'A sort of land debatable': Female influence, civic virtue and middle-class identity, c 1830-c 1860

Women's History Review

Volumn 13, Issue 2, 2004, Pages 183-209

  Morgan, Simon ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA   (United Kingdom)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 34247669121     PISSN: 09612025     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09612020400200389     Document Type: Review

References (100)

1. This article draws liberally on the author's thesis (2000), Middle-Class Women, Civic Virtue and Identity: Leeds and the West Riding of Yorkshire, c. 1830-c. 1860 (unpublished DPhil thesis, University of York).
2. J.G. Phillimore (1843) Woman's Rights and Duties, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 54, p. 385.
3. Alan Kidd & David Nicholls (Eds) (1999) Gender, Civic Culture and Consumerism (Manchester: Manchester University Press);
4. Simon Gunn (2000) The Public Culture of the Victorian Middle Class (Manchester: Manchester University Press).
5. R.J. Morris (1990) Class Sect and Party: the making of the British middle class, 1830-1850 (Manchester: Manchester University Press);
6. James Vernon (1993) Politics and the People: a study in English political culture, c. 1815-1867 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
7. Gunn, Public Culture of the Victorian Middle Class, pp. 27 and 91-98;
8. see also Janet Wolff & John Seed (Eds) (1988) The Culture of Capital: art, power and the nineteenth-century middle class (Manchester: Manchester University Press);
9. Kidd & Nicholls, Gender, Civic Culture and Consumerism.
10. Vernon, Politics and the People, esp. pp. 8-9.
11. Judith Walkowitz (1992) City of Dreadful Delight: narratives of sexual danger in later Victorian London, p. 47 (London: Virago).
12. nd edn 2002, London: Routledge).
13. Amanda Vickery (1993) Golden Age to Separate Spheres? A Review of the Categories and Chronology of English Women's History, Historical Journal, 36, pp. 383-401.
14. Other important contributions to the 'separate spheres' debate include Linda Kerber (1988) Separate Spheres, Female Worlds, Woman's Place: the rhetoric of women's history, Journal of American History, 75, pp. 9-39;
15. Leonore Davidoff (1995) Regarding Some 'Old Husbands' Tales': public and private in feminist history, in L. Davidoff, Worlds Between: historical perspectives on gender and class, pp. 227-276 (Oxford: Polity Press).
16. Davidoff & Hall, Family Fortunes, esp. ch. 10.
17. Kathryn Gleadle (2000) 'Our Several Spheres': middle-class women and the feminism of early Victorian radical politics, in Kathryn Gleadle & Sarah Richardson (Eds) Women in British Politics: the power of the petticoat, pp. 134-152 (Basingstoke: Macmillan).
18. See S.J. Morgan (2000) Domestic Economy and Political Agitation: women and the Anti-Corn Law League, 1839-1846, in Gleadle & Richardson, Women in British Politics, pp. 115-133.
19. S.J. Morgan (2002) Seen but Not Heard? Women's Platforms, Respectability and Female Publics in the Mid-nineteenth Century, Nineteenth Century Prose, 29(1), pp. 50-67.
20. See also Claire Midgley, Women against Slavery: the British campaigns, 1780-1870 (London: Routledge);
21. F.K. Prochaska (1980) Women and Philanthropy in Nineteenth Century England (Oxford: Oxford University Press);
22. Anne Summers (1979) A Home from Home: women's philanthropic work in the nineteenth century, in Sandra Burman (Ed.) Fit Work for Women, pp. 33-63, (London: Croom Helm).
23. see Marjorie Morgan (1994) Manners, Morals and Class in England, 1774-1858 (Basingstoke: Macmillan).
24. Linda Colley, (1992) Britons, Forging the Nation, 1730-1850, p. 250 (New Haven: Yale University Press);
25. Amanda Vickery (1998) The Gentleman's Daughter, esp. p. 7 (New Haven: Yale University Press).
26. The emergence of etiquette manuals aimed at middle-class women from the 1830s onwards has been interpreted as reflecting an expansion in social opportunities for this group: Michael Curtin (1985) A Question of Manners: status and gender in etiquette and courtesy, Journal of Modern History, 57, pp. 395-423.
27. Morgan, Manners, Morals and Class, esp. pp. 12-19.
28. Sarah Stickney Ellis (1839) The Women of England: their social and domestic habits, p. 54 (London).
29. These nationalistic sentiments were sometimes criticised. See T.H. Lister (1841) Rights and Conditions of Women, Edinburgh Review, 73, pp. 189-209 (pp. 189-190).
30. Ellis, The Women of England, p. 38;
31. Maria Grey & Emily Shirreff (1850) Thoughts on Self Culture Addressed to Women, 2 vols, vol. ii., pp. 165-166 (London).
32. The sisters' contribution to educational reform is assessed in Edward E. Ellsworth (1979) Liberators of the Female Mind: the Shirreff sisters, educational reform and the women's movement (Westport: Greenwood Press).
33. Emily Shirreff (1858) Intellectual Education and its influence on the Character and Happiness of Women, p. 26 (London).
