ﬁning the victorian nation class,race,gender and the

Defining the Victorian NationClass,Race,Gender and the British Reform Act of 1867

Defining the Victorian Nation offers a fresh perspective on one of the mostsignificant pieces of legislation in nineteenth-century Britain. CatherineHall, Keith McClelland and Jane Rendall demonstrate that the SecondReform Act of 1867 was marked not only by extensive controversyabout the extension of the vote, but also by new concepts of masculinityand the masculine voter, the beginnings of the movement for women’ssuffrage, and a parallel debate about the meanings and forms of nationalbelonging. The chapters in this book draw on recent developments incultural, social and gender history, broadening the study of nineteenth-century British political history and integrating questions of nation andempire. Fascinating illustrations illuminate the argument, and a detailedchronology, biographical notes and selected bibliography offer furthersupport to the student reader. Students and scholars in history, women’sstudies, cultural studies and postcolonial studies will find this bookinvaluable.

is Professor of Modern British Social and CulturalHistory at University College London. She is the author of White, Maleand Middle Class: Explorations in Feminism and History (1992) and (withLeonore Davidoff) Family Fortunes:Men and Women of the English MiddleClass 1780–1850 (1987).

c is Senior Lecturer in Social History at MiddlesexUniversity, London. He co-edited E. P. Thompson: Critical Perspectives(1990) and is the co-editor of the journal Gender & History.

is Senior Lecturer and co-director of the Centre forEighteenth-Century Studies at the University of York. Her publicationsinclude The Origins of Modern Feminism: Women in Britain, France, andthe United States, 1780–1860 (1985), Equal or Different: Women’s Politics1800–1914 (1987) and Women in an Industrializing Society: England1780–1880 (1990).

Frontispiece (overleaf ) ‘A Leap in the Dark’. Punch, 3 August 1867. Asthe Second Reform Bill goes through its final stages, Disraeli carriesBritannia towards an unknown future.

© Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org

Cambridge University Press0521572185 - Defining the Victorian Nation: Class, Race, Gender and the British ReformAct of 1867Catherine Hall, Keith McClelland and Jane RendallFrontmatterMore information

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Defining the Victorian nationClass, Race, Gender and the British Reform

Act of 1867

Catherine Hall, Keith McClelland and Jane Rendall






The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RP, United Kingdom

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© Catherine Hall, Keith McClelland and Jane Rendall 2000

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisionsof relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part maytake place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2000

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Transferred to digital printing 2003






Contents

List of illustrations page viPreface viiiChronology xList of abbreviations xiii

1 Introduction 1 ,

Historians and the Reform Act of 1867 1New approaches to political history 20Citizenship and the nation 57

2 ‘England’s greatness, the working man’ 71

From Chartism to the Reform League 77Arguments for reform 89Social change and politics 102

3 The citizenship of women and the Reform Act of 1867 119

The background to the women’s suffrage movment, 1790–1865 121Women and the Reform Act of 1867 130Defining women’s citizenship 160Conclusion 176

4 The nation within and without 179

Jamaica 192Ireland 204The parliamentary debates 221

Appendices 234Bibliography 262Index 290

v






Illustrations

Platesfrontispiece: ‘A Leap in the Dark’. Punch, 3 August 1867. As the

Second Reform Bill goes through its final stages, Disraeli carriesBritannia towards an unknown future.

1 ‘The mob pulling down the railings in Park Lane’. page 72Illustrated London News, 4 August 1866 (University of London Library).

2 ‘Scene of destruction near the Marble Arch’. Illustrated London 73News, 4 August 1866 (University of London Library).

3 ‘The broken railings at Hyde Park Corner’. Illustrated London 74News, 4 August 1866 (University of London Library).

4 ‘Manhood Suffrage’. Punch, 15 December 1866. For critics of 75reform like Robert Lowe, the inevitable outcome of allowing respectable working men to vote would be that the ‘unrespectable’ would also exert their influence.

