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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2016
The fall of Charles Stewart Parnell as a result of the O'Shea divorce case in late 1890 is a dramatic episode of lasting human interest and an event of the first importance in the history of Ireland and of British politics. The story of the crisis has often been told, usually from the perspectives of the two Homeric protagonists, Parnell and Gladstone. While it is generally agreed that the English nonconformists played a decisive part in the dethronement of ‘the uncrowned king of Ireland’, their catalytic role has never been clearly, accurately, or fully explained. The problem is of special interest because it was during this controversy that ‘the nonconformist conscience’ entered the English language as a popular phrase as it had long before entered English politics as a potent reality. It is the purpose of this article to study the Parnell affair from the vantage point of English nonconformity and, in so doing, to re-examine the origin of the famous phrase and to throw light on the relationship of nonconformity and the liberal party in a critical phase of the home rule movement.
1 Full studies of Parnell’s fall are contained in : Hammond, J.L., Gladstone and the Irish nation (1938),Google Scholar and O’Brien, Conor Cruise, Parnell and his party, 1880–90 (1957).Google Scholar Lyons, F.S.L., The fall of Parnell (1960),Google Scholar which deals with the whole subject in authoritative detail, has appeared since this article was written. The older standard biographies of Gladstone and Parnell are still valuable : Morley, John, Life of William Ewart Gladstone (1903), 3. 426–59,Google Scholar and O’Brien, R. Barry, Life of Charles Stewart Parnell, 1846–1891 (1898), 2. 235–88.Google Scholar There is an excellent brief treatment of the crisis in Ensor, R.C.K., England, 1870–1914 (1936), pp. 183–5.Google Scholar For nonconformist politics in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Cocks, H.F. Lovell, The nonconformist conscience (1943)Google Scholar is a significant critical appraisal by a modern free churchman, and Glaser, John F., ‘English nonconformity and the decline of liberalism’ (American Historical Review, 63 (Jan. 1958))CrossRefGoogle Scholar is a survey with bibliographical references.
2 SirMarchant, James, Dr John Clifford, CH., life, letters and reminiscences (1924), p. 80.Google Scholar
3 For this political background, see Glaser, , loc. cit., pp. 355–7.Google Scholar
4 Christian World, 9 Jan. 1890. Clifford’s article, ‘The national conscience’, was concerned with ‘the sufferings of the poor, the miseries of the weak, the peril of the lonely, the ravages of the gambler, the wreck of the drunken, and the wretchedness of the fallen’. For the moral scene, see Ensor, op. cit., pp. 169–71, 339–40; Whyte, Frederic, Life of W. T. Stead, 1. 159 ff.Google Scholar; [Dorothea Price Hughes], Life of Hugh Price Hughes (1904), pp. 85–6, 259 ff., 338–45; Marchant, op. cit., p. 64.
5 The Times, 18 Nov. 1890. See The history of The Times, iii (1947), pp. 43–89 and iv, pt II (1952), pp. 1145–8, for ‘Parnellism and crime’ and its catastrophic effect on the fortunes of the paper.
6 Hammond, op. cit., pp. 633–4. See also his letter of the 17th to Acton on p. 632 and that of the 18th to Morley in Morley, Gladstone, iii. 430.
7 On 18 Nov, Quoted in the Review of Reviews, ii (Dec. 1890), p. 604.
8 22 Nov. 1890.
9 On 19 Nov., O’Brien, , Parnell, 2. 242.Google Scholar
10 Both quoted in The Times, 19 Nov. 1890.
11 Quoted in The Times, 18 Nov, 1890.
12 Saxon Mills, J., Sir Edward Cook, K.B.E., a biography (1921), p. 109.Google Scholar ‘It is Mr Parnell's clear duty to send in his resignation to his constituents .… Can any sane man believe that the home rule cause will benefit during the next six months by the hero of the many aliases being retained as one of the twin commanders-in-chief, or that the fire-escape will be the golden bridge to conduct the waverers back to the liberal party.’
13 O’Brien, , Parnell and his party, pp. 276, 287.Google Scholar ‘The question for Mr Parnell is—is he going to put the loyalty of the Irish people to a test which will disintegrate the forces behind the home rule cause in Britain?’
14 Star, 19 Nov. 1890. Written on the 18th, it was reprinted on the 20th in The Times, where it reached a wide public. I am indebted to Professor Basil L. Crapster of Gettysburg College for checking the files of the Star for this reference. The standard biography of Clifford does not mention the Parnell affair. Hammond is the only historian who has even implicitly recognized Clifford's importance in the agitation.
15 The Times, 19 Nov. 1890. ‘It is worse than useless to distinguish between personal character and political leadership. Every argument for home rule is just as strong as ever; but the better the cause, the cleaner should be the hands that handle it.’
