AP European History

## Learning Outcomes

- Explain how religious belief continued to shape reform in industrial Britain after 1815
- Identify the roles of **Evangelicals**, **Quakers**, **William Wilberforce**, **Thomas Clarkson**, **Joseph Sturge**, and **Lord Shaftesbury**
- Distinguish between abolition of the **slave trade** in **1807** and abolition of **slavery** in **1833**
- Understand why full emancipation was delayed until **1838**
- Analyse the contrast between humanitarian reform and punitive poor relief under the **Poor Law Amendment Act (1834)**
- Connect religious reform to AP themes such as **individual and society**, **poverty and prosperity**, and **interaction of Europe and the world**
- Use this material in SAQ and LEQ responses with clear causation and qualification

## AP European History Syllabus

For the AP European History, you are expected to understand how religious reformers responded to the social effects of industrialization and empire, with a focus on the following syllabus points:

- Know that **Evangelicals** and **Quakers** were major forces in 19th-century British reform
- Identify the difference between the **Slave Trade Act (1807)** and the **Slavery Abolition Act (1833)**
- Understand that abolition was gradual, including the **apprenticeship system** and its end in **1838**
- Explain how figures such as **William Wilberforce**, **Thomas Clarkson**, **Joseph Sturge**, and **Lord Shaftesbury** contributed to reform
- Recognise that reform for the poor could be humanitarian in some areas but punitive in others, especially under the **Poor Law Amendment Act (1834)**
- Explain the **workhouse principle** and **less eligibility**
- Connect factory and mine reform to industrial conditions in Britain
- Analyse why religion remained politically significant in an industrial, liberal age

## Test Your Knowledge

_Attempt these questions before reading this article. If you find some difficult or cannot remember the answers, look more closely at that area during your revision._

1. What was the difference between the abolition of the slave trade in **1807** and the abolition of slavery in **1833**?
2. Why were **Quakers** especially important in the British abolition movement?
3. How did the **Poor Law Amendment Act (1834)** treat poverty differently from abolitionist reform?
4. What role did **Joseph Sturge** play in ending the apprenticeship system?
5. How did **Lord Shaftesbury** connect religious reform to industrial labour reform?

## Introduction

In AP European History Unit 6, social reform is not just about factories, cities, and class conflict. It is also about the continued power of religion in a century often associated with liberalism, science, and industry. In 19th-century Britain, religious reformers helped drive some of the best-known humanitarian campaigns of the age, especially the movement against slavery and efforts to improve conditions for vulnerable workers.

At the same time, this topic is not a simple story of kindness. Britain combined moral activism with discipline, social control, and fear of disorder. That is why this subtopic matters: it shows both reform and its limits. Religious reformers could help the poor and attack slavery, but the state could also punish poverty through workhouses and harsh poor laws.

> **Key Term: evangelical humanitarianism**
> A reforming outlook, especially strong in 19th-century Britain, that linked Christian duty with campaigns to improve moral and social conditions.

### Religious reform in an industrial society

Industrialization created overcrowded cities, dangerous workplaces, child labour, unstable wages, and visible poverty. Many reformers responded to these problems not through socialism or revolution, but through religion. This is a major point students often miss. The 19th century did not simply move away from religion. In Britain, religion remained a strong force in public life and reform.

Evangelicals believed personal conversion should lead to moral action. Quakers, or the Religious Society of Friends, stressed equality, conscience, and social duty. These beliefs mattered because they pushed reformers to see social suffering as a moral problem, not just an economic one.

> **Key Term: Quakers**
> Members of the Religious Society of Friends, a Protestant dissenting group known for pacifism, simplicity, and strong commitment to humanitarian reform.

Quakers were especially influential in abolition. They were a religious minority and had long been excluded from some political offices, but Britain’s relative religious toleration allowed them to participate strongly in commerce and civic life. That gave them resources, networks, and credibility. They were among the earliest organised critics of slavery in Britain and remained consistent opponents of it.

Evangelicals also formed dense reform networks. These included parliamentarians, writers, clergy, and campaigners who turned moral concern into political pressure. Their work shows an important AP pattern: ideas become powerful when attached to institutions, organisation, and public mobilisation.

