British Civilisation 2nd Y S3

BRITISH HISTORY
FROM THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
TO THE 1ST WORLD WAR
SECOND YEAR ENGLISH

1ST TERM

Pr Sayah Chniti
 2nd Y S3

Course Description:

This course examines Britain in the nineteenth century, a period of immense social, cultural,
and political change. It explores Britain’s “long nineteenth century,” moving from the Industrial
Revolution through the rise of the empire and the impending global war in the following
century. The course examines key themes including industrialization and urbanization; political
and reform movements; gender, sexuality, and Victorian morality; nationalism and imperialism;
and social and labor developments.

Learning outcomes and competences:

1. Developing skills necessary for historical research and analysis, including:

- close reading of primary and secondary sources
- identifying the argument of a text and summarizing it in their own words
- thinking critically about historical facts
- writing an essay to analyze/explain/discuss a specific issue in British history.
2. Becoming well informed about the history of Britain since the 18th century, including:
- characterizing the main political and social issues in Great Britain at the break of the
industrial revolution and under the reign of Queen Victoria ;
- explaining the importance and consequences of the Industrial revolution on the British class
system;
- analyzing the impact of economic and political developments on the democratic process.

Course Outline:

Week 1: British Preindustrial Society

Week 2: The Agricultural Revolution
Week 3: The Cottage Industry
Week 4: The Advent of the Industrial Revolution
Week 5: Trade and the British Empire
Week 6: Working and living Conditions
Week 7: Women and Children
Week 8: Mid-term Quiz
Week 9: Victorian Society, Women and the Class System
Week 10: Political Reforms 1
Week 11: Political Reforms 2
Week 12: The Suffragettes
Week 13: Trade Unions and Social Reforms
Week 14: Review Session
Requirements and examinations
Attendance at lectures and Participation in class discussion are required and 10% of the final grade
will be assigned on the basis of class participation. This grade will be assigned based on participation
in class discussions, as well as occasional in-class quizzes and short reading response papers.
Course Readings, as listed in the textbook or provided in class must be completed BEFORE each
course.
The average grade is as follows: 70% Exam at the end of the term + 30% Continuous assessment (a
supervised assignment or essay (DS) 20% + presentations in class, home assignments and oral
participation in class 10%)
British Civilisation 2nd Y S3

Bibliography :

 Books available at ISLN library

CiB 004 « Civilisation Britannique au XIXe siècle » Bury, Laurent, Hachette,2001
CiB 006 « Le document de civilisation britannique » Bernas et all, Ophrys, 1992
CiB 005 « Les grandes dates de l'histoire britannique », Mioche, Antoine, Hachette,2003.
 Online sources :
On pre-industrial society and the origins of the Industrial Revolution :
http://webs.bcp.org/sites/vcleary/ModernWorldHistoryTextbook/IndustrialRevolution/PreIndus.
html
On the Agricultural revolution
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/agricultural_revolution_01.shtml
On the Industrial Revolution
http://www.fordham.edu/Halsall/mod/modsbook14.asp
On 19th century Britain
http://www.fordham.edu/Halsall/mod/modsbook20.asp
On the Victorian Era:
http://www.britainexpress.com/History/Victorian_index.htm
http://www.victorianweb.org/

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 British Civilisation 2nd Y S3

TEXT 1: FEUDALISM
http://spartacus-educational.com/EXnormans3.htm
The Feudal System: an overview
After his coronation in 1066 William the Conqueror claimed that all the land in England now
belonged to him. William retained about a fifth of this land for his own use. The rest was
distributed to the those men who had helped him to defeat Harold.
In return for these lands (fiefs), the 170 tenants-in-chief had to provide men for military service.
The number of knights (horse soldiers) tenants-in-chief had to provide depended on the
amount of land they had been given.
In order to supply these knights, tenants-in-chief (also called barons) divided some of their land
up into smaller units called manors. These manors were then passed on to men who promised
to serve as knights when the king needed them.
William gave a quarter of the land in England to the church. Bishops, abbots and priors that
were granted land also had to promise to supply knights. For example, in exchange for his Mild
flie archbishop of Canterbury had to provide sixty knights when the king wanted them.
When William granted land to his tenant-in-chief an important ceremony took place. The
tenant-in-chief knelt before the king, placed his hands between the king's and said: "I become
your man," swearing on the Bible to remain faithful for the rest of his life. The tenant-in-chief
would then carry out similar ceremonies with his knights. To break this oath was a very serious
crime in Norman England.

Primary Sources
(Source 1) Kettering Abbey.
Kettering Abbey provided land for forty villeins. In exchange for holding 30 acres the villeins had
to provide several feudal services. Three days a week work on the 88 acres held by the abbey.
Every year they had to provide 50 hens, 640 eggs and 2s. Id. in cash.

(Source 2) Pope Gregory VII in a letter to the Bishop of Metz in 1081

Kings and leaders are sprung from men who were ignorant of God, who by pride, robbery,
murder, in a word, by almost every crime in the devil..; dominate over their equals, that is, over
mankind.
(Source 3) Bishop Fulbert of Normandy (c.1150)
He who swears fealty to his lord must not injure his lord by giving up secrets of his castles... he
must do nothing to injure the rights of justice of his lord... he must do no wrong to his lord's
possessions.
(Source 4) Jean Froissart, Chronicles (c. 1395)
It is the custom in England, as in other countries, for the nobility to have great power over the
common people, who are their serfs. This means that they are bound by law and custom to
plough the fields of their masters, harvest the corn, gather it into barns, and thresh and winnow
the grain; they must also mow and carry home the hay, cut and collect wood, and perform all
manner of tasks of this kind.
Questions
Question 1: Based on the sources above how long did feudalism approximately last in England.
Question 2: Select a source from this unit where the author appears to support the feudal
system. Also select an author who appears to be critical of this system. Explain your choices.
Give reasons why these two writers had different opinions on this subject.
www.spartacus-educational.com

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 TEXT 2: THE BLACK DEATH 1348
When the Black Death swept over Europe it wiped out a third of its population. Because serfs made up
the bulk of society, their class was hit the hardest. The plague ended up affecting the entire social order
as serfs catered to everyone (they provided for the knights, who provided for the Barons, who provided
for the King).

Traditionally, historians have tended to believe that about one-third of the population died during
this period. (20) However, recent research suggest that this was a low-estimate. It has been claimed
that the Domesday Survey in 1086 shows a population of about 1.5 to 1.8 million. This was
followed by a rapid growth and that by 1348 it had reached about 5 million. Yet by 1377, when
returns for the Poll-Tax was made, the population had fallen to about 2 million. (21)
George M. Trevelyan has pointed out that in the early years of the 14th century there had been a
surplus of labour and this enabled the lord's bailiff's to treat the peasants more harshly. The Black
Death dramatically changed this situation: "Obviously the survvors among the peasantry had the
whip-hand of the lord and his bailiff. Instead of the recent hunger for land there was a sortage of
men to till it.... The lord of the manor could no longer cultivate his demesne land with the reduced
number of serfs, while many of the strip-holdings in the open fields were thrown back on his
hands, because the families that farmed them had died of plague." (22)
This dramatic fall in population led to great changes taking place in England. Fields were left
unsown and unreaped. Those who had not died of the plague were in danger of dying from
starvation. Food shortages also resulted in much higher prices. The peasants, needing the money
to feed their families, demanded higher wages. The landowners, desperately short of labour, often
agreed to these wage demands. If the landlord refused, the peasant was likely to search out another
employer. (23)
John Gower, a farmer from Kent, wrote about the problems caused by the shortage of labour: "The
shepherd and the cowherd demand more wages now than the master-bailiff... labourers are now
such a price that, when we must use them, where we were wont to spend two shillings we must
now spend five or six... They work little, dress and feed like their betters, and ruin stares us in the
face." (24)
Edward III became concerned about the increase in wages and the peasants roaming the country
searching for better job opportunities. In 1350 he decided to pass the Statute of Labourers' Act.
This law made it illegal for employers to pay wages above the level offered in 1346. It states:
"That every man and woman of our kingdom of England... who is able bodied and below the age
of sixty years, not living by trade nor carrying on a fixed craft or land of his own... shall be bound
to take only the wages... that were paid in the twentieth year of our reign of King Edward III".
(25)
However, both the employers and the peasants tended to ignore the law, and although Parliament
increased the penalties for the offence people continued to disregard the act. (26) Villeins became
bitter as they watched the wages of freemen go higher and higher. Although the punishments were
severe, more and more villeins became willing to run away from their lords. In the past,
landowners would have returned these villeins to their masters. However, because they needed
labour so badly, they did not ask any awkward questions and instead treated them as freemen.
This upset local villeins who saw "immigrants" given higher wages without "no questions asked
as to whence they came". (27)
Even when villeins who ran away from their masters were caught, it was difficult to punish them
too harshly. Execution, imprisonment or mutilation only made the labour shortage worse.
Therefore the courts tended to punish the villeins by branding the letter 'F' on their forehead when
they were caught. William Langland, a poor man living in England during this period wrote:
"Nowadays the labourer is angry unless he gets high wages, and he curses the day that he was
ever born a workman... he blames God, and murmurs against reason, and curses the king and his
Council for making Statutes on purpose to plague the workman." (28)
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In some areas labourers began to organise themselves into groups and there were examples of
strikes for higher wages took place. For hundreds of years peasants had accepted the way they
were treated by their lords as being natural and unchangeable. They now knew that if they were
willing to take risks, either by running away or by joining up with others to demand better
treatment, they could improve their situation. This change in consciousness meant that the lords'
power over their peasants was not as strong as it was before the outbreak of the Black Death.
(20) A. L. Morton, A People's History of England (1938) page 95
(21) John Hatcher, Plague, Population and the English Economy, 1348-1530 (1977) pages 68-71
(22) George M. Trevelyan, English Social History (1942) page 22
(23) Winston Churchill, The Island Race (1964) page 73
(24) John Gower, letter (c. 1350)
(25) The Statute of Labourers' Act (1351)
(26) John F. Harrison, The Common People (1984) page 85
(27) George M. Trevelyan, English Social History (1942) page 22
(28) William Langland, The Vision of Piers Plowman (c. 1365)

QUESTIONS

1. Explain how and why this social and political organisation remained stable for centuries before the advent
of the Black Death.
2. How did the Black Death affect the feudal economy and social order?

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TEXT 3: Medieval Women Labour

Women played an important role in the village economy. As the men had to provide the labour
services by working several days a week on the lord's demesne, it was the women who had to
look after the family crops.
Women not only laboured in the fields. They did most of the sheep shearing and were usually in
charge of the garden where they grew vegetables and kept a few chickens. Women also made
the cloth, cooked the food, and looked after the children.
As well as supplying the needs of their families, women were often involved in producing goods
for sale. It was they rather than men who were more likely to produce bread, beer or clothes to be
sold to other members of the village.
On the death of her husband, a woman was entitled by law to take over a third of his holding. In
some villages, women who were able to pay the entry fees to the lord, were allowed to carry on
farming all the land.

