A British Revolution in the 19th Century?

No violent political revolution has occurred in Britain since the civil wars of 1642-51. Yet in the 18^th, 19^th and 20^th centuries virtually every other state in Europe has experienced at least one forcible overthrow of government and its replacement by another, from the French Revolution of 1789 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. Britain's transformation was a major force for good. Its commercial and industrial revolutions offered the country's increasing population jobs and greater prosperity.

Political repression.But how exceptional was Britain? Did it avoid revolution by divine intervention, by good management and wise statesmanship - or simply by luck? Historians nowadays are far less likely to ascribe Britain's largely peaceful progress in the 19^th century to divine intervention. Some have argued that the threat of violent revolution was indeed real and that Britain escaped it, not by the hand of God but by the skin of its teeth.The French Revolution inspired reformers in Britain as much as it frightened the British Crown and landowning classes. It is worth remembering that the Hanoverian dynasty, which provided Britain with its monarchs from 1714 to 1901, was only rarely popular, and was frequently criticised for its lack of understanding of the British people.In that decade, a number of political movements emerged to press for parliamentary reform. Some, like the London Corresponding Society, were organised and directed by skilled craftsmen and depended on the support of working people. They embraced political objectives drawn directly from French examples. They wanted to replace royal and aristocratic rule with representative government based on the Rights of Man- the influential political pamphlet by Thomas Paine.

The government of William Pitt the Younger, already at war with revolutionary France, was thoroughly alarmed by the prospect that revolutionary ideas might be exported to Britain, and it responded to these ideas with political repression. From 1794, radical political leaders could be arrested without trial. In 1795, during a period of high food prices and severe public agitation, stones were thrown at the King's carriage as he went to Westminster to open a new session of parliament. In the fevered atmosphere of the time, such actions could easily be interpreted as portending revolution. Within weeks, a parliament dominated by fearful landowners had passed legislation that redefined the law of treason, and that made it almost impossible to hold public meetings in support of reform. Pitt's policies succeeded, at least on 1 level. Throughout the remainder of the wars with France, which went on until 1815, support for reform never again approached the heights of 1795. Support among all ranks in society for what was increasingly seen as a patriotic war also boosted the government. However, the most determined of the disaffected radicals were merely driven underground, and in the years 1796-1803 government spies found evidence of revolutionary conspiracy. Much of this evidence centred around Irishmen. Radicals in fact attempted revolution in Ireland in 1798, against British domination of their lands. Had the hoped-for substantial French support for the insurgents been forthcoming, the endeavour might have come much closer to success. In the event, the most important consequence was the creation of a new 'United Kingdom' of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801, to which substantial numbers of Irish folk were never reconciled.

Revolutionary activities.Against the lowering and portentous backdrop of revolution in France, the most important influence on the political lives of two generations of politicians from the younger Pitt (1759-1806) to Robert Peel (1788-1850), all threats of revolution were taken seriously. During periods of economic turbulence, such as 1815-20 and during the so-called Reform Act crisis of 1829-32, masses of people could appear on the streets in support of either democracy or republicanism. The most famous such occasion was in August 1819 when a large crowd assembled at St Peter's Fields in central Manchester to hear a pro-reform speech from Henry 'Orator' Hunt, the most gifted radical speaker of his day. Fearing uncontainable disorder, and perhaps even revolution, the Manchester authorities over-reacted. They sent in troops to disperse the crowd by force. Eleven people were killed and the radicals were given a huge propaganda boost by referring to the event as 'Peterloo', in a grim analogy with the Duke of Wellington's famous victory over Napoleon at Waterloo 4 years earlier. During the European revolutionary wars of the 1790s British government propaganda could - just about - confect George III as the symbol of the nation. His eldest son, George, however, first as Prince Regent from 1810 and then as George IV from 1820 to 1830, provoked more contempt than respect. The early 19^th-century monarchy was unable to inspire national unity. Indeed, it was part of the problem.

