May 2021
Newsletter The Early History of the Nottingham Female Cigar Makers Union ‘The world is my country; mankind is my brethren and to do good is my religion’ Words spoken by Annie Briant reported in the Boston Guardian on the fifth of November 1892 addressing the women’s workers at Boston Thorns Cigar Factory, on the issues of sweated labour, fining and injustice. Briant, founder and secretary of the Nottingham Society of Female Cigar Makers, had herself been dismissed from Thorns for insubordination. Born in Boston, Lincolnshire in 1858, she had been apprenticed to the firm as a young girl. Sacked from her post, by the age of 21 Briant had left Boston for Nottingham, where she settled, married, and had three children. The family lived at 10 Morley Terrace, Carrington. Briant and her husband were both employed as cigar makers at the firm of Robinson and Barnsdale, on the corner of Newdigate and Russell street, Nottingham. Established in 1877, the factory employed two hundred and fifty workers, two thirds of them women and young girls. In 1882 the owners opened a new outlet in rooms leased at the Guildhall, Grantham, Lincs. By the mid 19th century cigar making was widely established in England. The factories had few industrial overheads, the exception being shipping and storage of the raw tobacco. From the 1850s onwards the factories employed women in increasing numbers, establishing cigar making as a female job, especially those manufactured for mass consumption. A commonly held assumption was that women were employed for their dexterity; however, it is more likely they were paid less thus maximising profits. The making process relied on a series of stages with some of the work considered as unskilled, for example grading the tobacco leaves and sorting, referred to as stripping. The process of moistening the cigar and creating the mixture was viewed as skilled labour undertaken by men. The actual creation of the cigar, or rolling was classified as skilled labour and was largely the role of women workers, who had completed a five -year apprenticeship, commencing at the age of fourteen or fifteen. The final stage of packing and boxing was supplied by unskilled workers. Mechanisation of the process started to be introduced gradually in the first decades of the 20th century. There were several cigar manufacturers in Nottingham, the most well-known being the firm of Players, formed in 1887 which became a PLC in 1895. It joined thirteen other British tobacco and cigarette companies in 1901, including WD and HO Wills of Bristol to create Imperial Tobacco in response to competitive threats from America. Other local cigar makers
included the Alton Cigar Factory, started in 1862 and, from 1897, based in a former lace factory on Derby road, near to Canning Circus and employing over a hundred women. The firm of R.I. and F.E. Dexter was established in 1871 with one man and twenty- nine girls and T. Riley and Sons Ltd, was established in 1869 and employed a workforce of one hundred and fifty by 1889. The Nottingham Society of Female Cigar Workers, registered as a female protective union, was forged by a strike of female cigar workers at the local firm of Robinson and Barnsdale in 1887. The strike by approximately two hundred women and led by Annie Briant, was a consequence of the employer’s attempt to impose a heavy reduction in wages. Cigar makers’ wages were negotiated based on the number individual workers produced, a piece rate per hundred cigars. In 1887 Robinson and Barnsdale were seeking a reduction to sixpence per hundred, arguing that trade was slack owing to foreign competition. The women’s resistance proved successful and the union survived another attempt to cut wages in 1889. Few records exist of the strikes or the formation of the union. William Morris’s paper ‘Commonweal’ referenced the struggle of Nottingham’s female cigar workers in 1888, while the social reformer and Fabian, Beatrice Webb, collecting evidence on British trade unionism in the early 1890s, related that the female cigar workers society had acted collectively and ‘only one small shop which has been lost during a strike was outside the union – and the women quickly blacked’. She added that the union was the only one in England entirely controlled and governed by working women. By 1889 the society had a membership of 1,200 women and branches in five towns, Nottingham, Leicester, Huddersfield, Grantham, and Boston, Lincs (Drake, 1920, p: 38). In 1891, the Nottingham Society of Female Cigar Makers was admitted to the Nottingham Trades Council and Briant became the first woman representative to that body. She was selected as their delegate to the Trades Union Congress, attending the Newcastle congress in 1891. Briant, noted for her public speaking and opposition to sweating in female trades, spoke at the National Union of Women Workers inaugural conference held in Nottingham in 1895 and at other meetings across the country. In 1904 the female cigar workers employed by Players, Nottingham, by then part of Imperial Tobacco, ceased work in support of a national dispute between the London based Cigar Makers Union and the Imperial Tobacco company. The local press reported that seventy young women were involved and remained on strike from early July 1904 to 23rd September 1904, to in their words, ‘stand by the Metropolitan Workers’ (Nottingham Journal 23/07/1904). The principle involved was whether a cigar maker ‘shall be required to make over cigars badly made’. The issue, according to the women was the reduction in pay if cigars were returned. Their earnings in 1904 were only £1 per week, returned cigars reduced the pay to 12 shillings. The union perspective was that the employers had used the pretext of indifferently made cigars as an excuse to fight the larger question of trade union organisation amongst employees and ‘slack trade’. The strikers were supported by the Society of Female Cigar Makers who paid the women strike pay of eight shillings per week for the duration of the strike. In 1905 Robinson and Barnsdale, where Briant was employed, was sold to the firm of Cope, tobacco manufactures, Liverpool. By 1909 an increase in tobacco duty resulted in lay-offs in the cigar trade and most of the independent cigar factories in the East Midlands had either closed temporarily or were operating short time working. In Nottingham, the impact of female unemployment was exacerbated by the depression in the lace trade. Annie Briant was in her fifties, widowed and in poor health. At some stage Briant stepped down and the secretaryship of the Female Cigar Makers Society passed to Keziah Atkin, (Born in Carlton, Notts in 1863) a cigar maker, whose place of work is not known. The cigar trade picked up again in 1911 with smaller numbers of women and girls employed in the city’s factories. Messrs Dexter & Co relocated their Nottingham based operation to a large factory on Hankin Street, Hucknall. The firm recruited many new employees including young inexperienced girls. Referred to as juveniles, union rules, dating from its formation, excluded them from joining the female cigar makers society, until the age of 21. In March 1911, the society held a large meeting in Hucknall to build the membership and address the issue of age. The matter was not resolved nor did the union officials succeed in signing up all the female cigar workers. Both issues were to become divisive during the war years 1914-1918. In June 1915, the Nottingham and
