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Local Manifestations of the Urquhartite Movement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

John Salt
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Abstract

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David Urquhart (1805–1877), the inspirer of the agitation that took his name, has been succinctly described as “an ex-diplomatic official who carried his Russuphobia to an almost pathological extreme”. As an official at the British Embassy in Constantinople, Urquhart, whose admiration for the Turks knew no bounds, had tried to engineer a war between Britain and Russia. In his eccentric way he ascribed his subsequent removal from a position of diplomatic responsibihty to the work of Russian agents in the British Foreign Office. The phobia grew. David Urquhart, a man of compelling charm and deep idealism, came to regard the Czar as the Antichrist and to see his minions everywhere. In particular, Urquhart turned his attack on Lord Palmerston, the Foreign Secretary who had recalled him to England in July, 1837, and whom he now represented as an agent in an international conspiracy.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , December 1968 , pp. 350 - 365
Copyright
Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1968

References

page 350 note 1 Schoyen, A. R., The Chartist Challenge (London, 1958), p. 89.Google Scholar For a general biography of Urquhart see G. Robinson's study (Oxford, 1920). There is an interesting note on Urquhart in The Dictionary of National Biography (London, 1899), Vol. LVIII, pp. 43–45.Google Scholar

page 350 note 2 Urquhart's activities in the 1830s are summarized in Gleason, J. H., The Genesis of Russophobia in Great Britain (Cambridge, Mass., 1950).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 350 note 3 Briggs, Asa, “David Urquhart and the West Riding Foreign Affairs Committee”, in: The Bradford Antiquary, New Series, Part 39, 1958, p. 6.Google Scholar

page 351 note 1 See Armytage, W. H. G., “Sheffield and the Crimean War”, in: History Today, Vol. 5, No 7, 07, 1955, p. 479.Google Scholar

page 351 note 2 See, for instance, Taylor, A. J. P., The Trouble Makers (London, 1957), pp. 46–60.Google Scholar

page 352 note 1 W. H. G. Armytage, op. cit., p. 476.

page 352 note 2 A Mechanics' Library, Mechanics' Institute, Owenite Hall of Science, Church of England Educational Institute and a People's College. The latter inspired an important movement in adult education led by F. D. Maurice.

page 352 note 3 Salt, John, Chartism in South Yorkshire (University of Sheffield Local History Pamphlets, No 1, 1967).Google Scholar

page 352 note 4 Salt, John, “English Radicalism, a Neglected Document”, in: Notes and Queries, Vol. 13, 09, 1968, pp. 332–333.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 353 note 1 The Sheffield Free Press, 1 November, 1851, p. 5.

page 353 note 2 A. J. P. Taylor, op. cit., p. 58.

page 353 note 3 For an account of this project see Salt, John, “Isaac Ironside and the Hollow Meadows Farm Experiment”, in: Yorkshire Bulletin of Economic and Social Research, Vol. 12, No 1, 03, 1960.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 354 note 1 See Mehring, F., Karl Marx (London, 1936), p. 244Google Scholar; Beer, M., The Life and Teaching of Karl Marx (London, 1925), p. 81Google Scholar; Saville, J., Ernest Jones, Chartist (London, 1952), p. 240.Google Scholar

page 354 note 2 See Marx-Engels, , Werke (East Berlin), Vol. 29, pp. 537–538.Google Scholar Marx's relations with the Urquhartites are, in fact, somewhat complex. In June, 1854, Marx wrote to Lassalle saying that he did not wish to be associated with Urquhart in that, apart from his shared opinion of Palmerston, he was “diametrically opposed” to “this gentleman”. Ibid., Vol. 28, p. 608.

In 1855, however, The Free Press began to publish a series of lengthy articles by Marx on “Revelations of the Diplomatic History of the Eighteenth Century”. Perhaps there will always be mystery here, but for Marx's diplomatic views see The Eastern Question (1899), an anthology edited by Edward and Eleanor Marx Aveling.

page 354 note 3 The Northern Star, 4 01, 1851, p. 4.Google Scholar

page 354 note 4 The Sheffield Mercury of 14 November, 1846, had lamented that “the right of voting exists, but the practice of the right is not cared for”.

page 355 note 1 The Sheffield Independent, 28 October, 1848, p. 8. As early as October, 1847, each ward selection committee had sent two delegates to a special meeting at the Democratic Reading Room in Queen Street, Sheffield. See The Northern Star, 2 10, 1847, p. 8.Google Scholar

page 355 note 2 The Sheffield Free Press, 12 November, 1852, p. 5.

