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IV. Thomas Attwood and the Economic Background of the Birmingham Political Union

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2011

Asa Briggs
Asa Briggs
Affiliation:
Sidney Sussex College; Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford
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Extract

At a meeting of the Birmingham Political Union in May 1833, the principal guest, Daniel O'Connell, congratulated his audience on having carried the Reform Bill through to success, for, he said, ‘it was not Grey and Althorp who carried it, but the brave and determined men of Birmingham’. In the heat of the struggle, even some of the whig ministers were willing to admit in the famous words of Russell that ‘it is impossible that the whisper of a faction should prevail against the voice of the nation’. One of them told Thomas Attwood in May 1832 that ‘we owe our situation entirely to you’. Lord Durham maintained that ‘the country owed Reform to Birmingham, and its salvation from revolution’. Earl Grey himself, after the safe passing of the bill, thanked Attwood for all that he had done ‘to maintain popular support for the measure outside the House of Commons’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Historical Journal , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , 1948 , pp. 190 - 216
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1948

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References

1 Report of the Proceedings of the Great Public Meeting of the Inhabitants of Birmingham and its Neighbourhood, 20 May 1833. This and other Reports of Town and Union meetings are to be found in the Birmingham Collection in the City of Birmingham LibraryGoogle Scholar.

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13 The most important were The Remedy: or Thoughts on the Present Distress (1816)Google Scholar; Prosperity Restored (1817)Google Scholar; Letters to Nicholas Vansittart on the Creation of Money (1817)Google Scholar; Observations on Currency, Population and Pauperism (1818)Google Scholar; Letters to Lord Liverpool (1819)Google Scholar.

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15 Theatrical John Bull, no. 3, 12 June 1824.Google ScholarAris's Gazette, 23 November 1829. See furtherGoogle ScholarLangford, J. A., [A] Cent[ury] of Birmingham] Life (2nd edition, 1871), vol. II, ch. IVGoogle Scholar.

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20 Aris's Gazette, 7 October 1812.Google Scholar It is fair to say that Mordaunt had regained local confidence to a considerable extent by 1813, when he was active in opposing a Bill to regulate the business of manufacturers of firearms.

21 Attwood to Mrs Attwood, 30 April 1812, quoted in Wakefield, , Attwood, p. 24Google Scholar.

22 Liverpool mentioned ‘Mr Bolton and Mr Garbett…though neither of them were averse to Parliamentary Reform, they were decidedly averse to Birmingham sending members to Parliament’: Yonge, C. D., [The Life of] Lord Liverpool (1868), III, 137–8Google Scholar.

23 Birmingham Journal, 31 October 1829. Compare Liverpool's arguments (loc. cit.). Representation would subject the population of the new manufacturing towns ‘to a perpetual factious canvass which would divert, more or less, the people from their industrious habits, and keep alive a permanent spirit of turbulence and disaffection amongst them’Google ScholarPubMed.

24 The Birmingham Argus and Public Censor, vol. XI, no. 8, i March 1829.Google Scholar Cf. ibid. no. 2, 13 October 1828: ‘with a population of One Hundred and Forty Thousand Inhabitants: with a manufacture equal in importance and extent to that of any other town in the Kingdom; and contributing immensely to the support of the government under the present system of taxation, we ask, is it fair, is it equitable, is it constitutional to deprive such a town of the benefit of representation in the popular legislative assembly of the country?’

25 Reports of the Principal Staffordshire Reform Meetings, 14 May 1832Google Scholar.

26 Cobbettinhis Weekly Political Register, no. 24, 13 June 1829,Google Scholar proclaimed that it was'debt and consequent local distress which had brought the Birmingham merchants and manufacturers ‘these lords of the anvil; these insolent abusers of the Reformers…to pass resolutions…such as it will make you stare to read. These men know their own affairs at any rate. They have lied enough for the purpose of injuring and deceiving the people, but for once they have now spoken truth.’

