective safeguards against neglect, cruelty and exploitation, but the final year of the decade saw the establishment of the highly influential National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Whilst much has been written of these developments, the part played by cardinal Henry Edward Manning in forming public opinion and in helping to secure the successful passage of legislation has, by and large, gone unacknowledged. It was in 1885—some twenty years after his elevation to the see of Westminster—that he took up the burning question of child protection, a fact which adds weight to Ausubel's assertion that ‘his last years were in many respects the most fruitful of his life, especially in his attempts to apply Christianity to social problems’.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

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References

page 403 note 1 McClelland, V. A., Cardinal Manning: his Public Life and Influence, 1865–1892, London 1962Google Scholar, devotes but two pages to Manning's work in this sphere and restricts his remarks to a discussion of the cardinal's involvement in Stead's ‘Social Purity Crusade’ of 1885 (207–9). Pinchbeck, I and Hewitt, M., Children in English Society. II: From the Eighteenth Century to the Children Act 1948, London 1973, fail to make any mention of Manning's contribution to the child protection movement.Google Scholar

page 403 note 2 Ausubel, H., In Hard Times: reformers Among the Late Victorians, London 1960, 124.Google Scholar

page 403 note 3 Whyte, F., The Life of W. T. Stead, London 1925, II. 161.Google Scholar

page 404 note 1 Ibid.

page 404 note 2 Ibid.

page 404 note 3 Stead, E. W., My Father: Personal and Spiritual Reminiscences, London 1913, 125.Google Scholar

page 404 note 4 Pearson, M., The Age of Consent: Victorian Prostitution and its Enemies, Newton Abbot 1972, 134–5.Google Scholar

page 404 note 5 F. Whyte, op. cit., i. 160.

page 404 note 6 Ibid., 162.

page 405 note 1 This extract from Stead's own account of the affair is cited in E. W. Stead, op.cit., 126.

page 405 note 2 F. Whyte, op.cit., i. 163; Manning, H. E. and Waugh, B., ‘The Child of the English Savage’, The Contemporary Review, XLIX (1886), 698Google Scholar; Public General Statutes, 48 and 49, Victoria, 18841885, 358–9Google Scholar.

page 405 note 3 F. Whyte, op.cit., i. 182–5. The technicality was that he had failed to obtain the consent of the father before taking the girl away. She had been put under the care of the Salvation Army in Paris (Ibid., 162).

page 405 note 4 Stead, W. T., ‘Character Sketch: Cardinal Manning’, Review of Reviews, I (1890), 480.Google Scholar

page 405 note 5 Ibid.

page 405 note 6 E. W. Stead, op. cit., 126.

page 405 note 7 W. T. Stead, op. cit., 480.

page 405 note 8 F. Whyte, op. cit., i. 197.

page 405 note 9 Ibid., 183.

page 406 note 1 Manning to Stead, 11 November 1885, cited in W. T. Stead, op. cit., 481.

page 406 note 2 F. Whyte, op. cit., i. 278.

page 406 note 3 Purcell, E. S., Life of Cardinal Manning, Archbishop of Westminster, London 1896, II. 653.Google Scholar

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page 407 note 1 B. Waugh, op. cit., 191.

page 407 note 2 Manning, H. E. and Waugh, B., ‘The Child of the English Savage’, Contemp. Rev., XLIX (1886), 698.Google Scholar

page 407 note 3 Ibid., 690–1.

page 407 note 4 Ibid., 699.

page 408 note 1 Dictionary of National Biography. Second Supplement, 1901–1911, London 1912, 620–1. The Society was incorporated by Royal Charter in 1895. ‘It was through the Cardinal’, Stead maintains, ‘that Her Majesty intimated her intention to become patron to Mr. Waugh's society’, cf. W. T. Stead, op. cit., 480.

page 408 note 2 Leslie, S., Henry Edward Manning: his Life and Labours, London 1921, 455.Google Scholar

page 408 note 3 Ibid. Manning's words are cited without reference.

page 408 note 4 Ibid.

page 408 note 5 The National Vigilance Association had been formed in the wake of Stead's 1885 agitation. Its object was to strengthen the vice laws and to help young girls who had been seduced or assaulted. Millicent Garrett Fawcett, better known as Mrs. Henry Fawcett, was a member of the Association from its inception. Cf. Strachey, R., Millicent Garrett Fawcett, London 1931, 107–17Google Scholar; Dictionary of National Biography, 1922–1930, London 1937, 277–9.Google Scholar

page 409 note 1 Royal Commission on the Elementary Education Acts, England and Wales, Third Report, 1887, 307–8, q. 50, 462. The Royal Commission (1886–8) is generally referred to as the Cross Commission after its Chairman, Sir Richard Assheton Cross. Its title is hereafter abbreviated to C.C. (Cross Commission).Google Scholar

page 409 note 2 , C.C., Third Report, 1887, qq. 50, 456–7.Google Scholar

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page 409 note 4 Ibid., 308, qq. 50, 464–6.

page 409 note 5 Ibid., q. 50, 467.

page 410 note 1 Ibid., q. 50, 475.

page 410 note 2 Ibid., q. 50, 477.

page 410 note 3 Ibid., 320, qq. 50, 739–45.

page 410 note 4 Ibid., 350, qq. 51, 564–8.

page 410 note 5 Ibid., 308, q. 50, 469.

page 410 note 6 C.C., Final Report, 1888, 110.

page 411 note 1 Public General Statutes, 52 and 53 Victoria, 1889, 176–86.Google Scholar

page 411 note 2 A. F. Young and E. T. Ashton, op. cit., 150.

page 411 note 3 Waugh, B., ‘Reminiscences of Cardinal Manning’, Contemp. Rev., LXI (1892), 191.Google Scholar

page 412 note 1 Manning to Salisbury, 19 July 1889: Salisbury Papers (S.P.), Christ Church Library, Oxford.

page 412 note 2 Salisbury to Manning, 20 July 1889: S.P., D/50/16.

page 412 note 3 Middleton, N., ‘The Education Act of 1870 as the Start of the Modern Concept of the Child’, British Journal of Educational Studies, XVIII (1970), 177Google Scholar.

page 412 note 4 Ibid., 179.

page 412 note 5 , C.C., Third Report, 1887, 81, q. 44, 527.Google Scholar

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