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The central fact of English society in the mid-19th century was the growth of cities.  In 1843 a thoughtful Englishman wrote:

Our age is pre-eminently the age of great cities. Babylon and Thebes, Carthage and Rome, were great cities, but the world has never been so covered with cities as at the present time, and society generally has never been so leavened with the spirit natural to cities.

Of all 19th-century societies, England serves as the best example of the truth of this statement.

A few statistics make this clear.  The census of 1851, for example, showed that half of England's population was urban.  This was a situation which had probably not existed before, in any country, at any time in the world's history.  In 1801, excluding London, there were 14 English towns each with a population over 20,000.  In 1851, again excluding London, there were 52 towns each with a population over 20,000. London itself in the 18th century became the largest city in Europe.  Its population in 1,801 was roughly one million.  In 1851 it was roughly two and one-half million.

Among England's towns in the first half of the 19th century, the new industrial towns set the pace.  Birmingham, center of the metal-finishing trades (nail-making, brass goods, guns, etc.) grew from 71,000 in 1801 to 233,000 in 1851.  Leeds, which specialized in the manufacture of woolen textiles, grew in the same

period from 53,000 to 172,000.  Sheffield, which made cutlery, tools, and machines, grew from 46,000 to 125,000. Manchester, the center of cotton textile manufacture, grew from 75,000 to 303,000.

No one city can give us a complete picture of industrial society.  Birmingham, for example, differed from Manchester.  Birmingham's industry centered upon small forges.  Manchester's industry took place in large factories.  Birmingham required skilled workers.  Manchester did not.  Thus, Manchester paid lower wages

than Birmingham. Thus, also, Manchester hired a greater number of women and children than did Birmingham. Unfortunately, women got little or no training in skills in Victorian England. Finally, Manchester was close to Liverpool. Liverpool was the port where poverty-stricken Irish fleeing Ireland landed. Hence Manchester had a large number of Irish people, who were the poorest of the poor.

Though no one city gives us a complete picture, Manchester probably comes closest to doing so.  People of the day singled it out.  They felt it to be the symbol of modern times.  Benjamin Disraeli, political leader and novelist, wrote in his novel Coningsby that "certainly Manchester is the most wonderful city of modern times."  Frederick Engels, Karl Marx's colleague, came from Germany to live in Manchester.  In his classic The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 he wrote that "the modern art of manufacture has reached its perfection in Manchester."  Historians have seen that Manchester was a center of economic and social change.  One historian has called it "the shock city of the industrial revolution."  It was also the city which spoke for the new society in politics.  Thus, in this book we will look at Manchester in detail.  Only by gathering details about a single city can we hope to recreate what English people felt about living in a society up to then unknown.

MANCHESTER COTTON

Manchester, cotton, the Industrial Revolution.  In a sense these are different names for the same thing.  The growth and wealth of Manchester were built on cotton.  The cotton industry, in turn, was the leading industry in the early stages of the Industrial Revolution. 

As late as 1760, however, the cotton industry compared to the woollen industry was small.  Several things

made it so.  Imported raw cotton cost more than British raw wool.  Cotton yarn spun like wool on a spinning wheel was not strong. It needed to be strengthened by adding linen fibers.  Cloth made from this cotton-linen yarn was coarse and difficult to sew.  Hence, it was much less acceptable than the fine woollen cloth on which, English wealth had been built.  In 1741 the cotton industry consumed one and a half million pounds (about 225,000 kilograms) of raw cotton valued at £55,000.   The woolen industry consumed 60 million pounds

(about 27 million kilograms) of raw wool valued at  £1,500,000. (£ = the symbol for the British unit of currency. the pound sterling.)

Cloth Manufacture

Like wool, cotton was a domestic and not a factory industry.  That is, production was carried out in the workers' homes and done mainly by hand.  All members of the family took part in the production.  First children prepared the raw cotton. Then women spun this into yarn on spinning wheels.  Finally men wove the yarn into cloth on handlooms.

Spinning took more time than weaving.  Therefore, a search was begun for mechanical inventions that would speed up spinning and keep the weavers better supplied with yarn.  The original idea was to apply these inventions to the woollen industry because it was more important than the cotton industry.  Things did not turn out that way. The cotton industry, not the woollen, became the first to be mechanized.  Cotton ushered in the factory system.

The chief reason for this development was a simple one.  Cotton is a more uniform substance than wool.  It therefore takes more readily to mechanical handling.  There were other reasons too.  Owing to the American invention of the cotton gin, the cost of raw cotton fell.  Also, its supply could be increased readily in America.  Finally, what was very important, there was an enormous demand waiting to be filled by cotton.  For a long time people had wanted lighter-weight fabrics.  Only the rich could afford linen and very fine wool.  When the cotton industry became mechanized, a lightweight fabric became available which was both cheap and easily washable.  For the first time in history, millions of people would be able to wear clean clothes.

New Inventions

Of the inventions that started cotton on its rapid growth, two deserve special mention: Both of them are concerned with spinning.  The first was the spinning jenny.  It was invented by James Hargreaves, a Lancashire weaver, about 1764.  It was a simple machine, fairly small in both size and cost.  In its earliest form it had eight spindles, compared with the single spindle of the spinning wheel.  By the end of the century, the eight spindles had increased to 100.  Thus, the effect of the spinning jenny was to greatly increase the amount of yarn previously produced by a single spinner.  Almost overnight, family spinning wheels were outdated.

The second invention was the water frame which spun yarn by twisting it between rollers.  It was patented in 1770 by a farmer, Richard_Arkwright.  Unlike most inventors of the time, Arkwright became a wealthy man.  He was one of the pioneering manufacturers of industrial England.  Eventually he became a large landowner.  The water frame laid the foundation of the revolution in cotton manufacture.  For one thing, it produced a cotton yarn strong enough to do away with any non-cotton toughener.  In short, it produced the first cotton cloth that was not a linen mixture.  Also, unlike the spinning jenny, the water frame was a factory machine from the start.  It was designed originally to be horse-operated. Later it was powered by water (hence its name).  Before long it was steam-powered.