Primary Sources
(Source 1) Manfred Groten, Forms of Economic Life in the Middle Ages (1990)
There were relatively few cows in the Middle Ages, for they needed a great deal of fodder and it was
difficult to meet their needs in winter. As a rule, their butter was made into cheese and more rarely
butter. A 13th century writer said of a milkmaid's work, "A milkmaid must be loyal, have a good
reputation and make sure of cleanliness."
(Source 2) William FitzHerbert, Book of Husbandry (c. 1140)
If the husband has sheep of his own, then his wife may have some of the wool, to make her husband
and herself some clothes... she may also take wool to spin for the cloth makers. That way she can
earn her own living, and still have plenty of time to do other work... It is the wife's occupation to winnow
corn, to make malt, to wash clothes, to make hay and to cut corn. In time of need she should help her
husband fill the dung-cart, drive the plough, and load the hay and corn. She should also go to the
market to sell butter, cheese, milk, eggs, chickens, pigs, geese and corn. And also to buy the things
needed for the household. haymaking.
(Source 8) Rosalind Miles, The Women's History of the World (1988)
Women everywhere tended their children, milked their cattle, tilled their fields, washed, baked,
cleaned and sewed, healed the sick, sat by the dying and laid out the dead... The extraordinary
continuity of women's work, from age to age, is one of the reasons for its invisibility; the sight of a
woman nursing a baby, stirring a cook-pot or cleaning a floor is as natural as the air we breathe...
While there was work to be done, women did it, and behind the vivid foreground activities of popes
and kings, wars and discoveries, tyranny and defeat, working women wove the real fabric of history.
(Source 10) Chris Harman, A People's History of the World (2008)
Ruling class women were increasingly treated as an ornament, a source of sexual pleasure or as a
breeder of heirs. They would be protected from hardship and external dangers, but also cocooned
from any interaction with the wider social world. Life was very different for women in agricultural or
artisan households. They still had a productive role and were engaged in endless toil. Nevertheless,
it was their husbands who controlled relations between the household and the rest of society,
imposing on the women and children the measures needed to ensure the household's survival
(including successive pregnancies for the wife).
(Source 12) H. S. Bennett, The Pastons and their England (1922)
It is evident from a brief survey of contemporary documents, that no woman was expected to remain
long unmarried. Since in all feudal society the superiority of men was unquestioned, the idea that a
woman had a right to remain single, unless she entered the cloister and became the bride of Christ,
or to select her own husband, was unthinkable at that time.
(14) J. F. C. Harrison, The Common People (1984)
Women were an essential part of the harvest team. But their work was not limited to the special effort
required at that time of the year... Women worked in the fields at gleaning, turnip-pulling, hoeing,
weeding and in all kinds of fruit and vegetable picking. In some jobs the children worked alongside
their mothers.
(15) A. L. Morton, A People's History of England (1938)
The villeins... in the common fields, were the pivot around which the whole life of the manor revolved.
Their services were regularised and most often increased after the Norman Conquest. They were of
two kinds: day work, and boon work. Day work was performed on a regular number of days a week,
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 usually three. Boon work consisted of extra labour which might be demanded at any time. It was the
most disliked of the two, and the harder to get free from, since it came at times, such as harvest and
sheep shearing, when the serf's work was most needed both on the lord's domain and on his own
land. It is clear from the amount of labour services due from the villein that the bulk of the work in his
own holding must have been performed by the other members of his family.

www.spartacus-educational.com

Questions:
1- What do these documents tell us about the working conditions of women?
2- How do you explain that women labour would raise so much debate in the 19th century, while
historically, women have always been working inside and outside their homes?
3- Based on the sources above, compare the role of ruling class women to that of peasant women.

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British Civilisation 2nd Y S3

TEXT 4: The Lifestyle of Medieval Peasants

Trueman "The Lifestyle of Medieval Peasants"
historylearningsite.co.uk. The History Learning Site, 5 Mar 2015. 23 Sep 2018.

The lifestyle of a medieval peasant in Medieval England was extremely hard and harsh. Many
worked as farmers in fields owned by the lords and their lives were controlled by the farming
year. Certain jobs had to be done at certain times of the year. Their lives were harsh but there
were few rebellions due to a harsh system of law and order.
Ploughing – a vital farm job
The peasants were at the bottom of the Feudal System and had to obey their local lord to whom
they had sworn an oath of obedience on the Bible. Because they had sworn an oath to their lord,
it was taken for granted that
they had sworn a similar oath to the duke, earl or baron who owned that lord’s property.

The position of the peasant was made clear by Jean Froissart when he wrote:
‘It is the custom in England, as with other countries, for the nobility to have great
power over the common people, who are serfs. This means that they are bound by law
and custom to plough the field of their masters, harvest the corn, gather it into barns,
and thresh and winnow the grain; they must also mow and carry home the hay, cut and
collect wood, and perform all manner of tasks of this kind.’
(written 1395)

Paying taxes.
The one thing the peasant had to do in Medieval England was to pay out money in taxes or rent.
He had to pay rent for his land to his lord; he had to pay a tax to the church called a tithe. This
was a tax on all of the farm produce he had produced in that year. A tithe was 10% of the value
of what he had farmed. This may not seem a lot but it could make or break a peasant’s family.
A peasant could pay in cash or in kind – seeds, equipment etc. Either ways, tithes were a deeply
unpopular tax. The church collected so much produce from this tax, that it had to be stored in
huge tithe barns. Some of these barns can still be seen today. There is a very large one in
Maidstone, Kent, which now has a collection of carriages in it.
Peasants also had to work for free on church land. This was highly inconvenient as this time
could have been used by the peasant to work on their own land. However, the power of the
church was such that no-one dared break this rule as they had been taught from a very early
age that God would see their sins and punish them. The Domesday Book meant that the king
knew how much tax you owed and you could not argue with this – hence why it brought
‘doom and gloom’ to people.
After you had paid your taxes, you could keep what was left – which would not be a great
deal. If you had to give away seeds for the next growing season, this could be especially hard
as you might end up with not having enough to grow let alone to feed yourself.
Peasant children.
The lives of peasant children would have been very different compared to today. They would
not have attended school for a start. Very many would have died before they were six months
old as disease would have been very common. As soon as was possible, children joined their
parents working on the land. They could not do any major physical work but they could clear
stones off the land – which might damage farming tools – and they could be used to chase birds
away during the time when seeds were sown. Peasant children could only look forward to a life
of great hardship.
For all peasants, life was “nasty, brutish and short.”

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TEXT 5: AGRICULTURE AND THE ENCLOSURE ACTS

7
QUESTIONS :
What were the benefits of the Enclosure of farmlands?
How did the rich get richer and the poor get poorer?
Did the IR cause the enclosure of farmland, or did the Enclosure cause the Industrial Revolutions?

8
 TEXT 6: - Points Of View -
Contrasting Views on the Effects of Rural Industry
English commentators quickly noted the effects of rural industry on families and daily life.
Some were greatly impressed by the rise in living standards made possible by the putting-out
system, while others noted the rising economic inequality between merchant and workers
and the power the former acquired over the latter.
In the first excerpt, novelist and economic writer Daniel Defoe enthusiastically praises cottage
industry. He notes that the labor of women and children in spinning and weaving brought in as
much as or more income than the man’s agricultural work, allowing the family to eat well and
be warmly clothed. It is interesting to note that Defoe assumes a rural world in which the
process of enclosure is complete; poor men do not own their own land, but toil as wage
laborers on the land of others. He also offers one explanation for the increasing use of Africans
as slaves in British colonies: reliable wages from cottage industry meant that the English poor
did not have to “sell themselves to the Plantations,” thus leading plantation owners to seek
other sources of labor.
The second source is a popular song written around 1700. Couched in the voice of the ruthless
cloth merchant, it expresses the bitterness and resentment textile workers felt against the
employers. One can imagine a group of weavers gathered together at the local tavern singing
their protest on a rare break from work.

DanielDefoe,APlanoftheEnglishCommerce
This spinning wheel was powered by the spinner’s foot by means of the treadle, which was
connected to the wheel by a rod and crankshaft. Purchasing a spinning wheel, which cost a
few days of a laborer’s wage, allowed rural women and children to generate precious
supplemental income in the off-season. The work was relatively slow, however, and thread from
four or five wheels was required to supply one weaver.
[A] poor labouring man that goes abroad to his Day Work, and Husbandry, Hedging,
Ditching, Threshing, Carting, [etc.] and brings home his Week’s Wages, suppose at eight
Pence to twelve Pence a Day, or in some Counties less; if he has a Wife and three or four
Children to feed, and who get little or nothing for themselves, must fare hard, and live
poorly; ’tis easy to suppose it must be so.
But if this Man’s Wife and Children can at the same Time get Employment, if at next Door, or at
the next Village there lives a Clothier, or a Bay Maker, or a stuffor Drugget Weaver…and she
gets eight Pence or nine Pence a day at home…put it together, the Family at Home gets as
much as the Father gets Abroad, and generally more.
This alters the Case extremely, the Family feels it, they all feed better, are cloth’d warmer, and
do not so easily nor so often fall into Misery and Distress; the Father gets them Food, and the
Mother gets them Clothes; and as they grow, they do not run away to be Footmen and Soldiers,
Thieves and Beggars or sell themselves to the Plantations to avoid the Goal and the Gallows,
but have a Trade at their Hands, and every one can get their Bread.
I once went through a large populous manufacturing Town in England, and observ’d,
that an Officer planted there, with a Serjeant and two Drums, had been beating up a long
Time and could get no Recruits, except two or three Sots ...Enquiring the Reason of it, an
honest Clothier of the Town answered me effectually thus, The Case is plain, says he, thus
there is at this Time a brisk Demand for Goods, we have 1100 Looms, added he, in this Town
and the Villages about it and not one of them want Work; and there is not a poor Child in the
Town of above four Years old, but can earn his Bread; besides, there being so good a Trade
at this Time, causes us to advance Wages a little and the Weaver and the Spinner get more
than they used to do; and while it is so, they may beat the Heads of their Drums out, if they will,
they’ll get no Soldiers here.
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 TEXT 7: Anonymous, The Clothier’s Delight
Or the rich Men’s Joy, and the poor Men’s Sorrow,
Wherein is exprest the Craftiness and Subtility of many Clothiers in England,
By beating down their Workmen’s Wages, ca. 1700

Of all sorts of callings that in England be We’ll tell them that cloth beyond sea will not go,
There is none that liveth so gallant as we; We care not whether we keep clothing or no.
Our trading maintains us as brave as a knight, We And this is a way, etc.
live at our pleasure and take our delight; We Then next for the Spinners we shall ensue;
heapeth up richest treasure great store Which we We’ll make them spin three pound instead of two; When
get by griping and grinding the poor. And this is a they bring home their work unto us, they complain
way for to fill up our purse Although we do get And say that their wages will not them maintain;
it with many a curse. But that if an ounce of weight they do lack,
Throughout the whole kingdom, in country and Then for to bate threepence we will not be slack.
town, And this is a way, etc.
There is no danger of our trade going down, But if it holds weight, then their wages they crave,
So long as the Comber can work with his comb, We have got no money, and what’s that you’d have?
And also the Weaver weave with his lomb; We have bread and bacon and butter that’s good, With
The Tucker and Spinner that spins all the year, We oatmeal and salt that is wholesome for food;
will make them to earn their wages full dear. And We have soap and candles whereby to give light,
this is a way, etc. That you may work by them so long as you have sight.
And first for the Combers, we will bring them down, And this is a way, etc.
From eight groats a score until half a crown; ...
If at all they murmur and say ’tis too small And thus, we do gain our wealth and estate By
We bid them choose whether they will work at all. many poor men that work early and late; If it
We’ll make them believe that trading is bad We were not for those that labour so hard,
care not a pin, though they are n’er so sad. And We might go and hang ourselves without regard;
this is a way, etc. The combers, the weavers, the tuckers also,
We’ll make the poor Weavers work at a low rate, With the spinners that work for wages full low,
We’ll find fault where there’s no fault, and so we will By these people’s labour we fill up our purse,
bate; Although we do get it with many a curse
If trading grows dead, we will presently show it, But
if it grows good, they shall never know it;
.QUESTIONS FOR ANALYSIS
1. What division of labor in the textile industry does Defoe describe
2. On what basis are wages paid, and what strategies do merchants use to keep wages down
according to The Clothier’s Delight? How are they able to impose such strategies on workers?
3. How do you reconcile the difference of opinion between the two sources? Was one right and the
other wrong, or could a more complex analysis be true?

