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Hobbs, Andrew
2018.
A Fleet Street in Every Town: The Provincial Press in England, 1855-1900.
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REINTERPRETING ‘FACTORY POLITICS’ IN BURY, LANCASHIRE, 1868–1880*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2008
Abstract
Using Bury as a case study, this article reassesses the mechanism of the formation of political opinion in Lancashire factory towns in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This subject has heretofore been dominated by sociological explanations of the 1970s and early 1980s. A re-examination of the ‘Three Lancashires’ paradigm, the socio-economic model that has underpinned most Lancashire studies for this period, demonstrates that the socio-economics of urban Lancashire were more diverse than previously thought. From this basis, the article challenges the empirical basis of one of the most enduring tenets of Lancashire politics: the deferential ‘factory politics’ model. To provide an alternative explanation, this article reasserts the importance of ‘issues’ to the debate, and underlines the contingent nature of the relationship between representative and constituents. An important strand is whether political activists integrated their plebeian rank and file into new party structures, thus neutralizing threats to status quo. This interpretation has been central to much recent revisionist history; however, this article demonstrates that the ‘rise of party’ during the mid-Victorian period was contingent upon political activists acquiescing to certain requirements of their followers.
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References
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34 Joyce, work, society and politics, p. xii.
35 G. Timmins, Made in Lancashire: a history of regional industrialization (Manchester, 1998), p. 5.
36 Ibid., pp. 181–5; J. Schwarzkoph, Unpicking gender: the social construction of gender in the Lancashire cotton-weaving industry, 1880–1914 (Aldershot, 2004), pp. 18–21; see also J. K. Walton Lancashire: a social history, 1558–1939 (Manchester, 1987).
37 P. J. Joyce, ‘The factory politics of Lancashire in the later nineteenth century’, Historical Journal, 18 (1975), pp. 529, 528. As the above statistics suggest, this is an important omission, as it does not account for over half the factory workforce. This critique does not seek to rectify this omission, but it must be remembered that the arguments advocated here only apply to the male workforce and that female factory workers played a different role in political culture.
38 See n. 47 for the source of the 1871 figures; Parliamentary Papers (PP) 1883 (C 3722) lxxx, Census of England and Wales 1881, vol. iii (ages, condition as to marriage, occupations and birth-places), pp. 347–54.
39 J. Bannister, From parish to metro: two centuries of local government in a Lancashire town (Bury, 1974), p. 36.
40 Bury Guardian, 11 Feb. 1893.
41 PP 1902 (C 65-lxv) cxix, Accounts and papers: population (England and Wales) – continued Gloucester to Lincoln, pp. 561, 555. These figures are for cotton manufacturing only, the finishing trades, such as bleaching, printing, and dyeing, are not included.
42 Joyce, ‘Popular Toryism’, pp. 62–139; idem, ‘Factory politics’; idem, Work society and politics, pp. 201–39.
43 See Joyce, Work society and politics, p. 345; Joyce did not include the 10 per cent of electors that did not vote.
44 Joyce, Work, society and politics, p. 110, ch. 4; idem, ‘Factory politics’, pp. 528–30.
45 Sir William Joliffe was MP for Petersfield 1830–2, 1833–5, 1837–8, and 1841–66. He served under Derby as under-secretary of state for the Home Department in 1852, and as parliamentary secretary to the Treasury (Government Whip) from 1858 to 1859.
46 Earl of Derby to Sir William Joliffe, 9 Apr. 1858, cited in Hanham Elections and party management, pp. 79–80.
47 This includes males over the age of twenty-one. The 1871 census posed a problem for analysis as Bury was not listed separately in the occupational statistics' breakdown as its population was below the 50,000 benchmark used. To provide the missing data, a 10 per cent sample was taken from the census enumerators' reports for the two central enumeration districts, which covered most of the urban area of the Sanitary District.
48 The poll book recorded both those who voted and those who did not, these figures are not, therefore, reliant on turnout for their accuracy.
49 Joyce, Work, society and politics, pp. 96–8.
50 Joyce, ‘Popular Toryism’, pp. 80–1.
51 W. Lazonick, ‘Industrial relations and technical change: the case of the self-acting mule’, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 3 (1979), pp. 257–8.
52 Joyce, Work, society and politics, p. 55.
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54 D. A. Farnie, The English cotton industry and the world market, 1815–1896 (Oxford, 1979), p. 296.
55 Ibid.
56 Joyce, ‘Factory politics’, p. 538; idem, Work, society and politics, pp. 210–11.
57 Idem, ‘Factory politics’, pp. 529–31.
58 Idem, Work, society and politics, p. 207.
59 Worrall's directory, pp. 17–20, 24.
60 Joyce, ‘Popular Toryism’, p. 84.
61 Bury Guardian, 31 Jan. 1874.
62 Joyce, ‘Popular Toryism’, p. 94.
63 Ibid., pp. 94–5.
64 PP 1889 (251) XV, Report from the select committee on town holdings together with the proceedings of the committee, minutes of evidence and appendix, pp. 586–7; PP 1888 (313) XXII, Report from the select committee on town holdings together with the proceedings of the committee, minutes of evidence and appendix, pp. 426–44.