The striking effect of these inventions was quickly seen. When Adam Smith, the famous Scottish economist, wrote The Wealth of Nations in 1776, he barely mentioned the cotton industry.  In the next 20 years or so, raw cotton imports increased eightfold.  A spinner's output increased 200 times over what it had been before the jenny.  By 1812 the cotton industry outstripped the woollen.  It accounted for 8 per cent of the national in- come.  It employed 350,000 people, of whom one-third worked in factories. By 1830 it accounted for more than volume of English exports.

Until about 1820 the typical cotton factory was a mill.  Weaving proved harder to mechanize.  In 1787

a clergyman, Edmund Cartwright, invented the first power loom.  Cartwright set up a weaving factory, but he

went bankrupt.  His loom kept breaking down.  When it ran quickly it tended to break the yarn. Other were made with improved looms. They also failed.  Not until 1815 did the power loom leave its experimental stage.  As late as 1830 there were 225,000 handlooms in England compared to 80,000 power looms.  By the 1840's, however, these positions were reversed.

All these inventions meant a revolution in the manufacture of cotton textiles.  They also meant a social revolution.  Spinning and weaving had once been house-hold industries.  Spinners and weavers were often part- time farm workers.  Now spinning and weaving became factory and town industries.  Cotton was thus the pioneer industry of the new age.

The Effect of the Cotton Industry

No other industry before the railway can compare with cotton in its influence on economic life.  When cotton thrived, so did the whole English economy.  Cotton also encouraged foreign trade.  In both imports and exports cotton held an important place. Raw cotton was shipped to Manchester mainly from America.  Finished cloth was shipped from Manchester allover the world.  A lot of it went to tropical countries-which needed such lightweight cloth.  Finally, the cotton industry stimulated other industries, notably machine making and chemical works.

Cotton and Manchester

How did the cotton industry come to be concentrated mainly in Manchester?  This cannot be wholly explained.  But a number of things helped.  Spinning and weaving are easier in a damp climate.  This Manchester had.  Cleaning raw cotton requires pure lime-free water.  Manchester also had this.  Finally, Manchester was close to a great port, Liverpool. At first it was connected to this port by canal and later by railway.

What did the Manchester mills look like?  They were built surrounding the commercial center of the city. They were five or more stories high.  Their smoke-stacks thus towered above the rows of working-class houses spread beneath them.  They had many windows to get what light they could in the smoky, foggy air.  Otherwise their dull red brick surfaces were undecorated and severe.  A typical large mill of the 1840's had a main block and two wings.  Boilers and steam engines were housed in one wing.  Offices and storerooms were in the other.  On the ground floor of the center block were the power looms.  These needed a secure foundation.  Above them were the spinning machines.  On the top floors were the departments for preparing the raw cotton and dressing the finished cloth.  Comforts were lacking in the mills, and the air was bad.  Manchester's mills tended to be larger than those elsewhere in England.  The average mill in the English cotton industry in 1850 employed fewer than 200 people. The average Manchester mill employed 350.  The largest Manchester mill employed more than 1,500 people. Over half the Manchester cotton workers were women.

            THE WORLD OF THE MANCHESTER WORKING CLASS

Observers of Manchester in the 1830's and 1840's often noted the city's division along class lines.  On the one hand were the millowners, the merchants, and the professional classes.  On the other hand were the workers- a faceless crowd appropriately known hands. These workers owned nothing but their labor.  They worked under strict discipline. They worked in large factories where they were physically and socially separated from their employers. One observer, Frederick Engels, was much struck by this division.  He assumed that the Manchester of the day provided the pattern for all industrial development -a pattern of class conflict and revolution.  He and Karl Marx used this pattern as the basis for the Communist philosophy of history.

Their view was too sweeping.  At the time, however, the misery of the workers certainly was obvious.  It struck all visitors to the city.  Thus it struck the Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville, who visited Manchester in 1.835. He saw overcrowding and wretched housing. He smelled polluted air.  He saw filthy streets. He noted the look of weariness on working-class faces.  At the sight of the Irish slums he burst out in pain and wonder at Manchester:

From this foul drain the greatest stream of human industry flows.  Here humanity attains its most complete development and its most brutish; here civilization works its miracles, and civilized man is turned back almost into a savage.

Had de Tocqueville visited Manchester 15 years later, would his impressions have been less harsh?  He may well have noticed some improvement and the promise of more.  But most likely he would still have found much that was deplorable. He would still have seen misery and sensed alienation.

By 1850 the following improvements might have been noted.  Examples of extreme poverty among the workers were somewhat fewer.  The handloom weavers who had long suffered from the competition of the machine were now gone.  They had been absorbed or died out.  Certainly the general level of wages had moved" upward in the 1840's.  This was due to the great demand for labor made by railway building.  But too much should not be made of this.  Wages in 1850 kept few families permanently out of poverty.  There were no pensions or unemployment insurance.  But hours of work at least were effectively regulated by the Factory Act of 1850.  This act limited work for women in the factories to 60 hours a week.  Since over half the workers were women, this made the 60-hour week automatic for men too in Manchester.  It also led to the beginning of the long week-end for work had to stop at 2 P.M. on Saturday.

Housing and health conditions in Manchester reached their lowest point in the 1830's and 1840's.  Mid-century brought little more than hope for future improvement.  In the early 19th century there had been much migration to the towns.  There was also, as we have seen, rapid growth of population as a whole.  These factors proved too much for the existing urban technology.  There was overcrowding and lack of sanitation.  Thus there was a new tide of disease.

Statistically, the story is a little complicated.  During the 18th and 19th centuries the death rate generally fell. But during the early 19th century it began to rise again in the cities.  It reached a peak in the 1830's.  An 1842 report showed that the average age of death among the working class in Manchester was 17 years.  In the rural county of Rutland the average age of death was 38 years. The great killers were tuberculosis and cholera.  The one was spread by bad air; the other, by bad water.

Much needed were better drains and sewers.  Also needed were methods of purifying water.  Also needed were laws against smoke and bad ventilation.  Such problems have a modern sound.  They remind us of our ecological problems today.  Industrial systems have not yet solved their troubles.

