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London Debating Societies in the 1790s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Mary Thale
Mary Thale
Affiliation:
University of Illinois at Chicago
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Extract

Of the popular societies that government repressed in the 1790s, the public debating societies in London are probably the least known although some of them had been meeting without interruption for over fifty years. Since these societies admitted all who paid the weekly entrance fee and allowed anyone to stand up and speak, they were quite different from the private, limited debating clubs where new members had to be approved and where the speeches were often prepared orations. Because of their size, the public debating societies attracted men who wanted to practise speaking before a large audience. Burke is said to have gained his first experience in public speaking at one of these debating societies. Pitt not only spoke at them; he helped found one. Boswell and Goldsmith attended them. Most of the speakers and auditors, however, were men of a lower class; and in the 1790sin reaction to the French Revolution, these societies were repressed. Although they constitute a significant social phenomenon, their history has not beenj traced, as has that of the London Corresponding Socie-ty (LCS) or the United! Irishmen (UI). In a sense the debating societies form an adjunct to, and complement the history of the declared reform societies of the 1790s: Members of the Corresponding Society might go from their meeting to a debating society in order to hear an LCS member speak. The few known managers of debating societies were also prominent members of the LCS or the UI or both; 1 and when a political topic was debated, most of the speakers would take a reformist position.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , March 1989 , pp. 57 - 86
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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References

1 For a list of public debating societies known to have met in London between 1790 and 1799, see the appendix on page 86.

2 For example, Edmund Burke's debating club at Trinity College, Dublin, consisted of only seven members, of whom five attended regularly (‘The Minute Book and Notes’, in Arthur, P.Samuels, I., The early life correspondence of the Rt. Hon. Edmund Burke, LL.D. [Cambridge, 1923], pp. 225–95).Google Scholar John Stuart Mill, at a later period, spent much of his week preparing speeches for his private debating society of fewer than ten members (Autobiography, ed. Stillinger, Jack, Boston, , 1969), PP. 49–5Google Scholar.

3 Forster, John, The life and times of Oliver Goldsmith (London, 1890), p. 169Google Scholar; Timbs, John, Clubs and club life in London (London, 1872), p. 168Google Scholar.

4 So Brinsley, Richard Sheridan asserted in parliament (The Parliamentary Register: or history of the proceedings and debates of the house of commons (and house of lords)…, vol. 43 [1795], 193)Google Scholar.

5 Boswell's, London Journal, 25 07 1763Google Scholar; Life of Johnson, 15 April 1781; Forster, p. 169. Sir Henry Erskine (MP 1749–65) ‘studied public speaking’ at a debating society (Walpole, Horace, Memoirs of King George II [New Haven, 1985], 1, 42)Google Scholar. Erskine, Thomas, the distinguished barrister, is said to have been ‘an assiduous attendant’ at one of these clubs (Public characters of 1799–1800 [London, 1799], p. 55)Google Scholar.

6 The activities of these reform groups and their offshoots have been described in Thompson, E. P., The making of the English working class (London, 1963)Google Scholar, Goodwin, Albert, The friends of liberty (London, 1979)Google Scholar, Ann Hone, J., For the cause of truth: radicalism in London 1796–1821 (Oxford, 1982)Google Scholar, Elliott, Marianne, Partners in revolution (London, 1982)Google Scholar, and Wells, Roger, The insurrection: the British experience 1795–1803 (Gloucester, 1982)Google Scholar.

7 Horace Walpole's correspondence (New Haven, 1974), XXXVIII, 461Google Scholar.

8 Money, John, Experience and identity: Birmingham and the West Midlands 1760–1800 (Montreal, 1977), pp. 111–17;CrossRefGoogle ScholarGoodwin, E. A., Selections from Norwich newspapers 1760–1790 (Ipswich, n.d.), p. 64Google Scholar.

9 1790 City Debates, Mon.; Coachmakers' Hall, Thurs.; Free Debates on a Superior Plan (27 Dec. only), Wed.; Westminster Forum. Wed.

1791 City Debates, Mon.; Mon. and Thurs. (from 21 Oct.); Coachmakers' Hall, Thurs.; Free Debates on a Superior Plan (5 Jan. only), Wed.

