Paternalism, Disturbance and Parliamentary Reform: Society and Politics in Coventry, 1819–32*

Peter Searby

doi:10.1017/S0020859000005502

Paternalism, Disturbance and Parliamentary Reform: Society and Politics in Coventry, 1819–32*

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2008

Peter Searby

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Asa Briggs has pointed out that the parliamentary-reform movement of the early 1830's differed considerably in nature and direction between one city and another. In Birmingham, the middle and working classes usually co-operated. Class distinctions were blurred. Steam power and the factory – socially disruptive forces – were lacking. Master and artisan worked together in small workshops, frequently changed places with each other in a socially mobile city, and united in advancing an inflationary paper-money programme appropriate to the Midlands iron interests. These were concerned with the home market and the need for expansionist credit. In Manchester and Leeds, on the other hand, the classes were separated by the factory, and had competing reform movements. Manchester's middle-class reformers were concerned with the needs of the cotton industry's export markets; they wanted a stable metallic currency, and stressed the encouragement to trade that would follow the repeal of the Corn Laws. Often they presented repeal in terms the working class found uncongenial

Type: Research Article
Information: International Review of Social History , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , August 1977 , pp. 198 - 225

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020859000005502 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1977

References

^{page 198 note 1} I shold like to express my gratitude to Anne Digby and William Luckin, for very helpful advice given during the composition of this Paper.

^{page 198 note 2} Briggs, Asa, “The Background to the Parliamentary Reform Movement in Three English Cities (1830–2)”, in: Cambridge Historical Journal, X (1950–1952).Google Scholar

^{page 199 note 1} Rudé, George, “English Rural and Urban Disturbances, 1830–1831”, in: Past & Present, No 37 (1967).Google Scholar

^{page 199 note 2} Thompson, E. P., “The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century”, in: Past & Present, No 50 (1971), esp. pp. 107ff.Google Scholar

^{page 199 note 3} Jones, D. J. V., Before Rebecca (1973), pp. 133ffGoogle Scholar; Williams, G. A., “The Insurrection at Merthyr Tydfil in 1831”, in: Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1965.Google Scholar

^{page 200 note 1} In 1838 there were 1,800, 200 of them women.

^{page 200 note 2} This sketch of the ribbon trade is based on Searby, P., “Weavers and freemen in Coventry, 1820–1861” (unpublished Warwick Ph.D. thesis, 1972), ch. 2.Google Scholar

^{page 200 note 3} Coventry Herald, 10 June 1831.

^{page 201 note 1} Report from the Select Committee on the Silk Trade [Parliamentary Papers, 1831–32, XIX], pp. 19ff.

^{page 201 note 2} Ibid., pp. 510ff.

^{page 202 note 1} Coventry Herald, 18 November 1831.

^{page 202 note 2} Ibid., November 1831 to July 1832; Ellice to W. Hickling, 25 January 1832, Coventry Record Office (hereafter CRO), Miscellaneous Letters.

^{page 202 note 3} Coventry Herald, May and 13 June 1834; Parliamentary Debates, Third Series, XXIV, pp. 570ff.

^{page 203 note 1} Searby, “Weavers and freemen”, op. cit., pp. 32ff.

^{page 203 note 2} Postmaster, Coventry, to Francis Freeling, 20 August 1819, Home Office Papers 42/192, Public Record Office, also in Aspinall, A., The Early English Trade Unions (1949), p. 321.Google Scholar

^{page 203 note 3} The Times, 25 August 1819.

^{page 204 note 1} Ibid., 20 and 25 August, 1 September; Manuscript of William Reader, f. 168, Bodleian Library, Oxford, MSS Top. Warwickshire C 4.

^{page 204 note 2} The Times, 25 August 1819.

^{page 204 note 3} Ibid., 1 September.

^{page 204 note 4} Report of the Royal Commission on the Weavers, Handloom, Assistant Commissioners' Reports, Midland District [PP, 1840, XXIV], p. 217.Google Scholar

^{page 205 note 1} Warwick and Warwickshire General Advertiser, 6 April 1822.

^{page 205 note 2} Sixth Report from the Select Committee on Artisans and Machinery [PP, 1824, V], p. 603; Warwick and Warwickshire General Advertiser, 12 April 1823.

^{page 205 note 3} An Account of the Receipts and Payments by the Commissioners […], May 1823 – May 1835, CRO; Coventry Herald, 26 May 1826.

^{page 205 note 4} S. Whitwell to Sir Robert Peel, 7 May 1829, HO 40/23; R. Woodcock to Sir Robert Peel, 18 September 1829, HO 40/24/2.

