The Settlement Movement began in the 1880s and peaked in the U.K. during the 1920s.  The Movement’s main aim was to encourage society’s wealthy and poor to live more closely together in an interdependent community.  To achieve this, Settlement Houses were established in poor urban areas, where volunteer middle-class Settlement Workers lived and shared their knowledge and culture with the poor that lived there.  Through these efforts, it was hoped that the poverty experienced by the poor might be alleviated.  Settlement Houses provided a number of needed services such as daycare, education and health care, which did much to help improve the lives of the needy.

The most famous of the University Settlement Missions were those of Toynbee Hall and Oxford House in the East End of London.

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Samuel Augustus Barnett (1844-1913) was an Anglican Cleric and Social Reformer who served as Canon of Westminster Abbey from 1906 until death.  

Samuel Barnett, painted by George Frederic Watts (1817-1904)

In 1873, he married Henrietta Octavia Weston Rowland (1851–1936), an heiress, Social Reformer and author who had been a co-worker of Octavia Hill who was also a Social Reformer and Philanthropist with broad cultural interests.

Henrietta Barnett

In 1873, the Barnetts moved to the Whitechapel Parish of St. Jude’s.  Whitechapel was part of the Borough of Stepney and together with the Boroughs of Bethnal Green and Shoreditch were notorious for squalor and overcrowded housing.

St. Jude’s Church on Commercial Street, which was demolished in 1927

Whitechapel was also infamous for prostitution and other criminal activities and was said, at this time, to be home to over 5,000 prostitutes.  Whitechapel was also known to be the area of London were Jack the Ripper roamed and searched out his prey.

The Barnetts were tireless in their efforts to improve the lot of the poor of the Parish of St. Jude’s.   Together they managed to open evening schools for adults and arranged for music and other forms of entertainment to be presented.  They also served on various boards and on school committees.  They were exponents of Indoor Relief, as opposed to Outdoor Relief since they believed that this encouraged the Pauperisation of the area.  They also helped co-ordinate the work of a number of charities working in the area via the Charity Organization Society and the Parish Board of Guardians.

OUTDOOR RELIEF: relief given in the form of money, clothing, food etc with no requirement for the recipient to enter an Institution to receive it;

INDOOR RELIEF: relief was given to those that were willing to enter a Workhouse or Poorhouse.