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21 The Condition of England Introduction Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812–52), most ominous, and withal one of the strangest, English architect, designer, and polemicist, a ever seen in this world. England is full of wealth, convert to Roman Catholicism, is remembered of multifarious produce, supply for human want today as one of the most successful advocates in every kind; yet England is dying of inanition.” for the revival of Gothic architecture. Known Like Pugin, Carlyle uses an idealized past, an pre-eminently with Sir Charles Barry as one imaginary feudal England, to attack his contem- of the two architects of the new Houses of poraries; unlike Pugin, he explicitly and savagely Parliament, he is the designer responsible from denounces the entire present social formation, 1840 for all of its Gothic ornament, decoration, especially the aristocratic and middle-class and furnishings. One year before Victoria’s leaders of the country, who were doing little to accession, Pugin self-published the book that help the poor. would put him in the forefront of the “battle of In one passage of the preface, while discuss- the styles,” a conflict between Gothic and Greek ing architecture, Pugin, using the present tense, revival models of architecture. The long title of does name some key components of the the book, Contrasts; or a Parallel Between the “Condition of England Question” similar to that Noble Edifices of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth which Carlyle would soon target. Pugin writes: Centuries and Similar Buildings of the Present Day; Shewing the Present Decay of Taste (1836), The erection of churches, like all that was sums up its content, methodology, and argu- produced by zeal or art in ancient days, ment: a prefatory essay of thirty-five pages in five has dwindled down into a mere trade. sections, an appendix, and nineteen drawings that They are erected by men who ponder juxtapose idealized or “noble” medieval buildings between a mortgage, a railroad or a and their depraved modern counterparts. A second chapel, as the best investment of their public edition in 1841, the one best known, doubled money, and who, when they have resolved its length, and added five new plates. on relying on the persuasive eloquence In his preface, Pugin sticks to architecture, of a cushion-thumping popular preacher, saying very little directly about what would soon erect four walls, with apertures for win- be called the “Condition of England Question.” dows, cram the room full of seats, which That phrase is attributed to Thomas Carlyle in they readily let; and so greedy after pelf the title of the first chapter ofChartism (1840; are these chapel-raisers, that they form see under SOCIAL FORMATIONCOPYRIGHTED in this section) where dry MATERIALand spurious vaults underneath, which he describes the condition of the English are soon occupied, at a good rent, by some working-classes during the Industrial Revolution wine and brandy merchant (28). in the immediate aftermath of the New Poor Law Amendment Act (1834), legislation that Pugin here alludes to what Carlyle (and later in effect had criminalized poverty. Not one to Marx) would call the cash nexus, the system of neglect a good phrase, Carlyle used it again to capitalism overdetermining all human relation- begin Past and Present (1843): “The condition ships, producing, according to them, shoddy of England . is justly regarded as one of the workmanship, a landscape disfigured by railways, Victorian Literature: An Anthology, First Edition. Edited by Victor Shea and William Whitla. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2015 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. c01.indd 21 9/25/2014 4:13:07 AM 22 a nation of shopkeepers and merchants whose letters) and “The Same Town in 1840” (see sole concern was their profit margin. The chief Figure 1). The medieval version is dominated by impact of Pugin’s argument for ethical histori- church spires, with no fewer than thirteen cism, however, was not made through vitriolic churches (of course, all Roman Catholic) listed Contexts Contexts prose, but through his illustrations. in a key at the bottom of the drawing; it also An etching added in 1841 juxtaposes a contains a guildhall. People can freely enter and “Catholic Town in 1440” (titled in Gothic leave the town; its streets inside the walls lined Figure 1 Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812–52), “Catholic Town in 1440; The Same Town in 1840.” In Contrasts (1836, second edition 1841). Etching. 