34. J.G.A. Pocock (1985) Virtues, Rights and Manners: a model for historians of political thought, in J.G.A. Pocock, Virtue, Commerce and History: essays on political thought and history, chiefly in the eighteenth century, pp. 37-50 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
35. Dror Wahrman (1995) Imagining the Middle Class: the political representation of class in Britain, c. 1780-1840, pp. 404-407 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
36. E.g. William Landels (1859) Woman's Sphere and Work, Considered in the Light of Scripture: A Book for Young Women, pp. 10-14 (London). Landels believed that 'Woman's sphere is not in the public arena, but the retirement of the home'; however, even he acknowledged women's right to interfere in public questions when prompted by 'a great and noble motive'. Ibid., pp. 27-28.
37. Grey & Shirreff, Thoughts on Self-Culture, ii, p. 166.
38. See Anne Summers, 'A Home from Home', esp. p. 38;
39. Prochaska, Women and Philanthropy.
40. Jane Marcet, Conversations on Political Economy (1815)
41. and Harriet Martineau, Illustrations of Political Economy, 9 vols (1834).
42. The impact of Martineau's work on a middle class seeking assurance about future stability in the face of economic and social dislocation is discussed in Elaine Freedgood (1995) Banishing Panic: Harriet Martineau and the popularisation of political economy, Victorian Studies, 39(1), pp. 33-53.
43. For the links between political economy and evangelicalism see Boyd Hilton (1988) The Age of Atonement: the influence of evangelicalism on social and economic thought, 1795-1865(Oxford: Oxford University Press).
44. In 1841, the opening up of political economy to women was pointed out in M. Mylne (1841) Woman, and her Social Position, Westminster Review, 35, pp. 24-52,
45. esp. pp. 34-35. The previous year had seen the publication of Woman's Rights and Duties (1840), the first educational book for girls to substitute a section on political economy for one on religion: John Killham (1958) Tennyson and 'The Princess': reflections of an age, p. 134 (London: University of London).
46. Grey & Shirreff, Thoughts on Self Culture, i, pp. 33-34;
47. Shirreff, Intellectual Education, p. 356.
48. This paradox produced real anguish for some women. See Joan N. Burstyn (1980) Victorian Education and the Ideal of Womanhood, pp. 135-136 (London: Croom Helm).
49. Vickery, The Gentleman's Daughter, esp. p. 10.
50. For the increase in associational activity in the West Riding of Yorkshire, see Theodore Koditscheck (1990) Class Formation and Urban-Industrial Society: Bradford, 1750-1850, pp. 252-319 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press);
51. and Morris, Class, Sect and Party.
52. R.J. Morris (1983) Voluntary Societies and British Urban Elites, 1780-1850: an analysis, Historical Journal, 26(1), pp. 95-118;
53. and Class, Sect and Party, esp. chs 7-12.
54. Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, Minute Books of General Meetings, 17 October 1845.
55. Brotherton Library Special Collections, University of Leeds, MS 1975, Box 6/150.
56. Also quoted in E.D. Steele (1975-78) The Leeds Patriciate and the Cultivation of Learning, 1819-1905: a study of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, Proceedings of the Literary and Historical Section, XVI, p. 185.
57. F.K. Prochaska (1974) Women in English Philanthropy 1790-1830, International Review of Social History, 19, pp. 426-445;
58. Summers, 'Fit Work for Women'. This work informs much of the next two paragraphs.
59. Susan Thorne (2000) Congregational Missions and the Making of an Imperial Culture in Nineteenth-Century England, esp. ch. 3 (Stanford: Stanford University Press);
60. Susan Thorne (1997) 'The Conversion of Englishmen and the Conversion of the World Inseperable': missionary imperialism and the language of class in early industrial Britain, in Frederick Cooper & Ann Laura Staler (Eds) Tensions of Empire: colonial cultures in a bourgeois world, pp. 238-262. (Berkeley: University of California Press)
61. Alison Twells (1999) 'A Christian and Civilised Land': the British middle class and the civilising mission, 1820-42, in Kidd & Nicholls, Gender, Civic Culture and Consumerism, pp. 47-64.
62. See also Alison Twells (1997) The Heathen at Home and Overseas: the middle class and the 'Civilising Mission', Sheffield 1790-1843, unpublished DPhil thesis, University of York.
63. Summers, 'Fit Work for Women'.
64. Leslie Howsam (1991) Cheap Bibles: nineteenth-century publishing and the British and Foreign Bible Society, pp. 48-58 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); Thorne, 'The Conversion of Englishmen and the Conversion of the World Inseperable'.
65. Denise Riley (1988) Am I That Name? Feminism and the Category of 'Women' in History, pp. 49-51 (Basingstoke: Macmillan);
66. Eileen Yeo (1996) The Contest for Social Science: relations and representations of gender and class, ch. 6 (London: Rivers Oram Press).
