Radical Funerals, Burial Customs and Political Commemoration: the Death and Posthumous Life of Ernest Jones

RADICAL FUNERALS, BURIAL CUSTOMS AND POLITICAL COMMEMORATION: THE DEATH AND POSTHUMOUS LIFE OF ERNEST JONES

ANTONY TAYLOR

olitical movements define them- in hand. The SDF newspaper Justice wrote P selves in terms of symbolism, of the funeral of the Salford radical memory, and acts of martyrdom. veteran and apostate Gladstonian, Banners, uniforms, songs and rituals George Evans in 1893: ‘The band played capture the spirit of a movement, and the Marseillaise, and we came home – emphasise the bonding ceremonies that home to carry on the work our comrade hold platform agitations together. As loved so well and worked so hard for – Lynn Hunt has demonstrated, these the glorious social revolution, the emblems of association, affiliation, and emancipation of the workers from the allegiance are often more important than thralldom of landlordism and capital- the content of political programmes ism’.2 Political funerals then were (and themselves.1 In most organized move- still are) part of a radical counter-culture ments the funeral has become an emblem in which the cycle of birth, life and death of dedication, sacrifice, and enduring is marked by highly symbolic rituals and service to the cause. Steadfast unto death, rites of passage, amongst them the loyal to the end, the deceased political naming of young reformers after hero is a representation of heroic martyred heroes, and the laying of the martyrdom, whose beliefs remain leader to rest following a lifetime of uncompromised even in situations of service and dedication. profound adversity, and despite the most Political funerals and the posthumous severe testing of his faith. Moreover, the memorialisation of leaders in political funerals of those still faithful to the ideals radicalism were a major component of of the movement achieve closure on lives Chartist and radical culture in the United lived in the service of the cause. The Kingdom during the first half of the supreme political sacrifice, above and nineteenth century. In 1853 Benjamin beyond the call of duty, creates a model Rushton’s funeral in Halifax was a major for action, weaves a narrative of suffering, event, in which national and local leaders and inspires a new generation with the lauded the achievements of a dedicated call to arms. With their fervour re- band of survivors from the great days of affirmed, the mourners leave the the agitation. The Chartist leader Ernest graveside and return renewed to the task Jones gave a speech on this occasion that

29 Humanities Research Vol. 10 No. 2, 2003 was recalled years later by G.J. Holyoake Analysing the arguments both for and as an exemplary specimen of Chartist against his adherence to Liberalism, it oratory. He declared: ‘We meet today at considers the example of his funeral and a burial and a birth – the burial of a noble later memorialisation as providing a patriot is the resurrection of a glorious pointer to the direction taken by many principle. The foundation stones of liberty Chartists in the movement’s final days, are the graves of the just, the lives of the and as a symbol of the battle fought over departed are the landmarks of the living, the memory of Chartism by adherents of the memories of the past are the beacons Labour and Liberalism respectively. By of the future.’3 The first histories and engaging with recent historiography on fictional accounts of Chartism were continuities within popular radicalism, written by the generation who this article demonstrates that local remembered the movement, were Liberals in Manchester struggled to inspired by its dedication, sat at the feet amalgamate the survivors, rituals and of the veterans, and experienced their physical monuments of Chartism into the passing.4 All the more puzzling then that pantheon of Liberalism. Chartist the process of burying and recalling the memories were never successfully tribunes of the movement has received integrated into a harmonious Whiggish such scant attention. The subject barely vision of the political past. Rather they features in the existing historiography of proved contentious and divisive, high- Chartism. Despite the persistence of lighting the fracture-lines dividing the memories of Chartism up until the eve of competing radical and Liberal the Great War, there has been little interpretations of the national narrative analysis of the role of memory in sus- of liberty and reform. taining the popular record of the The career of Ernest Jones is agitation, or in preserving the reputation indissolubly linked with the fate of the of its leaders. In older accounts of the Chartist movement. A young entrant to movement, radical survivors were simply the movement in 1846, he achieved a pre- consigned to oblivion, lived on in eminent position within the agitation in poverty, or, seeing the error of their ways, its declining years. As Chartism’s last eschewed political activism altogether. leader of note, Jones came to symbolize Despite this tendency, recollections of the an intractable position of no compromise Chartists as ‘The men of the Charter/ The with liberalism. Popular, charismatic, and sturdy old guard’ remained a continuous utterly ruthless, Jones was the figure most feature of Labour and Liberal histories usually recalled by the generation who into the 1920s.5 grew up with memories of the movement Kate Tiller, however, has noted that as a representative Chartist hero. In the as Chartism declined, funerals of the towns and mill villages around martyred dead took on a greater Manchester in the 1840s the old tradition significance, allowing the faithful to of naming children after radical heroes huddle together in adversity around the ended with Jones. The investigative memories and physical relics of former journalist Angus Bethune Reach wrote days.6 Following Tiller’s lead, this article about the Middleton weaving villages in re-examines the posthumous history of 1849: ‘A curious indication of the the movement through the career of the prevailing shade of radical politics in the last Chartist leader, Ernest Jones. village is afforded by the parish register,

