Nineteenth Century Europe Social Unrest

Nineteenth Century Europe
PART 1
session 4
GREAT BRITAIN: SOCIAL UNREST AND
SOCIAL COMPROMISE, 1815-1848

Major Themes of This Session
Economic and Social Conditions
after 1815
TIDES OF CHANGE
THE POSTWAR DEPRESSION
YEARS OF VIOLENCE, 1815-1819
The Reform Movement, 1820-1832
TORY REFORMS
THE GREAT REFORM BILL
The Politics of the People
POPULAR DISSATISFACTION WITH THE REFORM
ACT
THE TRADE UNION MOVEMENT
CHARTISM
The Road to Compromise
QUEEN VICTORIA
THE REPEAL OF THE CORN LAWS
TOWARD SOCIAL PEACE
Religion, Education, and the Arts
THE CHURCHES
THE SCHOOLS
THE ARTS
The Empire
EMIGRATION AND COLONIAL EXPANSION
THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY AND THE
DURHAM REPORT

after 1815
Tides of Change
Coalbrookdale by Night,

Blast furnaces light the

iron making town of

Coalbrookdale.

Philip James de Loutherbourg (1801).

—Wikipedia

“Compared with any of the countries discussed so far, Great Britain, in the first half of
the nineteenth century, possessed undeniable material advantages. English wealth was a
byword on the Continent, and English industrial and commercial supremacy was patent
to every eye. Foreign visitors to England were often so carried away by the evidences of
economic power that they drew hasty and unsound conclusions from them. Thus, in the
last stages of the war against Napoleon, one traveler wrote:
“One might suppose from this exuberant endorsement that Great Britain was immune
to all the agitations and disturbances that infected her continental neighbors. This was far
from being true. The very circumstances that led to England’s economic growth and her
commercial and industrial supremacy gave rise to social and political problems that were
incapable of easy solution but which, while unsolved, posed the gravest possible threat to
the established order.”
Gordon A. Craig, Europe Since 1815, Third Edition. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. 1971. pp. 91-92.
I have found the great mass of the people richer, happier and more respectable than any other
with which I am acquainted. I have seen prevailing among all ranks of people that emulation
of industry and independence which characterizes a state of advancing civilization properly
directed. The manners and the whole deportment of superiors to inferiors are marked with that
just regard and circumspection which announce the presence of laws equal for all. By such
signs, I know this to be the best government that ever existed.1
________
1 L. Simond, cited in E.L. Woodward, The Age of Reform (Oxford, 1938), p. 28.

“At the basis of all social change in Great Britain was the marked demographic growth
of this period. Between 1700 and 1801, the population had doubled; it stood at ten and a
half million in the latter year; and in the course of the next one hundred years this figure
was to increase threefold. This tremendous upsurge was made possible by improved
medical services, the first glimmerings of an understanding of public sanitation, and,
among other things, certain economic developments that promoted health (the
manufacture of cheap washable clothing, for instance). As in the case of other countries
where population was rising steeply, the increase had profound and continuing
repercussions.
“ Above all, it doomed the old agricultural system of England—the open-field system
of farming, which was characterized by a multiplicity of small holdings and by the
possession, baby the poorer tenant farmers and the agricultural laborers, of grazing and
other rights on waste land and village commons. In the latter half of the eighteenth
century, the already significant rise in population increased the demand for food and
forced prices upward. High grain prices encouraged landowners consolidate small
individually held plots into large farms capable of meeting the demands of the expanded
market; and it induced them to seek, by legal and other means, to enclose former
common lands and turn them into cultivation. These tendencies were heightened during
the war against Napoleon, when the need for an increase in the supply of food became so
pressing that enclosure seemed almost a patriotic necessity.”
op. cit., p. 92.

“The enclosure movement eliminated much of the inefficiency that had been inherent
in the old system; it permitted full use of new farming methods; it improved the soil; and
it achieved its major purpose by expanding production. But these gains were
accompanied by a considerable amount os social dislocation and human suffering. In
general, the English agricultural scene came to be dominated by the great landowners and
the wealthier tenant farmers (those who held long-term leases on farms from 100 to 500
acres of land). The less wealthy leaseholders became fewer in number, while the poorest
tenants were apt to be squeezed out, either by eviction or by an inability to compete with
their more efficient neighbors. This last was true also of many in the so-called yeoman
class of small independent proprietors, who were ruined by the erratic harvests and the
wild flections of the war years and were, like the most vulnerable tenant farmers, reduced
to the status of agricultural laborers or forced to leave the land.”
Ibid.

“As long as the war with France continued, there were means of absorbing the shock of
these changes. Although it did not keep pace with the increase in rural population, the
demand for agricultural labor rose steadily from 1793 to 1815. Most of those who left the
soil, moreover, found other occupations. The war years were boom years for England’s
rapidly expanding industry; its new urban centers—Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds,
Sheffield, Bristol—were growing feverishly; and, while English firms were supplying the
armies of England, Russia, Prussia, and Sweden with guns and greatcoats and blankets,
there were lots of jobs in the foundries and mills. Even the hordes of Irish immigrants
who began to pour into Glasgow and Liverpool in the last years of the war could be
absorbed by the expanding economic system.”
Ibid.

after 1815
The Postwar Depression
Engraving of Ned Ludd,

Leader of the Luddites,

1812—Wikipedia

“But all this changed after the wars had ceased, for peace brought with it a general
economic slump; and, in the decade that followed—while export trade to Europe and
America fell by a third—agriculture, the heavy industries, and textiles alike suffered from
severe depression. In 1815, wheat prices fell catastrophically from 126s. 6d a quarter to
65s. 7d., and, although Parliament immediately passed a Corn Law which imposed heavy
duties upon foreign grains, domestic prices recovered very slowly and never completely.
In rural areas this brought hardship to all classes and ruin to tenant farmers and yeomen
who had overextended their operations. As for the agricultural laborer, deprived by
enclosures of the means of having a plot of his own or even of keeping a pig or some
geese on the village commons, he now saw his wages forced down implacably and found
himself confronted with the choice between misery on the land or flight from it.
“Not that the latter course had much to offer. The postwar price slump was general
and affected industry as well as agriculture. In the mines and the mills, workers were
being dismissed by the thousands after 1815, and those who were kept on were forced to
work long hours under appalling conditions for wretched wages….”
op. cit., p. 93.

