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V. Mechanics' Institutes and the Working Classes, 1840–1860

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Edward Royle
Edward Royle
Affiliation:
Selwyn College, Cambridge
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Extract

The history of mechanics’ institutes ‘is at once beautiful and terrible to read', Christopher Charles Cattell, the Birmingham radical republican, told the members of his Eclectic Institute in 1854. Contemporaries of the mechanics’ institute movement in the mid-nineteenth century were acutely aware of this terrible history. ‘The banquet was prepared for guests who did not come …,’ wrote Robert Elliott in 1861. J. W. Hudson referred to ‘The universal complaint that Mechanics’ Institutions are attended by persons of a higher rank than those for whom they were designed…’ The Westminster Review continued the lament, Samuel Smiles, Lloyd Jones and J. M. Ludlow joined the chorus, and later historians have followed the tune. E. P. Thompson, for example, writes: ‘After the mid-Twenties the tendency was general for the custom of artisans to give way to that of the lower middle class, and for orthodox political economy to come into the syllabus.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , June 1971 , pp. 305 - 321
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1971

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References

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30 Hudson, pp. 86–7.

31 Ibid. p. 131; see also his comments on p. vii.

32 Tylecote, , op. cit. app. III, p. 297Google Scholar; see also p. 139 and app. 11, p. 296.

33 Ibid. p. 230.

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35 Baines was quoting Hudson. I take the reference here from Ludlow and Jones, op. cit. p. 173.

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47 Harrison, J. F. C., op. cit. pp. 61–2Google Scholar; Tylecote, M., op. cit. p. 227.Google Scholar

48 Smith, W. Hawkes, op. cit. Analyst, II (06 1835), 333Google Scholar; ‘The Birmingham Mechanics’ Institution’, ibid. pp. 280–2.

49 Holyoake, G. J., Practical Grammar (1844) (8th ed., London, 1870), p. 7Google Scholar; see also his speech at the opening of the South London Oddfellows’ Literary Institution–Reasoner, IV, 5 Jan. 1848, p. 79.

50 Brierley, B., Failsworth: my native village … (Oldham, 1895), pp. 15–16Google Scholar; Movement, I, 30 10. 1844, p. 408Google Scholar and 18 Dec. 1844, p. 464.

51 Williams, G. A., op. cit. passim, esp. pp. 20–21.Google Scholar For another example of a working-class leader who, in traditional language, deserted ‘the cause’, see Harrison, B. and Hollis, P., ‘Chartism, Liberalism and the Life of Robert Lowery’, English Historical Review (July 1967), pp. 503–35.Google Scholar

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58 Coates was writing during the peak of Socialist activity, which could explain why he is the most pessimistic of the writers on mechanics’ institutes–e.g. pp. 29–30.

56 Isaac Ironside to G. J. Holyoake, 5 Apr. 1841, Holyoake Papers, Letter Book, p. 31, Bishopsgate Institute, London.

57 J. Walter Newall to Holyoake, 15 July 1841, ibid. p. 33.

58 Harrison, J. F. C., op. cit. pp. 113–14Google Scholar; Reasoner, I, 29 07 1846, p. 136Google Scholar; ibid. 3 June 1846, p. 16; ibid. x, 30 Oct. 1850, p. 35; Utilitarian Record, 19 May 1847, p. 49Google Scholar; Reasoner, VII, 3 10. 1849, p. 223Google Scholar; G. S. Phillips to Holyoake, 12 Jan. 1854, Holyoake Papers, no. 631, Co-operative Union.

59 New Moral World (third series), I, 18 07 1840, p. 41.Google Scholar Professor Simon also uses this example, but draws a different conclusion–op. cit. p. 239; also Silver, H., op. cit. p. 223Google Scholar. One Socialist product of the Coventry Mechanics’ Institute was Dr John Watts (1818–87), the son of a weaver, assistant secretary and librarian at the institute, 1831–8. He then moved to Manchester, became an Owenite lecturer, and devoted the rest of his life to education and Co-operation–McCabe, J., A Biographical Dictionary of Modern Rationalists (London, 1920), s.v.Google Scholar

60 Cf. Cole, G. D. H., The Life of Robert Owen (3rd ed., London, 1965), pp. 253–4Google Scholar; also Traice, , op. cit. p. 11–though he hoped the political opinions thus produced would be moderate ones.Google Scholar

61 I do not know of a separate history of the Birmingham Mechanics’ Institution. This summary is taken from Buckley, J. K., Joseph Parses of Birmingham … (London, 1926), pp. 21–5.Google Scholar

62 T. Coates, app. III, pp. 96–7; Hudson, p. 63.

63 What follows is based largely on Holyoake's Log Book no. 1 in the Bishopsgate Institute. This book contains Holyoake's own extracts from diaries which he later destroyed.

64 Report of the Birmingham Mechanics’ Institute (1840), Birmingham Public Library, Birmingham Institutes, vol. C.I.

65 Hollick to Holyoake, 19 Jan. 1840, Holyoake Papers, Letter Book p. 13, Bishopsgate Institute, Holyoake to the Central Board (Owenites), 3 June 1841, ibid. p. 41.

66 Hollick to Holyoake, 12 Dec. 1839, ibid. p. 11; see also Holyoake to J. Toulmin Smith, 25 Mar. 1867, Holyoake Papers, no. 1728, Co-operative Union.

67 Hollick to Holyoake, 5 Feb. 1837, Holyoake Papers, Letter Book p. 3, Bishopsgate Institute.

68 Press cutting of the letter, in ibid. p. 5.

69 Holyoake to J. Walter Newall, 31 Aug. 1840, ibid. p. 18.