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The Home Office and Public Disturbance, C.1800-1832

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The Home Office and Public Disturbance, C.1800-1832 The Home Office and Public Disturbance, c.1800-1832 Nathan Ashley Bend Submitted to the University of Hertfordshire in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of PhD. May 2018 ii Abstract This thesis examines the role of the Home Office in the machinery of order from c.1800-1832. It combines institutional enquiry with the study of popular protest by examining protest from the viewpoint of the Home Office. It looks at how the growth of the Home Office was stagnated due to efforts to economise, and how it transformed its systems to make them more efficient in response to peaks of administrative work caused by popular tumult. The different roles that each person performed in the Home Office is outlined, and by doing so the pivotal role of the permanent under- secretary of state, who remains underrepresented in histories of protest, is exposed. It also looks at what powers the home secretary had at his disposal, and how they were used to repress food riots, the Luddite disturbances, the movement for parliamentary reform, the Swing riots, political agitation leading to the Great Reform Act, and trade unions. It compares the different approaches of home secretaries and argues that although the use of powers was generally guided by established precedent, others such as domestic espionage were more divisive, and were influenced by the personality and experience of the home secretary. The thesis also examines the relationships between the Home Office hierarchy and government departments with authorities in the provinces. This thesis brings together all the available records which relate to the Home Office as an institution and those which relate to public disturbance. It demystifies the Home Office and its archives, presents a new analysis of Home Office powers and influence, and adds to our understanding of the way the machinery of order functioned, and the Home Office’s role within it. The thesis argues that the home secretary performed the role of overseer in the machinery of order; interjecting only when necessary when civil authorities failed to contain disturbances, or when the judiciary failed to provide a firm example. It contends that there were clear limits to state authority, contests claims of extraordinary state intervention, and argues that the state struggled to innovate to defeat the threats that the early nineteenth century presented. iii Acknowledgements In completing this thesis I have incurred many debts. First I would like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council for funding this research, without whom it would have been impossible to complete. I would like to thank my supervisors Dr. Paul Carter, Dr. Robert Poole, and Dr. Katrina Navickas for their patience, insight, and support throughout. The staff at the University of Nottingham Library, the Devon Heritage Centre, and the archivists and volunteers at The National Archives have provided me with their insights and guidance many times throughout this research. I would particularly like to thank Chris Day, Anne Morgan, Colin Williams, and Christine Pereira, whose expertise and friendship have proved invaluable. Finally, and most importantly, I would like to thank my wife Gemma for her continuous support and encouragement. iv Table of Contents Abstract ....................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements..................................................................................................................... iii List of Tables, Figures, and Appendices ........................................................................................ vi Abbreviations ........................................................................................................................... viii Chapter 1 - Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1 Histories of the Home Office .............................................................................................................. 3 The Influence of the Webbs ................................................................................................................ 6 Approaches to the ‘Crowd’ ................................................................................................................. 9 Crime and Social Crime ..................................................................................................................... 14 Contribution and Methodology ........................................................................................................ 19 Chapter 2 - Operation of the Home Office ................................................................................... 26 Birth and Retrenchment ................................................................................................................... 27 Home Office Responsibilities and Hierarchy ..................................................................................... 32 The Decision-Making Trio ............................................................................................................. 33 The Clerkship ................................................................................................................................. 37 Employment, Trust, and Reward .................................................................................................. 40 King’s Messengers and Office Maintenance ................................................................................. 49 Chapter 3 – Home Office Correspondence .................................................................................. 52 System ............................................................................................................................................... 52 Procedure .......................................................................................................................................... 55 Structure ........................................................................................................................................... 59 Quantifying Business ......................................................................................................................... 71 Chapter 4 – Preserving the Peace: Home Office Powers and Advice ............................................. 78 Centre and Province .......................................................................................................................... 79 Enforcement ..................................................................................................................................... 81 Advice ............................................................................................................................................ 82 Military Aid .................................................................................................................................... 83 Intelligence Gathering ....................................................................................................................... 89 Bow Street and the Metropolitan Police ...................................................................................... 90 The Post......................................................................................................................................... 94 Spies and Informers ...................................................................................................................... 98 Chapter 5 – Food Riots, 1800-1801 ........................................................................................... 111 Lessons Learned .............................................................................................................................. 112 Anonymous Crimes and the Local Machinery of Order .................................................................. 120 v The September Hypercrisis and the Oxford Affair .......................................................................... 124 Cross-County Communication and Insurrectionary Designs .......................................................... 133 Chapter 6 – The Luddite Disturbances, 1811-1816 ..................................................................... 140 An Insurrectionary Movement? ...................................................................................................... 142 Parliament and the Machinery of Order ......................................................................................... 144 Assizes, Special Commissions, and the Gallows .............................................................................. 158 Chapter 7 – Parliamentary Reform, 1816-1820 .......................................................................... 165 1816 ................................................................................................................................................ 165 Oliver and the Pentrich Rising ......................................................................................................... 172 1818 ................................................................................................................................................ 175 Peterloo ........................................................................................................................................... 180 Insurrection? ..............................................................................................................................
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