30 ANTONY TAYLOR Radical Funerals, Burial Customs and Political Commemoration the people having a fancy for christening part in the funeral procession, and large their children after the hero of the minute. numbers availed themselves of the Thus, a generation or so back, Henry opportunity. Shortly after mid-day the Hunts were as common as blackberries – deceased’s house was crowded by a crop of Feargus O’Connor’s replaced persons anxious to take part in the proces- them – and latterly they have a few green sion, and but for the very admirable sprouts labeled Ernest Jones’.7 As the arrangements that had been made, the movement declined in the 1850s, Jones greatest confusion must have prevailed.11 carved out a post-Chartist career for himself as a barrister, reform radical in Moreover, as the cortege passed the suffrage campaign of 1866–67, and ‘many thousands of people, for the most campaigner on Irish issues. In the part of the working-class, crowded the parliamentary reform agitation of 1866– street …, and shopkeepers along the line 67 he distinguished himself in a debate of route closed their places of business’.12 with the classical scholar Professor John Contemporary accounts suggest that the Stuart Blackie in defence of the principles funeral cortege was one of the largest in of democracy that set the tone for the the civic history of Manchester. Estimates campaign.8 In 1868 he stood of the numbers present vary. There were unsuccessfully for Manchester on a liberal a thousand in the funeral procession platform, but died prematurely the marching six abreast before a crowd of following year at the age of just 50.9 spectators numbering between 30,000, Ernest Jones’ funeral in January 1869 and 80–100,000.13 It took two hours before was in a long tradition in Manchester. the first elements reached the gates of Chartist veterans like Lawrence Ardwick Cemetery. Knots of mourners Pitkethley, George Lomax, and William provided the appearance of separate Henry Chadwick, the self-styled ‘last of demonstrations at Strangeways, the the Manchester Chartists’ also received Assizes, and Manchester Royal Infirmary lavish and emotional send-offs. Their in Piccadilly. Sixty carriages and deaths provided the opportunities for conveyances followed the procession. generous tributes paid to the ‘Old Present were Elkanah Armitage, the Guardsmen’.10 Jones’ funeral, however, mayor of Manchester, and the two sitting was a landmark affair. The scale of the MPs, Jacob Bright and Thomas Bayley arrangements, the genuine displays of Potter. The funeral was especially grief on the part of the mourners, and the noteworthy for the large number of vast numbers who attended were veteran radicals it attracted. testimony to the popularity of Ernest Representatives from reform groups in all Jones and the pull of the Chartist past. the major northern towns attended, and Accounts of the demonstration emphasise the Executive Committee of the Northern the spontaneity of the street Branch of the Reform League preceded demonstrations that lined the route. The the hearse. George Howell, Edmond Manchester Courier remarked: Beales, and George Odger represented the national committee of the Reform That section of the working-class who League. were connected with the Reform League, Ernest Jones’ death became the being solicitous of rendering their tribute representative iconic death of ageing to Mr. Jones’ memory were invited to take British and transatlantic radicals. Former

