Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-7drxs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-24T11:02:46.777Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

IV. Two Roads to Social Reform: Francis Place and the “Drunken Committee” of 18341

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Brian Harrison
Brian Harrison
Affiliation:
Corpus Christi College, Oxford
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Historians of the ‘Age of Reform’ have sometimes been tempted into the fallacy castigated long ago by Herbert Butterfield; they busy themselves ‘with dividing the world into the friends and enemies of progress’ and forget ‘with what wilfulness and waste [progress] twists and turns”. Often, by implication, they exaggerate the stupidity and selfishness of the reactionaries while overestimating the enlightenment of the reformers and understressing their faddishness, their lack of scruple, and their divided aims or methods; it thus becomes difficult to see why reforming causes were ever resisted. In this sense, nineteenth-century England has received too few ‘Tory historians’ not too many; though with Professor Gash's well-known defence of Tories misguided enough to oppose franchise reform in 1831–2, and with the recent reinstatement of mid-Victorian working men shortsighted enough to vote Liberal there are signs that the reaction against Whiggish historiography of the nineteenth century has already begun.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , June 1968 , pp. 272 - 300
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1968

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

2 Butterfield, H., The Whig Interpretation of History (1931), pp. 5, 23.Google Scholar

3 Gash, N., Politicsin the Age of Peel (1953), pp. 3–7;Google ScholarHarrison, Royden, Before the Socialists (1964), pp. 19, 203;Google ScholarVincent, John, The Formation of the Liberal Party 1857–1868 (1966), p. 77Google Scholar

4 Hartwell, R. M., ‘Interpretations of the Industrial Revolution in England’, Journal of Economic History (June, 1959), p. 244;Google ScholarBrown, L., ‘The Board of Trade and the Tariff Problem, 1840–2’, English Historical Review (1953);Google ScholarHutt, W. H., ‘The Factory System of the early nineteenth century’, in Hayek, F. A. Von (ed.), Capitalism and the Historians (1954);Google ScholarBythell, D., ‘The Hand-Loom Weavers in the English Cotton Industry during the Industrial Revolution: Some Problems’, Econ. Hist. Rev. (December, 1964), p. 350;Google ScholarFletcher, T. W., ‘The Great Depression of English Agriculture, 1873–1896’, Econ. Hist. Rev. 2nd ser. XIII (1960–1961);Google Scholar see also my ‘Sunday Trading Riots of 1855’, Historical Journal (1965), pp. 235–7.Google Scholar

5 J. L. and Hammond, B., The Age of the Chartists 1832–1854 (1930), pp. 144, 146;Google Scholar S. and Webb, B., The History of Liquor Licensing in England principally from 1700 to 1830 (United Kingdom Alliance edn. 1903), pp. 120, 128.Google Scholar

8 Maccoby, S., English Radicalism 1832–1852 (1935), p. 77;Google Scholar all subsequent biographical details are from Turner, R. E., James Silk Buckingham (1934),Google Scholar and King, S. T., ‘James Silk Buckingham’ (London Univ. unpublished M.A. thesis, 1932).Google Scholar Both these biographical studies entirely ignore the importance and significance of Place's dispute with the committee.

7 University College, London: Brougham MSS. Buckingham to Brougham, 29 November 1830, 16 May 1832; I am most grateful to Miss Skerl, of U.C.L. Library, for guiding me through this collection while cataloguing was still incomplete.

8 Buckingham, J. S. (ed.), Parliamentary Review (1833), IV, 57.Google Scholar

9 3 Hansard 16, c. 618 (13 March 1833); Parliamentary Review (1833), I, 277–8.Google Scholar

10 Parliamentary Review (1834), II, 1316;Google Scholarcf. Baines, E., Life of Edward Baines (1851), pp. 194–5.Google Scholar

11 Parliamentary Review (1833), II, 156.Google Scholar

12 Ibid. (1834), II, 1310.

13 Cornford, F. M., Microcosmographia Academica (6th edn. 1966), p. 10.Google Scholar

14 Parliamentary Review (1833), IV, 2;Google Scholar (1834) II, 385–6.

15 Buxton, C., Memoirs of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton (1848), pp. 89–90;Google Scholarcf. Morley, J., Life of W. E, Gladstone (1905 edn), I, 100 ff.Google Scholar

16 Parliamentary Review (1833), IV, 56.Google Scholar

17 Bergson, H., Laughter. An Essay in the Meaning 0/ the Comic (1935 translation), p. 20.Google Scholar

18 3 Hansard 29, c. 563 (14 July 1835).