16 Christian World, 20 Nov. 1890.
17 Methodist Times, 20 Nov 1890. Hughes devoted the entire first page of his ‘Notes of current events’ to this topic.
18 Whyte, , Stead, 2. 20.Google Scholar For further information on Stead’s activity and on Cardinal Manning’s private communications with the Irish bishops and his plea to Gladstone to intervene, see Hammond, , Gladstone and the Irish Nation, pp. 635–6, 628.Google Scholar
19 Colman, Helen Caroline, Jeremiah James Colman, a memoir (1905), pp. 324–5.Google Scholar In a letter to another liberal on the same day, Colman described the changed political situation in East Anglia . ‘I should not mind predicting, that if an election came on in a moderately short time from now, if Parnell persists in his present position, the chances of winning seats in such constituencies as Lowestoft, Ipswich, Lynn, East Norfolk, S.W. Norfolk, is practically hopeless, though a week ago there was a fair prospect in each of these cases’ (p. 325).
20 Hamer, F.E. (ed.), The personal papers of Lord Rendel (1931), p. 126.Google Scholar Rendel is quoting remarks of John Morley in 1895. For a portrait of Colman as ‘a typical nonconformist politician of his generation’ and a portrait of his summer home at Cortón as a social centre of nonconformity and liberalism, see Guinness Rogers, J. An autobiography (1903), pp. 268–78.Google Scholar
21 Morley, , Recollections (1917), 1. 257.Google Scholar Percy Corder, Life of Robert Spence Watson (1914) does not refer to the incident, but helps to document the opinion that Watson was the leading liberal outside parliament in this era.
22 Gardiner, A.G., Life of Sir William Ear court (1923), 2. 83–4.Google Scholar Morley’s letter to Gladstone on the 22nd was less agitated but equally alarming ‘ The feeling there [Sheffield] was as strong as strong could be, that Parnell’s leadership is, for a time at least, intolerable .… Guinness Rogers, I hear, is as strong as Clifford or Hughes, the Wesleyan’ ( Hammond, , Gladstone and the Irish nation, pp. 636–7).Google Scholar
23 Daily News, 24 Nov. 1890. This was the first issue of the paper to carry any references to Parnell outside of the court reports.
24 Methodist Times, 27 Nov. 1890. Italics mine. The British Weekly of the same date contained a correspondent’s account, which said that from the beginning of his address, Mr Hughes fully maintained his great reputation as one of the first popular orators in Britain’. There were some hecklers, but Hughes claimed that of the audience of 2500, only four offered opposition (Daily News, 25 Nov. 1890).
25 Daily News, 24 Nov. 1890.
26 Daily News, 25 Nov. 1890. Illingworth compared Parnell with the captain of a ship which had almost reached its destination. Jacob Bright also defended Parnell. Though a former quaker and generally regarded as a free churchman, he was not a distinctively nonconformist figure. It is significant that Hughes later criticized Bright, but not Illingworth.
27 Morley, , Gladstone, 3. 433.Google Scholar
28 Hamer, , Rendel, p. 26.Google Scholar
29 Morley, , Gladstone, 3. 436–7.Google Scholar
30 There is a useful chronology of events in O’Brien, C.G., Parnell and his party, pp. 278–9.Google Scholar The same chapter contains the best account of Irish reaction to Gladstone’s intervention.
31 Ibid., p. 297.
32 Morley, , Reminiscences, 1. 259–60.Google Scholar
33 Hamer, , Rendel, p. 26.Google Scholar Rendel’s account that Morley later blamed Gladstone and ‘Colman, the mustard man’ (p. 126) is inconsistent with both Morley’s action at the time and his reminiscences.
34 Birrell, Francis, Gladstone (1933), pp. 124–31,Google Scholar and Birrell, Augustine, Things past redress (1937), pp. 125–6.Google Scholar Francis Birrell’s satirical account reflects an inadequate understanding of the nonconformists and of the National Liberal Federation, which he calls ‘the canaille of the liberal party’. Both he and his father advance the view, which the facts do not warrant, that Gladstone was forced to act against his will by the unduly frightened Morley and Harcourt.
35 Hammond, , Gladstone and the Irish nation, pp. 637–8, 627–8.Google Scholar Hammond prints a letter (pp. 644–6) of Gladstone to Parnell in 1889, in which he warned Parnell of the power of the nonconformists in the liberal party and of the limits of his own influence over them. The occasion was Parnell's possible support of a bill for a catholic university in Ireland.
