Popular Political Oratory and Itinerant Lecturing in Yorkshire and the North East in the Age of Chartism, 1837-60 Janette Lisa M
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Popular political oratory and itinerant lecturing in Yorkshire and the North East in the age of Chartism, 1837-60 Janette Lisa Martin This thesis is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of York Department of History January 2010 ABSTRACT Itinerant lecturers declaiming upon free trade, Chartism, temperance, or anti- slavery could be heard in market places and halls across the country during the years 1837- 60. The power of the spoken word was such that all major pressure groups employed lecturers and sent them on extensive tours. Print historians tend to overplay the importance of newspapers and tracts in disseminating political ideas and forming public opinion. This thesis demonstrates the importance of older, traditional forms of communication. Inert printed pages were no match for charismatic oratory. Combining personal magnetism, drama and immediacy, the itinerant lecturer was the most effective medium through which to reach those with limited access to books, newspapers or national political culture. Orators crucially united their dispersed audiences in national struggles for reform, fomenting discussion and coalescing political opinion, while railways, the telegraph and expanding press reportage allowed speakers and their arguments to circulate rapidly. Understanding of political oratory and public meetings has been skewed by over- emphasis upon the hustings and high-profile politicians. This has generated two misconceptions: that political meetings were generally rowdy and that a golden age of political oratory was secured only through Gladstone’s legendary stumping tours. However, this thesis argues that, far from being disorderly, public meetings were carefully regulated and controlled offering disenfranchised males a genuine democratic space for political discussion. Its detailed research into Yorkshire and the North East, demonstrates both the growth of popular political speechmaking and the emergence of a class of professional lecturers. It identifies a paradigm shift from classical oratory to more populist styles of speaking, as more humble speakers took to the platform; and it argues that through the growth of popular political oratory the platform had been rehabilitated by the 1860s and the lecture format commercialized. ii LIST OF CONTENTS List of illustrations, figures and graphs iv Preface v Acknowledgments vi Abbreviations vii Frontispiece viii 1 Introduction 1 2 Itinerancy and the geographies of lecturing 35 3 ‘Free and fair debate?’: The etiquette of public political discussion 75 4 Orality and print culture in the Chartist era 120 5 Speaking to the ‘People’ - delivering popular political oratory 166 6 The professional political orator 211 7 Conclusion 255 Appendix I The lecture tours of Jonathan Bairstow and Septimus Davis 264 Appendix II Bradford Observer empirical study, 1835-1860 276 Bibliography 284 iii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, FIGURES AND GRAPHS Frontispiece: Chartist meeting as Basin Stones, Todmorden. viii Fig. 1 Sidney Hall, A travelling county atlas, (1850). 60 Fig. 2 Movement of the feet, Gilbert Austin’s Chironomia. 146 Fig. 3 Facial expressions and gestures, Gilbert Austin’s Chironomia. 147 Fig. 4 Movement of the arm, Bell’s standard elocutionist. 149 Fig. 5 Movement of the hands, Bell’s standard elocutionist. 150 Fig. 6 John Wesley, Directions concerning pronunciation and gesture. 155 Fig. 7 Engraving of the Owenite lecturer Emma Martin, undated. 242 Fig. 8 Caricature of the Chartist lecturer Mary Ann Walker, 1842. 243 Fig. 9 Jonathan Bairstow’s Chartist missionary tour itinerary, 264 Figs. 10-13 Four maps depicting the lecture circuits of Jonathan 268-71 Bairstow, Nov. 1840. Figs. 14-17 Four maps depicting the lecture circuits of Septimus 272-75 Davis, Nov. 1858. Fig. 18 National and local oratory reported in the Bradford 281 Observer, 1835-1860. Fig. 19 Growth of reported oratory in the Bradford Observer, 282 1835-1860 (column inches). Fig. 20 Growth of reported oratory in the Bradford Observer, 283 1835-1860 (approximate words). iv In memory of Dr Donna Collette McCormick, (1970-2008) An inspiration and a dearly missed friend v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This research was made possible by a White Rose Studentship held at the Universities of York and Leeds. I have benefited greatly from being attached to two Universities in both supervision and academic resources. I would especially like to thank my husband Dave and my son Dylan for all their encouragement over the last three years and three months. I’m looking forward to spending much more time with them in 2010. Thanks also to my supervisors Malcolm Chase and Miles Taylor for their wise and generous