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Tuesday 4 December 2007

Aspects of Chartism: Chartism and the State 1

 

Relations between the government and Chartism were of mutual hostility[1]. Chartists denounced Whigs and Tories as ‘tyrannical plundering’ governments. Politicians of both parties saw Chartists as enemies of property and public order. In 1842, the Duke of Wellington said of the Chartists that: “Plunder is the object. Plunder likewise is the means”. Chartists had little political muscle and little education, and thus were powerless. Politically they were not dangerous. They were generally more conscious of the government than government was of them. The governments were firm but mostly fair and did not rush to turn out the troops. No martyrs were created, so there was no crusade. The police were much used. Government attitudes helped to defeat Chartism[2].

Coercive powers of the state

The county magistrates in England were appointed on the recommendation of the Lord Lieutenant. There were property qualifications to be met, set low enough for small landowners to be eligible, but the problems of recruitment were often serious. The county nobility often showed a marked reluctance to sit on the bench. One consequence of the selectiveness of Lords Lieutenant in their choice of magistrates and of the unwillingness of many of the gentry to serve was the large number of Anglican clergymen as Justices of the Peace: although by the 1840s the situation in most areas was beginning to change. Whig politicians were always concerned to reduce the Anglican element among the county magistracy and to increase middle-class representation. For one thing, the traditional authorities in rural areas were often troublesome to Whitehall, whatever the politics of the government. County magistrates often panicked about the seriousness of threats to public order and just as easily allowed their political prejudices to bias their magisterial judgements. Governments, especially Whig administrations, were constantly apprehensive in times of trouble about the reactions of the backwoods gentry and their Church allies, and they were conscious always of the social damage that could be inflicted. In late 1830s and the 1840s, however, it was not the rural areas but the industrial regions of the North, together with London, that were the main centres of radical agitation and unrest; and it was here that the most important structural changes in the character of authority had taken place.

The police

Outside London, the crucial legislation for the great towns of the provinces was the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835. The incorporated towns were now free from the inconveniences of the county bench. The new places on the borough commissions were filled, in most places, by Liberals and Whigs who formed the majority parties. These magistrates were much superior to their predecessors who had often lived outside the town boundaries. They demonstrated energy and a vigour that was in sharp contrast with what was still the lethargy of magisterial practices in many of the unincorporated towns. These new justices had a direct interest in the preservation of law and order in their own urban areas: it was they who owned the mills and the warehouses and the shops. And they were also more sensitive to the social problems of their rapidly growing towns than the traditional county bench. Sympathy did not affect the toughness of their attitude towards disorder and turbulence, but many among the business classes understood that repression was a beginning and not an end: an appreciation that was certainly not pervasive among the old order of magistrates, whether lay or clerical.

The most important single consequence of the 1835 Act was the obligation it imposed upon the incorporated towns to establish a Watch Committee whose responsibility it was to appoint and maintain an adequately sized police force (the phrase was ‘a sufficient number’ of constables) to be financed out of local rates[3]. Progress in the country at large was uneven for there were many vested interests to be overcome and much opposition to professional policemen of the new type, but in most large towns by 1848 the size and the competence of the police forces proved to be more or less adequate for the special problems of that year. This was certainly true of Manchester and Liverpool. The metropolitan police of London[4], who came directly under the control of the Home Office, were by far the most efficient in the country; and their aid was at times requested by local authorities in other parts of the country. By contrast, the Home Office in London, except in times of crisis, had almost no influence over local police forces in the incorporated boroughs.

The 1835 Act obliged Watch Committees to send quarterly reports, with quite minimal information, to the Home Office, but these were not apparently used to improve those police forces that were backward. It was in the rural areas that the development of professional forces was most uneven. The Rural Police Act of 1839 was permissive, and the most important element in the many strands of opposition or reluctance to its adoption was the expense involved and the future burdens on the rates. It was to the Home Office that magistrates reported or requested advice, and it was the Home Office that issued instructions: either local, to a particular individual or bench, or, in times of national crisis, by means of circulars throughout the country. In times of stress the closeness of contact was impressive, and the Home Office was never slow to remind local benches and commissioners of the peace of their duties, including the obligation to keep Whitehall fully informed. There were occasions, in very critical periods, when a town mayor would write three times in one day to the Home Office and daily correspondence, both ways, was quite usual.