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 TEXT 8: COTTAGE INDUSTRY AND THE FACTORY SYSTEM
Blake Green, April 1993

The factory system did not emerge in a wholly non-industrial world. The popular picture suggests that it
replaced an earlier type of organisation, referred to as ‘the domestic system’, which differed totally from the
factory system. Whereas the latter concentrates workers under one roof in an increasingly urban
environment, the former disperses employment into the homes of the workers, most of whom live in the
countryside. Although the modern mill is filled with the factory master’s costly machinery, the domestic
workshop houses simple and traditional hand-tools which actually belong to the worker. And whilst the
factory system implies clear class division, with the wage- earner firmly subordinated to his employer, the
domestic system gives the head of the household an independent managerial status, which enables him to
control his own time and to direct, in a ‘natural’ fatherly way, the efforts of his family team.
In the undisciplined and relatively classless world of cottage industry, the common man was certainly
happier, even if he was materially worse off, than his grandson. This idyllic image reinforces the notion that,
between old and new systems, there is nothing but contrast and conflict. Yet on closer examination, the
story of most industries which ‘modernised’ in the course of the nineteenth century is full of important
elements of continuity between the factory and the pre-factory stages. A number of historians have recently
suggested that the industrial revolutions of the nineteenth century could not have taken place without the
prior development of a form of production which was to provide both the capital and the labour needed for
modern industrial development.
However, one of the most important, but often misunderstood, features of the classic domestic system is that
it already showed a clear distinction between the capitalists who controlled it and the wage-earners who
depended upon it for their livelihood. For the domestic system, no less than the factory system which
replaced it, was a method of mass-production which enabled wealthy merchant-manufacturers to supply
textile fabrics and other ready-made items to distant markets at home and abroad. In order to do so, they, like
the factory masters who followed them, bought the appropriate raw materials and hired wage-labour to convert
them into finished products. To service and co-ordinate such large and scattered forces required an elaborate
system of communication and control in which the key figures were the agents — variously known as ‘putters-
out’ or ‘bagmen’ – who were the equivalents of the modern supervisor or shopfloor manager. Certainly, the
workers whom these great men employed generally owned their own tools, and most of them worked on their
own premises. They were, in short, wage—earners who happened to own some of the tools of their trade.
The theory of ‘proto industry’ suggests that the domestic system had created a country-dwelling but landless
proletariat in many ways at odds with the traditional rural society around them: they had only a minimal
involvement in the agrarian economy, and were therefore roofless and prone to migration; they possessed
manual skills irrelevant to farming activities; and as wage-earners, they were obliged to respond to the
pressures and the opportunities of a market economy in which the price of survival was adaptability. In
other words, they Were already well—equipped to form the first generation of the modern industrial labour
force.

1) Is it true to say that before the emergence of factories, Britain was non-industrial? Justify your
answer.
2) What similarities does the author outline between the cottage system and the factory system?
3) Based on the text, discuss the notion of continuity between the cottage system and the factory system.

11
TEXT 9: ADVENT OF THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
Explaining the causes of the industrial revolution Edward Baines, MP and owner of a liberal newspaper,
writes:

“A temperate climate and a hardy race of men, have also greatly contributed to promote
the manufacturing industry of England. The political and moral advantages of this country, as a
seat of manufactures, are not less remarkable than its physical advantages. The arts are the
daughters of peace and liberty. In no country have these blessings been enjoyed in so high degree,
or for so long a continuance, as in England. Under the reign of just laws, personal liberty and
property have been secure; mercantile enterprise has been allowed to reap its reward; capital has
accumulated in safety; the workman has "gone forth to his work and to his labour until the
evening;" and, thus protected and favoured, the manufacturing prosperity of the country has
struck its roots deep, and spread forth its branches to the ends of the earth.”

[Edward Baines, The History of the Cotton Manufacture in Great Britain, 1835].

1) Based on Baines’ description, discuss the factors that contributed to the advent of the Industrial
Revolution in England?
2) “Under the reign of just laws, personal liberty and property have been secure” Discuss this
statement with reference to the prevailing political and economic conditions in the early 19th
century.

In praise of coal
The progress of industry sometimes inspired Victorian journalists to write raving eulogies.
"Civilisation," says Baron Liehig, "is the economy of power, and English power is coal." The vast and
scarcely calculable amount of creative force in that mineral is the standard by which to gauge the
might and greatness of England. We are told that the latent strength resident in the annual produce
of our mines is equivalent to the labour of four hundred millions of strong men – that is to say, of
double the number of adult males now upon the globe. Yet this is but a cold, lifeless calculation,
which utterly fails to make Englishmen appreciate what they owe to coal. It is scarcely within the
compass of language or figures to suns up the magnitude of our obligation. It is the coal of England
that has bridged the sea and that wafts us over the land – that gives life and impulse to the myriad
wheels, spindles, and shuttles of a matchless machinery– that spills and weaves threads and tissues
finer than the spider's web, and manipulates masses at which Titans would stand aghast – that wafts
armies and navies to the remotest comers of the globe – that changes the features of warfare and
Pronounces upon the fate of nations – that lays upon every breakfast -table in England the daily
history of the world – that turns night into day throughout our streets and houses – that is the Alpha
and Omega of every industrial, mechanical, dynamical operation of this labour-loving land. Coal is
the best source of power that we have hitherto gained on earth; nor, in spite of the boastful
prognostications of optimists, have we reasonable ground to suppose that it will ever be replaced by
a better. As the parent of iron, it is the generator of a wealth such as neither East nor West has
conceived - a wealth which, as we who speak of the hoary growth of centuries in England are apt to
forget, is but a thing of yesterday.
Daily Telegraph 11 January 1866.
1. Why is coal responsible for so many improvements in everyday life?
2. What is the style used to depict the wonders of technology?

12
TEXT 10: Symbiosis: Trade and the British Empire
By Professor Kenneth Morgan
Last updated 2011-02-17
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/trade_empire_01.shtml#one

A flourishing power
The long 18th century, from the Glorious Revolution until Waterloo, was the period in which
Britain rose to a dominant position among European trading empires, and became the first
western nation to industrialise.
The extent of economic change between 1688 and 1815 can be discerned through a glimpse at
the state of economic and social conditions at home, and the growth of trade and empire at
the beginning and end of that period. In 1688 England and Wales had a population of 4.9
million, and the internal economy was still largely based on agricultural work and production.
Domestic industry flourished, with many workers pursuing dual occupations on a seasonal
basis in industry and agriculture.
Merchants sent out ships to trade with North America and the West Indies, where England had
established a network of colonies. Some 350,000 people had emigrated from England across
the Atlantic by the end of the 17th century. In 1686 alone these colonies shipped goods worth
over £1 million to London. Exports to the colonies consisted mainly of woollen textiles; imports
included sugar, tobacco and other tropical groceries for which there was a growing consumer
demand. The triangular slave trade had begun to supply these Atlantic colonies with unfree
African labour, for work on tobacco, rice and sugar plantations. It was based around the
activities of the Royal African Company, with headquarters in London.
Trade and settlement also occurred in Asian waters. This was mainly based around the
activities of the East India Company, a large joint-stock company based in London. The ships
of the East India Company fleet traded mainly in bullion, textiles and tea with Bengal.
Overseas commerce was conducted within the mercantilist framework of the Navigation Acts,
which stipulated that all commodity trade should take place in British ships, manned by British
seamen, trading between British ports and those within the empire.

Growth of Empire
By the beginning of the 1830s, this scenario had been transformed. Population growth
increased and by 1815 the British population totalled 12 million. Agricultural productivity,
proto-industrialisation, the growth of manufacturing and new mineral technologies, along with
the arrival of factories, had helped the economy to industrialise. Dual occupations had largely
been superseded by specialised, regular working conditions.
Trade and colonisation had also proceeded apace. In 1700 most foreign commerce, by volume
and value, was still conducted with Europe, but during the 18th century British overseas trade
became 'Americanised'. By 1797-8, North America and the West Indies received 57 per cent of
British exports, and supplied 32 per cent of imports.
After the Royal African Company's monopoly was rescinded in 1698, the British became the
largest and most efficient carriers of slaves to the New World. Private merchant houses
provided the capital for this business activity, and Jamaica, the largest British slave colony,
was also the wealthiest colony in the British Empire.
By 1775 Britain possessed far more land and people in the Americas than either the Dutch or
the French - who were the two main northern European rivals for international power and
prestige. The East India Company's trade also still flourished at this time, and greater
settlement by the British in Bengal occurred after c.1765.

13
The loss of the thirteen mainland American colonies in the War of Independence was a major
blow to British imperial strength, but Britain recovered swiftly from this disaster, and acquired
additional territories during the long war years with France from 1793 to 1815. The new
colonies included Trinidad, Tobago, St Lucia, Guyana, the Cape Colony, Mauritius and Ceylon.
Various Indian states were also subjugated.
By 1815, Britain possessed a global empire that was hugely impressive in scale, and stronger
in both the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and around their shores, than that of any other
European state. All of this had occurred within basically the same protectionist trade network
as in 1688: free trade, much discussed by Adam Smith and Josiah Tucker, had failed yet to
make much inroad into British economic policies.

Which came first?