65 PP 1888 XXII, 207.
66 Ibid., pp. 434.
67 Ibid., pp. 431–434.
68 Bury Poll Book containing the names and residences of the electors who voted at the general election, November 17th, 1868, and also of such electors as did not vote (Bury, 1868), Bury Library Reference and Information Service; Worrall's directory, p. 17h.
69 Bury Archive Service, ABU/(un-catalogued), House of Commons Select Committee, Bury Improvement Bill 1885, minutes of evidence, pp. 156–8.
70 Ibid., p. 162.
71 Bury Guardian, 21 Nov. 1868. There were also complaints by employees five years later as to the unacceptability of the influence of masters over their workers. See Bury Times, 14 June 1873.
72 Ibid., 7 Nov. 1868.
73 Ibid.
74 Ibid.
75 T. Koditschek, Class formation and urban industrial society, Bradford, 1750–1850 (Cambridge, 1990), p. 429.
76 Vernon, Politics and the people, pp. 103, 249, also ch. 6.
77 Garrard, Democratization, pp. 47, 265; idem, ‘Urban elites’; idem, ‘Parties, members and voters after 1867: a local study’, Historical Journal, 20 (1977), pp. 145–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Tholfsen, T., ‘The origins of the Birmingham caucus’, Historical Journal, 2 (1959), pp. 161–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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84 Phillips won the election 565 votes to Peel's 530, on a 90 per cent turn out (1,095 votes from a register of 1,218); F. W. S. Craig, British parliamentary election results 1832–1885 (Aldershot, 1977), p. 72.
85 A. B. Collier, ‘Some aspects of popular politics in Bury 1835–1858’ (MA thesis, Lancaster, 1983), p. 58.
86 Hanham, Elections and party management, p. 74.
87 Times, 26 Jan. 1865.
88 G. S. Woods, ‘Peel, Sir Frederick (1823–1906)’, rev. H. C. G. Matthew, Oxford dictionary of national biography (Oxford, 2004) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/35451, accessed 27 Apr. 2006].
89 Collier, ‘Popular politics in Bury’, p. 56.
90 Times, 30 July 1859.
91 Ibid., 1 Aug. 1859.
92 PP 1860 (329) x, Select committee on operation and effect of Corrupt Practices Prevention Act (1854), report, proceedings, minutes of evidence, appendix, index, p. 80 (my emphasis).
93 S. D. Chapman, ‘Peel, Sir Robert, first baronet (1750–1830)’, in Oxford dictionary of national biography [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/21763, accessed 27 Apr. 2006].
94 Joyce, ‘Popular Toryism’, pp. 28–30.
95 Woods, ‘Peel, Sir Frederick’, in Oxford dictionary of national biography.
96 Joyce, Work, society and politics, chs. 1, 3, and 6; Bury Guardian, 20 June 1868.
97 Bury Guardian, 12, 26 Sept. 1868.
98 Ibid., 12 Sept. 1868.
99 Joyce, ‘Popular Toryism’, pp. 28–30.
100 Bury Guardian, 7 Nov. 1868.
101 Ibid., 4 Apr., 20 June 1868.
102 Bury Poll Book, 1868; Census of England and Wales, 1871, enumerator's reports, Bury Reference and Information Services. See V. C. Barbary, ‘“From platform to polling booth”: political leadership and popular politics in Bury and Bolton 1868–1906’ (Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge, 2007), ch. 1, for a discussion of the characteristics of Bury Nonconformity. See also C. S. Ford, Pastors and polemicists: the character of popular Anglicanism in south-east Lancashire, 1847–1914 (Manchester, 2002), ch. 1, for similar denominational patterns throughout the Manchester diocese.
103 F. Harrison, ‘The illegality of unionism: the case of Hornby v. Close’, Bee-Hive, 26 Jan. 1867; Witherell, L. L., ‘Direct parliamentary representation of labour and the controversy of 1872’, Parliamentary History, 7 (1993), pp. 143–63Google Scholar.
104 Bury Times, 15 Feb. 1868.
105 Bury Guardian, 26 Sept., 3 Oct., 7 Nov. 1868; Bury Times, 7 Nov. 1868.
106 Bury Guardian, 18 Feb., 17, 24 Oct., 7 Nov. 1868; Bury Times, 15 Feb., 24 Oct. 1868.
107 Census of England and Wales, 1871: enumerators' returns for Bury, Bury Library Reference and Information Service; Worrall's directory, p. 24b.
