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Attitudes and Allegiances in the Unskilled North, 1830–1850

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

R. N. Soffer
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In the Northern textile areas of Yorkshire and Lancashire, the unskilled laborer's hostility to the new industrial middle classes led him to Chartism but not to class-consciousness, the recognition that his interests differed not only from the middle classes but from the upper classes as well. The unskilled workingman's antagonism to the middle classes did not depend upon developing feelings of working class solidarity nor was it directed towards the older rural gentry. When the unskilled worker reacted against the middle classes in the 1830's and ̓40's he was not yet prepared economically or psychologically for independence or class action.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , December 1965 , pp. 429 - 454
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Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1965

References

page 429 note 1 A great gulf existed between skilled factory laborers, those in stable industries, and unskilled handicraft workers who competed unsuccessfully with factory machinery in Yorkshire and Lancashire and turned in despair to Chartism during the ‘thirties and’ for-ties. Class consciousness developed only in areas like the Northeast and London or Birmingham where large numbers of skilled workers benefitted from industrialization and identified their future with the development of industry. See Maehl, W. H., “Chartist Disturbances in Northeastern England, 1839”, in: International Review of Social History, Vol. 8, Part 3, 1963, pp. 389–414CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Matthews, R. C. O., A study in Trade-Cycle History: Economic Fluctuations in Great Britain, 1833–1842 (Cambridge University, 1954), particularly pp. 144, 148, 221Google Scholar; and, Smelser, N., Social Change in the Industrial Revolution (University of Chicago, 1959)Google Scholar. Smelser on pp. 245 and 261f. discusses the relationship between handloom weavers, the industrially unskilled, and the factory operatives in the skilled, more stable factory industries: “In the late 1830's and early 1840's… the spinners' and other factory operative's involvement in social explosions was limited… One important reason for this is that the factory operatives were gradually approaching the completion of a sequence of differentiation… [and] entering the industrial era on a new basis. By contrast… the weavers and related groups were gasping for their very life.” (p. 245).

page 429 note 2 The term “new industrial middle classes” or “industrial middle classes” will be used in this paper to designate the interests whose wealth grew in the Northern industrial areas either from the ownership of factories, from control of handicraft industries, or from some related economic function dependent on industrial society. Although imprecise, this term is useful to describe a large group with varied incomes, though generally wealthy, who held common attitudes formulated for them by the political economists. See Clark, G. Kitson, The Making of Victorian England (London, 1962), pp. 5–75Google Scholar, and A., Briggs, “The Language of ‘Class’ in Early Nineteenth-Century England”, in: Essays in Labour History (London, 1960), pp. 52–60.Google Scholar

page 429 note 3 In his “Local Background of Chartism”, Chartist Studies (London, 1959), p. 12Google Scholar, Asa Briggs argues that there “were to be many flirtations between Tories and Chartists in the future, but from the spring of 1838 onwards it was abundantly clear that Chartism would depend on its own leaders and not on alliance with people outside its ranks”. This may be said of the small group of Radicals who devised and supported the Charter to secure political rights, but it is not applicable to the great numbers of confused workingmen in R. N. Soffer the Northern textile areas of Yorkshire and Lancashire who sought immediate economic goals and chose political pressure only as an expedient means to alleviate economic problems. In “Chartism Reconsidered”, in: Historical Studies (London, 1959), p. 56Google Scholar, Professor Briggs suggests that Chartist ideas lacked appeal in agricultural areas like Kent and Hampshire because “a social framework which depended on … ‘deference’ existed” there. It may be argued that this same deference permeated industrial areas, too.

page 430 note 1 In The Trades Union Congress, 1869–1921 (London, 1958), p. 15Google Scholar, B. C. Roberts points out quite rightly that the key to the success of trade unions after 1850 lay not only in the development of a highly industrialized society but in “the acceptance by the unions of the fundamental tenets of this society”. Until his basic attitudes were changed, the Northern unskilled worker sought escape from an industrialized world rather than control over it.

page 430 note 2 In a recent book, The Making of the English Working Classes (New York, 1964), E. P. Thompson sees in the Radical movements of the 1820's origins of working class consciousness in which “working people come to feel an identity of interests as between themselves and as against their rulers and employers”, p. 11. But although he describes the Radicals competently, Mr. Thompson mistakenly treats this small, self-educated and skilled minority as if it were the same as the great majority of “working people”. Unlike the Radicals, the mass of workingmen, particularly in the industrial North, were not class conscious, and through the ‘thirties and’ forties they remained uneducated, in articulate, unskilled, and unaware of any “identity of interests as between themselves” (p. 11). For Thompson's treatment of his thesis see especially pp. 11–13, 141, and 711–714.

