Young England - Expansion

Expansion

Through countryside speeches and pamphlet distribution, Young England attempted sporadically to proselytize to the lower classes. However, the few tracts, the poetry, and the novels that embodied the social vision of Young England were directed to a "New Generation" of educated, religious, and socially conscious conservatives, who, like Young Englanders, were appalled at the despiritualizing effects of industrialization and the perceived amorality of Benthamite philosophy, which they blamed equally for Victorian social injustices. Thus, Young England was inspired by the same reaction to individualistic and rationalistic Radicalism that engendered the Oxford Movement, the Evangelical movement, and the Social Toryism of Robert Peel and Lord Ashley. The association of Young England with Tractarianism can be traced to the early influence of Frederick Faber (1814-1863), a follower of John Henry Newman, upon Lord John Manners and George Smythe.

Like the founders of the Oxford Movement who ardently opposed the Victorian Radicalism centered in competitive economic self-determination, the founders of Young England rejected utilitarian ethics, blamed the privileged class for abdicating its moral leadership, and blamed the church for neglecting its duties to the poor, among them alms-giving. Expanding the Tractarians' reverence for the religious past to include a reactionary political agenda, Young England claimed to have found the model for a new Victorian social order in England's Christian feudal past.

Like Evangelicalism, Young England reflected the enthusiasm for confronting the middle-class crisis of Victorian conscience. In their advocacy of an exclusive, though tolerant, ecclesiastical authority, Young England's plan for a revitalized state church followed Coleridge's conception of an English clerisy.