“…To the prevailing misery, two other factors made a contribution. The first was the
disbandment of the militia and the reduction of the regular forces which added hundreds
of thousands of men to an already glutted labor market. The second was the struggle of
the old household industries, like handloom weaving and the stocking trades, to hold their
own against the advancing factory system—a fight that was doomed to failure and was
already throwing many out of employment or subjecting them to the excesses of sweated
labor. With the population curve still rising and Irish immigration showing no signs of
abatement, the industrial towns of England in the first years of peace became centers of
squalor and want, while the countryside was filled with able-bodied paupers [‘sturdy
beggars’] and unemployed handicraftsmen.
“All those who were, directly or indirectly, affected by these conditions looked to the
government for measures to correct them. For a number of reasons, the government was
ill-prepared to supply them. Dominated as it still was by the landed magnates of the east
and south, it had difficulty even in understanding, let alone solving, problems that had
their roots in the new industrial society of Manchester and Sheffield. In an age in which
statistical information was meager and no civil service existed to collect it, it had,
moreover, a very imperfect knowledge of the extent of social misery and was often made
aware of it only when it took violent forms.”
Ibid.

after 1815
Years of Violence, 1815-1819
The Hampshire hog in the pound.
(William Cobbett in Newgate Prison.)

William Heath (1810)—Wikipedia

“Writing of the government that ruled England in the first years after Waterloo, the
historians J.L. and B. Hammond once asserted that ‘probably no English government has
ever been quite so near, in spirit and licence, to the atmosphere that we used to associate
with the tsar’s government in Russia.’
“These are strong words, but, one suspects, singularly inappropriate ones. There was
no Alexander or Nicholas, no Arakcheev or Benckendorff in England after 1815. The
monarchy was at a low ebb in its fortunes, the king, George III, being sunk in hopeless
mania, while his son, the prince regent, was a cypher interested only in painting,
architecture, fashion, and women. Effective power lay in the houses of Parliament and
was wielded with their consent, by the cabinet. The prime minister was Lord Liverpool,•
a patient and phlegmatic man who had been in ministerial posts since 1793.…”
op. cit., pp. 93-94.

a patient and phlegmatic man who had been in ministerial posts since 1793. His most
important colleagues were the lord chancellor Eldon,…”
op. cit., pp. 93-94.

a patient and phlegmatic man who had been in ministerial posts since 1793. His most
important colleagues were the lord chancellor Eldon, the foreign secretary Castlereagh,•
the home secretary Sidmouth, and the leader of the Tories in the House of Lords, the
Duke of Wellington•—all men of conservative views.It was said of Liverpool that, if he
had been present at the day of creation, he would have said, ‘Let us conserve chaos!’;
while Eldon, a kindly enough man in his personal relations, was an inflexible supporter of
the most severe aspects of the criminal code, apparently on the grounds that social
stability depended upon strict observance of the letter of the law. Even so, these men
were not heartless tyrants, as they have sometimes been portrayed….”
op. cit., pp. 93-94.

“…They had worked long years to overcome the armies of Napoleon and were, even
now, engaged in an effort to establish a European system that would prevent new
outbursts of revolutionary agitation on the continent. They could not but be sensitive to
the possibility of revolution at home. They were responsible to Parliament, which
represented the wealthiest classes of society and was prone to panic whenever social
misery led to social disorder. Even before 1789, the well-to-do classes of England had
learned to fear mob violence—as well they might in a land that possessed no regular
police force—and their fears had been enhanced by what had happened in France during
the Terror. After 1815, whenever there were signs of popular unrest, they exaggerated the
danger and called for extreme measures to avert it. The government, unfortunately, was
usually responsive to their wishes and, all too often, met demands for relief of misery not
with reform but with repression.
“It should not be supposed, however, that the threat to the established order was
imaginary. As the depression deepened, sporadic rioting began in the eastern counties,
and there was a considerable amount of machine-breaking in Nottinghamshire. Strikes
were widespread, and deputations from Wolverhampton colliers began to travel about the
country to recruit aid. Even more frightening for the wealthy classes was the appearance
of a number of popular tribunes and agitators.…’
op. cit., p. 94.

“…Some of these were responsible men of moderate opinions who sympathized with the
lot of the poor and believed that it could be improved by legal means, usually by a reform
that would make Parliament more representative of the country as a whole. These
included the indomitable William Cobbett,• perhaps the most powerful pamphleteer of
his time,…’
op. cit., p. 94.

his time, Sir Francis Burdett,• member of Parliament for the borough of Westminster,…’
op. cit., p. 94.

his time, Sir Francis Burdett,• member of Parliament for the borough of Westminster, and
the so-called ‘father of reform,’ the seventy-five-year-old Major John Cartwright.…’
op. cit., p. 94.

the so-called ‘father of reform,’ the seventy-five-year-old Major John Cartwright. Some
were flamboyant poseurs, like the fiery ‘Orator’ Hunt,• whose doubtless sincere efforts in
behalf of the poor were made ineffective by his personal vanity.…’
op. cit., p. 94.

behalf of the poor were made ineffective by his personal vanity. Some were harmless
fanatics, who advocated primitive communism and other panaceas. But there were also
more dangerous agitators, like the perennial conspirator Arthur Thistlewood,• who talked
of overthrowing the monarchy by force and ruling England by a Committee of Public
Safety on the French model.…’
op. cit., p. 94.

behalf of the poor were made ineffective by his personal vanity. Some were harmless
fanatics, who advocated primitive communism and other panaceas. But there were also
more dangerous agitators, like the perennial conspirator Arthur Thistlewood,• who talked
of overthrowing the monarchy by force and ruling England by a Committee of Public
Safety on the French model.
“The extremists, unfortunately, assumed an importance out of proportion to their
numbers. In December 1816, for instance, Thistlewood and his associates invaded a
reform meeting in Spa Fields, in London, led part of the crowd away, broke into a
gunshop, and made an attack upon the City of London.…’
op. cit., p. 94.

“…This foolish affair—which landed its authors in prison—and a supposed attempt on
the regent’s life a few days later caused such excitement in ruling circles that the cabinet,
after listening to the evidence of hired informers who claimed to have evidence of
widespread conspiracy against the government,2 secured Parliamentary approval of the
suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act and the banning of seditious meetings. This was not
popular in the country and may have encouraged new incidents that increased the
uneasiness of the propertied classes:…”
op. cit., pp. 94-96.
________
2 This evidence came from paid informers and spies upon whom the government had to rely since it had
no regular police force. Since these informers were paid only as long as they supplied information, it can
be imagined that at least some of the conspiracies they reported were completely imaginary.

“…the attempted march of a band of petitioners (the Blanketeers) of Manchester to
London; and, in June 1817 at Pentridge in Derbyshire, a muddled rising of the poor under
the leadership of an unemployed stockinger named Jeremiah Brandreth. In the latter case,
the insurrectionaries seemed to have believed that their action would touch off a general
rising against the government; a historian of their movement has said that its spirit and
objectives could be summed up in the words of a song heard in those days in Belper in
Derbyshire:
“But the government struck out quickly and brutally: the Blanketeers progress was
broken up by troops; Brandreth and his associates were arrested, given a speedy trial, and
hanged. [The Wikipedia article is worth consulting for a different interpretation].”
op. cit., p. 96.
The Levelution is begun.
So I’ll go home and get my gun.
And shoot the Duke of Wellington.