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Chartist, George Julian Harney, recognition of their importance on them. portrayed reformers exhausted by their The lore surrounding the funeral was exertions, and the pressures of the interwoven with Chartist mythology and platform as almost literally consumed by immediately recognizable radical terms the movements that they promoted. of reference. Edmond Beales in his funeral Recalling Jones’ death in 1897 at the time oration, compared Jones to the of the funeral of the land reformer, Henry parliamentarian Sir John Elliott, martyred George he wrote: ‘There is nothing by Charles I ‘and dying by inches in the wonderful about such deaths – the cell to which the tyrant Charles I had wonder is that they do not happen more consigned him’ but nevertheless still frequently. Impassioned appeals, unflinchingly steadfast in his devotion to unceasing excitement, may be borne with the cause of parliament.17 Jones’ own at least for a time while men are under period in solitary confinement for forty. But the Fate with the “abhorred inflammatory speeches made in 1848, the shears” is apt not to allow the like year of revolutions, made this a immunity to men of more advanced particularly apposite comparison. years.’ For his followers ‘the Manchester Moreover, the reference back to the 1640s Radical Reformers and Old Chartists’ it placed Beales’ rhetoric in a long-standing was ‘a blow … from which they never tradition in popular politics that exalted recovered’, but bore all the hallmarks of the role of those who struggled against martyrdom.14 Such deaths showed the executive tyranny in pursuit of the commitment, dedication, passion, and freedom of parliamentary institutions, zeal of men dedicated to a noble cause freed from the heavy hand of royal who burned themselves up in its despotism.18 The emblems used at the propagation. Surrounded by letters from funeral were consonant with traditional committees and well-wishers that Chartist practices. Four Peterloo veterans signaled his future commitment to the led the procession, and the coffin was cause, Jones expired the day after his born on the shoulders of pall-bearers who fiftieth birthday, with the light of liberty had all been involved in the Chartist shining in his eyes.15 campaign of 1848. In an oblique tribute The symbolism surrounding the to Jones’ own imprisonment, one event provided an uneasy mix of Liberal pallbearer, Thomas Topping, had also and Chartist tropes. The demonstration been incarcerated for physical force recalled the mythologies of Manchester activity in 1848 . References back to radicalism, and the monopoly of public physical-force and especially to Peterloo space that had characterized the Chartist were inflammatory for a Manchester agitation in its hey-day. Traditionally, audience, recalling the unjustified action Chartist congregations commanded the of the local magistracy against a open spaces of the city, mustering in large legitimately constituted demonstration in numbers at New Cross and in Stevenson 1819. Throughout the nineteenth century Square. These were areas whose Peterloo remained the touchstone of proximity to the manufacturing district Manchester’s radical history, a yardstick and the slum quarter made them of aristocratic misgovernment, and a susceptible to the invasive public totem of dedication and sacrifice. presence of Chartism.16 The cortege Meetings with Peterloo veterans were skirted these spaces, and conferred almost religious experiences for some

