The British Museum, National Gallery,
from London residents supporting the British Museum and National Gallery’s Sunday opening. One year later, supporters who favored opening the British Museum on Sunday had collected 115 petitions and 22,161 signatures. In 1856, Sir Joshua Walmsley
117introduced a bill to the House of Commons calling for the opening of the British Museum and National Gallery on Sunday afternoons.
118The Patriot argued that there was no stable middle ground. Any compromise would lead to complete obliteration of any distinction between the Lord’s Day and the rest of the week. Opening amusements on Sunday would lead to the destruction of the Sabbath and this would be one of the supreme tragedies to England and the world.
119Walmsley wanted to help the working class and his resolution aimed to assist their
morale and education. Yet, this, Baines argued, was faulty logic on Walmsley’s part since the working class would end up laboring at these venues instead of enjoying them.
120Fortunately, for Nonconformists, the bill received little support from Members of ________________________
much the Sunday Opening of the Museums and Galleries would benefit the people, for the request to be complied with” (Morrell, The National Sunday League, 3).
117Walmsley was a Member of Parliament for Leicester from 1847-1857.
118According to Baines, Walmsley moved “‘[t]hat in the opinion of this House it would promote the moral and intellectual improvement of the working classes of this metropolis, if the collections of natural history and of art in the British Museum and the National Gallery were open to the public inspection after morning service on Sundays’” (Baines, On the Performance of Military Bands, 3).
119Baines, A Letter to the Right Hon. Lord Palmerston, 9. The Patriot editors added, “Let the natural history of Sabbath-desecration, as developed in France, Italy, and Germany, be analysed; and it will be discovered, that there is no stopping at any mid-distance between a strict observance of the Day of Rest, and the complete obliteration of every mark of distinction between that day and the business-days of the week. Recreation is the plea; but what do we see in Germany, for instance? Why, not only recreation on the Sabbath-day, but business; the fact being notorious, that, in several German states, the greatest fairs are held upon the Sabbath-day” (“The Sabbath-Observance Question,” 80).
120Baines added, “I am persuaded, my Lord, that a seventh day of labour would add nothing to the amount of wages, whilst it would detract immensely from the comfort, the happiness, and the character of the labourer. To oppress the hireling in his wages is a crime against which GOD will be a swift witness:
but to rob him of his Sabbaths is in my judgment a deeper sin, because the consequences extend to a life which has no end” (Baines, A Letter to the Right Hon. Lord Palmerston, 15).
Parliament and encountered great opposition from Sabbatarians.
121Opponents of the bill were able to generate 4,985 petitions and 627,652 signatures,
122and the motion was defeated 376-48. For the time being, the British Museum and National Gallery remained closed.
123Those who favored opening recreational venues on Sunday refused to surrender and established entertainment venues in London’s public parks. Government officials opened Kensington Gardens on Sunday afternoons in 1855.
124The initiator was Benjamin Hall, a Member of the House of Commons, and the implementer was Lord Palmerston (Henry John Temple). Lord Palmerston, then Prime Minister, argued that Sunday amusements benefited the working class because they gave workers a legitimate reason to enjoy a day off. If they already had plans to attend an amusement, they would not succumb to working on Sunday.
Once Kensington Gardens opened, the government attempted to attract people to the Gardens. Tents and booths were stationed to sell refreshments, and a band was
121In the House of Commons, an MP named Ebrington, acknowledged that he was “unhappily, one of the small minority who voted in favour of opening the British Museum and the National Gallery on Sundays” (“The Moral Aspects of the Hyde-Park Affair,” 10). Baines also wrote that he hoped Walmsley’s motion would “be defeated [this year] by even a larger majority than last year” (Baines, A Letter to the Right Hon. Lord Palmerston, 4).
122Baines, On the Performance of Military Bands, 4.
123According to Noel, The House of Commons opposed the Museum’s opening for two reasons: the Government must not offer amusements to the public on Sundays, and it should prevent its citizens’ servants from unnecessary labor. See Noel, Music and Pleasure on the Sabbath, 40.
124“We have no doubt, that these orders have been given from a desire to please the public, by rendering the Crown property yet more subservient to the ‘recreation of the people.’ But, where is this to stop? Unfortunately, no one can tell. Of this, however, we feel quite sure, —that, unless a stand be made, it will not stop, until the British Museum, the National Gallery, the Crystal Palace, and every place of amusement and recreation, public or private, have been rendered accessible on Sunday as on other days, — until, in fact, there be no difference, in this respect, between London and Paris, or any other continental city” (“The Sabbath-Observance Question,” 80).
ordered to play.
125This further irritated Nonconformists.
12679,247 attended Kensington Gardens on Sunday April 13, 1856. On the following Sunday almost 90,000 listened to music in Regent’s Park.
