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Protest, Proletarians and Paternalists: Social Conflict in Rural Wiltshire, 1830–1850

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 October 2008

Adrian Randall  and
Edwina Newman
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Extract

Few historians have made a more significant contribution to our understanding of social relations in the English countryside in the early nineteenth century than Roger Wells. In a series of publications, he has consistently and persuasively argued that, in the years from 1790 to 1834, the labourers of southern England fell victim to the rise of a new aggressive agrarian capitalism which fractured and destroyed an older complex social system, replacing it with the naked power of class interest and ushering in a new class consciousness among the rural labourers which corresponded to that developing in the towns among the industrial labourers. This class consciousness was the product of an active resistance which sometimes, as in Swing, took the form of overt protest. Swing, Wells believes, marked the clear expression of class conflict in the countryside. The labourers' defeat was compounded by the New Poor Law, by which triumphant agrarian capitalism imposed its new sway. Placing ‘a priceless premium on employment’, the New Poor Law transferred power into the hands of the large capitalist farmers who speedily came to dominate the Union boards. Under its pressure, residual aspects of ‘class collaboration’ between the labourers and the superior social orders dissolved. The labourers were left to develop a defensive class culture which found echoes in Chartism but was seen more extensively in a ‘class war’ which took the form of disorder, arson, poaching, ‘rough’ behaviour or in a parodied or cynical deference. Persuasive as Wells'’ case is, however, one element of rural society is, by and large, missing from it, and indeed from many other studies of rural protest in the nineteenth century: namely the landlords and, in particular, the largest landlords. Wells sees their role from 1815 to 1830 as being essentially niggardly, continuing to demand social discipline but increasingly failing to play their old role of mediator between the poor and the rate paying classes. Their support for the New Poor Law ‘proved to be the final nail in the coffin of rural paternalism’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Rural History , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , October 1995 , pp. 205 - 227
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

1 Wells has published extensively on the subject of the southern labourer. A recent volume, Reed, M. and Wells, R. (eds.), Class, Conflict and Protest in the English Countryside 1700–1880 (London, 1990)Google Scholar, contains both Wells, R., ‘The development of the English rural proletariat and social protest, 1700–1850’, which first appeared in The Journal of Peasant Studies, 6: 2, 1979Google Scholar, stimulating a rich debate, many of the contributions to which are reprinted in Class, Conflict and Protest, and a new and provocative piece, Wells, R., ‘Social protest, class, conflict and consciousness, in the English countryside, 1700–1880’, pp. 121–198.Google Scholar Quotations above are taken variously from this essay (hereafter simply ‘Social protest’).

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7 See Mann, J. de L., The Cloth Industry in the West of England from 1640 to 1880 (Oxford, 1971), Ch. 4Google Scholar; Randall, A.J., ‘The shearmen and the Wiltshire Outrages of 1802: trade unionism and industrial violence’, Social History 7: 3, 1982CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Randall, A.J., Before the Luddites (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 86–91, 94.Google Scholar

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9 Ibid., p. 227, and Caird, J., English Agriculture in 1850–1 (1851; London, 1968 edn.), p. 80.Google Scholar

10 Wiltshire County Record Office, (hereafter W.R.O.), T./A. Tisbury.

11 British Parliamentary Papers, (hereafter B.P.P.), 1868–9, XIII, 244.

12 Two threatening letters sent to farmers in Dauntsey and Figheldean in 1831 and 1855 respectively warned against the employment of out-workers; Public Record Office (hereafter P.R.O.), ASSI. 25/22/18, and the Devizes and Wiltshire Gazette (hereafter D.W.G.), 9 August 1855. The New Poor Law was seen as a useful weapon in some Unions to prevent beating out by prohibiting out relief, formerly given to job labourers’ families in the winter months; P.R.O., M.H.12/13751, Oliver Calley Codrington to the Poor Law Commission (hereafter P.L.C.), 4 November 1834, and M.H. 12/13776, Earl of Suffolk to P.L.C., 22 September 1844.