direction and to David Stack for not only encouraging me to apply for the White Rose Studentship in the first place, but also for reading and commenting on several draft chapters. I have also benefited from discussions with Colin Divall and Elizabeth Buettner whose ideas and comments during Thesis Advisory Panel meetings were greatly appreciated. I would also like to thank James Gregory for alerting me to the Benjamin Godwin papers and to Jessie Craigen; thanks to Laura Schwartz for generously allowing me to read chapters of her thesis. Joan Allen, Owen Ashton, Martin Brown, John Flanagan, John Halstead, Imke Heuer, Paul Pickering, Rohan McWilliam, Neil Pye have all provided help and assistance and, last but not least, fellow postgraduate students at York, Dave Gent, Susan Major and Marthe Tholen. Staff at the following institutions also deserve praise: the British Postal Museum and Archive, London; British Library, Dept. of Manuscripts, London; Bradford Central Library, Local Studies Library (especially Anita Thompson); Brotherton University Library Special Collections, Leeds; Hartlepool Museums Service; the John Rylands University Library, Manchester; the Labour History Archive and Study Centre, Manchester; Lancashire Record Office, Preston; The National Archives, London; National Co-operative Archive, Manchester; Newcastle Local Studies Library; Manchester Local Studies and Archives; Sheffield Archives; Stockport Central Library Family & Local History Centre; Tyne and Wear Archives, Newcastle; University of Central Lancashire, Preston; the West Yorkshire Archive Service: Calderdale, Kirklees, Bradford and Leeds. Special thanks are due to Stefan Dickers, Bishopsgate Institute, for chasing up a few references and saving me a trip to London and Hilary Haigh, Archivist at Huddersfield University both for her excellent professional assistance and for being a coffee break and lunch companion. Thanks also to my mother and sisters (in particular Angela Rutherford for proof reading), to Jane Woodhead for her Ancestry expertise and to my best friend Manda. vi ABBREVIATIONS ABTC Anti-Bread Tax Circular ACLA Anti-Corn Law Association ACLC Anti-Corn Law Circular ACLL Anti-Corn Law League BTL British Temperance League BASCA British Anti-State Church Association BLPTA Bradford Long Pledged Teetotal Association BO Bradford Observer CSU Complete Suffrage Union DLB Dictionary of Labour Biography LHASC Labour History Archive and Study Centre LCS London Corresponding Society LWMA London Working Men’s Association NPSA National Public School Association, NCA National Charter Association NPU Northern Reform League NRU Northern Reform Union NRL Northern Reform League NS Northern Star NTL Northern Temperance League ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography REAS Raymond English Anti-Slavery collection TNA The National Archives UCLAN University of Central Lancashire WYAS West Yorkshire Archive Service UKA United Kingdom Alliance vii Original in colour A Chartist Meeting, Basin Stones, Todmorden, 1842,’ by A. W. Bayes, Calderdale MBC, Museums and Arts. viii Chapter one: Introduction Towards the end of February 1839, the evocatively named sub-committee of the Chartist Convention, the ‘Committee for the Diffusion of Political Knowledge’, dispatched eleven delegates who were to serve as ‘missionaries’.1 Their task was to agitate the ‘portions of the kingdom which are not sufficiently instructed of the Chartist movement, to explain the principles of the Charter [and] to obtain signatures to the National Petition’.2 What followed, in the words of a current historian, was a ‘remarkable’ and ‘unparalleled’ awakening of popular political consciousness.3 The letters from delegates-cum- missionaries preserved in the Convention papers spoke of widespread political ignorance and how, once explained, the Charter was embraced with great enthusiasm by the people.4 Initially, areas in southern England were targeted but it was soon realised that effective instruction was also wanted in the movement’s heartlands. A letter sent in March 1839 from Bishopwearmouth, Sunderland, for example, requested that a Convention missionary be sent as soon as possible to County Durham, where ‘the soil is good but the labourers to cultivate it are few – too few’. The correspondent went on to describe how only three months ago there was not one Chartist group in Sunderland and now the area could boast ‘eighteen District Societies’, a fact which proved ‘the readiness of the People to receive the principles when explained’.5 Chartism was a reform movement which drew its support from the poorest classes. Persuading the impoverished, illiterate and dispossessed that the Charter offered a solution to their grievances was more readily effected by a rousing address by a charismatic speaker than any number of tracts. As the Convention missionaries toured the country they addressed audience