An Historic Tradition

BETTER HOUR GATHERINGS are to bring together friends and acquaintances to examine current issues affecting the community either locally or nationally in a give and take manner and discern how to create what 18th century English poet William Cowper called "The Better Hour" -- a society where there is greater justice, greater human dignity, greater goodness and goodwill among other things.

In the late 18th century, groups of people gathered in both Britain and in the U.S. to discuss and take action on such matters.

In Britain, it was a group of men and women who lived in Clapham, England, a village approximately 5 miles south of the center of London and now part of London. This group was engaged in a variety of issues of which abolition of the slave trade and emancipation of all slaves was the most central concern. Other issues included implementing the first child labor laws, the broadening the education of children, prison reform, the prevention of cruelty to animals and other issues. Many of the British gatherings were held at “Battersea Rise”, the house of the merchant John Thornton and later of his son. Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger had designed a “Cabinet” room library where this group frequently met in a meeting that never ended.

William Wilberforce was a constant host and a highly sought after dinner guest in London. Wilberforce understood the importance of conversations over meals on subjects ranging from the abolition of the slave trade to “the reformation of manners” and reforms needed in the England of his day. This was the opportunity to improve one’s own thinking and persuade others through reasoning and to collaborate with others on worthwhile ideas and projects. Hospitality of good food and drink provided a relaxing background to do this.

Wilberforce invented the “dinner launcher”, a question that was posed that people could debate. One dinner launcher came in the form of a dinner plate with a logo on it designed by Josiah Wedgwood’s ceramic shop. It had a picture of an African slave on his knees in chains. The question was “Am I Not A Man And A Brother?” The answer, of course then was a resounding “No.” But because it was in the form of a question, it allowed debate on the other side and consideration of the side that this slave could be a man and a brother.

In the United States, Benjamin Franklin held similar dinner meetings on a regular basis with his friends to examine issues of the day. Out of these meetings came the idea for the first public libraries, the first volunteer fire stations, the University of Pennsylvania and many other ideas.

In the 20th century, a group of scholars at Oxford University formed a similar group of friends to discuss ideas called “The Inklings.” The literary works of C.S. Lewis, J.R. Tolkein and Dorothy Sayers were discussed and debated in their draft stages. The bottom line of each of these groups was to improve the world around them.

Scholar Michael Novak notes: “Civilization, Thomas Aquinas once wrote, is constituted by conversation; that is, by argument. Civilized people, treating each other as reasonable, argue with one another. Barbarians club one another, as if values are mere ‘preferences,’ and reason has nothing to do with them. For barbarians, nothing matters but power.”

Are you ready to follow the practices of those who brought extraordinary change to the world?

Consider starting a BETTER HOUR Group.