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Administration and Finance of the Reform League, 1865–1867
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2008
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In the first months of 1865 artisan and middle class Reformers in London established the Reform League with the publicly stated political goals of “manhood suffrage and the ballot”. Reflecting a new political awareness among artisan workingmen as well as a realization that workingmen and sympathetic bourgeois Reformers might achieve more when agitating together, the League resulted from experiences and associations in several recent working class and bourgeois campaigns, concerns, and agitations. London artisans, for instance, had been involved in trade unions (both amalgamated and local), the London Trades Council, Trades Union Manhood Suffrage and Vote by Ballot Association, Workingmen's Garibaldi Committee, Universal League for the Improvement of the Working Classes, and International Working Men's Association (“First International”). They also joined organizations and campaigns more closely associated with the middle classes: temperance groups, Liberation Society, National League for Polish Independence, Emancipation Society, and Ballot Society. Here the artisans met bourgeois Reformers who helped establish and finance the Reform League.
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page 385 note 1 The Howell Collection, which includes the papers of the Reform League, is located at the Bishopsgate Institute, London E.C. 2. League papers include the minute books for the various councils and executives, ledgers, account books, carbon books of letters sent, and some letters received. The boxes of miscellaneous materials include clippings, pamphlets printed by the League, odd notes of all kinds (including plans for demonstrations), and posters. Howell's manuscript autobiography and his sketches of personalities are also in the collection. I have filled out information from these sources by culling reports in many London and provincial newspapers. The most useful are the Bee-Hive, Commonwealth, and Morning Star in London, and the Birmingham Journal, Manchester Examiner and Times, Leeds Express, Newcastle Chronicle, and Glasgow Sentinal. Many other newspapers have also contributed to my file of information on the League and its branches. Some particularly useful secondary sources are: Emma Gillespie, Frances, Labor and Politics in England, 1850–1850 (Durham, N. C., 1927)Google Scholar; Sidney, and Webb, Beatrice, History of Trade Unionism (London, 1894)Google Scholar; Felling, Henry, A History of British Trade Unionism (London, 1963)Google Scholar; Park, Joseph, The English Reform Bill of 1867 (New York, 1920)Google Scholar; Briggs, Asa, Victorian People (London, 1954)Google Scholar; Harrison, Royden, Before the Socialists: Studies in Labour and Politics 1861–1861 (London, 1965)Google Scholar. Many of the essays in Prof. Harrison's book appeared in this journal. I should also like to acknowledge all the information and guidance I have received at one time or another from Professors Asa Briggs, Henry Pelling, and Francis H. Herrick, with each of whom I have been a student.
page 388 note 1 Bee-Hive, and Miner, and Workman, 's Advocate (later The Commonwealth), 25 March 1865Google Scholar. The Rules were usually reprinted in League pamphlets.
page 389 note 1 Bee-Hive, , 25 February 1865.Google Scholar
page 389 note 2 Ibid., 18 March 1865. More details of the Radley Hotel meeting were given in an article written by “A Member of the Council” in Bee-Hive, , 10 November 1866.Google Scholar
page 389 note 3 Ibid., 25 March.
page 389 note 4 Accumulated information from the Minutes confirms this statement.
page 390 note 1 Minute Books, 6 and 27 October.
page 390 note 2 Ibid., Executive Council, 17 November and 8 December 1865.
page 390 note 3 Ibid., Executive Committee, 31 October 1866.
page 390 note 4 George Potter and the LTC had been rivals in London trade union politics since 1861, and the two warred constantly until 1868, when a settlement was made. See Coltham, Stephen, “The Bee-Hive Newspaper: Its Origins and Early Struggles”, in: Essays in Labour History, ed. by Briggs, Asa and Saville, John (London, 1960), pp. 174–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Because of the nature of this study, and the material used, the comments on Potter are not, I realize, favorable. Other material might prove Potter a different sort of leader and personality than I indicate, though I have also been influenced in my characterization by Coltham's essay.
page 391 note 1 Minute Books, General Council, 2 and 9 January, and Executive Committee, 4 January.
page 391 note 2 The Minute Books do not have full reports on the delegate meetings, which were reported more carefully in the sympathetic London papers.
page 391 note 3 Minute Books, Delegate Meetings, 27 February, 13 March, 27 March, 10 April, 1 May. There are no minutes for 10 April; merely a notice of the meeting having occurred. The executive apparently decided not to have a second one in April, but I can only infer this from the comments. On 18 April the executive decided to end temporarily the delegate meetings; that of 1 May would be the last. Minutes for the General Council exist for 8 May again.
page 391 note 4 In April, 1866, there had been 51 provincial branches of the League. By November there were 177. By January, 1867, there were well over 300.1 have used lists appearing in League pamphlets.
page 392 note 1 Commonwealth and Bee-Hive, 3 March 1866.Google Scholar
page 392 note 2 Bee-Hive, , 28 July 1866.Google Scholar
page 392 note 3 Commonwealth and Bee-Hive, 16 February 1867Google Scholar. Both gave the text.
