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A Study in Failure: Thomas Attwood, M.P. For Birmingham, 1832–1839

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

D. J. Moss
D. J. Moss
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
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Extract

Contemporary reactions to the 1832 Reform Act were diverse. Concomitant with the feeling of relief that a revolution had been avoided was a fear even among some of the Bill's most earnest advocates that the whigs had perhaps gone too far. The long period of political agitation by extra-parliamentary associations suggested that a radical House of Commons might emerge from the forthcoming elections. In fact, the expected radical onslaught never really materialized. Although they were returned to the Commons in strength by the election of December, the radicals failed to find common ground for action and the whigs successfully defended the pact given royal assent the previous summer. That sentence of failure is not unreasonable. Radicalism in the early nineteenth century was by its very nature the province of the individualist whose imagination often ranged beyond the bounds of practicality and who found compromise irksome. Membership of the House of Commons was to prove a chastening experience for men accustomed to the adulation of the common people. Rules of procedure and the traditional circle of agenda so circumscribed these enthusiasts that energy became sapped and their sense of mission vitiated. Woodward's suggestion, too, that the radicals floundered because they ‘defended the interests of a class to which they did not belong’ may contain a measure of truth. But apart from the odd chapter in the occasional biography, there has been a marked lack of interest in proceeding beyond these general conclusions; failure is too often equated with justified obscurity.

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Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 21 , Issue 3 , September 1978 , pp. 545 - 570
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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References

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16 Attwood's reference was to the site of the Union's mammoth open-air meetings – Newhall Hill. He did except three issues from this general injunction – the Irish and Scottish Reform Bills and the Polish question.

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26 3 Hansard, XVI, 21 03 1837, c. 926Google Scholar. It should be noted that despite Attwood's active involvement in matters pertaining to the working classes he rarely hid his disdain for their mental powers. They were according to him easily lead by demagogues, quickly excited and delighted in the pursuit of ‘wild chimeras’. His concern was thus cast essentially in the eighteenth-century paternalistic mould.

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59 During this session Attwood was heavily involved in a court case on behalf of his cousin, John Attwood.

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83 When he did appear he was greeted rapturously, ‘They [buttons] were like five hundred Rosabels clinging to me’ [Attwood, T. to his wife, 14 07 1838Google Scholar, Attwood papers]. Rosabel was his youngest daughter.

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97 3 Hansard, LXIX, 29 07 1839, c. 950.Google Scholar

98 The regeneration was made doubly difficult by the death of his wife a few mom later.

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