UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES HISTORICAL SKETCHES PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS MANCHESTER. INTENDED TO ILLUSTRATE THE PROGRESS OF PUBLIC OPINION FROM 1792 TO 1832. BY ARCHIBALD PRENTICE. SECOND EDITION. LONDON: CHARLES aiLPIN, BISHOPSGATE STREET WITHOUT. ^ANCHESTER: J. T. PARKES, MARKET STREET. MDCCCLI. PRINTED BV J. T. PABK.ES, 21, CROSS-STRKET, MANCHESTER. ELIZABETH, AGNES, AND BEATKICE PRENTICE. OF CASTLE PABK, LANAKK, GBEAT GBAND-DAUGHTEBS OF ABCHIBALD PBENTICE AND ALEXANDEB OP THE BELIGIOUS LIBEBTT OF THEIB COUNTRY ; X tc. GEAND NIECES OF JAMES THOMSON, THE AUTHOB OF "THE SEASONS," " " " THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE," BBITANNIA," LIBEBTY," &C. ; CM 8ISTEBS OF DAVID PBENTICE, FOUNDEB IN 1811, AND, UNTIL HIS O) DEATH IN 1837, EDITOB OF THE "GLASGOW CHRONICLE ;" g THIS VOLUME IS BESPECTFULLY DEDICATED, CD BY THEIB AFFECTIONATE COUSIN, THE AUTHOE. " Ours the triumph be To circle social earth with fair exchange, And bind the nations in a chain of gold." THOMSON. CONTENTS. CHAPTEE I. in in Party Spirit Manchester 1792 ; Church and King Clubs ; Constitutional of the Publicans Office Society ; Loyalty ; Printing attacked ; Thomas Walker's Trial ; Desertions from Reform ; the of 1 War Spirit ; Persecution Reformers Page CHAPTER H. The War Fever ; Famine and Tumult ; the Short Peace ; War Fever in again ; Manchester Volunteers ; Colonel Hanson's Trial 1808; Joseph Nadin; Prosecutions Page 22 CHAPTER m. Bill in Dissenting Ministers ; Orders Council; General Distress; in Luddism 1811 ; High Price of Food Page 37 CHAPTER IV. in Conflict at Middle- Manchester Exchange Riot 1812 ; Fatal " ton the Sidmouth's Severities Cost ; Spy System ; Wholesome" ; of the War; the Time of Reckoning Page 48 CHAPTER V. Manchester in the First Tear of Peace ; Enactment of the Corn- Faint in Manchester about the Law ; Opposition ; Fallacy Wages ; in Weavers Principal Reformers 1815 ; Thirty-Eight Apprehended their Trial and Acquittal Page 66 CHAPTER VI. and more Severities The Second Tear of Peace ; Agricultural Riots, ; William Cobbett ; Samuel Bamford and the Radicals ; the Blanket Meeting; the Ardwick Plot; Waddington the Spy; Cowardice of Ministers Page 83 VI CONTENTS CHAPTER VII. The Spies Effectually at Work; Oliver the Spy; Derbyshire Persecution Insurrections; Cowdroy's Newspaper; Social ; Proposal to Emigrate; Hopes of Better Times; Power-Looms; Malthusian Doctrines Page 103 CHAPTER VIII. Memorable Petition of the "Twenty-Seven" (1817); Elijah Dixon's and other Petitions; Debate on Mr. George Philip's Motion; Sidmouth's Hopes Page 122 CHAPTER IX. Mr. John Edward Taylor's Trial for Libel his Defence and Acquittal Page 132 CHAPTER X. Radical in Hunt's Visit Hunt at the The Agitation 1819 ; ; Theatre the on Moss ; Good Old English Drink ; Drillings White ; the 146 the Magistrates Alarmed ; Declaration of Alarmists Page CHAPTER XI. on 16th its Violent Protest Meeting August 1819 ; Dispersion ; the and Relief of the against Dispersion ; the Killed Wounded ; Sufferers Page 159 CHAPTER XII. Subscriptions for the Sufferers; the Duke of Hamilton; the the Six Trial at Oldham Inquest ; Acts ; Hunt's Committal ; York Judge-made Law and the Sentences Page 172 CHAPTER Xm. Sir Trial Trial Re-action ; F. Burdett's Letter, and his ; of Harrison others the in and ; Press ; Establishment of the Guardian 1821, its and its Caution Prospectus, ; Market-street Commissioners, Page 193 CHAPTER XTV. A Period of Calm; Malthusian Doctrines; Drunkenness; Lan- cashire Issue of Trial of Banking ; Proposed Paper Money ; Mr, Waller for Preaching Page 211 CONTENTS. Vll. CHAPTER XV. of in A Short Period Plenty and Cheapness 1822 j Meeting on Trial of the Poor-Laws ; the Bridge-street Gang ; Kidgeway ; John r. lustitution 231 Dicas J. E. Taylor ; Koyal Page CHAPTER XVI. The Author's Purchase of Cowdroy's Gazette in 1824; "What might be done; the Mechanics' Institution Established; Wild on the the Catholic Association Speculations ; Meeting Corn-Law ; ; Protestants of Manchester ; Jonathan Hodgins ; Establishment the Cornier (1825) ; the Pitt Club Page 245 CHAPTER XVH. of Failures A Period Great Distress; Bank ; Meeting on the Destruction of hi St. Corn-Law ; Power-Looms ; Meeting George's Fields, and Critical Position of the Author; Factory Burnt, Page 265 CHAPTER XVIII. of the Symptoms Onward Morement ; Meeting on State of the first Public Country (1826) ; Mr. Mark Philips's Appearance ; Partial of Corn Formation of a Admission Foreign ; Footpath Preservation the Flixton Case Society ; Footpath Page 281 CHAPTER TTT. Canning's Corn -Law ; Manchester Chamber of Commerce on the Bitterness Corn-Law ; Tory ; Penryn Seats, and Manchester for them Debate on petitioning ; Penryn Page 296 CHAPTER XX. Local Agitation in 1828; the Gas Question; Riot in the Town Hall for a new Police and the ; Application Bill, Opposition to it ; Contest in Committee ; Defeat of the Promoters ; Final Settle- ment Page 311 CHAPTER XXI. The Author in Difficulties ; His Failure ; Establishment