1792 Coachmakers' Hall, Thurs.; Society for Free Debate (27 Feb.–19 Mar.), Mon.

1793 Select Association for Free Debate (9 Jan.–7 Feb.), Sat.; unidentified society (24 Oct.), Thurs.

1794 London Forum (from 18 Dec), Thurs.; Westminster Forum (from 14 Oct.), Tues. and Thurs.

1795 Ciceronian School of Eloquence (26Jan.–25 Apr.), Mon.; London Forum (to 12 Nov.), Thurs.; Temple of Reason and Humanity (11 and 16 Nov.), Wed. and Mon.; Westminster Forum, Tues.

1796 London Forum (from 29 Aug.), Mon.; Westminster Forum (from 15 Sept.), ThurS. 1797 Ciceronian School (30 Nov.–11 Dec), Thurs.; London Forum, Mon.; School of Genius for Free Debate (18 and 25 Oct.), Wed.; Westminster Forum, Mon. and Thurs. 1798 Westminster Forum, Mon. and Thurs.; Mon. and Fri. (from 7 Dec).

1799 School of Eloquence (18 Mar–29 Apr.), Mon. and Thurs.; Westminster Forum (to 27 May), Mon. and Fri.

10 There is almost no information about the social class or classes of the audience. Boswell, at an earlier date, noted that the people were respectably dressed. A spy at a 1799 debate found the men ‘genteely dressed’. On the other hand, a hostile visitor called attention to the dirty greasy clothes of a speaker. Perhaps the occupations of three managers of debating societies may suggest the classes of people who frequented these societies: John Thelwall had been apprenticed to a tailor and later articled to an attorney. From 1795 on he made his living by lecturing and by teaching elocution. John Binns had been apprenticed to a soap boiler and had next acted as an assistant to his brother, a plumber. After emigrating to the United States in 1801 he established a newspaper, a printing house and a bookstore in Northumberland, Pennsylvania. Later he founded and managed The Democratic Press, an influential newspaper in Philadelphia, where he also became an alderman. John Gale Jones was trained as a surgeon and midwife. In the early decades of the nineteenth century he was active in parliamentary elections speaking on behalf of liberal or radical candidates. From 1806 to 1810 he again ran a debating society. All three of these men attended school until age thirteen or fourteen (Baylen, Joseph O. and Gossman, Norbert J., eds., Biographical dictionary of modern British radicals, vol. 1 [Hassocks, 1979])Google Scholar. In the extent of their schooling, they may have surpassed most of the other men who attended debating societies; but it is probable that many of the men attending the debates had received several years of schooling before being apprenticed or put behind the counter at age fourteen.

11 The appeal of good talk is suggested by the testimony of a shopkeeper, John Williams, that he joined political clubs ‘to hear clever men speak’ (‘The Trial of Thomas Hardy for High Treason’, in A complete collection state trials, comp. Howell, T. B. and Howell, T. J. [London, 1818], XXIV, cols. 983–4)Google Scholar.

12 The managers were entrepreneurs running the societies for profit. In 1795 when John Binns and two friends conducted a debating society, the profits amounted to £1 or £2 per week for each manager (John Binns, , Recollections [Philadelphia, 1854], p. 41)Google Scholar. Unfortunately, we have no records of all the managers of any society or of the changes of managers. The duties of the managers included leasing the room, advertising the debates, and, most important, making sure that the talk continued for two hours. Hence, much of the time the managers were the chief speakers.

13 Debated at the Coachmakers' Hall Society for Free Debate on 14 Oct. 1790 (Argus, same date, p. 1). Hereafter, this society will be noted as CH. Unless otherwise noted, newspapers advertised the topic on the day of the debate, on p. 1.

14 Westminster Forum, 6 Jan. 1790 (World). Hereafter this society will be noted as WF.

15 World, 13 Oct. 1791, p. 1.

16 20 and 27 Oct. 1791 (Morning Chronicle, 20 Oct. 1791, p. 4; World, 27 Oct. 1791, p. 4). Hereafter the Morning Chronicle will be noted as MC.

17 CH, 19 and 26 Jan. 1792 (MC, p. 4, p. 4).

18 Mrs Thelwall, , The life of John Thelwall (London, 1837), p. 94Google Scholar.

19 ‘Advertisement,’ Political lectures: volume the first – part the first (London, 1795), p. viGoogle Scholar.