26 × 21 cm. Source: courtesy of the Thomas Fisher Rare Books Library, University of Toronto. c01.indd 22 9/25/2014 4:13:11 AM 23 with trees. In the modern version, by contrast, hats and casually smoking pipes beneath a sign: the skyline is dominated by industrial chimneys “A Variety of Subjects Always Ready for Medical spewing smoke, replacing the spires. Reading Students,” instead of the fourteen vested figures from right to left are the one Anglican church interring the dead with full religious ritual. “rebuilt in 1750” in a neo-Georgian replacement Discipline is enforced in the Poor House by the of Gothic, with a Georgian parsonage and Master’s ordering a keeper to imprison a mother “pleasure grounds”; next is the “New Jail” in with two children in a locked cell. At the centre, the centre, an octagonal structure built in the the Gothic poor house with its open courtyard manner of Bentham’s panopticon, where the and gardens has been replaced by a large, warders could observe all inmates; then, a enclosed, prison-like octagonal structure, like the gasworks and behind that a lunatic asylum. “New Jail” in Figure 1, with no windows, again in of England Condition The Across the iron bridge with its toll gate are the manner of a Benthamite panopticon. The reli- seven chapels of various dissenting denomina- gious building has been removed to become a tiny tions as well as a “Socialist Hall of Science.” structure in the background, while the foreground A second added plate, “Contrasted Residences is barren and treeless. for the Poor” (Figure 2) captures the “condition Obviously Pugin is here distorting while of England” in even sharper relief. In fact, this glorifying the condition of the poor in medieval plate could have served as a frontispiece to England, as does Carlyle; nevertheless, Pugin’s Carlyle’s Past and Present. Its two levels, two illustrations provide a map of many of the “Antient Poor Hovse” and a “Modern Poor crucial social transformations that created the House,” each contain six panels, a large central condition of England, controversies which would one framed by five others. In the ancient house, in rage throughout Victoria’s reign: the seculariza- the first frame a poor man wears a cape with a tion of society, industrialization with concomitant staff in his hand; in the next, two monks, one the pollution and social displacement, forced labour “Master,” distribute alms before a door; the for the destitute, the substitution of incarceration “Diet” consists of beef, mutton, bacon, ale and for charity (see Plate 3: Fildes, Applicants for cider, milk porridge, wheat bread, and cheese; in Admission to a Casual Ward), and the belief in “The Poor Brother’s Convoy” a deceased pauper science and rationalization on the model of receives ceremonial burial; “Enforcing Discipline” utilitarianism – all are represented in Pugin’s is through religious instruction by exhortation “contrasts”: all are topics that run throughout (preaching) and the sacraments: communion and the writings in this section. The transformations the anointing of the sick. At the centre, in the that Pugin calls repulsive are in many of these largest panel, is an ornately designed Gothic writings represented as a steady social improve- complex with a huge open courtyard, replete with ment. Notably absent from Pugin’s representation trees and a separate garden for each of the of his present is any awareness of a sense of inhabitants. In the modern version each panel progress, of the advantages of political reform provides a parallel to its medieval counterpart based on democratic principles, or of education with the same caption: one of the poor men and mass literacy. For him, the nostalgic solution cowers on straw in a barred cell, placed there for the social dislocation was a return to the under the New Poor Law; “The Master” holds spiritual, moral, social, and political authority of whips and handcuffs, with leg-irons hanging on the Roman Catholic Church, whose power and the wall behind; the “Diet” for three meals is validity are represented in the architecture of the “2 oz.” of bread, 1 pint of gruel; 2 oz. bread, “Noble Edifices of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth 1 pint of gruel; and 1 oz. of bread, ½ pint of gruel Centuries.” Macaulay follows a similar pattern, and oatmeal and potatoes. A “poor man’s” coffin contrasting present to past; however, he draws labelled “For Dissection” is being loaded or completely opposite conclusions – the movement unloaded on a wagon by three labourers wearing away from the authority of the church is social c01.indd 23 9/25/2014 4:13:12 AM 24 Contexts Contexts Figure 2 Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812–52), “Contrasted Residences for the Poor” (1846). In Contrasts (1836, second edition 1841). Etching. 26 × 21 cm. Source: courtesy of the Thomas Fisher Rare Books Library, University of Toronto. c01.indd 24 9/25/2014 4:13:13 AM 25 progress and human improvement through ration- various stages of the cotton industry’s adapta- ality, science, technology, and industrialization. tion of new technology, such as the move from Both Macaulay and Pugin read the signs of the water power to steam in the 1840s, meant that times with one of the dominant modes of contrast in the county of Lancashire alone there were used by Victorians, a temporal contrast that viewed 2,650 cotton mills employing almost a half the present through the lens of the past.

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