page 355 note 3 The Sheffield Iris, 23 03, 1848, p. 7.Google Scholar See also Salt, John, Chartism in South Yorkshire (Sheffield, The University, 1967), pp. 23–27.Google Scholar

page 355 note 4 The Sheffield Iris, 24 02, 1848, p. 5.Google Scholar

page 356 note 1 The Sheffield Free Press, 14 February, 1852, p. 2. Toulmin Smith's Local Self Government and Centralization had been reviewed in the local press in April, 1851, and subsequently Ironside read fragments of Smith's Municipal Address to the Burgesses of Farringdon Without and his Governments and Commissions Illegal and Pernicious to a restless Town Council. Toulmin Smith's influence was not entirely short-lived: his researches into gild organization are constantly referred to in P. Kropotkin's Mutual Aid (London, 1902). He also did something to promote interest in local records: see his letters to Sir F. Madden, British Museum Egerton Collection, 2848, 106 and 110ff.

page 356 note 2 The Sheffield Free Press, 12 April, 1851, p. 6. Ironside constantly stressed the importance of that “practical education which the revivification of our municipal institutions would certainly create”, stressing that “the only hope of properly educating the masses was to interest them in something that touched their pockets”. See The Sheffield Times, 13 03, 1852, p. 7Google Scholar; 20 November, 1852, p. 7.

page 357 note 1 Ibid., 13 December, 1851, p. 6. On other occasions wardmotes discussed the treatment of Kossuth in Turkey and the problem of the maintenance of French troops in Rome. In the breadth of their discussion the wardmotes appear to have had something in common with the Owenite institution which Ironside had run in the eighteen-forties. See Salt, John, “The Sheffield Hall of Science”, in: The Vocational Aspect, Vol. XII, No 25, pp. 133–138.Google Scholar In their attempts to promote happy social relationships (The Sheffield Free Press, 7 February, 1852, referred to them as “bands of jolly fellows”), they have a similarity to earlier Owenite groups. See, for instance, Holyoake, G. J., The History of Co-operation (London, 1906), p. 135.Google Scholar To their opponents, the supporters of the wardmotes were known as “pot house politicians”.

page 358 note 1 There were complaints in Sheffield, that “the board spent almost every shilling illegally in providing sewers.” The Sheffield Independent, 17 06, 1854, p. 8.Google Scholar This was in defiance of the 67th Section of the General Highway Act.

page 358 note 2 See Leader, R. E., The Life and Letters of John Arthur Roebuck (London, 1897), p. 251Google Scholar, and the manuscript autobiography of George Hadfield, MP, in the Sheffield Central Library.

page 358 note 3 See comment in The Sheffield Times, 17 May, 1851, p. 7.

page 358 note 4 Salt, John, “The Sheffield Consumers' Gas Company, an Early Co-operative Enterprise”, in: The Co-operative Review, 09, 1965.Google Scholar

page 358 note 5 The Sheffield Times, 8 May, 1852, p. 7. By November, 1853, when Ironside was defeated in the election for representatives for the Ecclesall Ward in the Sheffield Town Council, the Ironside Party had virtually ceased to exist in the council chamber. For some months Ironside sat for an uncontested ward.

page 358 note 6 The Free Press, 3 May, 1856, p. 4.

page 358 note 7 The Sheffield Independent, 9 06, 1863, p. 6.Google Scholar

page 359 note 1 The Sheffield Times, 14 01, 1854, p. 6.Google Scholar

page 359 note 2 A. R. Schoyen, op. cit., p. 239. There was, in fact, considerable distress in Sheffield at this period. In December, 1855, a representative of the Table Knife Hafters' Union was to write: “In the year that is past many of us have been paupers, and nearly all have been brought to the threshhold of ruin. Our wives and children have been badly fed and thinly clad.” See The Sheffield Independent, 29 12, 1855, p. 5.Google Scholar

page 359 note 3 See Shepherd, W., Starting a Daily in the Provinces (London, 1876), p. 82Google Scholar; Collett, C. D., History of the Taxes on Knowledge (London, 1899), Vol. 2, p. 57.Google Scholar

page 359 note 4 See The Sheffield Independent, 10 11, 1855, p. 6.Google Scholar

page 359 note 5 Armytage, W. H. G., “Sheffield and the Crimean War”, in: History Today, Vol. V, p. 467.Google Scholar

page 359 note 6 The Sheffield Times, 30 07, 1855, p. 10.Google Scholar

page 360 note 1 The Sheffield Independent, 30 09, 1854, p. 10Google Scholar; R. Leader, op. cit., p. 259; W. H. G. Armytage, op. cit., pp. 467–469.