Clearly, before anything can be done in Manchester to solve these problems, public opinion must be aroused.  In Manchester, solutions got under way as early as 1831. T hat year James Kay-Shuttleworth, the health officer, turned a scientific eye on the city's epidemics.  He related them to overcrowded housing and lack of sanitation.  In the 1840's novelists joined the civil servants in protesting conditions.  They developed the social novel. Benjamin Disraeli's Sybil, Charles Dickens' Hard Times, and Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton are examples.

These novels threw a glaring light on the poor conditions of public health in English towns.  A public health act was passed in 1848, but enforcement was voluntary.  Not until the 1850's and 1860's did the government take firm action.

More leisure and recreation were also needed to improve public health in Manchester.  These were not to come until after 1850.  By 1850 excursion trains taking working people to the seaside were only beginning. Moreover, this sort of escape was too expensive to be widely used.  As yet, the workers had to rely on their legs to carry them outside the towns on evenings or on the weekend.  Bicycles and street cars did not appear until the 1880's.  Horse cabs, which appeared in 1839, were only used by the richer middle classes.  Not until the 1850's was the countryside brought into Manchester in the form of parks.  Three of them were opened at that time.  They were bought by money donated by the public.  According to a local journalist, even during the rain these parks were used by the workers.

Public education, like public health, was also poor in Manchester. By the 1830's the city did have a center for public education, the Mechanic's Institute.  Although some workers used the institute's libraries and lectures, only a handful did so.  Merchants, manufacturers, and clerks rather than workers had the time for self-improvement. In the early 1850's the Free Library opened.  Few workers read books because the sad truth was that most working-class people were illiterate.

Free compulsory education did not come to England until 1870.  In 1850 elementary education for the workers was voluntary and ineffective.  It was better at teaching social discipline than it was at teaching skills.  That is to say, it mainly taught working-class children to be content with things as they were.  In the phrase of the day, it taught them to keep to the class "to which it had pleased God to call them."  According to a government report of 1841, something like 60 per cent of the people of Manchester could not sign their names.

Thus life for the working class in Manchester was grim.  It is not surprising, therefore, that the new industrial towns were, as one historian has said, "terribly drunken."  In Manchester alone in 1850, there were 1,618 public drinking places.  That made one for every 80 men and women over the age of 20.  Some of these places provided musical entertainment.  Most of them provided only forgetfulness and escape to make a harsh life endurable.

It would seem that religion provided less comfort than drink for Manchester workers. In 1851 the government took a census of churchgoers.  This enables us to speak with some accuracy about the religious habits of 19th-century England. On a Sunday in March the people were counted at every service in every church in the country.  Out of a population: of about 18 million only about 7 million attended church.  Attendance reached its lowest levels where the largest numbers of working-class people lived.  Manchester almost headed the list of cities with poor church attendance.  As one reporter put it, "the labouring myriads of our country ...the masses of our working population. . .are never or but seldom seen in our religious congregations."

All these facts give us a bleak picture of working-class life.  It is not hard to see why Engels looked upon the workers as an oppressed class.  By 1850 there were signs of improvement.  Reform movements were beginning to soften the harshness of working-class life.  But most improvement still lay in the future.

            THE WORLD OF THE MANCHESTER ELITE

The Manchester working class lived in a world of squalid and disease-ridden slums. The elite, those on the top of the social pyramid in Manchester-the millowners, the merchants, the professional classes -lived in a quite different world. Theirs was the world described in Manchester guidebooks.  Henry Duffield's guide to Manchester proudly said in 1852 that

a stranger, on visiting Manchester for the first time, can- not fail to be struck with it.  Few manufacturing towns are possessed of such wide open streets and spacious squares, or such a number of fine buildings. ...Who would suppose that Market Street, now one of the finest streets outside London, was not much more than 30 years ago a narrow dirty lane?

How different this sounds from de Tocqueville's account of working-class Manchester!

Much of guidebook Manchester was of a recent creation.  The Free Trade Hall opened its doors in 1843.  It was built originally to house the meetings associated with the political campaign against the tariffs:  The Town Hall was another landmark.  It was not really new, having been started in 1822. However, for years its classic beauty was hidden by older buildings.  In the 1830's these were cleared away and a broad view created.  The Royal Exchange, which opened in 1849, was yet another landmark.  It was the heart of Manchester's commercial life and the price of Manchester guidebooks. To quote Duffield again:

This splendid building, which is one of the finest in the country, stands in the centre of the town, ...[Its main meeting room] when completed will be 185 feet long and 92 feet wide [about 55 meters long and 28 meters wide] ...thus making it perhaps the largest room in the country devoted to commercial purposes.

These public buildings, together with office and warehouses, formed Manchester's commercial district- about half a mile square.  This was the city's heart.  It was the daytime home of Manchester's elite.  Here the streets were spacious.  Here, too, the shops were elegant.  They sold luxury goods from all over the world.

From this central core one looked out to a circle of smoking chimneys.  These marked the surrounding factory belt.  This belt, where the working class lived, was about a mile and a half wide.  Beyond this -in fresher air- the Manchester elite had their houses and lived their family life.  The houses were fine and comfortable and had sizable gardens.

What sort of people were the Manchester elite?  This question is far easier to answer than a similar question about the working class.  The worker tends to leave few documents for historians.  By contrast, we know much

about the elite.  We know the names of many of We know some details of their lives.

Characteristics of the Elite   

A good number of the Manchester elite were of local origin.  Chief among this group were the Gregs, who cotton manufacturers; the Heywoods, who were and the Potters, who were cotton wholesalers.  Also among this group were the Henrys, who were and chemists; and the Taylors, who were and journalists. Many, however, of the Manchester elite were newcomers to the city.  Some of them were from Europe.  One such was Frederick Engels, who left Germany to become a Manchester merchant.  Another was Charles Halle, who also came from Germany.  He was destined to make Manchester the musical capital of the north.  Many newcomers were from Scotland.  Among these was Archibald Prentice, merchant, journalists and politician.  There were also many people from

other parts of England who sought their careers and fortunes in Manchester.  Richard Cobden, son of a bankrupt Sussex farmer, was one of them.  William Gaskell, son of a Warrington manufacturer, and husband of the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, was another.  Dalton, who became one of the world's great physicists was another.  He was the son of a Cumberland weaver.