Victoria's empire.In 1882 Britain was in the later stages of acquiring the largest empire the world had ever seen. By the end of Victoria's reign, the British empire extended over about one-fifth of the earth's surface and almost a quarter of the world's population. It would be a gross exaggeration to claim, as many contemporaries did, that those living in a British colony felt privileged to be ruled by a people anxious to spread the virtues of an ordered, advanced and politically sophisticated Christian nation to those 'lesser breeds' previously 'without the law'. Britain's status as the financial capital of the world also secured investment inflows which preserved its immense prosperity.

Industrial Revolution.Victoria came to the throne during the early phase of the world's first industrial revolution. Industrialisation brought with it new markets, a consumer boom and greater prosperity for most of the propertied classes. It also brought rapid, and sometimes chaotic change as towns and cities expanded at a pace which precluded orderly growth. Life expectancy at birth - in the high 30s in 1837 - had crept up to 48 by 1901.Desperately poor housing conditions, long working hours, the ravages of infectious disease and premature death were the inevitable consequence. The Victorian town symbolised Britain's progress and world pre-eminence, but it also witnessed some of the most deprived people, and depraved habits, in the civilised world. Taming, and then improving, Britain's teeming cities presented a huge challenge. Mortality data revealed that, in the poorer quarters of Britain's larger cities, almost one child in five born alive in the 1830s and 1840s had died by the age of five. Polluted water and damp housing were the main causes. Death rates in Britain as a whole remained obstinately above 20 per thousand until the 1880s and only dropped to 17 by the end of Victoria's reign. One of the great scourges of the age - tuberculosis - remained unconquered, claiming between 60,000 and 70,000lives in each decade of Victoria's reign.

Politics.At the beginning of Victoria's reign, about a fifth of adult males were entitled to vote. That proportion increased, through parliamentary reform acts passed in 1867 and 1884, to one-third and two-thirds respectively. No women could legally vote in parliamentary elections until almost 18 years after Victoria's death - and the queen herself was no suffragist. Women did, however, play an increasingly influential role both in locally-elected school and poor law boards and in local government from the 1870s onwards.During the Victorian era, the United Kingdom could plausibly be considered the world's superpower. If not democratic, the political system was becoming increasingly representative. The struggle for political supremacy between William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli in the late 1860s and 1870s represents perhaps the most sophisticated political duel in the nation's history. On the home front, the nation was only beginning to get to grips with widespread poverty while considerably more than half the adult population remained without a vote. Victorian supremacy by 1901 was only skin deep.

Disraeli and Gladstone: Opposing Forces. Disraeli and Gladstone were both politicians of extraordinary ability - but their personalities clashed and they heartily loathed each other.

Mutual dislike.In the general election of 1 April 1880, the Conservative party under Benjamin Disraeli was crushingly defeated by the Liberals (known as Whigs) - under William Gladstone. There is no doubt that the two statesmen hated each other. They had been leaders of their respective parties since 1868, but were dominant figures long before that. They had very different social origins.

For the next 28 years, the Torys were to be the minority party, with occasional intervals in office. Disraeli's task was to rebuild the party that he had himself done so much to destroy. The task was not an easy one. Free trade had triumphed, and was the basis of a long economic boom, which only ended in the late 1870s. The Conservatives abandoned protection but unwillingly; they could not oust the Liberals, whom Gladstone eventually joined in 1859, and whom he fortified with a series of notable budgets. From 1846 to 1868 there were no serious issues of principle. Politics became a matter of the 'Ins' and 'Outs' but not the less bitter for that. Disraeli became prime minister in February 1868. The two leaders were now face to face. Their style of debate was as different as their personalities. Campaigning on the disestablishment of the Anglican Church in Ireland, Gladstone won the election called at the end of 1868, and proceeded on a strenuous programme of what would nowadays be called 'modernisation'. Entry into the army and civil service was reformed, the judicial system was overhauled, electoral procedure was rationalised and the secret ballot was introduced. In 1874 Disraeli won the first clear Conservative victory since Sir Robert Peel in 1841. He saw that the country had had enough constitutional reform. And his government passed a series of measures of social political improvement in the field of health, housing, sale of food and drugs, factory conditions and agricultural tenancies. What really mattered to Disraeli, however, was not home affairs but foreign and imperial policy. He was a strong supporter of empire and of English nationalism. This was a traditional Conservative mantra, but as long as Palmerston was leader of the Liberals it was hardly possible for the Conservatives to outbid them in terms of patriotic self-assertion. Palmerston's death left a vacancy.

