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Sir James Graham at the Home Office

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

A. P. Donajgrodzki
A. P. Donajgrodzki
Affiliation:
University of Leeds
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Extract

One of the perquisites of having been a high ranking Conservative politician is the near-certain admiration of future biographers, even when, as in the case of Sire James Graham, the biographers have no political axe to grind and do not rise to hero worship. Professor Erickson and Professor Ward, Graham's most recent biographers, do not ignore the fierce contemporary condemnation that Graham evoked: Ward, indeed, takes Graham's unpopularity as the starting point for a re-evalution of his career. But both have distinguished between his skills in political management, his political acumen and personality, on the one hand, and his vision, ability, enterprise and industry on the other, and by concentrating on the latter have produced a picture of which Graham would have approved. What results is, in many respects, a typical Peelite self-portrait – of a bold, resourceful, tireless and courageous reformer, valiantly struggling against vested interest, ignorance and apathy, saddened but not surprised by the hostility which he experienced.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , March 1977 , pp. 97 - 120
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

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References

1 Erickson, A. B., The Public Career of Sir. James Graham (Oxford, 1952).Google Scholar

2 Ward, J. T., Sir James Graham (London, 1967).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Ward, , Graham, pp. xii–xiii.Google Scholar

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8 See my unpublished D.Phil, thesis ‘The Home Office 1822–48’, pp. 489–500. It should be noted that these figures exclude Irish legislation and, indeed, this article relates only to Graham's work as home secretary in Great Britain.Google Scholar

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12 Especially in public order incidents. See Mather, F. C., Public Order in the Age of the Chartists (Manchester, 1959), passim, for a discussion of the structures through which disorders were processed.Google Scholar

13 It looks as if, when operating from the House of Lords, the home secretary could fulfil the old ‘nightwatchman’ role, but found an active role much more difficult. Coaxing of country gentlemen, at least of lords lieutenant, by whom he was surrounded, was possible in the Lords, while an efficient under-secretary could deal with routine problems in the Commons. But Home Office legislation suffered under both Melbourne and Normanby. Melbourne, perhaps inclined by temperament to adopt a role closer to Sidmouth’s than Peel's, introduced only five major domestic bills during his term of office, and the Factory Bill and Poor Law Amendment Bill were introduced by others. Normanby, ably assisted by Fox Maule, his under-secretary, introduced ten major bills, but this was only half Russell's average. See my thesis, p. 548.

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15 I plan to discuss the role of Russell as home secretary in a projected book on the Home Office, 1822–48.

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21 Russell wrote an interesting memorandum to Fox Maule, in which he compared Peel's record in criminal law reform with his own. He noted that although Peel ‘simplified and consolidated’ the criminal law, he did ‘little to diminish the number of capital crimes’, and contrasted this with the whigs' record, and particularly his own, pointing to the introduction of legislation which had ‘materially mitigated’ the law and suggesting that a comparison of the number of executions for the periods 1820–9 and 1830–9 would show a more lenient ‘practical administration’ of the law under the whigs. Russell to Fox Maule, 16 Sept. 1839: Scottish Record Office, Dalhousie Papers GD 45/14/632.

22 In 1829 Peel told the Commons in support of a private member's bill for a police force, headed by a stipendiary magistrate, for the county of Cheshire, that he had wished to introduce a similar measure to apply ‘to all the counties of England’. He had abandoned the project since ‘it was found, from the nature of the subject, and the number of concurrent jurisdictions, that the previous inquiries must necessarily be very extended, and would occupy a very considerable period’: Hansard, new ser. 1829, xxi, 714.Google Scholar Melbourne contemplated a bill for ‘the formation of a general police for the whole country’, but the scheme ran into difficulties and was abandoned. See his exchange with Ellenborough: Hansard, 3rd ser., 1832, XIII, 1157–8.Google Scholar

