The Practices of Radical Working-Class Politics, 1830-1842
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Activism and the Everyday: The Practices of Radical Working-Class Politics, 1830-1842 A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities 2012 Thomas Scriven School of Arts, Languages and Cultures. Contents Contents List of figures 3 Abstract 4 Declaration and Copyright Statement 5 Acknowledgements 6 Introduction 7 Chapter One Radicalism and Everyday Life: Agitation and Protest in Dorset, 1830-1838 31 Chapter Two Sociability, Conviviality and the Infrastructure of Early Chartism: Henry Vincent in the West of England, 1837-39 85 Chapter Three ‘The sworn foe of fleas!’: Humour, Satire and Sexuality in the Life and Letters of Henry Vincent 135 Chapter Four ‘To move in a dignified way and place my own character high above reproach’: Credit, Social Mobility and the Emergence of Popular Liberalism 187 Conclusion 237 Bibliography 245 This thesis is 79,147 words long, including footnotes and excluding the bibliography. 2 List of Figures Figure 1: Dorset in 1830, from Samuel Lewis (ed.), A Topographical Dictionary of England (London, 1831) p. 35 Figure 2: Circuit Plan for Methodist Lay Preachers in the Weymouth Circuit, 1829, from John Smith Simon, Methodism in Dorset: A Sketch (Weymouth, 1870) p. 58 Figure 3: Map illustrating the extent of the Methodist community in Dorset by 1829 p. 59 Figure 4: Map illustrating the extent of the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers by March 1834 p. 72 Figure 5: Extent of Chartist organising in Dorset, August-November 1838 p. 79 Figure 6: ‘The Royal Civic Gorge, or Who Pays for It’, from Cleave’s London Satirist and Gazette of Variety, 11 November 1837 p. 172 Figure 7: ‘Aldermen taking a lesson of Equestrianism, previously to the Royal Visit.’ Cleave’s London Satirist and Gazette of Variety, 28 October 1837 p. 173 Figure 8: ‘Three Jim Crows’, Cleave’s London Satirist and Gazette of Variety¸ 2 December 1837 p. 176 Figure 9: ‘The Chimpanzee’, woodcut of Thomas Phillips Junior, Mayor of Newport, from the Western Vindicator, 17 August 1839 p. 180 3 Activism and the Everyday: The Practices of Radical Working-Class Politics, 1830-1842 This thesis will re-evaluate the Chartist movement through research into day-to-day practice in four areas: sociability, material networks, gender and political subjectivity. It will demonstrate that Chartism’s activism and the everyday lives of its members were indistinct. In the early years of the movement and the years preceding it, activism and political thought engaged with the quotidian to successfully build a movement that was not only relevant to but an integral part of people’s everyday lives. This thesis will analyse how this interaction was not limited to Chartist activists politicising everyday grievances, but also how day-to-day practices and relationships contributed to the infrastructure, intellectual culture and political programme of the movement. This thesis will make original contributions to a number of debates. It challenges the dominant view of Chartism as first and foremost a political movement distinct from its social conditions. It will be argued that this dichotomy between the political and the social cannot be sustained, and it will be shown that activists were most successful when they drew from and were part of society. It will criticise the related trend in studies of Chartism and Radicalism to focus on political identity, meaning and forms of communication. It will argue that these topics are valuable, but need to be seen within a wider existential framework and integrated with an approach that sees cultural activity as one part of a range of activities. As such, it will illustrate the ways that cultural practices are bound with social relationships. Following this, it will make the case for practice to be looked at not just in symbolic or ritualistic terms but also in terms of day-to-day activities that were crucial for the development and maintenance of political movements. It will be argued that prosaic, mundane and day-to-day activities are integral aspects of social movements and as such are worthwhile areas of research. Finally, it will add to our understanding of Chartism by providing biographical information on Henry Vincent, an under-researched figure, and the south west and west of England, under-researched regions. This thesis is organised into two parts. The first will follow the work of activists in developing Chartism in the south west of England from the end of the Swing Riots until the Chartist Convention of 1839. Here it will be argued that Chartism relied upon a close and intensive interaction between activists and the communities they were politicising, with the result being that the movement was coloured by the politics, intellectual culture and practices of those communities. The second section will look at how the private lives and social networks of individual activists were integral to their political ideas, rhetoric and capacity to work as activists. Correspondence, documents produced by the state, the radical press and the internal records of the Chartist movement all shed light on the way everyday life and political thought and action merged. 