Leicester branches of the Society of Female Cigar Makers lodged a claim for an increase of 10% on their wages, as a war bonus and to meet the higher living costs, citing the higher levels of productivity arising from contracts to supply the British Army. When the demands were refused a strike was called. Demands were swiftly met by the Nottingham and Leicester cigar making companies, the exception was Dexter’s in Hucknall, who refused to pay the bonus. From June 1915 to October 1915, a duration of twenty- two weeks, one hundred women maintained their strike surviving on union pay of 8 shillings per week. This strike divided the workforce, non-unionised female cigar workers remained in work and were offered either two weeks’ wages or a 5% war bonus in August 1915. With limited involvement from the wider trade union movement the strike received little publicity throughout the summer months. By September 1915, the number of women on strike had dwindled to fifty -nine. In October 1915, unable to ignore the strike any longer, Arthur Hayday, President of Nottingham Trades Council called a public meeting at the Hucknall Co-operative Hall to ask for other industrial workers to assist the cigar makers. When the firm finally agreed to pay the 10% bonus the women returned to work in mid-October 1915. Hayday acknowledged the women as ‘the most loyal female industrial warriors, who had struggled sturdily and silently’.1 In 1917 the same women joined ranks with the Nottingham women cigar makers, three hundred in total, in a two -week strike in sympathy with an ‘agitation’ for an increase in wages by the female cigar workers in Leicester and Huddersfield. In 1918 the society succeeded in abolishing the lower piece rate for women, placing the wages on a par with male cigar workers. In 1919 all tobacco stripper and other unskilled workers were guaranteed a statutory minimum wage of £1.10 shillings for a 48 hour week. During the period 1887 to 1918, when the society amalgamated with the National Union of Cigar Workers and three mutual societies to form the National Cigar and Tobacco Workers Union, the society had been at the forefront of action taken by women cigar workers to protect their jobs, wages and working conditions. This was a time frame during which trade unions grew at a faster rate than at any other time in their history. New Unionism attributed to the successes of the women match workers strike at the Bryant and May factory in 1888 and then the Gas workers and Dockers’ strikes of 1889, culminated in strikes of rankand-file workers during the war years. The female cigar makers, well organised, tenacious, and decisive when it came to taking action, defended not just their own workplace but responded in solidarity during national trade disputes. The individual stories of their leaders, Annie Briant and Keziah Atkin are little known, nor are the names of the woman who participated in the Dexter’s strike of 1915. This article is an extract from a study being undertaken on the history of the Tobacco Workers Union and part of a wider project to uncover the hidden stories of women trade unionists in Nottingham and its county. Val Wood
The 1905 Derby Vaccination Crisis Edward Jenner pioneered the use of vaccination against smallpox in 1796. He used cowpox to produce a mild illness that gave virtual immunity to the killer scourge of smallpox. He was widely praised although there was an ignorant prejudice amongst a few that vaccination might cause people to grow horns. More seriously there was a risk of encephalitis. Many of the wealthy were vaccinated by their doctors but the poor were often treated by quacks or the totally unskilled. The 1840 Vaccination Act offered free vaccination for the poor through the New Poor Law Unions. This was organised by the Board of Guardians of the relevant workhouse. The intention of vaccinating the poor by competent vaccinators might have been benevolent but the effect on numbers was not spectacular. The working class was opposed to the New Poor Law and its workhouses termed “Bastilles”. The mixture of the workhouse and medical practitioners was toxic. The Anatomy Act of 1832 was brought in at the same time as the New Poor Law was first being proposed and these two hated pieces of legislation were often attacked as being connected by the radical papers. The Anatomy Act intended to expand the number of bodies for dissection by medical students. Originally the bodies of hanged criminals were the sole legitimate source for anatomists. Disreputable body snatchers or “resurrection men” supplied illegal bodies to very reputable teaching hospitals. The supply was still insufficient. The Anatomy Act allowed unclaimed bodies of paupers to be dissected. Poor working people had the dual fear of a horrific life in the workhouse and a death followed by dismemberment.1 Since the 1840 Act was not delivering sufficient numbers of vaccinations by voluntary means, the 1853 Act used compulsion. All children had to be vaccinated within their first three months. Parents who defaulted were fined, and if they did not possess the means to pay then their goods were distrained. If that did not do the trick, then imprisonment followed. The 1871 Act reaffirmed compulsion. Compulsion produced a reaction. It united those who were totally opposed to vaccination with a large working class constituency that opposed State authoritarianism. In Leicester in 1885 there were some 5,000 intended prosecutions of parents who refused to have their children vaccinated. The Leicester Anti-Vaccination Protest was then organised as a national event by the National Anti-Vaccination League and around eighty to one hundred thousand turned up.2 It was the growth of this resistance that produced the 1898 Act which allowed conscientious objectors to gain exemptions, but magistrates in some areas were loath to acknowledge conscientious objection. Labour movement bodies were mixed in their initial responses to the Acts. The London branch of the First International in its journal International Herald carried a series of anti-vaccination articles. The William Morris Socialist League paper Commonweal abstained from the issue entirely and never carried any coverage of the issue. The SDF lined up wholeheartedly against the anti-vaccinators. Hyndman was especially outspoken in a rant of scatter gun vitriol: “I do not want the movement to be a depository of odd cranks, humanitarians, vegetarians, anti-vivisectionists and anti-vaccinationists, artycrafties and all the rest of them.” This ignored the issue of State compulsion and concentrated on the wing of the Anti-Vaccination League that specialised in quack remedies such as the utility of hydrotherapy in curing smallpox.3 The trade union-oriented paper The Bee Hive carried a series of articles against compulsion but with arguments for and against vaccination itself including the extraordinary comment “the more vaccination, the more small pox”.4 In 1905 Derby became the centre of opposition to compulsory vaccination. The two Borough MPs were Alderman Sir Thomas Roe a Liberal and Mr R. Bell, sometimes described as Liberal and on other occasions as Lib-Lab. Derby was heavily influenced by the Liberal Party as it was also powerful on the Town Council and the Watch Committee. In consequence compulsion was not used locally. It was twenty years since 1
Ruth Richardson Death, Dissection and the Destitute, London 1988 pp. 240-242,270-274 Christopher Charlton, The Fight against Vaccination: the Leicester Demonstration of 1885, (http://www.localpopulationstudies.org.uk 3 Nadja Durbach Bodily Matters London 2005 pp 30-34, 93-95 4 The Bee Hive 1 August 1874,15 August 1874, 14 November 1874, 21 November 1874 2