Very few of Manchester's elite were connected with the traditional ruling class.  This class consisted mainly of large landowners.  Historians often remark on what they take to be a law of English social history.  It is the

way wealthy merchants tended to buy land and set up landed families.  The reverse was true also.  Landed families tended to send some younger sons into the towns to make their fortunes in business.  Manchester was an exception to the second half of this law.  The closest that the Manchester elite came to the landed society was through men like Richard Cob den who began life as farmers' sons.

Few of Manchester's elite were Anglican. That is, few belonged to the official Church of England.  Most English people belonged to this church, especially the upper classes.  The religious census of 1851 showed, however, that in a city like Manchester the Nonconformists (that is, Protestants who were not Anglican) outnumbered the Anglicans.  One group of Nonconformists, the Unitarians, stood out in Manchester.  Unitarians were normally a small sect.  They were strong, however, in the ranks of the Manchester elite.  The Gregs were Unitarian, as were the Potters and the Henrys.  William Gaskell was a Unitarian minister.  As one historian has put it:

Small sects, particularly the Unitarians, often had a strategic part to play in civic life, providing mayors and officials, and encouraging interest in reform.

Why Unitarians played this part is not easy to say.  One historian has recently suggested that the vitality of Unitarianism was somehow connected with its method of disciplining children.  This was neither too easy, breeding idlers.  Nor was it too strict, killing initiative.

Like their religion, the Manchester elite's education was different from that of the traditional ruling class.  Very few if any of them went to the famous schools like Eton and Rugby.  Nor did they go on to Oxford or Cambridge universities.  These were all Anglican schools.  Indeed the law required students at Oxford or Cambridge to accept the Anglican form of Christianity before they graduated.  If they did not do so, they did not graduate.  In any case the Manchester elite did not like the education which Oxford and Cambridge gave.  That education was largely literary.  The Manchester elite lived in the world of business and the professions.  They tended to believe in a practical education.  Thus they sent their children to local Nonconformist schools.  At the age of 15 or so the boys were placed in business.  In the words of Elizabeth Gaskell, the elite believed in

unsparingly cutting away all off-shoots in the direction of literature or high mental cultivation, in the hopes of throwing the whole strength and vigour of the plant into commerce.

Nevertheless, a minority among Manchester's elite went to university.  Of course, they could do so in the mid-century only if they were male. When they did go to university they went to Edinburgh or to Glasgow.  The Scottish universities were vigorous in the early 19th century.  They provided a more modern education than either Oxford or Cambridge.  They were also nondenominational.  Some of Manchester's elite went to University College in London.  Founded in the 1820's, this was to become the University of London.

Cultural Life of the Elite

Though the Manchester elite emphasized the practical, they were not uncultivated people.  Many of them were interested in learning and the arts.  Elizabeth Gaskell was a good novelist.  W. R. Greg, who was a cotton manufacturer, turned in later life to journalism.  He contributed many articles to national journals like the Edinburgh Review.  William Langton, a banker, was also a historian.  He wrote poetry in Italian too.  William Henry, a surgeon, became a leading British chemist.  Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth, a doctor and notable civil servant, wrote novels.  Even Richard Cobden, cotton manufacturer and busy political leader, found time to learn foreign languages and to try his hand at play writing.  John Edward Taylor founded the Manchester Guardian, one of the world's most thoughtful newspapers.  Finally, John Dalton, a scientist of world reputation, was a Manchester man.

People of this sort encouraged the rise of a flourishing cultural life.  Some of it was special to the new industrial towns.  An example is the Manchester Statistical Society.  This society was founded in 1833.  Its main object was to collect statistical facts -precise and hard information-about social problems.  Its members desired not just to know the facts.  They also wished to find remedies for the problems.  The society developed out of house-to-house visits conducted by Kay-Shuttleworth.  He was looking into sanitary conditions among the working class.  Once founded, the society took up subjects like the extent and nature of elementary education in the city. 

Another example is the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, founded in 1781.  The "Lit  and Phil,” as it was known, was a sort of informal university.  Its interests were largely, although not exclusively, scientific.  Its secretary at one time was John Dalton.  It met periodically to hear papers read by its members.  Some of Dalton’s work originated in this way.  Typical of the subjects discussed were "On the Origin of Coal" and "Sketch of the Drift Deposits of Manchester and Its Neighbourhood."  Of 20 papers read in 1848, only one was literary or artistic. It had to do with classical Greek sculpture.

Manchester's cultural life had many other branches.  In 1821 the Manchester Guardian began its distinguished career.  Quickly it became a leading English newspaper.  In 1843 the Chetham Society was founded.

This provided a center for the study of local history.  Three years later, the cotton merchant John Owens died.

He bequeathed his fortune to establish a local university.  Owens College, later Manchester University, opened

its doors in 1851 with a staff of seven. It was dedicated to the task of creating a university different from either

Oxford or Cambridge.  

At about the same time, Charles Halle arrived in England. He accepted the invitation of a Manchester calico printer and lover of music to settle in Manchester.  The idea was that he would promote the musical life of the city. In 1853 Halle founded the Classical Chamber Music Society.  In 1857, he launched what was to become

a famous symphony orchestra, the Halle Orchestra.  The occasion of the orchestra's birth was a great exhibition of pictures in Manchester-the first exhibition in the country of pictures which had been gathered together from private collections.

This cultural life was both cause and effect of the strong local pride of the Manchester elite.  This pride was much more than the satisfaction of self-made people.  What prompted this pride was a new idea.  It was the idea of human intelligence mastering brute nature.  Thornton, the Manchester manufacturer in Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South, put this eloquently.

Our glory and our beauty arise out of our inward strength, which makes us victorious over material resistance, and over greater difficulties still. ...I won't deny that I am proud of belonging to a town...the necessities of which give birth to such grandeur of conception.  I would rather be a man toiling, suffering-nay, failing, and successless-here, than lead a dull prosperous life in the old worn grooves of what you call more aristocratic society down in the south, with their slow days of careless ease.