A strong answer should explain why religion still mattered. Britain’s industrial growth produced wealth, but also misery. Religious reformers argued that a Christian society had duties toward the weak. That message appealed to many middle-class Britons, who wanted reform but feared revolution.

> **Key Term: abolitionism**
> The movement to end slavery and the slave trade.
>
> **Test Tip:** In an SAQ or LEQ, do not write that Britain “abolished slavery in 1807.” **1807** ended the British slave trade; **1833** ended slavery in most of the British Empire.

### Abolition: from the slave trade to slavery itself

The abolition movement developeded in stages, and the chronology matters. Students often compress it into one event and lose accuracy.

The first stage focused on ending the slave trade. **William Wilberforce** became the leading parliamentary spokesman for this cause. He was important, but he should not be treated as a lone hero. He depended on wider activism, especially evidence gathered by **Thomas Clarkson**, pressure from religious groups, and a broad humanitarian campaign.

> **Key Term: William Wilberforce**
> The leading parliamentary campaigner in Britain against the slave trade, closely associated with evangelical reform.

Clarkson’s role shows how reform worked. He collected testimony, investigated slave ships, and helped turn moral outrage into usable political evidence. This is a good example of causation for AP writing: public campaigning, evidence gathering, and parliamentary action reinforced one another.

In **1807**, Parliament passed the **Slave Trade Act**, ending the legal British transatlantic slave trade. That was a major victory, but it did not free enslaved people already living in British colonies. This distinction is central.

The second stage aimed at slavery itself. In **1823**, the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery Throughout the British Dominions was founded to push beyond the trade question and attack slavery directly. This shift matters because it shows how reform widened over time rather than ending with the first success.

In **1833**, Parliament passed the **Slavery Abolition Act**. This abolished slavery in most of the British Empire. Yet even this reform was limited. Compensation went to slave owners, not to formerly enslaved people. That fact is one of the clearest examples of the social limits of humanitarian reform in this period. The state recognised property claims more readily than the claims of the enslaved.

Even worse, emancipation was delayed in practice through the **apprenticeship system**.

> **Key Term: apprenticeship system**
> The transitional labour system imposed after 1833 under which many formerly enslaved people still had to work for former slave owners until full emancipation.

This system was meant to ease transition, but in reality it preserved coercion. Many formerly enslaved people still faced compelled labour and restricted freedom. So abolition in **1833** was real, but incomplete.

That is where **Joseph Sturge** becomes essential. A Quaker reformer, he investigated abuses in the Caribbean in **1836–1837** and helped expose the injustice of apprenticeship. His work built pressure for early termination of the system, which finally ended in **1838**. Full emancipation in practice came then, not immediately in 1833.

This sequence is very useful in AP essays because it allows complex argument. Britain did abolish slavery, but the process was gradual, compromised, and shaped by the protection of property and imperial interests.

> **Test Tip:** If an essay asks about reform, aim for a qualified claim: religious reformers achieved real change, but reform was often partial, delayed, and shaped by elite interests.

### Helping the poor: charity, discipline, and the limits of reform

Religious reformers also tried to address poverty, but here the story becomes more mixed. Industrial Britain created visible mass poverty, especially in cities. Reformers supported charity, Sunday schools, temperance, and moral improvement. They believed the poor needed relief, but many also believed they needed discipline.

This produced tension between humanitarian reform and punitive policy. On one hand, evangelicals supported action against child labour and extreme workplace abuse. On the other hand, the state reformed poor relief in a harsher direction through the **Poor Law Amendment Act (1834)**.

> **Key Term: Poor Law Amendment Act (1834)**
> A British law that reorganised poor relief and pushed assistance toward workhouses under deliberately harsh conditions.

The old poor law had allowed more local parish support. The new system aimed to reduce costs and deter dependency. It was shaped by the view that aid should never be attractive compared with low-paid labour.

That logic rested on two linked principles.

> **Key Term: workhouse principle**
> The idea that poor relief should mainly be given inside workhouses rather than as outdoor relief.
>
> **Key Term: less eligibility**
> The principle that conditions for people receiving poor relief had to be worse than those of the lowest-paid independent labourer.

These ideas reveal a lot about 19th-century Britain. Reform did not always mean compassion. Sometimes it meant control. Workhouses provided food and shelter, but conditions were intentionally miserable. That was meant to force the poor back into the labour market and discourage reliance on public aid.