The magistrates

The magistrates had the responsibility of maintaining public order in the area of their jurisdiction. A disturbance that involved three or more people was in common law a riot, and if it led to an arrest, the prisoner would be charged with a misdemeanour, punishable by imprisonment or a fine. If, however, more than twelve persons were involved in a disturbance and refused to disperse, the Riot Act of 1715 could be read, and once read, the riot became a felony, allowing the authorities concerned to use force including the use of firearms. These matters were the responsibility of the magistracy. It was the duty of the local magistrates to gather a sufficient force and to lead it in person to the scene of the disturbance; and it was their decision whether the Riot Act was read and they alone could give the order to open fire. The magistrates had to rely in the first instance upon the local police force and if this proved insufficient, two or more magistrates were entitled to swear in special constables: or, if a disturbance was feared at some time in the future, special constables could be sworn in against that possibility. The magistrates could also require aid from the local military, or they could call out, on their own authority, the local Yeomanry. By 1848, they also had the power to summon a detachment of the Enrolled Military Pensioners[5] and request the Home Office to issue a warrant retrospectively to legalise their action. The police in Britain were not armed, but the magistracy could, and often did, apply to the Home Office for arms to be distributed. In almost all cases their requests were refused, but in the summer of 1848 sections of the metropolitan police, and the police forces in selected industrial towns of the North, were issued with cutlasses. Special constables, in spite of a good many requests, were never allowed arms by the Home Secretary at any time during the Chartist years.


[1] F. C. Mather Public Order in the Age of the Chartists, Manchester University Press, 1959 remains the standard text on the reaction of government to Chartism.

[2] This chapter extends my paper ‘Chartism and the State 1838-1848’ published in Modern History Review, November 2003.

[3] In Bolton with a population of 51,000 in 1841, there were only 10 police and 13 constables. Compare this with the city of Bath that had a similar population with 10 inspectors and 132 constables. In Manchester, the new incorporated borough created a police force of 48 officers and 295 constables but there was opposition to the levying of a police rate and the old police commissioners established a rival force of 240 men. Local politics prevented the creation of an effective police force. Birmingham also lacked a properly constituted civil force. For a population of 180,000, Birmingham had only 30 day street keepers, 170 night watchmen and 2,300 special constables for emergencies.

[4] The Metropolitan Police had been established by Sir Robert Peel in 1829 hence their nicknames ‘Bobbies’ or ‘Peelers’.

[5] Enrolled pensioners were men less than 55 years of age retired from active military duty. Many lived in working-class communities but threats to their pensions lowered any opposition to service they might have.

Monday 3 December 2007

Aspects of Chartism: The reaction of government

Lord Melbourne’s ministry: 1835-1841

The Whigs were traditionally the party of ‘liberty’ and so were not anxious to set out on a repressive course of action against popular movements until necessary. Lord John Russell as Home Secretary (18th April 1835 to 30th August 1839) and the Marquess of Normanby (30th August 1839 to 6th September 1841) were responsible for dealing with Chartism in its early stages. Russell was devoted to the idea of liberty and wanted to allow freedom of discussion on political issues. Unfortunately, he was not sufficiently aware of the depth of working-class discontent. Anti-Poor Law agitation in the north was treated with great toleration, very much an example of advanced thinking for the time. On 18th September 1838, Russell said “So long as mere violence of language is employed without effect, it is better, I believe, not to add to the importance of these mob leaders by prosecutions”.

Russell intended to deal with developing Chartism as he had dealt with earlier agitation. In the winter of 1838-39, Chartist activity peaked. Melbourne had taken charge, and he had a reputation for severity. Repressive measures led to more violence. Russell decided in early in 1839 that there was little danger of insurrection, so he adopted less severe tactics. He was criticised for being ‘soft’ on Chartism. His attitude stiffened in April 1839 as the Chartists began to arm and drill. When Birmingham needed police in 1839, controversially Russell sent down a force of metropolitan policemen on the train. However, from the middle of 1839, increasing numbers of Chartist leaders were arrested including Feargus O’Connor and William Lovett and hundreds of local Chartists were hounded and arrested in the months that followed. Short prison sentences removed Chartist leaders from circulation. The Newport Rising in November 1839 and the abortive insurrections in January 1840 in Sheffield, Bradford and Newcastle were easily dealt with by either by regular troops or local authorities with transportation to Australia rather than the noose as the chosen punishment. Neither short terms of imprisonment or transportation created political martyrs.