 Here was the voice of Manchester's elite.  Here was the voice of people who found their identity in shaping a new industrial city and guiding its life.  By the mid-century they had not yet begun to merge physically with the traditional ruling class.  They had not begun to purchase land and set themselves up as smaller landowners", called gentry.  They had, however, by 1840 begun to move further from the center of Manchester.  Most still remained within walking distance of their mills, warehouses, and offices.  A very few of them-the richest ones-had moved out of walking range.  They set themselves up beyond the suburban belt.  These great people were driven in carriages, and put on evening clothes for dinner at night.  In short, they were on the way to becoming landed gentry.

Attitudes of the Elite

The main outlook of the elite was still anti-aristocratic, however.  Its chief concerns were the city, industry, the professions.  In religion it remained Nonconformist.  Thus, it was unsympathetic to the traditional ruling class.  That class spent its time in rural pursuits and government, and its religion was Anglican.  Moreover, the ruling class tended to be hereditary.  Manchester's elite resented this.  They were suspicious of people who owed their wealth and power to the mere fact of having been born to them.  With all these differences, the Manchester elite often opposed aristocratic policy.  In the realm of politics, this opposition was to be strong and effective.  It proved once again the vitality of Manchester's leaders.

The Manchester elite were also anti-working class.  This is not because they were more unkind than other people of the day.  Some of them indeed were noted for charity and humane concerns.  On the whole, the elite were as kind- or as unkind -as other people of the time.

They were anti-working class because they did not believe in any interference with industry.  They opposed trade unions.  They opposed government regulation of industry.  They believed that to regulate industry was to stifle it. In the end everyone would be poorer.  They believed that the workers could improve their lot by what they called "self help."  By seeking education, by being enterprising, people could rise in the world. Many of the elite were themselves examples of this.  For the poor and unfortunate the Manchester elite believed in charity. But they wanted no interference in their business affairs.  They believed in what is known as laissez faire- let it be.  This is what we might think of as complete free enterprise.

Naturally the workers and the elite went separate ways in politics.  As was to be expected, the elite soon succeeded.  The workers for a long time failed.  This showed once more who was master in Manchester and who was servant.

CHAPTER 4  URBAN POLITICS

The Industrial cities -and again, Manchester in particular -gave birth to new forces in English political life.   In the 1830's and 1840's the two urban classes took to political action. One of these classes was the middle class, or the urban elite-the manufacturers, merchants, and professional people. The other was the working class and the poor generally. These two classes were to shape much of England’s future political history.  Ultimately, the ideas that both classes put forward in the 1830’s and 1840's were to triumph. But the middle class was to triumph fairly quickly and easily. The workers, by contrast, were first to suffer a series of  defeats.  Their triumph was to come only long after1850 and even after 1900. The early strength of the middle class and the early weakness of the working class are not surprising. We have only to think of what has been learned in the previous chapter about the different classes of people in Manchester society to understand the varying outcomes of their political movements.

MANCHESTER POLITICS

The political organization of the workers was the Chartist Movement. That of the middle class was the Anti-Corn Law League. Both organizations were founded in the late 1830's. Both arose in response to the economic depression of those years. The Chartists felt that their misery would be lessened if only they had the vote and power in Parliament.   A Reform Bill passed in 1832 had given the vote to most well-to-do middle-class males. The Chartists demanded it be given to all males. (Women could neither vote nor stand for Parliament in 19th-century England. Only a few people, notably John Stuart Mill, were yet concerned to end this injustice.) Thus Chartism was really a political program demanding a working-class voice in Parliament.

The program of the Anti-Corn Law League was, by contrast, economic. It asked for a new policy for inter-national trade. Until that time almost every country had tried to keep foreign goods out of its markets. It did so mainly by means of tariffs, that is, by high taxes on goods coming into the country. The Anti-Corn Law League asked that England do what no other modern nation had ever done.  It asked that England remove her tariffs and trade freely with the whole world. The League believed that free trade among nations would benefit England and indeed the whole world by greatly increasing international commerce. The League concentrated its attacks upon-and hence took its name from-what were known as the Corn Laws. These laws were England's principal tariff laws. They put high duties on imported grain. (The word "corn" in England means all grains, not merely maize or American corn.)

The Chartist Workers suspected that the Anti-Corn Law League might do them harm.  They thought the League was no more than an attempt to lower manufacturers' costs. After all, free trade meant cheaper goods generally, which in turn would lead to lower wages. The League, for its part, equally suspected the Chartist program. It feared giving the workers the vote.  It thought to do so would be to give political power to a league and uneducated group, which might act irresponsibly.  Suspicious of each other Chartists and Leaguers both faced the opposition of the landowners -the traditional ruling class. Thus were the lines drawn in English politics.

            BACKGROUND TO POLITICS IN MANCHESTER

For the most part there was no thought of violence. Both Chartism and the League meant to play the political game according to the rules of English parliamentary government. Both attempted to gain the ear of Parliament by influencing public opinion. Each held public meetings, spread its ideas through newspapers and journals, and petitioned both houses of Parliament.

Parliament was largely dominated by landowners. This situation was clear in the House of Lords. This house was composed of titled aristocrats Nearly all of them inherited their seats, and they were almost always large landowners. By the 1830's the House of Lords was no longer more powerful than the House of Commons. In .a contest between the houses, the will of the Commons won, not the will of the Lords. The House of Commons, however, though less obviously so, was also a landowners assembly.

The House of Commons was an elected and not a hereditary body. Nevertheless in the elections the influence of landowners was great. This was so because England was a country of large estates. More will be said about this in the next chapter. Here it is enough to point out that English farmers did not own their land. They paid rent, as tenants, to large landowners. Even the land upon which villages and towns stood belonged to one or to only a few local landowners. The land- owners were thus marked out as the leading people of their locality. They were looked up to by both farmers and town dwellers as their natural leaders.

