If Britain was the first industrial and urban nation, it was also, for much of the period between 1750 and 1950, a remarkably religious one. During the first century of industrialisation the social relevance of religion actually increased, and the churches played a major role in both the public and the private spheres. Religion provides one of the keys to the history of the age.

Given Christianity's ancient origins, that may seem surprising: was not a traditional faith bound to wither away in a period of rapid modernisation? And since the two main churches, the Church of England and the Church of Scotland, had been integral parts of the pre-1832 ‘old regime’, were they not also bound to decline in an age of liberal and democratic political reform?

Similar questions were posed about the churches in all the advanced European countries. But Britain's answers were different. For while the established churches in Britain were comparable to those in Europe, there was also, as in America, an array of competing independent denominations. The combination of European quasi-monopoly and American ‘free market’ gave British religious life much of its distinctive character.

In the event the churches thrived on competition and for much of the period responded to social and political change with considerable success. During the Victorian religious ‘boom’ their influence, for better or worse, was greater than it had been since the seventeenth century; like America in more recent times, Victorian Britain shows that a modernising society can be religious.