This is an important comparison point for AP essays. Abolitionists argued that enslavement violated Christian morality and human dignity. Poor law reformers often argued that relief should be limited because too much help would encourage idleness. Both were “reforms,” but they rested on very different assumptions.

Students should avoid claiming that Quakers or evangelicals controlled poor-law policy directly. Their influence was stronger in broader reform culture, charity, education, and abolition than in designing the state poor-law system itself.

### Factory reform and the wider meaning of religious humanitarianism

Religious reform did not stop with slavery. It also shaped labour reform in industrial Britain. **Lord Shaftesbury** is the key name here. He was an evangelical reformer strongly associated with factory, mine, and child-labour reform.

> **Key Term: Lord Shaftesbury**
> An evangelical British reformer linked to factory, mine, and child-labour legislation in the 19th century.

Why did this matter? Industrial labour posed moral as well as economic questions. Children were overworked. Women and boys worked in mines under shocking conditions. Reformers framed these abuses as offences against Christian duty and civilised society.

Key legislation shows the pattern of growing state intervention:

- **Factory Act (1833)** restricted child labour in textile mills and created inspectors
- **Mines Act (1842)** banned underground work for women and young boys
- **Ten Hours Act (1847)** limited working hours for women and young people in textile mills

These laws did not create modern labour rights overnight, but they mark a real shift. The state began to intervene more directly in the labour market, despite older laissez-faire assumptions. Religious reformers helped justify that intervention by arguing that the weak needed protection.

This is a strong causation chain for AP responses:

1. Industrialization created extreme labour abuses
2. Evangelical and humanitarian reformers publicised these abuses
3. Parliament responded with selective legislation
4. Britain moved toward a more interventionist state in social matters

Still, reform remained selective. Adults, especially adult men, did not receive the same level of protection. The state was more willing to protect women and children than to challenge the general wage system or the full power of employers.

This is why the topic fits Unit 6 so well. Religious reformers softened some of industrialization’s worst effects, but they did not overturn industrial capitalism.

> **Key Term: Factory Act (1833)**
> A law restricting child labour in textile mills and creating inspectors to oversee conditions.

A high-level AP answer should connect this subtopic to larger themes. Religious reformers show that industrial Europe was not shaped only by class conflict or secular politics. Moral language, Christian activism, and middle-class reform culture remained powerful. At the same time, reform was uneven. Some changes protected the vulnerable; others disciplined them. Some expanded freedom; others delayed it.

For LEQ writing, a good thesis might argue that religious reformers were crucial in promoting abolition and humanitarian labour reform, but that their efforts operated within a society still committed to property rights, social hierarchy, and fear of disorder. That kind of thesis gives you room for both evidence and qualification.

## Key Point Checklist

_This article has covered the following key knowledge points:_

- Religious reform remained powerful in 19th-century Britain despite industrialization and liberal change
- **Evangelicals** and **Quakers** were central to humanitarian reform
- **Quakers** were especially important in the abolition movement
- **William Wilberforce** was the leading parliamentary campaigner against the slave trade
- **Thomas Clarkson** helped build abolition through investigation and evidence gathering
- The **Slave Trade Act (1807)** ended the British slave trade, not slavery itself
- The **Slavery Abolition Act (1833)** abolished slavery in most of the British Empire
- Full emancipation was delayed by the **apprenticeship system** until **1838**
- **Joseph Sturge** helped expose abuses in apprenticeship and push for its end
- The **Poor Law Amendment Act (1834)** made poor relief harsher through workhouses
- The **workhouse principle** and **less eligibility** aimed to deter dependence on relief
- **Lord Shaftesbury** and other religious reformers supported factory and mine legislation such as the **Factory Act (1833)**, **Mines Act (1842)**, and **Ten Hours Act (1847)**

## Key Terms and Concepts

- evangelical humanitarianism
- Quakers
- abolitionism
- William Wilberforce
- apprenticeship system
- Poor Law Amendment Act (1834)
- workhouse principle
- less eligibility
- Lord Shaftesbury
- Factory Act (1833)


19th-Century Social Reform - Religious reformers aided poor and abolition