To what extent were these changes between 1688 and 1815 a case of trade stimulating
empire, or of empire stimulating trade? The answer is that trade and empire went hand in
hand, with a symbiotic relationship to each other.
Growing overseas commerce with colonies stimulated merchants to provide ships, as well as
goods for expanding settler societies. The slave trade also became a vehicle for establishing an
empire of slavery in the Caribbean and southern American colonies, and emigrants sailed to
the colonies in search of better material conditions. They also, in some cases, had to emigrate
to escape religious persecution.
Rapid population growth in 18th-century North America provided a large market for British
exports. In the quarter century before the American Revolution, British foreign trade changed
its commodity composition to provide a wider range of textiles, notably linen and cotton
fabrics. This was in addition to a range of metalware and hardware, fabricated to meet the
demands of a burgeoning colonial population with less advanced industrial processes than were
current in the home country, and with some restrictions on their own manufacturing.
The slave trade stimulated British manufacturing production by the derived demand for goods
such as plantation utensils, and clothing needed for slaves and estates. Colonies became linked
to the metropolis by complex bilateral and multilateral shipping routes.
An integrated Atlantic economy came into being after the mid-18th century, in which
merchants in British, American, West Indian and Iberian ports established firm commercial ties
and a modern, enterprising outlook with regard to making money through imperial trade.
To what extent was British hegemony in empire, trade and industry based on the growth of
imperial commerce? Many historians have discussed this basic question, and disputed the level
of stimulus to the domestic British economy, and hence to industrialisation, that was provided
by the growth of empire.
A negative assessment would emphasise that the profits of slavery and the slave trade were
more modest than the bonanza that was once thought to have taken place, and that the
contribution of slavery and the slave trade to national income was marginal at best. Sceptics
would also argue that British manufacturing production owed more to demand from the
domestic market than from overseas customers; they would stress agricultural productivity
and other supply-side factors as the vital components of British economic growth.
Others would suggest that the protectionist trade network led to the Caribbean colonies
becoming a burden on the mother country, once defence and administration costs are
considered, and that trade with India, with an imbalance between imports and exports, was a
similar drain on British capital.
Those wishing to downgrade the role of overseas trade in industrialisation also argue that
gains by British financial services, both from trade and empire, were essentially derivative and
parasitical.

14
TEXT 11: The Industrial Revolution, Textiles, and Empire
George P. Landow, Shaw Professor of English and Digital Culture, National University of Singapore
From the very beginning, the Industrial Revolution relied upon trade with the "underedeveloped world,
and especially with that sector of it which was under effective economic or political control by Britain:
the formal or informal Empire" [Hobsbawm, 124]. Before 1850 South America, chiefly Brazil, served
as the largest single market for British textiles, although after mid-century the East Indies became
increasingly important until by the last quarter of the nineteenth century this part of the empire
accounted for as much as sixty percent of Britain's textile production. Indeed, as Hobsbawm put it,
after the beginning of the Great Depression in 1873, "Asia saved Lancashire" (125), something possible
because Britain had earlier destroyed India's textile industry in order to remove potential competition
(127). During the last quarter of the eighteenth century, British attempts to impose the same policy on
the American colonies had led to their loss; in the first quarter of the next century, Britain succeeded
doing in India what it had failed to do in America.
Although thus securing these markets later saved England's textile industry, it also led to the nation's
eventual economic decline: becoming excessively dependent upon its colonies ultimately lessened
Britain's competeive advantages:
Britain had escaped from the Great Depression (1873-96) — the first international challenge — not by modernizing
her economy but by exploiting the possibilites of her traditional situation. She had exported more to the backward and
satellite economies (as in cotton), and made what she could from the last great technical innovatons she had pioneered,
the iron steamship (as in shipbuilding and coal exports). When the last great receptacles of cotton goods developed
their own industries — India, Japan, and China — the hour of Lancashire tolled. [129]
Possessing a great Empire here proved a double-edged sword, for it produced great prosperity in the
short term, but in the long term led to overconfidence, obliviousness to innovation, and willingness to
retain obsolescent technologies, and eventual economic disaster.
The Victorian Web
QUESTIONS:
How far did trade contribute to the advent of the Industrial Revolution?
Was trade with the empire an asset or a handicap for British economy? Justify your
answer.

15
16
TEXT 12: Work for all overseas
Thomas Carlyle was one of the advocates of emigration as the best solution to the problem of poverty.
This passage is quoted by William Booth in In Darkest England, and the Way Out.
An effective "Teaching Service", I do consider that there must be; some education secretary,
captain-general of teachers, who will actually contrive to get us taught. Then again, why
should there not be an "Emigration Service," and secretary with adjuncts, with funds, forces,
idle navy ships, and ever-increasing apparatus, in fine an effective system of emigration, so
that at length before our twenty years of respite ended, every honest willing workman who
found England too strait, and the "organisation of labour" not yet sufficiently advanced, might
find likewise a bridge built to carry him into new western lands, there to "organise" with more
elbow room some labour for himself? There to be a real blessing, raising new corn for us,
purchasing new webs and hatchets from us; leaving us at least in peace; instead of staying
here to be a physical-force Chartist, unblessed and no blessing! Is it not scandalous to
consider that a Prime Minister could raise within the year, as I have seen it done, a hundred
and twenty millions sterling to shoot the French; and we are stopped short for want of the
hundredth part of that to keep the English living?
Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, 1843.
QUESTIONS
1. Why does the question of emigration come immediately after that of education?
2. Comment on the arguments used by Carlyle in favour of emigration for the poor.
3. Based on this abstract can you infer the British motivations in empire building and
colonial settlements?

17
TEXT 13: A new population
William Cooke Taylor was the son of a manufacturer in the region of Liverpool.
As a stranger passes through the masses of human beings which have been
accumulated round the mills and print-works in this and the neighbouring towns, he
cannot contemplate these "crowded hives" without feelings of anxiety and apprehension
almost amounting to dismay. The population, like the system to which it belongs, is
NEW; but it is hourly increasing in breadth and strength. It is an aggregate of masses,
our conceptions of which clothe themselves in terms that express something portentous
and fearful. We speak not of them indeed as of sudden convulsions, tempestuous seas,
or furious hurricanes, but as of the slow rising and gradual swelling of an ocean which
must, at some future and no distant time, bear all the elements of society aloft upon its
bosom, and float them — Heaven knows whither. There are mighty energies slumbering
in those masses: had our ancestors witnessed die assemblage of such a multitude as
is poured forth every evening from the mills of Union Street, magistrates would have
assembled, special constables would have been sworn, the riot act read, the military
called out, and most probably some fatal collision would have taken place. The crowd
now scarcely attracts the notice of a passing policeman, but it is, nevertheless, a crowd,
and therefore susceptible of the passions which may animate a multitude.
The most striking phenomenon of the Factory system is the amount of population which
it has suddenly accumulated on certain points: there has been long a continuous influx
of operatives into the manufacturing districts from other parts of Britain; these men have
very speedily laid aside all their old habits and associations, to assume those of the
mass in which they are mingled. The manufacturing population is not new in its formation
alone: it is new in its habits of thought and action, which have been formed by the
circumstances of its condition, with little instruction, and less guidance, from external
sources.
William Cooke Taylor, Notes of a Tour in the Manufacturing Districts of Lancashire, 1842
1. What is Taylor’s attitude towards the "crowd"?
2. What effect does industrialization have on the population of Britain?

18
 TEXT 14: URBAN LIFE DURING THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

(1) Alexis de Tocqueville, was a French aristocrat who visited Manchester in 1835.
The employers are helped by science, industry, the love of gain and English capital. Among the workers are men
coming from a country where the needs of men are reduced almost to those of savages, and who can work for a
very low wage, and so keep down the level of wages for the English workmen who wish to compete, to almost
the same level. So there is the combination of the advantages of a rich and of a poor country; of an ignorant and
an enlightened people; of civilisation and barbarism. So it is not surprising that Manchester already has 300,000
inhabitants and is growing at a prodigious rate.
(2) The Artisan Magazine (October, 1843)
These streets (in Edinburgh) are often so narrow that a person can step from the window of one house into that of
its opposite neighbour, while the houses are piled so high, storey upon storey, that the light can scarcely penetrate
into the court or alley that lies between. There are neither sewers or drains, nor even privies belonging to the
houses. In consequence, all refuse, garbage, and excrements of at least 50,000 persons are thrown into the gutters
every night, so that, in spite of all the street sweeping, a mass of dried filth and four vapous are created, which not
only offend the sight and smell, but endanger the health of the inhabitants in the highest degree.
(3) Friedrich Engels, Condition of the Working Class in England (1844)
Liverpool, with all its commerce, wealth, and grandeur yet treats its workers with the same barbarity. A full fifth
of the population, more than 45,000 human beings, live in narrow, dark, damp, badly ventilated cellar dwellings,
of which there are 7,862 in the city. Besides these cellar dwellings there are 2,270 courts, small spaces built up
on all four sides and having but one entrance, a narrow-covered passage-way, the whole ordinarily very dirty and
inhabited exclusively by proletarians. In Bristol, on one occasions, 2,800 families were visited, of whom 46 per
cent occupied but one room each.
(4) In 1840, Dr. Robertson wrote a letter to his MP describing the housing conditions in Manchester.
The factories have sprung up along the watercourses, which are the rivers Irk, Irwell and Medlock, and the
Rochdale Canal, and the dwellings of the work-people have kept increasing close to the factories. The interest and
convenience of individual manufacturers... has determined the growth of the town and the manner of that growth,
while the comfort, health and happiness of the inhabitants have not been considered.
(5) Dr. James P. Kay-Shuttleworth, The Moral and Physical Condition of the Working Classes in Manchester
(1832)
Frequently, the inspectors found two or more families crowded into one small house and often one family lived
in a damp cellar where twelve or sixteen persons were crowded. Children are ill-fed, dirty, ill-clothed, exposed to
cold and neglect; and in consequence, more than one-half of the off-spring die before they have completed their
fifth year. The strongest survive; but the same causes which destroy the weakest, impair the vigour of the more
robust; and hence the children of our manufacturing population are proverbially pale and sallow.

QUESTIONS
Compare the perspective of Tocqueville to that of Engels.
What specific issue does Dr. Robertson address?

Between 1801 and 1831, some of the larger industrial cities like Manchester, Glasgow, Liverpool and Leeds
doubled in sizes, while at the same time, Britain’s population increased by only half. How do you account for
this difference?

19
 TEXT 15: COMPARING DISTRICTS
A COTTAGE DISTRICT

A FACTORY DISTRICT
A German Visitor in 1844, J. G. Kohl, described Manchester in the following way:

QUESTIONS
Compare the two districts.
What attitudes do the writers have towards districts, and what does this show about what they value?

