17. Halls of Science

Saull’s integration into the top echelons of metropolitan Owenism is exemplified, including his trusteeship of the London Co-Operative Building Society. This was a bank providing loans to the branches, enabling them to build their Halls of Science. These countrywide halls, rarely discussed by historians, are examined: their success compared to mechanics’ institutions, their female friendliness, and the opposition they faced. Saull now sank his money into a central hall in London’s John Street, which was to be Owen’s new headquarters, and he made a tour of the Midlands Halls of Science in 1840, lecturing, for the last time, on evolving life’s ‘law of progression’, with its earthly promise of a New Jerusalem. Saull felt the civic opposition personally when he visited his home town of Northampton. Here his pub-owning nephew was blacklisted for leasing his backroom to socialists (including Holyoake), and eventually went bankrupt.