The Home-Making of the English Working Class: Radical Politics and Domestic Life in late-Georgian England, c.1790-1820. Ruth Mather Queen Mary, University of London. Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. 2016. 1 Statement of originality. I, Ruth Mather, confirm that the research included within this thesis is my own work or that where it has been carried out in collaboration with, or supported by others, that this is duly acknowledged below and my contribution indicated. Previously published material is also acknowledged below. I attest that I have exercised reasonable care to ensure that the work is original, and does not to the best of my knowledge break any UK law, infringe any third party’s copyright or other Intellectual Property Right, or contain any confidential material. I accept that the College has the right to use plagiarism detection software to check the electronic version of the thesis. I confirm that this thesis has not been previously submitted for the award of a degree by this or any other university. The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author. Signature: Date: 20th September, 2016. Details of collaboration and publications: R. Mather, ‘These Lancashire women are witches in politics’: Female reform societies and radical theatricality in the north-west of England, c.1819-20’ in Manchester Region History Review, Vol. 23 (2012), pp.49-64. 2 Table of Contents Acknowledgements ……………………………………………………… 4 Abstract ………………………………………………………………… 5 List of tables and figures ………………………………………………… 6 Chapter 1: Introduction ………………………………………………… 9 Chapter 2: Imagining Home: Domestic Rhetoric, Gender and Political Radicalisms in England, c.1790-1820 ………………………………………………… 42 Chapter 3: The Politics of Making Home ………………………………… 69 Chapter 4: Power Relations: Family and Community in Popular Radicalism …. 100 Chapter 5: Spending Power: Radicalism and Household Consumption ……… 123 Chapter 6: Radical Subjects, Radical Objects? Domestic material culture and working- class radicalism ………………………………………………………… 147 Chapter 7: Conclusion ………………………………………………… 173 Appendix 1: List of inventories included in the sample ………………… 185 Appendix 2: Tables and Figures ………………………………………… 188 Bibliography ………………………………………………………………… 202 3 Acknowledgements The research presented here was funded by a Queen Mary Principal’s Studentship from the Centre for Studies of Home, with an additional grant for research expenses awarded by the Economic History Society. Helpful staff at the British Library, the Borthwick Institute for Archives, Burnley Local Studies library, the Geffrye Museum of the Home, Lancashire Record Office, London Metropolitan Archives, Manchester Archives+, Sheffield City Archives, The National Archives, and West Yorkshire Archives Service all assisted me in conducting this research. I have benefitted from the advice and experience of an excellent supervisory team. Amanda Vickery and Barbara Taylor have shared their extensive expertise, as well as offering many a timely pep-talk and personal kindness. The Centre for Studies of Home, based at Queen Mary and the Geffrye Museum of the Home, has proved an excellent resource, both in terms of academic support and access to a vibrant scholarly community. Particular thanks are due to Alastair Owens for his interest in this project from its inception and for his comments on the final draft. I would also like to thank my examiners, Jane Hamlett and Emma Griffin, who offered a generous critique and suggested useful amendments to the thesis. Robert Poole is to thank (or to blame!) for my initial interest in the long eighteenth century and for encouraging my ambitions towards graduate study. He and Katrina Navickas have been unstintingly generous in offering access to their source material, as well as in providing me with opportunities to share my own work. Catriona Kennedy helped me to develop my ideas for this project and countless others have provided advice, support and opportunities, shared their own unpublished work and directed me towards invaluable source material. If I was initially concerned that living at a distance from my institutional base would leave me feeling isolated, these fears have been allayed by both the academic support and the friendship I have encountered. To thank everyone who has helped and supported me individually would result in a list longer than the thesis itself, but I would particularly like to thank Mikael Alm, John Barrell, Jenny Basford, Nathan Bent, Antonia Brodie, Tessa Chynoweth, Sophie Coulombeau, Alice Dolan, James Ellison, Alexis Gebbie, Ryan Hanley, Lucy Hodgetts, Sally Holloway, Laura Humphreys, Mia Jackson, Nigel Jeffries, Elin