This article considers the relationship between voluntary charity, status and social leadership. The limitations of the historiography have been suggested by Alan Kidd (Social History, 1996). Most studies have focused on either the role of the individual, the "agent," and his/her motives, or the functional role of charities, the "object," as a vehicle for employers to exert direct and indirect influence over the poor and working classes. This article will offer an alternative approach by considering the role of agent and object. It will use Bourdieu's notions of "field," "capital" and "symbolic power" to provide a basic conceptual framework. It will focus on a group of 100 charity leaders in Victorian Manchester. The article will examine how this group was able to enter the charity field with significant cultural capital, such as wealth, education and social standing, and transform their economic and social positions into a form of symbolic capital, a legitimate form of social domination and leadership in the urban environment. However, it will also suggest that the value of charity as a means of underpinning social leadership was determined by sections of the community, which in effect restricted its importance to the mid- to late-Victorian period.
While significant relationship which existed among charity, status and social leadership in the Victorian urban environment has been fully recognised, it has only provided a limited focus for study.(1) This article is concerned with the underlying construction and dynamics of this relationship. It will focus on a distinct group of charity leaders who became associated with a proportionally large number of voluntary charities. This group was characterised not only by its degree of charitable involvement but also its members' considerable individual capital, their affluence and social standing.
Involvement with local charities, entering the "charity field," meant associating with notions of care, benevolence and Christian duty, making the leaders appear as altruistic and morally upstanding members of the community. Local newspapers and magazines eulogised those who became most actively associated with Manchester's voluntary charities. This was part of the discourse of charity, a vital structure of the charity field. It was their level of involvement combined with their social and political status that constituted these individuals as charity leaders from within the local middle classes. Charity was a vital means of acquiring or reinforcing their symbolic capital and social position. For many this was not necessarily a source of motivation. Yet through charitable involvement they nevertheless became regarded as "Manchester men," local leaders who had displayed moral worth and value to the community. The relationship was reciprocal. While the community held charitable association in relatively high regard such involvement could elevate or maintain an individual's status, becoming an essential part of the criteria for acquiring and maintaining social leadership within the community. However, a change in the criteria meant a change in the charity field which diminished its significance as a vehicle for social power.
The value of charitable association as a mechanism for acquiring and maintaining status and leadership, and the changes in its importance in the nineteenth century, is reflected in a study of the patterns of involvement of those who held governing and honorary positions in Manchester's charities.(2) These patterns raise a number of issues. First, they suggest comparatively few individuals were involved in a large number of charities across the century. Second, biographical details indicate that even without their charitable careers most members of this group were prominent figures within the community. The majority were affluent and several held a range of other public positions and titles. Some were "self-made" men, though a significantly large proportion had inherited their wealth and position. They were a group of charity leaders who were also prominent members of the local middle classes. Most had considerable cultural capital with which to enter the charity field, suggesting that success within this field was dependent on having the necessary time, and money, as well as ability to succeed.
As will be seen, Bourdieu's notions of cultural capital, charity field and symbolic capital provide a useful framework for examining the relationship among charity, status and power.(3) Through successful association with a range of charities these individuals were able to maintain or acquire symbolic capital and social leadership. In effect, this symbolic capital made them "Manchester men." This was a position legitimised through the fulfilment of a particular set of criteria. Generational data regarding the patterns of the births and deaths of Manchester's charity leaders suggest that their charitable career was an important element in social leadership during the mid-to late-nineteenth century. Entering the charity field provided similar dispositions for all, whether actively sought or not. This was a period when charity leaders were placed on a very public pedestal. The construction of a charitable profile was a vital means of acquiring status,(4) allowing individuals to influence sections of the community. While not all charity leaders necessarily aspired to such a position the fact remained that adulation by the local press coupled with the granting of public accolades in recognition of their charity work, helped to constitute them as social leaders. This was not an overtly political form of leadership. Rather, theirs were positions of dominance based on the reverence and regard of sections of the community. A charitable profile offered a symbolic form of power. For some, it served to underpin their social, economic or political position in the community, while for others such as new immigrants it was a pathway towards their becoming fully integrated and accepted within society.
Success in the charity field and the acquisition of symbolic capital varied. The field is an area of struggle in which individuals achieve varying results. Positions within the field are determined by specific capital and habitus, by the individual's background, education, as well as personal ability, knowledge, and social esteem.(5) Individuals had to be voted into a position within the charity by the subscribers.(6) Several factors could influence the decision. The degree of cultural capital was especially important,(7) as association with a range of charities often demanded time, money and social or economic status.(8) Only by entering the charity field with the required degree of cultural capital could individuals forge a successful charitable profile.(9) Also, aspirants needed the right habitus, the personal qualities formed through nature and nurture. The interaction of capital and habitus signalled where the individual stood within the charity field. Also, central to the acquisition of the leaders charitable profile was the notion of the "Divine mission" inherent in their ability.(10) This included a discourse of charity which stressed the "heroic Christianity" practised by individuals. Individuals were seen as caring Christians, serving the community in a display of altruism.
Charities routinised the whole process, providing the ideal vehicle for the individual urbanite to acquire the status of a charitable figure. It was through this that individual economic capital, wealth, social and political positions, were transformed into symbolic capital and social leadership, and legitimised in the process. Supposed moral values were signified by entering the charity field and through the transposition of the discourse associated with that field. The elevation of individuals into social leaders, people in the community to look up to and even aspire to, meant fulfilling the unwritten criteria of a worthy public representative. The criteria were determined by the social world in which the individuals operated, constituting a legitimate form of domination based on a general consensus with sections of the community.(11) In the mid-to late-Victorian period this meant offering proof of moral worth, of Christian care and compassion and of duty to the community. Voluntary charities offered such a demonstration of apparent individual values. Again, the relationship was reciprocal. Charities welcomed the patronage of individuals with considerable cultural capital. These were public figures who could attract wider public attention and, therefore, greater support. Specific motives among leaders were as wide and varied as the numbers involved,(12) but charities played a major role in determining the social basis of power in the mid-Victorian period. However, once the criteria changed in the late-Victorian period then so did the value of charity leadership as a mechanism for power diminish.
