Social Unrest and Popular Protest in England, 1780-1840 (New Studies in Economic and Social History)

124 Pages·2000·0.72 MB·English

by  John E. Archer

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SocialunrestandpopularprotestinEngland
1780–1840
NewStudiesinEconomicandSocialHistory
EditedfortheEconomicHistorySocietyby
MauriceKirby
LancasterUniversity
This series, specially commissioned by the Economic History Society,
providesaguidetothecurrentinterpretationsofthekeythemesofecon-
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evanceof the economic and social sciencesboth ina student’s choiceof
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Social unrest and popular
protest in England
1780–1840
PreparedfortheEconomicHistorySocietyby
JohnE.Archer
EdgeHillCollegeofHigherEducation,Ormskirk
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Contents
Preface pagevi
1 Introduction:historiography,sourcesandmethods 1
2 Agriculturalprotest 8
3 Foodriots 28
4 Industrialprotest 42
5 Politicalprotest 57
6 Policingprotest 75
7 Arevolutionarychallenge? 89
8 Conclusion 94
Bibliography 97
Index 109
v
Preface
Intheyearsbetween1780and1840Englandexperiencedconsider-
able change and tensions associated with the so-called Industrial
Revolution, urbanisation,population growth and a long-term war
with France that lasted for a generation. This book is concerned
bothwiththedisturbancesandprotestsgeneratedbythesechanges
and with the debates between social historians who have studied
this period. A number of parameters have been imposed on this
study: namely, the coverage is restricted to England, and it ends
whenChartismmakesitsappearanceinthelate1830s.
vi
1
Introduction:historiography, sources
and methods
Thestudyofpopularprotestandsocialunresthasburgeonedsince
the1960s.Beforethenonlyahandfulofhistorianshadshownany
inclinationeitherforrescuingthemassesashistoricalactorsintheir
ownright,orforallowingactsofprotestanyhistoricalsigniWcance
or importance. ‘High politics’ with the mob playing a subsidiary
walk-on role had, until then, dominated historical writing. There
were exceptions, such as the Hammonds (1920), Darvall (1936)
and Wearmouth (1945). Their work, however, failed to establish
the sub-genre of social history which the study of protest was to
become. The belief that protest in the form of riots and social
movementshasmuchtotellusofsociety,particularlyofthemasses
who normally left little historical record, was championed by a
triumvirateofBritishmarxistsocialhistorians:GeorgeRude´,E.P.
Thompson and Eric Hobsbawm. Possessing the same motivation
for writing ‘history from below’ and rescuing, in the now-famous
phraseofThompson,‘thepoorstockinger,theLudditecropper,the
‘‘obsolete’’hand-loomweaver,the‘‘utopian’’artisan,andeventhe
deludedfollower of Joanna Southcott, from the enormous conde-
scensionof posterity’ (1968: 13), these three historians madedis-
tinctivebutcomplementarycontributionstoour understandingof
popularprotest.Intheprocesstheygeneratedacontinuinginterest
fromanewgenerationofresearchersandscholars.
Rude´ hasbeencreditedwithidentifyingthe‘facesinthecrowd’,
ashasHobsbawmforthephraseandtheconceptof‘bargainingby
riot’,whilstThompsonis rememberedbothforhis‘makingofthe
working class’ thesis and for the inXuential ‘moral economy’ con-
cept, which was originally attached to food rioting but has since
been developed and deployed in the interpretation of many other
1
2 SocialunrestandpopularprotestinEngland
protest gatherings. What these three, and subsequent historians,
have been doing is trying to answer what appear to be simple
questions: namely the ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘when’, ‘where’, ‘why’ and
‘how’ofprotest.Suchquestionshaveproducedanswerswhichhave
led both to serious academic debate and disagreement, and to
complexandsophisticatedanalysisandmethodology.Consequent-
ly,historiansnowspecialiseinincreasinglynarrowWeldsofprotest
study. The one major exception is John Stevenson, whose work
Popular Disturbances in England 1700–1832 (1992) provides the
fullestsynthesisofprotestinallitsforms.
ThequestionthatprimarilyinterestedRude´ waswhoformedthe
mob. In fact, he suggested that the very terminology of ‘mob’,
‘rabble’, ‘swinish multitude’ (1964: 7–8) required greater critical
examination because these descriptions were so resonant of con-
temporaryeliteprejudicesandvalues.Thenegativeconnotationsof
mindless,uglyandanarchicviolence,whichmanycontemporaries
associated with the ‘mob’, seemed inappropriate following closer
historicalresearchofriotouseventssuchasthe1780GordonRiots.
Rude´’spre-industrialurbancrowdwas,hefound,composednotof
the unemployed or the criminal sub-stratum, but of wage earners
withrationalbeliefsandvaluesystemswhowereinfactdisciplined
in their actions, in so far as they directed their anger at speciWc
targets,andusuallyatpropertyratherthanpeople.Moreover,they
were often attempting to re-establish the status quo, not to chal-
lengeit.Thompson,withhissophisticated‘moraleconomy’thesis,
reinforcedandaddedtothisinterpretationoftherationalcrowdby
highlightingtheideologywhichmotivatedandactivatedprotesters
and which, by implication, accepted Hobsbawm’s notion of the
crowdbargainingwiththeauthorities.
The crowd, or a collective gathering which riots or protests, is
largely seen as the typical example of popular protest during this
period.RecentlyTillyhasusedtheterm‘contentiousgathering’to
describemuchthesamesortofphenomenon.Thehijackingofthe
word‘crowd’asamethodologicaldescriptorofaprotestgrouphas
come under heavy criticism from Holton (1978) and Harrison
(1988). The former argued that Rude´ had failed to be exact or
systematic enough in deWning or conceptualising the notion of a
crowdandthatlabourandsocialhistorianstoonarrowlyregarded
crowds solely as protestingcrowds. In a similar vein Harrison has