“This unhappy state of affairs reached its height in August 1819, when about 50,000 people
assembled in St. Peter’s Fields, Manchester, to hear Hunt and others talk about the need for
government reform. Although some of the banners displayed bore revolutionary slogans, the
crowd was an orderly one, made up of respectable artisans and laborers and their families.
The local magistrates, however, alarmed by the size and the remarkable (and to them
doubtless menacing) discipline of the gathering, ordered the Manchester and Salford
yeomanry to advance into the crowd and arrest the speakers….”
Ibid.

yeomanry to advance into the crowd and arrest the speakers. The yeomanry was a badly
trained troop of local notables. In attempting to carry out their orders, they became hopelessly
stuck in the middle of the now angry crowd. The magistrates then lost their heads completely
and ordered six troops [15 horse @ =30 horsemen] of the 15th Hussars, who were standing
by, to extricate the militia; and these professional troops advanced with drawn sabers and
cleared the field—killing eleven people and injuring hundreds as they did so.…”
Ibid.

yeomanry to advance into the crowd and arrest the speakers.• The yeomanry was a badly
trained troop of local notables. In attempting to carry out their orders, they became hopelessly
stuck in the middle of the now angry crowd. The magistrates then lost their heads completely
and ordered six troops [15 horse @ =30 horsemen] of the 15th Hussars, who were standing
by, to extricate the militia; and these professional troops advanced with drawn sabers and
cleared the field—killing eleven people and injuring hundreds as they did so. Samuel
Bamford, who was present at this scene of horror, recorded in his Passages in the Life of a
Radical that:
Ibid.
In ten minutes the field was an open and almost deserted place….The hustings remained,
with a few broken and hewed flag-staves erect. and a torn and gashed banner or two
drooping; whilst over the whole field were strewn caps, bonnets, hats, shawls and shoes,
and other parts of male and female dress, trampled, torn and bloody. The yeomanry were
dismounted—some were easing their horses’ girths, others adjusting their accoutrements,
and some were wiping their sabres.

“The 15th had fought last at Waterloo. Their employment against their own countrymen
shocked men of all classes and led them to speak bitterly of this incident as the Massacre of
Peterloo. But the government was unmoved by this reaction. The prince regent and the home
secretary expressed their satisfaction with the authorities at Manchester; and, in the fall of
1819, Parliament passed the so-called Six Acts. Two of these dealt quite sensibly the
procedure for bringing cases to trial and the issue of warrants for search for arms. The other
four prohibited meetings for military exercises, restricted gatherings for the purpose of
drawing up and signing petitions to residents of the parishes in which the meetings were held
(a serious restriction of the right of public assembly), gave magistrates the right to seize
literature that they considered blasphemous or seditious, and hampered the circulation of
papers and pamphlets by extending the incidence of the stamp tax.
“This sort of thing threatened to drive political dissension underground and to make it
assume secret and conspiratorial forms, as it had on the continent; in fact, only two months
after the passing of the Six Acts, there was some indication that this might be happening.…”
op. cit., p. 97.

after the passing of the Six Acts, there was some indication that this might be happening.
Arthur Thistlewood, once again at liberty, spent the last months of 1819 devising a plot to
murder the whole of the cabinet and to establish a Britannic Republic. The plotters were
betrayed by a spy and arrested in a loft on Cato Street as they were arming for their effort;…”
op. cit., p. 97.

after the passing of the Six Acts, there was some indication that this might be happening.•
Arthur Thistlewood, once again at liberty, spent the last months of 1819 devising a plot to
murder the whole of the cabinet and to establish a Britannic Republic. The plotters were
betrayed by a spy and arrested in a loft on Cato Street as they were arming for their effort;•
but the affair seemed ominous.”
op. cit., p. 97.

“Fortunately, the Cato Street conspiracy was not imitated, and the period of violence and
counter violence came to an end. An improvement of economic conditions sensibly modified
the misery that had been the principal motive for the machine-breaking [Luddism], the
disorder, and the abortive risings of these years; and Pentridge and Peterloo gradually faded
into the past. They had not, however, been without effect. On the one hand, the failure of
violence to achieve positive results convinced a great many people that Cobbett and
Cartwright were correct in arguing that the best way of achieving improvement in social
conditions was by reforming Parliament. On the other hand, the Tory party itself seemed
dissatisfied with the policy it had followed since Waterloo and willing to consider remedial
and progressive legislation.”
Ibid.

The Reform Movement
1815-1832
Tory Reforms
Sir Robert Peel, 1788-1850.

Illustrated London News,
January 31, 1846—

Craig, op.cit. p. 99

“The Tory party, which commanded the allegiance of most of the great landed families as
well as the country gentry [ofter referred to as the ‘squirearchy’], the universities, and the
services, had held power almost uninterruptedly since 1793, thanks largely to the disunity of
its opponents, the Whigs. Its uninspiring record in the first years of the peace seemed to
indicate the onset of the fatal inertia with which long tenure of office often affects political
bodies. After 1820, however, the party showed its inherent vitality by throwing up a grip of
young and energetic leaders to replace those who had directed affairs since the war. Liverpool
continued as prime minister, but his principal colleagues were now George Canning
(1770-1827) at the Foreign Office,…”
op. cit., pp. 97-98.

(1770-1827) at the Foreign Office, F.J. Robinson (1782-1859) at the Exchequer,…”
op. cit., pp. 97-98.

(1770-1827) at the Foreign Office,• F.J. Robinson (1782-1859) at the Exchequer, William
Huskisson (1770-1830) at the Board of Trade,…”
op. cit., pp. 97-98.

(1770-1827) at the Foreign Office,• F.J. Robinson (1782-1859) at the Exchequer,• William
Huskisson (1770-1830) at the Board of Trade, and Robert Peel (1788-1850) at the Home
Office. While Canning was investing foreign policy with new vigor, his associates addressed
themselves to the problems of the home front with spirit and determination, and for a few
years at, Tory policy became progressive enough to win the approval even of followers of
Jeremy Bentham (1746-1832).”
op. cit., pp. 97-98.

