Piet Naudé | Michael Welker | John Witte, Jr. (Eds.): The Impact of Political Economy (Leseprobe)

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70 Roshan Allpress chants became skilled at collective decision-making—which extended todistintive practices around taking committee minutes and coordinating volunteer actions. Because access to credit from other merchants was the primary path to commercial success, building networks of interpersonal trust was essential. Astrong culture ofassociational honor predominated, with frequent company dinners held to acknowledge those who had served the merchant community. Comparisons of the diaries ofcontemporaries show that these merchants were typically spending as much as twice the time per week as their peers in formal and informal socializing—lunches, clubs, and society memberships. Adding to this dense social dynamic were patterns ofkinship, with merchant families intermarrying in ways that kept capital within partnershipsinthe same trade and built dense intergenerational connectivity. Overlaying this milieu was the expansion of evangelical networks. The nascent religious movement that had emerged in the 1730s spread rapidly through London’smercantile communities from the 1750s, with the RussiaCompany experiencing some of the highest proportions of conversion. Evangelicalism prioritized particular modes of devotion, such as spiritual journaling, personal and family Bible study, study and prayer groups meeting in private homes, and attendance atmultiple sermons and lectures each week. 10 In urban contexts, where social anonymity and religious pluralism were increasingly normative, these practices proved well-suited to shaping individual and community identity, from initial conversion to ongoing religiously motivatedactivism. In London, evangelicals flocked to increasingly fashionable congregations, with pulpits occupied by popular preachers and lecturers. Evangelicals tended to eschew aspects of popular culture, such as theater—on the grounds oftheir potential for negative moral formation—but the movement is impossible to code in reactionary terms and was prolific in its cultural creativity. Agrowing number of printing houses and book societies published and distributed tracts, pamphlets, journals, and magazines that were assiduously read by families. Faced with antipathy by the gatekeepers and structures ofthe established church to their perceived destabilizing religious “enthusiasm,” evangelicals also increasingly pursued their aims through the creation of new charitable organizations—maternity hospitals, Sunday School societies, debt relief associations, and many more. The choice to convert to evangelicalism therefore entailed participation in adense subculture, in which individuals were encouraged to cultivate an identity through formative religious practices and participation in associational culture, and to live out their faith through various forms of charitable and philanthropic activism. 10 See D. Bruce Hindmarsh, The Spirit of Early Evangelicalism: True Religion in aModern World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).
Philanthropic Formation 71 The confluence of these two intensely formative cultures created awave of institutional and cultural innovation beginning in the 1750s, especially in the emerging field of philanthropy. New organizational models combined the entrepreneurial practices and accountability patterns endemic in mercantile networks, with the missional focus and institution-building tendencies of religious charities. Unlike the majority of religious charities in London during the mideighteenthcentury, whose governors tended only to attend annual meetings, the directors of these new philanthropic associations were active on voluntary committees. Immersed in collective deliberation and action for philanthropic purposes, they revealed in their diaries, correspondence, and minutes intense intellectual collaboration and experimentation in organizational practices. Participation or connection tothese networks fostered areinforcing formative culture for the voluntary directors and those close to them. 11 Henry Thornton’s life exemplified the formative dynamics of this context. His father, John Thornton, was aprominent member of the Russia Company who had been convertedtoevangelicalism around 1754, shortly after marrying Lucy Watson, the daughter of anotherprominent merchant family. Born in 1760, Henry Thornton therefore grew up immersed in Russia Company networks. Heinitially entered the countinghouse of his cousin Godfrey Thornton in 1778, before joining his father’s firm in 1780. Henry’s education and the guidance of his parents led him and his two older brothers through the patterns of preparation for merchant life. As an evangelical household, the family made rhythms of prayer, study of the Bible, and reading of awide range of moral and religious literature integral to daily life, alongside multiple church services aweek. Henry’s parents’ involvement in evangelical and philanthropic circles was also deeply shaping. The Thorntonhousehold frequentlyhosted visitors engaged in philanthropy, and the children therefore became acquainted with and sometimes engaged in longerterm correspondence with figures such as the North American indigenous missionary Samson Occom, the enslaved poet Phillis Wheatley, and numerous evangelical ministers and entrepreneurs. 12 The younger Thorntons were encouraged to donate to societies and to attend society meetings and read their annual reports and other literature. For example, John Thornton first donated tothe Society for Promoting Religious Knowledge among the Poor in 1761; twelve years later, his eldest son joined, and two years after that, Lucy Thornton and their three other children joined and began attending seminars and meetings of the 11 12 See Roshan Allpress, “Making Philanthropists: Entrepreneurs, Evangelicals and the Growth of Philanthropy in the British World, 1756–1840” (Unpublished DPhil thesis, University of Oxford, 2015), 41–141. Milton M. Klein, An Amazing Grace: John Thornton and the Clapham Sect (New Orleans: University Press of the South, 2004).
Page 1: Piet Naudé Michael Welker John Wit
Page 4 and 5: 6 Table of Contents Part Three: Eva
Page 7 and 8: Preface to the Series Five hundred
Page 9 and 10: Preface to the Series 11 are the so
Page 11 and 12: Introduction Piet J. Naudé In the
Page 13 and 14: Introduction 15 personal connection
Page 15 and 16: Introduction 17 contribution by Ros
Page 17 and 18: Neoliberal Political Economy and Va
Page 19 and 20: Neoliberal Political Economy and Va
Page 21: Neoliberal Political Economy and Va
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Page 26 and 27: 48 Andreas Glaeser from micro ritua
Page 29 and 30: Philanthropic Formation at the Inte
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Piet Naudé | Michael Welker | John Witte, Jr. (Eds.): The Impact of Political Economy (Leseprobe)

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