The Clapham Sect

The quick little introduction to E.M. Forter's "Recollections" mentions his great-grandfather being a member of the Clapham Sect. Never having heard of the Clapham Sect, I decided to do some research (and by research, I mean Googling). I wasn't able to find much, but what I did find was pretty fascinating.

The Clapham Sect was a group of social reformers active from 1790 to 1830. Their chief goals were the abolition of the slave trade, the liberation of slaves, and the reform of the penal system. The majority of the members were prominent in society and wealthy. Interestingly, though, was that their actions actually had an effect. In 1807, the Slave Trade Act was passed, and in 1833, the Slavery Abolition Act. Way to go, guys!

What captivated me the most, however (and this is purely in a Six Degrees of Separation-type of way), is the myriad connections you can draw from this group to Bloomsbury. Get ready for me to blow your mind using a method that's only one step up from numerology:

So, as we know, E.M. Forster's great-grandfather, Henry Thornton was a member of the Clapham Sect. Mentioned in the introduction is that so was Vanessa and Virginia's great-grandfather. But wait, it does not end there! Also included: William Smith, a.k.a. Florence Nightingale's grandfather!

You think I am done? I am not yet done! Henry Thornton, great-grandfather to Forster, was a successful merchant banker, whose forward-thinking ideas in monetary theory were later expanded upon by none other than John Maynard Keynes.

Of course, if you're reading this, you're also wondering how relevant this is to Bloomsbury. It doesn't seem very relevant to me, either. But I do find it interesting how the wealthy continues to remain the wealthy over several generations, and I wonder what effect Henry Thornton's actions had on E.M. Forster's humanist tendencies, especially considering how tightly-knit his family seemed to be.

I don't know, guys. What do you think? Is that too big of a leap to make, between Forster and his great-grandfather?

Lytton Strachey a.k.a. LOL Lytton

I'm going to be honest with you guys: Lytton Strachey is hilarious. The guy cracks me up. His jokes are frequently used not only to amuse, but to also quickly change the reader's opinion of a person. Though he starts out good-naturedly with the playful ribbing of Nightingale as a child, saying that her "vision of heaven itself [was] filled with suffering patients to whom she was being useful," he does nothing but build up the woman and her achievements, particularly in Scutari. Strachey does not unleash his acerbic wit upon her until the final portion of the text, when he speaks of her failings" the complete lack of understanding of germ theory, her lack of compassion toward friends, her misguided ventures into writings on the metaphysical.

For example: "Yet her conception of God was certainly not orthodox. She felt towards Him as she might have felt towards a glorified sanitary engineer; and in some of her speculations she seems hardly to distinguish between the Diety and the Drains."

Ha!

Strachey finishes his biography of Nightingale by recounting her moments of regret and doubt in her later years, upon realization that she caused just as much harm as good. Though he gets some good jabs in there, in the end earns more pity than scorn.

The jokes however, get an A+.