page 431 note 1 The Tories in Parliament during the 1830's, and particularly during the ̓40's, cannot be treated as a homogeneous group. Nearly half of the representatives of business interests in Commons between 1841–1847 were Conservatives. The landed tories, identified with rural interests and social reform, were an entirely different group than the business interests who followed Peel. Cf. Aydelotte, W. O., “The House of Commons in the 1840's”, in: History, XXIX (10. 1954).Google Scholar

page 431 note 2 When the Whigs were in power between 1846–1854 they increased the paternalistic role of the central government far more than the Tories had done. (See Roberts, D., “Tory Paternalism and Social Reform in Early Victorian England”, in: American Historical Review, LXIII, 1: 01. 1958.)Google Scholar But while the evidence against the Tories in Parliament may be damning it was even worse for the Whigs as the Northern worker saw them. The reforming activity of the Whigs only began late in the̓40's with the Ten Hours Act of 1847, a measure popularized by Northern tories and strenuously advocated by a Tory in Parliament, Lord Ashley. By then, the workingman had long identified repression and Whigs. Even when more Whigs than Tories entered the Opposition against the New Poor Law of 1834, Tory social reformers in the North, who championed its repeal, succeeded in associating the measure with Whig-Liberal, middle class utilitarianism.

page 431 note 3 This paper will not discuss middle class social reform because it was not genuinely appreciated by the great majority of unskilled workers in Lancashire and Yorkshire, but will focus instead on the common attitudes which drew unskilled workers and tories together in the North.

page 431 note 4 There were rural Whigs in the North, like the third Earl Fitzwilliam, who were as concerned as the tories to protect their landed interests against the newer industrial interests. But unlike the tories they did not respond to this threat by encouraging working class protest against the new middle classes. (See Thompson, F. M. L., “Whigs and Liberals in the West Riding, 1830–1860”, in: English Historical Review, LXXIV, 281; 04, 1959)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. And, in Leeds, working class Radicals disavowed Edward Baines, the Leeds Mercury and the Whigs in 1829 because Baines and his paper championed industrialists. Unable to act alone, the Leeds Radicals formed a Tory-Radical alliance as a political strategy. See Harrison, , “Chartism in Leeds”, in: Chartist Studies, pp. 66ff.Google Scholar

page 432 note 1 R. C. O. Matthews, in comparing money, wage rates and the cost of living from 1830–1842, concludes that the hand loom weaver was the most depressed of the working class groups. In 1839 and 1840, the hand loom weaver earned only 75d. per week as compared to the agricultural worker's 80d. and the cotton operative's 112 d. A Study in Trade-Cycle History, p. 221.Google Scholar

page 432 note 2 As Maehl, W. H. points out in “Chartist Disturbances in Northeastern England, 1839”Google Scholar, Chartism in Newcastle, Sunderland, and the surrounding areas of Northumberland and Durham was of an entirely different nature. In the Northeastern areas Chartists followed Radical leadership and were more concerned with politics than economics. In December, 1839, General Napier wrote to Phillips of conditions in the Northeast: “it was for their political rights they were struggling and quite unconnected with the question of wages, respecting which they had no complaint to make.” Quoted by Maehl, , p. 413Google Scholar, from H. O. 40/53, ff. 853–54.

page 432 note 3 The continuing peasant mentality of the unskilled worker was shown by his enthusiastic response to return-to-the-land plans. Feargus O'Connor's abortive land scheme attracted 70,000 subscribers in the ̓40's, almost in direct competition to the political program of the Charter then in preparation. See J. McAskill, “Chartist Land Plan”, in: Chartist Studies: “The Chartists shared with many Tories a powerful sense of the recent past. For them… industrial England had been created by tearing a section of her people from their roots” (p. 304).

page 433 note 1 The most perceptive study of Oastler specifically and of Northern Tory social reform in general remains Cecil Driver's Tory Radical (New York, 1946).

page 433 note 2 The Bradford Chartist John Jackson recognized that Fargus O'Connor has stepped into the vacuum in tory leadership in the North left by Oastler and he tried unsuccessfully to persuade the Chartist rank and file to find leaders among themselves. See Jackson's The Demagogue Done Up: An Exposure of the Extreme Inconsistencies of Feargus O'Connor (Bradford, 1844), in the Seligman Collection, Columbia University.

page 433 note 3 The standing which enabled O'Connor to become an M.P. and to lead the Chartist movement in the North came from his possession of Fort Robert, the estate of the O'Con nors in County Cork. See Read, D. and Glasgow, E., Feargus O'Connor (London, 1959), pp. 20ff.Google Scholar

page 433 note 4 See Carpenter, 's Can the Tories Become Reformers? (London, 1834)Google Scholar, Seligman Collection, Columbia University; Clark, T.'s Reflections Upon the Past Policy and Future Prospects of the Chartist Party (London, 1850)Google Scholar; Linton, W. J.'s Threescore and Ten Years, 1830–1890 (New York, 1894)Google Scholar; Wm, Lovett's Letter to Messrs. Donaldson and Mason Containing His Reasons for Refusing to be Nominated Secretary of the National Charter Association (London, Sept. 8, 1843), Seligman Collection. For a sympathetic account of the Birming ham Chartist movement, its middle class liberal leaders and its disintegration, see Langford, J. A.'s Century of Birmingham Life (London, 1868).Google Scholar

