John Malcolm Forbes Ludlow

1821-1911. Christian Socialist. Educated in France, where he was influenced by socialists and social Catholics, he came to London in 1838 to study law and was called to the bar in 1843. At Lincoln's Inn he came into contact with F.D. Maurice,* and from Paris during the 1848 Revolution he wrote his famous letter to Maurice, insisting that “the new Socialism must be Christianized.” The Chartist fiasco of 1848 united him with Maurice and Charles Kingsley* into the Christian Socialist movement, but it was Ludlow who was the real leader and who supplied the social ideas-cooperative associations being one of his main contributions. With Maurice he edited the short-lived journal Politics for the People, and in 1850 edited alone a new journal Christian Socialist, which contained the first attempt to state coherently the Christian view of a socialist society. He had wide contacts with trades union and workers' leaders; he had a large part in the Industrial and Provident Societies Act (1852); and he conceived the scheme for the Working Men's College, which he and Maurice opened in 1854, and in which he taught for many years. Ludlow profoundly believed that religious as well as intellectual education must accompany political and industrial emancipation, and this led him to concentrate on educational work in later life, though in no way abandoning the official organs of Christian Socialism.*

See C.E. Raven, Christian Socialism (1920), and N.C. Masterman, John Malcolm Ludlow (1963).