This weeks lecture was looking at the economic revolutions of the time when Dickens and Cobbett were writing. So, to start, a historio-social summary.
England did well out of the French Revolution, despite the fact that the Napoleonic war was very expensive. The British public, in particular the aristocracy, were very interested in what was going on in France as they feared that it could spread to England and cause them great difficulties in controlling the discontented people. This worry was worsened by the creation of Income Tax in 1799 to pay for the war effort.
British naval power was absolute and when French trade was destroyed by blockades of their ports, Britain experienced an exports boom, supplying even the French army's clothing. While other European armies were occupied, Britain took the opportunity to expand its trading empire and creating a monopoly. The Transatlantic Trade Triangle was exeedingly profitable, with 1 million slaves transported in the 16th Century, 3 million in the next and 7 million in the next, before the Abolition of Slavery Act in 1833. This formed a part of the textiles trade which made up 60% of exports. As well as this great success, coal output doubled between 1750 and 1800 and Manchester's population grew from 17,000 in 1760 to 180,000 in 1830. This is a growth never before seen and led the city to be viewed as revolutionary, a city of the future. Marx and Engles thought it to be where a workers revolution is likely to break out because the discontent caused by overcrowding, long hours, gruelling work and low wages was growing with the population. In fact, it is often thought that the ideas that drove the Russian revolution were born here.
The cotton trade was key to the Industrial Revolution, using the raw material from slave plantations in the American South, and Lancashire to produce the finished article. It was mainly for export and inventions such as the gaslight meant longer hours and an even more efficient process.
However, the end of the war meant the end of the boom, there was widespread unemployment, so the Corn Laws were drawn up to protect farming by putting a tarrif on imported grain, making the price of bread shoot up and the working poor even poorer. As people were driven from the country side to find work, the conditions in towns and cities grew dire. People were living in slums, with the sewage of the rich, being pushed onto the poor because it had nowhere else to go, the infastructure could not keep up with the growing population, sanitation was terrible and diseases and illnesses such as cholera were rife. This all led to major discontent among the people.
The goverment responded with a policy of brutal repression of any form of dissent and strict penal penalties. Exportation of "criminals" to the colonies began. In 1819 in Manchester, the Peterloo Massacre of a group of 60,000 campaigning for parliamentary change against a corrupt and unrepresentative government that was dominated by the rich aristocracy, led to 11 deaths and showed the extent to which the government were afraid of dissent.
However, there were still many protests across the country, demanding that growing industrial towns should have the right to elect MPs. At the time, less than 2% of the population had the vote and there was a big problem with "rotten boroughs", for example Old Sarum which had 11 voters and 2 MPs. The reform Act of 1832, brought on by the pressure on the government, lead to a less corrupt and slightly more representative system. The repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 mean that bread became cheaper, however this was used to argue that wages could be lowered because workers could now survive on less. This was NOT the desired result.
Farming:
Enclosures had mean that the idea of the landholding peasantry was no more, and there was nothing to stop the non-industrial labour moving to industrial. Up until the 18th century, the population had been rising only slowly, staying at a steady 5 million between the end of the 17th century and the middle of the 18th. However, after 1770, it started to rise dramatically (an idea that Cobbett disputed). Around this time, the Swing riots occured. Rural labourers opposed to new technology, such as threshing machines, staged riots across the south in 1830. These people were known as "rural ludites" and were completely opposed to new technology and change, fearing that their traditional way of life was in jeapardy.
The Poor:
The poor were looked after by the Speenhanland System which was devised as a means to alleviate distress caused by high grain prices. It was means tested and a sort of top-up for wages, dependent on children, price of bread etc. It had an immediate impact on landowners who had to pay it and these problems led to the New Poor Law of 1834. This said that no able-bodied person could receive money or help, except in a workhouse. They developed these workhouses to be a deterrent to being poor, like a prison, it was sectioned into men, women and children, and they worked it out so that they were given only enough food to keep them alive from day to day, but an amount which would slowy kill them. This effectively criminalised the poor, as their only options were workhouse or deportation. It was influenced by Bentham's utilitarian ideas that people did what was pleasant and wouldn't do what was unpleasant, so if poverty was made as unpleasant as possible, people would not be poor. This created the idea of "stigmatising relief", making relief an"object of wholesome horror".
Ireland:
At this time, Ireland was wild, poverty stricken and desperate. There was much discontent, and seen as a dangerous back door for the French, especially as both countries were Catholic. Due to this threat, the Duke of Wellington passed the Catholic Emancipation in 1829; parliament was trying to bring the Irish under control. MPs were elected to sit in Westminster, including Daniel O'Connell in 1828, however, because this was before the Catholic Emancipation, he was debarred from taking his seat. He was a pacifist and saw the act of union as dangerous because Ireland was not properly represented; only the Protestant aristocracy could take a seat. He campaigned for a repeal and began a radical political movement, holding peaceful rallies and meetings such as the 1843 meeting in Tara which is estimated to draw 1 million people. He planned another at Clontarf where he wanted to get more than a million people, however an MP banned the meeting and sent troops and a cannon. O'Connell had to make a decision whether to hold the meeting and have hundreds of people die, or to give up. He backed down and this caused the idea of peaceful revolution in Ireland to be given up on completely.
The famine of 1845-1850, where more than a million died and two million emigrated on "coffin ships", was seen as very badly handled by Britain. It is reported that during this famine, food and livestock were actually exported to England, even though Ireland needed it most. Therefore, someone said that "The Almighty, indeed, sent the potato blight, but the English created the famine".
We then went on to talk about Cobbet and Dickens and their respective views, which i will be publishing as part of my seminar paper next week, as this post is already stupidly long!
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very good notes
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