Sir Charles Napier was the commander of troops in the Northern District, based on Nottingham, between 1839 and 1841. In April 1839, Napier, who came from the West Country, was put in charge of 6,000 troops in the Northern District. He was sympathetic to the Chartist cause. Napier knew that the people were discontented because they were hungry, and made this plain in his reports. He blamed “Tory injustice and Whig imbecility” for the problem -- in private. He pitied, rather than feared them and attributed much of the trouble to the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act: in his Journal in 1839, he said, “An anonymous letter comes, with a Chartist plan. Poor creatures, their threats of attack are miserable. With half a cartridge, and half a pike, with no money, no discipline, no skilful leaders, they would attack men with leaders, money and discipline, well armed and having 60 rounds a man. Poor men! A republic! What good did a republic ever do? What good will it ever do?” His fear was not revolution, but widespread disturbances. He sought to prevent these by concentrating his forces to limit the risk of conflict and overawing his opponents, because prevention was better than cure. He wished to avoid deaths among rioters that would occur if widespread disturbances broke out. Napier out-thought the Chartists rather than out-fought them.

Sir Robert Peel’s ministry: 1841-46

Sir James Graham was Home Secretary (6th September 1841 to 6th July 1846). Chartism had been reviving since 1840 and gathered strength in the bad winter of 1841-42. By spring 1842, the depression had reached its worst point. As strikes and turnouts spread (including the Plug Plots), so the violence grew. Graham took a more serious view of threats of disorder than Russell had done in 1839. Napier’s approach suited Russell and Normanby, both of whom paid insufficient attention to detail. Graham was different. Napier was sent to India in September 1841; and during the summer of 1842, both the Northern and Midland District was put under the overall command of Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Arbuthnot, based in Manchester.

He still showed discretion and propriety in dealing with the disturbances. When it became clear that law and order was breaking down, Graham acted with great administrative efficiency, a feature of the new Conservative Party. However, the strike movement had two negative effects on the Chartists. First, the effort made by some to organise the strikes for their own ends allowed Peel and Sir James Graham, to blame them for the strikes. There was a wave of arrests in September. Harsh sentences were handed out: in Staffordshire, for example, of 274 cases tried, 154 men were imprisoned and five men transported for life[1]. By early 1843, there was less need for harsh treatment, as the strikes were over and unrest had quietened. Peel and Graham recognised, as Russell had done in 1839-40, that pushing repression too far was counterproductive, alienating public opinion and creating public sympathy. Secondly, trade union disillusion with Chartism probably increased. To unionists the issue was economic not political and, for them, the strikes were, in part successful.

In April 1839, when General Napier wished to put the yeomanry on permanent duty, both Melbourne and Russell declined to do so. Sir James Graham continued this preference for regular troops. His reasons were financial: the yeomanry were paid only when they were called out but regular troops had to be paid anyway. There were also political considerations. He appreciated the need not to call out farmers at harvest time. There were also tactical reasons. Graham knew that the yeomanry was hated and its appearance would be as likely to cause a riot as prevent one.

Lord John Russell’s ministry: 1846-52

In 1848, Chartism was closely linked to Irish discontent. Ireland was in the grip of the Famine at the time Whig treatment of Chartism was little different to 1839 although there were genuine fears of revolution. Elaborate plans were made for keeping the peace at Kennington Common. By the 1840s, the government recognised that the strength of justice tempered with mercy. In the wake of the Chartist disturbances of 1848, most sentences passed were of between six months and two years. This avoided making martyrs, but took troublemakers out of circulation for long enough to ensure the forces of law and order would prevail. Moderation and restraint by the authorities deprived would be revolutionaries of their moral case for rebellion.

By 1848, the position of the forces of law and order was considerably greater than in 1839 and 1842. First, the small number of troops had been made more effective by the establishment of the railway network. Already by 1839, Napier was able to move some troops by train, but when the national network was established, the logistical situation was transformed. The second development was the London police. Their handling of crowds in the late 1830s had been poor and ineffective but by 1848, they had learned a great deal about crowd control. Not only were they able to confront the peaceful demonstration on 10th April with firmness and without provocation, but they also survived the must more testing time during the summer evenings of May, June and July.


[1] J. F. Ariouat Rethinking Partisanship in the Conduct of the Chartist Trials, 1839-1848’, Albion, volume 29, (1997), pages 600-615.