23 This may have been part of a general whig approach to government, which emphasized the value of consensus as a governmental aim. Ashley wrote, comparing their approach to that of Peel's ministry, ‘The Whig Government understood the value of popular feeling; the least difficulty was sufficient for them. They collected their troops, put the Minister on the rostrum and acquired strength from the confession of their weakness’. Hodder, , Shaftesbury, 1, 480.Google Scholar

24 Russell, to Chadwick, , 9 Oct. 1836: University College, London, Chadwick Papers, correspondence with Russell.Google Scholar

25 Erickson, , Graham, pp. 78–138Google Scholar, and Ward, , Graham, pp. 121–9.Google Scholar

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27 Graham, to Stanley, , 23 Dec. 1843Google Scholar and Graham, to Wharncliffe, 96 Dec. 1843: Graham Papers Gen. S., B 68C.Google Scholar

28 Home Office to factory inspectors, 9 Sept. 1843: P.R.O. HO 87/1.

29 Finer, S. E., The life and times of Sir EdwnChadwick (London, 1952), pp. 181–207, for some account of the contrasting approaches of Russell and Normanby and Graham to the poor law.Google Scholar

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31 Draft letter from Melville, to Maule, Fox, 30 Jan. 1840: National Library of Scotland, Melville Papers, 354 fos. 128–9.Google Scholar

32 Hansard, 3rd ser., 1837, xxxvii, 1201.Google Scholar

33 Draft letter of Graham, to Melville, , 10 Jan. 1844: Graham Papers Gen. S., B 69A.Google Scholar

34 Finer, , Chadwick, pp. 204–7.Google Scholar

35 Graham, to Hope, Lord Justice Clerk, 6 Jan. 1844: Graham Papers Gen. S., B 69A.Google Scholar

36 See the correspondence of Graham, Wray and Anderson in 1843–4 collected in HO 45/109.

37 There is, obviously, no objective way of distinguishing ‘major’ from ‘minor’ legislation. I have included in this category bills (excluding Irish bills) which I consider to have been designed to make a substantial modification to the law, omitting those which either continued an existing statutory power, or proposed a very limited alteration to the law. In most cases this presents litde difficulty: Graham's factory bills, his bills to reform the medical profession, and his poor law bills are clearly major. Similarly, some bills, like that annually introduced to suspend the militia ballot, were dearly routine and minor in scope. Generally, the criteria I have used seem to correspond with the estimates of relative importance attributed both by contemporaries and by later historians. For further discussion of the problem see my thesis, pp. 489–96, and 577–9, which lists all the bills classified as major.

38 Duke, of Bedford, to Russell, Lord John, 27 July 1847. Richmond, in conversation with Bedford had said ‘Sir George Grey is the best Home Secretary he has ever seen, and you [Russell] very good. Sir James Graham and Normanby the two worst.’ P.R.O., Russell Papers, 30.22.6D, fos. 1203–6.Google Scholar

39 Graham, to Ashley, , 15 June 1842: Graham Papers Gen. S., B 51.Google Scholar

40 Many of these characteristics showed in his relations with Ashley, who was, at the least, a prominent backbencher well-informed on the factory issue, but whom Graham generally treated as a troublesome outsider. He did ‘consult’ Ashley, but often in such a way as to leave him bemused and ill-informed. He was secretive, sometimes evasive, and occasionally rude, characteristics not made any easier to bear by a sporadic oiliness of manner. He sometimes failed, as with die mines bill, to keep his word. It is odd, and a considerable testimony to the magic of the Peelite spell, that most historians have criticized Ashley rather than Graham or Peel for their mutually sour relations between 1841 and 1845. Ashley may have been an odd man, but even a very equable person would have been perplexed and infuriated by the treatment he received. See on this Best, G. F. A., Shaftesbury (London, 1964), pp. 80–105Google Scholar and Fisher, D. R. ‘The Opposition to Peel in the Conservative Party’, ch. IV.Google Scholar