27 Freeth, John, ‘Birmingham's Tranquillity‘(1776; reprinted in The Political Songster, 1783)Google Scholar.

28 Quoted in The Bazaar or Literary and Scientific Repository, no. I, 26 June 1823Google Scholar.

29 See especially Beveridge, Lord, ‘The Trade Cycle in Britain before 1850’, Oxford Economic Papers, 1940Google Scholar; Rostow, W. W., Brit[ish] Econ[omy of the Nineteenth Century] (1948), especially ch. 11Google Scholar.

30 Quoted in Ashton, T. S., Iron and Steel [in the Industrial Revolution] (1924), p. 135Google Scholar.

31 The Monthly Magazine, January 1811.Google Scholar ‘Monthly Commercial Report.’

32 Parl. Papers, Reports Committees, 1812 (iii), p. 27Google Scholar.

33 Aris's Gazette, 22 June 1812Google Scholar.

34 Birmingham Advertisement, 9 April 1812. See further, Orders in Council: a Report of the Proceedings of the Meeting held at the Royal Hotel, Birmingham, 31 March 1812Google Scholar.

35 The American market had great importance for Birmingham. See Court, Midland Industries, bk. 2, ch. III.

36 Aris's Gazette, 22 June 1812Google Scholar.

37 Midland Chronicle, 9 October 1813Google Scholar.

38 For a brief sketch of Edmonds, see Edwards, E., Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham men (1877), pp. 140–55Google Scholar.

39 Edmonds had his own periodical Edmonds' Weekly Recorder and Saturday Advertiser (no. 1, June 1819).Google Scholar In it, he attacked local abuses, like the Court of Requests, as well as the Tory Government. This periodical was followed by The Selector or Political Bouquet (no. 1, August 1819).Google Scholar The 1819 agitation culminated in July 1819 with a great meeting on Newhall Hin, at which Major Cartwright was present. Sir Charles Wolseley was chosen as ‘Legis-latorial Attorney and Representative of the City‘. For his part in the radical agitation, Edmonds was eventually sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment in Warwick Gaol. A brie summary of these events is given in Langford, , Cent, of Birm. Life, II, 419–27. Edmonds is the link between different phases in Birmingham RadicalismGoogle Scholar.

40 Tooke, S., [A] Hist[ory] of Prices [and of the State of Circulation from 1793 to 1837] (1838), I, 104Google Scholar.

41 Quarterly Review, January 1817. See further,Google ScholarObservations on the Manufacture of Firearms for Military Purposes; on the Number supplied fjom Birmingham to the British Government during the Late War;…and upon the Obstacles to the Free Export of Arms (1818)Google Scholar.

42 Babbage, C., On the Economy of Machinery and Manufacture (1832).Google Scholar The 1832 figures were supplied not by Babbage but by Haynes, M. P., A Letter to Earl Grey on the Distress which now exists in Birmingham (July 1832)Google Scholar; Babbage was at great pains to emphasize the trustworthiness of his sources: ‘I have taken some pains to assure myself of the accuracy of the above table’ (p. 117). Haynes declared that Babbage ‘in his excellent work, has proved that the first three columns are strictly correct’.

43 See Burns, A. F. and Mitchell, W. C., Measuring Business Cycles (1946), pp. 66–71.Google Scholar Offsetting inventory movements lead to timing problems—e.g. the effects of the situation outlined on p. 195 above, when ‘every manufacturer was overburdened with stock’ in 1811Google Scholar.

44 Attwood, Distressed State of the Country. [The] Speech of [Thomas Attwood on This Important Subject at the Town's Meeting in Birmingham, held on the] 8th of May 1829.

45 HO/52/11, B. W. to Sir Robert Peel, 21 October 1830.

46 Porter, G. R., Progress of the Nation (1836), pp. 298–9.Google Scholar Further details are given in Clapham, J. H., [An Econ]omic Hist[ory] of Mod[ern) Brit[ain], 1,Google Scholar ‘The Early Railway Age’ (1930 edition), pp. 175-6.

47 Faucher, L., Études sur I'Angleterre (1845), II, 147.Google Scholar Similar impressions were recorded by other-foreign observers like von Raumer, writing in 1835 and Kohl, writing in 1843.

