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Industrial Arbitration, Equity, and Authority in England, 1800—1850

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 October 2011

James A. Jaffe
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Extract

In an obscure aside, the well-known English working-class radical, Francis Place, remarked in his Autobiography that even when “in deepest poverty” he had tried to serve other artisans. Some he had helped to train up as small masters or foremen while others he aided by working to settle their problems and disputes. “I had many matters brought to me for adjudication, arbitration or arrangement,” he wrote. “I hardly know the time when for three months together I have been free from this kind of interference.” Most matters it seems had to do with debtors and their creditors, but others appear to have concerned the settlement of estates or even affairs “related to an association or large body of men.” While he may have been justly proud of his service to the working-class community, Place's comment provides an insight into working-class life that is rarely glimpsed. He did not choose the word arbitration accidentally. By the nineteenth century, life and work in England had been penetrated by forms of dispute resolution that were meant to secure “order without law.”

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Articles
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Law and History Review , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , Fall 2000 , pp. 525 - 558
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Copyright © the American Society for Legal History, Inc. 2000

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References

1. Thale, Mary, ed., The Autobiography of Francis Place (1771–1854) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 225–26.Google Scholar

2. This phrase is taken from Ellickson, Robert, Order without Law: How Neighbors Settle Disputes (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991)Google Scholar.

3. A broader account of arbitration in British civil and industrial relations is provided in Jaffe, James, Striking a Bargain: Work and Industrial Relations in England, 1815–1865 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000).Google Scholar

4. The recognition that the British system of industrial relations before the middle of this century was uniquely characterized by such “voluntarism” is largely due to Otto Kahn-Freund. See, for example, his “Legal Framework” in The System of Industrial Relations in Great Britain (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1954), ed. Allan Flanders and H. A. Clegg, 42–127. The term “informal” is used here to distinguish some forms of voluntary arbitration from those based on procedural or substantive laws. On the general distinction, see Ellickson, Order without Law, 65–81.

5. On the disciplinary state, see Gatrell, V. A. C., “Crime, Authority and the Policeman-State,” in The Cambridge Social History of Britain, 1750–1950, ed. Thompson, F. M. L. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 3:243–310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Gatrell argues that, despite some reservations, the governors of nineteenth-century Britain were increasingly committed to the maintenance of order and deference through “an evolving archipelago of centralised regulatory power.”

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17. Ingram, Church Courts, Sex and Marriage, 207, 307–8; Houlbrooke, Church Courts and the People, 67, 137.

18. Simpson, History of the Common Law of Contract, 174; Horwitz, Henry and Oldham, James, “John Locke, Lord Mansfield, and Arbitration during the Eighteenth Century,” Historical Journal 36.1 (1993): 140–41Google Scholar; Holdsworth, History of English Law, 14:189.

19. Horwitz and Oldham, “John Locke, Lord Mansfield, and Arbitration,” 137–59; Hold-sworth, History of English Law, 14:196–98.

20. Horwitz and Oldham, “John Locke, Lord Mansfield, and Arbitration,” 158–59; see also Mann, Bruce, “The Formalization of Informal Law: Arbitration before the American Revolution,” New York University Law Review 59.3 (1984): 443–81Google Scholar, cited in same.

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24. Simpson, A. W. B., Leading Cases in the Common Law, paper ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 145–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, “The Origins of Futures Trading in the Liverpool Cotton Market,” in Essays for Patrick Atiyah (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), ed. Crane, Peter and Stapleton, Jane, 179–208.Google Scholar See also Arthurs, H. W., “Without the Law”: Administrative Justice and Legal Pluralism in Nineteenth-Century England (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985), 65–67.Google Scholar