warrants had been issued against defaulters and their goods distrained.1 This angered the Conservative Home Secretary Mr Akers-Douglas who decided that Derby must bend the knee. This confrontation had a strong element of rival party politics involved from the start. The Home Secretary insisted that Mr. Payne, the Vaccination Officer of the Derby Board of Guardians, issue warrants against those parents who refused to have their children vaccinated. The Board of Guardians wrote to Mr Payne requesting him to discontinue legal proceeding under the Vaccination Act but merely received a curt acknowledgement. 2 Payne continued to operate under the instructions of the Home Secretary. A meeting in the Market Square was held to protest against the threatened imprisonments under the Vaccination Laws. Cllr J Smith chaired and said that the Board of Guardians could not be blamed since they had no control over the vaccination officer. Derby had been specially marked out. Cllr Potter said that between 1890 and 1895, 6,181 children were vaccinated and there were 164 cases of small-pox. From 1896 to 1902, 3,834 were vaccinated but there were only 13 cases of small-pox. There was also an atypical denunciation of vaccination itself: “The less vaccination there was, the less small-pox there was too. (Hear, hear.)” The feeling in the town was so high that local auctioneers would not sell distrained goods.3 In the Commons Sir Thomas Roe asked the Conservative Home Secretary Mr Akers-Douglas why the Derby police were enforcing Magistrates orders in vaccination cases. This was not happening in other large towns. Akers-Douglas said that he “was glad to learn that an effort is now to be made to carry out the law … I know of no other large town where the police have so entirely failed to enforce the order of the justices as they have in Derby.”4 Liberal Derby was being forced to bend the knee, but an election would be held later that year and the Liberals were to win. In October the Derby Court heard warrants of commitment against 35 defaulters under the Vaccination Acts. The verdict was for 7 days imprisonment. The magistrate Mr Wilson said: “May I ask why these 35 working men did not apply under the conscientious clause? ... Not a single conscientious objector has ever been … refused in this court.” Mr Feltrup of the Anti-Vaccination League replied, “They did not feel inclined to do so. There is no compulsion to say that they shall apply.” The campaign against the Acts was determined to have martyrs. The Bench regretfully committed the men to prison for a week.5 Eventually 27 of these working men chose imprisonment rather than have their children vaccinated. The Board of Guardians and the Town Council were against compulsory vaccination but the Home Secretary had ordered the Watch Committee to carry out the law. There were estimated to be 20,000 children in Derby not vaccinated and the Vaccination Officer had not issued warrants against middle class defaulters which further caused bad feeling. The 27 men processed from the Market Place to the prison. Their route was lined by 20,000 to 30,000 supporters “to show their sympathy with the 27 brave fellows who preferred the hardships of imprisonment to surrender of parental rights.” Both borough members, Sir Thomas Roe and Mr R. Bell, condemned the compulsory aspects of the Act as had Mr H. Raphael the Liberal candidate for South Derbyshire.6 The imprisoned came out to a heroes’ welcome in the Gospel Hall. The men and their wives were placed on the platform. Cllr John Smith president of the Derby Anti-vaccination League chaired the meeting supported by the MPs Sir Thomas Roe and Richard Bell. Cllr Smith said that 30,000 had demonstrated 1
Derby Advertiser and Journal 15 September 1905 DAJ 20 January 1905 3 DAJ 17 February 1905 4 DAJ 11 August 1905 5 DAJ 20 October 1905 6 Belper News and Derbyshire Telephone 1 December 1905 2
their support. There were a further 270 men prepared to go to gaol. A resolution of support for the 27 was passed and Alderman Sir Thomas Roe MP supported it. He said: “it was an awkward position for him … as chairman of the Watch Committee … and to take part in a protest meeting against proceedings which had really been instituted by that committee. The Watch Committee, however, had done all in their power to induce the Government to forego the steps which the committee were eventually compelled to take …” He was in sympathy with the men and opposed to compulsory vaccination but a change of Government would come. Cllr Bell had an eye to bread and butter issues and said that the cost of vaccination was increasing year by year and soon there would have to be an increase in the rates. There were cries of “Shame” presumably against the threat to the rate caused by free vaccinations. A resolution was passed calling on the Liberal Party to repeal the coercion in the Vaccination Acts.1 The following year the unhappy Vaccination Officer Mr. Payne lost his job. In October 1906 the Board of Guardians appointed a new Vaccination Officer, a Mr Pegg, on condition that he carried out no prosecutions of defaulters without first obtaining the consent of the Board. This was a step too far since it contravened the Acts. The National Local Government Board “refused to sanction the appointment on the grounds that it was invalid, as the person appointed must carry out prosecutions in accordance with the orders issued.” Mr Pegg was then reappointed in accordance with the Acts but with a clear understanding of the opinion of his immediate employers.2 The imprisonment of the 27 was not repeated and the 1907 Act included generous conscience clauses so that vaccination became, in effect, voluntary. It was not until the National Health Service Act of 1946, implemented in 1948, that these Acts were repealed. 3 Julian Atkinson
1
Derby Daily Telegraph 28 November 1905 DAJ 9 November 1906 3 British Medical Journal 18 December 1948 2
The Lace-Runners’ Turn-out of 1840 An early, if not the first, attempt to organise outworkers in the machine-made lace industry took place in 1840 when ‘lace runners’ held a ‘turn-out’ or strike in Nottingham. Outworkers made up between 60 and 65% of the workforce1 in the machine-lace industry and among these the runner or embroiderer, “though the most skilful, was the hardest worked and the worst paid of all the operatives connected to the lace trade.” 2 Mainly young and married women, they worked l6 or more hours a day, in homes and workshops with poor light, causing serious health problems and early sight loss. At the end of 1840 the lace-runners had had enough. A large meeting took place at the Chartist Chapel on Riste Place, off Barker Gate, on Monday 30 th November, attended by “about 600 grown-up females” (with one man attending who was the ‘renter’ of the Chapel). “A most singular turn-out has taken place in this district of the females employed in the running or ornamenting of lace by hand … They have now been upon strike several weeks, and have entered and enrolled their names in an association, not against the master manufacturers, but against the ‘second’ and ‘third-hand mistresses’ who take work as agents from the warehouses, of whom they loudly and most vehemently complain, that they have abridged them in the price of labour, in many instances keeping one half for their agency.” 3 The article continued by reflecting that the “pecuniary situations of this useful description of persons is somewhat startling”, reporting that “the usual earnings of able young women in this branch of manufacture, is from two shillings to half a crown per week” and noted that even this was partly paid “in truck, the mistresses having a profit in selling them bread.” Their demands were clear; “The avowed object of this “turn-out” of the ‘ladies’ (as their Chairwoman terms them) is that they are determined, as their oratress Mrs Weatherbed declares, “to work no more unless the runner mistresses, will be content to reserve only a penny in the shilling for their trouble in going backwards and forwards to the warehouses, and that they are determined not to put a single needle in any lace piece unless the manufacturer will mark at the end the price at which it is given out to work.” (ibid) The strikers outlined a series of measures to gain support for their action: “…. they are determined (such was her expression) to send deputations to Loughborough, Leicester, Mansfield, Chesterfield and all the villages round to induce the runners not to work any more until the above conditions are complied with.” … they raised funds, the names of several hundred, of the ‘600 grown-up females’ present, being called out by the Secretary, “each having paid one halfpenny as a subscription to the Association and another halfpenny for the use of the chapel”. ... “Mrs Weatherbed informed them that they had been so successful in collecting money at the different factories and workshops in the town that they had given the preceding week to all the turnouts the sum of three shillings and a penny each.” This was received by those present with astonishment (“numerous voices exclaimed: it is better than any of us can earn”, this was succeeded by a scream of delight and a clapping of hands”). ….“A female stated that in visiting the factories they had been advised to show themselves in the Market Place and from there to New Radford in such order, ‘as Mrs Weatherbed said’, that they ‘consider themselves as being at a new school.’ This was accordingly carried out ‘with the effect on Tuesday morning, as about 600 females walked in promenade down Pelham Street along the Market Place to New Radford.” The report was also much taken by the marchers. Like those at the Monday