48 Report on Children in…Manufactures (1843), pp. 27, 80Google Scholar.

49 Letter of B. W. to Peel, cited above.

50 Clapham, , Econ. Hist, of Mod. Brit. p. 176Google Scholar.

51 Speech of 8 May 1829 (Birmingham, 1829)Google Scholar.

52 Cobden to Parkes, 9 August r8s7. Quoted in Morley, John, The Life of Richard Cobden (1881), II, 198–9Google Scholar.

53 For Manchester politics at this time, see Marshall, L. S., ‘The First Election in Manchester’ (American Historical Review, vol. XLVII, no. 3, April 1942)Google Scholar.

54 Birmingham Advertiser, 18 June 1835Google Scholar.

55 Langford, , Cent, of Birm. Life, II, 283Google Scholar.

56 Observations on Currency, Population and Pauperism (1818), p. 127.Google Scholar The relation between unemployment and political disturbance was frequently stressed by other writers. At Sheffield, where conditions were somewhat similar to those in Birmingham, Gatty pointed out that ‘when the hands of the working classes are completely unemployed, their minds are inclined to become passionately interested in political topics…. So surely as trade fails does th e political fervour rise and strengthen.’ [Rev. Gatty, A., History of Sheffield (1873), pp. 240–1.]Google Scholar The reverse applied in many cases. ‘You cannot get them to talk of politics so long as they are well employed’, said William Mathews in 1832. (Evidence given before the Select Committee on Manufactures, Q. 9991-3.)

57 The Petition is printed in full in Acworth, A. W., Financial Reconstruction, 1815-22 (1925), Appendix F, pp. 149–51.Google Scholar Details of unemployment corroborating this picture can be collected from many sources. Attwood in his Observations, commented on the large numbers of demobilized soldiers, ‘men who have supported the national honour in every quarter of the globe’, and who are now ‘deserted by their country, when their country no longer requires them, and humbly soliciting material employment, or begging an ignoble bread’. The district around Birmingham was worse than Birmingham itself. At Bilston, for example, there were 2000 unemployed just after the end of the war (Lawley, , History of Bilston, p. 175).Google Scholar Evidence exists in the Bank of England archives of large masses of people there in 1816, ‘wholly destitute of employment’. [Clapham, J. H., The Bank of England (1944), II, 50.]Google Scholar

58 Aris's Gazette, 19 July 1819.Google Scholar The reporter boasted that ‘not a single individual, resident, or holding a respectable position in society, took a prominent share in the day's proceedings’.

59 The Petition is printed in full in Langford, , Cent, of Birm. Life, II, 468Google Scholar.

60 HO/51/11, George Nicholls to Sir Robert Peel, 12 October 1830.

61 Ibid., Rev. W. R. Bedford (a County magistrate) to Melbourne, 24 December 1830.

62 Ibid., A. J. Likeston to Melbourne, 29 September 1831. Cf. HO/44/19, where an anonymous letter to the Home Secretary mentions ten thousand families in Birmingham without employment.

63 Tooke, , Hist, of Prices, pp. 209–13.Google ScholarLayton, W. T. and Crowther, G., An Introduction to the Study of Prices (1938), pp. 64–5Google Scholar.

64 Thomas Carlyle, Chartism, ch. II, ‘Statistics’.

65 HO/51/11, Isaac Spooner to Melbourne, 19 December 1830.

66 Wakefield, , Attwood, p. 59Google Scholar.

67 Observations on Currency, Population and Pauperism (1818)Google Scholar.

68 Matthias Attwood (1779-1851) was a London banker, who first became a tory member of Parliament in 1819. He opposed Malthus dn the law of diminishing returns [see Hansard, Vlll, 392 ff., and Çannan, E., A History of the Theories of Production and Distribution (3rd edition, 1924), p. 167] andGoogle Scholar Ricardo and Peel on the resumption of cash payments in 1819 (Hansard, VII, 877). He spoke regularly in the House, and was often praised for his practical knowledge and debating skill. Although Matthias remained a Tory during and after 1832, he continued to share the currency views of his radical brother. The two brothers are often confused; e.g. in Rist, C., A History of Monetary and Credit Theory (1940), p. 183Google Scholar.

