Chartism from above: British elites and the interpretation of chartism

Historical Research

Volumn 81, Issue 213, 2008, Pages 463-484

  Saunders, Robert ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 57749135455     PISSN: 09503471     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2281.2007.00421.x     Document Type: Review

References (94)

1. It is impossible to assign precise dates to Chartism, but the publication of the 'People's Charter' in 1838 and the failure of the third petition 10 years later frame the period in which Chartism compelled the attention of parliament and the parliamentary classes. It is this period which is of interest for the purposes of this article.
2. For statements privileging the will of the people, see L, G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox (1992), p. 150
3. L. G. Mitchell. The Whig World, 1760-1837 (2005), p. [40
4. Joseph Hume, Hansard, Parliamentary Debates, xcix (20 June 1848), col. 907
5. B. Disraeli, Vindication of the English Constitution, in a Letter to a Noble and Learned Lord (1835), pp. 182-3
6. Whigs and Whiggism: Political Writings by Benjamin Disraeli, ed. W. Hutcheon (1913), pp. 81. 109.
7. For the concept of the 'anti-parliament', see T. M. Parssinen, 'Association, convention and anti-parliament in British radical politics, 1771-1848', Eng. Hist. Rev., lxxxviii (1973), 504-33.
8. F. C. Maher, Public Order in the Age of the Chartists (Manchester. 1959)
9. H. Weisser. April 10: Challenge and Response in England in 1848 (Lanham. Md.. 1983)
10. J. Saville. 1848: the British State and the Chartist Movement (Cambridge, 1987).
11. Thomas Attwood in 1839. Thomas Duncombe in 1842 and Feargus O'Connor in 1848.
12. Thomas Carlyle. Chartism (1840), p. 6.
13. Morning Herald. 5 May 1842, p, 4c.
14. The Times, 18 Oct. 1838. p. 6a.
15. Lady Charlotte Guest: Extracts from her Journal, 1833-52. ed. earl of Bessborough (1950). p. 94.
16. B. Wilson, The Struggles of an Old Chartist (Halifax, 1887)
17. repr. in Testaments of Radicalism: Memoirs of Working Class Politicians, 1790-1885, ed. D. Vincent (1977), p. 206.
18. Bessborough, p. 122.
19. For an excellent account of the local engagement with Chartism, see M. Chase, 'Chartism, 1838-58: responses in two Teesside towns'. Northern Hist., xxiv (1988), 146-71
20. repr. in The People's Charter: Democratic Agitation in Early Victorian Britain, ed. S. Roberts (2003), pp. 152- 73. Strikingly. Chase makes only two references to the 'doctrines of democracy' (Roberts, p. 154) and 'the democrats' (Roberts, p. 170). since local interest focused more on industrial action, mass protest and the co-operative movement.
21. Carlyle, p. 6 (author's italics); E. Gaskell, Maty Barton: a Tale of Manchester Life, ed. M, Daly (1996) (hereafter Mary Barton), p. 3.
22. Carlyle, p. 52.
23. Mary Barton, p. 170.
24. B. Disraeli, Sybil, ed. T. Braun (1985) (hereafter Sybil), p. 204.
25. C. Kingsley. Yeast, ed. J. Wolfreys (Stroud, 1994). pp. 125, 127.
26. Bessborough. pp. 91. 122. 211 (author's italics).
27. C. Kingsley, 'Recent novels', Fraser's Magazine, xxxix (1849). 417-32. at p. 430
28. Young England: the New Generation. A Selection of Primary Texts, ed. J. Morrow (1999). p. 82.
29. Carlyle, p. 42.
30. The 1839 petition is reprinted in William Lovett, The Life and Struggles of William Lovett . . . with a Preface (repr. 1967). The 1842 petition is printed in Hansard, lxii (2 May 1842). cols. 1376-81.
31. G. Stedman Jones. 'Rethinking Chartism', in G. Stedman Jones. Languages of Class: Studies in English Working Class History, 1832-1982 (Cambridge, 1983). passim.
32. Hansard, xlix (12 July 1839), col. 235 (Fielden); lxiii (3 May 1842), col. 16 (Duncombe).
33. The Times. 3 May 1842. p. 4f.
34. Hansard, xliii (3 May 1842), col. 29.
35. Hansard, lxiii (3 May 1842). cols. 54, 56-7.
36. Hansard, lxiii (3 May 1842), cols. 32, 34 (author's italics).
37. Lord John Russell, Letter to the Electors of Stroud on the Principles of the Reform Act (2nd edn.. 1839) (hereafter Letter to the Electors of Stroud), p. 33.
38. The Times, 4 May 1842, p. 6£
39. The Times. 14 Sept. 1842, p. 4a-b.
40. C. Kingsley. Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet (Letchworth. 1970), pp. 107-19.
41. Mary Barton, pp. 84-5.
42. Carlyle, pp. 2, 6, 22. 52, 89.
43. J. T. Ward. W. B. Ferrand: 'The Working Man's Friend', 1809-89, ed. N. Gash (East Lothian. 2002). p. 54.
44. Mr. Disraeli's Readers: Letters Written to Benjamin Disraeli and his Wife by 19th Century Readers of 'Sybil; or The Two Nations', ed. S. M. Smith (Nottingham, 1966). p. 24.