25. Kyd, Treatise on the Law of Awards, 10–11, 52–53, 63–64, 68–69; see also Caldwell, J. S., A Treatise of the Law of Arbitration (London: Butterworth and Son, 1817), 1–6.Google Scholar While the scope of arbitration, therefore, was quite broad by the end of the eighteenth century, the legal obligation to pursue arbitration was construed relatively narrowly by the courts during this period. An agreement to arbitrate disputes contained in articles of partnership or insurance policies, for example, could not prevent partners and policyholders from pursuing their cases simultaneously or in seriatim in the courts nor could a party to an arbitration agreement be compelled by the courts to refer a particular dispute to arbitrators. Therefore, if one partner brought suit against another, the defendant could not demand enforcement of the articles of their agreement invoking arbitration. In oral agreements to arbitrate, Kyd notes, the recitation of the phrase “I discharge you from proceeding any further” was sufficient to revoke the authority of the arbitrators to decide the issue. See Tatersall v. Groote, 1800, 2 Bos. and Pull. 135; Montague, A Digest of the Law of Partnership, 1:65n; Kyd, Treatise on the Law of Awards, 29–34; and Arthurs, “Without the Law,” 69.

26. Moher, James, “From Suppression to Containment: Roots of Trade Union Law to 1825,” in British Trade Unionism: The Formative Years, 1750–1850 (London: Longman, 1988), ed. Rule, J., 74–97.Google Scholar

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29. Chase, Malcolm, Early Trade Unionism: Fraternity, Skill and the Politics of Labour (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), 86–87.Google Scholar

30. Dobson, C. R., Masters and Journeymen: A Prehistory of Industrial Relations, 1717–1800 (London: Croom Helm, 1980), chap. 6Google Scholar; Moher, “From Suppression to Containment,” 82; Orth, Combination and Conspiracy, 45–46.

31. Orth, Combination and Conspiracy, 58; Chase, Early Trade Unionism, 83–91.

32. On the intent of act, see Rule, John, “Trade Unions, the Government and the French Revolution, 1789–1802,” in Protest and Survival: Essays for E. P. Thompson (London: Merlin Press, 1993), ed. Rule, J. and Malcomson, R., 119–21Google Scholar; for examples of workers' petitions against the act, see Journals of the House of Commons 55 (1799–1800): 645–16, 648, 665, 706–7, 712, 770–71.

33. Moher, “From Suppression to Containment,” 83.

34. Ibid.; Orth, Combination and Conspiracy, 50, 156–61.

35. 39 & 40 Geo. 3, c. 106, sees. 18–22; see also Amulree, Lord, Industrial Arbitration in Great Britain (London: Oxford University Press, 1929), 26–29.Google Scholar

36. The model for these procedures may have been taken from the Admiralty Courts where judges heard and dispensed with cases in a summary manner closely akin to arbitration. See Wiswall, F. L. Jr, The Development of Admiralty Jurisdiction and Practice since 1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 8–19Google Scholar; Rediker, Marcus, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700–1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 119–21.Google Scholar

37. Orth, Combination and Conspiracy, 55–56.

38. 39 & 40 Geo. 3, c. 90. On the acts generally, see J. L. Hammond and Barbara Hammond, The Skilled Labourer, rev. ed. (1927; London: Longman Group, 1979), 49–54; Amulree, Industrial Arbitration, 19–25; Mantoux, Paul, The Industrial Revolution in the Eighteenth Century, rev. ed. (1961; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), 458–62Google Scholar; Thompson, E. P., The Making of the English Working Class (New York: Vintage Books, 1963), 541Google Scholar; Glen, Robert, Urban Workers in the Early Industrial Revolution (London: Croom Helm, 1984), 148–50.Google Scholar

39. See sec. 10.

40. Reports from Committees: Report of the Select Committee on Petitions relating to the Act for settling Disputes between Masters and Workmen in Cotton Manufacture, Parliamentary Papers (hereafter PP) (1802–3), viii, 3, 33; Hammond and Hammond, The Skilled Labourer, 50.

41. Select Committee on Petitions, PP (1802–3), viii, 33–34; Amulree, Industrial Arbitration, 30–32.

42. Glen, Urban Workers, 148–49.

43. 44 Geo. 3, c. 87.