page 434 note 1 Holyoke, G. J., Sixty Years of an Agitator's Life (London, 1885), I, p. 85.Google Scholar

page 434 note 2 In the 1841 election, O'Connor asked Chartists to support Tories because the Whigs had used their powers to deceive the people. See The Northern Star, May 29–June 26, 1841. For a discussion of the election of 1841 see Gammage, R. G., History of the Chartist Movement (London, 1854), pp. 192–195Google Scholar; Read and Glasgow, Feargus O'Connor, p. 95. A Tory majority was returned to Parliament in 1841, no Chartist secured a seat, and in the West Riding the Whigs who had held seats since 1832 were all replaced by Tories. In July, 1841 the Whig Morning Chronicle confirmed that “the Chartists, such as are voters, have almost to a man supported the Tories.” Quoted in Ward, The Factory Movement, 1830–1855 (London, 1962), p. 227.Google Scholar

page 434 note 3 Even if the unskilled worker did not come to this conclusion by himself, he heard it over and over whenever he attended mass meetings supporting the Ten-Hours movement or protesting the New Poor Law. Abuse of the middle classes was the principal rhetorical device used by O'Connor and the other Tory social reformers in the North who approach ed social problems with the techniques of revivalist preaching. Cole, G. D. H., Chartist Portraits, p. 188Google Scholar. Radical leaders, too, played upon the relation between economic exploitation and Government: On November 2, 1833, the Poor Man's Guardian wrote, “The middle classes, or profit men are the real tyrants of the country. Disguise it as they may, they are the authors of our slavery for without their connivance and secret support no tyranny could exist. Government is but a tool in their hands to execute their nefarious purpose.” Quoted in Briggs, , “Chartism Reconsidered”, p. 53.Google Scholar

page 434 note 4 Cole, , Chartist Portraits, p. 56fGoogle Scholar. Cooke Taylor welcomed the League not only because repeal of the Corn Laws would mean increased prosperity for workers and employers alike but because it ended the “dangerous and increasing chasm between the employers and the employed”. See Notes of a Tour in the Manufacturing Districts of Lancashire (London, 1842), p. 283. Cooke Taylor's sympathy with the Northern worker was jaundiced by his political economy and he believed that the unskilled working man raised an “outcry… against factories to counteract the growing cry for the repeal of the corn-laws”. Ibid., p. 249.

page 435 note 1 Lovett complained, in 1838, that one of the major factors separating middle and working class union for securing the Charter was that the Anti-Corn Law movement “naturally excited the belief of the Working Classes that the object aimed at was not so much the repeal of those unjust laws, as it was to frustrate their agitation in favor of political reform.” Life and Struggles (London, 1876), p. 173.Google Scholar

page 435 note 2 Brown, L., “Chartism and the Anti-Corn Law League”, in: Chartist Studies, p. 53.Google Scholar

page 435 note 3 Briggs, A., “Chartism Reconsidered”, p. 53.Google Scholar

page 435 note 4 Grenville, Ch., Memoirs, II (New York, 1885), p. 414.Google Scholar

page 435 note 5 The Frenchman Ledru-Rollin despaired of Whig measures as “worthy of the worst days of England – nothing for the people”. Ledru-Rollin, A. A., The Decline of England, I (London, 1850), p. 41.Google Scholar

page 435 note 6 Although the Ten Hours Act was passed finally by a Whig Government in 1847, it passed largely because many Tories voted for it, with the exception of Peel, in retaliation against the industrial middle classes responsible for the repeal of the Corn Laws. Hansard, , 3rd ser., Vol. I., XC, pp. 819–821.Google Scholar

page 435 note 7 See Mather, F. C., Public Order in the Age of the Chartists (Manchester University, 1959)Google Scholar, for a detailed development of this argument.

page 436 note 1 Quoted by A Briggs from Report of the Proceedings, 20 May 1853 in “Local Back ground of Chartism”, in: Chartist Studies p. 20Google Scholar. In English Landed Society in the Nine teenth Century (London, 1963), p. 276Google Scholar, F. M. L. Thompson observes that the record of parliaments between 1832 to 1868 “was not conspicuous for its neglect of middle class interests.” The main tenor of changes from 1832 was “to embody in law and institutions the requirements of that industrial economy in which by far the major part was played by the middle classes.” Since a Whig Government was in office during most of the years from 1832–50, it is scarcely surprising that working men identified that government and the middle classes. In The Demagogue Done Up: An Exposure of the Extreme Incon sistencies of O'Connor, Feargus (Bradford, 1844), p. 8Google Scholar, the Radical John Jackson attacked O'Connor for presenting the Tories Oastler and Stephens as the only faithful friends of the people. Jackson accused O'Connor, of making “Radicalism to consist of Whig abuse” (p. 8)Google Scholar with the result that the Liberal part of the middle class had been driven back to the Whigs by the “Tory-Chartists or O'Connorites” (p. 49). Lovett, Wm., Life and Struggles (London, 1876), p. 172.Google Scholar

page 436 note 2 By 1841 the London centered “moral force” Chartists, unlike the increasingly “physical force” Northerners, were prepared to distinguish between the Whigs and the middle classes. The London National Charter Association, led by Lovett and Hetherington appealed for a “cordial union of the Middle and Working Classes” for political reform. In Lovett, , Life and Struggles, p. 262Google Scholar. The Address further requested the middle classes not to set up a “counter agitation” for repeal of the Corn Laws, “generating distrust where we believe mutual benefit is intended” (p. 263).

