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III. The Association Movement of 1792–3

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Austin Mitchell
Austin Mitchell
Affiliation:
University of Otago, New Zealand
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Extract

The fear of revolution, which was to play such an important part in early nineteenth-century English history, was felt for the first time in 1792. Before that year there had been constant fear of disorder, and frequent riots had demonstrated that the forces of order could at times be set at naught and property endangered. In 1792, however, propertied classes and government began to fear not sporadic and localized outbursts of violence, but an alleged nation-wide conspiracy aimed at the overthrow of both property and government, and the end of social subordination.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , March 1961 , pp. 56 - 77
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1961

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References

1 Radical societies were strong in Scotland. The two largest in England were the Sheffield Constitutional Society, which had about 2000 members, most of them skilled workmen, and the London Corresponding Society. By November 1792, however, societies existed in nearly every major town in England.

2 Observer, 16 Dec. 1792. This was, of course, an exaggeration, but one which illustrates the fears entertained at the time.

3 Several associations for parliamentary reform had been unwise enough to send addresses to French societies and clubs, and to the Convention. Such addresses were still being sent in November when the decrees were passed. See A Collection of Addresses transmitted by Certain English Clubs and Societies to the National Convention, 2nd edn. (London, 1793)

4 See Aspinall, A., Politics and the Press (London, 1949), 78.Google Scholar

5 Prothero, R. E., Private Letters of Edward Gibbon (London, 1896), II, 349.Google Scholar

6 W. Roscoe to Lord Lansdowne, Dec. 1792, Roscoe MSS., 2343 Picton Library, Liverpool.

7 Duke of Buckingham, Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George III (London, 1853), II, 228.Google Scholar

8 See Butterfield, H., ‘Charles James Fox and the Whig Opposition in 1792’, Camb. Hist. J. lx (1949), 293–330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 See Western, J. R., ‘The Volunteer Movement as an Anti Revolutionary Force, 1793–1801’, English Hist. Rev. (1956), 603–14, for an examination of another aspect of the building up of the ‘party of order’.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Previous historians have usually mentioned the associations only in passing. See Laprade, W. T., England and the French Revolution 1789–1797 (Baltimore, 1909), 76–8 and 84–6Google Scholar, and Brown, P. A., The French Revolution in English History (London, 1918), 83–4.Google Scholar There has been no detailed analysis of the associations and their work, especially at the local level, and the Reeves MSS. in the British Museum, a very useful source, have in fact been very little used, though frequently cited in bibliographies.

11 Col. De Lancey to H. Dundas, Home Office Papers, Public Record Office, H.O. 42/20, 13 June 1792.

12 The Times, 3 Dec. 1792.

13 Buckingham, op. cit. 11, 228.

14 The Times, 30 Nov. 1792.

15 Proceedings of the Association, no. 1, p. 5.

16 Association Papers, preface iv.

17 The committee was formed after the first meeting. Various people were requested to join it, and the list of names was published on 29 Nov. Among the office-holders were John Topham, the treasurer, who was deputy keeper of the State papers, and a commissioner for bankrupts, John Bowles, a commissioner for bankrupts, who was also in receipt of secret service money for his pamphleteering activities, George Hobart, brother to the Secretary of State for Ireland, and the Hon. C. Yorke, son of Lord Hardwicke, and a brother of the clerk of the court of chancery. Some people did, however, decline to become members of the committee on the grounds that they held offices under the Crown, e.g. C. Townshend to J. Reeves, 27 Nov. 1792, Reeves MSS., British Museum Add. MSS 16919, fo. 71.

18 John Reeves, 1752—1829. Eton and Oxford, and author of The History of the English Law. In November 1792 Reeves had only recently returned to England after a term in Newfoundland as Chief Justice. He held other offices as a Commissioner for Bankruptcy, Chief of the Standing Committee of the Mint, and Receiver to the Police. The Star claimed (30 Nov. 1792) that his offices were worth £1000 a year. Reeves had used the name of J. Moore to act as secretary, but when the Committee were informed they asked that the practice should be dropped.