44. Hammond and Hammond, Skilled Labourer, 53–54; Glen, Urban Workers, 150.

45. Amulree, Industrial Arbitration, 44.

46. 1 & 2 Geo. 4, c. 75.

47. 5 Geo. 4, c. 96; Amulree, Industrial Arbitration, 46–47.

48. It should be noted as well that Parliament was concurrently expanding the summary jurisdiction of the magistracy over the wage nexus. In 1819, the authority of justices to decide disputes and order the payment of wages was formally extended to cover seamen (59 Geo. 3, c. 58), then, in 1823, to the wages of “any Servant in Husbandry or any Artificer, Calico Printer, Handicraftsman, Miner, Collier, Keelman, Pitman, Glassman, Potter, Labourer or other Person” (4 Geo. 4, c. 34), and subsequently to the hat, linen, fustian, cotton, iron, leather, fur, hemp, flax, mohair, and silk trades (10 Geo. 4, c. 52).

49. Macdonald, Alexander, Handybook of the Law Relative to Masters, Workmen, Servants, and Apprentices in all Trades & Occupations (London: W. Mackenzie, 1868), 269.Google Scholar I owe this reference to Marc Steinberg.

50. Place Papers, British Library Additional Manuscript (hereafter BL Add. Ms.) 27800, f. 21.

51. Place Papers, BL Add. Ms. 27799, f. 160.

52. Amulree, Industrial Arbitration, 50–51.

53. On savings banks, see 9 Geo. 4, c. 92, sec. 45, in which disputes between depositors and the bank were settled by compulsory arbitration. Similarly, the Friendly Societies Act, of 1829 (10 Geo. 4, c. 56), sec. 27, requires a society's rules to include whether disputes are to be settled by the summary jurisdiction of a magistrate or the appointment of arbitrators. Arbitrated settlements of salvaged ships were also reinforced by 1 & 2 Geo. 4, c. 75.

54. The relevant statutes are 3 & 4 Wm. 4, c. 42; 9 & 10 Viet., c. 97; and 17 & 18 Vict., c. 125. See also Arthurs, “Without the Law”, (67–77.

55. Arthurs, “Without the haw” 99–103.

56. Chitty, Joseph, The Practice of Law in all its Departments; with a view of Rights, Injuries, and Remedies, as ameliorated by recent Statutes, Rules, and Decisions (London: Henry Butterworth, 1834), 2:73–74.Google Scholar Considering this energetic defense of trial by jury, it is likely that this is the same “Mr. Chitty” who assisted Samuel Shepherd in the defense of T. J. Wooler on charges of seditious libel in 1817. On Mr. Chitty, T. J. Wooler, and the significance of trial by jury in radical rhetoric, see Epstein, James A., Radical Expression: Political Language, Ritual, and Symbol in England, 1790–1850 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 29–69.Google Scholar

57. See Webb, Sidney and Webb, Beatrice, The History of Trade Unionism, new ed. (1920; London: Longman, 1950), 337–38Google Scholar; Hunt, E. H., British Labour History, 1815–1914 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1981), 281–86.Google Scholar

58. See, for example, Hobsbawm, E. J., “Custom, Wages, and Work-Load in Nineteenth-Century Industry,” in Essays in Labour History (London: Macmillan, 1960), ed. Briggs, Asa and Saville, John, 113–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Belchem, John, Industrialization and the Working Class: The English Experience (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1990), 169–70Google Scholar, and Hunt, British Labour History, 282–86.

59. Price, Richard, Masters, Unions and Men: Work Control in Building and the Rise of Labour, 1830–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 116–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar, is a notable exception. While Price does not abjure the notion of a mid-Victorian “compromise,” he sees the adoption of arbitration after 1860 as a new tactic in employers' attempts to discipline workers and bring order to industrial relations. Although the context of his argument is significantly different from the one presented here, Price is one of the few historians to have recognized the existence of workers' resistance to arbitration and to have analyzed it in terms of shop floor authority.

