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The Irish in Manchester, 1832-49

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

John M. Werly
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Extract

Nineteenth century industrialism brought intensified immigration to the cities of England. E. P. Thomson, in The making of the English working class, generalized on one segment of the new urban population, the Irish :

If they were segregated in some towns, the Irish were never pressed back into ghettos. It would have been difficult to have made a people who spoke the same language and were British citizens under the act of union into a subject minority.

Type
Articles
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 18 , Issue 71 , March 1973 , pp. 345 - 358
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1973

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References

1 Thompson, E.P., The making of the English working class (New York, 1963), p. 439 Google Scholar (hereafter cited as ‘Thompson’).

2 Report on the state of the Irish poor in Great Britain, H.G. 1836 (40), xxxiv (hereafter cited as Report on Irish poor in Great Britain)] Second report of the commissioners on the state of the large towns and populous districts, H.G. 1845 (610), xviii (hereafter cited as Report on large towns); Disraeli, Benjamin, Sybil or The two nations (1845 Google Scholar; 1904 edition used ; hereafter cited as ‘Disraeli’) ; Dickens, Gharles, Hard times for these times (1854 Google Scholar; 1868 edition used; hereafter cited as ‘Dickens’); Gaskell, Elizabeth G., Mary Barton (1848 Google Scholar; 1958 edition used; hereafter cited as ‘Gaskell’); de Tocqueville, Alexis, Journeys to England and Ireland (Paris, 1865 Google Scholar; 1958 edition used; hereafter cited as ‘de Tocqueville’); M. Leon Faucher, Manchester in 1844; its present condition and future prospects (1844; hereafter cited as ‘Faucher’); Engels, Friedrich, The condition of the working class in England (Leipzig, 1845 Google ScholarPubMed; 1958 edition used; hereafter cited as ‘Engels’); Kay, James Phillips, The moral and physical condition of the working classes employed in the cotton manufacture in Manchester (1832 Google Scholar; hereafter cited as ‘J. P. Kay’).

3 Engels, pp 65–74; see also J. P. Kay, pp 52–6; Report on Irish poor in Great Britain.

4 Report on Irish poor in Great Britain, pp 440, 546, 522.

5 Ibid., pp 436, 468. Kay, in addition to issuing his 1832 board of health report, also contributed testimony to this parliamentary report.

6 Engels, p. 71.

7 J. P. Kay, p. 35.

8 Ibid., p. 38, see also de Tocqueville, p. 107.

9 Report on large towns, pp 304–5; see also Engels, p. 60; Dickens, p. 150.

10 J. P. Kay, p. 30.

11 Ibid.

12 Ibid., p. 35 ; Engels reported one privy per 120 cellar dwellers, pp 71–3; see also Disraeli, p. 75 ; Report on large towns, p. 323.

13 J. P. Kay, pp 41–2.

14 Appendix to the second report of the commission of inquiry into the employment of children and young persons in the mines and collieries and in the trades and manufactures, H.G. 1843 (431), xiv, 100 (hereafter cited as Report on employment of children 1843), see also Adshead, Joseph, Distress in Manchester (London, 1842), p. 14 Google Scholar; J. P Kay, pp 40–1 ; Colman, Henry, European life and manners (Boston, 1849), 1, 97 Google Scholar

15 de Tocqueville, p. 106.

16 J. P. Kay, p. 34; see also Report from the committee on the bill to regulate the labour of children in the mills and factories of the United Kingdom, H.G. 1831–2 (706), xv, 312 (hereafter cited as Report on labour of children 1831–2); Elizabeth Gaskell was particularly lucid in describing cellar dwellings, p. 54; see also Reilly, John, History of Manchester (London, 1865), p. 357.Google Scholar

17 Report on Irish poor in Great Britain, p. 530.

18 J. P. Kay, p. 25; see also Report on Irish poor in Great Britain, p. 531.

19 J. P. Kay, p. 32 ; similar conditions were observed by Adshead in 1840, Distress in Manchester, p. 30, see also Report on employment of children 1843, p 99, Lester, C. Edwards, The glory and shame of England (New York, 1841), 1, 144, 186.Google Scholar

20 Kay, Joseph, The social condition and education of the people in England (New York, 1864), p. 95 Google Scholar; see also p. no (hereafter cited as ‘Joseph Kay’).

21 Report on Irish poor in Great Britain, pp 516–7, 535, 536, 548; see also Love, B., Manchester as it is (Manchester, 1839), p. 32 Google Scholar; Slugg, J.T., Reminiscences of Manchester fifty years ago (Manchester, 1881), pp 189–90.Google Scholar

22 de Tocqueville, p. 108; see also Manchester Guardian, 29 Sept. 1838; Joseph Kay, p. 69 ; Dickens, pp 35–6.