19 Draft Declaration, 17 Nov. 1792, H.O. 42/22. In a letter to Lord Granville the Marquis of Buckingham mentions a proposed ‘association’ on 18 Nov. 1792. This is in reply to a similar mention in an earlier letter from his brother which does not survive (Historical Manuscripts Commission. The Manuscripts of J. B. Fortesque, Esquire, Preserved at Dropmore, II, 337).

20 It was later claimed by a supporter of the association that Pitt at first doubted its expediency because he was contemplating a bill to prevent all political meetings. Reeves, however, managed to persuade him to change his mind. Gifford, J., A History of the Political Life of the Rt. Hon. William Pitt (London, 1809), 11, 165.Google Scholar The association certainly drew the favour of the government to Reeves himself. His obituary in the Gentleman's Magazine (1829), part 2, 469 states that he was ‘liberally rewarded’ by the government for his efforts.

21 Buckingham, op. cit. 229.

22 Proceedings of the Association, 6.

23 Ibid. 7.

24 Lord Fitzwilliam to his wife, Dec. 1792, Fitzwilliam Papers, Northants County Record Office.

25 Buckingham, op. cit. 229.

26 The members included William Windham, Lord Mulgrave, Lord Sheffield, Sir G.Beaumont, and Edward Lascelles.

27 The Times, 6 Dec. 1792.

28 J. Heriot to J. Reeves, 29 Nov. 1792, Add. MSS. 16919, fo. 111.

29 A. Aspinall, op. cit. 353. Free copies of London newspapers were being sent out to provincial editors with the articles which they were desired to reprint marked in red. In some papers the advertisement was inserted by local sympathizers. In the Leicester Journal, for example, it was paid for by ‘an old soldier’, 30 Nov. 1792. Some editors wrote in to them association requesting its patronage. J. Dupré, editor of the Bucks, Beds and Herts Herald, to J. Reeves, Add MSS. 16919, fo. 29.

30 The Times, 29 Nov. 1792, some of the replies to the letters sent out indicate that this suggestion was followed.

31 Printed Letter, 4 Dec. 1792, British Museum, bound in a collection of pamphlets.

32 Proceedings, op. cit.

33 Prothero, op. cit. 11, 352.

34 The Times, 21 December 1792, claimed that effigies of Paine had been burnt in every principal town in the kingdom. For examples of rioting directed against local radicals see Manehestur Mercury, 18 Dec. 1792; J. Hurd to T. Williams from Birmingham, 4 Dec. H.O. 42/23, Parliamentary History, xxx, 129, and Leicester J. 28 Dec. 1792.

35 J. B. Burges to Auckland, 18 Dec. 1792, British Museum Add. MSS. 34446, fo. 161.Among the counties which met were Leicestershire, Northumberland, Huntingdonshire, Cheshire, and Derbyshire.

36 Association Papers, preface, p. v.

37 State Trials, xxii, 936. The statement was made by Felix Vaughan.

38 R. Eales to J. Reeves, 4 Jan. 1793, Add. MSS. 16924, fo. 21.

39 Leicester J. 11 Jan. 1793; Jackson's Oxford J. 15 Dec. 1792.

40 The seven counties are Westmorland, Cumberland, Northumberland, Durham, Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cheshire.

41 Jersey—The Times, 31 Dec. 1792; Grenada—Add. MSS. 16925, fo. 157.

42 W. Windham to Lord Fitzwilliam, 17 Nov. 1792, Fitzwilliam Papers. Both Windham and Lord Sheffield were active in London associations and in forming associations in their own localities. The Duke of Portland, the Whig leader, gave his approbation to the Crown and Anchor association, but declined to allow his name to be used as it was not an association of members of the legislature, J. Anstruther to Windham, Windham Papers, Add. MSS. 37873. fo. 181, 30 Nov. 1792.

43 See Nottingham J. 15 Dec. 1792, TheReview, 16Dec. 1792 and Evening Mail, 5 Dec. 1792.

44 Notes made by C. Tarleton, mayor of Liverpool, of a conversation with William Rathbone, Tarleton Papers, T.A. 59, Picton Library, Liverpool.