19 Sheffield Independent, 13 September 1834; Parliamentary Review (1833), I, 442.Google Scholar

20 Cobden, R., Speeches on Questions of Public Policy (ed. Bright, J. and Rogers, J. E. T., 1870), I, 282.Google Scholar

21 3 Hansard 29, c. 565 (14 July 1835).

22 Buckingham, J. S., History and Progress of the Temperance Reformation (1854) [hereafter cited as Temperance Reformation], pp. 450–1.Google Scholar

23 3 Hansard 24, c. 90 (3 June 1834); Buckingham, J. S., Temperance Reformation, p. 451.Google Scholar

24 Parliamentary Review (1834), I, 37.Google Scholar

25 Buckingham, J. S., introduction to Evidence on Drunkenness, published independently of parliament, n.d., p. iv.Google Scholar

26 The Crisis, IV, No. 11, p. 83;Google Scholar B[ritish] M[useum], Add. MSS. 35149 (Place Papers), fo. 303; Add. MSS. 27825 (Place Papers), fo. 207.

27 Parliamentary Papers (1834), VIII (559) [henceforth cited as Drunkenness Report].Google Scholar

28 Ibid. p. vi.

29 3 Hansard 25, c. 966–7 (5 August 1834).

30 Mirror of Parliament (1834), IV, 3237;Google Scholar3 Hansard 25, cc. 966 ff. (5 August 1834).

31 Parliamentary Review (1834), II, 1304;Google Scholar for London press comments, see The Times, 7 August 1834, p. 2; Morning Herald, 7 and 18 August 1834; Spectator, 9 August 1834, p. 741; Weekly Dispatch, 10 August 1834, p. 260; John Bull, 10 August 1834, p. 252; Examiner, 10 August 1834, pp. 497–8; cf. Buckingham's reply in ibid. 17 August 1834, p. 515.

32 See my ‘Philanthropy and the Victorians’, Victorian Studies (June 1966), pp. 373–4,Google Scholar and my ‘Sunday Trading Riots of 1855’, loc. cit. pp. 238–40; cf. Hunt, E. M., ‘The North of England Agitation for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, 1780–1800’ (unpublished Manchester Ph.D. thesis), pp. 228–33.Google Scholar

33 Leeds Mercury, 9 August 1834.

34 Sheffield Iris, 12 August 1834; cf. Sheffield Independent, 9 August 1834; Sheffield Mercury, 9 August 1834.

35 See my thesis, pp. 395–412; Gladstone's legislation will be discussed fully in my forthcoming book, Drink and the Victorians.

36 Glass, Ruth, The Times, 17 August 1955, p. 9.Google Scholar

37 Armytage, W. H. G., Heavens Below (1961), pp. 218–19.Google Scholar

38 Buckingham, J. S., Temperance Reformation, pp. 559, 562.Google Scholar

39 Holyoake, G. J., Social Means of Promoting Temperance (1859).Google Scholar

40 Drunkenness Report, Q 2043.

41 B.M. Add. MSS. 35149 (Place Papers), fo. 301: Place to Hawes, 7 July 1834.

42 Ibid. fo. 303.

43 B.M. Add. MSS. 27229 (Place Papers), fos. 213–14: Hawes to Place, 17 July 1834.

44 Parliamentary Review (1834), II, 1158;Google Scholar cf. 3 Hansard 25, c. 965 (5 August 1834), and Mirror of Parliament (1834), IV, 3238:Google Scholar Hawes’ statement does not appear in Hansard, which at this time was far inferior, as an accurate record of debates, to the Mirror of Parliament.

