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Bradford and the American Civil War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2014

D. G. Wright
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Extract

In recent years the received picture of contemporary English attitudes to the American Civil War has been considerably modified. It has been demonstrated that there were a great many more currents of feeling, cutting across both party and class lines, than the traditional version, sowed by pro-Northern propagandists, allowed. Liberals, Conservatives, and intellectuals were all divided among themselves to some degree. If there was a good deal more pro-Federal sympathy among the English ruling class than was once thought, there was more pro-Southern sympathy among the middle and working classes, at least before 1863. At the same time, the British Government was more sincere in its stance of neutrality than was formerly suggested. The purpose of this article is to examine responses to the Civil War in Bradford, a West Riding industrial town where opinions were strongly influenced by newspapers, chapels, and Radical politicians — in other words, the kind of town where the Federal cause could expect to obtain solid support.

II

During the first half of the nineteenth century, Bradford's population had grown from thirteen thousand to over 100,000. By 1861 Bradford was the ninth largest town in the country. Now almost the whole of Britain's worsted industry was concentrated in an area of the West Riding of Yorkshire around Leeds, Bradford, Halifax, and Huddersfield. Within this area Bradford had replaced Halifax as “the principal seat and emporium of the worsted manufacture.” The town was predominantly nonconformist in religion and Radical in politics; in fact the two were closely linked.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , May 1969 , pp. 69 - 85
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1969

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References

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19. Ibid., 30 Nov., 5, 7, 12, 21 Dec. 1861.

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38. Ibid., 27 Aug., 24 Sep. 1863.

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51. Ibid., 2 Jan. 1862.

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59. Ibid., 24 Jan. 1863.

60. Ibid., 27 Nov. 1862, 5 Mar. 1863, for lectures by Independent ministers.

61. Ibid., 20 Feb. 1864, for lecture by Henry Vincent.

62. B.O., 5 Feb. 1863, which admitted an attendance of four thousand.

63. Ibid., 4 May 1865; B.R., 29 Apr., 4 May 1865.

64. B.O., 6 Nov. 1862.

65. Some went into print. J. S. Colefax, a Tory Orangeman, wrote a pro-Confederate pamphlet in May 1863.

66. B.R., 21 Dec. 1861.

67. Ibid., 10 Oct. 1863.

68. Ibid., 21 Apr. 1864, for his letter defending working-class apathy towards parliamentary reform.

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