The White Cross Army was an organisation set up in 1883 by philanthropist Ellice Hopkins with help from the Bishop of Durham, to promote "social purity". The recruits – all of them men – pledged to show a "chivalrous respect for womanhood", to apply ideas of purity equally to men and women, and not to indulge in foul language or indecent behaviour. It was renamed the White Cross League in 1891, and merged with the Church of England Purity Society, which had been formed by Edward White Benson.[1][2][3]
- ^ Prochaska (1980), p. 215
- ^ Rappaport (2001), p. 307
- ^ Prettejohn (1999), p. 228