45 B.M. Add. MSS. 27829, fo. 72; Add. MSS. 35149, fo. 302: Place to Hawes, 7 July 1834.

46 B.M. Add. MSS, 27829, fo. 72.

47 Ibid. fo. 29.

48 His copy of t he report is preserved in B.M. Add. MSS. 27830 (Place Papers).

49 B.M. Add. M S S. 27829 (Place Papers), fo. 72 (title-page); there is n o reference to this work in Wallas’ biography of Place.

50 B.M. Add. MSS. 35150 (Place Papers), fo. 97: Place to G. R. Porter, 22 December 1835.

51 H. S. Chapman, ‘Sobriety of the Working Class’, printed with Roebuck, J. A., A Church, What? A State Church, What? (1835).Google Scholar

52 Economist, 18 October 1856.

53 Place, F., Improvement of the Working People (1834), p. 12.Google Scholar

54 Thomas, W. E. S., ‘Francis Place and Working Class History’, Historical Journal, V (1962), 64.Google Scholar

55 S. and Webb, B., op. cit. p. 128.Google Scholar

56 For controversy over spirits consumption statistics, see Drunkenness Report, QQ. 2450, 4063; B.M. Add. M S S. 27829, fos. 7, 139; Add. MSS. 35149, fo. 302

57 Add. MSS. 27829 (Place Papers), fos. 96, 97.

58 Mitchell, B. R. and Deane, P., Abstract of British Historical Statistics (Cambridge, 1962), p. 356;Google ScholarWilson, G. B., Alcohol and the Nation (1940), p. 332.Google Scholar

59 For the controversy over criminal statistics, see Drunkenness Report, QQ. 250, 4063, 4065; Place, F., Improvement of the Working People, pp. 21–2;Google Scholar B.M. Add. MSS. 27829 (Place Papers), fo. 90; Morning Advertiser, 22 January 1830; Reith, C., British Police and the Democratic Ideal (1943), pp. 59, 127–8.Google Scholar

60 Drunkenness Report, Q. 16; B.M. Add. MSS. 27829 (Place Papers), fo. 101.

61 Population figures from B. R. Mitchell and P. Deane, op. cit. p. 8.

62 Because the statistics involved in the dispute cannot indicate the relative prevalence of drunkenness within particular social classes at any one time, their importance consists purely in the extent to which they illuminate the two viewpoints held in 1834, and I have not therefore felt it worth reproducing them in full here. They are listed in my thesis, tables 5–11; for a general discussion of nineteenth-century drink statistics, see my ‘Drink and Sobriety in England 1815–1872. A Critical Bibliography’, International Review of Social History (1967), Part II, pp. 207–10.Google Scholar

63 Drunkenness Report, QQ. 2036, 2065.

64 Place, F., Improvement of the Working People, pp. 10, 18;Google Scholar B.M. Add. MSS. 27827 (Place Papers), fo. 30: Lovett to Place, 17 November 1834.

65 B.M. Add. MSS. 35149 (Place Papers), fo. 328: Place to Lovett, 21 November 1834; Drunkenness Report, QQ. 1107, 2013, 2033; but see Add. MSS. 27829 (Place Papers), fo. 19 for a contrary view.

66 E.g. London Working Men's College Archives: Scrapbook 1854–1884, p. 271.

67 Hobsbawm, E. J.,’ The Labour Aristocracy in Nineteenth Century Britain’, in Saville, J. (ed.), Democracy and the Labour Movement (1954), pp. 201–5.Google Scholar

68 Place, F., Improvement of the Working People, p. 6;Google Scholar B.M. Add. MSS. 27827 (Place Papers), fo. 221; Parliamentary Papers (1835), VII (465), Q 939.Google Scholar

69 B.M. Add. MSS. 35149 (Place Papers), fo. 302: Place to Hawes, 7 July 1834.

70 Place, F., Improvement of the Working People, p. 6;Google Scholar Moore, in Drunkenness Report QQ 40, cf. ibid. Q 3250