It is not surprising that the English voter tended to vote for his landlord, or for his landlord's choice. Usually he did so willingly. Even when he was unwilling he sometimes found himself forced to vote as his landlord wished. There was no secret ballot in England until 1872. A man declared his vote in public. Thus voters could easily be bribed. Occasionally those who did not vote as their landlord wished found themselves thrown off their farms or otherwise punished. The Reform Bill of 1832 had done something to lessen the influence of the landowners.  It had given many middle-class men the vote. It had allowed the new industrial cities to elect some Members of Parliament. But it had not greatly altered the way things were-especially as members still were unpaid and still needed to have independent incomes.

                These facts raise a question. If both houses of Parliament were dominated by landowners, how did it happen they quarreled? (They did so, bitterly, in 1832 over the Reform Bill.) Or another question: How was it that either the Chartists or the Anti-Com Law League expected to be heard at all? The answers to these questions lie deep in English history. Perhaps they even lie deep in the English character. English landowners had earlier fought a long and historic battle with the monarchy. This battle was one in which the landowners lad had to struggle for their rights. As a result, they accepted the idea that it was the duty of government to respond to the governed. The landowners had thus learned to accept the idea of gradual constitutional change.

With their struggle, furthermore, the two-party system had emerged. This development meant that politics had become something more than a crude struggle for power. Politics had also become, in some degree, a rational debate between different points of view.

The two parties of the time were the Whigs and the Tories. (Later they came to be known as the Liberals and the Conservatives.) They did not differ on all things. Indeed, on some things they agreed easily. Unfortunately for the Chartists, they agreed for a long time that a working-class movement like Chartism was a serious danger to the constitution. Both parties found the Chartist demands outrageous. On the question of free trade and the Corn Laws, however, the two parties soon came to differ.  Here the distinction between Whigs and Tories showed itself. The Whigs tended to be more radical, more forward-looking, more receptive to new ideas and to public opinion than the Tories, Accordingly, the Whig Party was likely to be the first to break with tradition, to give new ideas a hearing.

            CHARTISM

Chartism sprang out of the hard times of the 1830's.  By June 1837 some 50,000 workers in the Manchester area alone were either unemployed or were on part-time work. Those who suffered most were the marginal workers. Particularly hard hit were the handloom weavers. They were finding they could no longer compete with the factory looms. To make matters worse, the ranks of the poor were constantly being swollen by already poverty-stricken Irish immigrants.

In 1836 the London Workingmen's Association was founded. This association sought to teach the workers social and political principles. It also intended to organize them for political reform. The leaders of the association were Francis Place, a tailor, and William Lovett, a skilled cabinetmaker. These men believed in working for gradual reform through the parliamentary process.  In 1837 they drew up the People's Charter and were thereafter known as Chartists. They put forward six demands. These were as follows. Parliaments were to be elected every year. Every male was to have a vote. Electoral districts were to have equal numbers of voters. Members of Parliament were to be paid. There was to be no property qualification for Members of Parliament. Voting should be by ballot. In 1837 these demands were very radical; they asked for great changes. But the moderation of the Chartist method of acting was plain. Chartists sought reform in a legal, peaceful fashion by appealing to Parliament.

In the summer of 1838 large-scale demonstrations in favor of the Charter were held. The largest of these was at Kensal Moor near Manchester. Fifty thousand people were said to have been present. Several thousand trade unionists marched in procession. The Manchester Guardian said that it had never seen any large meeting which seemed more peaceable.

One of the chief objects of the meeting was to appoint delegates to a national convention. The convention was to be held in London the next February. The delegates chosen in Manchester were all moderate men.

Unfortunately, the unity and moderation of the movement were to be shattered at the national convention. There the question arose of what was to be done if Parliament refused to give the Charter a hearing.  It was all too likely that Parliament would refuse to accept the Charter's aims.  Men like Lovett were prepared for this. They were for peaceful persistence, what Lovett called "moral force." Chartism could only succeed, Francis Place once said, "by long-continued, steady, patient liberal conduct-acting with becoming modesty but indomitable perseverance." Other leaders did not agree.  Feargus O'Connor, an Irish lawyer and a fiery speaker, talked wildly of physical force and rebellion. The convention talked of arming the people, and planned a general strike if Parliament rejected the Charter.

This appeal to force drove away the moderates. What happened can be seen in Manchester, where William Benbow, an extremist, gained control. He even recommended that boys of 12 should arm themselves with knives. A second meeting was held at Kensal Moor. This time it was poorly attended. Now isolated, the extremists soon lost heart. When Parliament did reject the Charter, some Chartists called strikes. These collapsed within a week. In the spring of 1840 the Chartist leaders were arrested and the first phase of Chartism came to an end.

Of the second phase of Chartism-1840 to 1842- much the same story can be told. It began well. The moderates were in the saddle again and planned to pay more heed than before to efficient organization. By so doing they hoped to control the explosive elements within Chartism. This time the national meeting was held in Manchester, which became the new headquarters. The Charter was once more presented to Parliament. Once more Parliament rejected it. Spontaneous strikes then broke out. The Chartist leaders had nothing to do with these. Indeed they made an unsuccessful attempt to control them. Throughout the north of England workers closed down factories by pulling the plugs from boilers. Hence these strikes are known as the Plug Plot strikes. Within a month they collapsed.  Lacking funds the strikers could not hold out.

Chartism had a third and last phase, from 1842 to 1848.  This phase was dominated by the fiery figure of Feargus Connor. His leadership marked the triumph of extremism and the drift of Chartism into confusion. In 1845 O'Connor founded the Chartist Cooperative Land Society. It proposed turning the clock back to an earlier stage of society and settling city workers on the land. This scheme came to nothing. O'Connor muddled its finances, and anyhow the workers showed no great enthusiasm for digging in the soil. In 1848 O'Connor planned a huge demonstration in London. This also came to nothing. A show of force by the Whig government and a rainstorm scattered the assembled Chartists. Shortly afterward O'Connor was found to be mad and was sent to an asylum, where he died.

O'Connor's domination was the measure of the Chartists' lack of vision. The failure of the moderate forces within Chartism to contain the antics of men like O'Connor proved tragic. Working-class politics needed patience and time. Only in time could the working class become better organized. Only in time could its radical ideas gain acceptance. But, for all its failure, the story of Chartism is not insignificant. It is the story of the working class on the national political scene.