69 Wakefield, , Attwood, p. 81. For Ricardo's very different interpretation of the interview, seeGoogle ScholarLetters of David Ricardo to Hutches Trower and Others (ed. Bonar, J. and Hollander, J. H., 1899), p. 149:Google Scholar ‘Mr Attwood, a great publisher of Essays on the currency was called before us... his claims to infallibility have been sifted by Huskisson and myself, and I believe it will appear that he is no great master of the Science.’

70 See Sayers, R. J., ‘The Question of the Standard (1815-144)’) in Economic History, vol. III, February 1935Google Scholar.

71 A Letter to Nicholas Vansittart (1817)Google Scholar.

72 Observations on Currency, Population and Pauperism (1818)Google Scholar.

73 S. C. on the Bank Charter (1832), Q. 5662. Cf.Google ScholarA Letter on the Creation of Money (1817), p. 58:Google Scholar ‘Whenever the money of a country is sufficient to call every labourer into action upon the system and trade best suited to his habits and powers, the benefits of increased circulation can go no further.’ Wilson, T. in his Fluctuations in Income and Employment (1945), p. 31,Google Scholar compares this passage with Keynes, J. M., General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936), p. 118.Google Scholar It would be unhistorical to call Attwood's analysis ‘quasi-Keynesian’, even were the two theories far closer together than they are in fact, but it is interesting to note that there are undoubted similarities of approach.

74 See Hawtrey, R. G., Trade and Credit (1928), ch. IV,Google Scholar ‘Inflationism’ (a Lecture to the Birmingham School of Commerce, October 1925); Mints, L. W., A History of Banking Theory in-Great Britain and the United States (1945), pp. 58–9;Google ScholarBowen, I., ‘Banking Controversies in 1825’, in Economic History, vol. III, February 1938Google Scholar; Sayers, R. J., op cit.Google Scholar; and, for the background, Morgan, E. Victor, The Theory and Practice of Central Banking (1943)Google Scholar.

75 See, for instance, the account of Attwood's views in Hovell, M., The Chartist Movement (1925),Google Scholar especially ch. VI. Cole, G. D. H. in Chartist Portraits (1941)Google Scholar sets out to redress the balance.

76 Letter to Nicholas Vansittart.

77 Report of the Proceedings of the Town's Meeting, 13 December 1830.Google Scholar Cf. Matthias' view (Hansard, VII, 877). The Act is ‘one of the most impolitic and mischievous measures that was ever adopted in this country’.

78 A Letter to Earl Grey on the Distress which now exists in Birmingham (July 1832)Google Scholar.

79 Burns, A. F., Economic Research and the Keynesian Thinking of Our Times (1946), p. 8Google Scholar.

80 Hollander, J. H., David Ricardo: A Centenary Estimate (1910), p. 118Google Scholar.

81 The Remedy or Thoughts on the Present Distress (1816).Google Scholar Cf. Letter to Nicholas Vansittart (1817)Google Scholar.

82 See above, p. 197, for a view which was diametrically opposed to that of Attwood, and which he always condemned.

83 Matthias, too, always stressed production as the key problem of his time. In Parliament, we find him defending public works schemes in those cases ‘when any enterprise was beyond the capital of an individual’. (Hansard, XII, 1195.)

84 Speech of 8 May 1829. Compare the report of his public debate with Cobbett in 1832 on the question: ‘whether it is best for the safety and welfare of the nation to attempt to relieve the existing distress by an action on the Currency, or by an equitable adjustment of the taxes, rents, contracts and obligations, which now strangle the industry of the country’.

85 Observations on Currency, Population and Pauperism, pp. 147-8.

89 Ibid. p. 92. Compare Beveridge, W., Full Employment in a Free Society (1945), p. 19:Google Scholar ‘The full employment that is the aim of this report means more vacant jobs than unemployed men’; and ibid. p. 52, where he outlines the duty of the State.

87 Observations on Currency, Population and Pauperism.

88 Acworth, , Financial Reconstruction, pp. 149–51Google Scholar.

89 Wakefield, , Attwood, pp. 59, 66Google Scholar.

90 Cobbett's, Register, 25 April 1835Google Scholar.

91 See above, p. 192.

92 Parker, C. S., Sir Robert Peel (1891), I, 380–2.Google Scholar After the crisis of 1825, Peel soon made it clear tha t he wa s strongly opposed to what he called a ‘lavish use of paper money’. Peel to Attwood, 18 October 1826, in Wakefield, , Attwood, pp. 105–6Google Scholar.