13 P.R.O., M.H.12/13735, Olivier to P.L.C., 15 October 1835.

14 Lord Churchill's steward described the parish as having a ‘great many small renters, very many of them not capable of much more than writing their own names’, and wrote of the problems of making ‘a clear statement of property which amongst so many small occupiers is from time to time changing hands’; P.R.O., M.H.I 2/13736, Kelsey to P.L.C., 25 November 1845.

15 W.R.O. 518/82.

16 P.R.O., H.O. 107/1839.

17 He sees this as ‘ the work of local men of independence and political inquiry mobilising their neighbours to take collective action during a period of political crisis’, Charlesworth, A., Social Protest in a Rural Society: The Spatial Diffusion of the Captain Swing Disturbances of 1830–1831 (Historical Geography Series, 1, Norwich, 1979), p. 57.Google Scholar

18 Wells, , ‘Social protest’, p. 191.Google Scholar See also pp. 184, 187–8.

19 B.P.P., 1834(44), XXXIV, 577e.

20 D.W.G., 25 November 1830.

21 The Times, 23 November 1830 and 7 January 1831.

22 The Times, 8 January 1831, and D.W.G., 2 December 1830 where rioters were described as ‘bold and impudent’.

23 The Times, 7 January 1831.

24 See, for example, Bohstedt, J., Riots and Community Politics in England and Wales (Harvard, 1983), chs 2 and 9.Google Scholar

25 P.R.O., H.O. 52/11, Col. Mair to Home Secretary, 26 November 1830.

26 D.W.G., 2 December 1830.

27 The Times, 6 January 1831.

28 The Times, 8 January 1831.

29 The Times, 5 January 1831.

30 W.R.O., 413/23, Chitty to Benett, 26 November 1830.

31 D.W.G., 25 November 1830 and The Times, 1 January 1831.

32 J.L., and Hammond, B., The Village Labourer (London, 1911; Longman, 1978 edn.), p. 193Google Scholar; Cobbett, , Rural Rides, p. 296.Google Scholar

33 This and the subsequent account of the riot in Tisbury comes from P.R.O., H.O.52/11, letter from Alford to Arundell, (no date) enclosed with letter from Arundell to Home Secretary, 6 December 1830; W.R.O., Machine Breaking Riots, Clerk of Hindon Division to Cobb, 26 November 1830; D.W.G., 2 December 1830 and The Times, 3 and 10 December 1830.

34 Arundell wrote to the Home Secretary of rumours rife in the parish that ‘Catholics and Dissenters have occasioned this disturbance'. Of the forty rioters arrested for Swing offences here, four were Catholics (the Arundells were an old Catholic family) and Alford was a Congregationalist.

35 B.P.P., 1817 (462), VI, 89–91.

36 P.R.O., H.O.52/11, Arundell to Home Secretary, 6 December 1830.

37 P.R.O., H.O.52/11, letters of 22 and 23 November 1830.

38 W.R.O., Machine Breaking, Printed handbill.

39 D.W.G., 2 December 1830.

40 D.W.G., 9 December 1830.

41 W.R.O., Machine Breaking Riots.

42 D.W.G., 9 December 1830.

43 D.W.G., 9 December 1830.

44 D.W.G., 2 December 1830.

45 P.R.O., H.O.40/25, Rev. Williams to Home Secretary, 14 December 1830.

46 The key to this often lay in rent reductions. In West Lavington, for example, Lord Churchill reduced rents by 10% in 1830 to allow farmers to raise wages from 7s. to 10s. a week. By May 1831 wages were only 9s. a week and Churchill reversed the rent reduction on the grounds that the farmers had not made the full expected increase. The farmers then used this as an excuse to reduce wages to 8s. a week. About 50 West Lavington labourers appealed to the magistrates whom they ‘trusted’ to restore their wage cut. Their trust proved unfounded. D.W.G., 2 and 9 June 1831.