41 Erickson, , Graham, pp. 180–2.Google Scholar

42 Ashley, to Graham, , 26 Apr. 1843: Graham Papers Gen. S., B 60A.Google ScholarWard, J. T., The Factory Movement, 1830–55 (London, 1962), p. 263, says ‘In all, 13,369 petitions bearing 2,068,059 signatures opposed the original BUI, and 11,839 petitions with 1,920,574 names attacked the amended proposals’.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

43 Ashley recognized that the educational clauses could not be saved, but was very bitter that Graham dropped the rest of the bill. Diary, 15 June 1843, and Ashley to Peel, same date. Both, in Hodder, , Shaftesbury, 1, 461–2.Google Scholar

44 Parker, C. S., Life and Letters of Sir James Graham (London, 1907), I, 342–4.Google Scholar

45 Russell, to Melbourne, , 9 Oct. 1835Google Scholar: Russell, R. (ed.), The early correspondence of Lord John Russell, 1805–40 (London, 1913), 11, 141–3.Google Scholar

46 He introduced his proposal by observing that the voluntary efforts of the local gentry were one of ‘the strongest securities of order throughout the Realm’ and ‘one of the strongest defences of the position in society, which is occupied by the upper class’: Memorandum, , 15 Nov. 1842, Graham Papers Gen. S., B 55A.Google Scholar

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48 Torrens, W. T., The Life of Sir James Graham (2nd edn, London, 1863), 11, 272.Google Scholar

49 Dictionary of National Biography, xxii, 330.Google Scholar

50 Hodder, , Shaftesbury, 1, 479.Google Scholar

51 Graham once inquired if Stanley would attend a Council in his place since “The Queen would be frightened to death, if she saw me and I shall not go’: Stanley, to Graham, , 8 Dec. 1842, Graham Papers Gen. S., B 56A.Google Scholar

52 Torrens, , Graham, II, 272–3.Google Scholar

53 Graham, to de Grey, , 12 Dec. 1842: Graham Papers Gen. S., B 56A.Google Scholar

54 Torrens, , Graham, II, 272.Google Scholar

55 Torrens, , Graham, II, 226–7.Google Scholar

56 Graham, to Peel, , 3 Dec. 1843: Graham Papers Gen. S., B 68A.Google Scholar

57 Ibid.

58 The Times opposed his poor law bills (see, for example, 12 May 1842, 2; and 29 June 1844, 6) his settlement bill (3 Mar. 1845, 4; and 6 May 1845, 5–6) and his medical bills (for example, 27 Aug. 1844, 7; and 8 Oct. 1844, 4). Perhaps the greatest indication of his unpopularity, however, was that in 1844 the press was prepared to believe and give prominence to the totally false view that Graham was hesitating to appoint a new lord lieutenant of Cumberland because he wanted the office for himself: Graham, to Peel, , 3 Apr. 1844, Graham Papers Gen. S., 72A.Google Scholar

59 ‘I think it a serious and almost fatal error in the Act that the new Police is not more directly under the Government’, Normanby wrote: Normanby to Maule, Fox, 1 Oct. [1839], Dalhousie Papers, GD 45/147653.Google Scholar

60 Graham to W. Neild, who had proposed a police ‘uniting both the repressive and detective character’ for the manufacturing districts. Graham to Neild 14 Sept. 184a: Graham Papers Gen. S., B 53B.

61 The fate of the numerous county courts bills introduced between 1827 and 1844 by the Home Office and private members, most of which aimed to find some acceptable formula for the reform of justice in the counties, illustrates the strength of opposition to judicial reform. The reception given to Hume's proposal for county boards (county councils in effect) in 1836 and 1837 showed the reluctance of country gentlemen to give up their administrative powers: Hansard, 3rd ser. 1836, xxxiv, 680–95 and 1837, xxxvi, 415–32.Google Scholar

62 Lord Balcarres, for example, a deputy lieutenant and magistrate received very short shrift for ‘truckling’ to a hungry mob of five hundred which surrounded his house and demanded food. ‘It is the first duty of every subject,’ Graham wrote ‘even at some personal risk to uphold the law and to resist open violence.’ Draft letter to Balcarres, 23 Sept. 1842, HO 45/249B.

