Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution
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Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution This is a study of the forces underlying the early development of working-class consciousness in nineteenth-century England, as revealed by a close analysis of three very different towns—Oldham, Northampton and South Shields. During the last century English society underwent a series of changes so fundamental that they still influence its character today. England, the country of industrial revolution, was the first to see the development of a mass trade-union movement. It was also the first to produce some form of revolutionary working-class consciousness (and on a scale sufficient to impress Marx and Engels). Yet in the middle years of the century this pioneer labour movement suddenly changed course and entered a long period of class collaboration in which it helped form the base for an altogether new type of liberal democracy. The question why provides the subject of this book. ‘Dr Foster’s book…adopts a model of economic and social change which though Marxist in inspiration is more sophisticated than almost anything that has been seen for a long time…that this is a book of fundamental importance cannot be doubted, and it must be read by all those who are interested in the emergence of the working class in nineteenth-century Britain.’ John Vaizey, The Times Educational Supplement The author is a Lecturer in Politics at Strathclyde University, Glasgow. Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution Early industrial capitalism in three English towns John Foster with a Foreword by Professor E.J.Hobsbawm Methuen & Co Ltd • London First published in 1974 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 11 St John’s Hill, London SW11 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” First published as a University Paperback in 1977 by Methuen & Co Ltd, 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE © 1974 John Foster ISBN 0-203-22237-7 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-27683-3 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0 416 84100 7 (Print Edition) This paperback edition is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Contents List of figures vii Abbreviations viii List of tables ix Foreword x 1 INTRODUCTION 1 2 INDUSTRIALIZATION AND SOCIETY 8 The industrial revolution 8 England’s industrialization 13 Social structure before the industrial revolution 21 The politics of industrial revolution 33 Conclusion: what kind of radicalism? 39 Note on handloom wages 41 3 LABOUR AND STATE POWER 45 Wage bargaining by force Combination Act 46 enforcement, 1818–22—The spinners’ lock-out, 1826–7—Routine unionism, 1831–4 Labour and local government Electing MPs— 49 Police: vestry and police commission Poor relief: select vestry and poor law guardians The Church: vestry and churchwardens The authorities 62 MPs in Parliament 66 v 4 ECONOMICS OF CLASS 70 CONSCIOUSNESS Three industrial towns Oldham—Northampton— 71 South Shields Work, poverty, family 87 Radicals and the labour movement Oldham— 94 Northampton—South Shields The politics of the cotton industry 102 The coal industry 112 Industrial politics in Shields 115 5 CLASS STRUGGLE AND SOCIAL 120 STRUCTURE Solidarity and fragmentation: some 120 measurements Working-class leadership 126 Mass action 135 Working-class power in 1834 143 6 CRISIS OF THE BOURGEOISIE 155 Sampling the bourgeoisie 155 The ‘middle classes’ The tradesmen—The ‘little 160 masters’ Structure of the big bourgeoisie 170 The big bourgeoisie and the working-class 178 challenge Note on methods 186 7 LIBERALIZATION 195 The breakdown of the working-class movement 197 Authority systems The churches—Sunday 203 schools–The friendly societies The public house— Masons and Orangemen—Adult education— Temperance—The cooperative movement vi Industry Engineering—The cotton industry—Coal 215 Liberal society in action The Crimean War—The 228 anti-Irish movement—The 1861 split 8 POSTSCRIPT 240 Appendix 1: Poverty 244 Appendix 2: Marriage and neighbouring 249 Appendix 3: Sources on the Oldham bourgeoisie 258 Notes 262 Bibliography 326 Index 328 Figures 1 Principal canals and turnpikes, 1820:South-east Lancashire 10 2 Population by area, 1789–1871:Oldham 26 3 Handloom wages: Oldham 35 4 Labour forces, 1851:three towns 72 5 Occupations of household heads: three towns 73 6 Population, 1801–71:three towns 73 7 Birth places of household heads, 1851:three towns 74 8 Leading industries by labour force: three towns 75 9 Oldham’s industrial structure 78 10 Cotton spinners’ wages 79 11 Wages and profits in an Oldham cotton mill, 1844–51 80 12 Deaths from disease, 1851–60:three towns 89 13 Death rates and the expectation of life, 1850–2:three towns 9 0 14 Family income and subsistence costs: four towns 92 15 Poverty and the family life cycle, 1849:three towns 94 16 Types of poverty, 1849–51:three towns 95 17 Family