47 Brundage, A., The Making of the New Poor Law 1832–39 (London, 1978), pp. 183–4.Google Scholar

48 Wells, , ‘Social protest’, p. 148.Google Scholar

49 Wells, , ‘Social protest’, pp. 155 and 170.Google Scholar See also Apfel, W. and Dunkley, P., ‘English rural society and the New Poor Law: Bedfordshire, 1837–47’, Social History, 10:1, 1985.Google Scholar

50 Knott, J., Popular Opposition to the 1834 Poor Law (London, 1986), pp. 8 and 87.Google Scholar

51 Mandler, , ‘The making’, p. 133.Google Scholar

52 Mandler, , ‘The making’, p. 156Google Scholar; Wells, , ‘Social protest’, p. 154Google Scholar, and Wells, R., ‘Rural Rebels in Southern England in the 1830s’ in Emsley, C. and Walvin, J., Artisans, Peasants and Proletarians 1760–1860 (London, 1985)Google Scholar; Brundage, , The Making, p. 183.Google Scholar

53 P.R.O., M.H.12/234, Meyrick to P.L.C., 22 January 1835.

54 P.R.O., M.H.12/13658, Rev. Duke to P.L.C., 20 November 1834 and 11 February 1835, and G. Lowther to P.L.C., 9 February 1835.

55 P.R.O., M.H.12/13849, John Hill to P.L.C., 13 January 1834; Asst. Overseer of East Tisbury toP.L.C, 18 May 1835.

56 P.R.O., M.H.12/13849 A'Court to P.L.C., 15 and 24 October 1835.

57 P.R.O., M.H.12/13849, Tisbury Guardians to P.L.C., December 1835.

58 P.R.O., M.H.12/13849, Benett to A'Court, 19 December 1838.

59 P.R.O., M.H.12/13849, A'Court to P.L.C., 23 December 1838; A'Court to Benett, 20 December 1838; Benett to A'Court, 19 December 1838.

60 P.R.O., M.H.12/13693, M.H.12/13720 and M.H. 12/13776.

61 P.R.O., M.H.12/13686, A'Court to P.L.C., 18 August 1836.

62 B.P.P., 1868–9, XIII, 244.

63 P.R.O., M.H.12/13686, Atherton to P.L.C., 9 September 1834.

64 D.W.G., 13 November 1834.

65 D.W.G, 22 January and 19 February 1835; Salisbury and Winchester Journal (hereafter S.W.J.) 23 February 1835; P.R.O., M.H.12/13686, Calne overseers to P.L.C., 18 January 1835.

66 D.W.G., 29 January 1835; P.R.O., M.H.12/13719.

67 P.R.O., M.H.12/13686, Calne Guardians to P.L.C., 10 April 1835.

68 P.R.O., M.H.I 2/13686, Calne Guardians to P.L.C., 16 December 1835.

69 P.R.O., M.H.12/13686, Atherton to P.L.C., 21 March 1837, and to A'Court, 25 March 1837.

70 P.R.O., M.H.12/13686, Calne Guardians to P.L.C., 11 April 1837.

71 P.R.O., M.H.12/13735, A'Court to P.L.C., 3 October 1835.

72 P.R.O., M.H.12/13735, Wadham Locke to P.L.C., 22 December 1834.

73 D.W.G., 18 April 1832,15 September 1832,1 May and 1 October 1835; S.W J., 23 September and 18 November 1833; P.R.O., M.H.12/13735, Bouverie to P.L.C., 10 September 1834.

74 B.P.P., 1834 (44), XXVIII.

75 P.R.O., M.H.12/13735, Sotheron Estcourt to P.L.C., 12 September 1834.

76 P.R.O., M.H.12/13735, Sotheron Estcourt to P.L.C., 18 April 1837.

77 For example, throughout 1838 they sent requests for the authorisation of the reception of one or two children of large families in need of relief into the workhouse, despite the Commissioners’ misgivings. P.R.O., M.H.12/13735, correspondence between Devizes Guardians and P.L.C., 9 and 11 May and 4 and 22 December 1838.

