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Francis Place and the Historian1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

D. J. Rowe
D. J. Rowe
Affiliation:
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
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Extract

There can be few nineteenth-century figures whose papers and writings are so frequently consulted and quoted by historians as those of Francis Place, yet who have been so sadly neglected as historical figures. The only full-length study of Place's life and work, by Graham Wallas, is seventy-odd years old.2 It suffers from numerous defects, the two major of which are a tendency to show Place in an unduly favourable light and to make enormously lengthy quotations from Place's manuscripts, with very little criticism or analysis of their content or of the part which Place played in any given situation. The failure to look at Place's career and influence in the light of the views of his contemporaries inevitably means that Wallas's study is one-sided and incomplete as a biography and is only really useful as a selection from Place's writing, illustrating a number of the campaigns in which he played a part.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , March 1973 , pp. 45 - 63
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1973

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References

2 Wallas, G., Life of Francis Place (rev. edn, 1918).Google Scholar

3 Thomas, W. E. S., ‘Francis Place and Working Class History’, Historical Journal, v, 1 (1962).Google Scholar Some of Thomas's criticisms are actually foreshadowed by Wallas - e.g. the lack of influence of the London artisans on Chartism (Wallas, p. 371) and Place's lack of understanding of the manufacturing districts (Wallas, p. 375).

4 Thomas, , op. cit. pp. 64 and 69.Google Scholar

5 For example in Thompson, E. P., The Making of the English Wording Class (2nd edn, 1968),Google ScholarBriggs, A., ‘Middle-class consciousness in English politics, 1780–1846’, Past and Present, 9 (1956)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Neale, R. S., ‘Class and class-consciousness in early nineteenth-century England; three classes or five?’, Victorian Studies, XII (1968).Google Scholar

6 The growing use of class terminology has been suggested as supporting this point. See A. Briggs, ‘The language of “class“ in early nineteenth-century England’, in Briggs, A. and Saville, J. (eds.), Essays in Labour History (1960).Google Scholar In the early uses of the terms, ‘middle class(es)’ and ‘working class(es)’, the contemporary significance seems little greater than the earlier terminology of ‘middle orders’ or ‘middle ranks’ and ‘lower orders’ or ‘working people’. Both are broad omnibus terms which disguise the divisions within the groups of which their members were certainly aware. Professor Briggs appears to exaggerate the divisions between middle and working classes after 1832. He wrote, ‘Working-class disillusionment with the results of the Reform Bill and the growing tendency to rely upon specifically working-class organizations increasingly differentiated middle-class and working-class movements after 1832’ and the London Working Men's Association ‘spurned all assistance from friends and sympathizers in other sections of the community’, Briggs, , ‘Middle-class consciousness’, op. cit. pp. 70–1.Google Scholar The idea that working men expected wonderful changes after the passage of the Reform Act is open to some doubt. Neale has, for instance, commented, ‘There is no evidence of artisan disillusionment with the results of the Reform Bill in Bath’, op. cit. p. 28. Professor Briggs’ second comment is untrue. See Rowe, D. J., ‘The London Working Men's Association and the “People's Charter“’, Past and Present, 36 (1967)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and the subsequent debate with Prothero, I. J. in Past and Present, 38 (1967).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Thompson, , op. cit. pp. 22–3.Google Scholar

8 Wallas, , op. cit. pp. 6–10.Google Scholar

9 Thompson, , op. cit. p. 513.Google Scholar

10 Quoted in Thompson, , op. cit. p. 212.Google Scholar See also Harrison, B., ‘Two roads to social reform: Francis Place and the “Drunken Committee“ of 1834’, Historical Journal, XI (1968), 287–8Google Scholar and also the re-issue of Place's Illustrations and Proofs of the Principle of Population, ed. Himes, N. E. (1930), pp. 154–6.Google Scholar

11 Wallas, , op. cit. p. 266Google Scholar and Thompson, , op. cit. p. 671.Google Scholar See also similar references in B.M. Add. MSS 35151, fos. 261–3, Place to p. A. Taylor. 14 July 1840 (reproduced in Rowe, D. J. (ed.), London Radicalism, 1830–1843: a selection from the papers of Francis Place (London Record Society, v, 1970), 214–17)Google Scholar and 27810, fos. 91–4, Place to S. Harrison, 15 Feb. 1842 (Rowe, , London Radicalism, pp. 220–7).Google Scholar

12 Place's later competence as business manager for various political organizations obviously owed much to his trade experience.

