by Stuart Irwin

‘One Sunday evening during the hour of the regular church services I walked from Royal Avenue to the Shankill Road. I was so struck by the large numbers of non-church going people that my heart was moved in a strange degree to reach them with the message of life’. (Rev. Henry Montgomery)

Belfast experienced remarkable urban growth across the nineteenth century. The population increased from 19,000 in 1801 to 350,000 by 1901. The main religious denominations responded accordingly to meet the increased need for provision, with Belfast experiencing a boom in church building during the late nineteenth century. In spite of such efforts, there remained many working-class people who had no connection with any church. Non-attendance at church was perceived as resulting in a growth of immoral behaviour, such as crime, excessive drinking, and gambling. The Witness, a Presbyterian newspaper in Belfast, offered a rather gloomy picture: ‘Abandoned by the religious, they soon learn to renounce religion itself; they become atheistic politicians, destructive anarchists, and are a menace to society and to civilization.’ Efforts were made by some concerned individuals to help those who were outside the church. One such example was the establishment of the Shankill Road Mission by the Revd Dr Henry Montgomery.

Henry Montgomery, a Presbyterian minister in the city, was committed to urban mission work and sought to offer Christian philanthropy to those who were beyond reach of the traditional church setting. In 1896 he decided to establish the Shankill Road Mission after visiting that working-class district of Belfast and being ‘so struck by the large numbers of non-church going people that my heart was moved in a strange degree to reach them with the message of life’. Montgomery set about securing private donations for the erection of multi-functional, all-purpose mission buildings on the Shankill Road, with original plans including a large semi-circular assembly hall, classrooms, medical facilities, a soup kitchen, retail units and a residential training department. Due to financial constraints, some of the more ambitious plans had to be shelved by the time the buildings were opened in November 1898.

These mission buildings provide a fascinating insight into Montgomery’s vision for the Shankill Road Mission and the values and ethos that guided his work. Previously, evangelical urban mission in the city had primarily been concerned with preaching the Gospel and saving the individual. In contrast, Montgomery wanted to promote individual conversion whilst also striving to deal with the material problems that people faced. On one occasion he stated that ‘[t]o preach religion without putting it into practice was not good anywhere, but it was unspeakably out of place when seeking to help the poor and needy.’ He envisioned the Mission as being a type of social centre, where all needs could be met.

The pioneering urban mission work that the Shankill Road Mission provided to the people of that area included the following: offering an extensive choice of activities, ranging from Gospel services and a Sunday school to a night school and music sessions; a Christmas supper for the poor and needy; and trips to the seaside to enjoy the fresh air.

The establishment of the Shankill Road Mission allowed Henry Montgomery to reach the non-churchgoing in a meaningful way by dealing ‘with a man as whole’. He was held in high esteem by the people of the Shankill Road area, as was reported in local newspapers following his death in February 1943.

‘Many people lined the streets in the area where Dr Montgomery had spent a long life of devoted service; blinds were drawn, doors of business premises were shut, and there were other evidences of the deep respect in which citizens, without distinction of creed, held the memory of the man who had long ministered to their spiritual and temporal needs.’

Stuart is a PhD student at the School of History and Anthropology at Queen’s University, Belfast. His Master’s thesis was on the subject of the Shankill Road Mission, and is he is pursuing the history of Belfast by looking at the ‘Belfast Corporation, 1880-1914: managing a mature industrial city’. To find out more please click here.

by Robyn Atcheson

‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind.’

For the residents of Belfast in the nineteenth century, Scriptural authority carried a great deal of weight.  This verse from the Gospel of Luke (ch.14 v.21) was frequently used as an example of Christian charity by religious leaders in the town, an example they encouraged their flocks to follow.  Officially, the main churches in Belfast did not adopt policies on poor relief until much later in the century but rather, advocated involvement in voluntary societies to help the poor.  A wide range of such philanthropic organisations existed in Belfast but even if secular in outlook and action, the people involved in such activities frequently had religious motivations.  Donating, collecting, administering and organising charity was commonly seen as a virtuous task and a fulfillment of Christian duty.

Philanthropy could take many forms such as providing basic education for children, offering medical aid, donating clothing, collecting and donating money, or simply providing opportunities for the poor to help themselves.  The idea of self-help was popular throughout the nineteenth century as was the belief that through moral improvement, the poor could better their conditions.  Causes such as rescuing ‘fallen women’ and providing alternative evening activities other than drinking are illustrative of this attempt to boost the morality of the poor.  Some organisations offered purely spiritual aid, visiting the poor in their own homes to read the Bible and encourage them to live morally righteous lives.  The success of such endeavours is questionable but in attempting to help those in need, these philanthropic individuals have provided historians with incredible insight into the lives of the poor.  One such account offers a glimpse into a charitable Christmas Eve in Belfast in 1834 when an agent of the Belfast Town Mission noted that ‘In one house I found a woman and her little child sitting on a wet ground-floor, with little clothing, and no fire. She told me she had no fire since yesterday, and that she had no meat, nor any prospect of getting it; and her neighbours could not relieve her for the present, and a kind lady, upon whom I called, sent her 2s. 6d.’

The reports of charities and their agents offer a first-hand account of some of the conditions and help to build a greater understanding of what it was like to be poor in nineteenth-century Belfast.

Note on author:

This post was contributed by Robyn Atcheson. Robyn is a PhD student on the AHRC-funded project ‘Poverty and public health in Belfast and its region, 1800-1973’ and she presented this poster at our Crumlin Road Gaol event in April 2013. See here for more details on Robyn and click on the image above to view her poster more closely. Come back by the end of the week to see the poster contributed by Stuart Irwin on the ‘Shankill Town Mission’.

For this cloudy Wednesday afternoon let Sean Lucey take you to Belfast between the First and Second World Wars to provide a picture of the public health provision that was available for the people of the city. Click on the link below to hear Sean’s lecture at Crumlin Road Gaol on 17 April 2013. You can view the powerpoint presentation at the same time!

Audio: Public Health in Interwar Belfast

Powerpoint: Public Health in inter-war Belfast

One of the members of our research team, Dr Olwen Purdue, can be heard providing historical narration to a slideshow of photographs that depict the backstreets of Belfast a century ago. The images, taken by photographer Alex Hogg around 1913, can now be found in the National Museums Northern Ireland, Belfast City Council and Linen Hall Library. These photographs, as Olwen notes, were most likely never seen by the people captured in the images themselves but for those of us living in 21st century Belfast, they provide a rare look in the rear-view mirror. They have been collated into a slideshow produced by the BBC and you can see and listen here.