page 360 note 2 The Sheffield Times, 30 09, 1854, p. 7Google Scholar; The Free Press, 10 November, 1855, p. 4, and 5 April, 1856, p. 2. G. S. Phillips had been a supporter of the Sheffield Hall of Science. See The Sheffield risI, 18 11, 1847, p. 5.Google Scholar

page 360 note 3 The Free Press, 5 April, 1856, p. 2. See also Urquhart, David, The Queen and the Premier (London, 1857), p. 6Google Scholar, and The Military Strength of Turkey (London, 1868), p. 2.Google Scholar

page 360 note 4 The Free Press, 3 November, 1855, p. 2.

page 360 note 5 The Sheffield Independent, 10 11, 1855, p. 6.Google Scholar

page 361 note 1 See Stapleton, A. G., A Day With One of the Committees (London, 1875), p. 1Google Scholar; The Sheffield Times, 23 06, 1855, p. 8.Google Scholar

page 361 note 2 The Free Press, 10 November, 1855, p. 3.

page 361 note 3 Ibid., 12 April, 1856, p. 1; 26 April, 1856, p. 4.

page 361 note 4 The Sheffield Independent, 12 02, 1859, p. 10Google Scholar; 18 February, 1859, p. 6.

page 361 note 5 Ibid., 12 March, 1868, p. 4.

page 362 note 1 See Urquhart, David, The Channel Islands, Norman Law and Modern Practice (London, 1844), p. 1.Google Scholar

page 362 note 2 Ibid., p. 15. See The Free Press, 8 December, 1855, p. 4; 15 March, 1856, p. 6; and 2 August, 1856, p. 3. See also The Sheffield Independent, 13 02, 1868, p. 3Google Scholar, and Urquhart, David, The Four Wars of the French Revolution (London, 1874), p. 45.Google Scholar

page 362 note 3 Ironside incurred much unpopularity in Sheffield by trying “to get up a sort of sympathy with the black villains” involved in the Indian Mutiny. See The Sheffield Independent, 31 10, 1857, p. 6.Google Scholar The Urquhartites insisted that the root cause of the Indian Mutiny was “that those who rule are certain of impunity for whatever they do.” See Urquhart, David, The Rebellion in India (London, 1857), p. 39Google Scholar; Crawshay, George, The Immediate Cause of the Indian Mutiny (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1857), p. 31.Google Scholar Ironside's ridicule and abuse of Garibaldi also aroused great hostility. See The Sheffield Independent, 16 06, 1860, p. 10.Google Scholar

page 363 note 1 Ibid., 27 February, 1858, p. 10, and 8 May, 1858, p. 6.

page 363 note 2 Ibid., 28 March, 1857, p. 9. See also Ironside, Isaac, The Part of France and Russia in the Surrender by England of the Right of Search (London, 1866).Google Scholar

page 363 note 3 The Sheffield Independent, 3 01, 1857, p. 6.Google Scholar

page 363 note 4 Ibid., 10 October, 1857, p. 6; and 31 October, 1857, p. 10.

page 363 note 5 See Ironside's letter to Robert Leader the Younger, The Leader Collection, Sheffield Central Library, Vol. 71, pp. 151–155.Google Scholar

page 363 note 6 The Sheffield Independent, 30 05, 1857, p. 8Google Scholar, and 1 August, 1857, p. 8.

page 364 note 1 The degeneracy of contemporary society was a constant lament of The Free Press, and, as late as 1868 Ironside, who, two years before his death, was still proudly announcing himself as “the Chairman of the Sheffield Foreign Affairs Committee”, was telling an audience that they “must do something, for society was falling to pieces as fast as it could.” See The Sheffield Independent, 14 05, 1868, p. 3.Google Scholar

page 364 note 2 The Free Press, 3 May, 1856, p. 1.

page 364 note 3 Ibid., 9 February, 1856, p. 3. See also Urquhart, David, An Appeal Against Faction (London, 1843).Google Scholar Apparently, in the Autumn of 1854, Ironside and his associates had tried to found a “Natural Party”. See Ironside's letter to Gladstone, quoted by W. H. G. Armytage, op. cit., pp. 478–479.

page 365 note 1 The Sheffield Iris, 19 11, 1842, p. 8Google Scholar; and 3 December, 1842, p. 3.