page 436 note 3 Jackson, J., The Demagogue Done Up, p. 8.Google Scholar

page 436 note 4 Particularly from 1837–1842, and during 1847–1848, unskilled laborers in the North faced marginal wages, poor harvests, rising food prices and unpredictable periods of unemployment. In addition there was a heavy disease and death toll from industrial congestion. It is in these years that Chartism grows among the unskilled workers in the North. “Before 1850… social movements were greatly affected by catastrophic and simultaneous increases in misery for most of the working population…” Hobsbawm, E. J., “Economic Fluctuations and some Social Movements since 1800”, in: Economic History Review, 2nd ser., V, 1: 1952, p. 5Google Scholar. On p. 6, Hobsbawm presents a chart indicating the seasonality of unrest in Britain from 1800–1850 and indicates that in early June–Nov. 1837, coinciding with Anti-Poor Law campaigns and again May–June, 1839, coinciding with Chartism, there is clear relation of economic distress and the growth of both Anti-Poor Law and Chartist sentiment. Cf. Mather, , Public Order in the Age of the Chartists, especially p. 16.Google Scholar

page 437 note 1 Taylor, Cooke, Notes of a Tour in the Manufacturing Districts, p. 68Google Scholar. a Ibid., pp. 315ff.

page 437 note 3 Linton, W. J., “Who Were the Chartists?”, in: Century Magazine (New York, 01. 1882), p. 430.Google Scholar

page 437 note 4 Annual Register (London, 1839).Google Scholar

page 438 note 1 Driver, , in Tory Radical, p. 436Google Scholar, summarizes “The Faith of a Tory” through Oastler's rejection of the hungry forties as “the result of freer trade, of unrestrained capitalism: …of letting industry and commerce usurp the primacy that belongs to agriculture”.

page 438 note 2 Ashley, active in factory and other social reforms, wrote in his Diary on August 24, 1840, “I have advanced the cause, done individual justice, anticipated many calamities… and soothed, I hope, many angry Chartists' spirits by showing them that men of rank and property can, and do, care for the rights and feelings of their brethren.” Quoted in Hodder, E., The Life and Works of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury (London, 1886), I, p. 301.Google Scholar

page 438 note 3 But in spite of the efforts of Liberals to encourage working class independence, lack of class consciousness and deference to social superiors continued to characterize Lancashire workingmen up to the 1860's. See Jennings, I., Party Politics (Cambridge, 1959), I, p. 329.Google Scholar

page 439 note 1 Hansard, , 3rd series, LXXXV, p. 1226.Google Scholar

page 439 note 2 MacAskill, , “The Chartist Land Plan”, in: Chartist Studies, p. 307.Google Scholar

page 439 note 3 The Birmingham Radical Quaker, Jos. Sturge, and his Complete Suffrage Union, attempted a “reconciliation between the working classes and those who move in a sphere above them”. Manchester correspondent, Dec. 15, 1841, in Nonconformist (London Dissenting weekly edited by Sturge's friend, Edw. Miall), reporting Sturge's appeal to Anti-Corn Law League in Manchester to take up political reform. Sturge, himself, had published an open letter to Cobden asking for reconciliation in the Nonconformist, Sept. 29, 1841. On Nov. 17, 1841 Sturge wrote the Nonconformist leader requesting the Anti-Corn Law League to secure the “enthusiastic support of the labouring millions” by “seizing upon the banner of COMPLETE SUFFRAGE” to effect a union “between the now divided sections of society”. By March, 1842 there were 50 or 60 Complete Suffrage Unions in the course of formation throughout England. Hovell, , The Chartist Movement (Manchester, 1925), p. 244Google Scholar. In May, 1842, Sturge contested Nottingham at a by-election and ran (on a Chartist-Quaker-Free Trade platform) against the Tory organic theorist John Walter, editor of the Times. Stephens supported Walter and O'Connor, in one of his occasional attempts at middle class alliance, supported Sturge. Walter polled 1885 votes and Sturge 1801. See West, 180 and Read and Glasgow, 102. By 1842, the C.S.U. had failed. See Briggs, , Age of Improvement (New York, 1959), pp. 320fGoogle Scholar. Lovett attributed part of the failure of the local C.S.U. movement to the aloofness of great “numbers of the working classes” guided by “the abuse and misrepresentations of the Northern Star”. Life and Struggles (London, 1876), p. 275.Google Scholar

page 440 note 1 In 1848, the Chartist P. Aiken complained that earlier middle class sympathy for the Chartists had been alienated by extremists who had driven middle class reformers out of Chartist ranks. The People's Charter (London, 1848).

