Maurice Reckitt


Maurice Benington Reckitt was a leading English Anglo-Catholic and Christian socialist writer. He edited Christendom: A Journal of Christian Sociology from 1931 to 1950. He founded the charity Christendom Trust.
Reckitt was born on 19 May 1888 in Beverley, Yorkshire, to Arthur Benington Reckitt and Helen Annie Thomas. An heir to the Reckitt family fortune, his sister was Eva Collett Reckitt, founder of the left-wing London bookshop Collett's. He graduated from St John's College, Oxford, in 1907 with second-class honours in history. At Oxford, and elsewhere throughout his life, he studied under Sir Ernest Barker, H. A. L. Fisher, G. K. Chesterton, A. R. Orage, John Neville Figgis, P. E. T. Widdrington, and V. A. Demant.
Earlier in his life, he was a supporter of guild socialism and a founder of the National Guilds League. He presented the Scott Holland Memorial Lectures in 1946.
Reckitt was a leading player and croquet administrator winning the Men's Championship twice. Reckitt was on the Council of the Croquet Association between 1929 and 1975, serving as Chairman, Vice President and President.
He died on 11 January 1980 in Roehampton, London.

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