^{page 205 note 5} Coventry Observer, September and October 1829; Report on the Handloom Weavers, Midland District, op. cit., p. 219; Searby, P., “‘Lists of Prices’ in the Coventry silk industry, 1800–1860”, in: Bulletin of the Society for the Study of Labour History, No 27 (1973).Google Scholar

^{page 206 note 1} Report on the Silk Trade, op. cit., pp. 26ff.; Coventry Observer, 2 April 1829; Proceedings of the Guardians of the Poor, pp. 97ff., CRO.

^{page 206 note 2} Gutteridge, Joseph, Lights and Shadows in the Life of an Artisan (1893), p. 30.Google Scholar

^{page 206 note 3} Coventry Herald, 10 June 1831.

^{page 206 note 4} Ibid., June and July; Report on the Silk Trade, pp. 59, 105; Report on the Handloom Weavers, Midland District, p. 220.

^{page 207 note 1} Coventry Herald, 13 May 1831.

^{page 207 note 2} Report from the Select Committee on the Coventry Election [PP, 1826–27, IV], pp. 7ff.; Report from the Select Committee on the Coventry Election Petition [PP, 1833, VIII], pp. 17ff, 93; Report from the Select Committee on Bribery at Elections [PP, 1835, VIII], pp. 60ff.; The Times, 16 June 1826.

^{page 208 note 1} Ellice to W. Hickling, 1 March 1832, CRO, Misc. Letters.

^{page 208 note 2} Dictionary of National Biography, sub voce; Searby, “Weavers and freemen”, pp. 30ff.; Prosper, Mérimée, Etudes Anglo-Américaines (Paris, 1930), pp. 242ff.Google Scholar

^{page 208 note 3} At a most numerous and respectable meeting, 28 January 1817, Coventry City Libraries, Coventry and Warwickshire Collection, Broadsides Collection.

^{page 208 note 4} Lyon to Sidmouth, 10 and 15 May 1817, HO 40/6.

^{page 208 note 5} Lyon to Sidmouth, 7 December 1817, HO 40/6.

^{page 208 note 6} Lyon to Sidmouth, 2 December 1817, HO 40/6.

^{page 209 note 1} Newspaper cutting of the meeting, Bodleian Library, Oxford, Gough Add. Warwickshire, b 2; Manuscript of William Reader, op. cit., f. 169.

^{page 209 note 2} Searby, , “Weavers and freemen”, pp. 124ff.Google Scholar

^{page 209 note 3} Coventry Herald, 10 and 17 September 1830; 7 and 28 January 1831; Coventry Observer, 11 and 25 March 1830; Briggs, “The Background of the Parliamentary Reform Movement”, loc. cit., p. 307.

^{page 210 note 1} Coventry Herald, April 1830 to March 1832; Poor Man's Guardian, 24 March 1832; H. L. Bulwer to W. Hickling, 27 January and 27 March 1832, CRO, Misc. Letters.

^{page 210 note 2} Coventry Herald, 9 July 1830.

^{page 210 note 3} Ibid., 3 and 10 September.

^{page 210 note 4} Ibid., 14 January and 29 July 1831.

^{page 210 note 5} Ibid., 26 November 1830 to 18 February 1831.

^{page 211 note 1} Ibid., 29 April 1831.

^{page 211 note 2} Ibid., April and May; Coventry City Libraries, Coventry and Warwickshire Collection, Broadsides Collection.

^{page 211 note 3} Parliamentary Debates, Third Series, II, pp. 1061ff.

^{page 212 note 1} Ibid., p. 1346.

^{page 212 note 2} Marchant, D. le, Memoir of John Charles,; Viscount Althorp, Third Earl Spencer (1876), pp. 372ff.Google Scholar; Brock, Michael, The Great Reform Act (1973), pp. 266ff.Google Scholar

^{page 213 note 1} Coventry Herald, 8 July 1831.

^{page 213 note 2} Ibid., 14 October.

^{page 214 note 1} John Carter to Melbourne, 17 October 1831, HO 52/15; Coventry Herald, 21 October 1831.

^{page 214 note 2} Poor Man's Guardian, 24 March and 14 July 1832.

^{page 214 note 3} Coventry Herald, 14 October 1831.

^{page 214 note 4} Ibid., 18 and 25 May 1832.

^{page 215 note 1} Ibid., 22 June.

^{page 215 note 2} Ibid., 15 June.

^{page 215 note 3} Ibid., 22 June.

^{page 216 note 1} Report on the Silk Trade, pp. 372ff.

^{page 216 note 2} Report on the Handloom Weavers, Midland District, pp. 49ff.

^{page 217 note 1} Ibid., pp. 49ff., 231; Coventry Herald, 18 and 25 November 1831.

