Matthew-Roberts-PPP-19-Jan-2021
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Romantic Memory? Forgetting, Remembering and Feeling in the Chartist Pantheon of Heroes, c.1790–1840 Matthew Roberts ABSTRACT This paper explores the politics of remembrance through a case study of Chartism, the British mass movement for democratic and social rights in the 1830s and 1840s. It focuses on the ‘paper pantheon’ of radical greats constructed by the Chartists from the perspectives of Romanticism, the powerful cultural and literary effects of which were still being felt in the 1840s. The paper highlights two linked aspects of romantic memory in Chartist heritage politics. First, the question, not of remembering, but forgetting and erasure; that is, which individuals and episodes in the radical tradition were either forgotten or consciously excluded by the Chartists. Second, particular attention is paid to recent scholarship in Romantic Studies which has explored the relationship between memory and posthumous reputation, and in doing so explores the posthumous potential of John Thelwall, Thomas Paine and William Cobbett. While the impact of Romanticism can be hardly denied and was part of the cultural inheritance of the Chartists, including the intense outpouring of feeling for heroes in the pantheon, it is important not to exaggerate its impact. Some Chartists rejected the unchecked appeals to the passions and introspection associated with Romanticism. Chartist aversion to this pull was a legacy in part of the enduring impact of radical Enlightenment and its associated affective politics. The final section explores some of the tensions between Romanticism and Enlightenment in Chartist heritage politics via a case-study of the French revolutionary C.F. Volney, and draws on recent work on the history of emotions to sketch out the affective 1 politics of Chartist memory, and in doing so suggests that political historians pay more attention to the politics of the passions. Chartism, the British mass movement for democratic and social rights in the 1830s and 1840s, was profoundly shaped By the radical tradition from which it emerged. While the constituent parts of that tradition were inherited – the French Revolution, Thomas Paine, William CoBBett, for example – the processes By which these were transformed into a radical tradition were at the hands of the Chartists themselves. They eagerly appropriated and suBverted many of the ritualized forms of commemoration used By elites, including the construction of an imagined pantheon of heroes, though for reasons of cost and access to the public sphere the Chartist heritage project tended to be a paper pantheon rather than one set in stone. The paper pantheon and this broader heritage project was constituted and reconstituted through ‘mnemonic practices’ and the performance of cultural remembrance: commemorative dinners and soirees which revolved around a rollcall of toasts to the memory of radical greats, pre-eminently Paine and CobBett But supported By a much wider cast of other figures, most of whom had died in the fifty years preceding Chartism; portraiture; puBlishing and reading practices; the naming of Chartist children after radical greats; the regular quoting of words from the radical canon in speeches, extracts in the Chartist press and on banners – indeed the re-use of Banners from earlier radical campaigns.1 Far from Being a nostalgic culture of 1 Gordon Pentland coined the concept of ‘paper pantheon’ in ‘The Posthumous Lives of Thomas Muir’, in Liberty, Property and Popular Politics: England and Scotland, 1688–1815, ed. Gordon Pentland and Michael T. Davis (EdinBurgh: EdinBurgh University Press, 2016), 211. For loyalist, tory and whig cults, see J.J. Sack, ‘The Memory of Burke and the Memory of Pitt: English Conservatism Confronts its Past, 1806-1829’, Historical Journal, 30 (1987), 623-40; Alison Yarrington, The Commemoration of the Hero 1800-1864: Monuments to the British Victors of the Napoleonic Wars (New York: Garland, 1988); Belinda Beaton, ‘Materializing the Duke’, Journal of Victorian Culture, 10 (2005), 100-107; T.E. Orme, ‘Toasting Fox: The Fox Dinners in Edinburgh and Glasgow, 1801-25’, History, 99 (2014), 588-606; Emily Jones, Edmund BurKe and the Invention of Modern Conservatism, 1830–1914 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). On the shift away from static sites of memory to the performance of a more dynamic concept of memory, see Ann Rigney, ‘The Dynamics of RememBrance: Texts Between Monumentality and Morphing’, in Cultural 2 consolation, radical groups such as Chartists drew strength, legitimacy and tenacity from the traditions and heritage politics that they practiced. The amount of time and resources that Chartists devoted to their heritage is testament to the importance of memory in political and social movements. This chapter focuses on two linked aspects of the Chartist heritage proJect from the perspectives of Romanticism, the literary and cultural force of which was still being felt at mid-century, with popular politics no exception.2 First, it shows how the form and composition of the Chartist pantheon was shaped By a