page 440 note 2 This is hardly surprising since many middle class reform organizations appeared to be more concerned with the morality of the laborer than with his social and economic condition. In Manchester the Statistical Society, formed by a group of bankers, cotton manufacturers and clergymen “to assist in promoting the progress of social improvement in the manufacturing population by which they are surrounded”, took the position that the Factory Act of 1833 was unnecessary. Ashton, T. S., Economic and Social Investi gations in Manchester, 1833–1933 (London, 1934), p. 13ffGoogle Scholar. Although Dr. Kay (later Kay-Shuttleworth) of Manchester had written a sympathetic report on workingmen's wretch edness in 1832, by 1834 he was an Assistant Poor Law Commissioner in Manchester painting an attractive picture of these same conditions.

page 440 note 3 In the Trades Journal of Mar. 1, 1841, the editor recalled that in the meetings of the G.N.C.T.U., whenever obstacles arose, workmen “chose to turn back, each taking his own path, regardless of the safety or the interests of his neighbor. It was painful to see the deep mortification of the generals and leaders of this quickly inflated army, when left deserted and alone upon the field.” Quoted in the Webb, 's History of Trade Unionism, 2nd ed. (New York, 1920), p. 153.Google Scholar

page 440 note 4 Lovett, , Life and Struggles (New York, 1920), I, p. 199.Google Scholar

page 440 note 5 Ibid., I, p. 165.

page 441 note 1 Ibid., I, p. 166.

page 441 note 2 Lord Ashley confided to his Diary on Aug. 18, 1842, that the Chartists of Leeds had told him, “had we a few more to speak to us as you have done, we should never again think of the Charter.” Quoted in Hodder, , Life and Work of the Seventh Earl of Shaftes-bury, I, pp. 43 3f.Google Scholar

page 441 note 3 Hovell, , quoting from the Northern Star, Nov. 2, 1839, in The Chartist Movement, p. 123Google Scholar. On the whole the delegates from the B.P.U. were middle class men. Of the 53 delegates only 24 were “working class”. Cf. West, , History of Chartism, p. 107Google Scholar, quoting from the Place Mss (27, 821, fo. 145.) Place used Lovett's monthly report on the attendances for March.

page 441 note 4 At Birmingham, the appeal to arms took second place to an appeal to economic weapons, were the Charter to be rejected. Hovell, , The Chartist Movement, p. 149Google Scholar. Cf. Williams, D., John Frost (Cardiff, 1939), p. 166Google Scholar for discussion of the “ulterior measures” proposed. These included withdrawal of all savings from banks; conversion of all paper money into gold; a sober general strike; and, trading exclusively with pro-Chartist tradesmen. In the Northeast, one of the fundamental factors against an attempted “Sacred Month” was that most workmen there “were too comfortable to want to strike”. Maehl, , “Chartist Disturbances in Northeastern England, 1839”, p. 413.Google Scholar

page 441 note 5 J. A. Roebuck, Radical author of the preamble to the Charter, accused the Chartist rank and file of sacrificing political reform to have wages fixed. Letter to Dr. R. Black, April 16, 1848, in Leader, R. E., Life of J. A. Roebuck (London, 1897), p. 204.Google Scholar

page 442 note 1 Roebuck explained that his inability to lead political reform was due to his “political economical notions” which “run so thoroughly counter to the vain visions of many of the workmen, that they would look upon me with distrust” (ibid.). And, Sir George Head, enthusiastic admirer of the Northern factory system, who romanticized the Leeds factory worker (his features “blackened by smoke, yet radiant with the light of intelligence”), argued that “although particular classes of men have suffered by the substitution of machinery for manual labor, such evils arise from the mutability of human affairs, – are such as the most zealous philanthropist cannot avert…” A Home Tour Through the Manufacturing Districts of England in Summer of 1835 (London, 1836), p. 188.

page 442 note 2 Driver, , Tory Radical, p. 204.Google Scholar

page 442 note 3 When Hobhouse's factory bill was defeated in 1831, Oastler wrote to Hobhouse that he “exceedingly regret(ed) you felt yourself obliged to yield the sacred cause of the poor to the 'cold, calculating, but mistaken Scotch philosophers'… I wish you had manfully met those unfeeling misanthropes (whose God is money, and whose policy is the ruin, degradation and banishment of the poor) by sound philosophical and Christian argument.” Nov. 19, 1831, quoted in Kydd, S., History of the Factory Movement (London, 1857), I, p. 141.Google Scholar