The Chartist Movement 1838 – 1848.In the lead up to the events of 1848, the People's Charter was published - in May 1838 - as a draft parliamentary bill. It contained 6 points: manhood suffrage; the ballot; abolition of property qualifications for MPs; payment of MPs; equal electoral districts; and annual elections. Thousands of working people had rallied together on the basis of this charter, and hundreds of them had gone to prison for their beliefs. In 1848 the British establishment watched in horror as revolution swept across Europe. In London, Chartist leaders delivered a petition to Parliament asserting the rights of ordinary people. In the years 1839, 1842 and 1848, the Chartist Movement urged Parliament to adopt 3 great petitions. Of these, the best known is the final petition, with 6 million signatures (although a number of these were later found to be fake), presented to Parliament on 10th April 1848 after a huge meeting on Kennington Common. This event achieved great prominence in the story of Chartism, due largely to the reaction of the authorities as they faced the challenges of that turbulent year. Working people had proclaimed themselves as Chartists at crowded meetings throughout March 1848. The authorities had viewed this campaign with great concern, and some of the propertied classes had come to believe that the Chartists intended revolution, even though the Movement's leaders always emphasized their commitment to peaceful protest. Chartism was a national movement. Though it was particularly strong in the textile towns of Lancashire and Yorkshire, as well as in the east midlands.

Victorian Technology. Until the 1840s the success of British industrial expansion rested largely on cotton and, to a lesser extent, wool textiles and a proliferation of smaller scale consumer goods. The economy flourished when cotton boomed and exports were high. However, when markets became overstocked and confidence was shaken, the economy went into recession. This pattern of boom and slump continued throughout the 19th century. However, the success of the economy came to rest on much broader foundations by the 1840s with the expansion of railway networks first at home then abroad. Furthermore, there was growing demand from other industrialising nations and the range of British manufactures was extended, particularly in iron and steel sectors and in engineering. Risks were great and bankruptcy rates were high but start up costs in most sectors were relatively low. Capital and credit were easily available and many individuals and families became wealthy and successful. So superior in terms of competitiveness and pricing were most British manufactures of the mid 19th century, that the extension of free trade created a further positive dynamic. The Great Exhibition of 1851 marked the peak of British economic dominance.

Communication revolution.The spread of the railway in Victorian Britain was closely linked to the development of the electric telegraph. In 1837 Cooke and Wheatstone developed the electric telegraph which used an electric current to move magnetic needles and thus transmit messages in code. The first operational telegraph system linked Euston station and Camden town, and from there it spread all over the railway network, used both to carry messages and to control signalling. The technology of the telegraph rapidly expanded, making possible mass communication on both national and global scales. With instruments in every post office, the telegraph, and its visible offspring, the telegram, personal communication on a scale hitherto inconceivable became commonplace. A telegraph cable was laid across the Channel in 1851, followed by others across the Irish and North Seas.

Changes in thinking. The most important idea of the 19^th century was that everyone had the right to personal freedom, which was the basis of capitalism. It soom became very clear that the freedom of factory owners to do as they pleased had led to slavery and misery for the poor, not to happiness or freedom. By 1820 more and more people had begun to accept the idea that government must interfere to protect the poor and the weak. The result was a number of laws to improve working conditions. One of these, in 1833, limited the number of hours that women and children were allowed to work. Another law the same year abolished slavery throughout the British Empire.

Social and economic improvements. Between 1875 and 1914 the condition of the poor in most of Britain greatly improved as prices fell by 40 per cent and real wages doubled. Life at home was made more comfortable. Most homes now had gas both for heating and lighting. In 1870 and 1891 two Education Acts were passed. As a result of these, all children had to go to school up to the age of 13. England now started to build “redbrick” universities in the new industrial cities. These new universities were unlike Oxford and Cambridge, and taught more science and technology to feed Britain’s industries.

HISTORY

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 1053