Canon Barnett and the first thirty years of Toynbee Hall

Abstract

This thesis is a study of the changing role which Toynbee Hall, the first university settlement, played in East London between 1884 and 1914. The first chapter presents a brief biography of Sainiel Augustus Barnett, the founder and first warden of the settlement, and analyzes his social thought in relation to the beliefs which were current in Britain during the period. The second chapter discusses the founding of the settlement, its organization, structure and the aims which underlay its early work. The third chapter, concentrating on three residents, C.R. Ashbee, .H. Beveridge and T. Edmund Harvey, shows the way in which subsequent settlement workers reformulated these aims In accordance with their own social and economic views. The subsequent chapters discuss the accomplishments of the settlement in various fields. The fourth shows that Toynbee Hall's educational program, which was largely an attempt to work out Matthew Arnold's theory of culture, left little impact on the life of East London. The fifth chapter discusses the settlement residents' ineffectual attempts to establish contact with working men's organizations. The final chapter seeks to demonstrate that In the field of philanthropy the residents were far more successful than in any other sphere in adapting the settlement to changing social thought.