1 p.7 Fabrice Bensimon ‘Women and Children in the Machine-Made Lace Industry in Britain and France ( 1810-60) 2 Factory Commissioner quoted in P 211 Ivy Pinchbeck “Women Workers and the Industrial Revolution 1750 -1850” London 1930) 3 Nottingham Journal 4th December 1840 p.2
meeting, they were “much admired for their clean and demure appearance and their orderly deportment, and a generous sympathy was felt for them...” (ibid) An address was also issued by the lace-runners to the manufacturers engaged in the embroidery of bobbin net lace. It was diplomatically expressed (“It is well known to you that for many years past the wages of those persons denominated lace-runners have been on the decline, perhaps from causes over which the manufacturers have no control.”) and referred to a past in which no misery existed due to ‘wise regulation as to the manner of giving out work’. But while they blame the mistresses who “do not give to their hands more than half the original price”, they describe how the system is open to further abuse by “third-hand mistresses”, they are clear that the manufacturers give them nearly all the work and it is they who fail to “fix the price which shall be paid for such work”. “The system permitting one or two females to retail out the lace to be embroidered is bad and we trust the manufacturers of this neighbourhood will abolish it immediately or at least fix the price which shall be paid for such work. It is disreputable to the manufacturers, and we hope they will do away with the system altogether.” 1 Another appeal to the manufacturers was made further pressing for their action, again with ‘due deference’: “Comment is useless; we appeal to your humanity; we most respectfully solicit you to assist us in putting an end to this state of things. We are willing (and we think it reasonable) to allow the mistresses a penny in the shilling from our earnings, for the trouble they may take in going with our work to the warehouses.” 2 The Lace-Runners seemed clear that the role of the mistresses was part of the organisation of the industry set up by the manufacturers and it was they who would need to take steps to address it. Another circular was drawn up from the Committee, named as Mary Smith, Hannah Whitehead, Mary Chapman, Ann Davis and Sarah Hargreave (Secretary). Addressed to Lace-Runners it urged support for the following Monday’s turn-out. (ibid) The language is more straight-talking in this appeal to “Sisters”: “ Are you thus to be robbed of your hard earned pittance to maintain these cormorants of idleness, and many of their husbands in drunkenness and profligacy; no wonder that misery enters our dwellings – and that we are in the depth of poverty, that our children are crying for bread, while there is a swarm of locusts hovering between us and the manufacturers, ready to devour one-half of our hire, it is not enough that we have to compete with machines which, in many cases, supersede needlework; but are also robbed in the manner described above; is this state of things to exist? Remember the Scriptures saith, ‘they that won’t work, neither shall they eat’. Lace-runners of Nottingham, be determined, that this message of scripture shall be verified, as far as you are concerned.” The call was extended to the “male portion of society” to assist them. With support from a reported 600, a successful march, donations from supporters in the factories, positive press coverage and good organisation, a promising start had been made to their campaign. 3 However, over the following week problems had emerged. It was reported on 11 th December that: “The female turn-out of the lace-runners still continues but with a sad reverse of income”. It was found that instead of the initially claimed £10 15s 9d the amount was £8 15s 9d. This was received badly by the runners who accused the collectors of ‘unfair play’ and ‘taking more care of themselves than the public’. Once divided between the strikers the sum was only ‘seven pence each’. The Journal worked out that this meant that now 300 was the actual number who were on strike, though ‘(n)otwithstanding this small pittance they yet seemed determined and have, with a tact and perseverance not expected from the female character, resolutely introduced various references and checks on the collection and distribution of their money.’ Any hope of a quick resolution was disappearing. The second and third mistresses had not given way, “no doubt in hope that the calls of hunger will eventually ensure the turn-outs to succumb.” Several of the manufacturers had now ‘marked their pieces as to the price given’ (with The Nottingham Journal excitedly claimed these few as ‘REAL GENTLEMEN’ and ‘blessed in their generation’) but most manufacturers had taken no action. 4
1 Nottingham Review 4th December 1840 p.4 2 In papers related to the turn-out quoted in the Children’s Employment Commission 1843, quoted in I. Pinchbeck ( 1930) 3 Evidence to Children’s Employment Commission 1843 quoted in “Women in the Trade Union Movement” Trades Union Congress 1955 4 Nottingham Journal 11th December 1840
The Nottingham Review confirmed this, printing a handbill issued by the lace mistresses in which they “disavowed any knowledge of the complaints made by the lace-runners.” 1 Over the following two weeks support for the strike continued to crumble as the lace-runners faced hunger, pressure from families as well as from mistresses who employed them and the failure of any more manufacturers to change their system of distribution from the warehouses. A further meeting at the Riste Place Chapel took place on Monday 21st December. Though the stated purpose was “forming an association”, “owing to an accidental circumstance (it) was but slenderly attended.” 2 The turn-out was over. Reasons for the defeat The lace-runners already lived on the edge of hunger and destitution. In 1840 the wages of those in the machine-lace industry were desperately low. To have stopped work for several weeks was beyond the means of most workers at this time, having no savings while their supporters were themselves hard pressed, even more due to the general depression in trade in 1840/41. 3 The mistresses would not sacrifice their own income but, more importantly, the manufacturers, (other than those few “Real Gentlemen”), would not fix the price of work leaving the warehouse. It was to their advantage, and greater profit, to delay determining the price to be paid and this was to remain the practice into the next century. 4 Unanswered questions remain for further research: What role did the Chartists play in the strike? Was Chartist support affected by the downturn in activity following the defeat of the Newport Rising and the strikes of 1839? The Turn-out was well organised and did not appear to fail because of poor leadership. Had the leaders gained experience from earlier attempts to set up trade unions in the lace factories, through Chartist campaigning or as activists in the Nottingham Female Political Union?