Jones, Sarah Lloyd, Bridget Lockyer, Matthew McCormack, Jessica Moody, Frank O’Gorman, Catherine Oakley, Sara Pennell, Steve Poole, John Styles, Abigail Tazzyman, Annabelle Wilkins, Mark Wilson, and Stephanie Wilson. I am very grateful to everyone who has made me welcome in London and offered me places to stay, and especially to Sam Smith, who has picked up the bill more times than I care to remember. If, therefore, I present rather a romanticised version of family, home, and community in this thesis, it is because I have been so fortunate in this regard myself. Especial thanks are due to my parents, who have patiently endured my years of studying, offering encouragement, financial and emotional support, and proofreading various versions of my work. I owe a great deal to their belief in the power of education and their commitment to social justice, which has shaped my ability to study as well as the subjects I have chosen to pursue. My partner Thom has lived through this thesis with me from its outset, and done more than his fair share of domestic labour to ensure that I saw it through to completion. I am so grateful for his faith in me, despite my haphazard manner with an en-dash and my idiosyncratic referencing techniques. Thom is also responsible for introducing a cat into our life – the essential ingredient to make any house a home. 4 Abstract This thesis explores how ‘home’, as both an idea and a physical space, operated in the formation and expression of popular political radicalism in late-eighteenth and early- nineteenth century England. With a regional focus on London and the South Pennine areas of Lancashire and Yorkshire, the thesis intervenes in a rich historiography of popular radicalism in this period to argue for the importance of everyday practice in bringing together and sustaining a beleaguered movement, especially during periods of repression. In doing so, it offers new perspectives on the importance of the intersections of class and gender within radicalism, and sheds new light on the crucial and underappreciated role of women. Home could offer opportunities for political involvement, but could also restrict the emancipatory possibilities open to women in particular. The thesis unpacks ideas and practices associated with the home, including family relationships, consumer practice, and the use of objects, to expose it as an insecure and unstable site from which to launch a campaign for political legitimacy. Because ‘home’ was embedded in so many moralistic and political discourses, its deployment could be politically powerful, but could also hinder attempts to thoroughly rethink the social norms which underpinned classed and gendered inequalities. Throughout, however, the thesis stresses the continued unknowability of many aspects of working-class domestic life and the problematic nature of the sources we use to interrogate it, arguing for continued sustained work to unpick the diversity in the nature and meanings of home for working-class people in this period. 5 List of Tables and Figures Table 1: Number of inventories listing consumer goods ………………… 188 Table 2: Inventories listing Agricultural Equipment ………………………… 188 Table 3: Inventories without curtains, by occupation ………………………… 189 Table 4. Inventories listing ceramic goods ………………………………… 189 Fig. 1. I. Cruikshank, Indecency (SW Fores, 1799). Coloured engraving, dimensions not given. Library of Congress. Accessed 15th January, 2016. https://www.loc.gov/item/2003652525/ ………………………………… 190 Fig. 2. G. Morland, The Comforts of Industry and The Miseries of Idleness (178-?). Oil on canvas, 3150mm x 3760mm; 3160mm x 3730mm. National Gallery of Scotland, Acc. Nos. NG 1835; NG 1836. Accessed 3rd January, 2013. https://www.nationalgalleries.org/object/NG 1835; https://www.nationalgalleries.org/object/NG 1836 ………………… 191 Fig. 3. T. Ovenden, John Bull in His Glory. Hand-coloured Engraving (17--?). Library of Congress (image courtesy of Professor John Barrell); and Citizen Coupe Tête in his Misery (J. Downs, 1793). Hand coloured etching, 335mm x 244mm. British Museum Satires, 8293. Accessed 5th December, 2011. http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx ?objectId=1465944&partId=1 ………………………………………… 192 Fig.4. J. Gillray, Petit souper, a la Parisienne; - or – a family of sans-culotts refreshing after the fatigues of the day (Hannah Humphrey, 1792). Hand-coloured etching, 250mm x 352mm. British Museum Satires 8122. Accessed 5th December, 2011. http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx ?objectId=1477490&partId=1 ………………………………………………… 193 Fig.5. J. Lewis Marks, Much Wanted A Reform among Females! (Place of publication unknown,