71 Place, F.Illustrations and Proofs of the Principle of Population (1930 edn.), p. 156.Google Scholar

72 J. L. & Hammond, B., op. cit. p. 160.Google Scholar

73 Evidence for the Evangelical connexions of the 14 witnesses is presented in my thesis, pp. 93–4: this figure is a minimum—greater acquaintance with the Evangelical world than I possess might reveal several more witnesses connected therewith. On pliable ‘committee doctors’ see McDonagh, O.A Pattern of Government Growth (1961) p. 131;Google Scholar see also M'Crie, T.Memoirs of Sir Andrew Agnew (1850) p. 259.Google Scholar

74 Drunkenness Report Q 3814–30.Google Scholar

75 See my thesis pp. 93–4.

76 Ashley, 3 Hansard 67, c. 62 (28 February 1843); Harris, J., Christian Citizen, 1837. pp. 71–2.Google Scholar

77 Webb, B., ‘Methods of Investigation’, Sociological Papers (1906), III, 352–3.Google Scholar

78 Herbert, quoted in McGregor, O. R., Divorce in England (1957), p. 199;Google Scholar see also Lewis, R. A., Edwin Chadwick and the Public Health Movement (1952), p. 135;Google Scholar and my ‘Sunday Trading Riots of 1855’, p. 242; for Mayhew, see his London Labour and the London Poor (1861–1862 edn.), I, 5; II, 162, 189, 288; III, 234, 314; IV, 6–7, 28, 30.Google Scholar

79 B.M. Add. MSS. 27830 (Place Papers), fo. 269.

80 B.M. Add. MSS. 27829 (Place Papers), fo. 99.

81 E.g. Add. MSS. 27830 (Place Papers), marginalia against QQ 121, 3443–5.

82 S. & Webb, B., Methods of Social Study (1932), p. 151.Google Scholar

83 B.M. Add. MSS. 27830, fo. 233, note against Q 3572; cf. Drunkenness Report, Q 310; see also Arch, J., The Story of His Life (3rd edn. 1898), p. 147.Google Scholar

84 Hutt, W. H., loc. cit. p. 164.Google Scholar

85 Pease, E. R., ‘Liquor Licensing at Home and Abroad’, Fabian Tract no. 85 (2nd edn. 1899), p. 2.Google Scholar

86 B.M. Add. MSS. 35149 (Place Papers), fo. 302: Place to Hawes, 7 July 1834.

87 Brown, L., loc. cit. pp. 401–2.Google Scholar

88 Mirror of Parliament (1834), IV, p. 3237;Google Scholar cf. B.M. Add. M S S. 27829 (Place Papers), fo. 85.

89 Hartwell, R. M., loc. cit. p. 244.Google Scholar

90 Sinclair, , in Mirror of Parliament (1834), IV, 3237.Google Scholar

91 Drunkenness Report, pp. iv ff.

92 Fourth Report of Select Committee on Procedure, 1964–1965. Cmd. 303, p. 139.Google Scholar See also Taylor, H., The Statesman (1836), p. 46;Google ScholarWebb, B., Our Partnership (1948), p. 397.Google Scholar

93 S. & Webb, B., Methods of Social Study, p. 142.Google Scholar

94 E.g. Burne, P., Teetotaler's Companion (1847), p. v;Google Scholar Lawson, in Alliance News, 3 March 1866; Reasoner, 14 October 1857, p. 229.

95 B.M. Add. MSS. 35149, fo. 328: Place to Lovett, 21 November 1834.

96 B.M. Add. MSS. 27827 (Place Papers), fo. 187; cf. Wallas, G., Life of Francis Place (4th edn. 1925), p. 195.Google Scholar

97 B.M. Add. MSS. 27830 (Place Papers), fo. 91.

98 Ibid. fo. 191.

99 Poor Man's Guardian, 16 July 1831, p. 13.

100 Engels, F., Condition of the Working Class in England (tr. and ed. Henderson, W. O. & Chaloner, W. H., Oxford 1958), p. 116.Google Scholar