1 Nottingham Review 11th December 1840 2 Nottingham Review December 25th 1840 3 Nottingham Guardian 25th December 1840 reported on an increase of unemployed lace and hosiery workers in Calais searching for work but finding none. 4 In 1811 the National Federation campaigned on this issue ( p.58 Cathy Hunt “The National Federation of Women Workers” 2014 ) as did the Homeworkers League in the 1920s (Warwick University Archives Digitalisd Collections)
The Selston Enclosure Riots The village of Selston in Nottinghamshire grew rapidly in the nineteenth century. From a population of 833 it had grown to over 2,000 in 1851 and thirty years later had nearly reached 5,000. Employment included coal mining, quarrying and framework knitting as well as traditional agricultural work. The common land, mainly around Selston but with smaller sections in Bagthorpe, Codnor Park and Jacksdale, was enclosed by the 1865 Selston Enclosure Act.1 This was the last such Act in Nottinghamshire. Common land was privately owned but some locals had Commoners’ Rights and were able to pick up wood and graze their animals. Other locals, termed cottagers, merely had the right of access, but this allowed them a cherished right to sports and recreation.2 The main landowner was Francis Thomas de Grey Cowper the 7th Earl Cowper who was deputy Lord Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire. He was also one of the richest men in Britain and had played a major part in getting the enclosure Act through Parliament. The passage of the Act extinguished the rights of the Commoners but they were paid compensation. There were some small sales of freehold land to developers and enclosure roads were built to service the new developments. There appeared to be little reaction to the change but in 1877 six miles of fencing was erected around Selston Common. The villagers were outraged and decided to ask for help from the Commons Protection League. This was led nationally by John de Morgan whilst the Nottingham group was spearheaded by the radical republican W. J. Douse. De Morgan, (the Nottingham papers always printed this as (de) Morgan wishing to suggest a certain affectation on his part), was born in 1848 in Lincolnshire. He became a temperance lecturer at the age of eleven. He attempted to form a branch of the 1st International in Cork in 1872 and in 1876 he emerged as a leader of the Commons Protection League. His policies were a modified version of the Chartist demands plus the preservation of common grounds for recreation.3 He was a major player in the campaign for the release of the spurious Tichborne Claimant. Arthur Orton had claimed to be the long-lost heir to the wealth of the Tichborne family but was imprisoned for fraud. Many working class people, who had seen the uneven treatment dispensed by the legal system, were sympathetic. De Morgan announced that he would lead 100,000 men onto the House of Commons to demand release of the Claimant.4 In the event nearly 25,000 turned up and brass bands played the Marseillaise in Trafalgar Square but the police stopped access to Parliament.5 In June de Morgan led a campaign against the enclosure of a part of Plumstead Common in South East London.6 He was arrested for destroying, with a crowd of some 2,000, excavations for sand on the Common and destroying a fence. Damages were awarded against de Morgan. 7 In April 1877 de Morgan held a meeting of Selston inhabitants who were enlivened by his presence. They “broke down the gates and fences and marched across the alleged village green and common lands, doing considerable damage to growing crops.”8 In September 1877 The Commons Protection League held a demonstration at Bagthorpe with 2,000 people present. Tea was provided in 3 large tents near the Baptist Chapel and there was a brass band. Initially it seemed no more than a village fete but John de Morgan spoke and urged resistance to the enclosure. The Derbyshire Courier wrote that the meeting at Bagthorpe “inspired many of those present with riotous spirits”. Days later in the early hours they removed fences and railings around what had been the common. The crop of oats, property of William Flint one of those supporting enclosure, was harvested. The oats were put in carts, one pulled by a horse and the other by around 20 of the villagers and taken to Bagthorpe. Hedges were set on fire and three quarters of the PLANS: Earl Cowper’s allottments and ENCLOSURES on Selston Common at ENCLOSURE. DD/LM15/12 Nottinghamshire Archives my notes of NDLHS talk given by Clive Leivers 8 November 2014 3 victorianfootnotes.net 8 May 2001 4 East London Observer 24 March 1877, Bee Hive 21 April 1877 5 London Evening Standard 18 April 1877 6 Morning Post 18 June 1877 7 Kentish Mercury 7 July 1877 8 Derby Mercury 13 March 1878 1 2
railings around the four and a half acre field were removed The Selston policeman’s enclosure also had its railings removed and the crop razed to the ground.1 Twenty six men, mainly labourers and colliers, were arrested for acts carried out on 9th and 18th September 1877. Retribution was at hand for de Morgan and he was sent to prison for breach of an undertaking given on 9th July “not to commit any acts of trespass or incite any other person or persons to any such acts of trespass”. De Morgan tried the appeal court and, as in all his recourses to the legal system, failed and his appeal was dismissed.2 It was said that on the 8th September on Selston Common, de Morgan called the landowners “land thieves”. He said he could not leave until the fences were down. The fencing was torn down and the 26 arrested. On the 13th October he had spoken at Underwood and called for the fences to be torn down. Whilst de Morgan was in Holloway prison, Douse took over the campaign. He spoke at several meetings around Nottingham on the Selston issue and built up support for de Morgan. In January W. J. Douse and a party of friends connected to the Commons Protection League visited Selston Common and Douse addressed a large audience. He supported the “noble struggle the people were making.” Close on 1,000 acres had been enclosed chiefly by Earl Cowper. “The 26 men who had been tried for rioting … had been goaded into such acts by tyranny on the part of a few aristocrats.” 3 At the end of February de Morgan had purged his contempt and spoke at a meeting in Underwood with Mr Douse in the chair. De Morgan said that he had been imprisoned until he had apologised for what he had done at Selston. He then offered the less than convincing explanation that he had apologised that the Master of Rolls had differed with him, not for what had been done at Selston. On firmer ground he appealed for funds to be raised for the defence of those accused of rioting.4 Later in March, de Morgan returned to court to answer complaints brought by Earl Cowper. The case arose from de Morgan holding a meeting in Selston in April 1877 when they “broke down the gates and fences and marched across the alleged village green and common lands, doing considerable damage to growing crops.” Part of the villagers’ case was that some of the Common was a village green. This was important since such greens were exempted from enclosure, but this issue had yet to be decided. The Master of the Rolls said that de Morgan had no right to walk across a village green. The right of inhabitants is to “dance and play lawful games upon them. The right is limited to the inhabitants.” He expanded the legal situation with respect to the putative village green: They have no legal right to invite strangers to go on the green. They are allowed to play cricket matches and “they are not interfered with, but they have no right.” So luckily the Selston cricketers were not doomed