63 Graham, to Wellington, , 21 Aug. 1842: Graham Papers Gen. S., B 52B.Google Scholar

64 Peel, to Graham, , undated [Dec. 1842]: Graham Papers Gen. S., B 56A.Google Scholar

65 Mather, F. C., “The Government and the Chartists’ in Briggs, A. (ed.), Chartist Studies (London, 1962), p. 387 and passim for an excellent account of the different approaches of Russell, Graham and Grey to Chartism.Google Scholar

66 Graham, to Stanley, , 15 Sept. 1843: Graham Papers Gen. S., B 65B.Google Scholar He tried the same method on the Staffs, and W. Yorks. magistrates: Mather, , Public Order, p. 132.Google Scholar

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68 He said that Russell's appointments had made the municipal magistracy ‘a local tyranny…by which under the forms of justice, justice itself was prostituted’: Hansard, 3rd ser. 1842, LXIII, 133.Google Scholar

69 Ibid. 134.

70 Ibid. 130.

71 Ibid. 182.

72 The prison inspectors, for example, received this instruction on 24 Sept. 1841: Hill, to H.O., 15 May 1846: HO 45/1568.Google Scholar

73 Finer, , Chadwick, pp. 204–7.Google Scholar

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76 Homer sent Graham a copy of his biography of his brother, Francis Horner, which Graham said he accepted ‘as a proof of friendly feeling and of mutual esteem’, adding that ‘I consider you an able, honest and most trustworthy public servant’. Graham, to Horner, , 25 Jan. 1844. (Wrongly filed with correspondence of Jan. 1843): Graham Papers Gen. S., B 57.Google Scholar

77 Decision minuted on letter from Saunders to H.O., 25 June 1846: HO 45/1417.

78 See Stewart, R., ‘The Ten Hours and Sugar Crises of 1844: Government and the House of Commons in the Age of Reform’, Historical Journal, xii (1969), 41–4, for some account of Peel and Graham's handling of the affair.Google Scholar

79 Strachey, L. and Fulford, R. (eds), The Greville Memoirs 1814–60 (London, 1938), v, 169.Google Scholar

80 Erickson, , Graham, p. 223.Google Scholar

81 Graham introduced this bill tactlessly, linking an attack on the conduct of visiting magistrates (some M.P.'s were themselves magistrates and many more had relatives and friends who were) with a request for greater powers of control for the home secretary: Hansard, 3rd ser., 1843, LXX, 1292–3.Google Scholar

82 See, for example, The Times, 8 Oct. 1844, 4Google Scholar; and Lancet, new ser., II, 87.Google Scholar

83 Finer, (Chadwick, pp. 243–91) describes the scandal and especially Chadwick's role.Google Scholar

84 Smith, F. B., ‘British Post Office Espionage, 1844’, Historical Studies, xiv (1969–1971), 189 ff.Google Scholar See also Parker, , Graham, I, 425–47Google Scholar; Erickson, , Graham, pp. 268–73Google Scholar; and Ward, , Graham, pp. 209–10.Google Scholar

85 The exact circumstances of Neumann's contacting Graham are unclear and the chronology unsatisfactory. Graham refers to an interview with Neumann ‘in the month, I think of October, 1843’ (Hansard, 3rd ser., 1845, LXXVIII, 1341). Dr Smith cites a letter of 21 Nov. 1843 from Neumann to Graham as the origin of the move to trace Mazzini. (‘Post Office Espionage’, p. 189.) Perhaps Graham was mistaken about the date of the contact, and it is likely that there was an interview as well as a written communication. The discrepancy does not, fortunately, affect the essential features of the case.Google Scholar

