The Religious Tract Society was a British evangelical Christian organization founded in 1799 and known for publishing a variety of popular religious and quasi-religious texts in the 19th century. The society engaged in charity as well as commercial enterprise, publishing books and periodicals for profit.

Periodicals published by the RTS included Boy's Own Paper, Girl's Own Paper and The Leisure Hour. In 1935, it merged into what is today the United Society for Christian Literature.

Formation and early history

The idea for the society came from the Congregationalist minister George Burder, who raised the idea while meeting with the London Missionary Society (founded in 1795) in May 1799. It was formally established on 10 May 1799, having a treasurer, a secretary, and ten committee members, with members required to "[subscribe] half a guinea or upwards annually".

  • Robert Hawker, Anglican;
  • Joseph Hughes, Baptist; and
  • Joseph Reyner as treasurer, business partner of Joseph Hardcastle, Independent.

At its formation, the society had support from bishops, including Shute Barrington (Durham) and Beilby Porteus (London).

Founders of the RTS would go on to found the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1804.

Initially, the society's only stated goal was the production and distribution across Britain of religious tracts—short pamphlets explaining the principles of the Christian religion, with the aim of spreading salvation to the masses.

The society was interdenominational, including members belonging to most branches of Protestantism in Britain (such as Congregationalists, Baptists, and Quakers), as well as the established churches of England and Scotland; however, it excluded Roman Catholics and Unitarians.

Tracts

For the first 25 years of the society's existence, its main activity was the publication and distribution of religious tracts. The first RTS tract was David Bogue's An Address to Christians, Recommending the Distribution of Cheap Religious Tracts, which listed seven recommendations for writing effective religious tracts, including that they be "plain", "striking", "entertaining", and "adapted to various situations and conditions" of its audience. The Society also published reliegious tracts by women writers for use in overseas missions like the Missionary Birthday Book compiled by Lucy Currie, a missionary in Punjab, India. The Birthday book provided a daily passage for each day of the year with a bible verse, a hymn verse, and a piece of missionary history.

The society also published the notable novel, Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan. They reproduced Pilgrim's Progress, in many formats including; penny parts, Sunday School prize additions, and cheap abridgments.

Decline

Income from the sale of the society's books and periodicals went into a decline in the 1890s. A report issued by the society attributed this to a "general depression [which] has severely affected the book trade", though no such depression existed. Historian Aileen Fyfe attributes the decline to an increase in competition, and a decline in the influence of Christian evangelism and in the demand for religious literature. As the society entered the 20th century, its operations contracted. It reduced the funding it provided for foreign missionary work, and in 1930 reorganized all its operations into a single building. In the inter-war period, tract circulation had declined to one million, its lowest level since 1806.

In 1932, a new imprint, Lutterworth Press, was formed, under which most of the society's subsequent publications appeared.

In 1935, the society merged with the Christian Literature Society for India and Africa, later also incorporating the Christian Literature Society for China in 1941. The resulting entity was the United Society for Christian Literature, which, as of 2006, was continuing its mission, largely in the form of overseas missionary work.

Works

  • Address to an emigrant (1839)
  • William Tyndale No. 990 (1839)
  • Mamma and her Child (1843)
  • The Oldest Fisherman the World Ever Saw, and Other Stories (1879)
  • The Cup and the Kiss (1888)
  • Adopted, or An Old Soldier's Embarrassments (circa 1891)
  • Wallaby Hill (1880s-1890s)
  • By-paths of Bible Knowledge (1884-1904)
  • The Jew (circa 1890)
  • Homes and Haunts of the Pilgrim Fathers (1899)
  • The Egyptian (circa 1900)
  • The Isles of Scilly: Their Story, their folk, & their Flowers (1910)

Book series

The R.T.S. issued a number of book series during the 19th and 20th centuries. Many of them were listed in the Society's catalogues.

  • The Anecdote Series
  • Bouverie Historical Stories
  • Bouverie Series of Penny Stories
  • The Boy's Own Bookshelf
  • Broad Sheets
  • Burder's Village Sermons
  • By-Paths of Bible Knowledge
  • Cennick's Sermons
  • Christian Classics
  • Comments on Scripture
  • Cottage Sermons
  • First Series Tracts
  • The Flower Patch Books (by Flora Klickmann); republished in abbreviated form as The Flower Patch Booklets
  • The Girl's Own Bookshelf
  • Half Penny Story Books
  • Hand Bills
  • Large Broad Sheets
  • Little Dot Series
  • The Little Library of Biography
  • Present Day Tracts
  • R.T.S. Books for the People, also known as: R.T.S. 1d. Penny Books for the People
  • The R.T.S. Library

References

Further reading

  • William Jones, The Jubilee Memorial of the Religious Tract Society. London, The Religious Tract Society, 1850, 706 pages. Gives a full description of the first fifty years and remains the indispensable guide to the foundation of the Society
  • Samuel G. Green, The Story of the Religious Tract Society for one hundred years. London, Religious Tract Society, 1899, 216 pages. Brings the story up to the centenary, but is much less illuminating
  • Gordon Hewitt, Let the People Read . . . London, Lutterworth Press, 1949, 96 pages. Illustrations by Richard Kennedy
  • Aileen Fyfe, Science and Salvation: Evangelical Popular Science Writing in Victorian Britain. Chicago, Illinois, University of Chicago Press, 2004, 432 pages. . Deals with one aspect of the Society's publishing programme
  • Dennis Butts and Pat Garrett (ed.), From the Dairyman's Daughter to Worrals of the WAAF: The Religious Tract Society, Lutterworth Press and Children's Literature. Concentrates on the contribution to children's writing from the foundation onwards.
  • Joseph McAleer, Popular Reading and Publishing in Britain: 1914-1950, Oxford University Press, 1992. Includes a chapter on the Society.
  • Works by Religious Tract Society at Toronto Public Library
  • Minutes, letter books, miscellaneous papers, reports of the Religious Tract Society and Christian Literature Society for India and Africa are held at https://www.soas.ac.uk/library/archives/collections/a-z/u/.
  • School of Oriental and African Studies page on RTS/USCL
  • [http://www.ccel.org/php/disp.php?authorID=schaff&bookID=encyc11&page=476&view=] Schaff-Herzog article on Tract Societies with lengthy section on RTS