67. See Thorne, Congregational Missions, ch. 2.
68. Quoted in Eugene Stock (1899) The History of the Church Missionary Society: its environment, its men and its work, 2 vols, vol i, p. 132 (London: Church Missionary Society). The decision of the British & Foreign Bible Society to extend its operations to the provinces was criticised for essentially the same reason: Howsam, Cheap Bibles, p. 44.
69. Anon. (1834) May Meetings, The Christian Lady's Magazine, 1, January-June pp. 414-415.
70. Howsam notes that there was opposition at Liverpool to female agency, with fears about 'unladylike publicity': Howsam, Cheap Bibles, pp. 56-58.
71. Leeds Mercury, 20 October 1838.
72. Leeds Mercury, 6 February 1830; Yorkshire Philosophical Society, Annual Report, 1837.
73. Leeds Mercury, 1 June 1839; 15 January 1853.
74. See also S.J.D. Green (1991) The Death of Pew Rent, the Rise of Bazaars, and the End of the Traditional Political Economy of Voluntary Religious Organizations: the case of the West Riding of Yorkshire, c. 1870-1914, Northern History, 27, pp. 198-235.
75. See the Leeds Mercury, 4 and 18 May 1833; 3 March 1838; 5 February 1842: 16 May 1846; 21 September and 7 December 1850; 7 May 1853.
76. Alex Tyrrell & Paul Pickering (2000) The People's Bread: a history of the Anti-Corn Law League, esp. ch. 6 (Leicester: Leicester University Press);
77. Morgan, Domestic Economy and Political Agitation;
78. Alex Tyrrell (1980) 'Woman's Mission' and Pressure Group Politics (1825-1860), Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library, 63(1), pp. 194-230.
79. See also Tyrrell, 'Woman's Mission', p. 217;
80. Tyrrell & Pickering, The People's Bread, pp. 209-211.
81. Leeds Mercury, 19 April and 3 May 1845.
82. Prentice, History of the Anti-Corn Law League, vol i, pp. 171-173.
83. See, for example, the Manchester Courier, 19 February 1842; and J.W. Croker (1842) 'Anti-Corn Law Agitation', Quarterly Review, LXXI, pp. 263-264.
84. Elaine Chalus (1997) 'That Epidemical Madness': women and electoral politics in the late eighteenth century, in Hannah Barker & Elaine Chalus (Eds) Gender in Eighteenth Century England: roles, representations and responsibilities, pp. 151-178 (London: Longman);
85. Sarah Richardson (1996) The Role of Women in Electoral Politics in the West Riding of Yorkshire during the 1830s, Northern History, 32, pp. 133-151.
86. See also the essays by Chalus, Richardson and Matthew Cragoe in Gleadle & Richardson, Women in British Politics.
87. The Anti-Corn Law Circular, 10 and 24 December 1839.
88. Mary Ryan (1990) Women in Public: between banners and ballots, 1825-1880, pp. 26-27 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press).
89. Asa Briggs (1963) Victorian Cities, p. 171 (London: Oddhams). Information concerning this ballot may be found among papers relating to the construction and opening of the Town Hall, including an entry in the Festival Committee Minute Book, 14 August 1858. This records a resolution that the ballot be held in the Festival Committee rooms, Monday 23 August. West Yorkshire Archive Service, Leeds, Leeds Town Hall, LC/TC: P.
90. Christian Ladies' Magazine, 3 (January-June 1835), p. 82.
91. and Frank O'Gorman (1992) The Social Meaning of Elections: campaign rituals and ceremonies in England during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Past and Present, 135, pp. 79-115.
92. Derek Fraser (1977) Voluntaryism and West Riding Politics in the Mid-Nineteenth Century, Northern History, 13, pp. 199-231.
93. The presence of women was noted by middle-class observers as 'proof of the peaceful nature of the Peterloo march in 1819: James Epstein (1994) Radical Expression: political language, ritual and symbol in England, 1790-1850, pp. 86-92 and 160 (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
94. Richard Olson (1998) Sex and Status in Scottish Enlightenment Social Science: John Millar and the sociology of gender roles, History of the Human Sciences, 11(1), pp. 73-100, esp. pp. 90-91;
95. Michael Ignatieff (1983) John Millar and Individualism, in Istvan Hont & Michael Ignatieff (Eds) Wealth and Virtue: the shaping of political economy in the Scottish Enlightenment, pp. 317-343, esp. p. 340 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
96. For a counter-argument that the discourse of 'middle-class' values was limited in this controversy to the masculine/public realm, see Wahrman, Imagining the Middle Class, pp. 382-387.
97. John Killham (1973) Tennyson and Victorian Social Values, in DJ. Palmer (Ed.) Writers and their Background: Tennyson (London: G. Bell & Sons), pp. 147-179;
98. Killham, Tennyson and 'The Princess'.
99. See, for example, Curtin, 'A Question of Manners', pp. 422-423.
100. See Kathryn Gleadle (1995) The Early Feminists: Radical Unitarians and the emergence of the women's rights movement, 1831-51, pp. 56-57, 110-111, 135 and 157 (Basingstoke: Macmillan).