The London Mechanics' Institution Social and Cultural Foundations 1823-1830
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The London Mechanics’ Institution Social and cultural foundations 1823-1830 Helen Hudson Flexner University College London Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2014 Flexner, London Mechanics’ Institution, p. 1 I, Helen Flexner, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. Flexner, London Mechanics’ Institution, p. 2 Abstract: This study of the founding in 1823 of the London Mechanics’ Institution examines its constituency, catchment, and mandate to teach working men science and technology. To explain the Institution’s distinctive character, it is necessary to move beyond the flourishing patent/invention journalism, which provides one explanatory context, to the cheap literature disputes, debating society connotations, and Francis Place’s network. These radical associations show why George Birkbeck was quickly designated the ‘founder’, even though he was unknown to J. C. Robertson and Thomas Hodgskin when they proposed such an institute in the Mechanics’ Magazine. Birkbeck’s social standing would allay Establishment fears. An older historiography stressing middle-class social control is tested by analysing contemporary journals, newspapers and manuscripts. The first two volumes of manuscript Members’ Registers (1824-29), recording 8,343 names with occupations and addresses, have been transcribed and appended. These allow a comparison of members’ occupations with London trades generally and highlight diverse occupations within families. They also reveal family relationships between clerks and mechanics – important because clerks have been cited as a sign of middle-class invasion. Indeed the lack of any gross change in class composition suggests that there was no working-class exodus in these pre-Reform years. By statute two-thirds of the committee had to be working class. The encouragement of invention and student autonomy through mutual instruction classes, introduced by the Pestalozzian Charles Lane, points to a more humanitarian ethos, as do the lectures which (contra the learned societies) often presented science as negotiable rather than given. Iconic radical members are highlighted: Henry Hetherington (on the committee regularly from 1825-1830), William Lovett, James Watson, G. G. Ward, and P. O. Skene. Finally, the thesis analyses the committee’s relationships with controversial outsiders who rented the theatre, including Robert Owen, Eliza Macauley, William Cobbett, the Radical Reform Association, and the London Co-operative Society. Flexner, London Mechanics’ Institution, p. 3 Contents Tables and figures 6 Acknowledgements 7 Abbreviations 8 1. Introduction: challenging the historiography 9 2. Aims and audience 37 3. Why was Birkbeck named founder of the London Mechanics’ Institution? 66 4. LMI membership: undermining historiographical explanations 93 5. Robertson’s and Place’s rival assessments of the first management committees: where the historians got their stories 134 6. Organising the classes 155 7. The LMI lectures 184 8. Controversies over letting the theatre 216 9. Concluding remarks 255 Appendices A. Digitised database of LMI Members’ Registers 262 First volume 265 Second volume 332 B. The first LMI members 395 C. Members on the provisional and first LMI committees 403 D. Committee elections: September 1824 – March 1831 ‘working class’ and ‘not of the working class’ 406 E. Occupations of the first LMI members 415 F. Grouped occupations of the first LMI members 416 Flexner, London Mechanics’ Institution, p. 4 G. Operatives and non-operatives among the first LMI members 419 H. Quarterly membership numbers: December 1824 – December 1829 420 I. Membership numbers for the largest occupational categories, by quarter 421 J. LMI March 1826 membership composition compared with David Barnett’s analysis of London manufacturing firms in 1826-7 425 K. Operatives and non-operatives: June – September 1826 quarter 430 L. Brief biographies: lecturers in the period February 1824 – September 1826 433 Bibliography 438 Flexner, London Mechanics’ Institution, p. 5 Tables and figures Tables Table 2.1: Occupations undertaken by the largest numbers of the 576 original members 39 Table 2.2: Artificial occupational categories in which the largest numbers worked 39 Table 6.1: The Schools subcommittees based on the Minutes 157 Table 6.2: When classes were introduced 163 Table 7.1: Summary of lectures for which details are available in first three years 187 Colour figures Figure 4.1: LMI total membership by quarter Dec. 1824 – Dec. 1829 95 Figure 4.2: Breakdown of LMI membership by occupation Dec. 1824 – Dec. 1829 104 Figure 4.3: LMI occupations compared to London trades 1826 106 Flexner, London