Understanding the functional role of voluntary charities in this sense is important in terms of a number of authority issues in the community. Moreover, it partly explains the reasons why some individuals became involved as charity officials. Although there existed a large number of voluntary charities throughout the nineteenth century,(13) the numbers actually involved in their government and management, or in filling one of the honorary roles, was not especially large. From the 1,804 available annual reports for Manchester a total of 3,908 individual names have been identified. These filled a total of 6,676 separate positions. The incomplete nature of the records means that the figures are understated. However, even if an arbitrary and somewhat simplistic calculation is applied, whereby an estimated 40 charities (14) are said to have survived for the period 1814-1914, leaving 4,000 annual reports instead of just under 2,000, then this would still only result in the estimated figure of 3,908 being multiplied by a factor of four. This would mean that under 16,000 became actively involved in Manchester's charities in the whole of the nineteenth century. Such figures contrast with the total population of 316,213 in 1851 and 700,000 in 1914.(15) Population figures offer only a broad guide as to the extent of charitable giving. Manchester was an imperial city, lying at the centre of an industrial network which included the city of Salford and towns such as Stockport, Ashton, Oldham and Rochdale.(16) Moreover, from the mid-nineteenth century its middle classes gradually moved out to towns and villages in north Cheshire.(17) Each was an administrative district independent from Manchester. This makes calculating such variables as the size of different classes problematic. The difficulty of locating, identifying and estimating the size of the upper middle class, together with the proportion of those within that class associated with Manchester's charities, provides a considerable logistical obstacle. However, what the patterns of involvement indicate is that a small group were involved in a disproportionably larger number of charities. Of the 3,908 individuals, at least 136 became officials in three separate charities, 73 served on four charities, 41 on five, 32 on six, 21 on seven, 15 on eight, 7 on nine and 25 on ten or more.
While the numbers involved were relatively small, this does not necessarily mean that Manchester's inhabitants were unwilling to become involved as officials for local charities or that a small number had to get involved because others were unwilling. The total number of individuals involved was determined as much by the number of places available as by the number of willing souls. Actual availability of places was further influenced by a number of other factors. Most positions were filled by regular subscribers who were voted onto one of the positions by their fellow subscribers. It was an activity that would take time and money. In the case of honorary positions, it was also an activity that often required a certain level of social esteem.
The actual type of association varied considerably. It can be divided into two basic categories, active and honorary. Amongst the group selected for the purposes of this study(18) a total of 607 different positions were filled. At least 341 of these were active posts and 251 were honorary titles. These further divide into 249 committee members, 11 chairmen, 25 deputy treasurers, 35 treasurers and 18 executive committee members. With the honorary positions, there were at least 10 patrons, 163 vice presidents, 31 presidents and 43 trustees. The inclusion of honorary title holders alongside committee members may seem problematic. These appeared to be merely ornamental positions. Their purpose and role centered on the holders' capacity to provide additional probity and trustworthiness to the charity to which patronage was granted.(19) However, this is a limited view. Not all charities could successfully attract patronage from the likes of the Earl of Derby or Lord Tatton. This in itself suggests that not all honorary titles were accepted and that people selected the charities to which they would give their patronage. The very act of giving one's name in support of a charity was a choice consideration. It was a means of influencing the public sphere. Name association was used in a highly visible way through public meetings and press reports covering charity events.(20) Individual names were printed and given a prominent position in every annual report and in newspaper articles covering the A.G.M or other such public events. The name would be noticed, and the more charities a person was involved with the more likelihood of that person becoming publicly associated with charitable causes. Whether a person was a committee member or a vice president, there was a public association of the individual with each particular charity. What the charity leaders indulged in was a public and noticeable form of involvement.
For many of those involved this high public profile served to underpin their role as part of a middle-class elite. The active positions carried with them real power in terms of managing each charity, and the honorary positions held a degree of indirect power. This could be one reason why official posts were not only dominated by a small number of individuals but also why they were a predominantly male preserve. The patriarchal society was certainly reflected, if not reinforced, by the patterns of involvement in Manchester's charities. Indeed, it is significant that there was not a single woman to be found amongst the ranks of the charity leaders. Women were not necessarily excluded or barred from taking up positions on the committees, or from receiving honorary positions. From the total number of 6,676 positions recorded for Manchester's charities, married women filled 609 of them and single women a further 280. Of the 3,908 individuals recorded, 460 were married women and 221 unmarried. Only fifteen of these served on three different charities and only three are known to have served four. The patterns also reveal that in total women served in only 48 out of the 98 individual charities, either as committee members or honorary title holders. The majority of these charities were of a type that was compatible with their domestic role and with their position as spiritual leaders.(21) Of the charities in which women were involved, seventeen were children's charities, nine were designed to help women and a further thirteen offered general medical relief or specialised care for the handicapped. Women did not become involved even in most of these charities until the second half of the century,(22) and although the incomplete nature of the records means that some women may have participated in the government of some charities earlier, the extant records suggest that the majority of these became most actively involved from 1870 onwards.(23) Using the dates at which a woman's name first appeared on the annual lists of serving officials for each charity as the basic guide, the records show that before 1870 women served as officials in only six separate charities. Between 1871 and 1879