            THE ANTI-CORN LAW LEAGUE

The Anti-Corn Law League was founded in October 1838. It grew out of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce. Within the space of eight years the League achieved its purpose. The ideas promoted by the League, its leadership, and its organization each contributed to its victory.

The ideas of the League had a distinguished origin. They came from two famous economists, Adam Smith and David Ricardo. Adam Smith was a Scottish professor. David Ricardo was an Anglo-Dutch stockbroker. In their works, Smith and Ricardo set out to reform economic thinking. They argued that governments of the day did not understand what makes for national wealth. Each government was concerned with how much gold its country had. Since gold leaves a country when its citizens buy foreign goods, governments feared international trade. They tried to regulate it by tariffs.

        Smith and Ricardo said such regulation really decreased a nation's wealth. They said it even made for war between nations. Smith and Ricardo emphasized that trade itself, economic activity itself, spelled wealth. The more trade, the more wealth. Tariffs were meant to hinder trade. They therefore hindered the growth of wealth. Gold was merely a means of exchange. Governments need not concern themselves with it. What governments should do was simply to stop interfering with trade. They should allow free trade. Not only would free trade increase the world's wealth but the largest share of that wealth would then go to the people who best deserved it. These people would be the energetic and the ambitious. They would be those who competed best. Smith and Ricardo thus spoke for individual freedom, internationalism, greater, social justice, and economic growth.

David Ricardo gave these general ideas a special slant. He directed his attack against English landowners and the Corn Laws. The landowners, he said, were the enemies of English society. In particular, the landowners were the enemies of the manufacturers. The landowners, by insisting on a tariff to protect English grain from cheaper foreign grain, brought about a rise in the price of wheat and in the price, of bread. This meant the manufacturers had to pay higher wages. They therefore had to raise the price of the goods they made. But this reduced the manufacturers' ability to compete in the world's markets. It thus reduced the manufacturers' profits.

These ideas fitted the needs and ideals of the Manchester elite extremely well. Manchester was based on cotton, and the cotton trade was heavily international. If the Corn Laws could be removed, the price of cotton cloth would be reduced. Much more of it could then be sold on the world's markets. Furthermore, the Manchester elite were anti-aristocratic. Free trade would strike a blow against the privileges of the aristocratic landowners. Finally, Manchester's idealism was kindled. Free trade would benefit not the few but the whole community. It would benefit not only England but the whole world. It would bring with it the reign of peace. Obviously such ideas were both practical and idealistic -a mixture which would seem necessary if ideas are to move the world.

Leaders of the League

            The most important leader of the League was Richard Cobden (1809-64).  As we have noted earlier, he was the son of a bankrupt Sussex farmer. Cobden's father had forced to give up the farm that had been in his family for centuries. His children were scattered among relatives.  Richard was placed with a maternal uncle.  His uncle sent him for five years to a boarding school in Yorkshire, an experience which Cobden always remembered with distaste. Indeed, his unhappy child- may have caused him in later life to turn with bitterness and hostility on rural society.

 Cobden's business career began early. In 1819, at the age of 11, he became a clerk in his uncle's warehouse in London. He was soon promoted to salesman, gathering orders for calicos and muslins. At the age of 17, he went into business on his own. He formed a partnership with some friends, and arranged with a large Manchester firm of calico printers to sell its goods on commission in London. This was his first connection with the world of Manchester business. Three years later Cobden entered that world. He and his partners decided to manufacture calicos themselves. They took over a cotton mill not far from Manchester, and Cob den settled in the city.

Cobden had only to step into his new world to be excited by it. In a sense he had found himself. He found his identity as a Manchester man. His enthusiasm J' the city outdid that of the natives. He loved the bustle of Manchester streets and the charm of the local dialect. He was impressed with the great amount of Manchester capital. "Manchester," he wrote, "is the place for all men of bargain and business."

But Cobden was no ordinary businessman. As one of his biographers has put it: "The ordinary businessman spends his time making himself a better businessman: Cobden spent his time making himself into a politician." He worked hard to improve his education to upper-class levels. As his business prospered he be- came a great traveler. He visited the continent, the Middle East, and, what was then unusual, the United States. Even more unusual then was the admiration he felt for America and the Americans. He loved the magnificent scenery and the "genius of activity" which reminded him of Manchester. His traveling was only partly for business. He als9 wanted to acquire familiarity with the politics and society of the world. In the mid- 1830's he took to writing on these subjects. Two pamphlets of his were notable: one, England, Ireland and America; the other, Russia.

Like all great reformers, Cobden was a visionary.  A paragraph from his first pamphlet shows this plainly:

"In the present day," he wrote, "commerce is, , , like a beneficent medical discovery, [which] will serve to inoculate with the healthy and saving taste for civilisation all the nations of the world, Not a bale of merchandise leaves our shores, but it bears the seeds of intelligence and fruitful thought to some enlightened community; not a merchant visits our seats of manufacturing industry, but he returns to his own country the missionary of freedom, peace and good government…."

Cobden's vision included Manchester, England, and the entire world. He was confident that Manchester millowners, bankers, and professional people were creating a new way of life. This way of life would spread around the world because it would be a better way of life. It would be richer. It would be based on intelligence. It would bring international peace.  Cobden thus saw in the Industrial Revolution the promise of a just and good world order. This was the dream that moved him and, through him, the Anti-Corn: Law League.

The English aristocracy-the landed class-was for Cobden the major block to the fulfillment of his dream. Cobden admired the grace and cultivation to be found in much of aristocratic life. Once, on going to dinner at the London mansion of a great nobleman, he wrote to his brother: "I am afraid if I associate much with the aristocracy, they will spoil me. I am already half seduced by the fascinating ease of their parties." But Cobden never really let himself forget the aristocracy's great faults. The aristocracy stood in the way of peace because' it was traditionally associated with war and conquest.  It stood in the way of commerce and industry because it maintained the Corn Laws.  . It stood in the way of progress because it kept control of the government by limiting the right to vote. Cobden once described the aristocracy "bread-taxing oligarchy, unprincipled, unfeeling, rapacious and plundering."