page 393 note 1 Minute Books, Executive Council, 21 April 1865.Google Scholar
page 393 note 2 Ibid., 6 October 1865. Howell was instructed to draw up a list of the twenty-four most attentive councillors, who would thus become the Committee. Names are not given in the minutes nor the newspaper reports, but it is obvious to what extent the LTC men now dominated from the part they took in previous meetings. Besides, Howell drew up the list.
page 393 note 3 Re-organization was discussed and then carried out on 7, 14, and 28 September. See Minute Books.
page 394 note 1 Ibid., Executive Council, 11 January.
page 394 note 2 Ibid., General Council, 20 February.
page 394 note 3 Beales apparently helped F. Milne Edge with London League funds, and Edge worked at establishing a League office in Manchester. Cunnington almost certainly preferred the National Reform Union to the League, and objected to this challenge to the NRU in its base city. Beales explained the advance to Adge in a letter to Howell dated 27 September 1866.
page 395 note 1 Minute Books, Executive Council, 26 January 1866Google Scholar, and Executive Committee, 22 February and 15 March 1867.Google Scholar
page 395 note 2 There is evidence in the minutes that Mason Jones was serving in April as one member of a finance committee, but no certain evidence of such a committee until 30 June 1865.
page 395 note 3 Minute Books, Executive Committee, 22 September and 20 October 1865.Google Scholar
page 395 note 4 Ibid., Executive Committee, 18 August 1866.
page 396 note 1 Bee-Hive, , 15 April 1865 and 8 December 1866.Google Scholar
page 396 note 2 Minute Books, Executive Committee.
page 396 note 3 Besides the Minute Books, the Bee-Hive of 15 and 22 April 1865 reported the election of Howell. Also, the newspaper on 8, 15, and 22 December 1866, and 5 January 1867 printed the Potter-Hartwell version of events, and rejoinders by Beales and Edge. Howell comments in his manuscript autobiography.
page 398 note 1 My re-construction of Howell's personality is of course based upon the mass of evidence in the Howell Collection. More than anything else, the League carbon books, with copies of presumably all the letters Howell sent from the central office, reveal most about him. Particularly to League acquaintances in the provinces he indulged frequently in defensive commentary – and most especially in December, 1866, when the Bee-Hive articles were running.
page 399 note 1 Jones actually resigned from the League in May, 1866, and copies of two of Beales' pleading letters are in the Letter Books, dated 22 May and 2 June. The fall of the Russell Government solved the problem.
page 399 note 3 Bee-Hive, , 24 June 1865.Google Scholar
page 399 note 3 Minute Books, Executive Committee, 11 August 1865Google Scholar, and Bee-Hive, , 12 August 1865.Google Scholar
page 399 note 4 Letter Books, 26 December 1866.
page 400 note 1 Letter from Milne Edge, F., Bee-Hive, , 15 December 1866Google Scholar. Beales confirmed the information in a reply on 22 December.
page 400 note 2 Howell's manuscript autobiography.
page 401 note 1 All three are in the miscellany of the Howell Collection, and can be used along with the Ledgers and Account Books, pamphlets, and Letter Books.
page 402 note 1 Manuscript autobiography.
page 403 note 1 Minute Books, Permanent Committee, 21 July 1865.Google Scholar
page 403 note 2 Manuscript autobiography.
page 403 note 3 Minute Books, Executive Committee, 22 February 1867.Google Scholar
page 404 note 1 Letter Books, Howell, to Beales, , 6 October 1866.Google Scholar
page 404 note 2 First Annual Report.
page 405 note 1 Minute Books, Subcommittee, 21 April 1865.Google Scholar
page 405 note 2 Ibid., Permanent Committee, 14 July 1865.Google Scholar
page 405 note 3 Ibid.
page 405 note 4 Ibid., 21 July 1865. Mason Jones broke with the League during the summer of 1865, resigned in November, and was again a member in August, 1866.
page 405 note 5 Letter Books, October and November, 1866.
page 406 note 1 Ibid., Howell, to Hanbury, R. C., M. P., 19 September 1866.Google Scholar
page 406 note 2 Letter Books, 7 November 1866 and undated copies (probably of same date).
page 406 note 3 Ibid., Howell, to Taylor, P. A., 15 November 1866.Google Scholar
page 407 note 1 Ibid., Howell, to Osborne, W., 2 March 1867.Google Scholar
page 407 note 2 Minute Books, Executive Council, 15 March 1867.Google Scholar
page 407 note 3 Letter Books, March, 1867. A copy of Beales' accompanying letter is among Letters Received, 1867. I have not found copies of Morley's or Bright's letters.
page 407 note 4 Letters Books, Howell, to Dell, , 2 September 1867.Google Scholar
page 407 note 5 Minute Books, Executive Committee, 8 September 1866.Google Scholar
page 408 note 1 Ibid., Executive Council, 22 February 1867.Google Scholar
page 408 note 2 Letter Books, Howell, to Dell, , 2 September 1867.Google Scholar
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