Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T16:01:11.931Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

III. The Yorkshire Association, 1780–4: a Study in Political Organization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Ian R. Christie
Ian R. Christie
Affiliation:
University College, London
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The Yorkshire Association of the early 1780's marked the first effective extension of modern political radicalism in Great Britain from the metropolitan region into the provinces. During what may for convenience be described as the first—the Wilkite—phase of British radicalism, in the early 1770's, the focus of the radical movement had lain in and around London. Attempts to stir up the country provoked only a brief response in a very few constituencies. There was little trace anywhere of sustained radical activity. Provincial apathy at the general election of 1774 caused acute disappointment to the metropolitan radicals. Six years later the situation had changed remarkably, and from 1780 till 1784 politics in Yorkshire were dominated, and in the rest of England considerably affected, by that remarkable political phenomenon, the Yorkshire Association. Starting in December 1779, an extraordinary, widespread upsurge of discontent among the members of the ‘upper class’ in the county, provoked by the North ministry's inept handling of the American crisis, first produced the well-supported petition of 1780 for economical reform, and was then channelled and organized into an instrument of agitation for reform of the parliamentary system. The association proper came into being between its adoption at a county meeting on 28 March 1780 and the middle of the following August, when the parchment copies which had been circulated for signature were gathered in and the roll of some 5800 names was compiled from them.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , June 1960 , pp. 144 - 161
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1960

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Sutherland, Lucy S., The City of London and the Opposition to Government, 1768–1774 (1959), passim.Google Scholar

2 Catherine Macaulay, An Address to the People of England, Scotland, and Ireland...(1775), 3–4.Google Scholar

3 The Roll of the Association, York City Library.

4 York City Library MSS., M. 25 and M. 32. I am grateful to the York City Council for permission to make use of this material, and to the Librarian and staff of the York City Library for their helpfulness when I was reading this and other material in their custody.

5 C. Wyvill, Political Papers, chiefly respecting the Attempt of the County of York and other Considerable Districts...to effect a Reformation of the Parliament of Great Britain (6 vols. (1794–1808)), cited below as Wyvill.

6 Butterfield, H., George III [Lord North, and the People] (1949)Google Scholar; ‘The Yorkshire Association and the Crisis of 1779–80’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 4th series, xxix (1947), 69–91.

7 Butterfield, H., George III, 259–68.Google Scholar

8 Wyvill, , I, 49–50; III, 159, 181–2.Google Scholar

9 Winstanley, D.A., Unreformed Cambridge (Cambridge, 1935), 300.Google Scholar

10 Leeds Intelligencer, 4 April 1780.

11 Sykes, N., Church and State in England in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, 1934), 381Google Scholar; Winstanley, op. cit. 300.

12 Leeds Intelligencer, 4 April 1780.

13 ‘The Yorkshire Association and the Crisis of 1779–80’, 79.Google Scholar

14 Wyvill, , III, 115–16, 150–1.Google Scholar

15 Wyvill, , III, 260.Google Scholar

16 Cit. Sutherland, Lucy S., ‘The City of London in Eighteenth-century Polities’, in Essays Presented to Sir Lewis Namier (1956), 66.Google Scholar

17 Wyvill, , II, 322–4.Google Scholar

18 The rolls of the petitions of 1780 and 1783, in the York City Library, contain lists of the canvassers and their returns from each district. That for 1783 was printed by Wyvill (Political Papers, II, 249—51). There were at least a few omissions, as one or two more names can be added from the surviving correspondence. The names of the leading canvassers for the association itself during the spring and summer of 1780 are recorded on the parchment returns of signatures (York City Library MSS., M. 32). The known canvassers numbered, in January 1780, sixty-seven, in the spring and summer, fifty-six, and in January 1783, eighty-five. A few of the most active members of the committee did not engage in canvassing. These men were mostly resident in York and presumably lacked the necessary local ‘interest’ and contacts.