93 Liverpool had at times appeared to be a good learner, but he eventually came round to the anti-Attwood view. In 1826, he blamed the fact that there had been an orgy of over-trading and speculation on the increase in country bank paper circulation (see Yonge, C. D., Lord. Liverpool, pp. 362–5).Google Scholar The Attwoods hated the phrase ‘over-trading’. Matthias claimed that there were some who considered proposed railway companies, water companies, and gas companies as mere ‘bubbles’ (Hansard, XIV, 700). Thomas, in his speech of May 1829, attacked Liverpool for talking of over-trading in 1825. ‘Whenever the country prospered. Lord Liverpool thought that there was something wrong in it. Things were never right in his eyes, unless the country was at the point of death.’

94 Wakefield, , Attwood, p. 109Google Scholar.

95 See a note by Attwood, G. de Bosco in the Birmingham Journal, 11 February 1853Google Scholar.

96 Wakefield, , Attwood, p. 104Google Scholar.

97 Arts's Gazette, II May 1839Google Scholar.

98 The Act of 1819 had contemplated the abolition of small notes in 1822, but in that year, Parliament changed its mind, and the banks were authorized to go on with the issue of £1 notes until 1833. The Bank of England stopped issuing them, but conveniently ‘found’ a supply in 1825. In 1826, Parliament passed an Act that no more English notes under £5 were to be stamped, and that none of those already stamped should be issued after 5 April 1829. The date is significant.

99 For the whig-radical agitation, see Buckley, J. K., Joseph Parkes of Birmingham (1926)Google Scholar.

100 Birmingham Argus and Public Censor, August 1829Google Scholar.

101 Jaffray, J., Hints for a History of Birmingham (1857); quoted inGoogle ScholarLangford, , Cent, of Birm. Life, p. 532Google Scholar.

102 Joshua Scholefield was one of Attwood's chief collaborators in the running of the Political Union. He had interests as a merchant, a banker and a manufacturer, and he represented Birmingham in Parliament from 1832 down to his death in 1844.

103 Chance, William, Bailiff, High, ‘to the Gentlemen who Signed the Requisition’,18 January 1830Google Scholar. Aris's Gazette, 18 January 1830Google Scholar.

104 ‘Requisition to the High Bailiff’, signed by two hundred people.

105 The Annual Register, 1830, p. 57Google Scholar.

106 Hansard, XXI, 1672 sqq.Google Scholar The speech was printed in full from the Morning Chronicle in Cobbett's, Weekly Political Register, vol. 67, no. 24, 13 June 1829Google Scholar.

107 Blandford to Attwood, 29 January 1830; quoted in Wakefield, , Attwood, pp. 137–8Google Scholar.

108 Ibid. pp. 126–7. Cobbett printed a full report of the Meeting of 8 May in his Weekly Political Register, vol. 67, no. 20, 16 May 1829.Google Scholar The lords of the anvil, he said, in the issue of 13 June, ‘have lied often enough for the purpose of injuring and deceiving the people; but for once they have now spoken truth’. He advised a general reading of Attwood's speech, ‘which can leave in the mind of no man of sense a doubt, that convulsion must be the end of the present measures, unless prevented by a reform’.

109 The Times, 27 January 1830Google Scholar.

110 Report of the Proceedings [at the Meeting of the Inhabitants of Birmingham], Monday 25 January 1830Google Scholar.

111 Ibid.: ‘The Whigs had done nothing to forward the cause of public liberty. He had never belonged to that party—he was always a Tory, and a real friend to the privileges of the people.’

112 Annual Register, 1830, pp. 18–19Google Scholar.

113 Report of the Proceedings, 25 January 1830.Google Scholar Redfern was the speaker.

114 Morning Chronicle, 25 March 1830.Google Scholar Burdett was the chief guest at the first Annual Meeting of the Birmingham Political Union on 26 July 1830. At a subsequent dinner, he proposed Blandford's health. Cobbett commented in a letter to Attwood: ‘The moment I heard of you having invited the sham king Burdett to Birmingham, I knew you to be a sham yourself’ (Weekly Political Register, 7 August 1830)Google Scholar.