20 In both cities the more elite societies concerned with political reform were masculine.

21 Bourdin, Isabelle, Les Societés populaires á Paris pendant la Revolution (Paris, 1937), pp. 45–7Google Scholar, 59, 132, 138. In parliament the similarities between the popular societies in the two cities were constantly emphasized during the 1795 debates on legislation to clamp down on debating societies and reform societies.

22 Mrs Thelwall, , Life of Thelwall, p. 94Google Scholar.

23 Thale, Mary, ed. Selections from the papers of the London Corresponding Society (Cambridge, 1982), p. 14Google Scholar.

24 MrsThelwall, , Life of Thelwall, p. 95Google Scholar.

25 Public Record Office: TS11/956. Hereafter, PRO. Walsh headed his report ‘City Debates’, but Thelwall's biography is detailed about his connexion with the Society for Free Debate. Possibly the two societies had joined together. This report is the only first-hand account of a debate between 1790 and 1795. According to Walsh, the debate was opened by a Dr Smith, who ‘[i]n a long and desultory speech…revived a variety of the stale topics about abuses of Government’. A Mr Walker and a Mr Adams then followed with the same views. A Mr Heart, who united ‘some information with perfect confidence and a loud Voice’ took the other side and argued ‘in favor of the imprisoned King of France’. Next, Thelwall, ‘in a flaming speech of considerable length’, declaimed ‘with uncommon vehemence against All the existing Government’. A Mr More tried to speak against Thelwall's ‘principles’, but ‘was interrupted with the utmost illiberality’. The final speaker mentioned in the report, a Mr McCarthy, ‘reprobated the seditious opinions which had been uttered’ and announced that he would ‘retire with contempt’.

26 26–28 Nov. 1792, p. 2.

27 MrsThelwall, , Life of Thelwall, pp. 96–7Google Scholar.

28 Public Advertiser, 28 Nov. 1792, p. 2. Adding to the general atmosphere of repression, especially that Monday night, was the arrival in London two days earlier of troops brought from Maidenhead to suppress a procession to Kennington Common, where the tree of liberty was to be planted. Although the ceremony, intended for Sunday, had been advertised by handbills, no one turned up after the news spread that troops had been brought in (Evening Mail, 23–26 Nov. 1792, P. 4)

29 General Evening Post, 24–27 Nov. 1792, p. 4; Star, 28 Nov. 1792, p. 2; Public Advertiser, 28 Nov. 1792, p. 2. In a 1795 parliamentary debate, Saunderson defended his actions: ‘He owned that he had suppressed the Debating Societies…; and for three years since his Magistracy, he had no reason to be sorry for so doing. The proceedings of the Popular Assemblies then held in the City (1792) were alarming in their nature…In fact, the doctrines and debates, in all such Places, shewed their evil designs’ (The Senator or, Clarendon's, Parliamentary Chronicle, 13 (1795), 253–4Google Scholar.

30 MrsThelwall, , Life of Thelwall, pp. 98–9;Google Scholar Thelwall, ‘Advertisement’, p. vii. Thelwall would have lost money if any landlord had accepted his golden offer. His maximum audience of 600 persons would have paid only £15, leaving him £6 out of pocket. Thelwall probably knew that no one would rent a room to an alleged Jacobin club, especially in the menacing state the French Revolution: on 13 August the king had been imprisoned; on 22 September the Republic declared; on 19 November assistance offered to all people wishing to overthrow their government. In the following weeks the prospects for political debating in London would have worsened, if possible, by news of the trial of Louis XVI (5 December), his execution (21 January 1793), and the declaration of war against England (1 February).

31 Thelwall, , ‘Advertisement’, p. vGoogle Scholar.

32 MC, 9 Jan. 1793.

33 MC, 17 Jan. 1793.

34 I assume that this unnamed society was not a continuation of the expensive, limited, superior society formed in January. The patronage by large numbers of LCS members suggests a less expensive, less limited debating society.

