Peter Mandler
- Published in print:
- 1990
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198217817
- eISBN:
- 9780191678288
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198217817.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
In England, the first government of the Age of Reform was not a Whig, nor even a Whig party government, but a coalition of Whigs, liberals, moderates, and liberal Tories, united only by their ...
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In England, the first government of the Age of Reform was not a Whig, nor even a Whig party government, but a coalition of Whigs, liberals, moderates, and liberal Tories, united only by their agreement on a measure of Parliamentary Reform. Their understanding of that Reform and their hopes for its consequences varied wildly. Even after Reform's enactment, the character of the new political era did not immediately become clear. Moderates wished to continue the line of rational reforms begun by Robert Peel and William Huskisson, and were pleased to find in the reform of the Poor Laws a project upon which they could combine with liberals. Foxite Whigs had other ideas, including the satisfaction of popular demands, such as a restriction upon the hours of factory labour, to which moderates and liberals were adamantly opposed. These were years of experimentation, in which Whigs and liberals could pursue different lines in parallel, and indeed in which those lines still often crossed, as liberals only gradually lost their enthusiasm for constitutional reform.Less
In England, the first government of the Age of Reform was not a Whig, nor even a Whig party government, but a coalition of Whigs, liberals, moderates, and liberal Tories, united only by their agreement on a measure of Parliamentary Reform. Their understanding of that Reform and their hopes for its consequences varied wildly. Even after Reform's enactment, the character of the new political era did not immediately become clear. Moderates wished to continue the line of rational reforms begun by Robert Peel and William Huskisson, and were pleased to find in the reform of the Poor Laws a project upon which they could combine with liberals. Foxite Whigs had other ideas, including the satisfaction of popular demands, such as a restriction upon the hours of factory labour, to which moderates and liberals were adamantly opposed. These were years of experimentation, in which Whigs and liberals could pursue different lines in parallel, and indeed in which those lines still often crossed, as liberals only gradually lost their enthusiasm for constitutional reform.
Katrina Navickas
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719097058
- eISBN:
- 9781526104144
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719097058.003.0013
- Subject:
- History, Social History
This short chapter examines the revival of radical and reform activity in the build up to the first Reform Act in 1832. The growth of political unions campaigning for universal suffrage and ...
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This short chapter examines the revival of radical and reform activity in the build up to the first Reform Act in 1832. The growth of political unions campaigning for universal suffrage and parliamentary reform was prominent in northern England, drawing strength and spread from the short time movement. Political unions were divided by class, however, and these divisions manifested themselves in contests over meeting sites, particularly in Manchester and Leeds. It concludes by asking whether a revolutionary situation could or did occur in northern England in comparison with the Midlands and southern England.Less
This short chapter examines the revival of radical and reform activity in the build up to the first Reform Act in 1832. The growth of political unions campaigning for universal suffrage and parliamentary reform was prominent in northern England, drawing strength and spread from the short time movement. Political unions were divided by class, however, and these divisions manifested themselves in contests over meeting sites, particularly in Manchester and Leeds. It concludes by asking whether a revolutionary situation could or did occur in northern England in comparison with the Midlands and southern England.
Kenneth R. Johnston
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199657803
- eISBN:
- 9780191771576
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199657803.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
The French Revolution and English Romanticism are frequent but strange bedfellows. The rise of Romanticism in the 1790s parallels the decline and defeat of the movement for parliamentary reform. The ...