5 ‘The Ladies’ Advocate’. Punch, 1 June 1867. On 20 May 1371867, Mill’s amendment to the Reform Bill, substituting ‘person’ for ‘man’, had been defeated in the House of Commons.

6 ‘Revised – and Corrected’. Punch, 26 September 1868. In 148September 1868, appeals by ratepaying women, single or widowed, to be included on the electoral register were heard throughout Britain. Most were defeated. The reference is to Hamlet’s words to Ophelia in Hamlet, Act III, Scene i, ‘Get thee to a nunnery.’

7 ‘Miss Mill Joins the Ladies’. Judy, 2 November 1868. Mill’s 150defeat at Westminster in the general election is here associated with his campaigns for women’s suffrage and the bringing ofGovernor Eyre to justice. Mill is shown out by the Conservative W. H. Smith, who defeated him at Westminster, while R. W.Grosvenor, the Whig–Liberal who was elected, studies his wine.Reproduced courtesy of the British Library.

vi






8 ‘Don Jacob Rideth His Hobby, to —?’ Manchester Central 152Library, 1869. This undated caricature of Jacob Bright, which alludes to the chivalry of Don Quixote, may refer to Bright’s success in introducing women’s suffrage into municipal elections in May 1869. In the background his brother, John Bright, an opponent of women’s suffrage, salutes him.

9 ‘The town of Morant, Morant Bay, Jamaica’. Illustrated London 193News, 25 November 1865 (University of London Library).

10 ‘Coaling a Royal Mail steam-packet at Kingston, Jamaica’. 194Illustrated London News, 25 November 1865 (University of London Library).

11 ‘The Jamaica Question’. Punch, 23 December 1865. The 195planter’s ironic question here is counterpoised to the racist description of the slouching black worker.

12 ‘Attack on the prison van at Manchester, and rescue of the 205Fenian leaders’. Illustrated London News, 28 September 1867(University of London Library).

13 ‘Fenian prisoners at Manchester conveyed through Mosley 206Street on their way to the Bellevue Prison’. Illustrated London News, 28 September 1867 (University of London Library).

14 ‘The Fenian Guy Fawkes’. Punch, 28 December 1867. Here 207the Irishman, characterised by stereotypical features and surrounded by the children of ‘excessive breeding’, is posed as a threat to parliamentary government but also as likely to blowhimself up.

Figures1 The electorate of the United Kingdom, 1866 page 32 Percentage of adult males over twenty-one enfranchised, 6

1861 and 18713 The electorate of the United Kingdom, 1866–8 245

List of illustrations vii






Preface

The idea of doing this book together arose originally from conversationswe were having about our individual projects, each of which was con-cerned with aspects of the politics of 1867. We should say that each of theindividual essays builds upon foundations laid in much earlier andshorter versions of the arguments: Catherine Hall, ‘Rethinking ImperialHistories: The Reform Act of 1867’, New Left Review 208 (1994), 3–29;Keith McClelland, ‘Rational and Respectable Men: Gender, the WorkingClass, and Citizenship in Britain, 1850–1867’, in Laura Frader andSonya O. Rose (eds.), Gender and Class in Modern Europe (Ithaca, N.Y.,and London: Cornell University Press, 1996), pp. 280–93; Jane Rendall,‘Citizenship, Culture and Civilization: The Languages of BritishSuffragists, 1866–1874’, in Caroline Daley and Melanie Nolan (eds.),Suffrage and Beyond: International Feminist Perspectives (New YorkUniversity Press, 1994), pp. 127–50.

In this volume we have chosen to preserve the individuality of eachproject while engaging in the collective work which is here represented inthe introductory essay. But our early essays have been extended andtransformed through the many discussions we have had over the past fewyears. Their final form owes a great deal to those talks. We would like torecord here how enjoyable these meetings have been. We started talkingabout the issues here because we were friends and we are delighted to saythat friendship has been strengthened by the work. Keith McClelland andJane Rendall would also like to thank Catherine Hall for the hospitalitywhich so aided our collaboration.