20
TEXT 16: Child workers
Edwin Chadwick, the secretary of the Poor Law Commission, seems strangely optimistic in his study of child
mortality in the working class.
It is proper to observe, that so far as I was informed upon the evidence received in the Factory
Inquiry, and more recently on the cases of children of migrant families, that opinion is erroneous
which ascribes greater sickness and mortality to the children employed in factories than amongst the
children who remain in such homes as these towns afford to the labouring classes. However defective
the ventilation of many of the factories may yet be, they are all of them drier and more equably warm
then the residence of the parent; and we had proof that weakly children have been put into the better-
managed factories as healthier places for them than their own homes. It is an appalling fact that, of all
who are born of the labouring classes in Manchester, more than 57 per cent. die before they attain
five years of age; that is, before they can be engaged in factory labour, or in any other labour
whatsoever.
0(4,629 deaths of persons of the labouring classes who died in the year 1840 in Manchester, the
numbers who died were at the several periods as follows:
Under 5 years of age 2,649 or 1 in 1.7
Above 5 and under 10 215 or 1 in 22
Above 10 and under 15 107 or I in 43
Above 15 and under 20 135 or 1 in 34
At seven, eight, or nine years of age the children of the working classes begin to enter into
employment in the cotton and other factories. It appears that at the period between 5 and 10 years of
age the proportions of deaths which occur amongst the labouring classes, as indicated by these
returns, are not so great as the proportions of deaths which occur amongst the children of the middle
classes who are not so engaged, Allowing for the circumstance that some of the weakest of the
labourers' children will have been swept away in the first stage, the effect of employment is not shown
to be injurious in any increase of the proportion who die in the second stage.
Edwin Chadwick, Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain, 1842.
QUESTIONS
1. According to the author, what is more damaging to health?
2. Is it not surprising that Chadwick, writing in 1842, should affirm that children start working at
"seven, eight or nine years of age"?

21
TEXT 17: The 'ten hour day' for children
Document A: John Charles Spencer, the eldest son of the 2nd Earl of Althorp, was born on 30th
May, 1782. Although John Charles Spencer supported some aspects of factory legislation, he was
totally against the idea of the 'ten hour day' for children. As Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Althorp
led the opposition to Michael Sadler and his supporters in the debates that took place on this issue in
1832.
I am of the opinion that the effect of the measure proposed by the honourable member (Michael
Sadler), must necessarily be a fall in the rate of wages, or, what is more probable, that children would
cease to be employed at all in manufactories. Now I appeal to the honourable member whether a
measure which would prevent children from obtaining any employment in factories would not be more
injurious than beneficial to the labouring classes?
As long as we have a manufacturing population in the kingdom it will be impossible to render their
occupation as wholesome as that of agricultural labourers, or persons engaged in out-door labour.
This is an evil that cannot be remedied. It is too late now to argue about the unwholesome nature of
manufacturing employment. We have got a manufacturing population, and it must be employed. Any
measure which shall have the effect of diminishing the means of employment to labourers engaged in
manufactures will produce extensive misery.
Document B: William James was M.P. for Carlisle until 1835.
Undoubtedly the system which is pursued in these manufactories relating to the working of young
children is a great evil; but it appears to me that the remedy which the honourable gentleman
proposes to apply is worse than the disease. There appears to me to be only a choice of evils - the
children must either work or starve. If the manufacturer is prevented working his mill for more than a
certain number of hours together, he will often be unable to execute the orders which he may receive,
and consequently, the purchaser must go to foreign countries for a supply. The result will be that you
will drive the English capitalist to foreign countries, where there is no restrictions upon the
employment of labour and capital.
Document C: Edward Baines, the owner of the The Leeds Mercury and the MP for Leeds, was born
in 1800. In 1835 he wrote History of the Cotton Manufacture in Great Britain. In the book Baines
attacked those who had campaigned against child labour. He accused them of providing a false
picture of what it was like to work in a textile factory. The History of the Cotton Manufacture (1835)
The human frame is liable to an endless variety of diseases. Many of the children who are born into
the world, and who attain the age of ten or twelve years, are so weakly, that under any circumstances
they would die early. Such children would sink under factory labour, as they would under any
circumstances they would die early.
It is not true to represent the work of piecers and scavengers as continually straining. None of the
work in which children and young persons are engaged in mills require constant attention. It is
scarcely possible for any employment to be lighter. The position of the body is not injurious: the
children walk about, and have the opportunity of frequently sitting if they are so disposed.
The noise and whirl of the machinery, which are unpleasant and confusing to a spectator
unaccustomed to the scene, produce not the slightest effect on the operatives habituated to it. The
only thing that makes factory labour trying is that they are confined for long hours, and deprived of
fresh air: this makes them pale, and reduces their vigour, but it rarely brings on disease. The minute
fibres of cotton which float in the rooms are admitted, even by medical men, not to be injurious to
young persons.
Writing

Identify and discuss the different arguments used by each author in favour of child labor?

22
____________________

TEXT 18: "Very little reason to complain"

When Lord Ashley's ten-hour bill was discussed in the House of Commons in July 1833, the manufacturing
interests of the country regarded it as an interference with their freedom "worthy of the darkest ages".

We have seen that the union of operative spinners had, at an early date, denounced their own
occupations as being irksome, severe, and', unwholesome in an unparalleled degree. Their object in
making this, misrepresentation was obviously to interest the community in their favour at the period of
their lawless strike in the year 1818. Subsequently to this crisis, some individuals of their governing
committee made the notable discovery, that if the quantity of yarn annually spun could by any means
be reduced, its scarcity in the market would raise its price, and consequently raise the rate of their
wages. They accordingly suggested the shortening of the time of labour to ten hours, as the grand
remedy for low wages and hard work; though at this time they were receiving at least three times
more wages than hand-loom weavers for the same number of hours' employment, and therefore had
very little reason to complain of their lot. In fact, it was their high wages which enabled them to
maintain a stipendiary committee in affluence, and to pamper themselves into nervous ailments by a
diet too rich and exciting for their in-door occupations. Had they plainly promulgated their views and
claims, they well knew that no attention would have been paid to them, but they artfully introduced the
tales of cruelty and oppression to children, as resulting from their own protracted labour, and
succeeded by this stratagem to gain many well meaning proselytes to their cause. The clamour for
the ten-hour bill, and the subsidiary lamentation for the children, were confined among the operatives,
almost exclusively to the mule-spinners. We have here a remarkable proof of the power of passion to
stultify the human understanding. Since the said spinners are the sole employers of the younger
children in cotton-mills, who are often their own offspring, and entirely at their disposal to hire or to
turn away, they were the only persons capable of abusing them, the sole arbiters of their fate, and
therefore amenable to the parents and the public for their good treatment. The mill-owner, in fact,
could never interfere but beneficially for the children, to protect them against the occasional caprice of
these friends to humanity, who alone could exercise tyranny over their dependents. We may judge
from these particulars of the effrontery of the Spinner's Union, and of the credulity of their partisans in
and out of parliament.
Dr Andrew Ure, The Philosophy of Manufactures or, An Exposition of the Scientific, Moral, and Commercial
Economy of the Factory System of Great Britain, 1835
1. According to Ure, what is the main motivation behind the ten-hour bill?
2. Why were children mentioned in the debate?

23
TEXT 19: WORKING CONDITIONS

24
25
QUESTIONS
Describe the typical working conditions in factories.
Based on evidence from the abstracts, describe the psychological impact of the working conditions.
Why did workers indure such conditions, and how do you explain the last sentence of abstract D.

26
TEXT 20: CHILD LABOR

27
QUESTIONS
Why did employers resort to child labor?

What were the children’s working conditions like?

Some parents stayed at home and sent their children to work. Why would they do so?

28
TEXT 21: The Luddites: 1775-1825
(Source 1) Lord Byron, speech in the House of Lords (In response to government’s proposal to make
machine-breaking a capital offence 27th February, 1812)
During the short time I recently passed in Nottingham, not twelve hours elapsed without some fresh act
of violence; and on that day I left the county I was informed that forty Frames had been broken the
preceding evening, as usual, without resistance and without detection.
Such was the state of that county, and such I have reason to believe it to be at this moment. But whilst
these outrages must be admitted to exist to an alarming extent, it cannot be denied that they have arisen
from circumstances of the most unparalleled distress: the perseverance of these miserable men in their
proceedings, tends to prove that nothing but absolute want could have driven a large, and once honest and
industrious, body of the people, into the commission of excesses so hazardous to themselves, their
families, and the community.
They were not ashamed to beg, but there was none to relieve them: their own means of subsistence were
cut off, all other employment preoccupied; and their excesses, however to be deplored and condemned,
can hardly be subject to surprise.
As the sword is the worst argument than can be used, so should it be the last. In this instance it has been
the first; but providentially as yet only in the scabbard. The present measure will, indeed, pluck it from
the sheath; yet had proper meetings been held in the earlier stages of these riots, had the grievances of
these men and their masters (for they also had their grievances) been fairly weighed and justly examined,
I do think that means might have been devised to restore these workmen to their avocations, and tranquility
to the country.

(Source 2) John Edward Taylor wrote an article in 1819 about the Luddite Riots in Manchester during
1812.
The Middleton riots originated in severe distress, exasperated by a short-sighted prejudice against the introduction
of newly-invented machinery. The attack of the mob upon the factory, and the destruction of the house of one of
its owners, were crimes of the greatest enormity. But at Westhoughton, where a steam-loom factory was set on
fire and burnt down, the case was widely different. This outrage was debated at a meeting which took place on
Dean Moor, near Bolton, the 9th of April, 1812, sixteen days before the scheme was put in practice. At this
meeting there were present, during the greater part of its duration, and up to the time of its close, not more than
about forty persons, of whom no less than ten or eleven were spies, reputed to be employed by Colonel Fletcher.
The occurrence of circumstances like these, sixteen days before the burning of the factory took place, renders it
not a matter of presumption, but of absolute certainty, that that alarming outrage might have been prevented, if to
prevent it had been the inclination of either the spies or their employers.
(Source 3) William King, The Co-operator (January 1829)
If the machine that I work produces as much as a thousand men, I ought to enjoy the produce of a thousand men.
But no such thing. I am working a machine which I know will starve me... At present machinery works against
the poor workmen, and therefore it must be his deadliest enemy... The remedy is !i simple... Workmen must form
co-operatives and accumulate capital... this will enable them to purchase these wonderful machines... Instead of
sixteen hours' work, and eight hours rest, he may, when the machinery works for him, have eight I hours' work
and sixteen for rest... Then the workmen will be able to shed tears of joy instead of sorrow over his machine.
QUESTIONS
1. Is Byron in abstract 1 for or against capital punishment for machine-breaking? Explain.
2. How are the Luddites portrayed in abstracts 1 and 2?
3. What do you think of the proposal made by King in abstract 3?