“Bentham, the eccentric and inspired analyst of the British political system, had long
preached that political and social institutions must constantly be measured by the yardstick of
utility, that their continued existence should be approved only if they worked efficiently, and
that all antiquated institutions and feudal anomalies must be ruthlessly extirpated. It was very
much in accordance with this philosophy that the new Tory group went to work.
“All the efforts of Robinson and Huskisson, for example, were animated by the desire to
free the country from the restrictions of an outworn fiscal and commercial system. While the
former overhauled the tax structure and reformed the national debt, Huskisson attacked the
mass of duties and rebates with which English trade was encumbered. Pointing out that the
Navigation Acts, which required that imports into the country to be carried in British ships or
ships of the country of origin, were inviting retaliatory legislation on the part of the United
States and other countries, Huskisson succeeded in replacing them by a series of reciprocal
trade agreements which increased British shipping by 50 percent within the decade. He
alleviated the rigidity of the Corn Law of 1815 by placing grain duties on a sliding scale, and
he persuaded Parliament to reduce duties on a whole range of products from pig iron to raw
silk. ‘National prosperity,’ Huskisson said in 1825, ‘would be most effectually promoted by
an unrestrained competition’; and, although he did not live to see the coming of free trade, his
success in removing commercial regulations that had outlived their usefulness was the first
real step toward the free-trade economy.”
op. cit., p. 98.

“Meanwhile Huskisson’s, colleague Peel was attacking the mass of antiquated procedures
and inhuman penalties that passed for criminal law in England. He drafted a simplified
criminal code that abolished the death penalty in almost 200 cases and simultaneously
reduced the number of offenses punishable by transportation. He reformed judicial procedure
and abolished the use of spies and paid informers in criminal cases; and he made a beginning
to the difficult but necessary job of reforming prison conditions. Finally, in what is probably
his best remembered reform, he established a trained police force in the national capital. The
organization of these ‘peelers’ or ‘bobbies,’ which was soon copied by other cities, was an
enormously important contribution to the cause of public order and, by reducing the
dependence of local authorities, in time of popular unrest, upon the militia or the regular
army, it prevented the repetition of incidents like Peterloo. Its effectiveness was demonstrated
also by the almost immediate reduction of crime, which had hitherto been regarded as an
unfortunate but unavoidable feature of society. ”
Ibid.

“Even before this last reform was accomplished, the influence of the reformers in the
cabinet had been greatly reduced. After Liverpool’s retirement from public life in the spring
of 1827, Canning had become prime minister.• But his death in August and the failure of
Robinson (now Lord Goderich) to fill his place adequately brought the Duke of Wellington to
the head of the government,• and the mood of the cabinet was immediately less favorable to
change of any kind.
“Nevertheless, the government was forced against its will to tolerate additional reforms.
For one thing, the removal of disabilities from which nonmembers of the established church
had to suffer was long overdue. Whereas Englishmen could worship as they pleased, the Test
and Corporation acts prevented them from holding public office unless they were willing to
take communion according to the rite of the Church of England. In the case of Protestant
dissenters, these laws had been bypassed by various expedients, but their continued existence
was an affront to non-Anglicans; and, in 1828, under opposition pressure, the government
agreed to the repeal of the offending acts.”
op. cit., pp. 98-99.

“Inevitably, this raised the much more difficult question of Catholic emancipation. The
repeal of the Test and Corporation acts opened most public offices to Roman Catholics, but
they were still effectively barred from Parliament by an act of 1679, which required all
members of Parliament to declare themselves opposed to the doctrine of transubstantiation
and the adoration of the Virgin Mary. This situation was especially anomalous in Ireland,
where the great bulk of the voting public was Catholic but was forced to vote for Protestants
in order to make their votes effective.
“The patience of the Irish now seemed to have been exhausted. In 1823 Daniel O’Connell
(1775-1847), a Dublin barrister with a talent for leadership and remarkable gifts of oratory,
had founded a body known as the Catholic Association in order to fight for the removal of
Catholic disabilities.…”
op. cit., p. 100.

“Inevitably, this raised the much more difficult question of Catholic emancipation. The
repeal of the Test and Corporation acts opened most public offices to Roman Catholics, but
they were still effectively barred from Parliament by an act of 1679, which required all
members of Parliament to declare themselves opposed to the doctrine of transubstantiation
and the adoration of the Virgin Mary. This situation was especially anomalous in Ireland,
where the great bulk of the voting public was Catholic but was forced to vote for Protestants
in order to make their votes effective.
“The patience of the Irish now seemed to have been exhausted. In 1823 Daniel O’Connell
(1775-1847),• a Dublin barrister with a talent for leadership and remarkable gifts of oratory,
had founded a body known as the Catholic Association in order to fight for the removal of
Catholic disabilities. The mass meetings organized by O’Connell inflamed all Ireland and
greatly alarmed the government, which tried in vain to obstruct and even to dissolve the
association. This alarm increased in 1828, when O’Connell decided to stand as a candidate in
a Parliamentary by-election in County Clare and was, in defiance of the existing law,
triumphantly elected. It was obvious that, unless something was done, Catholics would be
elected for every constituency in Ireland in the next general election and that attempts to deny
them the right to sit in Parliament might, given the country’s present temper, lead to
something very like civil war.…”
op. cit., p. 100.

“…Wellington and Peel were both opposed to emancipation, but they were realists enough to
see that they could not meet O’Connell’s challenge. Therefore they brought in a bill to
remove the last restrictions upon the Catholics and, in March 1829, it was passed by
Parliament.…”
op. cit., p. 100.

Parliament. The young John Stuart Mill with that gift of generalization that made him the
most interesting if not the most profound political thinker of the midcentury, hailed this vote
as ‘one of those great events, which periodically occur, by which the institutions of a country
are brought into harmony with the better part of the mind of that country—by which that
which previously existed in the minds of the more intelligent portion only of the community
becomes the law of the land and by consequence raises the whole of the community to its
own level.’…”
op. cit., p. 100.

own level.’
“The passage of this law marked the end of the long period of Tory political domination.
…”
op. cit., p. 100.

own level.’
“The passage of this law marked the end of the long period of Tory political domination.
This end had been prepared by the activities of Canning, Huskisson, and their associates,
whose zeal for change had worried the majority of the party even while it acquiesced in their
reforms. It has been brought closer by the reluctant decision to emancipate the Catholics,
which many Tories regarded as a betrayal of principle. And it was made inevitable now by the
revival of the agitation for Parliamentary reform, which was much too explosive a question to
be handled by a badly split party.”
op. cit., p. 100.

The Reform Movement
1815-1832
The Great Reform Bill
Detail from the picture commemorating the
passing of the Great Reform Act in 1832. It
depicts the ﬁrst session of the new House
of Commons on 5 February 1833 held in St
Stephen's Chapel which was destroyed by
ﬁre in 1834.