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The French Revolution and English Romanticism are frequent but strange bedfellows. The rise of Romanticism in the 1790s parallels the decline and defeat of the movement for parliamentary reform. The reform movement of the 1790s rose and fell in four stages between 1790 and 1800. The reform movement was largely ignored as a subject for objective historical studies until the 20th century, overshadowed by the more dramatic events of the revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, reinforced by the horror with which they were regarded in 19th-century England. William Veitch, E. P. Thompson, Albert Goodwin, and H. T. Dickinson are its leading 20th-century students. The ‘usual’ suspects of the decade were political activists; ‘unusual’ suspects were sympathetic liberal fellow-travelers, imaginative writers or academic intellectuals. The former were tried and convicted in courts of law; the latter subjected to informal, vigilante, ‘hegemonic’ discipline: jobs lost, engagements broken, leases and contracts abrogated, etc. Gillray’s Smelling out a Rat cartoon (1790) is a good visual representation of hegemonic disciplining; Amelia Alderson Opie’s literary career is a representative example of its biographical effects.Less
The French Revolution and English Romanticism are frequent but strange bedfellows. The rise of Romanticism in the 1790s parallels the decline and defeat of the movement for parliamentary reform. The reform movement of the 1790s rose and fell in four stages between 1790 and 1800. The reform movement was largely ignored as a subject for objective historical studies until the 20th century, overshadowed by the more dramatic events of the revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, reinforced by the horror with which they were regarded in 19th-century England. William Veitch, E. P. Thompson, Albert Goodwin, and H. T. Dickinson are its leading 20th-century students. The ‘usual’ suspects of the decade were political activists; ‘unusual’ suspects were sympathetic liberal fellow-travelers, imaginative writers or academic intellectuals. The former were tried and convicted in courts of law; the latter subjected to informal, vigilante, ‘hegemonic’ discipline: jobs lost, engagements broken, leases and contracts abrogated, etc. Gillray’s Smelling out a Rat cartoon (1790) is a good visual representation of hegemonic disciplining; Amelia Alderson Opie’s literary career is a representative example of its biographical effects.
Kenneth R. Johnston
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199657803
- eISBN:
- 9780191771576
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199657803.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
The French Revolution was greeted with enthusiasm by young British writers and intellectuals like William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, following the lead of slightly older ‘public ...
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The French Revolution was greeted with enthusiasm by young British writers and intellectuals like William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, following the lead of slightly older ‘public intellectuals’ like Thomas Paine, Joseph Priestley, William Godwin, and John Thelwall. But as the revolution turned violent, British enthusiasm for it waned. Activists for the cause of British parliamentary reform, who had embraced the revolution’s symbolic potential, were badly caught out by the turn of events. The Reign of Terror (1793–4) sealed the revolution’s fate in British cultural memory, but it was anticipated by a ‘reign of Alarm’ in England, announced by King George III’s proclamation against seditious writings in May, 1792. Originally aimed at Paine, this official encouragement of spying and informing spread rapidly, resulting in the largest number of trials for sedition and treason in British history. Paralleling official legal actions against accused traitors were unofficial vigilante acts by private citizens and institutions against persons whose liberal expressions alarmed others. These are the ‘unusual suspects’ of this book. As in the McCarthyite witch-hunts in 1950s America, the victims of this unregulated ‘hegemonic’ blacklisting are found disproportionately in academic and cultural arenas. National religious and educational bodies purged liberals, and promising literary careers were nipped in the bud. The loss to British culture is immense, if inestimable. Traces of this Alarmist trauma can be found in the works of six Romantic writers who did not find it ‘bliss to be alive [and] heaven to be young’ then: Coleridge, Wordsworth, Southey, Lamb, Burns, and Blake.Less
The French Revolution was greeted with enthusiasm by young British writers and intellectuals like William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, following the lead of slightly older ‘public intellectuals’ like Thomas Paine, Joseph Priestley, William Godwin, and John Thelwall. But as the revolution turned violent, British enthusiasm for it waned. Activists for the cause of British parliamentary reform, who had embraced the revolution’s symbolic potential, were badly caught out by the turn of events. The Reign of Terror (1793–4) sealed the revolution’s fate in British cultural memory, but it was anticipated by a ‘reign of Alarm’ in England, announced by King George III’s proclamation against seditious writings in May, 1792. Originally aimed at Paine, this official encouragement of spying and informing spread rapidly, resulting in the largest number of trials for sedition and treason in British history. Paralleling official legal actions against accused traitors were unofficial vigilante acts by private citizens and institutions against persons whose liberal expressions alarmed others. These are the ‘unusual suspects’ of this book. As in the McCarthyite witch-hunts in 1950s America, the victims of this unregulated ‘hegemonic’ blacklisting are found disproportionately in academic and cultural arenas. National religious and educational bodies purged liberals, and promising literary careers were nipped in the bud. The loss to British culture is immense, if inestimable. Traces of this Alarmist trauma can be found in the works of six Romantic writers who did not find it ‘bliss to be alive [and] heaven to be young’ then: Coleridge, Wordsworth, Southey, Lamb, Burns, and Blake.