32 ANTONY TAYLOR Radical Funerals, Burial Customs and Political Commemoration

reformers.19 The fact that Jones himself working-class followers and reformers was born in the year of Peterloo cemented who had campaigned for him in the his association with the mainstream of the election of 1868. The continuing radical movement, and transported him association between Jones and the into a pantheon of the elect, canonized by republic of the streets is confirmed by the exposure to moments of seismic radical large posthumous circulation of editions change.20 of his poetry and the sale of memorabilia These references to Peterloo, and relating to his life in the alleys and Jones’ imprisonment in 1848, were thoroughfares of Manchester. Richard uncomfortable ones for many Liberals. Pankhurst recalled buying quanties of Allegations of hypocrisy by Manchester’s Jones’ private papers and other items of Liberal elite were much in evidence at the ‘Jonesiana’ from ‘a hawker in the gutter’ time of the funeral. For radical reformers in the days after his death.24 These the refusal by Manchester’s United placards, flyers, ballads and other street Liberal Party political machine to endorse ephemera that traditionally circulated in Jones in a forthcoming by-election dem- the poorer districts of large industrial onstrated their untrustworthiness, and towns where memories of events like rekindled memories of the perfidity of Peterloo were preserved, provide ‘the Newall’s Buildings clique’.21 Jones evidence of the initial attempts to himself had written to G. J. Holyoake a memorialise Jones. In these crude poems few weeks before his death: ‘A certain and songs, Jones’ career was reprised as part of the Manchester middle-class that of a foe of tyrants, and a hammer of liberals are behaving very hard to me. unjust rule, who posthumously exhorted Armitage, Ashton, Taylor etc are, I his followers to keep the faith, and whose believe, acting truly as themselves, but a message was passed on to a future part of the Reform Union is totally the generation of reformers by the faithful: opposite way’.22 Middle-class Liberalism ‘Ernest Jones shall be recorded in the annexed the outward trappings of reform annals of true fame/And the child thats history, but disavowed the connection [sic.] yet unborn, shall lisp his patriot with traditions of violence, both within name’.25 Chartism, and emerging from the post- A Liberal presence was also very Napoleonic War Jacobin movement. Prior pronounced in the proceedings. The Anti- to the general election of 1874 in Corn Law League (ACLL) veteran Manchester, references back to Peterloo Thomas Thomasson from Rochdale, and proved especially divisive. An article by the Bright name represented by Jacob ‘An Old Hand-Loom Weaver’ entitled ‘A Bright, were icons of the ACLL Peep into the Good Old Tory Days’ inheritance. This middle-class presence published in the Manchester Examiner and and the administrative apparatus of the Times that referred to ‘that state of more fabled ‘Newall’s Buildings clique’ it than Egyption bondage to which the represented was undoubtedly respon- Tories reduced you, and in which they sible for the smooth running of the left you’ caused disquiet at the paper, and proceedings, and the immaculate order led Benjamin Brierley to flatly deny that of the procession. For reformers who he had written it.23 Moreover, the treasured the ACLL legacy, this was testi- memory of Jones was jealously guarded, mony to the degree to which Jones’ and remained the preserve of many of the personal past had been amalgamated into

33 Humanities Research Vol. 10 No. 2, 2003 the Liberal tradition. Moreover, Chartists’, became an occasion for Manchester’s Liberal press successfully meditations on his radical career, and a translated his career into a Liberal success truce between Chartist and Liberal story, in which the ‘excesses’ of his youth memories. A wreath from the Cobden had been discarded in favour of the Club bearing the words ‘In memory of values of moderation, measured political an old warrior in the cause of cheap food’ debate, and Gladstonian state reformism. implied a commitment to free trade, but The Manchester Courier complained that avoided the issue of his imprisonment there was almost too much unanimity during the Chartist campaign of 1848 for about his career amongst former allies, inflammatory speeches made in and no mention at all of his colourful Stevenson Square. The presence of Chartist past.26 The presence of Elkanah delegates from the Land Nationalisation Armitage, mayor and ACLL veteran, at Society and from the radical debating the funeral posthumously bestowed the club, the County Forum, at Chadwick’s benediction of Manchester’s municipal funeral sat uneasily with this benign missionaries on Jones. To emphasise the vision of his past political trajectory.29 link, local Liberals stressed the proximity Ernest Jones’ funeral warrants of his grave to civic worthies like John comparison with that of George Wilson Dalton, father of atomic theory, and Sir the following year. In line with a liberal- Thomas Potter, municipal incorporater, ism that inhabited the indoor civic spaces Cobdenite, and first mayor of of Manchester, and eschewed outdoor Manchester. A year later at George places of assembly at New Cross and Wilson’s funeral in January 1871, Jones Stevenson Square, George Wilson’s had already become a pivot of this funeral in 1871 was a much more posthumous Liberal tradition. The restrained affair that reflected an closeness of his body to that of Wilson overwhelmingly institutional and provided an almost literal co-mingling of establishment bias. Working-men the ashes of Chartism and the ACLL, that attended as employees of his place of bridged the fractures within the radical business at the Lancashire and Yorkshire community dating back to the free trade railway, but there was little public debates of the 1840s.27 Moreover, the ceremonial, and the bulk of the mourners respectability of Ardwick as one of the comprised ‘deputations from public new breed of company cemeteries, later bodies with which Mr. Wilson was worthy home to such illustrious dead as associated.’ Delegates were present from Robert Hawthorne, a veteran who won the City Council, the National Reform the VC during the storming of the Union, the Chamber of Commerce, and Kashmir Gate in Delhi in the Indian the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincoln- Mutiny, repudiated allegations of Jones’ shire railway.30 Newspaper reports subversive instincts, and cemented his emphasized that this was an orderly and posthumous links with civic interests and restrained funeral service, honouring a patriotic values.28 Similar Liberal worthy political elder for his civic and attempts to appropriate the radical dead local contributions to the City of were a frequent feature of Manchester Manchester, and for his role in the politics. As late as 1908 the funeral of machine politics of the Anti-Corn Law William Henry Chadwick, reported League. In stark contrast to Jones, under the banner headline ‘Last of the Wilson’s funeral convincingly elevated

