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In view of its early industrial evolution, it was not surprising that England was the first country to experience the attempt to insti- tutionalize social science. It was the first society to see itself confronted by 'the social question' that Carlyle termed 'the condition of the people'.2 Leading to an intellectual search for the phenomena which would guarantee sustainable social progress, the first organized body of English social scientists, the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science (the Social Science Association) was formed in July 1857.3 Its first president, the ageing radical Lord Brougham, was already closely associated with the Law Amendment Society, a body itself dedicated to the achievement of social and moral improvement by instrumental measures of legislative and administrative reform. 4 To attract as many members as possible and maximize its influence, the new Association's founders, in the summer of 1857, circularized a large number of individuals and societies concerned with social problems to test their support for a congress on social issues which a Birmingham deputation had invited to its city.5 The circular elicited such a positive response that, each October from the year of its inception until it was finally wound up in 1886, week-long congresses known as Britain's 'outdoor' or 'social' parliaments became a settled feature of the Association. The congresses rapidly established themselves as events of national importance attended by hundreds of Mid-Victorian Liberalism', English History Review, 101, CCCXCVIII (1986), 95-134; idem, 'The Origins of British "Social Science": Political Economy, Natural Science and Statistics, 1830-1835', The Historical Journal, 26, no.3 (1983), 587-616; idem, 'A Peculiarity of the English: The Social Science Association and the Absence of Sociology in Nineteenth Century Britain', Past and Present, no. 114 (1987), 133-71; O. R. McGregor, 'Social Research and Social Policy in the Nineteenth Century', ibid., 8, no.2 (1957), 147-57; B. Rodgers, 'The Social Science Association, 1857-1886', The Manchester School of Economic and Social Studies, XX (1952), 283-310. 2 B. Wittrock and P. Wagner, 'Social Science and the Building of the Early Welfare State: Towards a Comparison of Statist and Non-Statist Western Societies', in Rueschmeyer and Skocpol, States, Social Knowledge and the Origins of Modern Social Policies, pp.90-115, esp. pp.91-4. 3 Goldman, 'The Social Science Association'; see also Transactions of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science (1857), xx-xxxi. 4 Journal of Social Science, no. 1 (1869), 5-9. 5 Ibid., 6; Transactions of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science (1857),xx-xxvi.