45 W. Rathbone to T. Houlbrooke, 23 Dec. 1792, Rathbone Papers, Liverpool University Library.

46 Add. MSS 16929, fo. 71. Remarks Addressed to the Rev. Charles Weston Chairman of a committee of the Durham County and City Association (Durham, 1793). Newcastle Chronicle, 22 Dec. 1792.

47 ‘Liverpool Dispute over the Address to the King, 1792’, MS. Picton Library.

48 Hand-bill, Sheffield Public Library.

49 T. Harpley to J. Reeves, 25 Dec. 1792, Add. MSS. 16923, fo. 85.

50 F. Staceyto J. Morgan, sent by Morgan to Reeves, 30 Nov. 1792, Add. MSS. 16920, fo. 25.

51 Declaration in Leeds Mercury, 12 Jan. 1793.

52 W. Maire to Chamberlaine and White, 31 Dec. 1792. Treasury Solicitors Papers, Public Record Office, T.S. 11/966/3510.

53 W. Peterson to J. Reeves, 24 Dec. 1792, Add. MSS. 16923, fo. 67. Dropmore Papers, op. cit. 11, 354.

54 Proceedings, 7.

55 Lewes, Add. MSS. 16930, fo. II, Bridport, Newspaper cutting in Collection ‘Politics, November 1792 to August 1793’, Manchester Central Reference Library.

56 Scholes, J. C., History of Bolton (Bolton, 1892), 440,Google Scholar also C. Edwards to J. Reeves from Chard, 24 Jan. 1793, Add. MSS. 16924, fo. 134.

57 The Woodstock committee, for example, included three M.P.'s (Add. MSS. 16923, fo. 31). At Manchester, which had no M.P., Robert Peel, M.P., the Bury manufacturer was made a member. In Newcastle the committee included the mayor, the recorder, and nearly all the aldermen. In Durham there were seven aldermen and the mayor. In Manchester, where the elected constables and borough Reeves were men of some social standing, they Were ex officio members of the committee. In the years from 1792 to 1797, with two exceptions, all the constables and borough Reeves elected annually had been members of the committee. Thus the committees included the oligarchy dominating local government.

58 J. Lester to J. Reeves, 1 Jan. 1793, Add. MSS. 16924, fo. 3.

59 Peter Drinkwater, who owned what was at this time the largest factory in Manchester, was an active member. So too were all the leading members of the Manchester Commercial Society. The occupations of all but twenty-one of the members can be discovered, an indication in itself of high social status.

60 Among other places this was the case in Birmingham, Manchester, Chesterfield, Warrington, Halifax, and Stockport. List of Agents, T.S. 11/954/3498.

61 Detection (Durham, 1793).

62 In Leeds previous meetings were arranged with the Nonconformists, and a declaration agreed upon which all could support. J. Beckett to Lord Fitzwilliam, Wentworth Woodhouse Papers, Sheffield Public Library, F. 44. b. For Birmingham see Add. MSS. 16929, fo. 13.

63 Duties of Man by One of the People (London, 1793), p. 123.Google Scholar

64 J. R. Head to J. Reeves, 11 Dec. 1792, Add. MSS. 16922, fo. 73.

65 ‘Meeting of Journeymen servants &c at Mr Pickering's Paper-hanging manufactury’, Add. MSS. 16931, fo. 41, James Milnes of Flocton, near Wakefield, provided his workmen with a sheep, twenty stone of beef and 150 gallons of beer for a loyal celebration, Leeds Intelligencer, 7 Jan. 1793.