35 MrsThelwall, , Life of Thelwall, p. 107Google Scholar.

36 Selections…London Corresponding Society, p. 90.

37 MrsThelwall, , Life of Thelwall, pp. 108–10.Google Scholar For publishing Thelwall's allegory, Daniel Isaac Eaton was arrested and tried on charges of seditious libel. The indictment makes amusing reading.

38 Ibid. pp. 130–33.

39 MC, 13 Oct. 1794.

40 MC, 17 Nov. 1794.

41 MC, 5 May 1795.

42 MC, 9 Dec. 1794.

43 Thelwall did not return to a debating society; instead, starting on 5 February 1795, he resumed the political lectures he had been delivering the year before. By his count, he averaged 520 auditors for each meeting, at which he lectured on such topics as the probable catastrophe of the present war, the causes of the dearness and scarcity of provisions, the treatment of British soldiery, and the moral character of the poor. He also repeated his most famous lecture, on the moral tendency of a system of spies and informers (‘Preface,’ Tribune, 2 [1795], vi).

44 WF, 16 June 1795 (MC).

45 London Forum, 16 April 1795 (MC). Hereafter the London Forum is cited as LF.

46 Ciceronian School, 13 April 1795

47 LF, 20 April 1795 (Morning Post). The advertisement for this debate is headed ‘Mr. PITT'S TRIAL before the PUBLIC.’ Hereafter the Morning Post is citied as MP.

48 WF, 5 May 1795 (MC).

49 PRO: HO 42/37, fo. 433.

50 Ibid. fo. 435V.

51 8 Dec. 1795 (MC; PRO: 42/37). Such a topic clearly suggests that many members of the audience at the Westminster Forum were LCS members. Jones, who figures prominently in both spy reports and advertisements for debates, was a vital member of the LCS: he was a member of the central governing committee, chairman of the first large public meeting in 1795, and early in 1796, one of two members sent to other cities to organize political reform societies (his fellow-manager of debating societies, John Binns, was the second LCS missionary).

52 Ciceronian School, 22 April 1795 (MC, 25 April 1795).

53 Statute 36 Geo. 3. C. 8.

54 Statute 36 Geo. 3. C. 7.

55 Parliamentary Register, 43: 194–5.

56 Ibid. p. 196.

57 The Parliamentary History of England (London: T. C. Hansard, 1818), 32Google Scholar: 294.

58 Ibid.col. 258.

59 Parliamentary Register, 43: 193.

60 Senator, 13: 273.

61 Debated at the Temple of Reason and Humanity (Telegraph, 11 Nov. 1795).

62 True Briton, 23 Nov. 1795, p. 3.

63 Senator, 13: 275.

64 12 Nov. 1795 (MC).

65 17 Nov. 1795 (MC).

66 PRO: HO 42/37.

67 The Two Acts took effect in the City of London on the day after the royal assent, and in the rest of the kingdom seven days later. Hence, while this political debate in Panton Street was still legal, such a debate in the London Forum, meeting in Bartholomew Lane opposite the Bank, would have been illegal.

68 PRO: HO 42/37.

69 Thelwall, who rented the house in Beaufort Buildings from a reform-minded leather merchant, George Williams, had no such difficulty, and on 10 February 1796 he commenced a series of twenty historical lectures, which he advertised as being ‘[i]n strict conformity with the restrictions of Mr. Pitt's Convention Act’. Professedly about Roman history, they must have seemed timely to his audience, for they dealt with such topics as ‘the limited Monarchy of ancient Rome’ and ‘the abuses of kingly power and the arbitrary usurpations that led to the overthrow of Royalty’ (Prospectus of a course of lectures…, London, 1796)Google Scholar.

70 For many months their newspaper advertisements end with the announcement that the ‘elegant suit of Rooms may be engaged for Concerts, Auctions, &c on reasonable terms’ (MC,15 sep. 1796, et seq.).

71 Telegraph, 15 Sept. 1796.

72 MC, 5 Sept. 1796.

73 Telegraph, 15 Sept. 1796.

74 WF; MC, 29 Sept. 1796, et seq.

75 LF; MC, 5 Sept. 1796, et seq.

76 27 Feb. 1797 (MC, 25 Feb.).