36 Gardiner, , Harcourt, 2. 84.Google Scholar
37 A characteristic anecdote of Hughes in this respect is related by his daughter. As a young man, he was told by a local liberal politician, ‘You must not upset the party with your teetotalism, Hughes’. ‘“ Your party’, exclaimed my father, … ‘what do I care for your party? I have to do with temperance and the cause of God.” ( Hughes, , Hughes, p. 85.)Google ScholarPubMed
38 For criticism of Gladstone, see Hammond, , Gladstone and the Irish nation, p. 644 Google Scholar; of Parnell, O’Brien, , Parnell and his party, p. 348.Google Scholar
39 Christian World, 27 Nov. 1890.
40 O’Brien, , Parnell and his party, p. 288.Google Scholar Joshua Rowntree, English quaker M.P., wrote Hughes. ‘I entreat you to be just to the Irish people, and to adopt the methods of Christ and not those of Oliver Cromwell. You call them prospectively obscene in the interests of social purity ! The English and Scotch have a long and weary journey to travel before they attain to the Irish standard of purity’ (Methodist Times, 27 Nov 1890).
41 O’Brien, , Parnell, 2. 242.Google Scholar
42 Speaker, 29 Nov. 1890. This leading article, ‘Some reflections for fanatics’, attacked ‘the clamour of a too eloquent morality’.
43 Methodist Times, 27 Nov. 1890; 4 Dec. 1890; 11 Dec. 1890; and British Weekly, 27 Nov. 1890; 4 Dec. 1890.
44 Review of Reviews, ii, no. 12 (Dec. 1890), p. 604. Pp. 598–608 give the story of Parnell's fall from Stead’s personal point of view. The account is vivid but contains some inaccuracies. Though active with pamphlets and private letters during the crisis, Stead, preeminently a journalist, was handicapped by the fact that his monthly review did not appear until 2 December, two weeks after the divorce verdict. That Stead continued to help inflame Irish opinion is evidenced by the fact that he devoted the first page of this issue to ‘the were-wolf woman of Irish politics’, as he called Mrs O’Shea.
45 Christian World, 27 Nov. 1890.
46 Methodist Times, 27 Nov. 1890.
47 British Weekly, 27 Nov. 1890. Social problems, the drink question, and religious equality were mentioned as pressing reforms.
48 Daily News, 1 Dec. 1890.
49 Daily News, 2 Dec. 1890.
50 Daily News, 3 Dec. 1890.
51 Daily News, 9 Dec. 1890. In addition to the extensive correspondence criticizing Parker, the Daily News printed scores of resolutions by liberals and nonconformist groups praising Gladstone’s action.
52 Christian World, 4 Dec. 1890.
53 Hamer, , Rendel, p. 87.Google Scholar
54 For example, the leading article of 26 Nov. 1890 . ‘Mr Gladstone has of late prostituted his immense abilities, his vast popularity, and the prestige of his long career in order to debauch the moral sense of the British people, to obliterate from their minds broad distinctions between right and wrong, and to improse upon them the rule of sedition-mongers and criminal conspirators. For himself and his party, he has condoned falsehood, fraud, and violence upon a colossal scale, and not waded up to the neck in a moral slough, confident in his fancied knowledge of the bottom, and he has suddenly plunged over head and ears into an unguessed abyss.’
55 Hughes, , Hughes, pp. 357–8.Google ScholarPubMed The official history of The Times makes no reference to this episode or to Parnell’s fall.
56 The Times, 28 Nov 1890. ‘Conscience’ was a word frequently used by nonconformists; see Glaser, loc. cit., p. 357. Earlier in the century Lord Palmerston had said, ‘In the long run English politics will follow the consciences of the dissenters’. Payne, Ernest A., The free church tradition in the life of England (1944), p. 102.Google Scholar
57 The Times, 28 Nov. 1890.
58 The Times, 17 Dec. 1890.
59 The Times, 18 Dec. 1890.
60 The Times, 31 Dec. 1890. At the same time, Allon, former editor of the British Quarterly Review, expressed his dislike of the use of the term ‘nonconformist conscience’ in relation to purely political matters : ‘What has my nonconformity, or my episcopacy, or my Roman Catholicism to do with my judgments concerning the expediency of home rule advocacy, or home rule leaders?’
61 The Times, 8 Jan. 1891.
62 Methodist Times, 11 Dec. 1890.
63 For this movement, Jordan, E.K.H., Free church unity : history of the free church council movement, 1896–1941 (1956), pp. 22 ff.Google Scholar This informative work underestimates the importance of political cooperation among free churchmen as one basis for the religious cooperation of the free churches. This is especially true of the Wesleyan methodists, who until Hughes’s time had stood aloof, both politically and ecclesiastically, from the other nonconformist denominations.
64 Daily News, 1, 20 June 1892.
65 W.P. Byles, member of a prominent congregationalist family in Bradford, in a letter to the Independent, 29 Jan. 1892. His protest was occasioned by nonconformist attacks on Sir Charles Dilke's candidature for parliament. There was less unanimity among nonconformists concerning Dlike in 1891 and 1892 than concerning Parnell in 1890.
66 Thompson, Laurence, Robert Blatchford . portrait of an Englishman (1951), p. 65.Google Scholar