29
TEXT 22: To house or not to house?
On 8 February 1875, R. Assheton Cross introduced his housing measure, the Artizans Dwellings Bill. As a member
of a Conservative government, he had to be especially careful about such a daring measure.
I take it as a starting-point that it is not the duty of the Government to provide any class of
citizens with any of the necessaries of life, and among the necessaries of life we must include
that which is one of the chief necessaries — good and habitable dwellings. That is not the duty
of the State, because if it did so, it would inevitably tend to make that class depend, not on
themselves, but upon what was done for them elsewhere, and it would not be possible to teach
a worse lesson than this — that "If you so not take care of yourselves, the State will take care
of you." Nor is it wise to encourage large bodies to provide the working classes with habitations
at greatly lower rents than the market value paid elsewhere. Admitting these two principles of
action, there is another point of view from which we may look, and another ground upon which
we may proceed. No one will doubt the propriety and right of the State to interfere in matters
relating to sanitary laws. Looking at this question as a matter of sanitary reform, there is much
to be done by the Legislature, not to enable the working classes to have houses provided for
them, but to take them out of that miserable condition in which they now find themselves —
namely, that, even if they want to have decent homes, they cannot get them. The evil We have
to grapple with is not one of modern growth, but arises from the neglect of past and former
years. I would ask the political economist who may be disposed to scan this kind of legislation
too closely, to remember that there is a maxim which is as true of nations as of individuals —
that health is actually wealth. He must take into account the great waste of life even among
those who reach manhood, the great waste of physical condition after infancy is passed, and
the waste of stamina in the present generation and the future generation that will spring from
it. He might also take into account the waste in lunatic asylums and gaols, and particularly the
waste of sickness and death in all these wretched places... if by our legislation, and without
any inroad upon the sound principles of political economy, we can prevent such a waste of life,
power, energy, health, and everything that makes a nation healthy and wealthy, it is our duty
to interfere and see whether we cannot do something to arrest this waste.
Hansard's Parliamentary Debates.
1. How does Cross reconcile the Conservative Party with state intervention?
2. What are the guiding principles of his policy?

30
 TEXT 23: The Woman Question in Victorian England

The 19th century saw significant developments in and the widespread questioning of the
place of women in English society. While many women would increasingly demand more
political and legal rights and greater economic and social opportunities, the period also saw
the increasing identification of women with the domestic sphere. Literature helped
consolidate this ideal of the domestic angel, the idea of the perfect woman as submissive to
her husband, meek, powerless, and deeply spiritual. The woman question in Victorian
England referred to the various debates about women’s place in society, with opposing
voices emphasizing either the need for women to have greater economic, educational, and
political opportunities or the idea that women properly belonged in the home as caretaker
to her family. Queen Victoria herself reflected these two sides of the question, as she was
often depicted as and presented herself in terms of the ideal wife and mother even as she
reigned as the monarch.
The reasons why the place of women came to become so central to political, social, and
literary commentary are manifold, but many can be traced to the radical changes in English
society brought about by industrialization and the development of capitalism.

https://legacy.saylor.org
January 2017
1. How can you explain the fact that despite conservatism of Victorian era this period
was marked by an increasing demand for more political and legal rights.
2. Based on your knowledge of the period, what are the social changes brought about
by “industrialization and the development of capitalism”.
3. What role(s) did women play in Victorian society? And how did social class affect
these roles?

31
TEXT 24: WOMEN IN VICTORIAN TIMES
(1) In 1832 Dr. Charles Knowlton was sentenced to three months hard labour for writing The Fruits
of Philosophy, a book that provided details of different methods of birth control. Although
constantly prosecuted, over the next forty years Knowlton sold 40,000 copies of his book.
In how many instances does the hard-working father, and more especially the mother, of a poor
family remain slaves throughout their lives… toiling to live, and living to toil; when, if their offspring
had been limited to two or three only, they might have enjoyed comfort and comparative affluence?
How often is the health of the mother, giving birth every year to an infant and compelled to toil on…
thus sacrificed? Many women cannot give birth to healthy, living children. Is it desirable - is it moral,
that such women should become pregnant?
(2) In 1877 Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh attempted to publish The Fruits of Philosophy. The
couple were immediately arrested and charged with publishing an 'obscene' book. Hardinge
Gifford, the public prosecutor, explained why Besant and Bradlaugh were on trial.
I say that this is a dirty, filthy book, and the test of it is that no human being would allow that book
on his table, no decently educated English husband would allow even his wife to have it…the object
of it is to enable a person to have sexual intercourse, and not to have that which in the order of
providence is the natural result of that sexual intercourse.
(3) Charlotte Despard wrote about her feelings as a young woman in the 1850s in a brief,
unpublished memoir.
It was a strange time, unsatisfactory, full of ungratified aspirations. I longed ardently to be of some
use in the world, but as we were girls with a little money and born into a particular social position, it
was not thought necessary that we should do anything but amuse ourselves until the time and the
opportunity of marriage came along. 'Better any marriage at all than none', a foolish old aunt used to
say. The woman of the well-to-do classes was made to understand early that the only door open to a
life at once easy and respectable was that of marriage.
(3) In 1898 Selina Cooper wrote an article for a magazine entitled The Lancashire Factory Girl.
I have often heard the 'sarcastic' remark applied to the factory worker oh she is only a factory girl;
thus giving the impression to the World that we have no right to aspire to any other society but our
own. I am sorry to say that we are not fully awakened to the facts that we contribute largely to the
nation's wealth, and therefore demand respect, and not insult. For in many a Lancashire home are to
be found heroines whose names will never be handed down to posterity.
(4) In 1893 Isabella Ford wrote a book called Women's Wages. The book includes a section on
sexual harassment in factories.
A premium is sometimes put on impropriety of conduct on the women's part by the foreman. That is,
a woman who will submit or respond to his course jokes and language and evil behaviour receives
more work than the woman who feels and shows herself insulted by such conduct, and wishes to
preserve her self respect. The pittance earned by some of these women is earned at the expense of
more than hard toil. Even when this coarseness is confined to language only, it causes deep suffering
to some of the women. They feel that because they are women, they are regarded as inferior.

1- What arguments does Charles Knowlton use in favor of birth control? How do you explain his
book’s success
2- Why were Knowlton, Besant and Bradlaugh punished and prosecuted for “Fruits of
Philosphy”?
3- Do you believe that Charlotte Despard was satisfied with her situation? Explain.
4- What do you learn about the life of women in factories from the accounts of Cooper and
Ford?
5- Which author underlines the economic and social role of women in Victorian era?
6- How do all five accounts reflect the dominant social values of the Victorian era?

32
TEXT 25: Political reforms of the 19th Century
(1) Tom Paine, The Rights of Man (1791)

What is government more than the management of the affairs of a Nation? It is not, and from its
nature cannot be, the property of any particular man or family, but the whole community. […] The
county of Yorkshire, which contains near a million souls, sends two county members; and so does the
county of Rutland which contains not a hundredth part of that number. The town of Old Sarum,
which contains not three houses, sends two members; and the town of Manchester, which contains
upwards of sixty thousand souls, is not admitted to send any. Is there any principle in these things?

http://spartacus-educational.com/Pcommons.htm

(2) An extract from the Second National Petition 1842.

The House of Commons, which is said to be exclusively the peoples! there are two hundred and five
persons who are immediately or remotely related to the peers of the realm. That it contains 3
marquises, 9 earls, 23 viscounts, 27 lords, 32 right honourables, 63 honourables, 58 baronets, 10
knights, 2 admirals and 108 patrons of church livings. There are little more than 200 out of the 658
members of your house who have not either titles, office, place, pension, or church patronage.

(3) Letters from the Duke of Wellington to Mrs. Arbuthnot (April/May, 1831)

(28th April) Matters appear to be going as badly as possible. It may be relied upon that we shall have
a revolution. I have never doubted the inclination and disposition of the lower orders of the people. I
told you years ago that they are rotten to the core. They are not bloodthirsty, but they are desirous
of plunder. They will plunder, annihilate all property in the country. The majority of them will starve;
and we shall witness scenes such as have never yet occurred in any part of the world.

(4) John Brunt, speech in court (April, 1820)

I had, by my industry, been able to earn about £3 or £4 a week, and while this was the case, I never
meddled with politics; but when I found my income reduced to 10s a week, I began to look around.
And what did I find? Why, men in power, who met to deliberate how they might starve and plunder
the country. I looked on the Manchester transactions as most dreadful. I joined the conspiracy for
the public good.

1- What major criticism does Pain make of the parliamentary system? How do you explain this
discrepancy?

2- What major flaw in parliamentary representation does the 1842 petition outline?

3- What are the risks incurred by the rioters according to the Duke of Wellington, and why?

4- Comment on Brunt’s motivation in participating in the riots.

5- Based on your knowledge, how do you explain the popular movements for political reforms
in the 19th century?

33
TEXT 26: The pros and cons of the Corn Laws
Malthus, better known for his theories on demography (see Prologue), was also interested in economic problems.

If upon mature deliberation, we determine to open our ports to the free admission of foreign grain, we
must not be disturbed at the depressed state, and diminished produce of our some cultivation; we must
not be disturbed at our becoming more and more dependent upon other nations for the main support
of our population; we must not be disturbed at the greatly increased pressure of the national debt upon
the national industry; and we must not be disturbed at the fluctuations of price, occasioned by the very
variable supplies, which we shall necessarily receive from France, in the actual state of her laws, or by
the difficulty and expense of procuring large, and sudden imports from the Baltic, when our wants are
pressing. These consequences may all be distinctly foreseen. Upon all general principles, they belong
to the opening of our ports, in the actual state and relations of this country to the other countries of
Europe; and though they may be counterbalanced, or more than counterbalanced, by other
advantages, they cannot, in the nature of things, be avoided.
On the other hand, if, on mature deliberation, we determine steadily to pursue a system of restrictions
with regard to the trade in com, we must not be disturbed at a progressive rise in the price of grain; we
must not be disturbed at the necessity of altering, at certain intervals, our restrictive laws according to
the state of the currency, and the value of the precious metals; we must not be disturbed at the
progressive diminution of fixed incomes; and we must not he disturbed at the occasional loss or
diminution of a continental market for some alone least peculiar manufactures, owing to the high price
of labour. All these disadvantages may be distinctly foreseen. According to all general principles they
strictly belong to the system adopted; and, though they may be counterbalanced, and more than
counterbalanced, by other greater advantages, they cannot, in the nature of things, be avoided, if we
continue to increase in wealth and population.
Thomas Malthus, The Grounds of an Opinion on the Policy of Restricting the Importation of Foreign Corn, 1814.

QUESTIONS
1. What does this text underline?
2. Does the author express his preference for one of the two solutions?

34
TEXT 27: PETERLOO MASSACRE
(1) George Wilbraham, speech in the House of Commons, 15th May, 1821.

(...)No less than thirty or forty thousand men, marched into the town of Manchester in bodies of several thousands,
and with flags and banners. On their arrival on the field with all this military array, they formed six deep round the
hustings. This, as might be imagined, created general alarm, and many persons, not timid ones, but those who had in a
former period of danger stood forward in their duty, called on the magistrates to interfere, and deposed to the danger
which they thought threatened the peace of the town.

(...) That some persons had lost their lives and that a number were wounded and bruised, was a fact, but the accounts
which attributed all those circumstances to the attacks of the yeomanry was quite erroneous. Many of the cases which
were said to have occurred by wounds at Peter's Field were cases of accidental death. The first of these was on a
woman who was said to have been cut down at the meeting; but by the coroner's inquest it appeared that her death was
accidental. That she fell into an area and was killed. Another inquest was on an infant which had died of convulsions
through flight. (...) most of them were accidental deaths, arising in many instances from circumstances not connected
with the meeting. One of those cases was that of a man said to have been killed at Peterloo, as it was called, but who
actually met his death whilst eating some mutton, a piece of which stuck in his throat.