to play yet another match against themselves. As well as de Morgan two inhabitants were charged. The Master of the Rolls said that if it was a village green the inhabitants had a right to remove obstructions. The case must come to trial to determine the status of the alleged village green. Judgement was given against de Morgan as he was not an inhabitant.5 In April 1878 the trial of the 26 took place concerning the riots of 9th, 10th and 11th September 1877 at the Nottinghamshire Spring Assizes. John de Morgan, who was described as a well-known “Commons Right Agitator” was present. Six miles of fencing had been pulled down. PC Thomas Skinner saw men with blackened faces and coats turned inside out shaking fences. About 70 to 80 were present. Later 150 men broke fences. The sensitive and cautious PC Joseph White, who was on duty very early in the morning of 10th September, saw men loading the oats. He “did not interfere; he dare not, bad language was used.” Some £1,500 of damage caused. The common had been enclosed according to law and those who had a claim had been given compensation and a portion had been laid out as a recreation ground. Nine were acquitted and the rest found guilty of rioting. The judge believed that the men thought the enclosure was doubtful and that they had a right to remove the fences: “the men had acted under a misconception, and with no desire to commit a breach of the peace, and he should therefore discharge them,” The judge denounced the conduct
1
Derbyshire Times and Chesterfield Herald 13 September 1877, DC 15 September 1877 DM 23 January 1878 3 Nottingham and Midland Counties Daily Express 1 January 1878, 3 January, DC 19 January 1878 4 DC 2 March 1878 5 DM 13 March 1878 2
of those who had misled the prisoners and “he could not tell what dirty disreputable, and dishonest motion had actuated them.” The prisoners were discharged but should appear when called for judgement. 1 A couple of points are worth noting. The blackened faces and coats turned inside out were common during Luddite times and served as a partial disguise but also as a way of members of a group recognising one another. It is obvious that these 60 year-old tactics still were remembered. The extraordinary generosity of the judge in effect giving the men no more than a caution indicated that the authorities did not wish to inflame the situation. Douse was back again in June and spoke to a large audience on Selston Common on “The People and their Rights” He said that the legal agent of Earl Cowper and Mr. Musters, another local landowner, had “sent a special messenger to him warning him against appearing on the common, and informing him that they should hold him responsible for any damage caused by the meeting.” He saw that as an act of intimidation but advised the audience to keep within the law. The land should be “held by the Government for the use and benefit of the whole nation.” He ended by urging them to agitate for the vote. The meeting then asked Douse to come back again, which indicated that his radical message had not put off the villagers. 2 If the judicial emollience shown in the April trials had been meant to damp down the protests, it failed dismally. The issue of villagers being unable to graze their animals on the Common flared up in early August. After the earlier riots, some of the land had been re-fenced. Posts and rails were removed and 40 sheep and 25 cattle were allowed into the field. The animals were subsequently impounded. When the village pound was full the excess animals were taken to Haggs farm near Brinsley. Over 100 villagers demanded their animals back. They had been asked a shilling a head for cattle and fourpence each sheep. This was poundage, the fine for having straying animals impounded. They refused and broke open the gate with a hammer and chisel. The sheep were driven out and then they came back again breaking open the gate and taking the cattle. “All the time they were hooting and shouting, and pushed the complainants into a ditch.” Nine men were charged at the Shire Hall Nottingham with illegally releasing the cows and sheep which had been legally impounded. The defendants claimed their rights as commoners, but they did not have right of common since they they were only cottagers i.e. did not have Commoners’ Rights. After that failure the defence said that the animals were on open common but had got in over a broken down fence. The defendants were found guilty of unlawfully releasing cattle and were charged two guineas each or one month’s imprisonment.3 As the legal route became less and less productive, de Morgan made one last try. He went to the High Court against the Enclosure Commissioners. This was to settle the issue of whether a village green had been illegally enclosed. The court decided it was not and the Commissioners had been legally correct to enclose Selston Common. The judge, however, usefully told the inhabitants of Selston that they had the use of Brinsley, and other local greens for games and other lawful sports and pastimes.4 One last prosecution took place. A Mr Stoddard had been found guilty of contempt in the trespassing on Earl Cowper’s land in Selston since there was now a permanent injunction against trespass. It is true that he caused no damage but he committed a far worse crime. When challenged by the local policeman Stoddard called him a “scarecrow”. It was off to jail and do not collect $200. He was gaoled in January and not released until the end of March when he had managed to pay his costs.5 By August 1880 de Morgan was in New York and delivering a lecture on “Irish Patriots and Martyrs” when he denounced the House of Lords. He had drawn up a programme on how the USA should become a model republic. It advocated: eight hours to be the legal working day; male and female universal suffrage; land, railways and mines to be
1
DC 6 April 1878, DTCH 6 April 1878 Mansfield Reporter 7 June 1878 3 Derbyshire Advertiser and Journal 16 August 1878, DTCH 17 August 1878 4 Nottinghamshire Guardian 7 February 1879 5 DC 29 March 1879 2
nationalised and a Federal Republic of North America involving, USA, Canada, Mexico and Cuba. 1 De Morgan died in 1926. He had become a very successful writer of dime novels which sold very well. The epilogue to the Selston agitation was provided by the Mansfield Recorder. There were 800 acres of common land in Selston on which some hovels had been erected. Lord Cowper was lord of the manor and had moved for enclosure in 1865. Notice of the Enclosure Act was given and “no practical opposition was attempted.” Whether the opposition was practical might be open to argument but opposition, local journalism notwithstanding, there was in plenty. The optimistic report continued: Parish roads are now nearly 20 miles long. Many cottages were improved - “the cottagers as soon as they became aware of their true position were generally helpful...” This was aided since “the disturbing element was moved out of the parish...” Whether the disturbing element was de Morgan or that it was that a number of evictions had diminished the unhelpful cottagers is not clear. “… Lord Cowper did a beneficent thing for the poorer inhabitants of Selston when he pushed forward the enclosure.” 2 History is often told by the victors and the 7th Earl Cowper was victorious. Julian Atkinson
1 2
Mansfield Reporter 10 September 1880 MR 24 October 1879
