When John Venn (1759-1813) arrived as pastor of the Clapham Church, he found that the funds to care for the poor were insufficient for the destitute in his parish. Venn, therefore, revived the Clapham Poor Society, which provided assistance subsidies to help the poor buy bread, coal, and potatoes at greatly reduced costs.

Even though more was being done for those in poverty than previously, Venn was dissatisfied. He felt that those who were charged with overseeing the distribution were too restricted in what they were able to give and that there were better ways to help the destitute in Clapham. So, in 1799, he organized the Society for Bettering the Condition of the Poor at Clapham.

Because Venn was convinced that it was the “proper duty” of the rich in the community to “know and look after the poor,”2 the society was composed of more than thirty persons who agreed to have tea together in each other’s houses once a month to execute the group’s business.

They divided the parish into eight districts. Each district had its own director and two or three other “visitors” who would each in turn have eight to ten families they visited regularly. At the monthly meetings of the full body, they made reports, discussed cases, and strategized about the best means of assistance. Special attention was given to the sick. In the days before modern public health measures, the methods of the society were amazingly successful in containing the spread of disease. Additionally, they ran two small schools, one where older children spun flax and wool and another where children under six were taught to read and knit.

For those experiencing financial hardship, direct financial assistance was strongly discouraged. The society did not distribute alms to the poor indiscriminately. In his biography of Venn and the Clapham group, Michael Hennell remarks that, “The main criticism of the aims and methods of John Venn’s society is that it discriminated too carefully between the deserving and undeserving poor . . .”3 Before relief was granted, the society required proof of industriousness. The “reform of manners” meant that new patterns of living had to be established among some of the poor.4 Said Venn, “bettering means more than the relief of immediate wants, which may be done by any person who possesses the money; it means to extricate him from future want, to cut off the sources of his poverty, to instill into him good principles, to elevate his mind to a state of independence, to raise him to a higher tone of character. This is a work worthy of the talents and knowledge which a society founded on the principle of bettering the conditions of the poor ought to display.”5

Venn went on to describe the damage that can be done through well-intentioned but indiscriminate charity. “There is a spring and energy in an independent spirit which is capable of great exertions. Nothing damps, nothing extinguishes that independence of mind so much as the habitual reception of alms. The very character of a man who subsists on charity is changed. He has lost his boldness, his fortitude, his openness, his manliness, and is become mean, abject, pusillanimous and often deceitful.”6

“[L]et it be the aim of this society to say,” offered Venn, “not merely this man was hungry and we fed him, but this man was naked and behold he is clothed by his own industry; this man was a drunkard and his family in rags, behold him sober and see him decently clad. This man was idle, and poor, and miserable; now he is industrious, prosperous and happy; and above all this man was a wretched profligate and now he is moral and religious. Where the Society can appeal to these proofs of its utility it will have deserved well of mankind, and may justly rejoice in the success of its labours.”7

Similarly, any society’s success in serving the needs of the poor will not be measured merely in dollars spent, but in the “betterment” of those served. Alms without training, money without responsibility, and goods without God will do little truly to improve a person’s life.

Footnotes:
1
This account depends heavily on Michael Hennell, John Venn and the Clapham Sect (London: Lutterworth Press, 1958).

2
Ibid., 142.

3
Ibid., 144.

4
Rule 4 of the society says, for instance: “Before any relief is granted information should be particularly sought concerning the moral character of the applicant, particularly if he is accustomed to attend public worship; whether he sends his children to school, and trains them in the habit of industry. An account is also taken of his weekly earnings and expenses and debts; and the particular cause of his distress is to be investigated. This information will serve as a basis on which to found both the kind and quality of relief which it will be proper to administer.” Ibid.

5
Clapham Poor Society Rules and Regulations, 25-25, quoted in Ibid., 144-145.

6
Ibid., 145.

7
Ibid.

articled adapted from Kairos Journal

First Baptist Church of Perryville is located across from the Principio Health Center on Rt. 40 in Perryville, MD.