Samuel A(ugustus) Barnett

Anglican clergyman and social reformer, born in Bristol, SW England, UK. He studied at Oxford, and in 1873 went to a Whitechapel parish where his sympathy with the poor of London was aroused. In 1884 he founded Toynbee Hall in Whitechapel, and went on to advocate other educational reforms, poor relief measures, and universal pensions. In 1894 he became Canon of Bristol, and from 1906 was Canon of Westminster.

For the English actor, see Samuel Barnett (actor).

Samuel Augustus Barnett (February 8, 1844 – 1913) was an English clergyman and social reformer particularly associated with the establishment of the first university settlement, Toynbee Hall in east London in 1884.

He was born in Bristol, the son of Francis Augustus Barnett, an iron manufacturer.

In 1873, he married Henrietta Octavia Rowland (later better known as Dame Henrietta Barnett), who had been a co-worker with Miss Octavia Hill and was as much a philanthropist as her husband.

The area was notorious for its squalid and overcrowded housing conditions; the Barnetts worked hard for the poor of their parish, opening evening schools for adults, providing them with music and entertainment, and serving on the board of guardians and on the managing committees of schools. Barnett discouraged outdoor relief, because it fostered the pauperisation of the neighbourhood.

In 1875 Balliol historian Arnold Toynbee paid the first of many visits to Whitechapel, and in 1877, Barnett, who kept in constant touch with Oxford, formed a small committee, over which he presided, to consider the organisation of university extension in London. The Barnetts were also associated with the building of model dwellings (1888), with the establishment of the children's country holiday fund (1884) and the annual loan exhibitions of fine art at the Whitechapel gallery.

In 1884 an article by Barnett in the Nineteenth Century discussed the question of university settlements - places where richer students could live alongside, learn about and contribute to the welfare of much poorer people - in Barnett’s words: 'to learn as much as to teach;

This resulted in the formation of the University Settlements Association, and when Toynbee Hall was built shortly afterwards, Barnett became its first Warden.

Barnett was a select preacher at Oxford in 1895-1897, and at Cambridge in 1900;

Among Canon Barnett's works is Practicable Socialism (1888, 2nd ed.