Society for the Suppression of Vice
The Society for the Suppression of Vice, formerly the Proclamation Society Against Vice and Immorality, or simply Proclamation Society, was a 19th-century English society dedicated to promoting
History
The Society was founded by
Other members of the Clapham Sect, of which Wilberforce was one, were also involved in the society.[7][8]
As listed in an address published in 1803, the Society's particular concerns were: "profanation of the Lord's Day and profane swearing; publication of blasphemous, licentious and obscene books and prints; selling by false weights and measures; keeping of disorderly public houses, brothels and gaming houses; procuring; illegal lotteries; cruelty to animals".[9]
M.J.D. Roberts writes that the
Threats from the Society for the Suppression of Vice had a chilling effect on campaigning by those pushing for a reformation of parliament. The radical poet Percy Bysshe Shelley’s burlesque satire Swellfoot the Tyrant, which lampooned King George and his ministers and included in its title page “Choose Reform or Civil War” was withdrawn in 1820 by its publisher after copies were seized by Wilberforce’s men and the publisher was threatened with prosecution.[12]
The Society was involved in enforcing the
The
The Society was the means of suppressing "low and vicious periodicals", and of bringing the dealers to punishment, by imprisonment, hard labor and fines. The article reproduced on the Victorian London site records a list of items seized and destroyed. This included "large quantities of infidel and blasphemous publications."[16]
In 1885 the Society was still operational to some extent, as witnessed by its low-key harassment of
Notes
- ^ Pollock 1977, p. 61
- ^ Brown 2006, p. 346
- ^ Hochschild 2005, p. 126
- ^ a b Hague 2007, p. 108
- ^ Brown 2006, p. 385
- C. S. Lewis Institute.
...originally appeared in the Summer 2001 issue of the C. S. Lewis Institute Report.
- ^ Scotland, Nigel (29 January 2020). "The social work of the Clapham Sect: an assessment". The Gospel Coalition. Retrieved 20 December 2020.
- ^ "History – William Wilberforce". BBC. 7 November 2006. Retrieved 20 December 2020.
- ^ Roberts 1983, p. 159
- ^ Roberts 2004
- ^ Making English Morals: Voluntary Association And Moral Reform In England, 1787–1886 Reviews in History, July 2006
- ISBN 0140580379.
- ^ News LTD – Why you can't read all about it Kirkby Times, archived on February 12, 2009 from the original
- .
- JSTOR 20082795.
- ^ Society for the Suppression of Vice Dictionary of Victorian London
- ^ M.S. Lovell 2000, A Rage to Live: A Biography of Richard and Isabel Burton, Ch. 33.
- ^ http://www.aim25.ac.uk/cgi-bin/search2?coll_id=6844&inst_id=65 [dead link]
Bibliography
- OCLC 80331607.
- Hochschild, Adam (2005). Bury the Chains: prophets and rebels in the fight to free an empire's slaves. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0333904915.
- Pollock, John (1977). Wilberforce. New York: St. Martin's Press. OCLC 3738175.
- Roberts, M.J.D. (1983). "The Society for the Suppression of Vice and its early critics, 1802–1812". Historical Journal. 26: 159–76. .
- Roberts, M.J.D. (2004). Making English Morals: Voluntary Association And Moral Reform In England, 1787–1886. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521833892.
- Brown, Christopher Leslie (2006). Moral capital : foundations of British abolitionism. North Carolina: Chapel Hill. ISBN 978-0807856987.