66 B. Roberts to J. Reeves, 19 March 1793, Add. MSS. 16925, fos. 150–1.

67 The occupations of eighteen members of these clubs are known, the other members were apparently too humble to find a place in the directories. They include a schoolmaster, an attorney, two grocers, a stationer, a shoemaker, two fustian cutters, a glazier, two fustian shearers, a warehouseman, a cabinet-maker, three ‘manufacturers’, a velvet dresser, and a silk dyer. In addition to this the entire membership of one club, the Salford Crown and Cushion Society, is known. It included five flour dealers, a butcher, two victuallers, two ‘manufacturers’, a dyer, a man midwife, a fustian shearer, a rope-maker, a cabinet-maker, and one ‘gentleman’.

68 The rewards offered were sometimes substantial. The Newbury association offered £50 for information about a seditious pamphlet, Reading Mercury, 17 Dec. 1792.

69 See Huddersfield declaration, Leeds Mercury, 22 Dec. 1792, Credition 16929, fo. 54, St Margaret, Westminster Add. MSS. 16930, fos. 85–6.

70 The Parliamentary History of England, xxx, 134.

71 Thelwall, J., Political Lectures, no. 1 (London, 1794), 26.Google Scholar

72 Minute book of the Manchester Association for Preserving Constitutional Order and Liberty, Chetham's Library, Manchester, fo. 10, resolutions 17 and 22.

73 Case against Daniel Holt, T.S. 11/836/2820. The Portsmouth committee also purchased seditious literature with a view to initiating prosecutions. Secretary to J. Reeves, 21 Dec. 1792, Add. MSS. 16923, fo. 33. The Penryn association had a man arrested for selling seditious literature: J. Thomas to J. Reeves, 18 Dec. 1792, Add. MSS. 16922, fo. 183.

74 Brief in the case of Robert Erpe, T.S. 11/1073/5143.

75 Resolutions of the Mansfield Committee. Add. MSS. 16930, fos. 14–18.

76 Clayton and Walters to Chamberlain and White, 6 March 1793, T.S. 11/954/3498, enclosing a seditious pamphlet at the request of the association in Newcastle.

77 See Mr Lewis to J. Reeves from the War Office, 3 Dec., Add. MSS. 16920, fo. 60; R. Hodge, Town Clerk of Sudbury to J. Reeves, 16 Dec. 1792, Add. MSS. 16922, fo. 141; The Case of Thomas Spence, Bookseller (London, 1793), p. 5.

78 State Trials, xxII, 799. The Association may also have been concerned in the prosecution of W. Frend at Cambridge. W. Wade to J. Reeves, 16 Feb. 1793, Add. MSS. 16925, fo. 77, sent in a copy of a pamphlet for which Frend was later prosecuted.

79 Thomas Law, A Letter to John Reeves (London, 1792).Google Scholar

80 Proceedings, no. 2, 4.

81 H. Watson to J. Reeves, 14 Jan. 1793, Add. MSS. 16924, fo. 90.

82 W. Barnard to J. Reeves, 20 Dec. 1792, Add. MSS. 16923, fo. 10.

83 Minutes, op. cit. fo. 15, resolutions 53 and 54.

84 Walker, T., A Review of the Political Events in Manchester over the Last Five Years (London, 1794), 118.Google Scholar The expenses for providing board and lodging for one of the witnesses, amounting to just over £10, were paid by a cheque from Mr Simpson, treasurer to the association. A claim for expenses incurred in getting evidence for the prosecution was submitted to the committee by W. Paynter, Minutes, fo. 30, resolution 107. It was referred to the auditors.

85 Draft letter, T.S. 11/954/3498. The letter asks the recipient to act as agent, and gives instructions on how to initiate prosecutions. The replies clearly indicate that this letter led to many prosecutions. Just before this a letter had been sent from the Home Office to the Custos Rotulorum in each county asking that Grand Juries should be instructed to inquire into, and to present, seditious literature. Printed in Reading Mercury, 5 Dec. 1792.

86 Where prosecutions were initiated by associations some evidence to this effect is usually available in the Treasury Solicitors Papers, the Home Office Papers, or the Reeves Papers. The Marquis of Buckingham wanted some form of central control over the zeal of local committees who he thought might initiate prosecutions harmful ‘to the public cause’, Dropmore, II, 344.

