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Popular Radicals and the Liberal Party in Mid-Victorian Britain

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Popular Radicals and the Liberal Party in Mid-Victorian Britain Out Of Chartism, intO LIberalism? Popular Radicals and the LIberal Party in Mid-Victorian Britain One of the most he ‘Age of the Char- structural explanations have fallen tists’ was the golden age from favour, which, to a new remarkable political of popular protest, of generation of post-Marxist, post- developments crowds meeting in town Modernist historians, seem rather squares, public parks crude and simplistic. In seeking to during the first half Tand on moorland summits (some- explain the rise of popular Liber- times with weapons and under the alism, revisionist historians have of the nineteenth protective cover of darkness) to rejected social explanations and century was the rise demand their democratic rights. have turned their attention back So unnerved were the state and to politics itself.1 of a more coherent, the propertied classes that forces This article develops this pol- of surveillance and suppression itics-centred approach by paying organised and assertive were unleashed on the Chartists attention to some of the ways in popular radicalism, which – along with internal divi- which the Liberal Party was able sions and the failure after ten years to use ideas, values and beliefs culminating in the to secure the enactment of the to construct broad-based coali- coveted ‘People’s Charter’ – led to tions of supporters. Whilst agree- Chartist movement the decline of the movement after ing with the renewed emphasis 1848. which has been placed on the of the late 1830s and In contrast to the tumult of the importance of political ideas, this 1840s. Matthew early-Victorian years, the mid- article lends further weight to a Victorian decades were tranquil. growing body of post-revisionist Roberts examines Politically, this ‘Age of Equipoise’ work which has reemphasised manifested itself in the constitu- just how painful and protracted the ways in which encies in the rise of popular Lib- the transition was from Chart- the nascent Liberal eralism, based on a coalition of ism into Liberalism, a process ex-Chartists (popular Radicals) that was fraught with tension and Party was able to use and Liberals. But why did these liable to break down.2 The first popular Radicals and Liberals, section of the article surveys the the ideas, values and after two decades of conflict with various explanations of mid-cen- beliefs of the Chartists one another, agree to cooperate? tury political stability which have Historians have been divided. It been put forward by historians and other Radicals to used to be argued that this trans- and relates these to the debates formation was largely the result of on the rise of popular Liberalism. construct broad-based underlying changes in the struc- The second section looks at what coalitions of support ture and outlook of the working Liberals and popular Radicals class: rising real wages, greater were able to agree on by focusing – a process which was job security, the rise of an influ- on some of the key political issues ential and politically moderate of the day in the mid-Victorian fraught with tension group of ‘labour aristocrats’, and decades. While the third section and liable to break the splintering of the working highlights some of the differences class in terms of occupation, status of opinion and conflict over down at any time. and culture. More recently, these principles which bedevilled the 6 Journal of Liberal History 67 Summer 2010 Out Of Chartism, intO LIberalism? Popular Radicals and the LIberal Party in Mid-Victorian Britain popular Liberal coalition during its revolutionary destiny in the Great Chartist began to decrease and real wages this period. 1840s, abandoned its mission and Meeting on began to rise, thus limiting the Why did the confronta- reconciled itself to the established Kennington appeal of a radical politics based tional politics of Chartism give order. A whole range of ‘consola- Common, on ‘hunger and hatred’.3 The ris- way to the relatively harmoni- tory’ explanations were advanced 10 April 1848 ing profit margins of the manu- ous and compromising politics to explain this apparent ‘false (this and facturing middle class allowed it of moderate reformism? This consciousness’, most of which accompanying to engage in a variety of practices, question was central to the Marx- highlighted the socio-economic daguerrotypes the objective of which was to ist inspired historiography of foundations of mid-century sta- were the first reshape the workers in their own the 1960s and 1970s, not least bility. Against the background ever taken of a image in the workplace (by cre- because it presented Marxists of economic recovery in the late crowd scene) ating an elite stratum of workers with the uncomfortable question 1840s and the boom conditions of – labour aristocrats – to control of why the working class, hav- the 1850s, social tensions began to the rest of the workforce, and by ing come so close