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the virtues of organization, political of liberty featured prominently, recalling restraint, free trade, and industry. the French revolutions of 1830 and 1848, The Manchester Courier pronounced whilst the Labourers’ Society, ‘mainly the demise of the Reform League the day composed of Irishmen’, was conspicuous before Jones’ funeral.31 For opponents of in the procession.33 A few weeks later the politics espoused by the League, George Odger, an avowed republican, Ernest Jones’ death meant the literal and and a target of contemporary anti-reform figurative end to the model of platform opinion, recalled Jones as a martyr, who agitation pioneered by the Chartist ‘instead of being a guest of the wealthy movement. For many radicals, however, … tendered his assistance to the working- the memory of Jones was a point of con- classes’.34 tact with the radical tradition that The initial activity surrounding Jones’ elevated the celebration of his memory memorialisation had the object of into a recurring point of commemoration. assisting his family. In 1869, funds were Commemorative galas, in which Jones set up in Manchester and in the featured prominently, became an Lancashire and Yorkshire mill-towns to established part of British radicalism in provide for his widow, and to pay school the years after 1869. Opponents of rad- fees for the two youngest of his three icalism were suspicious of these events. children. Elderly Chartists and reformers, The Times newspaper cast doubt on the cementing the appeal to core radical integrity of those involved, suggesting values, were much in evidence at these that in London, East End branches of the events, and portraits, images, souvenir League used his death to artificially addresses, and recitations of his poetry prolong their existence following the became established parts of the formal dissolution of the organization: proceedings.35 Until the turn of the ‘Banners inscribed with well-known century, Jones’ widow and daughter by names and familiar party cries make it his second marriage remained dependant appear as if the bearers were more on such collections.36 As late as the 1880s anxious to remind the public that certain and 1890s the Jones family connection ardent reformers were still alive than that was an evocative one, guaranteeing Mr. Ernest Jones was dead.’32 For those adulation, sympathy, and sometimes hostile to reform, the posthumous persecution.37 Unsurprisingly pretenders memory of Jones was overwhelmingly a emerged, amongst them aspiring radicals, threatening one, that recalled the apogee who sought to further their careers on the of the Chartist movement, and the back of the Jones name. The obituary of confrontational aspects of the agitation. George Jutsum, librarian to the Ber- The Ernest Jones evoked on these mondsay Branch of the SDF, recorded occasions was an embodiment of Chartist that he claimed to be a relation (possibly radicalism, whose career was recalled in illegitimate) of Ernest Jones.38 terms of the internationalism, democratic Impromptu commemorations of values, and pro-Irish separatist stance Ernest Jones abounded in the clubs and that featured heavily on the Chartist gathering places of mid-Victorian agenda in the 1840s when Jones first radicalism. Memories of him were in joined the movement. At a commem- evidence at the Durham miners’ gala of orative Trafalgar Square demonstration 1874, where on one banner his image in March 1869 red flags draped with caps featured prominently in a radical triptych

