Toward a Conceptual History of Radical Philanthropy: Spenceanism and the Ragged-Trousered Lovers of Mankind (Imperial Britain, c.1790-1820)

In late eighteenth-century Britain, in the wake of the establishment of a “free” labor market and the progressive erosion of the gentry’s paternalism, charitable activities—and their expected counterpart, the cheerful submissiveness of recipients—were still considered a justification for the privileged social position of donors and were becoming a defining feature of the emerging middle-class consciousness. Concurrently, the solidarity among the lower orders, which had always characterized laboring-class relations, was adopting an increasingly organized form and antagonistic propensity; this article goes on to show how it began to claim the label of philanthropy. As Cunningham remarked, the history of British philanthropy is “multi-layered” and has witnessed several “battles fought out over [its] ownership and meaning,” during which “some of [its] potentialities were closed off.” This article explores one of these losing battles and lost causes by bringing a now marginalized stratum of philanthropy back into the light: the transient potential of the enemies of social order to be the truest friends to mankind.