Mechanics’ Institution, p. 6 Acknowledgements I would particularly like to thank Keith McClelland at University College London, who supervised the thesis and was a mine of information on nineteenth-century working-class culture. Professor Julian Hoppit, my second UCL supervisor, also provided invaluable help, criticism and advice. Adrian Desmond, whose expertise is radical artisanal science in the 1830s, was a source of inspiration. I would like to thank Birkbeck College for allowing me access to the uncatalogued manuscripts relating to the early London Mechanics’ Institution. Chris Terrey, College Secretary’s Office at Birkbeck College, was extremely helpful in facilitating my repeated visits to view the manuscript archive, particularly the Management Minute Books, the Members’ Registers and the Minutes of Quarterly General Meetings. I am especially grateful for permission to include complete transcriptions of the 8,343 members’ names, with their occupations, addresses and subscriptions, from the first two volumes of the L. M. I. Members’ Registers. For other manuscripts, I am grateful to the British Library for access to the Place Papers and to University College London for permission to study the SDUK Papers. The Cultural and Community Services department at Derbyshire County Council kindly sent me a photocopy of an 1831 letter from George Birkbeck to R. W. Horton. The research was carried out mainly in the libraries of University College London, particularly among its Special Collections; Senate House, London University; Institute of Education; the British Library; and Birkbeck College, University of London. Flexner, London Mechanics’ Institution, p. 7 Abbreviations Manuscripts Place, EH Francis Place, ‘Early history of the London Mechanics’ Institution’, British Library, Francis Place Papers, Additional ms 27,823, vol. 35, ff. 240-376 MBv1 ms ‘L. M. I. Minute Book vol. 1’, September 1823 – 5 June 1826 MBv2 ms ‘L. M. I. Minute Book vol. 2’, 12 June 1826 – 24 August 1829 MBv3 ms ‘L. M. I. Minute Book vol. 3’, 31 August 1829 – 23 April 1832 MRv1 ms ‘L. M. I. Members’ Register’, vol. 1, December 1824 – December 1826 MRv1, # Membership number in the volume pinpoints each member MRv2 ms ‘L. M. I. Members’ Register’, vol. 2, December 1826 – December 1829 MRv2, # Membership number in the volume pinpoints each member MRv3 ms ‘L. M. I. Members’ Register’, vol. 3, December 1829 – December 1833 QMv1 ms ‘L. M. I. Minutes of Quarterly General Meetings’, vol. 1, 1 March 1824 – 7 September 1831 Journals CWR Cobbett’s Weekly Register GMM Glasgow Mechanics’ Magazine LJAS London Journal of Arts and Sciences LMR London Mechanics’ Register MC Mechanics’ Chronicle MM Mechanics’ Magazine RAS Register of the Arts and Sciences TFP Trades’ Free Press TN Trades’ Newspaper WFP Weekly Free Press ODNB Oxford dictionary of national biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). References in the notes do not include subtitles. Full details are given in the bibliography. Flexner, London Mechanics’ Institution, p. 8 1 Introduction Challenging the historiography Mechanics’ institutes were an early nineteenth-century phenomenon. By 1851 they formed an important part of the 700 adult education institutions in England.1 Often grouped together for historiographical purposes and often imagined as identikit bodies, these institutes have been subject to sweeping generalisations about their function and clientele. Designed to teach working men science and the technical arts, they have generally been dismissed as failing to appeal to their target audience. The accepted story is that the artisans who joined at the beginning left almost immediately. A variety of reasons has been given: from poverty (the men could not afford the subscription) to lack of education (they could not understand the lectures), from an unwillingness to rub shoulders with middle-class members to a rejection of what they saw as middle-class managers trying to exercise control over their activities. Many historians privilege this last reason to claim that mechanics’ institutes were middle-class organisations designed specifically to coerce the working classes into changing their behaviour. Little attempt has been made, however, to distinguish one institute from another. Here I single out the founding institute, the London Mechanics’ Institution established in 1823. Only by looking at concrete instances can we escape generalisations and begin to understand the motives and actions of members and 1 J. W. Hudson, The history of adult education (London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1851), p. vi. Flexner, London Mechanics’ Institution, ch.1, p. 9 managers. Focussing on London in the 1820s, I look at how the largely Whig and Radical founders came together to establish the