“Perhaps the best way of describing what the reformers wanted to change in the
parliamentary system is to quote from a speech made by Lord John Russell during the reform
debate:…”
op. cit., pp. 100-101.

debate:
op. cit., pp. 100-101.
A stranger who is told that his country is unparalleled in wealth and industry, that it is a country
that prides itself on its freedom and that once in every seven years it elects representatives from
its population to act as guardians and preservers of that freedom, would be anxious and curious
to see how…the people choose their representatives….Such a person would be very much
astonished if he were taken to a ruined mound and told that that mound sent two representatives
to Parliament; if he were taken to a stone wall and told that three niches in it sent two
representatives to Parliament; if he were taken to a park where no houses were to be seen, and
told that that park sent two representatives to Parliament. But if he were told all this, and were
astonished at hearing it, he would be still more astonished if he were to see large and opulent
towns…and were then told that these towns sent no representatives to Parliament.

debate:
“England’s system of representative government with the times had simply not changed
with the times and with the new social and economic facts of life…”
op. cit., pp. 100-101.
A stranger who is told that his country is unparalleled in wealth and industry, that it is a country
that prides itself on its freedom and that once in every seven years it elects representatives from
its population to act as guardians and preservers of that freedom, would be anxious and curious
to see how…the people choose their representatives….Such a person would be very much
astonished if he were taken to a ruined mound and told that that mound sent two representatives
to Parliament; if he were taken to a stone wall and told that three niches in it sent two
representatives to Parliament; if he were taken to a park where no houses were to be seen, and
told that that park sent two representatives to Parliament. But if he were told all this, and were
astonished at hearing it, he would be still more astonished if he were to see large and opulent
towns…and were then told that these towns sent no representatives to Parliament.

“…and this was painfully obvious when one looked—as Russell was looking—at the way in
which men were elected in the House of Commons. That body was composed of some 660
members, of whom 489 came from English constituencies, 100 from Irish, 45 from Scottish
and 24 from Welsh. Those who represented county constituencies (190 of the total) were
elected by the so-called forty-shilling freeholders of their county, that is, by the men who
owned land that brought them income of at least forty shillings [£2] a year. But, as we have
seen, economic developments since the middle of the eighteenth century and especially
during the war years had led to a steady reduction of the number of independent proprietors,
and this meant that the county electorate was dwindling and that the control of the county
seats was falling into the hands of the wealthy few.
“The county suffrage was at least uniform. This was far from being the case in the
boroughs, which sent 465 members to the House of Commons. In one borough the electorate
might comprise all the taxpayers, in another, only the inhabitants of certain houses; in a third,
only the mayor and his corporation. In most cases, the number was small enough to be
influenced easily by the government or, more generally by local magnates [‘rotten
boroughs’]; and there were some cases, like those described by Russell, in which election was
a legal fiction, the members simply being appointed by peers into whose control the borough
had fallen [‘pocket boroughs’]…”
op. cit., pp. 101-102.

“…There were members of the House of Lords who controlled as many as nine boroughs at a
time and could either fill or sell the seats as they saw fit. In 1827 it was estimated that 276
seats were controlled by landed proprietors and that eight peers alone controlled 51 seats.
This was another illustration of the predominantly aristocratic nature of the political system.
“What struck critics as being quite as reprehensible as these features of the system was the
obvious inequality of the representation. Scotland, with eight times the population of
Cornwall, had fewer members in Parliament than that county [Russell was a Scot]. The ten
southern counties of England had almost as many members as the thirty other, although their
population was only a third as large. The plight of the industrial towns was even more
striking….”
op. cit., p. 102.

“…In 1828 when Mr. Pickwick [Dickens’ first serial,• The Pickwick Papers]….”
op. cit., p. 102.

“…In 1828 when Mr. Pickwick [Dickens’ first serial,• The Pickwick Papers] went on his
famous but unsuccessful mission to Birmingham to soften the heart of Mr. Winkle’s father, he
was impressed by the vigor of the town and the way in which
op. cit., p. 102.
the sights and sounds of earnest occupation struck…forcibly on the senses. the streets were
thronged with working people. the hum of labor resounded from every house, lights gleamed
from the long casement windows in the attic stories, and the whirl of wheels and the noise of
machinery shook the trembling walls. The ﬁres, whose lurid sullen light had been visible for
miles, blazed ﬁercely up, in the great works and factories of the town. The din of hammers, the
rushing of steam, and the dead heavy clanking of engines, was the harsh music which arose from
every quarter.

“…In 1828 when Mr. Pickwick [Dickens’ first serial,• The Pickwick Papers] went on his
famous but unsuccessful mission to Birmingham to soften the heart of Mr. Winkle’s father, he
was impressed by the vigor of the town and the way in which
Yet this hive of activity had no parliamentary representation whatsoever, and the same was
true of Bradford, Halifax, Leeds, Manchester, and Sheffield.
“All these things had been pointed out for years by popular agitators like Cobbett, by
followers of Bentham, and by spokesmen for the industrial interest. The defenders of the
status quo always answered with a variety of arguments: that the existing system enabled men
of talent who could not have been elected to Parliament to be appointed to it [e.g., Edmund
Burke]; that every member of Parliament represented all parts of the country, that this ‘virtual
representation’ was preferable to a system in which members regarded themselves as
represented individual constituencies….”
op. cit., p. 102.
the sights and sounds of earnest occupation struck…forcibly on the senses. the streets were
thronged with working people. the hum of labor resounded from every house, lights gleamed
from the long casement windows in the attic stories, and the whirl of wheels and the noise of
machinery shook the trembling walls. The ﬁres, whose lurid sullen light had been visible for
miles, blazed ﬁercely up, in the great works and factories of the town. The din of hammers, the
rushing of steam, and the dead heavy clanking of engines, was the harsh music which arose from
every quarter.•

“…and that, therefore, it was unnecessary and unwise to give representation to all localities;
and that any change would destroy the balance of the constitution, diminish the influence of
the crown, and give rise to a host of unspecified dangers.
“By 1830, however, these last arguments were having a diminishing effect upon the
educated classes, who recognized that there were other things in England that needed to be
reformed (the spoils system in government, for instance, and the control of municipal
government by closed corporations) but which would not be reformed as long as the
composition of Parliament remained unchanged. And they had no effect at all upon the
common people, who seemed to entertain unreasonable expectations concerning reform and
were now clamoring for action.
“If the passage of the bill for Catholic emancipation had contributed to this agitation, two
other events gave it additional impetus: the fall of the Bourbon monarchy in France, which
inspired English reformers as much as it frightened their opponents, and the combination of a
sudden trade recession and a disastrous crop failure in 1830, which led to a new wave of
rioting, machine-breaking, and rick-burning and made a number of people feel that the time
had come for political concessions. All events, in short, were conspiring in favor of reform,
and when the Tory government refused to see this it was swept away….”
op. cit., pp. 102-103.

