1900 - 1919
1900 - 1914
Enthusiasm for social service became a unifying interest among students of all religious and social backgrounds in the years before and during the First World War. To attend a higher education college before 1914 was still a privilege reserved for a small minority in Britain, engendering a strong ethic of service among students. The Student Christian Movement started a Social Study Department to prepare social service text books and in 1909 a Social Service Committee was formed to develop and coordinate this work in colleges and universities across the country. In 1908 a course of lectures on poverty and social service by leading social workers such as Samuel Barnett attracted more than 500 students from the University of London.
By the Edwardian period Christian unions, social study clubs and committees to support settlement and mission work formed a significant part of student life in all British colleges and universities. In fact the settlement or college mission model was adapted and modified by a very wide range of educational institutions, both in Britain and overseas. As one example of many, the Blackheath Kindergarten and Training College adopted a kindergarten in a poor parish of Woolwich as its ‘mission’ in the first years of the twentieth century. In 1905 the women’s teacher training college affiliated to University College, Bristol started a Social Service Guild which proved so popular that 105 out of 120 students became members. Indeed, women’s colleges in particular developed strong traditions of social service including Westfield College, London; Alexandra College, Dublin; Newnham College, Cambridge and Queen Margaret’s College, Glasgow. Student philanthropic societies also flourished in the Catholic women’s colleges in Ireland, where for instance, the Sodalities of the Children of Mary became a significant part of college life.
Student volunteers helped the permanent settlers or paid staff of missions, settlements and other social institutions to keep the clubs, classes, dispensaries, relief funds and programmes of visiting running. Additional volunteers were recruited during university vacations to support activities such as summer camps, Christmas treats or annual sports tournaments. Short-term residence for such volunteers was also part of the wider function of settlements and college missions in providing social education and social service training to students. In the Edwardian period new volunteering opportunities for students opened up on various after-care committees, in burgeoning maternal and child welfare services, and in first aid, home nursing or life-saving work.
New developments in settlement and mission work continued in the early twentieth century, although some older settlement workers became disillusioned with the progress of the movement. Campaigns to reignite interest were launched periodically. In 1911 a meeting was held in Oxford to restate the case for the settlement movement to a new generation of students. Speakers at this meeting urged that settlements were still offering the best opportunities for educated men and women to make contact with the urban poor and suggested that it was through continued support that universities could play a real part in the life of the nation. In the same year the head of Cambridge House, N. B. Kent, recorded the ‘increasing desire to serve which is so widespread at the present’.
By 1908 the Student Christian Movement had branches in 130 colleges and universities with a membership of more than 5,000 students. In many universities and colleges the branch of the SCM was the only student society concerned with questions of social service and citizenship. Indeed as the first national student movement, the SCM played an important role in developing a corporate culture at new civic universities as well as at teacher training and theological colleges. In 1912 a SCM conference in Liverpool on the theme of ‘Christ and Social Need’ attracted 2,000 students and was accompanied by a touring exhibition on social and missionary service.
In several colleges joint social service committees were formed by student Christian unions, Christian Social Union branches, Fabian societies, social study groups and suffrage societies. Such ideas of co-operation in social service and the associated liberal theology were not welcomed by the more evangelical groups such as the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union which disaffiliated from the SCM in 1910, eventually forming the rival Inter-Varsity Fellowship. CICCU did however continue to support newly established evangelical settlements such as the Cambridge Medical Mission Settlement, founded in 1906.
The First World War and after
The First World War is famous for the two and a half million British men and women who volunteered to join the armed forces, but there was also a significant increase in volunteering on the home front. Students were involved in various ways with the war effort, such as farm work during vacations or providing support to refugees from Belgium. Student numbers gradually declined as both men and women joined the armed forces and auxiliary services. In a 1917 pamphlet on students and citizenship, the SCM’s Hugh Martin considered that during wartime students had become ‘awakened to the nation’s need and eager to serve her’.
British university students were also closely involved with the post war relief effort for central Europe and the Russian famine. Part of this work was co-ordinated by the Universities Committee of the Imperial War Relief Fund, a British relief agency for central Europe formed on the initiative of the Lord Mayor of London. Another important group was European Student Relief, formed in 1920 on the initiative of British students as an autonomous subsection of the World’s Student Christian Federation. European Student Relief, with headquarters in Geneva, solicited funds and gifts-in-kind from students and staff at universities all over the world and distributed it to groups of needy students throughout Europe.
The formation of the National Union of Students of England and Wales in 1922 was, as its first president Ivison Macadam averred, a direct outcome of this post war movement for cooperation and reconstruction: ‘the spirit of service pervades the movement’ he commented in a 1922 pamphlet.