86 Russell, , in Hansard, 3rd ser., 1844, LXXV, 1286.Google Scholar

87 Hansard, 3rd ser., 1844, LXXV, 897.Google Scholar

88 Hansard, 3rd ser., 1845, LXXVIII, 1342.Google Scholar

89 Hansard, 3rd ser., 1845, LXXVIII, 1352.Google Scholar

90 The report of the committee of secrecy, suggested that twenty warrants had been issued since 1790 to open foreign correspondence, the majority by Graham's predecessors (P.P. 1844 (582), xrv, 515). If the foreign secretary wanted to trace the whereabouts of foreigners in Britain, it was reasonable to hand the task to the Home Office, which through its contacts with the police, had the best resources for tracking them down. This was what Palmerston, for example, did in 1840 when he wanted to trace the whereabouts of the members of an exiled French Democratic Society: Palmerston to Fox Maule, 29 Oct. 1840, Dalhousie Papers, GD 45/14/660.

91 Hansard, 3rd ser., 1844, LXXVII, 303.Google Scholar

92 ‘Post Office Espionage’, pp. 197–8.Google Scholar

93 Hansard, 3rd ser., 1845, LXXVII, 835.Google Scholar

94 P.P. 1844 (582), xiv, 515.

95 P.P. 1844 (601), xiv, 502.

96 Hansard, 3rd ser., 1844, LXXV, 982–3.Google Scholar

97 Hansard, 3rd ser., 1845, LXXVII, 913.Google Scholar

98 Hansard, 3rd ser., 1845, LXXVII, 840.Google Scholar

99 ‘Post Office Espionage’, p. 190.Google Scholar

100 Ibid.

101 Hansard, 3rd ser., 1845, LXVIII, 1341.Google Scholar

102 See, among other authorities, S. Redgrave, who stated ‘The Secretaries of State are equal in rank and authority and each is competent to act in the department of the other, except where, by some recent Acts, duties have been specially assigned to the Home Secretary’; Murray's Handbook of Church and State (London, 1852), p. 256.Google Scholar Graham stated, as a matter of course, that ‘I being the only Secretary of State on the spot was bound to perform the duties of the various departments connected with the absent Secretaries’: Hansard, 3rd ser., 1845, LXVIII, 1341.Google Scholar

103 Hansard, 3rd ser., 1845, LXVIII, 1342.Google Scholar

104 Ibid.

105 The report of the committee of secrecy indicated that such warrants were issued by the home secretary: P.P. 1844 (582), xiv, 519.Google Scholar

106 Hansard, 3rd ser., 1833, xviii, 1254–60.Google Scholar

107 Hansard, 3rd ser., 1833, XVIII, 1257.Google Scholar

108 Report of the select committee on the petition of Frederick Young: P.P. 1833 (627), XIII, 407 ff.Google Scholar

109 Parker, , Graham, I, 439.Google Scholar

110 Greville, Memoirs, v, 182–3.Google Scholar

111 Hansard, 3rd ser., 1844, LXVII, 725.Google Scholar

112 Hansard, 3rd ser., 1844, LXVII, 724.Google Scholar

113 ‘Post Office Espionage’, p. 198.Google Scholar

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115 Parker, , Graham, I, 447.Google Scholar

116 D.N.B., xxii, 332.Google Scholar

117 Graham often articulated the principles underlying the home secretary's relationships with others. His letter to Balcarres, already cited, contained a concise statement of the constitutional relationship of the home secretary and voluntary agents. Elsewhere, he reflected, for example, on his relationship with the poor law commission (Graham, to de Grey, , 12 Dec. 1843: Graham Papers Gen. S., B56AGoogle Scholar) with commissioners of enquiry (Graham, to Devon, Lord, 13 Jan. 1843: Graham Papers Gen. S., B 57Google Scholar) and even in his letter to Lord Melville, replying to the complaint about Hill, he put forward an analysis of the role of prison inspector which recognized some of its mutually conflicting aspects (Graham, to Melville, , 6 Mar. 1844: Graham Papers Gen. S., B 71 A).Google Scholar

118 Parker, , Graham, I, 335–6.Google Scholar