60. Place Papers, BM Add. Ms. 27800, f. 21.

61. Modern Records Centre (MRC), University of Warwick Library, National Graphical Association (NGA), London Region: London General Trade Society of Compositors Minute Books, MSS. 28/CO/1/1/2, 5 May 1829.

62. The Weavers' Journal, 1 March 1836.

63. Place Papers, BL Add. Ms. 27803, ff. 358–63, Articles and Regulations of the West Riding Fancy Union, for the Protection of the Trade of the Fancy Manufacturer (Huddersfield, 1824).

64. James Digby, “A Poor Framework-Knitter's Last Appeal, and Best Advice,” Place Papers, BL Add. Ms. 27803, f. 338v.

65. Report from the Select Committee on Masters and Operatives (Equitable Councils of Conciliation), PP (1856), xiii, 9.

66. This, of course, is a distillation of a lengthy and complex debate. For a concise introduction to the problem as it applies to labor history, see Dave Lyddon, “Industrial-Relations Theory and Labor History,” International Labor and Working-Class History, no. 46 (Fall 1994), 122–41. Also by way of introduction, the issues in the debate are perhaps best brought out in articles by two of the major contributors to this dispute: Allan Flanders, “Industrial Relations: What Is Wrong with the System?” repr. in idem, Management and Unions (London: Faber and Faber, 1975), 83–128, and Hyman, Richard, “Pluralism, Procedural Consensus and Collective Bargaining,” British Journal of Industrial Relations 16.1 (March 1978): 16–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

67. Flanders, “Industrial Relations,” 94–95; Hyman, “Pluralism,” 34.

68. I follow here in part the Weberian distinction between “authority” and “power” elaborated by Armstrong, P. J., Goodman, J. F. B., and Hyman, J. D., Ideology and Shop-floor Industrial Relations (London: Croom Helm, 1981)Google Scholar in which “power” denotes the objective ability to impose one's will upon another while “authority” indicates the extent to which the use of power is perceived as legitimate.

69. Flinn, Michael W., The History of the British Coal Industry, vol. 2, 1700–1830: The Industrial Revolution (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), 349–58Google Scholar; Scott, Hylton, “The Miners' Bond in Northumberland and Durham,” pts. 1 and 2, Society of the Antiquaries of Newcastle-upon-Tyne 11.2, 3 (1947): 55–78, 87–98Google Scholar; Colls, Robert, The Pitmen of the Northern Coalfield: Work, Culture and Protest, 1790–1850 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987), 45–51, 64–73Google Scholar; Jaffe, James, The Struggle for Market Power: Industrial Relations in the British Coal Industry, 1800–1840 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), chap. 5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

70. Flinn, History of the British Coal Industry, 353.

71. Scott, “The Miners' Bond,” pt. 2, 90. Similar sections can be found in later bonds including the “typical” one published by the miners in A Candid Appeal to the Coal Owners and Viewers of the Collieries on the Tyne and Wear (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1826), the bond from Killingworth and Burraton Collieries from 1837–38 also published in Scott, “The Miners' Bond,” pt. 2, 94, and the 1841 Monkwearmouth Colliery bond published in Reports from Commissioners: Children's Employment (Mines), PP (1842), xvi, 536–38.

72. On bargaining over changing conditions, see Jaffe, Struggle for Market Power, 105–16.

73. Durham County Record Office (hereafter DCRO), T. Y. Hall Papers, NCB I/TH/20 (10). Other bonds provided for the presence of miners' and viewers' representatives while the tubs were measured, but no arbitration of the dispute as such. See Reports from Commissioners: Children's Employment (Mines), PP (1842), xvi, 538.