structure, 1851:three towns 95 18 Social distance between craftsmen and labourers 121 19 Social distance within the labour force: three towns 122 20 Religious attendance, 1851:three towns 123 21 Segregation of the Irish population: three towns 124 22 Social distance within the bourgeoisie: three towns 158 23 Wealth by occupation: three towns 159 Abbreviations BTHR British Transport Historical Records GUILDHALL Guildhall Library, London JRSS Journal of the Royal Statistical Society LSE Library of the London School of Economics LRO Lancashire Record Office, Preston MPL Manchester Public Library NPL Northampton Public Library NRO Northamptonshire Record Office OPL Oldham Public Library PRO Public Record Office ADM Admiralty papers HO Home Office PC Privy Council PL Palatinate of Lancashire RG Registrar General TS Treasury Solicitor SSPL South Shields Public Library Tables 1 Origins of early Oldham millowners 10 2 Regular communicants in Oldham area churches 28 3 Parliamentary voting of traders exposed to exclusive dealing 52 4 Place of marriage by occupation of parents, 1846–56 125 5 Occupations of main Oldham working-class leaders 127 6 Oldham working-class leaders: shopkeepers and publicans 130 7 Oldham working-class leaders active 1832, 1842 and 1848 132 8 Oldham working-class leaders: listings 145 9 Estimated occupational make-up of elites, 1851: three towns 157 10 Servants among Oldham employers leaving over £25,000 172 11 Oldham bourgeoisie by occupation, 1851 191 12 Oldham bourgeoisie by groupings 192 13 Oldham bourgeoisie: wealth equivalents 194 14 Politics of ex-working-class leaders by occupation 201 15 Politics of ex-working-class leaders by campaign 202 16 Oldham’s church attendance, 1821–9 and 1851 206 17 Oldham’s Nonconformist marriages by occupations of fathers 206 18 Oldham’s Sunday school attendance, 1851 208 19 Northampton marriages (1845–56):indices of association 255 20 Oldham marriages (1846–56):indices of association 256 21 South Shields marriages (1846–56):indices of association 257 6 Foreword The history of the working class in industrial Britain has only just begun to be written. Traditionally it has most commonly been approached through the study of labour movements, justifiably enough, since the existence of the working class is inseparable from its struggles. However, this approach usually suffered from three defects. It tended to identify class and movement, movement and organization or the leadership of organizations, thus by-passing actual social realities. It followed the tracks of the pioneers of labour history, who were primarily concerned with national .developments, and thus neglected not only the substantial regional, sectional and local differences, but also important developments of wider interest, which happened not to be readily accessible through national documentation. Finally, it tended to accept with insufficient criticism a framework of chronological narrative and a pattern of interpretation which was itself the product of the movement’s history as much as of research into it. Considerable progress has been made since the 1950s, but to some extent at the cost of neglecting the fundamental problem which traditional labour history quite correctly, though not always consciously, sought to illuminate: the relationship between the emergence and development of the working class and its movement. We now possess a number of local and regional studies of labour movements, which have largely transformed our knowledge of—to take one example—Chartism, though unfortunately there are still too few studies of local working classes or occupational/industrial groups of workers. There has been a substantial advance in our knowledge of the attitudes of political rulers, governments and parties to the working class and its movements, though not so much advance in our knowledge of working-class attitudes to government and parties, and very little in our knowledge of the attitude of employers to industrial relations, at any rate before the twentieth century. From a different angle, sociological xi concepts and quantitative methods, especially those of historic demography, have been used to illuminate, or actually to discover, much of the social structure of working-class life. We know a great deal more about both the working classes and labour movements than most people thought likely twenty years ago. However, with very rare exceptions (which admittedly include the monumental one of E.P. Thompson’s The Making of the Working Class) historians have shied away from directly confronting the relations between class, struggle and movement. Hence the significance of John Foster’s strikingly original and lucid study. Though it concentrates on Oldham, with side-glances at two other towns, it is not a piece of local history, or even a collection of ‘case studies’, a term which is usually a euphemism for a piece of very specialized history which wishes to pretend that it is of more general interest.