Imperial Gothic: Religious Architecture and High Anglican Culture in the British Empire, 1840-70

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The project is a study of the history and theory of Anglican church architecture in Britain's colonial empire during the mid nineteenth century (1840-70). It aims to explore the relationship between Anglican renewal (Oxford Movement and Tractarianism), British national identity, and the formation of British colonial society through a detailed examination of religious architecture and its transportation across the globe. The study focuses on the intellectual origins and motives underpinning the transformation that occurred in ecclesiastical design during this period, reassessing the ways in which High Victorian theory affected attitudes towards the role of Anglicanism and its ecclesiological manifestations in the non-European world. The study is interdisciplinary and considers these ideas in the context of contemporary debates on missionary theology, scientific theory, sexuality, race, national identity, and the political economy of art. The period under examination is considered especially important in the history of religious architecture in Britain, coinciding with the rise of the university architectural societies - the Cambridge Camden (later Ecclesiological) Society and the Oxford Architectural Society. These societies were concerned with developing a scholarly approach towards church design and restoration. They regularly commented on and assisted church design in Britain's colonies and were responsible for making the Gothic Revival style the lingua franca of church architecture throughout the British empire. The Ecclesiological Society in particular rose up to become the most influential forum for the discussion of church architecture in Britain during this period. Its principal publication, 'The Ecclesiologist' (1841-68), quickly became a popular and important periodical, affecting the work of some of Britain's foremost architects, including William Burges, G. E. Street, George Gilbert Scott, G. F. Bodley, and William Butterfield. One of the functions of 'The Ecclesiologist' was to report on church architecture in Britain's colonies. As these areas were seen as frontier environments - places of emigration, opportunity, social experimentation and confrontation - the perceived need to encourage correct church design was considered part of the wider Victorian 'mission' to promulgate western values through Christian teaching and worship. Architecture was seen as a chief agent in the success of this mission.Although devoted to the study of architecture per se, the study is predicated on the notion that buildings are culturally-mediated artefacts that embody and represent ideas. It is believed that a close study of religious architecture (size, design, context, materials) has the potential to reveal much about the motives, organisation, and effectiveness of the Anglican mission and the role it played in the process of colonisation. It is hoped that a fuller understanding of the considerable intellectual and pecuniary resources that went into formalising the religious practices of the Anglican Church through architecture will allow for a richer and more diverse interpretation of British imperial and colonial history. Some scholarship has been carried out on this subject but the phenomenon as a whole awaits systematic study on a global scale. Only a global perspective such as that intended here can give a full and coherent account of the role played by architecture in the Anglican mission field. The study will not only demonstrate the sheer variety of buildings erected - from grass chapels to stone cathedrals - but also their consistency (see Visual Evidence 1 & 2). With this in mind, the study intends to make a significant contribution to our understanding of the Anglican church abroad, taking scholarship on Victorian architecture in a new and exciting direction by engaging fields of inquiry as diverse as intellectual history, social anthropology, cultural geography, and aspects of post-colonial theory.