35 Humanities Research Vol. 10 No. 2, 2003 of Henry Hunt, Jones and Fergus and emphasised his position as a political O’Connor.39 In the notorious republican ‘outsider’ for many Liberals. Attended by Patriotic Club, Clerkenwell Green, Jones’ many of his old friends and allies, the ‘incisive features’ adorned the walls next ceremony took place in silence ‘only to Sir Charles Dilke, Joseph Arch, Daniel broken once and again by the sobbing of O’Connell and G.J. Harney.40 As the years many of the old political fellow workers passed gatherings to commemorate of the deceased’.43 Twelve feet high, and Jones’ memory became commemorative constructed from blocks of grey and red moments in their own right, allowing granite, the memorial was inscribed with veterans to take stock, and providing the lines from ‘Democracy Vindicated’, his opportunity to consider the achievements answer to Professor Blackie’s speech on of the popular reform agitation. As with democracy at the height of the reform other radical heroes like Paine and agitation in 1867: ‘We say to you Richard Carlile, Jones’ birthday was “whatsoever ye would that men should frequently celebrated. In 1879 there were do to you, do ye even so to them” – when also a number of landmark events to you realize this you have democracy, for mark the decade since his death. At a democracy is but Christianity applied to gathering in Manchester, Richard the politics of our wordly life’. A further Pankhurst announced that ‘He now lies valediction to his life read: ‘Full of warm in an humble tomb, and there are men, sympathies and generous desires he who ought to know better, who think little freely toiled and suffered on behalf of the of his work, and are sometimes disposed wronged and oppressed and made to think scorn of his memory. But all that himself a name honoured and beloved by will ere long be righted. Democracy was the people whose welfare he sought in his day, and is to some extent in ours, through life and in whose service he met belligerent. But the time arrives when an untimely death’. democracy will be no longer belligerent, The memorial service brought but triumphant’.41 Increasingly, however, together many of the tropes associated the posthumous Jones cult answered calls with Jones’ radicalism, the majority of for an appropriate shrine to honour his them outside the Liberal tradition. The achievements. From an early stage, address was to have been given by Elijah radicals saw Jones’ career as an Dixon, the noted Peterloo veteran, inspirational one that deserved a confirming the traditional link with the monumental celebration. In the secularist post-1815 Jacobin tradition, but he arrived National Reformer there were suggestions late and the Reverend S.A. Steinthal that in the absence of a memorial to Jones officiated instead. Moreover the and others of ‘freedom’s heroes’ in inscription on the tomb asserted the claim London, radical clubs could be decorated to be repeated in much Jonesiana, without with elaborate friezes that recorded a great deal of supporting evidence, that different episodes in his life.42 his work in the service of the people had The various funds that provided for led to his premature death. Noting Jones’ family, finally amassed sufficient contemporary events in France, sym- money for an imposing tomb in Ardwick pathy for the suffering French people was Cemetery in 1871. The unveiling of the further expressed by Steinthal. Something monument reinforced the sense of Jones’ of Chartist internationalism remained in memory as a vessel for radical energies, his defence of French republicanism, and