“…In the fall of 1830, Wellington—whose Parliamentary majority was dangerously slim in
any case—had the bad judgment to praise the English government as the acme of perfection
and to declare he was ‘not only not prepared to bring forward any measure of [parliamentary
reform]’ but that ‘as long as he held any station in the Government of the country, he should
always feel it his duty to resist such measures when proposed by others.’ The government was
immediately attacked from every quarter, and the duke was compelled to resign.…”
op. cit., p. 103.

immediately attacked from every quarter, and the duke was compelled to resign.
“The new government, which was headed by Lord Grey and was predominantly Whig in
composition,…”
op. cit., p. 103.

immediately attacked from every quarter, and the duke was compelled to resign.
“The new government, which was headed by Lord Grey • and was predominantly Whig in
composition, although it included some of Canning’s former followers, was pledged to
reform and got down to it immediately. In March 1831 Lord John Russell • introduced a
reform bill in the House of Commons. When it was defeated on a technicality, Grey took the
issue to the country and, in new elections, won a majority of 100 seats. he then reintroduced
the bill; and, after a debate that lasted months and in which the opposition used every possible
delaying tactic, it was passed by a majority of 106 votes. This was an illusory victory, for the
bill was immediately killed by the House of Lords, then as later a center of hidebound
conservatism.”
op. cit., p. 103.

“This caused widespread indignation which was expressed in riots and demonstrations
throughout the land. The atmosphere was not unlike that of Paris in July 1830, and this mood
deepened when the bill was introduced for a third time and again passed by Commons in
March 1832, for it was recognized as virtually certain that the Lords would again thwart the
popular desire for reform. This result was, indeed, plainly forecast in May, when Grey
became discouraged and handed in his resignation.…”
Ibid.

became discouraged and handed in his resignation. It was immediately known throughout the
country that the king was trying to persuade Wellington to take office; and this brought
popular feeling to a whiter heat and increased the dangers of the situation in general.
“The constitutional deadlock was, however, overcome. Wellington could not form a
cabinet, and his failure may have been due in part to a run on the banks and a tax strike
organized by certain middle class agitators, notably the Benthamite Francis Place.…”
Ibid.

became discouraged and handed in his resignation. It was immediately known throughout the
country that the king was trying to persuade Wellington to take office; and this brought
popular feeling to a whiter heat and increased the dangers of the situation in general.
“The constitutional deadlock was, however, overcome. Wellington could not form a
cabinet, and his failure may have been due in part to a run on the banks and a tax strike
organized by certain middle class agitators, notably the Benthamite Francis Place. .As the
price of returning to office, Grey secured what had been denied him earlier, a royal promise
to create a sufficient number of new peers to secure the passage of the reform bill by the
upper house. They did not have to be created; the threat was enough to break the resistance of
the Lords. On June 4, 1832, the Great Reform Bill passed its final hurdle and became the law
of the land.”
Ibid.

“The bill did not do everything its supporters had expected, nor did it remove all the abuses
that had led to its introduction. There were rotten boroughs after 1832 as before; there were
boroughs in which fifty votes could decide the election of a member; and there were still
startling inequalities of representation. But there were many fewer abuses of this kind. One
hundred and forty-three seats were redistributed in such a way as to take representation away
from centers of no population, to add to the representation of the larger counties and of
Scotland and Ireland, and to allow the industrial towns to send members to Commons.
“At the same time, the suffrage was widened. The county suffrage was no longer
restricted to people who owned their land, but it was given to long-term tenant farmers whose
land yielded ten pounds of value annually and to tenants-at-will whose land was worth fifty
pounds a year. In the boroughs, all special franchises were abolished, and the vote was given
to all men who owned or rented a building whose annual rental value was ten pounds.
Throughout England and Wales one man in five now had the vote; in Scotland, one man in
eight; in Ireland, one man in twenty. This was not democracy—a fact that becomes clearer
when we recall that members of Parliament still received no pay and that there was a property
qualification for election—but it was the first hopeful step in that direction.”
op. cit., pp. 103-104.

“In the history of English political organization, the reform campaign has great importance.
In it we can discern the first beginnings of the kind of propaganda and pressure tactics that
have become commonplace in our own age. At critical junctures in the campaign, the London
Radical Reform Association, in which Francis Place was active, and Thomas Attwood’s
Birmingham Political Union showed a virtuosity in mobilizing public feeling that would be
admired by contemporary professional politicians.…”
op. cit., p. 104.

“In the history of English political organization, the reform campaign has great importance.
In it we can discern the first beginnings of the kind of propaganda and pressure tactics that
have become commonplace in our own age. At critical junctures in the campaign, the London
Radical Reform Association, in which Francis Place was active, and Thomas Attwood’s
Birmingham Political Union showed a virtuosity in mobilizing public feeling that would be
admired by contemporary professional politicians.
“At the same time, the passing of the Reform Act marked the real beginning of modern
party organization in England. The Tory and Whig parties of the pre-1832 period were very
loose associations of interest, without formal machinery, consultative organs, or internal
discipline….”
op. cit., p. 104.

“…After 1832 the transformation of the old groups into the modern Conservative and Liberal
parties began.…”
Ibid.

“…After 1832 the transformation of the old groups into the modern Conservative and Liberal
parties began. During the reform campaign the Carlton Club was formed with the specific
purpose of giving some unity to Tory policy inside and outside Parliament;• and a few years
later the Reform Club was founded to facilitate unity of view and tactics between the Whigs
and their Benthamite allies, the so-called Radicals. These political clubs gave the parties their
first machinery, which was developed further as a result of the provisions of the Reform Act
itself. Fr the act made legal enrollment of voters a preliminary condition of voting, and this
provision was a stimulus to such things as the formation of party associations in the local
constituencies (to promote enrollment in the party interest), the creation of central registration
committees, the growth of election agents and party managers, and other features of the
modern political party. In a real sense, the present political system of England dates from
1832.”
Ibid.