4 Declaration and Copyright Statement No portion of the work referred to in the thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning. i. The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this thesis) owns certain copyright or related rights in it (the “Copyright”) and s/he has given The University of Manchester certain rights to use such Copyright, including for administrative purposes. ii. Copies of this thesis, either in full or in extracts and whether in hard or electronic copy, may be made only in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) and regulations issued under it or, where appropriate, in accordance with licensing agreements which the University has from time to time. This page must form part of any such copies made. iii. The ownership of certain Copyright, patents, designs, trade marks and other intellectual property (the “Intellectual Property”) and any reproductions of copyright works in the thesis, for example graphs and tables (“Reproductions”), which may be described in this thesis, may not be owned by the author and may be owned by third parties. Such Intellectual Property and Reproductions cannot and must not be made available for use without the prior written permission of the owner(s) of the relevant Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions. iv. Further information on the conditions under which disclosure, publication and commercialisation of this thesis, the Copyright and any Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions described in it may take place is available in the University IP Policy (see http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/DocuInfo.aspx?DocID=487), in any relevant Thesis restriction declarations deposited in the University Library, The University Library’s regulations (see http://www.manchester.ac.uk/library/aboutus/regulations) and in The University’s policy on Presentation of Theses. 5 Acknowledgements First of all I’d like to thank my supervisors Bertrand Taithe and Julie-Marie Strange, whose patient oversight and good humour made the experience of producing this thesis a tranquil and enjoyable one. Mike Sanders’ insight, critical eye and high standards meant I always got the best out of our panel meetings, and I’m particularly indebted to him for suggesting the Henry Vincent archive as a means of combatting my early meanderings. The staff at the archives I’ve visited were also a great help, particularly those at the Dorset History Centre, who responded to a speculative query about Henry Vincent’s visit to the county with a huge list of references that prompted the first chapter, and to the staff at the Labour History Archive and Study Centre at the People’s History Museum in Manchester – a testament to the value of labour history and publicly funded culture. Despite not turning up for the inaugural week of the PhD and subsequently not speaking to any of them for a year, once we did make contact the postgraduate community in Manchester have been a source of jollity, support and good advice, and S2.6-7’s collective combats with management, undergraduates and door-slammers were key bonding moments. Chats with Andy Bowman, other MULE people, housemates, strangers at Hardy’s Well, and other people in that crowd were formative on my thinking about how activism works (and more often, doesn’t work), as was the experience of the student protests in 2010-11. George Nichols, Henry Clarke and Tom Todd all gave me free places to stay when I was archiving, even though I got in the way a lot and made a lot of mess. The Arts and Humanities Research Council provided the funding that made this project possible. I am obliged to dedicate this to Fitz. 6 Introduction This thesis is an investigation into the interaction between Chartism and everyday life between 1830 and 1842, which will analyse day-to-day relationships and practices to revise the distinction present in the historiography of the movement between politics, culture and society. Although Chartism has been the subject of a vast scholarship, much of this early work was limited to accounts that neglected the sophisticated and national political nature of the movement, instead arguing that it was a protest movement reacting to economic distress.1 Critical of this approach, Dorothy Thompson and Gareth Stedman Jones’s revisions underlined the political nature of the movement, but this also divorced analysis of Chartist politics from social issues.2 In particular, this tendency has been expressed in more recent research discussing Chartism’s political language, ideas, identity and symbolism in isolation.3 Through demonstrating that Chartism’s activism and the everyday lives of its members were indistinct, this study will contribute towards bridging a gap in Chartist studies, where the political and cultural aspects of the movement have been divorced from many aspects of the social relations that they were embedded within.