The supporters of Richard Carlile in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire: a small addition and tribute to the memory of Christopher Richardson 1 Introduction The publications of Thomas Paine, which had appeared between 1776 and 1797, were effectively suppressed by the government from the latter year until 1817. It was in March of 1817 that Richard Carlile, working in London as journeyman tinsmith since his marriage to Jane Carlile in 1813, having had his hours of work reduced during the winter, became a street hawker of tracts and journals, such as Cobbett's Political Register and William Hone's Reformists' Register. He met a young journalist, William T. Sherwin, who had launched the Weekly Political Register in April. Shortly afterwards Carlile and Sherwin agreed the latter would print and finance the journal, while the former would act as nominal publisher. By summer Carlile began to treat Paine's political and theological writings with reverence. As they were then only available in limited editions, Carlile started to bring out parts of Paine in the Register and as two-penny sheets in the belief that cheap publication would generate strong momentum for reform.. But it was the publication of writings on theological matters - Paine's Age of Reason and Elihu Palmer's Principles of Nature - rather than politics, between December 1818 and January 1819, that brought about his major period of imprisonment. Carlile was the target of several prosecutions from January to September 1819, four of them for publishing 'blasphemous libel'. As the attorney-general put it, in gaining conviction for publication of the Age of Reason, 'deism was ... as bad as atheism'; and publication of the even blunter advocacy of militant deism in Palmer's Principles of Nature, brought conviction in a separate case. Carlile was reminded by the judge on appeal to the Court of King's Bench, of the dangers posed to social order by 'blasphemous' writers. He imposed a sentence of three years imprisonment at Dorchester Goal, with a fine of £1,500 and sureties for good behaviour. Carlile's incarceration at a provincial gaol from November 1819 was to prevent the dissemination of dangerous ideas in London. The keeper at Dorchester shielded other prisoners from the proximity of a blasphemer by allowing Carlile the use of a large room, with a desk as well as his bed. When sentence was handed down the attorney-general secured a writ which enabled the sheriff of the City of London to close down the Fleet Street shop for several months and sequester a portion of Carlile's stock. This imposed heavy losses, but the shop eventually reopened and his publishing and radical journalism continued. His wife Jane maintained the reopened shop before her conviction in January 1821, then his sister Mary Ann Carlile, until she suffered the same fate in July. Both joined Richard at Dorchester. As Carlile refused to accept the financial provisions of his sentence, he was not released until 1825.2 Some provincial supporters went to London keep the Fleet Street shop open or sold his publications in the country and provided funds to maintain Carlile and his family, as we note below. Of the 148 persons Bush has identified from English Midlands, the most substantial figure is 60 at Nottingham,3 but we start with a man from Sheffield, who had a Derbyshire connection. 4 Derbyshire Supporters: William Vamplew Holmes and John Gratton William Vamplew Holmes, originally a shoemaker and Methodist preacher, changed his views on reading Paine's Age of Reason. He may have moved to London via Lincoln since a 'William Holmes' was arrested
1
Christopher Richardson, A City of Light: Socialism, Chartism and Co-operation - Nottingham 1844, Loaf On A Stick Press, Nottingham, 2013. Joel H., Wiener, Radicalism and Freethought in Nineteenth-Century Britain; The Life of Richard Carlile, Greenwood Press, 1983, chapters 2 & 3. 3 Michael Laccohee Bush, The Friends and Following of Richard Carlile: A Study of Infidel Republicanism in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain, Twopenny Press, 2016. Table A, 165-170; 260-268. 4 The Sheffield City Region includes parts of Derbyshire. 2
there on 1st September 1820. Papers found in his hat were inscribed, 'The Queen [i.e. Caroline] For Ever' and others 'calculated to excite disaffection and rebellion'. 1 This resulted in a sentence of six months imprisonment for seditious libel.2 He is likely to be the man charged as 'William Holmes' in January 1822 for publishing Carlile's To the Reformers of Great Britain, a seditious libel. Holmes objected to the charge on the technicality that his name was 'William Vamplew Holmes', which delayed the case to early March 1822 and a sentence of two years imprisonment in Newgate Gaol. His wife gave birth to a child during the same month, but in April offered to replace her incarcerated husband in Carlile's shop. While in prison, William wrote articles for the Republican that condemned Christianity, but repudiated Deism in favour of Materialism. The Holmes' family returned to Sheffield on William's release in 1824. He was publishing from a shop at 92 Fargate, in 1826,3 later occupying premises at 28 West Bar Green. He became a collector for subscriptions to support Carlile and matched his Sheffield bookselling with sales from a stall at the Chesterfield market. A customer, already known to Holmes, was John Gratton, a farmer from Wingerworth. Gratton was well educated and translated Baron d'Holbach and Voltaire from the French, which Carlile had published in The Deist during 1820.4 Gratton also ventured into publication on his own by printing Voltaire's The Character of the Christian Mysteries. The Chesterfield clergy responded by bringing an action for blasphemy, but Gratton settled this out of court by a payment of over £100. David Jones, a local Baptist Minister, acting in parallel with the court action published five letters to Gratton with the accusation of blasphemy. William Holmes eventually defended Gratton by publishing a five letter reply to Jones and selling The Character of the Christian Mysteries, alongside Age of Reason, from his Chesterfield market stall. 5 As the settlement out of court illustrates, Gratton was a farmer of some substance. He won prizes at the Derbyshire Agricultural Society meeting of 1828 for pigs, sheep and horses, alongside aristocrats such as the Duke of Devonshire and two Baronets!6 Reports of Gratton's role as trustee in bankruptcy for John Bamford, a butcher and farmer of Ashover, described him as a 'Gentleman'.7 Nottingham Supporters: Joshua Rollett. Moses Colclough, Joshua Doubleday, William Harris The main source of support for Carlile in the Midlands after Birmingham, however, was Nottingham. Subscriptions received from the town between February 1820 and December 1822 amounted to over £26, more than £10 in excess of that from Birmingham supporters, but there is no information about their numbers or names. According to a London supporter, John Townend in July 1821, there was an 'excellent' subscription society at Nottingham ‘in defiance of the ministerial faction there'. This may have been in operation from as early as February 1820 since a group of 'friends of Richard Carlile' then met at the Sir Isaac Newton's Head with the permission of its publican, Joshua Rollett.8 Their subscription was accompanied by a letter from Moses Colclough, who also wrote in March 1822 enclosing £10 from the 'Friends of Freedom and Toleration'. Christopher Richardson adds information not available in Bush by noting that he lived in Dukes Place, Barker Gate, and was a burgess of the town, having been qualified by his serving a seven-year apprenticeship as a framework knitter.9 If this is correct, it is of interest that a Moses Colclough, jun. Dukes-place, voted at the general election of 1818 in Nottingham. A petition to the House of Commons by a losing candidate found some evidence to object to this vote as 'frivolous' or 'vexatious', though the general case was dismissed. The victor, the 2nd Baron Rancliffe, was an independent Whig who supported radicalism..10 Richardson identifies other Nottingham supporters of Carlile, not appearing in Bush. Joshua Doubleday, one of the Nottingham 'Friends of Liberty', did not agree with the religious views of Carlile, but 'free discussion' was best and ought to be religion and liberty's only support. Doubleday and Rollett were among the inhabitants of Nottingham who requested the Mayor to convene a meeting on 1830 so that they could express their support for the firmness and moderation of the French people in their July struggle for