78 P.R.O., M.H.12/13736, Devizes Guardians to P.L.C., 9 February 1841. Lists of those relieved show money payments ranging from 3s. 3d. to 8s. 8d. per week to six families in Devizes, five in Bromham and three in Potterne, and payments half in money and half in kind to four families in West Lavington and one in Easterton.

79 P.R.O., M.H.12/13735, Olivier to P.L.C., 18 October 1835.

80 Mandler, , ‘The making’, pp. 133–4 and 156Google Scholar, and Brundage, A., Eastwood, D. and Mandler, P., ‘Debate: The making of the New Poor Law redivivus’, Past and Present, 127 (1990).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

81 Archer, J., By a Flash and a Scare: Incendiarism, Animal Maiming and Poaching in East Anglia, 1815–1870 (Oxford, 1990)Google Scholar; Jones, D., ‘Thomas Campbell Foster and the rural labourer: incendiarism in East Anglia in the 1840s’, Social History, 1, 1976CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Reay, B., The Last Rising of the Agricultural Labourers: Rural Life and Protest in Nineteenth-Century England (Oxford, 1990).Google Scholar

82 Wiltshire Independent (hereafter W.I.) 21 December 1843. For a discussion of the use of arson by West of England textile workers, see Randall, , Before the Luddites, pp. 155–64, 179.Google Scholar

83 D.W.G., 27 January and 10 March 1831, 15 September 1832, 19 September 1833, 1 May and 1 October 1835, 3 March, 17 March and 14 April 1836, 16 March 1837, 16 May 1839, 2 April and 23 April 1840, 16 March 1843. S.W.J., 23 September and 18 November 1833. W.I., 25 March 1841.

84 P.R.O., M.H.12/13735, Compton to P.L.C., 6 February and 11 March 1835.

85 D.W.G., 2 April 1846. John Archer's recent study of arson in East Anglia has offered a timely reminder that it is often misleading to make artificial divisions between overt and covert protest. This incident is a prime example of covert protest being used as an opportunity for a collective display of popular disapproval. Archer, By a Flash, p. 24.

86 D.W.G., 8 July 1847.

87 D.W.G., 16 April 1840 and 11 March 1841.

88 Arson fires at Redlinch, Fisherton Anger and Winterbourne Earls all had connections with hostility to the police. D.W.G., 20 March 1862 and 16 December 1869.

89 D.W.G., 27 October 1842.

90 D.W.G., 14 March 1844 and 4 October 1849.

91 D.W.G., 16 March 1837, 28 April 1838, 16 May 1839. Estcourt was one of the magistrates presiding at these Petty Sessions.

92 D.W.G., 4 June 1857.

93 Mandler, ‘The making’, p. 137.

94 It was reported that ‘if a man is only fancied to be one of the police he is subject to attack’, and in 1840 two strangers mistaken for constables were attacked in the parish. D.W.G., 27 August 1840.

95 D.W.G., 6 June 1850.

96 D.W.G., 12 March 1857.

97 There had been a strike among labourers in South Newton, Wishford and Stoford on the Earl of Pembroke's estate in October 1849, also against a wage cut to 6s. or 7s. Here too the labourers first action had been to go in deputation to Wilton House to appeal to the landowner. The Times, 3 November 1849.

98 Unless otherwise stated, the evidence for the West Lavington strike comes from D.W.G., 21 and 28 February and 16 May 1850, and B.P.P., 1852–3 (603), XXXVI.

99 W.I., 12 February 1846.

100 Goatacre was a hamlet in the parish of Hilmarton in the Calne Union.

101 D.W.G., 8 January 1846.

102 For a fuller consideration of these events, see Newman, E., ‘The Anti-Corn Law League and the Wiltshire labourer’ in Holderness, B.A. and Turner, M. (eds.), Land, Labour and Agriculture 1700–1920 (London, 1991).Google Scholar

103 W.I., 3 April, 12 June and 4 December 1845.

104 W.l., 13 June and 26 September 1844.

105 Scott, J., The Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven, 1985), especially ch. 8.Google Scholar