87 The St Margaret's Westminster association reprinted, and distributed to publicans, 200 copies of a warning to them not to allow their houses to be used for sedition. Add. MSS. 16930, fos. 85–6. The secretary of the Brighton association reported that it had been particularly active ‘in encouraging the victuallers of this town to discontinue improper meetings’, J. C. Michell, 1 Feb. 1793, Add. MSS. 16925, fo. 1. In many places, soon after the formation of the local association, the landlords issued a declaration announcing their refusal to allow seditious meetings. An example is Cambridge. The association was formed on 15 Dec, the declaration came on the 20th. C.H., Cooper, Annals of Cambridge (Cambridge, 1852), 446,Google Scholar and Parliamentary History, xxx, 536.

88 M. Richards to Chamberlaine and White, 16 Feb. 1793, T.S. 11/954/3498.

89 J. Beckett to Lord Fitzwilliam, op. cit.

90 W. Heywrick to Chamberlaine and White, 20 Dec. 1792, T.S. 11/954/3498.

91 J. Wickham to J. Reeves, 20 Dec. 1792, Add. MSS. 16923, fo. 17. A publican in Wellingborough delivered up seditious literature which had been sent to him, Add. MSS. 16920, fo. 86.

92 Report of the Committee, Add. MSS. 16929, fo. 59.

93 T. Keeting to J. Reeves, 15 Dec. 1792, Add. MSS. 16922, fo. 123.

94 R. Baker to J. Reeves, 6 Jan. 1793, Add. MSS. 16924, fo. 39.

95 Some loyalist clubs in Manchester issued declarations of support for the Rev. J. Griffith, a magistrate who had initiated an unwise prosecution against Thomas Walker.

96 Declaration in True Briton, 11 March 1793.

97 The Committee had read and approved of nineteen of these. The remainder were put to the press without the special approval of the Committee,’ by a person in whom the committee confided’. These titles were chiefly designed to appeal to the ‘lower orders’, Association Papers, Introduction, ii.

98 This does not appear to have gone beyond one or two numbers.

99 The Times, 5 Dec. 1792.

100 H. Harding, secretary to the country department of the Phoenix Fire Office, 4 December 1792, Add. MSS. 16920, fo. 96.

101 F. Freeling to J. Reeves, 28 Dec. 1792, with enclosed paper Add. MSS. 16923, fos. 144–6.

102 J. Hutton to J. Reeves, 30 Dec. 1792, Add. MSS. 16923, fo. 160.

103 Secret Service Accounts. Chatham Papers, Public Record Office 30/8/229. On 6 Nov. he was paid £100, on 21 Dec. £150. He also received £231 in March 1793. However, Freeling appears to have been regularly in receipt of money from the Secret Service Accounts so that presumably he would have to meet his regular expenses as well as pay for pamphlets from this money.

104 F. Freeling, op. cit. The attorney-general recommended Hannah More's Village Politics; Roberts, W., Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Hannah More (London, 1834), II, 348.Google Scholar

105 Add. MSS. 16919, fo. 177, 16922, fo. 20, 16920, fo. 47.

106 H. Shadwell to J. Reeves, 16 Dec. 1792, Add. MSS. 16922, fo. 135.

107 J. Gatliffe to J. Reeves, 28 Dec. 1792, Add. MSS. 16923, fo. 132, 16930, fo. 97, 16925, fo. 87.

108 Minutes, fo. 8, resolutions 10 and 12 and fos. 12, 16, 18, 22, 24.

109 Minutes, fos. 33, 36, 37.

110 T. Harpley to J. Reeves, 25 Dec. 1792, Add. MSS. 16923, fo. 85, and T. Maynard to J. Reeves, Add. MSS. 16924, fo. 7.

111 E. Batsford to J. Reeves, 5 Jan. 1794, Add. MSS. 16924, fo. 33.

112 Newcastle Chronicle, 19 Jan. 1793, and B. Whyte to J. Reeves, 31 Dec. 1792, Add. MSS. 16923, fo. 168.

113 G. Cherry, Victualling Office, to J. Reeves, 19 Jan. 1793, Add. MSS. 16924, fo. 108, and D. Rees to J. Reeves, 11 Dec. 1792, Add. MSS. 16922, fo. 22, to say that the Carmarthen association has distributed ‘some thousands’ of Ashurst's Charge in Welsh. The Holywell association did the same, Add. MSS. 16922, fo. 127.