page 443 note 1 Parson Bull wrote in his first editorial for the British Labourer's Protector and Factory Child's Friend, 1832, “Our principle is, that whatever benefits the labouring classes benefits the whole community, that no nation is blessed of God or prospers, in itself, where they are depressed.” Quoted in Gill, J. C., The Ten Hours Parson (London, 1959), p. 125Google Scholar. Sadler, Michael's attempted refutation of Malthusian theory was based upon his belief in a “kind and superintending Providence”. Law of Population (London, 1830), I, p. 25Google Scholar. During his conduct of the famous Select Committee in 1831, Sadler, seriously ill, worked day and night to muster evidence for factory reform: “This is God's work in which I am engaged, and therefore it must be done.” Kydd, , History of the Factory Movement, I, p. 316Google Scholar. Cf. Driver, , Tory Radical, p. 170.Google Scholar

page 443 note 2 The first two of Oastler's four mottos heading his weekly Fleet Papers and symbolizing his social principles were: “The Altar, the Throne and the Cottage” and “Property has its Duties as well as its Rights”. Driver, , Tory Radical, p. 416.Google Scholar

page 443 note 3 When Oastler was interviewed by the Manchester Radical Association to determine his views on political reform, he said, “My opinion on ‘Universal Suffrage’, is that if it were the law of the land next week, it would in a short time produce ‘universal confusion’ and would lead inevitably to despotism.” Twopenny Dispatch, quoted in Kydd, , History of the Factory Movement, II, p. 84Google Scholar. Oastler's rejection of political reform, shared by Sadler Bull and Stephens, in no way impaired the popularity of the “Tory Democrats” in the North.

page 443 note 4 Quoted in Driver, , Tory Radical, p. 428.Google Scholar

page 443 note 5 See especially Sadler, M. T., Law of Population, I, p. 17Google Scholar; Bull's Speech at Manor Courthouse, Manchester, April 1, 1833, in Kydd, , History of the Factory Movement, II, p. 29ff.Google Scholar; and Stephens, J. R.' New Year Address at Ashton-under-Lynne, 1839Google Scholar, quoted in Ibid., p. 99.

page 444 note 1 See p. 446, note 1.

page 444 note 2 Gammage, R. G., History of the Chartist Movement (London, 1845), p. 75Google Scholar. Later editions of Gammage present a less negative opinion of Oastler.

page 444 note 3 Roebuck, J. A., quoted in Leader, Life of Roebuck, pp. 354f.Google Scholar

page 444 note 4 The Northern Star, Nov. 9 and Dec. 14, 1844; and Feb. 14, 1845.

page 444 note 5 Gammage believed that Chartist enthusiasm for Jones was due to his superior social origins. History of the Chartist Movement, p. 282.

page 444 note 6 D. Williams argues that Frost, leader of the Newport Chartists, had great prestige among his followers because he was a gentleman who took care to sign “Esquire” after his name. Frost, John, pp. 81–86.Google Scholar

page 445 note 1 Gammage, , History of the Chartist Movement, p. 282.Google Scholar

page 445 note 2 From April, 1838, Feargus O'Connor became the “Apostle of the North, the constant travelling dominant leader”, Place, Add. Mss., 27, 820, fo. 135, quoted in Read and Glasgow, O'Connor, Feargus, p. 55.Google Scholar

page 445 note 3 O'Connor was pleased that he, a member of the “old” families, had been elected to Commons in 1834 over the usurping middle classes. Gazette, Jan. 31, 1835, in Ibid.

page 445 note 4 Aug. 8, 1848, quoted in Greville, , Memoirs, II, p. 342.Google Scholar

page 446 note 1 O'Connor, who by all natural inclinations leaned strongly towards tory paternalism, believed in suffrage extension. On this point alone, he differed from the romantic tory notion of a patriarchical social order.

page 446 note 2 Hill, R. L., Toryism and the People (London, 1929), p. 122.Google Scholar

page 446 note 3 McDowell, R. B., British Conservatism, 1832–1914 (London, 1959), p. 33.Google Scholar

page 446 note 4 Quoted in Ibid., p. 32. That Lockhart was partially correct is seen by the activities of Rand and Walker, tory manufacturers from Bradford who urged on Peel and Graham the importance of factory reform. See Clark, Kitson, “Hunger and Politics, 1842”, in: Journal of Modern History, XXV, 4, 12. 1953, p. 361.Google Scholar

page 447 note 1 Walter's leaders through the following months repeated the argument that the state ought to care for the poor. But, alongside of his Anti-Poor Law campaign, Walter con ducted an offensive first against the journeymen tailors who had struck in London, and then against the Trades Union movement in general. It is significant that this attack upon trade unions did not apparently impair Walter's popularity with Northern workingmen. The Times, May–Aug., 1834.

page 447 note 2 Typical pamphlets include: Rev. Demainbray, S.'s The Poor Man's Best Friend, a letter to the Marquis of Salisbury (1831)Google Scholar; Wood, J.'s Right of Labour to Legislative Protection (1832)Google Scholar; Anon., The State and Prospects of Toryism (Jan. 1834); Blacker, Wm.'s The Claims of Landed Interests to Legislative Protection Considered (London, 1836)Google Scholar; Drummond, H.'s On the Attempted Government of the Queen and Attempted Government from the People (London, 1842)Google Scholar; Lewis, G. W.' The Conservative Principle Considered in Reference to the Present State of the Country (London, 1842)Google Scholar; and Morgan, J. M.'s The Christian Commonwealth, (1845).Google Scholar

page 447 note 3 Quarterly Review, LXXXI, p. 308.

