Oddfellows. Rev. A. M. Bennett. Negotiation.

Introduction

Victorian Bournemouth (79) explores the possibility that social power brokers negotiated a deal during the summer of 1864. The possible deal involved the Reverend A. M. Bennett and key members of the Oddfellows benefit society. It concerned a Mechanics’ Institute and toleration for temperance. The basis for the idea comes from a long press article covering the public banquet held under the auspices of the Oddfellows on Coronation Day.

Victorian Bournemouth (79): background

Temperance for working people

Local magistrates dealt with a stream of drunkenness charges occurring at the resort during the 1860s. The police kept a vigilant watch on such behaviour, even charging inn-keepers if they continued to serve customers already drunk. Use of the law formed one part of the campaign waged by respectable people to keep their working counterparts away from intoxication. Another part consisted of attempts to establish clubs or institutes for working people. For example, a young person’s mutual improvement society appeared in 1865. Attendees drank tea at its inauguration. ‘Forty members have already joined this useful society, and it is in contemplation to have lectures at intervals, and also to form a library’. A third approach consisted in the provision of organised, vocational education. This took the form of Mechanics’ Institutes. An agreement to establish one in Bournemouth occurred in the early 1860s but did not proceed at that time.

High-Church Anglicanism for working people

The Reverend A. M. Bennett may have obstructed this Mechanics’ Institute at Bournemouth. He appeared to see religion as the way to effect social control. On occasion, he might act in a divisive if not aggressive manner. For another part of his approach, he chose education as a longer-term strategy. Several, local children’s schools received his support. For more immediate effect, he also ran lectures for adult working people, but the subjects appeared to have little relevance to the audience. Furthermore, many working people practiced forms of worship quite different to his High-Church Anglicanism. Also, Mechanics’ Institutes dealt in concepts more amenable to working audiences. For example, their courses offered vocational training. Benefit Societies, established and managed by working people, represented a system of self-help. This approach lay even further from the vision transmitted by Reverend Bennett. It may explain his cool reaction to the arrival of the Oddfellows.

Victorian Bournemouth (79): Oddfellows at Bournemouth

A difficult beginning

The Oddfellows had a balanced code about drinking. Fines applied to drunken brethren coming to lodge meetings. Nevertheless, they ‘did not see why a poor man should be debarred from taking his pint of beer at his lodge any more than a gentleman his wine at his club’. Thus, they supported not temperance but responsible alcohol usage. On arriving in Bournemouth (1853), however, the Oddfellows chose the Royal Arms as their lodge. Many local gentlemen disapproved. This would not assist their campaign to control working people’s drinking. As a result, the Oddfellows struggled at first, but numbers grew once they moved their lodge from a public to a private house. Reverend Bennett approved of their amenability. He now welcomed the Oddfellows into his church. Their celebration of 1864’s Coronation Day began with a service in St Peter’s. Afterwards, the clergyman attended and spoke at the banquet.

A non-sequitur

Richard Stephens, J. P., chaired the banquet sponsored by the Oddfellows in 1864. Genealogical analysis identifies his father as Richard Stephens (1785-1871). Very wealthy, the latter served almost fifty years as vicar at Belgrave, Leicester, the J. P.’s birthplace. Each attended Oxford University. A man of this background would have occupied a privileged role in contemporary society. The J. P. spoke as follows. ‘Ever since he had been in Bournemouth, he had done all in his power to bring the upper and lower classes more together, in order to promote a good feeling between each and an interest in their well-being.’ Then, in almost a non-sequitur, he supported establishing a Mechanics’ Institute in Bournemouth. His closing comments proposed the health of Reverend A. M. Bennett. In response, the cleric remembered his own labours to avoid separation of the classes. Furthermore, he agreed with the point about the Mechanics’ Institute.

Victorian Bournemouth (79): the deal

Privilege on their side

Benefit societies attempted to obtain such influential patrons as Stephens through the device of honorary membership. Thus, in public, these affluent supporters might endorse a social movement established for working people. By the rules of privilege, Bennett, another Oxford man, whose family also had good connections, could not argue against Stephens. Stephens’s speech, therefore, merits close analysis. Having the initiative in the meeting, his closing remarks may have reminded his audience of Bennett’s previous behaviour, despite his claims in public. His final flourish of toasting Bennett could seem as the end-game in winning the clergyman’s public endorsement for the Mechanics’ Institute. Before so many people, Oddfellows from many neighbouring lodges, the Reverend Bennett would have found it difficult to avoid positive comment about the suggested Mechanics’ Institute. Thus, Stephens appears used privilege in public as a way to remove an important obstacle to a Mechanics’ Institute.

The price for the Mechanics’ Institute

In 1871, a press article contained the following reference. ‘The Hon. Miss Eden has very kindly presented nearly 100 volumes to the library of the Bournemouth Mechanics’ Institute’. Thus, perhaps Bennett honoured his implicit promise made at the meeting. Bournemouth now housed a Mechanics’ Institute. Nevertheless, despite the use of the term ‘Bournemouth’, this clipping may refer to the Mechanics’ Institute founded at Pokesdown. This village formed part of the vast suburb to the east of Bournemouth, designed to house, for the most part, working-people. The privileged parts of Bournemouth lay far away to the west. Furthermore, according to the press, in 1865 the Oddfellows began to allow the Temperance Society to hold meetings in their lodge. Hence, if this hypothesised negotiation did occur between two privileged people, the apparent results suggest that the Reverend Bennett perhaps took more than he gave as a quid pro quo.

Takeaway

Victorian Bournemouth (79) has offered a reconstruction of possible events that occurred in the middle 1860s. As such it remains hypothetical. Yet, the closing speech of Richard Stephens justifies some consideration since its content stood out against the general agenda typical at such events.

References

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