^{page 217 note 2} John and Sarah Day to Sir Robert Peel, 28 April 1830, HO 40/25.

^{page 218 note 1} Coventry Herald, 30 March 1832.

^{page 218 note 2} Report on the Handloom Weavers, Midland District, p. 220.

^{page 219 note 1} Ibid., pp. 220ff., a highly circumstantial account of the day by Edward Goode, David Smith and George Baddeley; Report on the Silk Trade, p. 57.

^{page 219 note 2} Coventry Herald, 11 November 1831; 30 March 1832.

^{page 220 note 1} Serjeant Adams's brief in the case of Merry and Brown versus the inhabitants of the County of the City of Coventry, pp. 4ff., CRO, Box labelled “Anti-machine riots, 1831”; T. Morris to Melbourne, 8 November 1831, HO 52/15; Coventry Herald, 11 November 1831.

^{page 220 note 2} Report on the Handloom Weavers, Midland District, p. 221.

^{page 220 note 3} Samuel Vale to Melbourne, 8 November 1831, HO 40/29.

^{page 220 note 4} Coventry Herald, 11 November 1831.

^{page 220 note 5} An Act for consolidating and amending the laws in England, relative to malicious injuries to Property [7–8 George IV, c. 30], sections 3, 8.

^{page 220 note 6} A Report of the Trial of the Prisoners charged with Rioting and Destroying the Machinery of Josiah Beck (Coventry, 1832); Coventry Herald, 11 November 1831.

^{page 221 note 1} A jury eventually decided that the value of the property destroyed was £2,135. Very little property was stolen during the riot.

^{page 221 note 2} Coventry Herald, 30 March 1832.

^{page 221 note 3} A Report of the Trial, op. cit., p. 8.

^{page 221 note 4} John Ralphs and Thomas Pepper to Melbourne, 30 March 1832, HO 52/20; Campbell to S. M. Phillips, 3 April 1832, HO 40/30; Coventry Herald, 30 March to 11 May 1832.

^{page 222 note 1} Rudé, George, “Thomas Burbury”, in: Australian Dictionary of Biography, 1788–1850, I (1966),Google Scholar states that Burbury was the son of an army officer who had served on Wellington's staff. Burbury's great-granddaughter, Mrs W. Sinclair of North Balwyn, Victoria, Australia, has discovered while collecting material on the family history that Professor Rudé is mistaken on this point and that Burbury's father was most probably a non-commissioned officer.

^{page 222 note 2} Hobsbawm, E. J. and George Rudé, Captain Swing (1973), ch. 12.Google Scholar See also the comments on incidents of this sort in Rudé, George, “The ‘Pre-Industrial’ Crowd”, in Paris and London in the Eighteenth Century (1970), pp. 17ff.Google Scholar; and Tilly, Charles, “Collective Violence in European Perspective”, in: The History of Violence in America: Historical and Comparative Perspectives, ed. by Graham, H. D. and Gurr, T. R. (1969), esp. pp. 16ff.Google Scholar

^{page 222 note 3} Hobsbawm, and Rudé, , Captain Swing, pp. 97–98, 114Google Scholar; J. L., and Hammond, B., The Village Labourer 1760–1832, fourth ed. (1927), pp. 237–38.Google Scholar

^{page 222 note 4} Report on the Silk Trade, p. 57.

^{page 223 note 1} Coventry Herald, 12 and 19 August 1831.

^{page 223 note 2} Ibid., 4 May 1832.

^{page 223 note 3} Hobsbawm, E. J., “The Machine Breakers”, in Labouring Men (1964), pp. 5ff.Google Scholar

^{page 224 note 1} Coventry Herald, 11 November 1831.

^{page 224 note 2} Ibid., 15 November 1833.

^{page 224 note 3} Report on the Silk Trade, pp. 59ff.; Report from the Select Committee on the Handloom Weavers [PP, 1835, XIII], pp. 232ff.; Report on the Handloom Weavers, Midland District, pp. 221ff.

^{page 224 note 4} Searby, , “Weavers and freemen”, pp. 236ff.Google Scholar

^{page 224 note 5} Ibid., pp. 211ff.

^{page 224 note 6} Coventry Herald, 1 August 1851.

^{page 224 note 7} Harriet Martineau, “Rainbow Making”, in: Household Words, 14 February 1852. The article was attributed to her by the Coventry Standard, 12 March 1852.

^{page 225 note 1} Coventry Herald, 13 September 1839; 8 April 1842.

^{page 225 note 2} Rudé, “Thomas Burbury”, loc. cit.

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Paternalism, Disturbance and Parliamentary Reform: Society and Politics in Coventry, 1819–32*

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