page 447 note 4 “The State and Prospects of Toryism” (Jan. 1834, reprinted from Fraser's Magazine), p. 17. In Special Collections, University of California, Los Angeles.

page 447 note 5 Ibid., p. 23.

page 447 note 6 Lewis, G. W., The Conservative Principle Considered in Reference to the Present State of the Country (London, 1842), p. 35Google Scholar. Special Collections, University of California, Los Angeles.

page 447 note 7 Drummond, H., On the Attempted Government of the Queen and Attempted Government from the People (London, 1842).Google Scholar

page 448 note 1 See, for example, a review of John Minter Morgan's proposal for a Church of England agricultural settlement based upon principles of social harmony, which criticizes Morgan for his “fancying” that he knew better than the people. Illustrated London News, 24 Aug. 1850, Vol. 17, p. 177.

page 448 note 2 Ed. Cox, Wm., Conservative Principles and Conservative Policy: A Letter to the Electors of Tewkesbury (London, 1852), p. 11Google Scholar. Special Collections, University of California, Los Angeles.

page 448 note 3 Disraeli, B., Sybil (London, 1915), pp. 488fGoogle Scholar. Disraeli's novels were more effective than his attempts to produce a political party of Tory paternalists which he called “Young England”. Their parliamentary record testifies to the vagueness of their principles and to their ineptitude. The shrewd old Chartist, W. J. Linton, writing many years later, charac terized Young England as “dreamily benevolent Conservatism (Carlyle interpreted by Benjamin Disraeli…)”, Linton, , “Who Were the Chartists”, in: Century Magazine (New York, 1882), p. 423.Google Scholar

page 449 note 1 Schoyen, A. R., The Chartist Challenge (London, 1958), pp. 17f.Google Scholar

page 449 note 2 On June 5, 1855 a crowd stormed the Poor Law Guardian's meeting in Huddersfield and sacked the workhouse. Tory magistrates refused to summon troops and Oastler's influence alone saved William Swaine, the Liberal chairman, from being assaulted. Ward, , The Factory Movement, p. 180Google Scholar. And General Sir Charles Napier, appointed to the North ern Command on April, 1839, was openly sympathetic to Chartism and hostile to manu facturers who he said produced “corrupt morals, bad health, uncertain wages”. Quoted in Lawrence, R., Charles Napier (London, 1952), p. 89Google Scholar. Napier wrote in his journal, “Chartism cannot be stopped, God forbid that it should.” And, “Hell may be paved with good intentions but it is hung with Manchester cottons.” (p. 90).

page 449 note 3 Mather, F. C., Public Order in the Age of the Chartists, p. 64Google Scholar. In Manchester, “the au thorities told the mill owners that they could not be protected if they tried to restart their mills.” Clark, G. Kitson, “Hunger and Politics in 1842”, p. 563.Google Scholar

page 449 note 4 When O'Connor and 58 others were tried at the Lancaster Assizes on March 21, 1845, the tory Sir Francis Pollack was Attorney General and Counsel for the Crown. Gammage, the politically oriented, anti-Tory Chartist attended the trial, observing that Sir Francis delivered a “very temperate address which contrasted strongly with some of the speeches made by the prosecuting council under the late Whig government”. History of the Chartist Movement, p. 231.

page 450 note 1 Analysis of the Registrar's returns of 1838 estimated that death and disease among heads of families had thrown 43,000 widows and 112,000 orphans upon the Poor Law. Bruce, M., The Coming of the Welfare State (London, 1961), p. 50Google Scholar. The patriarchal system of welfare idealized by tory social reformers was administered through local control of poor relief.

page 450 note 2 Ward, , The Factory Movement, p. 180Google Scholar. When the New Poor Law was installed in the North during 1836 and 1837, it coincided with severe depression and commercial crisis there which sent unemployed factory workers and handloom weavers to seek relief.

page 450 note 3 Clark, Kitson, “Hunger and Politics, 1842”, p. 360Google Scholar. See Leeds Intelligencer, June-Dec, 1841 for tory candidates' attacks upon the Poor Law and upon machinery for displacing workers.

page 451 note 1 Smelser finds that one of the persistent features of the handloom weaver's decline was his attraction to some form of utopianism. Social Change in the Industrial Revolution, p. 253.