115 Graham followed some of Attwood's views in his Corn and Currency (1825).Google Scholar He was active in opposing the abolition of small notes (Hansard, XIX, 992), and in 1830 sponsored a petition from Cumberland, claiming that ‘distress is not confined to one branch of productive industry, but at the same time and with equal pressure, weighs down the landlord and the manufacturer, the shipowner and the miner, the employer and the labourer’ [Molesworth, , History of the Reform Bill (1868), p. 81]Google Scholar.

116 Morning Chronicle, 1 February 1830Google Scholar.

117 Wakefield, , Attwood, pp. 126–7Google Scholar.

118 Weekly Political Register, vol. 68, no. 25, 19 December 1829Google Scholar.

119 Ibid. 6 February 1830.

120 Blandford wished to dissociate himself from Cobbett. He wrote to the Standard (13 June 1829)Google Scholar attacking the ballot and universal suffrage. ‘Upon these two points, Messrs Cobbett and Hunt and myself are poles asunder.’ Cobbett replied in the Weekly Political Register 25 July 1829.Google Scholar In the meantime, he was engaged in a controversy with Davenport, ‘a young man of the collective who has for two or three sessions been racking his inventive powers for the means of talking sense upon the subject of the currency’, Ibid. 7 November 1829. Davenport, tory member for Stafford, was a friend and collaborator of Attwood, and dined with him on 24 October, when the plans for the Political Union were talked over.

121 For the shadow of the tory-radical alliance, see Halévy, , Histoire du Peuple Anglais (1923), 11, 262–5;Google ScholarHill, R. L., Toryism and the People (1929)Google Scholar; the articles by L. S. Marshall cited in no. 53 above; Turberville, A. S. and Beckwith, F., Leeds and Parliamentary Reform (Thoresby Society Miscellany, XLI, 1943)Google Scholar.

122 Birmingham Monthly Argus, June 1829Google Scholar.

123 It interested Parkes sufficiently for him to pursue Allday, the editor of the Argus through seven indictments for libel.

124 Report of the Proceedings. Cf. Birmingham Monthly Argus, February 1830.Google Scholar ‘We flatter ourselves that we have had some effect in opening the eyes—aye, and the mouths too—of the people of Birmingham to those vile sycophants, the Whigs.’

125 He wrote a pamphlet in the summer of 1829, attacking Attwood's speech of 8 May 1829.

126 Arts's Gazette, 18 January 1830.TheGoogle ScholarBirmingham Journal, 30 January 1830,Google ScholarPubMed congratulated Parkes and Redfern on coming forward, when most of the influential whig interest was absent.

127 The Argus was beginning to turn against the Union in June 1830. I hope to trace the history of the Political Union more fully in a later article.

128 Jenkinson's Scholastic Tickler, no. 8, November 1829Google Scholar.

129 Birmingham Journal, 23 January 1830Google ScholarPubMed; The Times, 20 January 1830Google Scholar.

130 Report of the Proceedings.

131 In March 1830, the Council of the Union drew up a Declaration supporting Blandford's Bill, presented to the Commons on 18 February. On 17 May an enormous meeting was held to support Blandford. The Council declaration is quite explicit. ‘It is not merely the abstract merit of any particular plan which ought to be attended to, but…its practicability.’ Attention must be paid ‘to the conciliating of all classes of the community, so that it may in fact serve as a common rallying point for all’.

132 Report of the Proceedings of the Public Meeting, 25 June 1832Google Scholar.

133 Report of the Proceedings of the Public Meeting, 20 May 1833.Google Scholar O'Connell was one of the chief speakers.

134 Some of them were being advanced in 1830-2, but they had little effect. The attempts to stir up enthusiasm for the National Union of the Working Classes by Hetherington and his supporters met with little response. The Owenite co-operators, led by Pare, supported the Political Union. Owen himself addresse d the Council of the Political Union in November 1832. (See Hampton, W. E., Early Cooperation in Birmingham and District (1928).]Google Scholar In April 1831, Bronterre O'Brien became Editor of the reforming Midland Representative.