Chapter 4 – Radical Reformers, 1780-1819 Flashcards
What threat did the radical reformers pose to the government in the 1790s?
1) French Revolution 1789: dramatic impact on British political life. Caused WIDESPREAD DEBATE: wordsworth “bliss was it in that dawn to be alive” VS restrained governing classes, thought French establish constitutional monarchy VS Burke (11/1790: Reflections on the R in F) appalled by violence: gov derived authority from tradition, not consent, celebrated rule by monarchy, feared anarchy.
YES 2) FR revitalized reform in Britain & stimulated more radical (eg. Paine)–
- JANUARY 1792 London Corresponding Society formed, weekly meetings:
a) discussed poverty and high prices faced by working-people
b) adopted political programme: universal manhood suffrage, secret ballot, payment of MPs
gov alarmed by SOCIAL COMPOSITION of group; led by shoemaker Thomas Hardy: most members skilled working class men/craftsmen/small traders, angry and impatient w exclusion.
3) Many such societies formed in cities ACROSS THE COUNTRY, CORRESPONDED with each other & France.
- Pamphlets.
- Could call several thousand people out to streets for demo @ height of influence, mid 1790s
Why did the publication of Tom Paine’s ‘The Rights of Man’ have such a great impact?
- Most popular and influential response to Burke’s book.
Part 1 (Feb 1791) Part II (April 1792): applauded changes in France. - Dismissed Burke’s insistence on the need to follow tradition and role of monarchy and aristocracy: ‘Burke is contending for the authority of the dead over the rights and freedoms of the living’; opposed ‘idle luxury’ of aristocratic rule’, ‘puppet show’ of hereditary succession
- sweeping reforms to improve the lives of working men and women: free education for all, free pensions for elderly
- Universal Manhood Suffrage: all men, not just rich/property owners, had the right to vote for MP: working men could get elected and pass laws to benefit them
REVOLUTIONARY. ALARMING: sold cheaply, BESTSELLER: 200,000 copies of Part II within a year. Many skilled working classes were literate, others heard it in pubs/clubs/homes. Not the kind of people (propertied classes) traditionally involved in political discussion.
How did the government respond to radicalism in the 1790s?
despite evidence of loyalist support, increasingly afraid of the growth of radical societies and upsurge of popular unrest, fear of revolutionary conspiracy reinforced by reports from local magistrates- measures:
1) May and December 1792: proclamations against seditious writings, mainly targeting Paine; authorised gov use of spies/opening letters/infiltrating radical groups
2) 1794: 41 radicals (inc Hardy) arrested & charged for high treason (abandoned after Hardy acquitted)
3) May 1794-July 1795: Habeus Corpus suspended: round up suspects & detain indefinitely w/o trial
4) 1795 (threat at highest, unrest inflamed by harvest failure, food shortages, high prices)- Treasonable Practices (words, not just actions, treasonable: primarily intimidate, no radical prosecuted under it) and the Seditious Meetings Act passed (no meetings of over 50 without magistrate)
Who were the Luddites?
The 1800S, campaign for reform revived as threat of invasion receeded
1) 1810-11: men with blackened faces attacking factories and mils by night; indu. towns & villages of Nottinghamshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire.
2) on mills & factories w new machines (esp. textile industry), destroyed; SKILLED MEN who still used traditional, hand-operated machinery for spinning/weaving- jobs under threat by machines & new women & children minders
3) after Ned Ludd: inspire and lead, Robin Hood (exist?)
4) SHOCKED authorities. Thousands of Troops in north and Midlands to counter threat. Machine breaking made a capital offence. Several executions & return of better working conditions, outbreaks petered out.
5) not politically motivated.
What were the effects of the end of the war with France?
A nationwide, political agitation emerged, aim was complete manhood suffrage.
1) £££ war: gov had to increase taxes, borrowed vast amount (raise money in tax to pay interest). Years after war: interest payed on these loans used 80% of gov income.
2) During war, income tax (direct): only rich paid. End of war: MPs reminded gov that income tax only temporary measure, drop plz. INDIRECT TAXES: everyday items- sugar. tea. soup. beer. candles. tobacco. hit poor harder than rich
3) UNEMPLOYMENT:
a) 300,000 returned from war seeking work; no pensions/allowances.
b) GOV CONTRACTS DRIED UP: industries like textiles, coal, iron, engineering found laid off workers
4) ban imports on foreign wheat
What evidence is there that radical reformers did not pose a threat to the government in the 1790s?