page 451 note 2 MacAskill, J., “Chartist Land Plan”, in: Chartist Studies, p. 504Google Scholar. See also Clark, G. Kitson, “Hunger and Politics in 1842”, p. 358.Google Scholar

page 451 note 3 Disraeli, B., Speech on Corn Laws, May, 1843, in Monypenny and Buckle, Life of Ben jamin Disraeli (New York, 1912–20) II, p. 142.Google Scholar

page 451 note 4 Beer, M., A History of British Socialism (New York, 1948), pp. 18–20Google Scholar; , J. L. and Hammond, B., The Age of the Chartists (Hampden, Conn., 1930), p. 18Google Scholar. Even Francis Place although a Malthusian supporter of the New Poor Law, supported land nationalization because of the implicit values in life close to the land. See Ward, , The Factory Movement, p. 186.Google Scholar

page 452 note 1 Cole, G. D. H., Chartist Portraits, pp. 239–243.Google Scholar

page 452 note 2 Fielden's Society for National Regeneration was endorsed by Cobbett and included among its aims the teaching of duties “appertaining to Cottage Economy”. Herald of the Rights of Industry, Feb. 8, 1834, in Smelser, , Social Change in the Industrial Revolution, p. 242.Google Scholar

page 452 note 3 In correspondence between John Gladstone and Sir Robert Peel on Oct. 15 and 25, 1842, there is a discussion of the moral, social and even agricultural value of spade hus bandry. Both appeared attracted by the concept of allotments and small holdings. Ad ditional Mss, pp. 40, 517f. 38–40, in Clark, Kitson, “Hunger and Politics in 1842”, p. 359.Google Scholar

page 452 note 4 In 1831, Stephen Demainbray, Chaplain in Ordinary to the King and Rector of Broad Somerford Wiltshire, published his The Poor Man's Best Friend: Land to Cultivate for his own Benefit (London, 1831), in Special Collections, University of California, Los Angeles. He argued, as Michael Sadler did, for the necessity of making allotments of land available to the working classes. Two years later George Carrington of Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire published an account of his father's division of his estate into al lotments for laborers. Carrington's motives were not paternal, but he did have a mystical feeling for the necessity of living close to the land. A Rood of Land, the Labourer's Friend: or, A Short Argument in Favour of Allotments (London, 1833), Special Collections, University of California, Los Angeles.

page 452 note 5 Arnold, T., “Letters to Sheffield Workers”, in: Sheffield Courant, in Miscellaneous Works (New York, 1845), p. 433.Google Scholar

page 452 note 6 Second Reading of the Poor Law Amendment Bill, Feb. 4, 1841, Hansard, , 3rd Ser., LVI, p. 404.Google Scholar

page 452 note 7 MacAskill, , “Chartist Land Plan”, in: Chartist Studies, p. 337Google Scholar. In 1847 and 1848, the Steam-Engine Makers suspended some of their branches for depositing branch funds in O'Connor's Land Bank. Two branches of the Stonemason's Society proposed this same investment but were voted down. When Yorkshire Woolstaplers tried to resettle their unemployed on a farm, the only protest came from their younger members, Webbs, , History of Trade Unionism, rev. ed. (New York, 1920), p. 178.Google Scholar

page 453 note 1 MacAskill, , “Chartist Land Plan”, in: Chartist Studies, p. 304Google Scholar points to the “paradox” that the 1840's, “the time of conscious attempts to grapple with the implications of industrialization, should be the decade when questions of land ownership and use were thrust into the foreground.”

page 453 note 2 Hansard, , 3rd ser., VIII, pp. 524, 5 32Google Scholar; and Sadler, , Memoirs (London, 1842), p. 585Google Scholar. John Minter Morgan tried to interest Parliament and the Church of England in a “Church of England Agricultural Self-Supporting Institution”, publishing this plan in 1845 as the Christian Commonwealth. In 1850 he tried to raise £ 50,000 to erect a “church of England selfsupporting village”. Boase, G. C., Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 1921–1922), XXIII, pp. 919fGoogle Scholar. Morgan's Christian Commonwealth was meant to be a socially harmoni ous community, rigidly excluding the “pernicious principle of competition” characteristic of industrial society. Quoted in Illustrated London News, 24 Aug. 1850, XVII, p. 178.

page 453 note 3 Quoted in Ward, , Factory Movement, p. 257.Google Scholar

page 453 note 4 Kydd, S., History of the Factory Movement, II, p. 163Google Scholar. See also Whibley, Ch.'s account of Young England, Lord John Manners and His Friends, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1925)Google Scholar. In June, 1844, Ferrand let over 100 acres, in quarter acre allotments, and Disraeli addressed the new tenants in the metaphor of Tory social theory. Monypenny, and Buckle, , Life of Disraeli, III, p. 248.Google Scholar

page 453 note 5 Quoted in Read and Glasgow, O'Connor, Feargus, p. 110Google Scholar. O'Connor relied on spade husbandry, a technique derived from an uncle in Ireland and advocated since 1827 by William Cobbett. Ultimately, then, O'Connor's solution for working class problems came back full circle to Cobbett's agrarian idealizations.

page 454 note 3 Quoted in Armytage, W. H. G., “The Chartist Land Colonies, 1846–1848”, in: Agricultural History, Vol. 32, 1958, pp. 92 and 98.Google Scholar