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disparagement of Bonapartist the generation of reformers who came imperialism. At a rally in the evening, after him. Specimens of his poetry, Elijah Dixon encouraged the Liberal Party speeches, and writings circulated widely to reform the land laws, embrace in the years after his death and until the temperance, and introduce the secret 1890s featured heavily in radical and ballot, an unlegislated point of the reform journals.48 Examples like his, People’s Charter. wrote the Single Tax with reference to In subsequent years, Jones’ grave Matthew Gass, the radical orator of became a sacred place of pilgrimage. His Glasgow Green, ‘had a powerful friend and colleague, Edward Hooson, influence on young men like Mr. Gass’.49 who apparently died in emulation of the Justice even exonerated him from the ‘great chief’ after contracting bronchitis traits usually attributed to lawyers.50 In whilst speaking at open-air meetings to the years up until the eve of the Great War collect subscriptions for Jones’ tomb, had radicals were fiercely protective of Jones’ a plot very close by.44 Like the tombs of memory. Questioning the quality or other radical saints, Jones’ grave became scansion of his poetry was an both an inspiration, and place of inflammatory act at radical meetings.51 meditation. Sir Richard Coppock, later The esteem in which Ernest Jones was General Secretary of the National held by his many followers demonstrates Federation of Building Trades, that he was one of the handful of discovered socialism there as a teenager nineteenth century political leaders who in a moment of pensive rumination.45 In was truly loved. For those who addition, the tomb was tended and main- remembered Jones he was the tained by the TUC from 1913 onwards.46 embodiment of a tradition that was Despite public protest, it was uprooted suppressed by Liberalism, subsumed and demolished with other graves in within it, or exiled to the political fringes. Ardwick Cemetery in 1961 in a shady land deal organized by Sir Philip Pringle. Had he still been alive, Jones might have ENDNOTES sensed a whiff of revived ‘Old Corruption’ in municipal guise about this. 1 Lynn Hunt, Politics, Culture and Class in the French Revolution, Cambridge, 1986, Recently Miles Taylor’s new chapters. 2–5. biography of Ernest Jones has brilliantly recaptured the spirit of his life and times. 2 Justice, 15 April 1893, p. 3. Edward Pearce has, however, criticised the degree to which Taylor dissects the 3 Newcastle Weekly Chronicle, 6 December prevailing myths about Jones, whilst 1890. Also see the Northern Star, 2 July 1853. failing to explain the affection for him that 47 resulted in a burgeoning Jones cult. An 4 See Allen Clarke, The Men Who Fought over-emphasis on the foibles and politi- for Us, Manchester, 1914, chapter 6. cal machinations of Jones, risks ignoring the human warmth of the man that made 5 See Elijah Ridings, ‘Suppressed Verses’ him such a respected and admired figure in ‘Ridings – Newspaper Cuttings 1857– 58’ (ms 821 08 R6 1858, Manchester within the movement. Posthumously, Central Library), p. 133, Ben Turner, radical accounts of his life showed him About Myself , London, 1930, pp. 28–9 to be an inspiration and an example to and Philip Viscount Snowden, An

37 Humanities Research Vol. 10 No. 2, 2003

Autobiography, London, 1934, vol. 1, Manchester City News, 15 November pp. 18–19. 1913, p. 2.

6 Kate Tiller, ‘Late Chartism: Halifax 17 Manchester Guardian, 1 February 1869, 1847–58’ in James Epstein and Dorothy p. 3. Thompson (eds.) The Chartist Experience: Studies in Working-Class Radicalism and 18 See Blair Worden, Roundhead Culture, 1830–1860 , London, 1982, Reputations: The English Civil War and the pp. 311–344. Passions of Posterity, London, 2001, chapters 8–9. 7 C.Aspin (ed.) Angus Bethune Reach: Manchester and the Textile Districts in 19 See remarks by Herbert Burrows in 1849, Helmshore, 1972, p. 107. Justice, 19 January 1901, p. 5.

8 Anna M. Stoddart, John Stuart Blackie, 20 A.B. Wakefield, ‘Ernest Jones: Poet, Edinburgh, 1911, pp. 243–246. Patriot and Politician’, (Pamplet re- printed from the Brighouse Echo, 9 9 For the career of Ernest Jones, see Miles January 1891). Taylor, Ernest Jones, Chartism and the Romance of Politics, 1819–1869, Oxford, 21 Antony Taylor, ‘“The Best Way to Get 2003. what he Wanted”: Ernest Jones and the Boundaries of Liberalism in the 10 See for the death of Pitkethley, the Manchester Election of 1868’, People’s Paper, 12 June 1858, p. 4, and for Parliamentary History, 16 (1997), pp. 185– George Lomax, the Manchester Guardian, 204. For the significance of Newall’s 6 January 1880, p. 3. Buildings, the former headquarters of the Anti-Corn Law League in the city, 11 Manchester Courier, 1 February 1869, p. 3. see P.A. Pickering and A. Tyrrell, The See also P.A. Pickering, Chartism and the People’s Bread: A History of the Anti-Corn Chartists in Manchester and Salford, Law League, London, 2000, chapter 1; Basingstoke, 1995, chapter 10. Manchester Faces and Places (14 vols., 1894), v, pp. 83–86. 12 Manchester Guardian, 1 February 1869, p. 3. 22 Ernest Jones – G.J. Holyoake, 7 January 1869, Ernest Jones Papers, International 13 The considerable industry in Institute for the Study of Social History, hagiographical pro-Jones pamphlets that Amsterdam. appeared after his death tended to over- inflate this figure; see David P. Davies, A 23 Manchester Examiner and Times, 30 Short Sketch of the Life and Labours of January 1874, p. 7 and 5 February 1874, Ernest Jones, Chartist, Barrister and Poet, p. 7. Liverpool, 1897, p. 18. 24 Sylvia Pankhurst, The Suffragette 14 Newcastle Weekly Chronicle, 6 November Movement, 1931, re-printed, London, 1897. Virago, 1984, p. 11.

