Guild of St Matthew

The Guild of St Matthew was an English high-church Christian socialist association led by Stewart Headlam from its establishment in Bethnal Green on 29 June 1877 when Headlam was Curate at St Matthew's to its dissolution in 1909. While the guild never had a membership of more than about 400 people, it was "the pioneer Christian socialist society of the revival period in Britain", breaking the ground for other Christian socialist organisations yet to come, such as the Christian Social Union. Kenneth Leech described it as "the first explicitly socialist group in Britain". For many years, it published the periodical The Church Reformer.

Guild of St Matthew

Named after	Matthew the Apostle
Formation	29 June 1877
Founder	Stewart Headlam
Founded at	Bethnal Green, England
Dissolved	1909
Warden	Stewart Headlam

See also

• Anglo-Catholicism
• Charles Kingsley
• Charles Marson
• Frederick Denison Maurice

References

Bibliography

• Jones, Peter d'Alroy (1968). Christian Socialist Revival, 1877–1914: Religion, Class, and Social Conscience in Late-Victorian England. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press (published 2015). ISBN 978-1-4008-7697-6.
• Leech, Kenneth (1989). The Radical Anglo-Catholic Social Vision. Discussion Papers. Vol. 2. Edinburgh: Centre for Theology and Public Issues. Retrieved 18 December 2017.
• Leighton, Denys P. (2004). The Greenian Moment: T.H. Green, Religion and Political Argument in Victorian Britain. British Idealist Studies: Green. Vol. 2. Exeter, England: Imprint Academic. ISBN 978-0-907845-54-6.
• Marsden, Gordon (1998). Victorian Values: Personalities and Perspectives in Nineteenth Century Society (2nd ed.). Abingdon, England: Routledge (published 2014). ISBN 978-1-317-88682-2.

Further reading

• Inglis, K. S. (1963). Churches and the Working Classes in Victorian England. Studies in Social History. Vol. 5. London: Routledge (published 2007). ISBN 978-0-415-41283-4.