In the course of the work we have talked to many audiences, of verydifferent kinds, in many places. We would particularly like to thank thestudents we have taught in various universities for how much they havetaught us, not least those at Essex, Middlesex and York. We also have indi-vidual thanks to record: Catherine Hall would particularly like to thankGail Lewis; Keith McClelland has learned a great deal from BillGreenslade, Sonya Rose, Laura Frader, Eleni Varikas, John Hope Masonand, not least, Chris Robinson; Jane Rendall thanks Heloise Brown,

viii






Joanna de Groot, Angela John, Simon Morgan, Helen Plant, Ted Royleand Allen Warren for all kinds of scholarly and friendly assistance, AdamMiddleton for constant and unfailing encouragement, and the BritishAcademy for its financial support for research for this book.

Jane Rendall must also thank the Mistress of Girton CollegeCambridge for the use of the Parkes and Davies Papers. We are also grate-ful to the British Library and the University of London Library for per-mission to use material in their possession; to the staff of the J. B. MorrellLibrary, University of York, and the Local Studies Unit, ManchesterCentral Library; and to the National Trust for the cover illustration.Thomas Woolner’s sculpture of ‘Civilization’ stands in Wallington,Northumberland, a National Trust property. We are especially grateful toPamela Wallhead of the National Trust, Wallington, for her assistanceand to Paul Barlow for information on the sculpture.

Woolner’s ‘Civilization’ (also known as ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ and‘Mother and Child’) was completed in November 1866. It was commis-sioned by Pauline Trevelyan and Sir Walter Calverley Trevelyan forWallington.1 Thomas Woolner wrote of his work that ‘The idea of thegroup was to embody the civilization of England.’ The figure of themother teaching her boy to say the Lord’s Prayer is contrasted with scenesof cannibalism and murder from ancient British life, in a contrastidentified as that between primitive habits and the ideals of a modern life.The pedestal displays a mother feeding her child with raw flesh on thepoint of his father’s sword. Woolner wrote of his choice to depict ‘civiliza-tion’ as a woman teaching, ‘because the position of women in societyalways marks the degree to which the civilization of the nation hasreached’.2 This study of a defining moment in the political history ofBritain is here illustrated through the imagination of an artist who drawsupon gendered concepts of the modern and of the primitive to portrayEnglish civilisation.

March 1999

Preface ix

1 See Raleigh Trevelyan, ‘Thomas Woolner: Pre-Raphaelite Sculptor. The Beginnings ofSuccess’, Apollo 107 (1978), 200–5; Paul Barlow, ‘Grotesque Obscenities: ThomasWoolner’s Civilization and Its Discontents’, in Colin Trodd, Barlow and David Amigoni(eds.),Victorian Culture and the Idea of the Grotesque (Aldershot: Ashgate Press, 1999), pp.97–118.

2 MS, ‘Mr Woolners [sic] description of his sculpture at Wallington’, Wallington,Northumberland.






Chronology

1865 February Inaugural meeting of the Reform LeagueMay Surrender of last Confederate Army; end of

US Civil WarJuly General election; John Stuart Mill is elected

for WestminsterOctober Death of Lord Palmerston; Lord John Russell

forms administration with W. E. Gladstone asleader of the House of CommonsBlack rebellion at Morant Bay, Jamaica;martial law is declared by Governor EdwardJohn Eyre, who represses the rebellion brutally

November The news of Morant Bay reaches Britain;the government is pressed to establish aninquiryKensington Society discusses ‘Is the extensionof the parliamentary suffrage to women desirable and if so under what conditions?’