13 Wallas, , op. cit. p. 303Google Scholar and B.M. Add. MSS 27789, fos. 286–7, 27790 fos. 24–5 a nd 27796, fos. 105–6.

14 Cit. Hamburger, J., James Mill and the Art of Revolution (New Haven, Connecticut, 1963), p. 57.Google Scholar

15 See, for example, the way in which Place tried, unsuccessfully, to push the Westminster Reform Society into agitating for a major reform, including universal manhood suffrage. B.M. Add. MS 27844, fos. 271–9 (Rowe, , London Radicalism, pp. 179–83).Google Scholar See also Wallas, , op. cit. p. 261.Google Scholar

16 Thomas, , op. cit. p. 66.Google Scholar

17 Ibid. p. 67.

18 Quoted in Wallas, op. cit. p. 240.

19 B.M. Add. MS 27810, fo. 91.

20 See Wallas, , op. cit. p. 204,Google Scholar and also the correspondence cited in Rowe, London Radicalism, pp. 202–3Google Scholar, for money loaned by Place and others to the proprietors of The Charter. Frequently Place found the loaning of money led to problems and broken friendships, as in the case of Godwin, although Place continued to admire some of Godwin's work and to recommend working men to read Political Justice, cf. B.M. Add. MS 35150, fos. 116–17 (Rowe, , London Radicalism, pp. 156–8)Google Scholar. After the incident over the Charter Place wrote, ‘In almost every case where money has been concerned I have been ill-treated and cheated by working men … in this respect, at least, they differ from all other men in being utterly dishonest’, B.M. Place Collection of Newspaper Cuttings, set 56, vol. XII, Jan.-Apr. 1841, fo. 14.

21 Cit. Wallas, , op. cit. p. 192.Google Scholar

22 Hollis, Patricia, The Pauper Press (1970), pp. 69–92.Google Scholar

23 B.M. Add. MS 35151, fos. 21–2 (Rowe, , London Radicalism, pp. 177–9).Google Scholar

24 The Philosophic Radicals’ use of the term ‘the People’ although it ‘was meant to include everyone outside the ranks of the aristocracy, it was never intended to be used as a concept including the mob or the masses ‘, Neale, , op. cit. p. 20.Google Scholar

25 Ibid. 27791, fos. 33–5 (Rowe, , London Radicalism, p. 48).Google Scholar

26 Cit. Wallas, , op. cit. p. 388.Google Scholar

27 Thomas, , op. cit. p. 62.Google Scholar

28 Hollis, , op. cit. p. 301.Google Scholar

29 Dobson, J. L., The contribution of Francis Place and the Radicals to the growth of popular education, 1800–1840 (University of Durham, King's College, Newcastle upon Tyne, Ph.D. 1959) p. 655.Google Scholar

30 B.M. Add. MSS 35151, fos. 319 and 321.

31 Thomas, , op. cit. p. 62.Google Scholar

32 Ibid. pp. 65–6.

33 Thompson, , op. cit. p. 531.Google Scholar

34 B.M. Place Collection, set 56, Oct. 1840-Feb. 1841, appendix, p. 33. I owe this reference to Brian Harrison whose comment was ‘did the truth really sink in?’. This is a very difficult although important question. The references which one can find where Place asserts a knowledge of the manufacturing districts do not answer it and it could only be partially answered by a detailed study of Place's writings.