74. A Candid Appeal, 16.

75. Newcastle Central Library (hereafter NCL), Matthias Dunn's Diary, 23 February 1832.

76. Flinn, History of the British Coal Industry, 65.

77. DCRO, T. Y. Hall Papers, NCB/I/TH/20 (9).

78. For the following, see Newcastle Chronicle, 10 March 1832.

79. Hepburn's strike was eventually defeated in the following year. On the strike generally, see Colls, Pitmen of the Northern Coalfield, 88–98, 248–56; Jaffe, Struggle for Market Power, chaps. 7 and 8.

80. NCL, Matthias Dunn's Diary, 24, 25, 28 January; 2, 8, 13 February 1832.

81. Scott, “The Miners' Bond,” pt. 2, 94–98.

82. Porter, J. H., “Wage Bargaining under Conciliation Agreements, 1860–1914,” Economic History Review, 2d ser., 23.3 (1970): 460–75Google Scholar; more generally, see Church, Roy, The History of the British Coal Industry, vol. 3, 1830–1913: Victorian Pre-eminence (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 607–701.Google Scholar

83. M. Miles found that in the second half of the eighteenth century about one of every two disputes that came to the attention of the West Riding attorney John Eagle of Bradford was referred to arbitration. See Miles, M., “‘Eminent Practitioners’: The New Visage of Country Attorneys, c. 1750–1800,” in Law, Economy and Society, 1750–1914: Essays in the History of the English Law (Abingdon: Professional Books, 1984), ed. Rubin, G. R. and Sugarman, David, 495–97.Google Scholar James Losh, a Durham barrister, repeatedly noted that he earned a significant portion of his income through arbitration. See The Diaries and Correspondence of James Losh, vol. 1, Diary, 1811–1823, Hughes, E., ed., Surtees Society, vol. 171 (Durham and London, 1962), 13, 131.Google Scholar

84. Warburton, W. H., The History of Trade Union Organisation in the North Staffordshire Potteries (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1931), 70–79, 140–67Google Scholar; Fyson, Robert, “Unionism, Class and Community in the 1830s: Aspects of the National Union of Operative Potters,” in British Trade Unionism, 1750–1850: The Formative Years (London: Longman, 1988), ed. Rule, John, 200–19Google Scholar; Whipp, Richard, Patterns of Labour: Work and Social Change in the Pottery Industry (London: Routledge, 1990), 154–56.Google Scholar

85. Compare the descriptions of the pottery trades provided by Warburton, History of Trade Union Organisation, 44⁁49, and Whipp, Patterns of Labour, 145–61, with the northern mining industry described in Jaffe, Struggle for Market Power, 96–119.

86. Boyle, J., “An Account of Strikes in the Potteries, in the Years 1834 and 1836,” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 1 (1839): 37–38.Google Scholar

87. Ibid., 39; Fyson, “Unionism, Class and Community,” 212–13; Staffordshire Record Office (hereafter SRO), Letter Book of Samuel Allcock, MF 49/13.

88. Boyle, “An Account of Strikes in the Potteries,” 39; SRO, Letter Book of Samuel Allcock, MF 49/13, although Fyson suggests that the board's failure was due to the manufacturers' lack of faith. See “Unionism, Class and Community,” 212–13.

89. SRO, Letter Book of Samuel Allcock, MF 49/19.

90. Boyle, “An Account of Strikes in the Potteries,” 39.

91. Quoted in ibid., 40.

92. British Library of Political and Economic Science (hereafter BLPES), Webb Trade Union Collection, Section A, XLIV, ff. 252–53. Thanks to Marc Steinberg for this reference and Emma Taverner for the transcription.

93. An American observer sent by the State of Pennsylvania held the potteries up as an example of the successful operation of arbitration; see Weeks, Joseph, Report of the Practical Operation of Arbitration and Conciliation in the Settlement of Differences between Employers and Employees in England (Harrisburg, Pa.: L. S. Hart, 1879), 3.Google Scholar The Royal Commission on Trades Unions, Final Report, PP (1869), i, p. xxvii, also referred to the potteries' arbitration boards in quite favorable terms.