December Formation of Jamaica Committee

1866 January Royal Commission on Jamaica meetsFebruary New Parliament meets; Lord Russell becomes

prime minister; Habeas Corpus Actsuspended in Ireland

March Jamaica Act makes the island a crown colonyReform Bill introduced by William Gladstone

May Redistribution Bill introducedJune John Stuart Mill presents women’s suffrage

petition to House of CommonsThe Reform Bills are defeated following revoltof the ‘Cave of Adullam’; Russell resignsReport of the Royal Commission on Jamaica

x






July Lord Derby forms Conservative administra-tion with Benjamin Disraeli as leader of theHouse of CommonsReform demonstration in Hyde Park; attackon the railingsParliamentary debate on the findings of theRoyal Commission

August Parliament prorogued; extensive publicagitation in most major cities of England andScotland over reformEyre returns to England

September Eyre burnt in effigy at Clerkenwell GreenOctober Formation of the Provisional Committee,

‘Extension of the Suffrage to Women Society’

1867 February Failure of a Fenian rising in Ireland andattempt to seize arms at Chester CastleConservative Reform Bill presented to Houseof Commons

March British North America Act establishesDominion of CanadaAttempt to prosecute Governor EyreWomen’s suffrage petition with 3,559 signa-tures presented to Commons by H. A. Bruce

April Manchester women’s suffrage petition with3,161 signatures presented by John Stuart Mill

May Reform League demonstration in Hyde Parkin the face of government ban; HomeSecretary Spencer Walpole resigns;Hodgkinson’s amendment to the Reform Billabolishing the distinction between personalpayment of rates and compounding (payingthe rates together with the rent to landlord)accepted by DisraeliJohn Stuart Mill’s amendment to delete ‘man’and substitute ‘person’ is defeated

June Murphy riot in BirminghamDissolution of first London women’s suffragecommittee

July Third reading of the Reform BillLondon National Society for Women’sSuffrage formed

Chronology xi






August The Reform Act receives royal assentThomas Carlyle’s ‘Shooting Niagara’published

September Rescue of Fenian prisoners in Manchester;prison guard killed

November Execution of ‘Manchester Martyrs’By-election in Manchester; Lily Maxwell votes

December Second attempt to engineer rescue of Fenianprisoners from Clerkenwell; twelve killed inexplosion

1868 June Reform Bills for Scotland and Ireland carriedMurphy RiotsFurther attempts to prosecute Governor Eyre

February Resignation of Lord Derby; Benjamin Disraeliforms his first administration

May–September Concerted action to request overseers to placequalified women on the franchise; campaignsin registration courts

November Dismissal of women’s cases in Court ofCommon PleasLiberal victory in general election; thirteenwomen vote in Manchester

December Resignation of Disraeli; formation ofGladstone’s first ministry

1869 April Introduction of second Married Women’sProperty Bill by Russell Gurney; fails in Lords

May Women ratepayers to vote on same terms asmen, Municipal Corporations (Franchise) Act

July Disestablishment of Irish church

1870 May Jacob Bright’s Women’s Suffrage Bill passessecond reading by thirty-three votes (4 May)Gladstone’s first speech on women’s suffragein oppositionBill defeated (12 May) on going into commit-tee by 126 votes

August Amended Married Women’s Property BillpassedWestern Australia granted representativegovernment

xii Chronology

xii






Abbreviations

ASE Amalgamated Society of EngineersCC Cowen Collection, Tyne and Wear County Record Office,

Newcastle upon TyneCW Mill, John Stuart, Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, gen. ed.

J. M. Robson, 33 vols., University of Toronto Press, 1962–91EWR Englishwoman’s ReviewFAC Foreign Affairs CommitteeFCD Davies Papers, Girton College, CambridgeMCL Manchester Central LibraryME Manchester Examiner and TimesMNSWS Manchester National Society for Women’s SuffrageMT Mill–Taylor Papers, British Library of Political and

Economic Science, London School of EconomicsNCA National Charter AssociationNRL Northern Reform LeagueNRU Northern Reform UnionPP Parliamentary PapersPPG Parkes Papers, Girton College, Cambridge

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ﬁning the victorian nation class,race,gender and the

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