114 T. Barker to J. Reeves, 22 Dec. 1792, Add. MSS. 16923, fo. 55.

115 Williamson's Liverpool Advertiser, 30 Oct. 1794; Manchester Mercury, 9 April 1793, H.O. 42/25; Manchester Mercury, 18 March 1793, also Add. MSS. 16925, fo. 22 for a subscription in Fife.

116 J. Trimmer to J. Reeves, 22 Dec. Add. MSS. 16923, fo. 47.

117 Duties of Man, op. cit. 125, and Jackson's Oxford Journal, 2 Feb. 1793.

118 Add. MSS. 16928, fo. 13. Resolutions.

119 The Times, 28 Dec. 1792. The Bolton Association also paraded on the anniversary of the rejection of the attempt to repeal the Test and Corporation acts. J. Scholes, op. cit. 440.

120 For example, nearly all the committee of management of the Gateshead volunteers had been on the local association, as had three of the five senior officers in Rochdale, and the commanding officers in very many places.

121 Declaration in H.O. 42/23.

122 See Chester Chronicle, II July 1794; J. Grove, 25 Feb. 1797, H.O. 50/27, and Leeds Intelligencer, 21 April 1794.

123 Minutes, fos. 44–5.

124 Most met once a week, e.g. Poole, Add. MSS. 16930, to. 41, some, however, only met once a month. The Manchester Committee met several times each week until February.

125 Grenville to Auckland, 18 Dec. 1792, Add. MSS. 34446 (Auckland), fo. 160.

126 The Journal and Correspondence of William, Lord Auckland, edited by the Bishop of Bath and Wells (London, 1861), 11, 478.

127 Justice Ashurst's Second Charge (London, 1793), 1.Google Scholar

128 C. Boswell to J. Reeves, 6 Jan. 1793, Add. MSS. 16924, fo. 43.

129 J. Hurd to T. Williams, 4 Dec. 1792, copy in H.O. 42/23.

130 Add. MSS. 16923, fo. 151.

131 T. Harpley to J. Reeves, Add. MSS. 16923, fo. 85, 25 Dec. 1792.

132 Grenville to Buckingham, 7 Nov. 1792, Buckingham, op. cit. II, 224.

133 Grenville to Auckland, 18 Dec. 1792, Add. MSS. 34446 (Auckland), fo. 160. Sir Morton Eden, the ambassador in Berlin, wrote to Auckland, 8 Dec. 1792, ‘If we can make it a popular war, France must rue the forcing us into it’ (Dropmore, 11, 359). The associations facilitated this. It may be that the ‘old’ Whigs who joined the movement did so as a means of uniting the country and thus bringing pressure on ministers to take a stronger line with France, which some of them were strongly advocating (see Windham to Fitzwilliam, 17 Nov. 1792, Fitzwilliam papers).

134 Sun, 26 Feb. 1793, ‘Never was there a war in which the spirit of the nation seemed more roused and interested than the present’.

135 Association Papers, preface iv.

136 For example, the Carlisle Association met in May 1793 and secured the withdrawal of a seditious sermon by a Nonconformist minister. The Grantham association met in 1794 to consider local sedition. For the Manchester association see minutes, fos. 43–7. This body met frequently in 1795 to organize the local agitation in favour of the Two Acts.

137 Gifford, J., A Short Address to the Members of the Loyal Associations on the Present State of Public Affairs (London, 1798), 14 and 42.Google Scholar

138 The association itself declared, ‘It is a very general opinion that the declaration of sentiment which resulted from the forming of associations throughout the kingdon, saved the nation’, Association Papers, preface, ii.

139 Leeds Mercury, 10 Oct. 1835.