45. Sybil, pp. 94, 96.
46. Mary Barton, pp. 11. 169-70.
47. Mary Barton, p. 85.
48. Sybil, pp. 80-1; Mary Barton, p. 60.
49. Sybil, pp. 202-3, 207-8.
50. Maty Barton, pp. 86-9.
51. Kingsley, Alton Locke, p. 259.
52. Sybil, pp. 278-9. 334.
53. Sybil, p. 341.
54. Sybil, pp. 224-30.
55. P. Ghosh, 'Gladstone and Peel', in Politics and Culture in Victorian Britain: Essays in Memory of Colin Matthew, ed, P. Ghosh and L. Goldman (Oxford, 2006), pp. 45-73.
56. M. Brock, The Great Reform Act (1973), p. 323.
57. Hansard, lxxxvi (15 May 1846), col. 706.
58. C. Barnett, 'Fears of revolution, finality and the reopening of the question of parliamentary reform in England, 1832-67' (unpublished University of Oxford D.Phil, thesis, 1982), p. 130.
59. Illustrated London News, 1 Apr. 1848. p. 207.
60. The Greville Memoirs (Second Part): a Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria, from 1837 to 1832, ed. H. Reeve (3 vols., 1885). iii. 132-3.
61. L. Mitchell, 'Britain's reaction to the revolutions', in The Revolutions in Europe, 1848-g: from Reform to Reaction, ed. R. W. Evans and H. Pogge von Strandmann (Oxford, 2000). pp. 84-5.
62. Morning Herald, II Apr. 1848, p. 4d.
63. Hansard, cix (28 Feb. 1850). col. 188 (Roebuck); The Economist, 30 Dec. 1848.
64. Hansard, xcviii (13 Apr. 1848), cols. 284-301.
65. The Times. 13 Apr. 1848, p. 5a.
66. Illustrated London News, 15 Apr. 1848, p. 239 (author's italics).
67. G. Troup. 'The Chartists of Britain and the Repealers of Ireland'. Tait's Edinburgh Magazine, xv (1848), 295-300. at p. 295.
68. Chartism', Fraser's Magazine, xxxvii (1848). 579-92. at p. 591.
69. Hansard, xcix (20 June 1848), col. 964.
70. Morning Herald, 7 Apr, 1848, p. 4c.
71. A. Alison, 'How to disarm the Chartists', Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, lxiii (1848), 653-73, at pp. 657-8, 665.
72. Current history'. Fraser's Magazine, xxxvii (1848), 474-88, at p. 476; Fraser's Magazine, xxxviii (1848), 233-44. at p. 239.
73. Broughton Diary, 14 Apr. 1848 (British Library, Additional MS. 43751 fo. 40).
74. Bessborough, pp. 207-8. 210.
75. A. Tyrell. Joseph Sturge and the Moral Radical Party in Early Victorian Britain (1987).
76. N. Edsall. 'A failed national movement: the Parliamentary and Financial Reform Association. 1848-54', Bull. Inst. Hist. Research, xlix (1976), 108-31.
77. R. Quinault, '1848 and parliamentary reform', Historical Jour., xxxi (1988), 831-51, at p. 832. Though disagreeing with Dr. Quinault on this point, this author would like to register his sincere appreciation of his work . and in particular his determination to take Victorian reform seriously and to set it in international context.
78. Quinault, p. 838.
79. Hansard, xcviii (10 Apr. 1848), cols. 116-17; see Henry Drummond, On Government by the Queen, and Attempted Government from the People (1842). p. 21.
80. Broughton Diary, 10 Apr. 1848 (Brit. Libr., Add. MS. 43752 fo. 35).
81. Quinault, pp. 844-5. Russell's second reform period is discussed at greater length in R. Saunders, 'Lord John Russell and parliamentary reform, 1878-67'. Eng. Hist. Rev., cxx (2005). pp 1289-315.
82. Letter to the Electors of Stroud.
83. Broughton Diary, 20 June 1848 (Brit. Libr., Add. MS. 43752 to. 103).
84. Memoirs by the Right Honourable Sir Robert Peel, ed. E. Cardwell and Earl Stanhope (3 vols.. 1856-7), ii. 313; J. Morley, The Life of Richard Cobden (2 vols., 1903). i. 436-7.
85. C. S. Parker. The Life and Letters of Sir James Graham (2 vols., 1907), ii. 84
86. J. B. Conacher, The Peelites and the Party System, 1846-52 (Newton Abbot, 1972), p. 47.
87. The Times. 27 Sept. 1852, p. 7c; York, Borthwick Institute, Hickleton Papers, A4/63/ 93, 2 Apr. 1858.
88. E.g.. Graham to Aberdeen. 1 Sept. 1852 (Selections from the Correspondence of George, Earl of Aberdeen, ed. A. Gordon (14 vols., privately printed, 1854-88). ix. 359); The Economist. 13 March 1852, p. 280.
89. Hansard, cxv (2 Apr. 1851), col. 910; see also col. 929 (Thompson) and cxiv (20 Feb. 1851), col. 869 (Cobden).
90. Disraeli, Derby and the Conservative Party: the Political Journals of Edward Henry, Lord Stanley, 1849-69, ed. J. R. Vincent (Sussex. 1978), p. 6; Bodleian Library, Clarendon Papers, Box 44. Russell to Clarendon, 25 March 1851.
91. Newcasde, reported in Loudon. Barings Bank. George Grey Papers, vol. iii, 1 Jan. 1852. P. 54
92. 'Preface to the undergraduates of Cambridge' [1862], in Kingsley, Alton Locke, pp. 2-3.
93. The Times, 25 Apr. 1862, p. 7c.
94. The Times. 15 Sept. 1865, p. 7c