19 Alexander Wedderburn to William Eden, n.d. [mid-Dec. 1779], John Robinson to Eden, 23 Dec. 1779 (B[ritish] M[useum] Add. MSS. 34416, fos. 510, 489).

20 Wyvill, , 1, 4–6, 148; 11, 38–9; Leeds Intelligencer, 31 December 1782.Google Scholar

21 Wyvill, , 11, 148.Google Scholar

22 Wyvill to William Gray, 14 Sept. 1781, end., York City Library MSS., M. 25. All documents cited below without further reference are in this collection.

23 Wyvill, , 1, 50–1, 52–6, 61–2.Google Scholar

24 E.g. in August 1780 a sub-committee was set up to receive and report upon the enrolment of members of the association. Ibid, 1, 262.

25 Almyra, Gray, Papers and Diaries of a York Family, 1764–1839 (1923), especially pp. 30–7.Google Scholar

26 William Baines to Gray, 23 Jan., James Stovin to Gray, 28 Jan. 1780, Pemberton Milnes to Gray, 26 Jan. 1783.

27 Ibid.; Wyvill, 11, 250.

28 Ibid, 1, 51.

29 Richard Wilson to the committee, 6 Jan. 1780; Wyvill, 1, 52, 53–4, 70; James Stovin to Graves and Gray, 19 Jan. 1780.

30 Wyvill, I, 167.

31 Thomas Weddell to Gray, 27 July, Sir James Ibbetson to Gray, 30 July 1780.

32 Wyvill, , 11, 235.Google Scholar

33 York Chronicle, 27 Dec. 1782; William Chaloner to Gray, 5 Jan. 1783.

34 William Battle to Gray, 8 Jan., Pemberton Milnes to Gray, 26 Jan. 1783.

35 Gray's endorsement on Milnes's letter.

36 Gray to Milnes, 28 Jan. 1783, draft on the blank sheet of Milnes's letter of 26 Jan.

37 Richard Wilson to Graves and Gray, 3 Feb. 1780.

38 The point alluded to in Ward's letter is explained on pp. 158–9 below.

39 Francis Peirson to Wyvill, 29 Mar., Sir Robert Hildyard to Gray, 2 Apr. 1780.

40 9 Jan. 1783.

41 To Gray, 21 Jan., 2 Feb. 1783.

42 9 Jan. 1780.

43 Col. Barnard Foord to William Withers, 24 Jan. 1783.

44 23 Jan. 1780.

45 To Gray, n.d. [rec. 10 Apr.] and 10 July 1780.

46 Wyvill to Gray, 6, 12 Mar., and n.d. [June] 1783.

47 Wyvill to Gray, 6 Dec. 1783, 13 Dec. 1784.

48 Wyvill to Gray, 12, 14, 19, 24 Nov. 1782, 13 Dec. 1784, 7 Jan. 1785.

49 Wyvill to Gray, 30 Oct. 1781, 10 Jan. 1783, 13 Feb. 1785.

50 ‘The Yorkshire Association and the Crisis of 1779–80’, 77Google Scholar

51 Wyvill, 1, 54; cf. St Andrew Ward to Gray, 2 Feb. 1780, cited p. 155 above.

52 Ibid.

53 York Chronicle, 18 Feb.; reprinted, Wyvill, III, 173–8.

54 To [?] Gray, 25 Apr. 1780.

55 York Chronicle, 29 Sept. 1780.Google Scholar

56 Wyvill, 1, 106–7.

57 Ibid. 1, 281.

58 Ibid, 111, 201.

59 York Chronicle, 8 Sept. 1780. Cf. Savile's election address, Wyvill, 1, 282.

60 By late 1781 only six other counties had associations on the Yorkshire model, and two others had associations pledged to economical reform only (Wyvill, 1, 381—3). In Cambridgeshire subscription to an association was begun but produced only forty names (B.M. Add. MSS. 35681, fo. 413). Lack of support for the movement in the country as a whole is also evident from comments by Savile in the autumn of 1780 (Wyvill, in, 236—9, 270—1)