Kevin Dixon: Towards a Torbay of many faiths and none

On 6 November 1914 a headline in the Western Times read, ‘Col. Burn’s Late Son: Torquay’s Expression of Sincere Sympathy’.

The article told of a memorial service held at Ilsham’s St Matthias’ Church where a speaker had read from the letter of a chaplain serving at the front. It said: “Tell the Territorials and soldiers at home that they must know God before they come to the front if they would face what lies before them. We have no atheists in the trenches. Men are not ashamed to say that, though they never prayed before, they pray now with all their hearts.”

That appears to be the first use of the saying: “There are no atheists in the trenches”, which is still being used today to disparage atheists, implying that under pressure non-believers will turn to God.

That phrase, first reported in Torquay, was then used many times during twentieth-century conflicts, moving to the United States during the Second World War, where ‘foxholes’ replaced ‘trenches’ in the telling.

What the Torquay eulogy does suggest is that atheism wasn’t unknown either in the Flanders killing fields or in Torquay itself.

This challenges the impression we have of Victorian and Edwardian Torquay as a deeply religious society. Yet, church attendance had already begun to decline during the middle of the nineteenth century.

The Victorians believed that Britain’s prosperity, liberty and empire were rooted in the Christian Protestant faith. To this end, between 1818 and 1884, the Church of England built over 600 new churches.

Torquay saw the construction of St John the Apostle in 1823; St Mary Magdalene in 1849; St Matthias, Ilsham, in 1857; St Luke's in 1861; All Saints, Babbacombe, in 1865; All Saints, Torre, in 1867; Christ Church, Ellacombe, in 1868; and Holy Trinity in 1896.

In 1829 restrictions on the Nonconforming and Catholic churches were relaxed. In the interstices between the Anglican churches, and alongside a resurgent Catholicism, came many chapels and houses of other Protestant traditions, particularly the energetic Wesleyan Methodists, Baptists, Quakers, and Plymouth Brethren.

Indeed, Torquay’s townscape was bejewelled with around sixty churches and chapels. Later came the places of study and worship of non-Christian faiths.

Although an emphasis on sobriety and thrift may have appealed to the middle classes, the social conservatism of some faith traditions meant little to working people.

The resort had grown, as had new class divisions, and the churches and chapels often failed to maintain the support of the urban working class; by 1900 they were beginning to lose the allegiance of the respectable classes too.

Recognising that Christian observance wasn’t what it used to be was Ellacombe's Vicar, the Reverend CE Storrs, who in 1895 gave a sermon entitled ‘If Christ came to Ellacombe’.

The Reverend believed that Jesus would be displeased at what he would find in this new urban community:

“If Christ came today, he would see indifference and unbelief more than ever he suffered on earth before. He would find the evil of intemperance rampant. He would see drunken crowds and sottish selfishness. If Christ came to Ellacombe and did a miracle, instead of turning water into wine, as he did in Galilee, he would be rather disposed to turn all strong drink into water. The people of Ellacombe had better renounce the name of religionists and call themselves ‘alcoholists’."

Alarmed at the falling away of faith, research was then undertaken amongst Torquay’s “working men as a class” to find out why they weren’t going to church.

Women, it was decided, weren’t the problem and were retaining their church-going habits, as “it was more of change for women to go out on a Sunday, because they had been in all week, where the men had not”.

At a subsequent Torquay public meeting in 1895 the top ten reasons for local folk not attending church were revealed. These included “the great need for fresh air”; or that working men had unsuitable clothes for church.

Others said that they did not care to attend a church that had one part for the rich, where seats could be bought, and another for the poor, or that men and women were divided up. Some claimed that the sermons were too long, too dull, and too dry.

Most concerning to the researchers was that amongst Torquay men there was an “indifference to religion”, what today we may call ‘apatheism’.

To their surprise, the meeting reported that “some weren’t Christians” at all, and “a great reason in large centres of population for men not going to church was the spread of atheistic doctrines”.

Nonetheless, the majority still identified, in name at least, as Christian.

During the twentieth century, health, education, and welfare services, for centuries the preserve of the Church, were gradually taken on by the state. Then confidence in the establishment and its agencies was further undermined by the carnage of the Great War.

The diminishing role and membership of the faith were discernible in the Torquay townscape as churches and chapels closed their doors to be demolished or converted to other purposes.

How much the Bay has now changed, and continues to change, was evident in the findings of the 2021 Census, which updated that taken ten years before.

The 2021 Census found that Torbay's population had increased by 6.4 per cent, from around 131,000 in 2011 to 139,300 in 2021, and will inevitably continue to grow. By 2030 a figure of 145,120 has been put forward.

In 2011 there were 82,924 self-declared Christians in the Bay; 62 per cent of the population. By 2021 this had fallen to 67,634 (49 per cent).

Though the Roman Empire was officially Christian, outside of the cities and towns the Romano-British seem to have held on to their pagan beliefs. Hence, this was the first time that the Bay had not been majority Christian since around 600 AD, when St Petrox was established at Torre.

But this naked statistic needs to be explored. Surveys tell us that 45 per cent of self-defining Christians do not believe in God. They’re what has been called cultural Christians.

Can you be a 'Christian Atheist'?

Thousands of people in Torquay, Paignton and Brixham think you can be.

Other faiths have increased. Muslims now number 788, an increase from 521; while Buddhists have increased from 389 to 553 and Hindus from 128 to 223.

Taking all non-Christian faiths together, we have a total of 2,741 (7 per cent), up from 2,325 (6 per cent) in 2011.

The most striking change, however, has been in the numbers of local folk who say they have ‘No Religion’. These ‘Nones’ have increased from 35,535 (27 per cent) in 2011 to 60,178 (43 per cent) in 2021.

Again, this needs more explanation. The ‘Nones’ are not necessarily atheists. Many have a range of beliefs that are ‘supernatural’, and some may believe, for instance, in reincarnation or a spirit world.

There are also faith systems that are atheistic. Buddhists do not believe in any kind of deity, while traditions within local paganism also do not believe in a god.

Today, Torbay is a community of many faiths and beliefs. Since Covid we are seeing more rapid change, with migration seeming to be increasing the numbers of those with faith.

Nevertheless, although a snapshot of a few years back, the census still tells us who we are across the Bay:

Christian 67,634

No religion 60,178

Not answered 8,771

Muslim 788

Buddhist 553

Pagan 270

Spiritualist 231

Hindu 223

Jewish 141

Spiritual 100

Sikh 60

Wicca 55

Mixed Religion 18

Satanism 15

Taoist 13

Own Belief System 13

Bah’ai 12

Druid 11

Pantheism 9

Heathen 8

Witchcraft 7

Occult 5

Rastafarian 5

Eckankar 4

Universalist 4

Native American Church 3

Deist 3

Zoroastrian 3

Shamanism 2

Brahma Kumari 1

Believe in God 1

Animism 1

New Age 1

Mysticism 1

Shintoism 1

Reconstructionist 1

Ravidassia 1