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The Government of Tyneside, 1800–1850

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

N. McCord
N. McCord
Affiliation:
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
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Extract

The infliction of such a parochial topic on this Society may smack of temerity. My apology must be that the emergence of the first modern industrial societies is one of the most important of all historical developments, and that the experience of each of the areas involved is worthy of the historian's meticulous scrutiny.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 20 , December 1970 , pp. 5 - 30
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1970

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References

page 5 note 1 The principal source for this paper has been the government archives in the Public Record Office, London. When cited in subsequent notes these will be identified as H.O. for Home Office records, ADM. for Admiralty, and M.H. for Ministry of Health.

The work for this paper was helped by a grant from the Research Fund of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne.

page 6 note 1 Gash, N., Mr. Secretary Peel (London, 1961), p. 297.Google Scholar

page 7 note 1 H.O. 52/14 contains a good example of these exchanges, in the endorsement on Duke of Northumberland/Melbourne, 4/6/1831, and the Duke's reaction in ibid., 8/6/1831.

During the period studied here the role of the Lords Lieutenant of the north–eastern counties declined in comparison with the other local magistrates. This decline in active importance is especially marked in the latter part of the period.

page 7 note 2 Documents relating to complaints about prisons in the Tyneside area in this period occur in H.O. 43/42, 43/52, 43/62, 43/74, 52/17.

page 8 note 1 This strike is referred to on a number of occasions here; it is discussed in McCord, N., ‘The Seamen's Strike of 1815 in North–East England’, Economic History Review, Second Series, xxi (1968), pp. 127–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 8 note 2 This strike too is referred to on a number of occasions here; it is discussed in McCord, N., ‘Tyneside Discontents and Peterloo’, Northern History, ii (1967), pp. 91–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 9 note 1 For the early history of the new poor law on Tyneside the main source is the Poor Law Papers in the Ministry of Health archives. The volumes most pertinent here are M.H. 12/3068 (Gateshead Poor Law Union), M.H. 12/3201 (South Shields), M.H. 12/9002 (Castle Ward), M.H. 12/9096 (Newcastle), and M.H. 12/9156 (Tynemouth). In addition I have used an undergraduate dissertation on the work of the Hexham Board of Guardians, based mainly on local sources, by Miss Gloria Cadman, B.A., in the Department of Modern and Medieval History, University of Newcastle upon Tyne.

Most of the evidence for the case of David Maddison, mentioned in the text here, is contained in a group of letters in M.H. 12/9002.

A fuller account ‘The Implementation of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act on Tyneside,’ will appear in a future number of The International Review of Social History.

page 9 note 2 The Tynemouth Union workhouse is part of Preston Hospital, North Shields, the Newcastle Union workhouse part of Newcastle General Hospital, the Hexham Union workhouse part of Hexham General Hospital.

page 11 note 1 H.O. 40/30, Bouverie/Home Office, 4/12/1830. A description by an extreme Chartist of the restraint displayed by an army officer a few years later occurs in Devyr, T. A., The Odd Book of the Nineteenth Century (New York, 1882), p. 160.Google Scholar

page 11 note 2 H.O. 40/29, Bouverie/Home Office, 26/4/1831. As conclusive proof of Bouverie's sagacity and insight I offer his tribute in another letter of this time—‘If the Pitmen continue refractory, they will be awkward persons to deal with, one pitman being equal to 3 weavers at the least’. H.O. 40/30, Bouverie/Home Office, 1/4/1832.

page 12 note 1 Several letters of January 1851 in H.O. 41/19 refer to this trouble.

page 12 note 2 Apart from the strikes referred to elsewhere in this paper the same characteristic appeared during the keelmen's strike of 1822; ADM. 1/2237, Captain J. T. Nicolas/Admiralty, 27/11/1822.

The relations between the Royal Navy and the local merchant seamen are discussed in the papers cited in notes 1, 2 on p. 8 and note 1 on p. 18. Some further information appears in McCord, N., ‘The Impress Service in North–East England during the Napoleonic War’, The Mariner's Mirror, Vol. 54 (1968), no. 2, pp. 163–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 13 note 1 One of Walsham's aunts was the wife of Sir Francis Burdett. Some information on ‘honest Matty Bell’ is given in McCord, N. and Carrick, A. E., ‘Northumberland in the General Election of 1852’, Northern History, Vol. i (1966), pp. 92–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Walsham inaugurated a family tradition of government service. The second baronet enjoyed a moderately distinguished diplomatic career; I fear that some readers may derive a grim satisfaction from learning that the third baronet, grandson of the Assistant Poor Law Commissioner, was an Inspector of Chinese Labour in the Transvaal early in this century.

page 14 note 1 In this context it is noteworthy that the biggest thorn in Walsham's side was a man of similar status—Sir Charles Monck, Bart., of Belsay, who deployed his considerable influence in that area to frustrate some of Walsham's plans for the Castle Ward Union.

page 16 note 1 There is more about Dunn in MacDonagh, O., ‘Coal Mines Regulation: the First Decade, 1842–1852’, in Ideas and Institutions of Victorian Britain, ed. by Robson, Robert (London, 1967). Dunn's letter of appointment is in H.O. 87/2.Google Scholar

page 17 note 1 I am grateful to Mrs Kathleen Fell, of Stockton, who kindly hunted through local sources there to elucidate Cartwright's varied local activities to complement the documents in the Home Office Papers.

page 18 note 1 This strike and its background are discussed in N. McCord and D. E. Brewster, ‘Some Labour Troubles of the 1790s in North East England’, International Review of Social History, 1969.