4) but loyalist backlash: many, esp propertied, defended gov.
Britains horrified when Jan 1793 France executed king; contrast to British stability. Loyalist associations supported by gov
- appealed to hatred of France (2 wars in 30y), exploited public fear of radical change;
- concerted anti-radical propaganda campaign in papers, pamphlets, cartoons: Manchester Mercury- ‘crush those insidious vipers who would poison the minds of the people’
5) end of 1795 effectively silenced
- gov policy, ‘reign of terror’ a success. fewer than 200 people convicted 1790s. hung threat over radicals: intimidate, harass, arrest leaders, silence propaganda: many frightened into abandoning. accepted by propertied & working people
- Britain and France war, early 1793, patriotic feeling meant radicals = traitors, enemy agents: far more joined loyalist associations than radical societies: LCS @ height no more than 5k, loyalist associations far outnumbered radical societies. Damped enthusiasm for reform.
QUIET, BUT NOT DISAPPEARED; UNDERGROUND
A) What were the Corn Laws?
B) How did some argue for it?
C) How did some argue against?
D) Impact?
A) During war: Britain relied almost exclusively on its own farmers for wheat
War ended: landowners (dominated parliament) demanded a BAN on imports of foreign wheat:
Passed in 1815, The Laws imposed tariffs and import duties on foreign wheat-
Import of wheat BANNED till price reached 80 shillings a quarter.
B) Landlords said Britain needed to be self sufficient because-
1) may be another war
2) population in rising so fast
3) Hunger and Famine had been one of the major causes of the F. R.; determined to avoid
4) Agriculture employed many more people than any other industry + claimed hundreds of thousands of farmers (+labourers) could be out of work if Britain flooded with cheap foreign wheat
C) Critics: purely ‘class legislation’; passed by landowning parliament for for completely selfish reasons- safeguard landowners’ profits and rents
D) taxes like these convinced many outside Parliament that they could never expect fairness and justice unless electoral system changed: Political means to improve living conditions
Why did so many working people demand parliamentary reform after 1815?
Corn Laws showed that people couldn’t expect justice and fairness if electoral system remained unchanged.
Luddite risings provoked harsh government response
Economic effects of war (gov debt, new taxes, hit the poor hardest, unemployment)
Corn laws
Used the campaign in the press, political clubs and public meetings
What was the impact of William Cobbett’s Political Register?
1) Most widely read journalist, most widely read radical journal after 1815, traveled thousands of miles around Britain to win support & learn more about living/working conditions: championed their cause
2) Produced a Weekly Political Register: short pamphlet for 2d/week, read by thousands (+ word of mouth)
3) Attacked the government for people’s suffering:
a) esp. ‘placemen’ and government ‘pensioners’ and ‘fundholders’: ‘parasites’ and ‘taxeaters’
b) Governing classes were ‘unproductive’, ‘idle’ vs ‘industrious classes’ who starved so they could live in luxury.
(“As to the causes of our present miseries, it is the enormous amount of taxes”)
4) V HARSH WINTER 1816-17 + Poor harvest in summer = bread prices rose higher than ever = Cobbett’s arguments received enthusiastically by w.c.
Said his writings were being read in nearly every cottage in south Lancashire & east Midlands
5) Samuel Bamford (radical Lancashire weaver): Cobbett’s ‘influence was speedily visible; he directed his readers to the true cause of their sufferings - misgovernment, and to its proper corrective- parliamentary reform’
Who was John Cartwright?
the ‘father’ of all newspaper agitators
gentleman-farmer; forefront of radical politics for 40 years; manhood suffrage guaranteed in Saxon times and lost during Norman conquest
Early 1800s, spent months travelling in the Midlands, the north and Scotland to see how these areas had been affected by economic hardship
Convert listeners/readers to parliamentary reform/ establish links between reformers across country
Founded Hampden Club, a radical reformer since 1770s
What was the importance of John Cartwright and the Hampden Clubs?
Hampden Club (1812), the best known of the radical clubs in pubs/chapels/cottages that many of Cobbett’s readers attended.