35 Ward, J. T., The Factory Movement (1962), p. 142.Google Scholar

36 Cit. Wallas, , op. cit. p. 141.Google Scholar In a letter to Harriet Martineau Place told her that she could not form ‘a correct opinion of the monstrous iniquities of our factories’ but that he knew them well Cit. Place, Illustrations and Proofs, p. 325.Google Scholar

37 B.M. Add. MS 27819, fos. 229–33 (Rowe, , London Radicalism, pp. 173–6).Google Scholar

38 See Stigler, G. J., Five Lectures on Economic Problems (1949), ‘The Classical Economics: an alternative view’ and B.M. Add. MS 27789, fo. 215.Google Scholar

39 Thompson, , op. cit. p. 896.Google Scholar

40 Ibid. pp. 277–90.

41 Wallas, , op. cit. p. 358.Google Scholar

42 B.M. Add. MS 27790, fo. 22 (Rowe, , London Radicalism, p. 38).Google Scholar

43 Hollis, , op. cit. pp. 295–306.Google Scholar

44 Thompson, , op. cit. pp. 167–70, 189–90 and 530–1.Google Scholar Thompson's phrase that Place was ‘sitting to James Mill for his own portrait as the White Man's Uncle Tom’, delightful though it is, is somewhat unfair however.

45 B.M. Add. MS 35151, fos. 146–8 (Rowe, , London Radicalism, p. 206).Google Scholar

46 B.M. Add. MS 27791, fo. 25. This was an assessment which drew a line of demarcation which was altogether too sharp. For a discussion of some of the points of similarity between the National Union of the Working Classes and the National Political Union, see Rowe, D. J., ‘Class and political radicalism in London, 1831–2’, Historical Journal, XIII, I (1970).Google Scholar

47 I am grateful to the London Record Society for permission to reproduce part of the following section.

48 Hobsbawm, E. J., Industry and Empire: an Economic History of Britain since 1750 (1968), p. 55.Google Scholar

49 Thompson, , op. cit. pp. 889 and 898–9.Google Scholar

50 B.M. Add. MSS 35148, fos. 69–70, 27792, £0. 153 and 27795, fos. 26–9 (Rowe, , London Radicalism, pp. 94–6).Google Scholar

51 Ibid. 27791, fos. 334–5 (Rowe, , London Radicalism, p. 53).Google Scholar

52 Rudé, G. reviewing Thurston, G., The Clerkenwell Riot, in Victorian Studies, XII (1968).Google Scholar

53 B.M. Add. MS 27794, fos. 278–80 (Rowe, , London Radicalism, pp. 92–3).Google Scholar

54 Hamburger, , op. cit. pp. 64 and 154.Google Scholar

55 Hamburger deals with the questions of the reliability and effectiveness of the army. Op. cit. pp. 204–25.

56 B.M. Add. MS 27810, fo. 92 (Rowe, , London Radicalism, pp. 223–4).Google Scholar

57 Harrison, , ‘Two roads to social reform’, Historical Journal, XI (1968), 272–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

58 See Himes’ introduction to Place's Illustrations and Proofs

59 For studies of two elections, see Aspinall, A., ‘The Westminster Election of 1814’, English Historical Review, XL (1925)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Thomas, W. E. S., ‘Whigs and Radicals in Westminster: the Election of 1819’, The Guildhall Miscellany, III, 3 (10. 1970).Google Scholar

60 Rowe, , London Radicalism, pp. 13–15, 107–8 and 179–83.Google Scholar

61 Thompson, , op. cit. pp. 515–21Google Scholar

62 B.M. Add. MS 27810, fo. 97, Place to S. Harrison, 21 Feb. 1842 (Rowe, , London Radicalism, p. 229).Google Scholar In an earlier letter to Harrison Place had written, ‘What do we mean by Reform of Parliament? I reply - the six points of the Charter - but I object to the use of the word “Charter“ … as a word brought into disrepute and calculated to impede, if not to prevent, all progress’. B.M. Add. MS 27810, fo. 94, 15 Feb. 1842 (Rowe, , London Radicalism, p. 227).Google Scholar