Enthusiasm for social service became a unifying interest among students of all religious and social backgrounds in the years before and during the First World War. To attend a higher education college before 1914 was still a privilege reserved for a small minority in Britain, engendering a strong ethic of service among students. The Student Christian Movement started a Social Study Department to prepare social service text books and in 1909 a Social Service Committee was formed to develop and coordinate this work in colleges and universities across the country. In 1908 a course of lectures on poverty and social service by leading social workers such as Samuel Barnett attracted more than 500 students from the University of London.
By the Edwardian period Christian unions, social study clubs and committees to support settlement and mission work formed a significant part of student life in all British colleges and universities. In fact the settlement or college mission model was adapted and modified by a very wide range of educational institutions, both in Britain and overseas. As one example of many, the Blackheath Kindergarten and Training College adopted a kindergarten in a poor parish of Woolwich as its ‘mission’ in the first years of the twentieth century. In 1905 the women’s teacher training college affiliated to University College, Bristol started a Social Service Guild which proved so popular that 105 out of 120 students became members. Indeed, women’s colleges in particular developed strong traditions of social service including Westfield College, London; Alexandra College, Dublin; Newnham College, Cambridge and Queen Margaret’s College, Glasgow. Student philanthropic societies also flourished in the Catholic women’s colleges in Ireland, where for instance, the Sodalities of the Children of Mary became a significant part of college life.
Student volunteers helped the permanent settlers or paid staff of missions, settlements and other social institutions to keep the clubs, classes, dispensaries, relief funds and programmes of visiting running. Additional volunteers were recruited during university vacations to support activities such as summer camps, Christmas treats or annual sports tournaments. Short-term residence for such volunteers was also part of the wider function of settlements and college missions in providing social education and social service training to students. In the Edwardian period new volunteering opportunities for students opened up on various after-care committees, in burgeoning maternal and child welfare services, and in first aid, home nursing or life-saving work.
New developments in settlement and mission work continued in the early twentieth century, although some older settlement workers became disillusioned with the progress of the movement. Campaigns to reignite interest were launched periodically. In 1911 a meeting was held in Oxford to restate the case for the settlement movement to a new generation of students. Speakers at this meeting urged that settlements were still offering the best opportunities for educated men and women to make contact with the urban poor and suggested that it was through continued support that universities could play a real part in the life of the nation. In the same year the head of Cambridge House, N. B. Kent, recorded the ‘increasing desire to serve which is so widespread at the present’.
By 1908 the Student Christian Movement had branches in 130 colleges and universities with a membership of more than 5,000 students. In many universities and colleges the branch of the SCM was the only student society concerned with questions of social service and citizenship. Indeed as the first national student movement, the SCM played an important role in developing a corporate culture at new civic universities as well as at teacher training and theological colleges. In 1912 a SCM conference in Liverpool on the theme of ‘Christ and Social Need’ attracted 2,000 students and was accompanied by a touring exhibition on social and missionary service.
In several colleges joint social service committees were formed by student Christian unions, Christian Social Union branches, Fabian societies, social study groups and suffrage societies. Such ideas of co-operation in social service and the associated liberal theology were not welcomed by the more evangelical groups such as the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union which disaffiliated from the SCM in 1910, eventually forming the rival Inter-Varsity Fellowship. CICCU did however continue to support newly established evangelical settlements such as the Cambridge Medical Mission Settlement, founded in 1906.
The First World War and after
The First World War is famous for the two and a half million British men and women who volunteered to join the armed forces, but there was also a significant increase in volunteering on the home front. Students were involved in various ways with the war effort, such as farm work during vacations or providing support to refugees from Belgium. Student numbers gradually declined as both men and women joined the armed forces and auxiliary services. In a 1917 pamphlet on students and citizenship, the SCM’s Hugh Martin considered that during wartime students had become ‘awakened to the nation’s need and eager to serve her’.
British university students were also closely involved with the post war relief effort for central Europe and the Russian famine. Part of this work was co-ordinated by the Universities Committee of the Imperial War Relief Fund, a British relief agency for central Europe formed on the initiative of the Lord Mayor of London. Another important group was European Student Relief, formed in 1920 on the initiative of British students as an autonomous subsection of the World’s Student Christian Federation. European Student Relief, with headquarters in Geneva, solicited funds and gifts-in-kind from students and staff at universities all over the world and distributed it to groups of needy students throughout Europe.
The formation of the National Union of Students of England and Wales in 1922 was, as its first president Ivison Macadam averred, a direct outcome of this post war movement for cooperation and reconstruction: ‘the spirit of service pervades the movement’ he commented in a 1922 pamphlet.