1) FIRST ESTABLISHED by Cartwright, agitate for a ‘general suffrage’ & win over ‘respectable’ support for reform (but most ‘respectable’ people too afraid of radicalism, revolution, didn’t join)
2) THEN HOWEVER working men set up Hampden clubs in industrial areas of Lancashire, Yorkshire, Midlands; anyone paying 1d/week subscription, to finance publication of pamphlets 4 universal suffrage and rejection of Corn Laws
3) 1816-17, organised a PETITIONING CAMPAIGN (petition to parliament long-established, legal method):
a) 100s of villages and towns (esp. industrial. L,Y,M, central Scotland) signatures collected. All demanded Reform, most called for end of C.L. & fairer taxes
b) Some of the strongest support was in Lancashire: thousands of handloom weavers, threatened with loss of job, at the forefront.
4) Villages and towns across country held meetings, selected representatives to attend nationwide meeting in LDN
What happened at Peterloo?
Mocking comparison with the British victory at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815
1) 1818 offered some relief from the harship of the previous two years (trade, unemployment); habeas corpus restored & ban on large meetings lifted;
1819 saw 4 monster meetings planned as a demonstration of radical, w-c strength, with the final one in St. Peter’s Field, Manchester, in August
2) Radical clubs & political unions across Lancashire prepared; some took part in military style drilling before marching in;
whole families, ‘Sunday best’, hear Hunt; ‘the people for the most part took off their hats’ when anthem played; over 60,000
3) Manchester magistrates decided to ‘bring the matter to issue’; one declared
‘If the agitators of the country determine to preserve in their meeting, it will necessarily prove a trial of strength and there must be a conflict’ -
yeomanry (volunteer cavalry, mainly Manchester traders & shopkeepers) called, professional troops on standby
4) magistrates ordered arrest of Hunt, yeomanry tried to reach, but crowds closed in so some used swords to clear path & troops sent in
5) Yeomanry drunk, inexperienced, scared;
11 people killed (2 women, a child) and 400 injured (many crushed)
OUTCRY IN PRESS, inc. in The Times and other middle-class papers
In Parliament, the gov’s critics made much of the ‘massacre’; esp when
GOVERNMENT CONGRATULATED the Manchester magistrates for their ‘prompt, decisive and efficient measures for the preservation of public tranquility’
Radicals attracted more and more sympathy; gov increasingly unpopular
** Who was Henry Hunt?
spa fields, pentridge
Orator Hunt (PUBLIC MEETINGS, part of trifecta, radical press, political clubs)
farming background like C and C
1) became a hero to working classes; no interest in winning the support of ‘gentleman reformers’
2) looked to huge outdoor meetings, ‘members unlimited’, to rouse the masses & provide springboard for a rising
3) No riots: organised, orderly and peaceful to demonstrate newfound power and discipline.
4) Meetings of such huge numbers = gov find it hard to resist demands
the ‘mass platform’: massive demos and thousands of signatures
5) Manchester, Birmingham, London
‘the intrepid champion of the people’s rights’ = his name in North
What was the government’s response to popular protest?
In 1917, Parliament received over 700 petitions, some signed by thousands;
- a few radicals in parliament and some members of Whig Party were sympathetic,
- most MPs were afraid of this demonstration of popular feeling, disagreed w ums; petitions ignored/dismissed
1) knew hunger and hardship motivated many demonstrators: Lord Sidmouth wrote to his brother in summer 1816 ‘It is to the autumn and winter that I look with anxiety’, depression in trade/poor harvest hit
THE GAGGING ACTS….
2) felt threatened: demos smacked of revolution (esp. when violent) - REGENT’S COACH attacked soon after Spa Fields, the gov suspended HABEUS CORPUS (arrested on suspicion of being a revolutionary)
3) March 1817, Parliament passed an Act which made it illegal to hold a meeting of more than 50 people.
….MEANT RADICALS FORCED UNDERGROUND, planning and co-ordination difficult; false names and codes SO GOV USED SPIES AND INFORMERS
1) agents provocateurs pretend to be agitators, join radical groups, encourage uprisings. Help plan and let gov know… red-handed
- What happened during the Spa Fields meeting, London?
Dec 1816
Huge meeting
Henry Hunt due to address crowd: carnival like, thousands there (clubs, families, communities, in and around)– banners, bands, stalls, slogans
Leaflets circulated among crowd (one said ‘BRITONS TO ARMS!’ ‘no Regent; no Castlereagh, off with their heads’
Before Hunt arrived (calling for lower taxes and reform), a small section of crowd rioted: broke into gun shops, seized weapons, marched to Tower on London
Riots lasted several hours, looting BUT majority in crowd were peaceful, loyal, thousands joined in singing anthem