94. Warburton, History of Trade Union Organisation, 114.

95. Report from the Select Committee on Masters and Operatives (Equitable Councils of Conciliation), PP (1856), xiii, 49–50.

96. BLPES, Webb Trade Union Collection, Section A, XLIV, f. 297; Warburton, History of Trade Union Organisation, 151; see also Hollins's testimony before the Royal Commission on Trades Unions, 10th Report, PP (1868), ii, 86–89.

97. For a discussion of arbitration within the broader context of the theory and practice of job regulation in the London printing trades, see Jaffe, James, “Authority and Job Regulation: Rule-Making by the London Compositors during the Early Nineteenth Century,” Historical Studies in Industrial Relations, no. 3 (March 1997), 1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

98. Child, John, Industrial Relations in the British Printing Industry: The Quest for Security (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1967), 60–64Google Scholar; Howe, Ellic, ed., The London Compositor: Documents relating to Wages, Working Conditions and Customs of the London Printing Trade, 1785–1900 (London: Oxford University Press, 1947), 72–74, 84–87Google Scholar; London Union of Compositors, The London Scale of Prices for Compositors' Work: Agreed upon, April 16th, 1810, with Explanatory Notes, 2d ed. (London, 1837), 17–18.Google Scholar

99. Book of Rules of the London Trade Society, sees. 3–4; sections also reprinted in Howe, London Compositor, 190; Jaffe, “Authority and Job Regulation,” 6–9.

100. MRC, NGA, London Region: London Society of Compositors, Mss. 28/CO/1/1/1, London General Trade Society of Compositors (LGTSC) Minute Books, Quarterly Report, 5 February 1828. See also “Rules and Regulations of the Society,” 6 November 1827, and Howe, London Compositor, 190.

101. MRC, NGA, Mss. 28/CO/1/1/1, LGTSC Minute Books, Quarterly Meeting and Report, “Rules and Regulations of the Society,” sees. 16–17, 6 November 1827; MRC, NGA, Mss. 28/CO/1/1/1, LGTSC Minute Books, Quarterly Report, 5 February 1828, also quoted in Jaffe, “Authority and Job Regulation,” 9.

102. MRC, NGA, Mss. 28/CO/1/1/2, LGTSC Minute Books, 3 May 1831. The minutes of the Union Committee are catalogued as Mss. 28/CO/1/1/3 and those of the Trade Council as Mss. 28/CO/1/1/5–6.

103. MRC, NGA, Mss. 28/CO/1/1/1, LGTSC Minute Books, 6 May 1828, also quoted in Jaffe, “Authority and Job Regulation,” 12.

104. MRC, NGA, Mss. 28/CO/1/1/1, LGTSC Minute Books, Quarterly Meeting and Report, “Rules and Regulations of the Society,” 6 November 1827.

105. MRC, NGA, Mss. 28/CO/1/1/2, LGTSC Minute Books, 21 December 1829.

106. MRC, NGA, Mss. 28/CO/1/1/2, LGTSC Minute Books, 8 February 1830, also quoted in Jaffe, “Authority and Job Regulation,” 15–16; see also 12, 15, 26 October 1829; 16, 20, 23 November 1829; 2 February 1830. Such a process also was followed in the resolution of disputes over “lighting up time,” that is, the extra pay compositors expected for working after dark: Mss. 28/CO/1/1/3, Union Committee Minute Books, 1 and 15 October 1833.

107. See Annual Report of the Trade Council to the Members of the London Union of Compositors… to which are added the Rules & Regulations of the Union, as amended to February 1837 (London, 1837), 38, also quoted in Jaffe, “Authority and Job Regulation,” 16.

108. Interestingly, such joint arbitration panels functioned both in 1847 and 1856 to revise the 1810 scale of prices. See Howe, London Compositor, 262–66, and Proceedings of Arbitration Committee, or Conference of Masters & Journeymen. Freemason's Tavern. Friday, July 9th, 1847, MRC, NGA, Mss. 28/CO/1/10/1, which also include records of the 1856 arbitration meetings.