of the Manchester Timet the Editor's O'Connell ; Pledge ; and the Forty- Shilling Freeholds Page 328 Vlll CON'l CHAPTER XXII. The Dark Hour before the Dawn a whole Year's ; Misery (1829) ; False held out of the Dii-t Hopes ; Disturbances; Cause chUin of the Corn-Laws on the ; Meeting Corn-Laws ; Mr. O. Jones and the Mr. J. E. old Footpaths Society ; Taylor's Friends, Page 343 CHAPTER XXIII. of the Dawn second French 1830 Symptoms ; Revolution, ; Manchester Political Union Mivt Wellington's Resignation ; ; in<j for the Bill Dissolution of Reform ; Reform ; Another Meeting ; Parliament Page 363 CHAPTER XXIV. of Bent Milton's Garden the Author's Recollections Jeremy hum ; ; Trial for 1831 Defence and Bentliam's label, ; by Himself, Acquittal, 1.1-ttt-r of Felicitation Page 379 CHAPTER XXV. Parliament in the Town Hall The Delegate ; Meeting ; Ministers in and Defeated; Excitement Manchester, Extemporaneous Meeting ; Meet the Field Riots at Bristol ing on Camp ; Page 394 CHAPTER XXVI. of the Parliament in Meeting New ; Movement Manchester, and to London on St. Peter's Fields the Deputation ; Meeting ; Agita- the of the Bill tion throughout Country ; Passing Reform Page 405 SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER. " Disclosures as to the Society for Putting Down Levellers and Republicans," and the Pitt Club .' Page 419 PREFACE. WHEN- I disposed of my interest in the Manchester Times, and retired from its management, after twenty-three years' labour as a journalist, it was suggested that, as, for a con- siderable part of my life, I had taken part in movements for important purposes, a biographical memoir would be well received. The suggestion was natural enough from those who, having read my newspaper from the time they left school until they were men, taking an active part in public business, regarded me as their political teacher. My reply was, that there was nothing in the events of my life that would interest any beyond the narrow limits of a " local school;" but, on further consideration of the matter, I thought that some account of the progress of liberal opinion in such a town as Manchester, and brief notices of the part, however humble, I had taken in its formation, would be not uninteresting and not uninstructive to its inhabitants, and those of the surrounding very populous district and that there and of ; elsewhere the history what had been done might be an encouragement further to do. In an interval of leisure, one of the very few that I had enjoyed in a lifetime of constant occupation, if not of X PREFACE. " exhausting toil, I prepared some Historical Sketches and Personal Recollections," which were published in the course of 1848, to the extent of about half of the present volume, in the paper which I had previously conducted. In another cessation of labour, towards the end of the present year, I have supplied some links of connection, and continued the narrative up to the period when the Reform Bill was passed; retaining the title, however, because the work forms less a history than a sketch which may serve for history. I might have given more interest to the volume, had I made more revelations concerning persons with whom I have held converse or correspondence, but I have been withheld by the difficulty of deciding as to what might be considered as public and what as private confi- and have to err on the side of retention dences, preferred ; other men's feelings, with regard to publicity, having to be considered as well as my own. Almost all my statements may be verified by reference to the publications of the period, except the curious disclosures in my last chapter, with which I have been favoured by a gentleman whose character is a guarantee for their authenticity. t If there has been any ambition in my undertaking, be- yond that of contributing to a plain perhaps a suggestive history of long-continued efforts to displace a stubborn obstruction to progress, it has been to associate my name for, it may be, a few years beyond my natural life, with PREFACE. XI that of a locality where, notwithstanding many sharp public contests not, however, embittered by malignity and some severe private struggles, the painfulness of which is now fast fading from my memory, I have enjoyed no inconsiderable amount of quiet happiness. I could not expect that a local history of the progress of opinion would excite more than a local interest. I find that the orders for the work, almost from Manchester alone, before its publication, amount to nearly the whole of the pretty large impression printed. I have, therefore, to announce that a SECOND EDITION will be put to press immediately, and published by the 1st of March. Manchester, 13th December, 1850. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION, To the satisfaction of having given to Manchester some sketches of what has been done as encouragement further to do, circumstances seem to promise me the additional gratification of offering the incitement in a wider field, and furnishing material, for history of a wider scope.