(3) Henry Hunt made a speech in the House of Commons on 15th March, 1832, on the subject of the Peterloo
Massacre.

After I was arrested the Yeomanry continued their execution upon the unresisting people; hundreds of whom were
wounded, thrown down, trampled upon, or otherwise injured. The groans of the wounded, the horrid shrieks of the
women, and the despair of the maddened wretches formed the most dreadful scene that could be imagined.

It was true, that it might be said, that some of these did not suffer from the sabres of the Yeomanry, but a very large
proportion were wounded in that manner; and at all events it was quite certain that no accidents whatever would have
occurred but for the outrageous attack that had been made upon a peaceable multitude.

(2) Thomas Barnes, Editorial in The Times (19th August, 1819)

Whatever an observant mind may suspect as to the real objects of the few (Hunt and Co.) who thus played upon the
passions and misfortunes of a suffering multitude - all such considerations, all such suspicions, sink to nothing before
the dreadful fact, that nearly a hundred of the King's unarmed subjects have been sabred by a body of cavalry in the
streets of a town of which most of them were inhabitants, and in the presence of those Magistrates whose sworn duty it
is to protect and preserve the life of the meanest Englishmen.

Such is the brief or general outline. What actual violence or outrage was perpetrated - what menaces were uttered, or
symptoms exhibited, which induced the Magistrates to read the Riot Act, and to disperse the meeting by force of arms,
we cannot possibly state.

1- Compare the different accounts of the Peterloo Massacre.

2- How do you explain their divergence?
3- Do you find the journalist’s account unbiased? If not, who is he siding with?
4- How do you explain the violent repression of the Peterloo gathering?

35
TEXT 28: CHARTISTS: Physical or moral force?
The following quotes are from three Chartist Leaders. Do they suggest a difference of opinion in the Chartist
Movement about tactics? (All the following quotes may be found on the Victorian Web)

(1) George Julian Harney, speech at Derby, 28th January, 1839.

We demand Universal Suffrage, because we believe the universal suffrage will bring universal happiness. Time
was when every Englishman had a musket in his cottage, and along with it hung a flitch of bacon; now there was
no flitch of bacon for there was no musket; let the musket be restored and the flitch of bacon would soon follow.
You will get nothing from your tyrants but what you can take, and you can take nothing unless you are properly
prepared to do so. In the words of a good man, then, I say 'Arm for peace, arm for liberty, arm for justice, arm
for the rights of all, and the tyrants will no longer laugh at your petitions'. Remember that.
(2) William Lovett, Life and Struggles (1876)

As regards the best means of obtaining our Charter. We are of those who are opposed to everything in the shape
of a physical or violent revolution, believing that a victory would be a defeat to the just principles of democracy.
The political despots; and as such a sanguinary warfare, calling up the passions in the worst forms, must
necessarily throw back for centuries our intellectual and moral progress.
(3) Rev. Joseph Rayner Stephens, speech in Stalybridge (February 1839)
If Abraham was ready to kill his only child, shall we falter when God commands us to draw the sword and never
to sheath that sword until it is sheathed in the hearts of his enemies? God wills the death of no man; neither is it
the will of God that a Poor Law Commission, of the kind that now curses England, should ever be established. I
pray God to cast them all to hell.
(4) Feargus O'Connor, speech at Peep Green, July, 1839.
Do the magistrates think of putting down our meeting by acts of violence? I for one think they do, and should we
be attacked today, come what will, life, death, or victory, I am determined no house shall cover my head tonight.
I am quite ready to stand by the law, and not to give our tyrants the slightest advantage in attacking us in
sections; but should they employ force against us. I am repelling attack by attack.
1- What is the main argument against the use of violence as a means of obtaining political reform?
2- How do those who support the physical force justify their point of view?

36
 TEXT 29: Chartism in Staffordshire
https://spartacus-educational.com/CHwomen.htm
When the People’s Charter was first drawn up
in 1838, Hanley was one of many places to
hold a meeting in support of Chartist beliefs.
People spoke in favour of giving working men
the vote and marched through the town. One
man named John Richards was nominated to
go to the National Convention of Chartists in
February 1839. At the convention, the
People’s Charter was discussed before it was
presented to the Government in May. When
Parliament rejected their petition, the
Chartists had to think of a new way to get the
Government to listen to them. John Richards
suggested that people might be willing to use
force.

The authorities began to suspect that the

Chartists were planning a rising. They knew MISS WALKER: A FEMALE
CHARTIST, 1842
that regular Chartist meetings were being
held, but never in the same place twice and all
communication was verbal. Arms and
gunpowder were reported to have been sold.

John Richards and the Potteries branch of the Chartist movement were using the motto “Peacefully if
we can, forcibly if we must”. . However, nothing was to happen until 1842 when a second rejection
of the charter coincided with a depression which had caused widespread pay cuts and unrest. There
were many strikes and the Staffordshire Chartists certainly took advantage of the troubles. A Chartist
named Thomas Cooper visited the area and spoke in Hanley on 15th August 1842, encouraging local
miners to strike until the People’s Charter became law. Although he said that violence should not be
used, there was trouble at Longton and the local militia were called.
Later that evening houses in Hanley were set on fire. A report in the Staffordshire Advertiser said
that a Chartist meeting agreed a total cessation from labour for one month. A mob then caused work
at a colliery to stop before attacking the house of a rate collector, the Court of Request and the
police station, where they released some prisoners. All local shops closed and a company of the 12th
Infantry was called and took possession of the Court House, bringing the rioters to a standstill.
Eventually, more soldiers cleared the mob and made arrests. Although the Chartists protested that
they were not involved in the riots and thought that violence might damage the Chartist cause, they
were blamed for the trouble. Approximately 222 people were eventually tried for offences
connected with the Potteries riots. Of these, 49 were transported and 16 were imprisoned. This was
the largest number arrested and tried for crimes connected with Chartist unrest.
1. Based on the text, what were the strategies adopted by the chartists? Where they in favour
of violent or peaceful actions?
2. Comment on the caricature of Miss Walker, the female Chartist.
3. How do you explain the repression of the chartist movement and the harsh penalties
imposed on them?
4. List the Chartists’ six demands and specify which one has never been satisfied.

37
TEXT 30: PARLIAMENT ACT 1911: CONSTITUTIONAL TREASON OR DEMOCRATIC
INEVITABILITY?
By David Moore, Plymouth Law Review (2008) 1

The Parliament Act 1911 arguably represents a watershed in the political and constitutional
relationship between the House of Lords and the House of Commons. It can be seen as the
culmination of the shift in political power from the aristocracy to the ‘people’ where the Commons
gained control of the state and the power of the House of Lords was radically changed from one of
absolute veto to one of revision and delay under the influence of a number of potential forces may
have played a role in precipitating the enactment of the Parliament Act.
The Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw a move away from an
agrarian to an industrial society. The poor left the country to work in the cities leaving fewer people
working on the land, which led in turn to wage rises and reduction in agricultural productivity. The
landowning classes were faced with a reduction in economic power, which in turn led to a reduction
in political power. The emerging industrialists, many of who were not born into the upper classes,
bought their way in to the upper classes and gained increasing economic power and demanded
increased political power. While bringing wealth to a few, the Industrial Revolution brought poverty
and disease to many.
As a consequence, the social order based on vertical connection of dependency and patronage
was displaced by the horizontal socialization of class’. The change affected both the poor and the
aristocracy and saw the emergence for the first time of a middle class. The rise and spread of the
middle classes inevitably resulted in its demand for more political power. Simultaneously, the
industrial working class began to organise itself more effectively through the creation of beneficial
societies and trade unions and became a force that could no longer be ignored. The change in
relative fortunes of the aristocracy and the middle classes would inform the debates over the
passing of the 1911 Act, giving its passage had a significant ‘class’ dimension.
Furthermore, the nineteenth century political Reform Acts of 1832 and 1867 had a significant effect
on the democratisation of British society, although universal suffrage was not achieved until the early
twentieth century. However, despite increasing suffrage prior to the passage of the 1911 Act, the
undemocratically constituted House of Lords could, and did, overturn policies presented in Bills
introduced by the democratically elected House of Commons.

1- Based on this article, briefly name the 3 “potential forces” that lead to the enactment of the Parliament
Act?
2- How does Moore relate the UK changing class structure to this reform?
3- Analyze the impact of the industrial revolution on the democratization process in the UK.

8 deNie, M., ‘”A Medley Mob of Irish-American Plotters and Irish Dupes:” The British Press and Transatlantic
Fenianism,’ (2001, The Journal of British Studies 213-240 at p.219.

38
TEXT 31: "Our case against the Trade Unions"
In this article published in 1867, Robert Lowe declares "that [the unions] run through the whole gamut of crime, from a mere
conspiracy in restraint of trade, to robbery, arson, mutilation, and murder."
The advantage which the working man is taught to believe that he gains in exchange for all these
sacrifices of money, of liberty, and independence, is that by the agency of this costly machinery he
will secure to himself an income larger than the income he would otherwise have obtained, by a sum
sufficient to cover all these expenses, and to leave him a handsome surplus. He makes these
sacrifices for power, power to control the action of his master and his fellow workmen, and by such
control to extort for himself a larger share in the division of the gross proceeds of manufacture than
would be awarded to him without such organisation. He avowedly wholly disregards the interest of his
master. It is a selfish world, and master and man must each look out for themselves. The notion of
community of interests between master and workman, of their being in fact involved in the same
adventure, never enters into his mind. His object is to get as much out of the fund as possible.
Everything he so gets he counts as gain, everything he fails to get he reckons as loss. It is one of the
advantages of narrow and short-sighted views that they simplify matters extremely. The workman
never troubles himself to think whence this fund comes, or what are the conditions necessary to its
continuance. He regards it, as mathematicians say, as a given quantity, and concerns himself solely
with its division between him and his master. He looks at himself and the other members of his Union
in the same way. They also are a given and constant quantity. He never considers whether they may
not be diminished in number by a fall, or increased in number by a rise in wages. In most societies,
though not in the one of which we are speaking, an effort is made to limit numbers by forbidding
apprenticeship. In like manner the workman never troubles himself to think about the capital of
employers, or reflects for a moment as to the causes which may increase or diminish it, or may
reduce the numbers who wish to employ him. He regards their number as fixed, and their capital as
infinite.
Quarterly Review, 246, October 1867
1. Why is the question of workers' unions particularly topical in 1867?
2. Why are workers accused of holding "short-sighted views"?

TEXT 32: The 1926 General Strike and the Defeat of the Miners

(Source 2) Kingsley Martin, Father Figures (1966)

The General Strike of 1926 was an unmitigated disaster. Not merely for Labour but for England.
Churchill and other militants in the cabinet were eager for a strike, knowing that they had built a
national organisation in the six months' grace won by the subsidy to the mining industry. Churchill
himself told me this on the first occasion I met him in person. I asked Winston what he thought of
the Samuel Coal Commission. When Winston said that the subsidy had been granted to enable the
Government to smash the unions, unless the miners had given way in the meantime, my picture of
Winston was confirmed.