109. Howe, London Compositor, 222–24, 240–42.

110. MRC, NGA, Mss. 28/CO/1/1/5, London Union of Compositors (hereafter LUC) Trade Council Minute Book, 3 and 8 July 1834.

111. MRC, NGA, Mss. 28/CO/1/1/6, LUC Trade Council Minute Book, 27 December 1837, 20 February and 25 April 1838.

112. MRC, NGA, Mss. 28/CO/1/10/1, Proceedings of Arbitration Committee, or Conference of Masters & Journeymen. Freemason's Tavern. Friday, July 9th, 1847; Mss. 28/CO/ 1/1/10/1, Minute Books: 1846–1849, 16 November 1847.

113. Report from the Select Committee on Masters and Operatives (Equitable Councils of Conciliation), PP (1856), xiii, 225.

114. Place Papers, BL Add. Ms. 27799, ff. 119–21.

115. Place Papers, BL Add. Ms. 27803, f. 424v.

116. Anon., Capital Arraigned Against Labour; or, The Hand-loom Weaver contending for his Right (Macclesfleld, 1837).

117. The Spitalfields Weavers' Journal, no. 3 (October 1837), 19–22; no. 4 (November 1837), 28–31. This particular Act apparently sparked several important arbitration cases, many of which were widely reported. A further arbitration case from Kilmarnock (Scotland) is reported in The Weavers' Journal, no. 5, 1 March 1836, 37. In addition, such jurisdictional issues had a relatively long history of settlement by arbitration. A report in the Times, 1 September 1817, describes a similar case that the City magistrates referred to arbitration.

118. Kirby, R. G. and Musson, A. E., The Voice of the People: John Doherty, 1798–1854, Trade Unionist, Radical and Factory Reformer (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1975), 73–75Google Scholar; Fowler, Alan and Wyke, Terry, eds., The Barefoot Aristocrats: A History of the Amalgamated Association of Operative Cotton Spinners (Littleborough: G. Kelsall, 1987), 28.Google Scholar

119. White, George and Henson, Gravener, A Few Remarks on the State of the Laws, at Present in Existence, for regulating masters and work-people… (London, 1823), 101–2, 139–40.Google Scholar

120. Report from the Select Committee on Masters and Operatives (Equitable Councils of Conciliation, PP (1856), xiii, 20; Dutton, H. I. and King, J. E., “The Limits of Paternalism: The Cotton Tyrants of North Lancashire, 1836–1854,” Social History 7.1 (January 1982): 68–69.Google Scholar

121. White and Henson, A Few Remarks on the State of the Laws, 101–2, 139 – 40; see also Church, Roy A. and Chapman, S. D., “Gravener Henson and the Making of the English Working Class,” in Land, Labour and Population in the Industrial Revolution (London, 1967), ed. Jones, E. L. and Mingay, G. E., 148Google Scholar; Thomis, Malcolm, Politics and Society in Nottingham, 1785–1835 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969), 105–7.Google Scholar

122. Turner, H. A., Arbitration: A Study of Industrial Experience, Fabian Research Series, no. 153 (London: Fabian Society, 1952–1953), 2–9.Google Scholar

123. Ibid., 18–19.

124. Report from the Select Committee on Masters and Operatives (Equitable Councils of Conciliation), PP (1856), xiii, 11.

125. O'Neil, John, The Journals of a Lancashire Weaver, 1856–60, 1860–64, 1872–75, ed. Brigg, Mary, The Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, vol. 122 (Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 1982), 118–19.Google Scholar Although outside the chronological limits of this essay, the arbitration of the Clitheroe weavers' strike of 1861 is a dramatic example of voluntary arbitration of the type discussed above. This event is discussed in greater detail in Jaffe, Striking a Bargain.