101 Godwin, W., Political Justice (2nd edn., 1796), I, 230;Google Scholarcf. The Inquirer (1797) p. 104.Google Scholar

102 Parliamentary Papers (1835), VII (465), Q. 813.Google Scholar

103 Examiner, 10 August 1834, p. 497.

104 See my ‘Religion and Recreation in Nineteenth-Century England’ in Past & Present (December 1967), p. 109.

105 B.M. Add. MSS. 35149 (Place Papers), fo. 328: Place to Lovett, zi November 1834.

106 B.M. Add. MSS. 27830 (Place Papers), marginalia against Q. 175.

107 B.M. Add. MSS. 27829, fos. 72, 77.

108 Odd-Fellow, no. 167 (12 March 1842), p. 2.

108 Lees, F. R. & Holyoake, G. J., Public Discussion on Teetotalism and the Maine Law (1856), p. 184.Google Scholar

110 Monthly Repository, N.S. VIII (1834), 628.Google Scholar

111 B.M. Add. MSS, 27830, fo. 194, marginalia against Q. 2663.

112 B.M. Add. MSS. 35149, fo. 328: Place to Lovett, 21 November 1834.

113 Ibid.

114 Thomas, W. E. S., loc. cit. pp. 66–7.Google Scholar

115 Address of the Hibernian Temperance Society to their Countrymen (Dublin, 1830), p. 4;Google Scholarcf. Plint, T. E., in Leeds Temperance Society, First Annual Report, 1831, pp. 15–16;Google Scholar B.F.T.S. First Annual Report, 1832, p. 15.

116 B.M. Add. MSS. 35149 (Place Papers), fo. 328: Place to Lovett, 21 November 1834; B.M. Add. MSS. 27829 (Place Papers), fo. 106.

117 Ludlow, J. M. & Jones, Lloyd, Progress of the Working Class, 1832–1867 (1867), p. 245.Google Scholar

118 3 Hansard 182, cc. 147–8; cf. 3 Hansard 178, c. 1431; Harrison, Royden, Before the Socialists (1964), p. 116.Google Scholar

119 Thomas, W. E. S., loc. cit. p. 66.Google Scholar

120 Place, F., Illustrations and Proofs, pp. 176, 311, 325.Google Scholar

121 B.M. Add. MSS. 27790 (Place Papers), fo. 115; cf. Williams, W. M., Sociology of an English Village: Gosforth (1956), p. 99;Google ScholarArensberg, C. M. & Kimball, S. T., Family and Community in Ireland (Cambridge, Mass. 1940), p. 218;Google Scholar for the attempts of Place and Fearon to expose upper-class vices, see B.M. Add. MSS. 27829 (Place Papers), fo. 8: Place to George Smith, 27 October 1834; also ibid. fo. III, and Drunkenness Report, Q. 2375.

122 Glass, D. V. (ed.), Social Mobility in Britain (1954), p. 61;Google ScholarWillmott, P. & Young, M., Family and Class in a London Suburb (1960), pp. 114, 117.Google Scholar

123 Wilberforce, W., Practical View (1798 edn.), p. 54.Google Scholar

124 B.M. Add. MSS. 37829 (Place Papers), fo. 82.

125 Ibid. fos. 147–8.

126 Thomas, W. E. S., loc. cit. p. 69.Google Scholar

127 B.M. Add. MSS. 35149 (Place Papers), fo. 328: Place to Lovett, 21 November 1834.

128 B.M. Add. MSS. 27827 (Place Papers), fo. 31: Lovett to Place, 17 November 1834.

129 The advance from anti-spirits association to teetotalism is analysed in my thesis, chapter 3.

130 For medical arguments, see B.M. Add. MSS. 27830 (Place Papers), fo. 194 commenting on Q. 2663; see also Place's evidence in S.C.H.C. Education, Parl. Papers (1835), VII (465), Q. 899.Google Scholar

131 On this, see my thesis, pp. 169–83, 203–17.

132 Rev. Fletcher, J. M. J., Mrs Wightman of Shrewsbury (1906), p. 66.Google Scholar

133 Alcoholics Anonymous (New York, 1950 ed.) p. 4.Google Scholar

134 Hopkins, E., A Plea for the Wider Action of the Church of England in the Prevention of the Degradation of Women… (1879), p. 14.Google Scholar

135 B.M. Add. MSS. 35149 (Place Papers), fo. 328: Place to Lovett, 21 November 1834.