History of the LDOS

Rev Daniel Wilson (?-1859), vicar of Islington and Joseph Wilson his cousin began the Lord's Day Observance Society (LDOS) in 1831.  Rev Daniel Wilson had preached on the subject of the Christian Sabbath and had published his sermons in 1830 under the title "The Lord's Day".  These had "engendered deep concern on the part of the clergy and men of good standing".[2]   The first Committee consisted of 33 men, including the Anglican Dean of Shaftsbury, ten other clergymen and four MPs, together with business and professional men.  The Exeter Room in the Strand was rented at £35 per year and the first meeting was convened on 30 March 1831.  Early attention was given to three main areas, firstly, to the formation of local Branches.  The first was formed in Liverpool in October 1831.  Secondly, they produced, through a special sub-committee, 55,000 tracts on various aspects of the subject, such as, "To Masters and Heads of Families" and "To Tradesmen and Shopkeepers".  Thirdly, they resolved that a sub-committee be formed to examine existing laws and to suggest alterations as may be desirable to their supporting MPs.  This was in response to "the multitudes intent on perusing pleasure on the Lord's Day...parks thronged with splendid equipages, zoological gardens resorted to as Sunday promenade… crowded steamboats on the Thames, tea rooms, news rooms…taverns and dram shops, which absorb much of the money that which should contribute to the more decent support of wives and children".  The laws of the day did not secure a day of rest especially in Scotland.[3]  This third avenue of attach was directed to the House of Commons in order to pass laws favourable to the society's views.  Opposition was strong and included some clergy who especially did not want legislation that would "interfere with the innocent recreations of the poor."  The first committee engaged in battle against the secularisation of Sunday and prominent in the efforts to secure legislation was the MP for Wigtonshire, Sir Andrew Agnew, a Scott from Stranraer. 

The opening of shops, public houses and other trading activity on the Lord's day was of great concern to the LDOS.  In 1861 an extract from the London City Mission shows just how much The Sunday Observance Act 1677 was disregarded:

In the half of London occupied by the City Mission, the shops open on the Lord's day would give a frontage to all the leading thoroughfares of London.  They would constitute thirty continuous miles of open shops; and if the other half of London is of like character, which it may be fairly assumed to be, it extends the line to sixty miles.
 
Traders breaking the law were not being dealt with under the Act.  The LDOS resisted with others any changes in the Act of 1677 and worked to see the act implemented against Sunday trading.  For the Society the most objectionable form of trading on the Lord's day was the sale of liquor in public houses and other places.

The Prime Minister Mr Gladstone said, "the religious observance of Sunday is the main prop of the religious character of the country… from a moral and social and physical point of view, the observance of Sunday is a duty of absolute and vital consequence".  However he did not always support the LDOS initiatives when it came to new legislation. 

Opposition
In 1836 a pamphlet was published against the 4th Commandment called "Sunday under three Heads" by Timothy Sparks, who was in reality Charles Dickens. In a cleverly worded work he supports the working men who desire to take trips on the Thames or purchase goods from shops on a Sunday.  While along the way he heaps scorn on evangelical clergymen.  His solution to the problem of Sunday drunkenness is to open all entertainment and other secular activities.  He harped back to King Charles I's Book of Sports.  However, the working man was more interested in a day of rest with his wife and family. 

Scotland
The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1834 had a Committee Report on the misuse of the Lord's day and had the ministers of congregations read out a pastoral admonition to the members and adherents about the good keeping of the day.  On the 21 January 1838 there was a meeting held in Edinburgh for the purpose of forming the “Scottish Society for promoting the due observance of the Lord's Day”.  Sir Andrew Agnew chaired the meeting.  The desire was to be "fellow-labourers with the London Society".  All this effort was seen as a moral struggle.  The LDOS were not alone in their efforts to keep Sunday as a Christian Sabbath.  In 1847 the "Young Men's Sabbath Observance Society" was formed in Edinburgh.  In 1847 the "Sabbath Alliance" was started, they concentrated on Glasgow and Edinburgh but set up branches all over the country.  Harold Legerton said "the work developed and has endured under titles until it now forms an important section of the whole British organisation under the banner of the LDOS".

[1] I am indebted to H J W Legerton's, A History of the Lord's Day Observance Society (London: LDOS, 1993?) for what follows.

[2] Rev Daniel Wilson later became the Anglican Bishop of Calcutta.

[3] Modern Scotland has never had legislation on Statute with regard to Sunday Observance.  The Scottish Burghs controlled this until 1975.  However, it was reckoned that Scotland, the land of the Christian Sabbath, would never need to legislate, as Sabbath keeping was a national characteristic.