1
. Globe, 2 September 1820, 4. Sheffield Independent, 30 September 1820, 1. 3 A two-penny pamphlet entitled, A Candid Appeal to Men of Reason and Reflection on the Subjects that are Discussing between Spiritualists and Materialists. 4 d'Holbach, Letters to Eugenia, on the Absurd, Contradictory, and Demoralizing Dogmas and Mysteries of the Christian Religion; Voltaire, The Important Examination of the Holy Scriptures. 5 Bush, Friends and Following, 214. £100 in 1822 is some £12,789 in today's prices. 6 Derby Mercury, 2 January 1828, 1 7 Derby Mercury,6 August 1828, 1; Perry's Bankrupt Gazette, 14 August 1828 8 'Mr Rottists' in Bush, Friends and Following, 264, but Rollett from 'at least 1812', according to Richardson, City of Light, 71. No source is cited, but for Rollett as landlord of the Sir Isaac Newton see Nottingham Review and General Advertiser, 14 January 1842, 8. 9 Richardson, City of Light, 85; Bush, Friends and Following, 265. 10 Nottingham Review and General Advertiser, 26 March 1819,3. For Rancliffe's opposition to the suspension of habeas corpus and more see https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/parkyns-george-augustus-henry-anne-1785-1850 2
'constitutional liberty'.1 Another who 'ventured out from the shadows of the Sir Isaac Newton', as Richardson puts it, was William Harris. Harris communicated to Carlile's Republican about an attack on a shop of Susannah Wright in Goosegate on the second day of her occupation. 2 Susannah Wright: Fleet Street and the Nottingham Goosegate Bookshop Susannah Wright was arguably the most important of the Nottingham Carlile supporters. She illustrates, along with Mrs Holmes and Carlile's wife and sister, the importance of women in support of Carlile. 3 It is not clear why she moved from Nottingham, to London, Southwark, where she married William Wright in December 1815. Susannah was more literate than her husband. She signed the register, William being recorded by his mark. Susannah attributed her interest in radical politics to the 'distinguished spirit' of Nottingham reformers took in radical politics, which no doubt preceded but was evinced by the January 1821 trial of Jane Carlile. As she explained, 'every day for more than a week I silently and privately followed ... (her) ... into the Court of King's Bench to watch the conduct of the inhuman judges' and consequently volunteered to replace her in the Fleet Street shop. This was despite responsibility for two children born during 1820 and a third in April 1822. Susannah was first charged with blasphemy for selling one of Carlile's publications in December 1821. She was released on bail after this hearing but was in court for a second time on 22 July 1822, accompanied by her children and about twenty supporters. Sentence, delivered four months later at a third court hearing was for ten weeks in Newgate prison. Her continued recalcitrance led to another hearing, however, and a sentence of eighteen months in Cold Bath Fields prison at Clerkenwell, a fine of £100 and sureties for good behaviour of £200. Her deteriorating health in prison brought one month's early release as Lord Chancellor Eldon and Home Secretary Peel feared death would bring about her martyrdom. William died six months after Susannah's release and she was back in Nottingham with her mother, Sarah Godber, by July 1826. She then started selling books and papers from a stall on the Tradesman's Mart on Parliament Street but was able to open a shop in Goosegate on the month's last day. Yet the business was not continued in peace. It was under siege from the first week from 'the bigots and blackguards' and continued for another three. The shop was broken into five or six times during the night of Monday, 28th August, and attempts made to drag Susannah out. The siege was conducted by Christians and youths, but her opponents included solicitors and neighbouring shopkeepers who were Tory voters. The police were called on the worst day and at the start of September Susannah commended the magistrates and police officers for acting 'with the greatest honour' in protecting her. She was subsequently able to move the shop to larger premises further up Goosegate and reported she had no doubt she would 'yet do well'. The intelligence and fearless character of Susannah is evident from reports of her behaviour when a witness in court for William Holmes, during her own arraignments and conduct in Nottingham. Lurus Smith, who first reported on the siege of the Goosegate shop, was a teacher of mathematics and another Carlile supporter of intellectual capability. A not dissimilar figure was Alfred Cox, formerly an Assistant Writing Master at the Free Grammar School. Carlile in Nottingham: Henry Synyer, John Smith Carlile, released from Dorchester in November 1825, subsequently toured the provinces to meet supporters. He left London for a third tour in July 1828 to spend time with the 'Devil's Parson', Robert Taylor, imprisoned at Oakham, before moving through Leicester to Nottingham. He lectured there and stayed for a month, first staying with Gravener Henson before lodging with Henry Synyer, whose father John had contributed to Carlile's support in1823. Despite Henson's political radicalism or staying with him early during the tour, Carlile's public encounter was disputatious because of differences over 'primitive Christianity'. John Smith was 1
Nottingham Review and General Advertiser, 20 August 1830, 2
2
Richardson, City of Light, 80 & 83. See Angela Keane, 'Richard Carlile's Working Women: Selling Books, Politics, Sex and The Republican', Literature and History, 2006, v.15.2, pp.20-33.
3
probably at this Sir Isaac Newton's Head meeting. He is of interest because, like Susannah Smith previously, he may have already been selling papers from a stall in Tradesman's Mart on Parliament Street. 1 Conclusion When Carlile started to publish the Republican in August 1819, the paper was sold at 2d a copy. This evaded the stamp duty of 4d a copy in order to facilitate purchases by relatively low-paid working-class readers.2 The price was raised to 6d, however, and payment of duty commenced in January 1820,3 largely restricting purchase to the better-paid workmen. As Richardson points out, most of Carlile's Nottingham supporters had served apprenticeships, were enrolled as town burgesses and entitled to vote in parliamentary elections. They continued the fight to remove the stamp duty from newspaper publication. Lurus Smith, in seconding a motion for abolition of the stamp duty, cited the punishment of Galileo for telling the truth and castigated American measures to deny education for the black population. Knowledge was power and political knowledge was most necessary for all the working classes.4
1
Richardson, City of Light, 85, 92-95; Bush, Friends and Fo9llowing, 349. Joel H. Wiener, The War of the Unstamped: The Movement to Repeal the British Newspaper Tax, 1830-1836, Cornell UP, 1969; Patricia Hollis, The Pauper Press: A Study in Working-Class Radicalism of the 1830s, OUP, 1970. 3 Wiener, Radicalism and Freethought, 66. Nottingham Review & GA, 26 February 1836, 1 . 2