(Source 3) A. J. P. Taylor, English History: 1914-1945 (1965)

The response of union members was fantastic: all ceased work when called upon, and practically
none returned to work until the strike was over. There were the very men who had rallied to the
defence of Belgium in 1914. The voluntary recruitment of the First World War and the strike of 1926
were acts of spontaneous generosity.

39
 The British General Strike, which occurred in 1926, completely tied up the nation until the white-
collar class went to work and restored some of the services. I remember watching gentlemen with
Eton ties acting as porters in Waterloo Station; other volunteers drove railroad engines and ran
buses. I was assigned to delivering newspapers and would report daily, before dawn, at the Horse
Guards Parade in London. As time passed, the situation worsened; barbed wire appeared in Hyde
Park, and big guns. Winston Churchill went down to the docks in an attempt to quell the rioting. For
a couple of days there were no newspapers, and that was hardest of all to bear for no one knew
what was going to happen next and everyone feared the outbreak of widespread violence. Finally, a
single-sheet government handout appeared - the British Gazette - and people breathed easier, but
settlement of the issues dividing labor and the government appeared to be insoluble.

(Source 5) Henry Hamilton Fyfe, My Seven Selves (1935)

It is still frequently asserted, and perhaps by many believed, that this abortive attempt by Trade
Unionists to assist their comrades, the miners, was an attack on the Constitution, a blow aimed at
the State, a revolutionary act. It is natural enough for opponents of Labour, whether political or
industrial, to misrepresent the General Strike in that way, but a number of writers of books have
erred through ignorance.

No one who was acquainted with the Trade Union leaders at that period, no one who watched
from inside the day-to-day development of the affair, can think of this assertion with anything but
amusement. There was not a single member of the General Council of the Trade Union Congress
who would not have shrunk with horror from the idea of overturning the established order - if it had
occurred to him. I am certain there was no one to whom it did occur. They decided on the strike in
desperation. They had promised support to the miners, and they did not know what else to do.
Special constables were recruited from public schools and universities (1926)
(Source 6) Special constables were recruited from public schools and universities (1926)

(Source 7) David Kirkwood, My Life of Revolt (1935)

The purpose of the General Strike was to obtain justice for the miners. The method was to hold
the Government and the nation up to ransom. We hoped to prove that the nation could not get on
without the workers. We believed that the people were behind us. We knew that the country had
been stirred by our campaign on behalf of the miners.... I was heartily in favour of the General Strike.
I believed we should see such an uprising of the people that the Government would be forced to
grant our demands.

(Source 8) The British Gazette (8th May, 1926)

A long line of lorries swinging into Hyde Park during the week bore sure witness to the fact that
the strikers had suffered early defeat in their attempt to starve London.... The convoy looked like the
commissariat of a victorious army, and the illusion was heightened by the sight of soldiers perched
high on their loads, some of them smoking, most of them smiling, and all of them going about their
job with the casual good humour characteristic of the British private in peace and war... There were
few people in the streets, but as dockland grew closer an occasional knot of strikers on picket duty
gazed in amazement at the column. Troops had descended on their objective before the enemy had
time to realize that they were there.

40
(Source 9) The British Worker (8th May, 1926)

There is as far as the Trade Union Movement is concerned, no "attack on the community". There is
no "challenge to the Constitution." The workers have exercised their legal and long-established right
of withholding their labour, in order to protect the miners against a degradation of their standard of
life, which is a menace to the whole world of labour.

(Source 10) Herbert Morrison, An Autobiography (1960)

The story of the strike has been told so often that it is unnecessary to repeat it here. Suffice it to
say that in Hackney, as in every working-class area, there was great sympathy for the miners, who
had been treated abominably, and there was a universal and reasonably justified feeling that the
mine owners were a wicked lot. But there was also some feeling among the basically law-abiding and
sensible working people of our country that political power could not, and should not, be won by
industrial action. However, the strike call met with a loyal response.

(Source 11) Christopher Farman, The General Strike: Britain's Aborted Revolution? (1972)

A striker at Farnworth, near Bolton, received a month's imprisonment for tearing down a
Government poster; another in north London was given six weeks with hard labour for telling a
crowd that the Liverpool police were on strike; a Communist found chalking 'seditious' slogans on a
pavement at Castleford was gaoled for two months with hard labour and fined £200; at Penrith the
local secretary for the National Union of General Workers went to prison for three months with hard
labour for issuing a leaflet urging workers not to become special constables.

(Source 12) John Reith, Director General of the BBC, diary entry (10th May, 1926)

He (MacDonald) said he was anxious to give a talk. He sent a manuscript along... with a friendly
note offering to make any alterations which I wanted... I sent it at once to Davidson for him to ask
the Prime Minister, strongly recommending that he should allow it to be done.... The idea was
rejected... I do not think that they treat me altogether fairly. They will not say we are to a certain
extent controlled and they make me take the onus of turning people down. They are quite against
MacDonald broadcasting, but I am certain it would have done no harm to the Government. Of
course it puts me in a very awkward and unfair position. I imagine it comes chiefly from the PM's
difficulties with the Winston lot.

(Source 14) Stanley Baldwin, BBC broadcast (8th May, 1926)

A solution is within the grasp of the nation the instant that the trade union leaders are willing to
abandon the General Strike. I am a man of peace. I am longing and working for peace, but I will not
surrender the safety and security of the British Constitution. You placed me in power eighteen
months ago by the largest majority accorded to any party for many years. Have I done anything to
forfeit that confidence? Cannot you trust me to ensure a square deal, to secure even justice between
man and man?

(Source 15) The Workers' Weekly (22nd May 1926)

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 Right from the start of the strike it became evident that the bureaucratic leaders were afraid and
nervous about the situation. They tried to confine the General Strike into certain channels which
even imposed limitations upon the free development of necessary strike preparations ... The officials
opposed propaganda, demonstrations, mass pickets, everything that was vital to the strike. They
tried to inculcate pacifism into the workers so as to tie their hands. And they were definitely and
signally failing the longer the strike lasted. The General Strike would have won with ease, provided
the leadership was effective. The General Strike was lost because it was betrayed.

(Source 16) Will Paynter, My Generation (1972)

The miners' lock-out dragged on through the months of 1926 and really was petering-out when
the decision came to end it. We had fought on alone but in the end we had to accept defeat spelt
out in further wage-cuts.

(Source 18) Helen Crawfurd, The Woman Worker (August 1926)

Financial, help from workers in all lands, especially from Soviet Russia has proved to her the fellow
feeling of the international working class. The magnificent solidarity shown during those nine days
gave promise of the struggle being, short and decisive. The calling off of the strike and the
subsequent weeks of slow torture and suffering of the miners, their wives and children, are
something that will go down in history as an infinitely greater betrayal than that of 1921. Not only
was it a betrayal of the miners, but it was a gross betrayal of the whole Trade Union Movement. If
Thomas and the other members of the General Council thought the Strike was wrong why did they
not denounce it? Why did they not resign before leading their men into it? And why, having led them
into it and having definitely promised in their directions sent out that:

The General Council of the Trades Union Congress, in order to save their miserable faces and to
whitewash themselves, must needs find a scapegoat and put their sins upon it and send it out into
the wilderness - and they foolishly imagine that in their recent attempt to vilify the leaders of the
miners, they have as easily hoodwinked the British workers as the children of Israel fondly imagined
they could hoodwink their God. Well, it won’t just work, and the day of reckoning is approaching!!!
The rank and file of the workers did not betray the miners, neither in the General Strike, nor even in
the present situation which calls for an embargo in handling of all coal. Again, it is the weak and
vacillating, leadership which is proving itself Capitalism’s most valuable ally. Baldwin must go, and so
must his allies.

(Source 19) The Daily Mail (13th May, 1926)

The country has come through deep waters (the General Strike) and it has come through in
triumph, setting such an example to the world as has not been seen since the immortal hours of the
War. It has fought and defeated the worst forms of human tyranny. This is a moment when we can
lift up our head and our hearts.
Bernard Partridge, The Striker's Return (26th May 1926)
(Source 20) Bernard Partridge, The Striker's Return (26th May 1926)

(Source 21) Margaret Cole, Growing up into Revolution (1949)

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 The Government had made up its mind that "direct action" must be scotched once and for all, and,
that being so, the Unions had no choice between surrendering and going on to civil war and
revolution, which was the last thing they had envisaged or desired. They surrendered, ingloriously,
but with the ranks unbroken; and though the immediate outcome was, naturally, a falling-off of
membership, and a good deal of angry recrimination, the absence of any real revanche, any sacking
of the leaders who had patently failed to lead, showed that the movement, when it had time to think
things over, realised that it had in effect made a challenge to the basis of British society which it was
not prepared to see through and that, therefore, post-mortems on who was to blame was
unprofitable.

The industrial workers forgave their leaders. But they did not so easily forgive their enemies,
particularly when the Government, to punish them for their insubordination, rushed through the
1927 Trade Union Act. This was a piece of political folly; it did not (because it could not) prevent
strikes; what it did was to make it more easy to victimize local strike-leaders and also to put
obstacles in the way of the Unions contributing to the funds of their own political Party.

(Source 23) Walter Citrine, Men and Work (1964)

I do not regard for General Strike as a failure. It is true that it was ill-prepared and that it was
called off without any consultation with those who took part in it. The fact is that the theory of the
General Strike had never been thought out. The machinery of the trade unions was not adapted for
it. Their rules had to be broken for the executives to give power to the General Council to declare the
strike. However illogical it may seem for me to say so, it was never aimed against the state as a
challenge to the Constitution. It was a protest against the degradation of the standards of life of
millions of good trade unionists. It was a sympathetic strike on a national scale. It was full of
imperfections in concept and method. No General Strike could ever function without adequate local
organization, and the trade unions were not ready to devolve such necessary powers on the only
local agents which the T.U.C. has, the Trades Councils.

(Source 24) Paul Davies, A. J. Cook (1987)

Many miners found they had no jobs to return to as many coal-owners used the eight-hour day to
reduce their labour force while maintaining productions levels. Victimisation was practised widely.
Militants were often purged from payrolls. Blacklists were drawn up and circulated among
employers; many energetic trade unionists never worked in a it again after 1926. Following months
of existence on meague lockout payments and charity, many miners' families were sucked by
unemployment, short-term working, debts and low wages into abject poverty.
QUESTIONS

1. Why did people join the OMS and become Special Constables during the General Strike?
2. During the strike, the Russian Trade Union Council sent a cheque of £200,000 to buy food for
strikers. The British TUC sent it back. Can you explain why?
3. Explain the different points of view or bias in extracts 8 and 9 .
4. Why was control of the media such an important factor in the progress of the General Strike?
5. Give as many reasons as you can why the General Strike came to an end

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