127At Kensington, pristine weather and the Royal Horse Guards Blue band attracted the massive crowd.
128Later in 1856, military bands were placed in several of London’s public parks on Sundays for entertainment purposes. The
government instructed the bands to play at Kensington each Sunday evening for two hours. Baines saw the bands as a danger not only because it was harmful to Sabbath observance, but also because it placed young men and women together in a way that brought “extreme peril.”
129Instead of attending the evening church service, crowds flocked to the parks seeking entertainment. Nonconformist writers believed that Sunday
125Baines, On the Performance of Military Bands, 5: “All persons who are employed in the establishments, exhibitions, and institutions above referred to would be called upon to give up their Sabbath, at least in part, if not altogether. For example, the military bands who perform in the parks are required to obey, on pain of coming under the severe discipline of the army. Whatever may be their conscientious objection, or whatever their desire for the Sabbath rest, it is at their peril that they disobey orders. There must also be policemen employed to preserve order in so vast a crowd” (11). Baines also added, “SIR BENJAMIN HALL thinks it right that tents or booths should be set up for the sale of refreshments” (11-12).
126“The friends of Sunday observance should communicate freely at once with each other, and we may then hope to admonish our rulers of the impolicy of their present course” (“Review of the Month,”
Eclectic Review 10 [October 1855]: 507).
127Following Regents Park, another gathering was planned for Victoria Park for the lower classes on eastern London. At Kensington, the scene was rowdy. Hundreds of boys shouted and quarreled while others fought with wooden sticks. It was characterized as a “wild” scene of “excitement” (Noel, Music and Pleasure on the Sabbath, 18).
128The Times reported the following on April 21, 1856: “‘Yesterday the band of the Royal Horse Guards Blue played again in Kensington Gardens, when, owing doubtless in a great measure to the magnificent weather, very nearly twice as many people were assembled as on the Sunday previous’” (ibid., 6).
129“The strains of martial music cause the pulse to bound, and fire the imagination, and they are wholly out of accordance with the sacred repose of the Sabbath. It is, however, their fascination which here constitutes their chief danger. Crowds are sure to follow them; and among these crowds, arrayed in their Sunday finery, thousands of young girls and young men, with no more than the average amount of vanity and weakness, will be brought into circumstances of extreme peril. At these places, I fear, thousands of Sunday scholars will first learn to desert the school and the place of worship, and to enter on the
downward path of folly and vice” (Baines, On the Performance of Military Bands, 8).
concerts set a bad example for the rest of the country.
130If they were tolerated in London, the rest of the United Kingdom would desire Sunday concerts as well, argued Baines.
131Baines called on the public to protest without delay. “It is now possible to nip the evil in the bud. Next year it would be too late. What conscience commands should be done without a day’s procrastination.”
132Noel was also disturbed and feared the
consequences of providing refreshments at these parks. If the government opened a shop on Sunday for refreshments (cakes, lemonade, tea, coffee, ices and soda-water), which were a luxury, surely others would open their doors to sell life’s necessities, he argued.
133Park visitors were not the only ones negatively affected by the amusements; the
government had to require soldiers and policemen to work in order to manage the crowd.
Baines admonished British citizens to avoid silence by speaking out against this evil practice:
It is with the people, and the people alone, that the decision of the great question rests, whether the day shall be preserved sacred, or shall be converted first into a day of amusement, and ultimately into a day of half-amusement and half-labour. Will the
130The editors of the Evangelical Magazine and Missionary Chronicle wrote that appeals should be sent to Parliament, and that those interested should pray for the following three things: “That the attendance of Regimental Bands, for amusement on the Lord’s-day, in Kensington Gardens, or in Garrison towns, or wherever else troops are stationed, may be discontinued. That the British Museum, the National Gallery, and other similar public establishments, may not be opened during any part of the Lord’s-day.
And, That no alteration be made in the law which prevents the opening of the Crystal Palace, and other exhibitions, on that day” (“Sabbath Movement,” Evangelical Magazine and Missionary Chronicle 34 [February 1856]: 100).
131“If the thing be right in London, it cannot be wrong in any town or village of the kingdom. If one kind of secular amusement is allowed, why not every other kind? —why not Sunday evening concerts, Sunday operas, Sunday theatres and circuses, Sunday games and sports of every description? It is a mockery to pretend that there is any ground on which resistance to these things can be based, if
Government is to set the example of providing Sunday amusements for the populace of London. . . . The result will necessarily be, that the Lord’s Day will become a general day of amusement, nay, the chief day of amusement, in London and England, as it now is in Paris and France” (Baines, On the Performance of Military Bands, 10-11).
132Ibid., 14-15.
133Noel, Music and Pleasure on the Sabbath, 24-25.