23 Faucher, p. 31 ; see also Engels, p. 141.

24 Report on labour of children 1831–2, p. 326.

25 Report on Irish poor in Great Britain, p. 535 ; see also Report on employment of children 1843, pp 142–5.

26 Sunday school data illustrates the concentration of the Irish population in Manchester. In all the surrounding townships which later comprised the borough of Manchester there existed in 1831 only two catholic Sunday schools with combined attendance of under 200. Report on employment of children 1843, p. 144.

27 Report of Irish poor in Great Britain, p. 535; see also Report on employment of children 1843, p. 144; Love, B., Manchester as it is, p. 90.Google Scholar

28 Thompson, pp 437, 439.

29 Ibid., p. 442; see also pp 437–9; Joseph Kay, p. 69; Dickens, PP 35–6.

30 Thompson, p. 438.

31 Report on Irish poor in Great Britain, p. 548.

32 Redford, Arthur, Labour migration in England, 1800–1850 (Manchester, 1926), pp 130–3Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Redford, Labour migration), see also Thompson, pp 433–4; J.L., and Hammond, Barbara, The bleak age (New York, 1947), p. 38 Google Scholar; Freeman, T.W., Pre-f amine Ireland a study in historical geography (Manchester, 1957), p. 45.Google Scholar

33 Redford, , Labour migration, p. 37 Google Scholar; see also J. R Kay, p. 44, Lester, , Glory and shame of England, 1, 209 Google Scholar; Adshead, , Distress in Manchester, pp 11–13, 18–19Google Scholar; Report on employment of children 1843, pp 96, 122.

34 Report on Irish poor in Great Britain, p. 545.

35 Report on labour of children 1831–2, p. 319.

36 Report on Irish poor in Great Britain, p. 541.

37 Report on labour of children 1831–2, p. 307.

38 Report on Irish poor in Great Britain, p. 435.

39 Ibid., p. 536.

40 Ibid., p. 541.

41 Ibid.; see also Thompson, p. 433.

42 Report on Irish poor in Great Britain, p. 541.

43 Ibid., pp 459, 522, 523, 539; Thompson, p. 432.

44 Report on Irish poor in Great Britain, pp 518–19.

45 Returns of the number of Irish poor relieved out of the poor rate in the year 1848, H.C. 1849 (342), xlvii, 57–9.

46 Report on Irish poor in Great Britain, pp 519–20; Redford, Arthur, The history of local government in Manchester (London, 1939), 2, 100–2Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Redford, Local government).

47 Manchester Guardian, 1 June 1833.

48 Axon, W.E.A., The annals of Manchester (London, 1886), p. 191.Google Scholar

49 Redford, , Local government, 2, 111.Google Scholar

50 Redford, , Labour migration, pp 107–9.Google Scholar

51 Faucher, p. 28; see also Reilly, , History of Manchester, p. 412.Google Scholar

52 Thompson, p. 435.

53 Report on Irish poor in Great Britain, p. 547; see also Report on labour of children 1831–2, p. 309.

54 Report on Irish poor in Great Britain, p. 549.

55 Ibid., p. 536; see also p. 549.

56 Ibid., p. 549.

57 Ibid.; see also Thompson, p. 436.

58 Manchester Guardian, 30 Sept. 1840.

59 Reilly, , History of Manchester, pp 339–42Google Scholar ; see also Axon, , The annals of Manchester, p. 185,Google Scholar Redford, , Local government, 1, 337–8.Google Scholar

60 Reilly, , History of Manchester, p. 342 Google Scholar; see also Report of Irish poor in Great Britain, p. 531

61 J. P. Kay, pp 27–8; see also Report of Irish poor in Great Britain, pp 528, 530.

62 Engels, p. 73; see also Report on large towns, pp 415, 419–20.

63 Manchester Guardian, 3 July 1847; see also Redford, , Labour migration, p. 136.Google Scholar

64 Parkinson, Richard, The present condition of the labouring poor in Manchester (London, 1841), pp 9–11.Google Scholar

65 J. P. Kay, p. 27; Dickens described a depressing element of ‘sameness’ about the lives of the urban workers, pp 34–5.

66 Gaskell, p. 31 (author not given); see also p. 7 for John Barton’s own sense of fatalism; see also Disraeli, p. 354 for Sybil’s fatalistic cry that the gulf between the two nations was ‘utterly impassable’.