15 For the full list of correspondence 25 ‘Lines in Memory of Ernest Jones, Esq., delivered to Jones shortly before he died Poet, Patriot, Orator’, Manchester see F. Leary, The Life of Ernest Jones, Central Library, Pearson Ballad London, 1887, p. 80. Collection, vol. 2, p. 227 (q 398.8 59.1869). 16 See for recollections of the Chartist disturbances at New Cross, the 26 Manchester Courier, 2 February 1869, p. 5.

38 ANTONY TAYLOR Radical Funerals, Burial Customs and Political Commemoration

27 Manchester Examiner and Times, 5 Memoriam, Ernest Jones, Manchester, January 1871, p. 5. 1879, especially pp. 5–8, and for a commemoration of Jones’s birthday, the 28 Hawthorne died on 2 February 1879. See Bacup Times, 10 February 1877. the Manchester Evening News, 18 December 1984. 42 National Reformer, 4 October 1874, p. 220.

29 Manchester Guardian, 2 June 1908, p. 5. 43 Manchester Examiner and Times, 10 April 1871, p. 4. 30 Manchester Guardian, 5 January 1871, p. 6, and the Manchester Examiner and 44 The Pioneer, 16 February 1889, and the Times, 5 January 1871, p. 5. Manchester Examiner and Times, 16 December 1869, and 20 December 1869. 31 Manchester Courier, 30 January 1869, p. 7. 45 Joyce Bellamy and John Saville (eds.), 32 The Times, 27 March 1869 Dictionary of Labour Biography, London, 1976, vol. 3, p. 49. 33 The Bee-Hive, 27 March 1869. 46 Taylor, ‘Commemoration, 34 The Bee-Hive, 24 April 1869. Memorialisation and Political Memory in Post-Chartist Radicalism’, p. 271. 35 See the Bradford Observer, 1 April 1869, p. 1, and 2 April 1869, p. 2; the Preston 47 Edward Pearce, ‘Spurning at the High’, Guardian, 20 February 1869, and Dr. F.R. London Review of Books, 6 November Lees, In Memoriam: An Oration on the 2003, pp. 36–7. Death of Ernest Jones Esq., The People’s Friend, Leeds, 1874, especially pp. 6–7. 48 See, for example, The Labourers’ Chronicle, 8 January 1881, p. 7, 5 March 36 See ‘Antony Taylor, Commemoration, 1881, p. 3, and 23 April 1881, p. 5, and Memorialisation and Political Memory Justice, 2 February 1884, p. 5, and 26 July in Post-Chartist Radicalism: The 1885 1884, p. 1. Halifax Chartist Reunion in Context’ in Owen Ashton, Robert Fyson and 49 The Single Tax, 1 February 1900, pp. 130– Stephen Roberts (eds.), The Chartist 131 Legacy, Woodbridge, 1999, pp 255–285. 50 Reynolds’s Newspaper, 6 March 1898, p. 2. 37 For suggestions that Jones’ family suffered political persecution after his 51 See a fierce argument about ‘Ernest death see Pankhurst, The Suffragette Jones the Poet’ at the Secular Club, Movement, p. 11. Manchester, in the National Reformer, 5 June 1870, p. 366. 38 See Justice, 2 March 1895, p. 7.

39 National Reformer, 23 August 1874, p. 113.

40 Douglas Jerrold, ‘Red London: The London Patriotic Society’, Weekly Dis- patch, 6 July 1879, p. 12.

41 The City Jackdaw, 14 March 1879, p. 138. Also see the National Reformer, 16 March 1879, p. 170, J. Creuss, (ed.), In