Episode 79. Charitable Giving in Victorian Britain

SYNOPSIS

Sarah Flew’’s ground-breaking Charitable Giving in Victorian Britain opens with the French commentator, Hippolyte Taine’s complimentary assessment of the English as constructively engaged in public affairs, giving of their surplus time, energy and money to the common good and being self-disciplined, prudent and knowledgeable of political and social matters. Taine also commends the English for being less in need of amusement than a Frenchman and so better at performing ‘wearisome things’ such as attending meetings and examining accounts!

Charitable Giving in Victorian Britain tests this assessment against the life of model philanthropist, Samuel Jones Loyd , 1st Baron Overstone and the donations books that he kept for a forty-year period between 27 December 1843 and 25 September 1883. A devout Christian, banker and, by his death, one of the richest men in England, Jones Loyd provides an insight into the motives and patterns of giving amongst the prosperous in the mid-Victorian period.

The interview ranges across Lord Overstone’s wide philanthropic interests at a time of increasing wealth and poverty in VIctorian Britain against the backdrop of the wide and sometimes chaotic growth in voluntary agencies that were step up to address social problems. It reveals that many of the fundraising techniques that are assumed to be modern innovations are in fact based upon practices that were created by the Victorians.

GUESTS

Dr Sarah Flew is Director of Development at the Royal College of Physicians, UK. Her professional experience of both banking and fundraising has qualified her to provide a rare depth of insight into the economic history of Victorian philanthropy. Charitable Giving in Victorian Britain: The Legacy of Samuel Jones Loyd was published by Bloomsbury in 2025.

Simon’s interview with Sarah Flew was recorded at her home on 21 November 2025.