The Politics of the
People
Popular Dissatisfaction with the Reform Act

“The passing of the Reform Act had enfranchised virtually the whole of the middle class. It
brought fewer obvious advantages to the working class, who had helped secure its passage
but had not been granted the vote by it; and the reaction of the articulate sections of the
working class was one of disappointment and resentment.
“This deepened when the first reformed Parliament met. In the new House of Commons the
Whigs and Radicals were in a commanding position. They soon showed, however, by the
limited use they made of their power, that they were no real friends of their former working-
class supporters and had no intention of doing anything to satisfy their political aspirations.
Neither the Whig aristocrats nor the new representatives of the middle class who were allied
with them had any sympathy for democracy. In their view—and this was to become doctrine
in the Liberal party that emerged from the Whig-Radical fusion—social stability required that
the suffrage be restricted to those who had an economic stake in society and were sufficiently
educated to use the vote intelligently. The Reform Act represented a limit beyond which they
did not wish to go, and Lord John Russell now earned the name Finality Jack by making this
clear.
“The Whigs and the Radicals did not merely rest on their laurels after 1832. They passed
some enormously important legislation: the act of 1833 abolishing slavery throughout the
British colonies, for instance, and the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835, which removed
the government of towns from the hands of self-elected bodies and vested it in the hands of
corporations elected by all tax-paying residents….”
op. cit., pp. 104-105.

“…But, while they were ready to remove palpable abuses and to take steps to increase
efficiency and economy in the government, according to the Benthamite prescription, their
attitude toward the economic and social needs of the working class was almost entirely
negative. The Factory Act of 1833, which reduced and regulated the labor of children and
young people in the textile mills, owed its passage less to them than to the strenuous efforts
of Tory reformers like Lord Ashley;…”
op. cit., p. 105.

of Tory reformers like Lord Ashley; and it was opposed by many Whigs and Radicals because
it seemed an unwarranted interference with the freedom of trade.…”
op. cit., p. 105.

of Tory reformers like Lord Ashley;• and it was opposed by many Whigs and Radicals
because it seemed an unwarranted interference with the freedom of trade.
“The representatives of the industrial interest were, indeed, all too ready to cite the
population studies of Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) and the economic analysis of David
Ricardo (1772-1823) in support of the view that the mass of the population would always live
on the barest subsistence level and that their lot could not be improved by government action
but only by self-help, continence, and personal discipline. When they supported legislation in
the social field, therefore, it was apt to take severe forms, like the new Poor Law of 1834.
This act, which was Benthamite in inspiration, sought to lighten the burden which the relief
of poverty imposed upon local taxpayers by ending outdoor relief to the able-bodied and
forcing all recipients of relief to enter workhouses, in which they were denied the privilege of
living with their families (lest they breed) and were forced to lead the most primitive and
degrading existence….”
op. cit., p. 105.

“…The new system was doubtless more economical than the old, and it was administered by
men who in other respects had progressive and even enlightened views—Edwin Chadwick,
the greatest sanitary reformer of the century, and Dr. John Kay (later Kay-Shuttleworth), a
zealous worker for a national system of education. But one has only to read Charles Dickens’
description of workhouse conditions in Oliver Twist, published in 1837, to understand how
high the cost was in human suffering.…”
op. cit., pp. 105-106.

high the cost was in human suffering. Thirty years later Dickens could still write: ‘I believe
there has been in England since the days of the Stuarts no law so infamously
administered….”
op. cit., pp. 105-106.

high the cost was in human suffering. Thirty years later Dickens could still write: ‘I believe
there has been in England since the days of the Stuarts no law so infamously administered.’
“The spirit and the policies of the post-1832 government alienated the working classes and,
at the same time, forced them to realize that improvement of their lot would depend on their
own efforts. Out of this realization came two movements: trade unionism and chartism.”
op. cit., pp. 105-106.

The Politics of the
People
The Trade Union Movement

“In the first years after the war the development of a strong union movement had been
impossible because of the Combination Acts of 1790 and 1800 and other legislation that
forbade all working class combinations, except purely benevolent societies, as criminal
conspiracies in restraint of trade. In 1824, however, in the period of the Canningite reforms,
Parliament had repealed the Combination Acts and permitted the organization of working
men for peaceful bargaining about wages and hours, provided such organization did not
encourage breach of contract or lead to ‘molestation’ or ‘obstruction’ of employers. The terms
of the new act, amended in 1825, still made it difficult for workers to strike, and the courts
were very zealous in finding evidence of obstructionism; but at least trade unions could now
pursue their activities openly without disguising themselves as benevolent societies.
“Between 1825 and 1832, there was a steady growth of union membership and the
beginning of systematic efforts to form national unions out of local ones. In 1829 for
example, John Doherty succeeded in forming a single union for the whole cotton trade.
Doherty hoped to carry this tendency further and to establish a union of all trades; and, in
June 1830, he founded the National Association for the Protection of Labor with this end in
view. This organization faded away almost as quickly as it had grown, but in its short
existence it did encourage the establishment of new unions among the miners, the colliers, the
clothiers, the potters, and other trades.”
op. cit., pp. 106-107.

“The disillusionment that affected the working class after the passing of the Reform Act
seems to have encouraged the growth of unionism and added to its militancy. In the latter half
of 1832 union membership in general began to grow, strike activity began to increase, and
there was a renewal of the earlier effort to unite all the trades. What Doherty had attempted
was now tried again with the formation, in October 1833, of the Grand National Consolidated
Trades Union which, in a very short space of time, had an estimated membership of half a
million skilled and unskilled workers, including agricultural workers, gas workers, miners,
tailors, bonnetmakers, bakers, and shearers, and had branches all over England and in
Scotland and Ireland as well.…”
op. cit., p. 107.

Scotland and Ireland as well.
“The leading spirit in this movement was Robert Owen (1771-1858).• A self-made man,
who at the age of twenty was the head of one of Lancashire’s greatest cotton mills, Owen was
a born social reformer….”
op. cit., p. 107.

Scotland and Ireland as well.
“The leading spirit in this movement was Robert Owen (1771-1858). A self-made man,
who at the age of twenty was the head of one of Lancashire’s greatest cotton mills, Owen was
a born social reformer. He had made his New Lanark mills a model establishment in which
wages were good and employment regular, and in which sanitary housing and recreational
facilities were available to workers and full-time education was provided for their children.
His success here encouraged him to think of the possibility of founding model communities
in other parts of the world and, in 1824, he actually went to America tottery out his gospel
there. New Harmony, the Owenite community, founded in the United States was not a
success; but it helped attract the attention of the workers to Owen’s schemes and to stimulate
what was perhaps the most permanent of his experiments, the establishment of self-governing
nonprofit cooperative shops and producers’ societies catering to the needs of workers. As
early as 1830, there were already more than 300 of these cooperative societies in existence.
op. cit., p. 107.