There is a short account of Rowland Burdon in Brockie, W., ‘Sunderland Notables’ (Sunderland 1894), pp. 100–05.Google Scholar

page 18 note 2 H.O. 52/14, Duke of Northumberland/Melbourne, 26/5/1831.

page 19 note 1 H.O. 52/17. Durham County Magistrates/Melbourne, 23/7/1832. H.O. 52/19. Northumberland county magistrates/Melbourne, 3/8/1832, and J. Clavering/Melbourne, 19/7/1832.

page 19 note 2 H.O. 43/44, Melbourne/Gateshead magistrates, 10/3/1834.

page 20 note 1 The main source for Gateshead's history in this period is the rich collection of Brockett Papers in Gateshead Central Reference Library. A paper, based mainly on these papers, on ‘Gateshead Politics in the Age of Reform’, will appear in Northern History, Vol. 4 (1969).Google Scholar

In Newcastle, Sir John Fife provides another very good example of the transformation of a champion of reform in 1831–32 into a champion of order in 1838–39; Burn, W. L., The Age of Equipoise (London, 1964), pp. 75–76.Google Scholar

page 21 note 1 H.O. 40/39. James Scott (for many years an overseer in Newcastle)/ Home Office, 5/1/1838. In this letter Scott maintains that local anti–poor law agitation was an artificial creation of the extreme radicals.

page 22 note 1 The description of Gateshead's coronation celebration is taken from Richardson, M. A., The Local Historian's Table Book, Vol. V (Newcastle, 1846), p. 28.Google Scholar

page 22 note 2 Edited by Edward Hughes for the Surtees Society, Vol. I, 1962, Vol. II, 1963.

page 23 note 1 H.O. 52/14, Sowerby/Home Office, 17/12/1831.

An even better example of such intransigence comes from a slightly earlier period. During the 1792 seamen's strike, one local shipowner declared that ‘it is my opinion that Tampering with a Mob, treating with Rioters, or offering terms to People, illegally assembled for the purpose of extorting high wages from their employers are crimes little inferior in magnitude to rioting itself: H.O. 42/22, Thomas Powditch/Pitt, 3/11/1792. It is noteworthy, however, that the meeting of shipowners who heard this trenchant declaration disregarded it, deciding instead to persist in negotiations, which eventually produced an agreed settlement through the mediation of a local county magistrate.

By a happy chance Powditch was successfully sued for breach of promise of marriage a few years later, and in the evidence produced then it was made clear that he had failed in business only a few years after this strike, and that he was in any event only a shipowner in a small way, which may be significant in view of the differing employers’ attitudes here.

page 24 note 1 State Papers 37/4, in the Public Record Office, includes a few very interesting documents relating to a pitmen's strike of 1765.

page 25 note 1 H.O. 40/21 contains the very sophisticated and detailed ‘Statement of the Accounts of the South Shield's Seamen's Loyal Standard Association’, for the period from 7/9/1825 to 6/9/1826. This shows that the Association's President and Secretary received salaries—the President, Henry Woodroffe, who is mentioned here in connexion with the 1831–32 troubles in the port, received £65 and a gratuity of £5. During that year the Association had made a donation of £50 to support the artisans of Bradford. From other papers of the mid–1820s it appears that the seamen's organization on the Thames at this time was derived from the Tyneside model.

page 27 note 1 Glascock's letters to the Admiralty are in ADM. 1/1868, and the Admiralty's replies in ADM. 2/1503. Glascock is in D.N.B. and also in Marshall's, Royal Naval Biography, Vol. 4, part II, p. 493.Google Scholar This last source mentions Glascock's dissatisfaction at the position in which he had been placed by his superiors at that time. Sent originally to the Tyne for police purposes, he was later ordered in addition to enforce an anti–cholera quarantine on the north–east coast, duties difficult to reconcile.

page 28 note 1 Two examples of the misuse of local urban influence may be cited. A disputed election to the Gateshead Board of Guardians revealed that Brockett's Gateshead property was rated at well below its true value.

In Tynemouth in the 1830s the anchor and chain making factory of Pow & Fawcus was a major element in the town's economy, and the two families concerned were clearly among the town's dominating minority. During a strike at their works in 1838 the local magistrates obligingly swore in eleven special constables, all of whom were connected with the firm—two Pows and one Fawcus appearing in the list; H.O. 40/39, R. R. Barker/Home Office, 10/12/1838. I am grateful to Mr Frank Carr, of Cullercoats, who kindly hunted through the local sources to establish clearly the eminence of the Pow and Fawcus families in the town.

page 29 note 1 McCord, N., ‘The Murder of Nicholas Fairies, Esq., J.P., at Jarrow Slake, on 11th June 1832’, South Shields Archaeological and Historical Society Papers, Vol. I (1958), pp. 12–19.Google Scholar

page 29 note 2 At the time I was working on the papers relating to the troubles of 1815 and 1819 referred to in notes on p. 8. I postulated a critical deterioration in local social relations in the 1830s and 1840s; subsequent work on materials relating to these later years has induced me to modify this conclusion very considerably.

page 30 note 1 Ireland must, of course, stand out as a notable failure. It is perhaps worth mentioning too that in Northumberland and Durham, as elsewhere, the Game Laws produced many more prosecutions and convictions in this period than any political offences.