108 Bury Times, 5 Mar. 1870. This case may be overstated: of the 230 working-man electors in the township in 1868, 124 (54 per cent) were Conservative voters. This figure does not really constitute a case for designating the area a Tory ‘stronghold’. Nevertheless, it was perceived as such, as it was the most Conservative area of the town. At the 1868 election, the Crostons, Elton Road, and Woodhill district of Elton had a Tory vote of 56·7 per cent; in the Bolton Road, Daisyfield, and Hinds area this was 52·0 per cent; and in the Elton Fold and Cockeymoor Road district, the vote was evenly split. Bury Guardian, 21 Nov. 1868.
109 Joyce, Work, society and politics, p. 285.
110 A fine of 1s. was also levied on any member who neglected to inform the club secretary of a change of address, for registration purposes. Bury Times, 5 Mar. 1870 (original emphasis).
111 Ibid.; J. M. Strange, ‘Only a pauper whom nobody owns: reassessing the pauper grave, c. 1880–1914’, Past and Present, 178 (2003), pp. 148–75; idem, Death, grief and poverty in Britain, 1870–1914 (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 131–63.
112 Bury Guardian, 21 Nov. 1868; Bury Times, 14 May 1870.
113 Bury Improvement Act 1846 (Local and Personal 9 Vict. C. xx); Regulation of Parish Vestries Act 1818 (P & G 58 Geo. III c 69).
114 On this issue see J. P. Ellens, Religious routes to Gladstonian Liberalism: the church rate conflict in England and Wales, 1832–1868 (University Park, PA, 1994), p. 14; the property qualification was also open to female ratepayers, although they were often dismissed as simply representing their husbands' interests: Bury Times, 25 June 1870.
115 Bannister, From parish to metro, pp. 14, 24; Bury Times, 25 June 1870.
116 Collier, ‘Popular politics in Bury’, p. 57.
117 Bury Times, 25 June 1870.
118 Ibid., 2 July 1870.
119 This was the subject of ongoing debate in the Liberal press. For a clear espousal of this position see Bury Times, 1 July 1871.
120 Bury Guardian, 17 June 1871. The stimulation to the rise in republicanism in the early 1870s was the belief that the 1867 Reform Act had betrayed the working class, disillusionment with orthodox political structures and the ability of party politics to represent fully working-class interests that this engendered. E. Royle, Radicals, secularists and republicans: popular freethought in Britain, 1866–1915 (Manchester, 1980), p. 194; D'Arcy, F. A., ‘Charles Bradlaugh and the English republican movement, 1868–1878’, Historical Journal, 25 (1982), pp. 367–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar; R. Harrison, Before the socialists: studies in labour and politics, 1861–1881 (2nd edn, Aldershot, 1994), pp. 215–46; Taylor, ‘Down with the crown’, pp. 52–78; F. Prochaska, The Republic of Britain, 1760–2000 (London, 2000), pp. 98–103.
121 Bury Guardian, 17 June 1871.
122 Bury Times, 29 July 1876; Bannister, From parish to metro, pp. 23–34.
123 Bury Times, 29 July 1876.
124 Ibid., 4 Nov. 1876; Bannister, From parish to metro, p. 35; M. Gray, The history of Bury, Lancashire, from 1660 to 1876 (Bury, 1970), pp. 154–5.
125 Bury Times, 23 Aug. 1873; Bury Guardian, 23 Aug. 1873.
126 Bury Times, 13 Sept. 1873.
127 Ibid.
128 Ibid.; Bury Guardian, 13 Sept. 1873.
129 Bury Times, Bury Guardian, 31 Jan. 1874.
130 Craig, British parliamentary election results, p. 72.
131 Bury Guardian, 7 Feb. 1874.
132 Ibid., 13 Mar. 1880.
133 Ibid., 20 Mar. 1880.
134 Bury Times, 7 Feb. 1874.
135 Ibid.
136 Bury Times, 1 Feb. 1873; Bury Guardian, 21 Nov. 1868.
137 Bury Times, 31 Jan. 1874.
138 Ibid.
139 PP 1867–8 (3966-xvi) xxviii, Royal commission to inquire into education in schools in England and Wales: vol. i, p. 210.
140 For Philips's support of labour legislation see Bury Guardian, 31 Jan. 1874; Bury Times, 7 Feb. 1874. For Conservative candidates' support see Bury Guardian, 16 Aug. 1873, 31 Jan. 1874; Bury Times, 18 Feb. 1873, 7 Feb. 1874.
141 Bury Guardian, 18 Oct. 1873.
142 Ibid., 31 Jan. 1874.
143 Elementary Education Act 1870 (P & G 33 & 34 Vict. C. 75).
144 See PP 1867–8, xxvii, pp. 208–10; Worrall's directory, pp. 24d–24e.
145 Bury Times, 13 Dec. 1873; see also ibid., 1 Feb. 1873.
146 Bury Guardian, 24 Jan. 1874.
147 Joyce, Work, society and politics, p. 273.
148 Manchester Examiner, cited in Bury Times, 14 Nov. 1868.
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