“Owen’s thought had progressed from simple philanthropy to a rather unsystematic
socialism, and he had come to oppose the whole capitalistic profit system and to support all
causes that promised to reduce the exploitation of the workers. It was natural, therefore, that
he should be drawn to the trade-union movement. he was heart and soul behind the Grand
National and seems to have believed that, within five years, it would enable the organized
workers to gain control of the economic machinery of the country, to replace capitalism with
a cooperative system, and to supersede both Parliament and all existing bodies of local
government. With this dream of a socialist commonwealth before his eyes, Owen threw
himself into the effort to spread the principle of unionism and cooperation in the unorganized
trades.
“The tremendous enthusiasm that attended his efforts made the trade-union movement
appear much stronger than it was. In reality, when their strength was tested, the unions
collapsed with celerity. In 1833, alarmed employers began to unite and to refuse employment
to union members. Disregarding Owen’s advice, the unions responded with strikes, forgetting
that it was unwise to attempt to combine expensive cooperative experiments with even more
costly strike payments. Before long, they were in serious financial embarrassment. At the
same time, the government’s attitude toward them hardened….”
Ibid.

“…Early in 1834, in the Dorsetshire village of Tolpuddle,…”
op. cit., pp. 107-108.

“…Early in 1834, in the Dorsetshire village of Tolpuddle, six farm laborers were arrested for
swearing men into a union that planned to join the Grand National and were subsequently
tried and sentenced to seven years’ transportation to a penal colony overseas for
administering illegal oaths. It was clear from this that the government intended to strain the
interpretation of the law if necessary in order to hamper the effectiveness of the union
movement; and the fate of the ‘Tolpuddle martyrs’ had a depressing effect upon union
organization.…”
op. cit., pp. 107-108.

“…Early in 1834, in the Dorsetshire village of Tolpuddle, six farm laborers were arrested for
swearing men into a union that planned to join the Grand National and were subsequently
tried and sentenced to seven years’ transportation to a penal colony overseas for
administering illegal oaths. It was clear from this that the government intended to strain the
interpretation of the law if necessary in order to hamper the effectiveness of the union
movement; and the fate of the ‘Tolpuddle martyrs’ had a depressing effect upon union
organization.
“Financial mismanagement, an unwise strike policy, concerted opposition by employers,
government opposition, and, finally, personal differences between Owen and his chief
collaborators destroyed the militant trade-union movement of the 1830s. By 1835 the Grand
National had fallen to pieces, and its member unions were in retreat. Those that survived in
the next period were for the most part unions in the highly skilled trades, which resisted all
ambitious schemes of organization and concentrated on their own problems and benevolent
activities. The extension of union organization among the unskilled came to a halt and made
little new progress for the next half century.”
op. cit., pp. 107-108.

“The failure of the Owenite union movement had one more positive result, however. It
made working class leaders realize that they could not win measures of social reform unless
the workers had the vote. Abandoning the economic weapon, they now turned to political
pressure in the hope that they could force the new ruling class to share its power with the
workers. This attempt was made in the agitation for the People’s Charter.
op. cit., p. 108.

The Politics of the
People
Chartism
Photograph of the

Great Chartist Meeting

on Kennington Common,

London in 1848

“In 1836 a group of working class leaders in London, headed by William Lovett, a former
storekeeper in London’s first Owenite cooperative, founded the London Working Men’s
Association, in order ‘to draw into one bond of unity the intelligent and influential portion of
the working classes in town and country, and to seek by every legal means to place all classes
of society in possession of equal political and social rights.’…”
op. cit., p. 108.

“In 1836 a group of working class leaders in London, headed by William Lovett, a former
storekeeper in London’s first Owenite cooperative, founded the London Working Men’s
Association, in order ‘to draw into one bond of unity the intelligent and influential portion of
the working classes in town and country, and to seek by every legal means to place all classes
of society in possession of equal political and social rights.’ To attain this happy state of
affairs, six things, it was felt, were necessary, and these were spelled out in the People’s
Charter, which was published in May 1838. They were annual Parliaments, universal male
suffrage, equal electoral districts, the removal of the property qualification for membership in
Commons, the secret ballot, and payment for members of Parliament. Under the influence of
the Birmingham Political Union, which had played an important part in the reform campaign
of 1831-1832 and which was now revived, the charter was embodied in a national petition
and the nation-wide collection of signatures was begun, in the hope that Parliament might be
impressed by the number of declared supporters of the program.”
op. cit., p. 108.

“The London and Birmingham leaders doubtless wished to carry on this new campaign in a
systematic, respectable, and peaceful fashion. but the Charter made a direct appeal to men
who were indignant about the provisions of the new Poor Law, who were cast down by the
failure of Owen’s movement, who were unemployed as a result of the extension of machine
industry, or who for more obscure reasons were resentful and disinclined to act moderately.
Moreover, the leadership of Lovett and his associates was soon challenged by more violent
spirits; the former Wesleyan minister J.R. Stephens,…”
op. cit., pp. 108-109.

spirits; the former Wesleyan minister J.R. Stephens, who wanted to establish a new theocracy
with the Charter as its Bible and did not hesitate to call for the free employment of the pike
and firebrand to attain that end; G.J. Harney, who thought of himself as the English Marat;
James Bronterre O’Brien, an assiduous preacher of class hatred; and Feargus O’Connor,…”
op. cit., pp. 108-109.

James Bronterre O’Brien, an assiduous preacher of class hatred; and Feargus O’Connor, a
violent unprincipled bully who had once been a follower of O’Connell and was now editing a
radical newspaper in Leeds called the Northern Star.…”
op. cit., pp. 108-109.

James Bronterre O’Brien, an assiduous preacher of class hatred; and Feargus O’Connor, a
violent unprincipled bully who had once been a follower of O’Connell and was now editing a
radical newspaper in Leeds called the Northern Star.
“It was O’Connor and O’Brian who overcame the influence of the moderates at a
Convention of the Industrious Classes held in London in February 1839 and persuaded it not
only to accept the charter but to recognize the right of the people to arm themselves and to
agree to a general strike in the event that Parliament should reject their claims. This had the
effect of arousing a dangerous degree of excitement, and it is not surprising, therefore, that
when the petition and the charter, with 1,200,000 signatures, were in fact rejected by the
House of Commons in July, there were a number of ugly incidents. Although the general
strike never materialized, there was actually an attempt at an armed rebellion at Newport in
Monmouthshire, in which fourteen men were killed and nine died of wounds [actually, more
than an attempt, it was the last armed rebellion in England]….”
op. cit., pp. 108-109.

Nineteenth Century Europe Social Unrest

Nineteenth Century Europe Social Unrest

Empfohlen

Empfohlen

Weitere ähnliche Inhalte

Was ist angesagt?

Was ist angesagt? (20)

Ähnlich wie Nineteenth Century Europe Social Unrest

Ähnlich wie Nineteenth Century Europe Social Unrest (20)

Mehr von Jim Powers

Mehr von Jim Powers (20)

Kürzlich hochgeladen

Kürzlich hochgeladen (20)

Nineteenth Century Europe Social Unrest