Case Study: Arthur Henderson & Methodism

by Helen Goodman, Member of Parliament for Bishop Auckland

As Labour’s first cabinet minister, their most revered Foreign Secretary, and a Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Arthur Henderson (1863-1935) is a hard act to follow as Member of Parliament for Barnard Castle and Bishop Auckland.

Henderson held this seat for 15 years at the beginning of the twentieth century, and throughout his life two organisations had a defining impact on him.

His close involvement with the first of these – trade unionism – has been well documented. But Henderson’s lifelong commitment to another great organisation – the Methodist Church – is less well known.

Henderson came from a religious family, and first became involved with the Methodist Church as a teenager in Newcastle. His instinctive sympathy with the social gospel would lead him to be a Sunday School teacher, a passionate lay preacher and to be heavily involved in charitable organisations such as the Brotherhood movement and the Wesleyan Methodist Union for Social Service.

Indeed, Methodism formed what one might – to use more modern Labour Party terminology – refer to as Henderson’s ‘moral compass’. He did not smoke, drink or gamble, he was a leading figure in the North of England Temperance League, and – having met his wife, Eleanor Watson, through the Methodist Church – was a dedicated family man with impeccable late-Victorian values.
Henderson’s profound commitment to Methodism was not confined to his social activities: rather, it influenced and guided him throughout his political career.

The most famous example of this is found in Henderson’s tireless work for international cooperation and disarmament. Henderson was a passionate advocate of the League of Nations and it was in his (fatally undermined) quest for multilateral disarmament that he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1934. It was, in the words of Henderson’s biographer, C. Wrigley, ‘his deeply-held Methodist convictions [that] moved him towards mediation for international problems’.

Henderson’s belief that cooperation and consensus were wholly preferable to confrontation also influenced his conciliatory approach to industrial relations, and his advocacy of peaceful, evolutionary socialism: an approach that would lead Lenin to
dismiss him as ‘hopelessly reactionary’, ‘absolutely good for nothing’, and ‘treacherous by nature’.

Henderson was also – along with other Labour figures such as Keir Hardie – at the heart of the temperance movement. Indeed, while being Labour Party Chairman Henderson readily attacked licensing laws, supported Sunday closing and advocated the right for local communities to ban the sale of alcohol. One can only imagine what he would have made of today’s 24-hour drinking culture.

Henderson’s view of socialism and the labour movement thus bore the indelible stamp of his Methodist principles. He spoke freely of the need for the working classes to avoid the conclusion that ‘all reform must come from without rather than from within’ and, at a 1908 Brotherhood meeting, defined his brand of socialism thus:

“If reformation and reform could have saved the world, the world would have been perfect a long time ago. What we want with our reforms is the spirit of regeneration’

Helen Goodman is MP for Bishop Auckland - which incorporates the seat Henderson once held – an Assistant Whip and a member of CSM’s Executive Committee.

Helen Goodman MP, 05/02/2009