A great deal of the League's success was due to Richard Cobden.  He was clearly a man of character and determination.  He once said that "if he were stripped naked, and turned into the lanes with only his experience for a capital, he would still make a large fortune." He once wrote to a brother in need of self-confidence: "I wish that I could impart to you a little of that...feeling that spurs me on with the conviction that all the obstacles to fortune. ...will yield if assailed with energy." In the House of Commons, to which he was elected in 1841, Cobden impressed even those who were hostile to his ideas. For example, Benjamin Disraeli said that:

he had never heard...facts marshalled with such vivid simplicity, and inferences so natural and spontaneous and irresistible, that they seemed. .borrowed from his audience. ...[Cobden] dealt with his opponents. .With much power of sarcasm, but his power was evidently rather repressed than allowed to run riot. ...He had the air of being too prudent to offend even an opponent unnecessarily. His language, though natural and easy, was choice and refined. He was evidently a man who had read, and not a little. ...

There were two other important leaders of the Anti- Corn Law League. One was John Bright. John Bright came from Rochdale, not far from Manchester. His family were Quakers. They had long been textile manu- facturers, first making woollen cloth, and later cotton.

Bright was Cobden's lieutenant. He played a particularly useful part at public meetings. Cobden was a first-class orator. But Bright was an inspired one. By design, he usually spoke last at League meetings. Persuasively and movingly he played upon his hearers until they were fired to active enthusiasm. He sent them forth, as it were, missionaries in the cause.

The other important leader was George Wilson. Wilson was a Manchester corn merchant. He was the League's administrative genius. He has been described as the most efficient chairman in England during his day. He had a gift for firmly and smoothly running committees or meetings. He also organized the League's office work and saw to the League's day-to-day operation. He was not a public figure like Cobden and Bright.  He was happiest working quietly behind the scenes.  Here he put his business instincts to political use.

The League's Organization

The League's capable leadership was matched by capable organization. There was nothing makeshift about the League as there was about Chartism. The League went about its political work with much the same efficiency that its leaders displayed in marketing cotton textiles. One historian has said that "the Anti-Corn Law League became the wealthiest, most intensive and most extensive political agitation ever seen up to this period."

As "a middle class set of agitators," to use Cobden's phrase, the League was clever in thinking up ways to spread its ideas. From the start the League employed a staff of paid lecturers who toured the country. It printed pamphlets and one-sheet bulletins, called broadsheets, by the ton. It published newspapers, first The League, and later The Economist. It rented the largest halls in Manchester and London to stage giant meetings. It took its message to women, an audience almost invariably forgotten, by organizing tea parties, bazaars, and exhibitions.

            These varied activities were all organized from the headquarters office in Manchester run by Wilson. As in any well-organized commercial firm, the office was divided into a number of clearly defined departments. A general department received, sorted, and distributed all correspondence. A publications department arranged for printing and distributing League literature. A cashier's department handled League finances. An electoral department worked out strategy for fighting elections. The headquarters office also kept in touch with a network of 12 local offices set up by Wilson in 1842. 

Wilson was aided in his work by the League Council. This body met daily for two or three hours. It consisted of about 20 dedicated Leaguers who lived in Manchester. Its job was to make general decisions and iron out problems. Today we take for granted such organizational machinery as the League set up. In the 1840's it was- like so much in Manchester-the wonder of the world.

It would be wrong, however, to believe that good organization alone accounted for the League's success. The League's spirit was even more important. This spirit was fervent and dedicated. It was almost religious. Indeed, Cobden consciously sought to use religious and moral feelings to promote the League's aims. For example, in 1841 the League held a meeting of over 600 clergy from all Christian churches. Cobden knew how vital such moral support could be. When the League was barely begun he wrote to his brother: "It appears to me that a moral and even a religious spirit may be infused into [the question of the Corn Laws], and if agitated in the same manner that the question of slavery has been it will be irresistible."

The Victory of Free Trade

With all its strengths the League soon made progress. In 1838 the Whigs were in power. They seemed inclined to reform a number of things, though not at first the Corn Laws. Gradually, however, a number of leaders among them began to express free-trade sympathies. By 1841 the Whigs proposed not to repeal the Corn Laws but to reduce greatly the amount of protection they afforded. To a large extent the election of that year was fought on this issue. The Tories defended the Corn Laws. In the election they defeated the Whigs.

        The League, however, was not disheartened. In but a short time, one party had already turned Corn-Law critic. Moreover the League hoped for change even from the Tories. The Tory leader was then Sir Robert Peel. Peel was, after all, the son of a Lancashire cotton manufacturer. In his political career he had also shown a knack for stealing the ideas of his opponents. So the League worked on patiently. Eventually Peel was to behave much as the League suspected he would. The very next year he showed himself to be growing critical of the Corn Laws. He then somewhat reduced the amount of protection they afforded. Cob den was disappointed that Peel did not go further. Nevertheless, with quiet optimism he wrote to a friend on the continent: "We have at the end of four years got a pretty strong hold of public opinion. ...There is no earthly doubt now of the ultimate triumph of our cause. It is merely a question of time."

        Victory came four years later in 1846. It was brought about in tragic circumstances. In the 19th century, England ruled Ireland. In 1845 the Irish potato crop failed. Potatoes were the food upon which the Irish chiefly, almost exclusively, depended. Irish people thus starved by the thousands. Even though the Irish could not afford to eat wheat at the best of times, it became impossible for the government to maintain a tax on any food. As we have seen, Peel had been coming round to free trade. The Irish calamity determined him. He did not repeal the Corn Laws directly. To save a fight in his party, he suspended them for three years. Everyone knew that the Corn Laws would never be brought back.

The League's cure for the ills of England thus won the, day. As of most cures, too much was expected of free trade. It did not end war. Nor did it abolish poverty. The condition of the working class did, however, improve. And the nation's income continued to grow greatly. Some of this would have happened even without free trade. It has therefore always been difficult to figure exactly how much free trade meant economically.  

There is no doubt however that politically and socially the victory of free trade was very significant. It marked a turning point in English history. It showed that the middle class could get what it wanted though opposed by the old ruling class. John Bright declared on the League's victory: "We have not seen the last of the Barons but we have taught them which way the world is turning."