to achieving lessen as cyclical unemployment engaging in paternalistic practices Journal of Liberal History 67 Summer 2010 7 Out Of chartism, intO liberalism? to keep the rest of the workforce Chartists turned away from poli- to the privations of the masses. So content) and in the community tics altogether, channelling their powerful was Chartism’s critique (by sponsoring rational recrea- efforts into cooperatives, friendly of the state as utterly partial and tion). Whatever the cause, the societies and trades unions.8 Now, negligent that it undoubtedly effect was the same: the dilution of the fact that many ex-Chartists played a significant part in mak- working-class radicalism.4 turned their backs on politics ing the state more responsive to In more recent times, histo- might account, to some extent, for popular grievances. True, the rians have become increasingly the political stability of these years state responded largely on its own sceptical of the explanatory value by virtue of their absence, but it terms, and in a way that did not of structural interpretations of cannot explain why many of those look like a direct concession to mid-century stability. To take one Radical activists who remained Chartism (which, for obvious rea- example, it is surely not possible to convinced of the efficacy of politi- sons, it could not be seen to do). explain the rejection by the work- cal solutions attempted to coop- Where the Chartists were proved ing class of the far-reaching goals erate, when possible, with the wrong was in their claim that the of Chartism by focusing on the Liberal Party. And neither can state was incapable of reforming privileges of a few labour aristo- employer paternalism explain itself without being democra- crats who may, or may not, have why members of the working tised, which has led some histo- exercised a moderating influence class seemingly moderated their rians to argue that Chartism had over the rest of the workforce. politics. As recent work has made been ideologically bankrupt all Even during its interpretative clear, even when employers did along.11 But, surely, it would have heyday, critics of the labour aris- practise paternalism towards their been naive of the Chartists to have tocracy thesis pointed out that the workforce (and it is worth point- presumed otherwise. Without the widespread existence of a skilled ing out that many employers sim- threat of democratisation at the labour force was hardly a novelty ply could not afford to do so, or, back of the minds of the political in the mid-Victorian decades, that at any rate, not on any significant elite, the state would never have it was difficult to pinpoint which scale), working-class employees reformed itself in the way that it workers were labour aristocrats did not necessarily vote at the did. Secondly, just as the state had as there was no sharp division behest of their lords and masters.9 been unnerved so too had the between them and the rest of the Consequently, these structural propertied classes. Chartism had working class, and that it was sim- explanations can only be made to jolted urban Liberals (and Tories) plistic and reductionist to try and explain so much. As a growing out of their complacency and con- map values like respectability on number of historians have come vinced many of their leaders that to particular sections of the work- to appreciate, a more satisfac- social conditions would have to be ing class. In addition, if labour tory explanation of mid-century improved if a return to unrest was aristocrats really were that privi- political stability and the rise of to be prevented. Thus, urban Lib- leged and went to such lengths to popular Liberalism is to be found It used to be erals became less dogmatic in their distinguish themselves from the by focusing on political change argued that commitment to the strictures wider working class, are we really itself. After all, the transition from of political economy.12 As Mark to believe that they exercised such Chartism to popular Liberalism the rise of Hovell observed many years ago, an influential position?5 Similar was a political development. We Chartism gave Liberalism ‘a wider arguments can also be levelled at cannot read off the trajectory of a more cau- and more popular outlook’.13 On middle-class ‘moral imperialism’. popular politics from the state of the other side, growing numbers Middle-class sponsored initiatives the economy. If such a correla- tious and of Radicals were also coming such as improvement societies tion existed between economic round to the idea of moderate, were often shunned, subverted or depression and the popularity moderate piecemeal reform and to the need hijacked by workers who, in any of Chartism then how can we to cooperate with Liberals (and to case, had their own versions of explain the collapse of Chartism organised a lesser extent Tories) to secure it, respectability and independence.6 in 1842 amidst continued poverty although it took some longer than Even where attempts to mould and unemployment, or Chartism’s labour move- others.
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