77 CH, 26 May 1791 and 2 June 1791 (World).

78 The vestrymen of St James's (including several justices of the peace) took seriously the parish duty of protecting morals and upholding laws: Six magistrates met three times a week to receive information about anyone harboring suspicious persons or keeping a disorderly house. As licensing day approached they were especially solicitous for such information and even advertised for it.

79 As mentioned before, the political topics at the Westminster Forum during the first three months of 1797 dealt with Lafayette's imprisonment (January), Paine's attack on the character of Washington January and February), Paine's public character and writings (February), and Paine's Agrarian Justice (March) – a total of seven nights.

80 MC, 10 Apr. 1797.

81 MC, 13 Nov. 1797.

82 For the season a total of ninety-nine debates are known to have taken place. Besides those at the Westminster Forum, five were at the London Forum, three at the Ciceronian School, and two at the School of Genius.

83 WF, 26 Oct. 1797 (MC).

84 12 May 1795 (MC).

85 30 June 1795 (MC). In 1791, before the Revolution had taken a bloody turn, a tamer version of this question had been debated: ‘which…is…the most striking instance of opposition to political tyranny:’ the exclusion of James II and his posterity, the independence of America, or the revolution in France? (CH, 20 and 27 Oct. 1791 [MC, 20 Oct. 1791: World, 27 Oct. 1791, P. 4]).

86 WF, 18 Sept. 1797 (MC) el seq.; similar topic at LF, also on 18 Sept.

87 WF, 9 May 1798 (MP).

88 WF, 7 Dec. 1798 (MP, Dec. 1798).

89 School of Eloquence, 22 April 1799 (MC).

90 WF, 6 Aug. 1798 (MP, 9 Aug. 1798).

91 School of Eloquence, 18 March 1799 (MC).

92 Report of committee of secrecy (1799), Sec. v.

93 Senator, 23: 1374.

94 Parliamentary Register, 53: 459.

95 Statute 39 Geo. 3. C. 79.

96 Senator, 23: 386–87.

97 Ibid. p. 1396.

98 Parliamentary Register, 53: 477.

99 Anti-Jacobin Review, 3 (1799), 97–8Google Scholar. A quite different view of this debate was presented by the Westminster Forum in their next advertisement: ‘Of the excellence which characterized the last debate, we might indeed boast. – But it must be sufficiently stamped in the remembrance of those who attended. The omission of the Names of the French Authors in the question was at the suggestion of a Gentleman who took part in the debate’ (MC, 28 Jan. 1799). It does seem that the name Anarcharsis Cloots was troublesome. In the first announcement of this topic the French philosophers named are ‘Mirabeau, Anacharsis, Schlutz &c’ In the advertisement published on the day of the debate the names are ‘Mirabeau, Anacharsis Cloots &c’. In the advertisement for the second and third debates, these names are omitted and only Holcroft and Godwin remain as the representatives of the new philosophy (MC 18, 21 and 30 Jan. 1799).

100 A dangerous place, to government, for the central committee of the London Corresponding Society met here and the members of the United Englishmen dined here before spending Sunday afternoon on arming exercises (Selections…London Corresponding Society, p. 438).

101 PRO: PCI/3117.

102 Selections…London Corresponding Society, p. 427.n

103 London: J. Hatchard, 1800. In February 1798 Reid was one of fifty-seven persons arrested at a Sunday debating society at the Angel public house in Cecil Court. In this instance, government was not trying to suppress the debating society but to locate John Binns and another Irish revolutionary, John Coigley. At his questioning, Reid was reproved for associating with tailors, mechanics, and shoemakers (MC 28 Feb. 1798, p. 3).

104 Pp. 15–16.

105 WF 11 Aug 1795 (Mc).

106 City Debates, 25 Nov. 1790 (World, p. 4).

107 LF, 12 Nov. 1795 (MC).

108 4 May 1797 (MC).

109 28 Dec. 1797 (MC).

110 10 April 1797 (MC), 8 April 1797).

111 23 April 1798 (MC).

112 30 April 1798 (MC).

113 WF, 27 May 1799 (MC).

114 An Address delivered, on Thursday, April 3rd, 1806…on the opening of the British Forum (London, 1806), pp. 8–9Google Scholar.

115 MC, 25 April 1799.

116 MC, 19 April 1799.