romantic aesthetic By exploring the question, not of remembering, But forgetting and erasure; that is, which individuals and episodes in the radical tradition were either forgotten or consciously excluded? As Guy Beiner has recently observed, ‘While it is commonly acknowledged that memory involves Both remembering and forgetting, studies of social and cultural memory have mostly focused on remembering and overlooked forgetting’.3 This theme of forgetting – or what might Be more accurately descriBed as excluding – is explored here through a case-study of the ‘radical Romantic’ John Thelwall (1764–1834), a hugely popular radical associated with the London Corresponding Society (LCS) in the 1790s.4 A number of scholars have attriButed to Thelwall an enduring legacy Bequeathed to Memory Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary HandbooK, ed. Astrid Erll and Ansgar Nünning (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008), 345–53. 2 Miles Taylor, Ernest Jones, Chartism and the Romance of Politics, 1819–1869 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 10. See also G.S.R. Kitson Clark, ‘The Romantic Element – 1830 to 1850’, in Studies in Social History: A Tribute to G. M. Trevelyan, ed. J.H. PlumB (London, 1955), 209–39; Rohan McWilliam, ‘Sweeney Todd and the Chartist Gothic: Politics and Print Culture in Early Victorian Britain’, in Edward Lloyd and His World: Popular Fiction, Politics and the Press in Victorian Britain, ed. Sarah Susan Lill and Rohan McWilliam (ABingdon: Routledge, 2019), 198–215. 3 Guy Beiner, Forgetful Remembrance: Social Forgetting and Vernacular Historiography of a Rebellion in Ulster (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 17. 4 A numBer of recent works have positioned Thelwall as a Romantic radical, e.g., Judith Thompson, ‘Citizen Juan Thelwall: In the Footsteps of a Free-Range Radical’, Studies in Romanticism, 48 (2009): 67– 100; Romantic Radical and Acquitted Felon, ed. Steve Poole (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2009); John Thelwall: Critical Reassessments, ed. Yasmin Solomonescu (Romantic-Circles, 2011); ‘John Thelwall Special Issue’, Romanticism, 16:2 (2010). 3 suBsequent radical movements, including Chartism and socialism.5 And yet the fact remains that he was not a prominent figure in the Chartist pantheon. It may seem slightly strange to devote part of an essay to a radical who hardly featured in Chartist heritage, but forgetting and excluding can Be Just as revealing as remembering and including. Thus, a case-study of Thelwall is used to explore what might Be termed posthumous potential in cultures of remembrance.6 In the 1790s Thelwall was seen by the government as one of the most dangerous radicals in the country. In the last decade or so, his historical and literary reputation has Been transformed: from Being a relatively obscure radical and poet known only to specialists, he has been restored to his rightful place as a maJor radical and literary figure in the 1790s and Beyond.7 An exploration of why Thelwall was largely forgotten by the Chartists sheds new light on the broader question of why he was a neglected figure for so long, and, broader still, why fame does not always outlast the life of the famous. Building on the theme of Thelwall’s radical Romanticism, the second area of focus is the contested legacy and memory of Romanticism. By making use of a range of neglected manuscript material and Chartist newspapers/periodicals, this section draws on recent scholarship in Romantic Studies which has explored the proBlematic relationship Between memory and posthumous reputation by showing how coteries, conviviality, puBlishing circles and print culture made authors and radical greats serve 5 Gwyn A. Williams, Artisans and Sans-Culottes: Popular Movements in France and Britain (London: LiBris, 1989), 66; Judith Thompson, ‘Introduction’, in The Peripatetic, ed. Judith Thompson (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2001), 15, 18. 6 In a recent essay Steve Poole has taken me to task for providing an insufficient explanation for Thelwall’s aBsence in the Chartist pantheon, which I largely attriButed to Chartist preference for gentleman leaders in the past as well as the present, and Thelwall’s ambiguous social status did not qualify him for admission to the pantheon. While I maintain that the Chartist pantheon was mostly populated by gentleman radicals, I accept Poole’s criticism that there was more to Thelwall’s absence than his class status. Steve Poole, ‘The Politics of “Protest Heritage”, 1790–1850’, in Remembering Protest in Britain since 1500, ed. Carl J. Griffin and Briony McDonagh (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2018), 187–213. 7 On the rediscovery of Thelwall, see Nicholas Roe, ‘The Lives of John Thelwall: Another View of the “JacoBin Fox”’, in John Thelwall: Romantic Radical, 13–24. 4 the radical cause of the people Beyond their own lifetimes.8 While the impact of Romanticism can Be hardly denied and was part of the cultural inheritance of the Chartists, it is important not to exaggerate its impact: not all Chartists were keen to dress their heroes in romantic clothing.