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The Chartists and the Irish Confederates: Lancashire, 1848

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

W J. Lowe
W J. Lowe*
Affiliation:
Chicago State University
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Extract

During the late nineteenth century Michael Davitt was a persistent advocate of a solid Irish-British working-class alliance to realise the political and social aspirations of the working people of both countries. Though he took it all rather more personally, the Irish Chartist leader Feargus O’Connor often made the same point. But the dynamic movement of Englishmen and Irishmen to challenge the establishment that governed both countries and to effect the restructuring of its economic and social bases did not develop during the century spanned by the lives of O’Connor and Davitt despite a brief period of mutually-perceived Anglo-Irish working-class common interest and some active collaboration. The functional life of this ’alliance’ between the English and Irish leaderships during the revolutionary year 1848 was of short duration. But in Lancashire, English Chartists and members of the Irish Confederation combined for several months of agitation before the fledgling fraternisation was smashed by arrests and flagging interest.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 24 , Issue 94 , November 1984 , pp. 172 - 196
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1984

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References

1 Moody, T W, ‘Michael Davitt’ in Boyle, J. W. (ed.), Leaders and workers (Cork, [1965]), pp 47, 51, 53.Google Scholar See also Moody, T. W., Davitt and Irish revolution, 1846-82 (Oxford, 1981).Google Scholar

2 Read, Donald and Glasgow, Eric, Feargus O’Connor, Irishman and Chartist (London, 1961), p. 49 Google Scholar; Epstein, James, The lion of freedom: Feargus O’Connor and the Chartist movement, 1832-4 (London, 1982), pp 236, 248.Google Scholar

3 Police reports and other correspondence pertaining to London during 1848 are found in P.R.O., H.O. 45/OS/2410, pt 2; and the detailed police account of Irish Confederate activities there appears in P.R.O., T.S. 11/139/381. See also Northern Star (Leeds), 12, 19, 26 Feb., 4 Mar., 8 Apr., 6 May, 24 June, 1, 22 July, 12 Aug. 1848.

4 General studies of Chartism include Ward, J. T, Chartism (London, 1973)Google Scholar; Jones, David, Chartism and the Chartists (London, 1975)Google Scholar; Epstein, , The lion of freedom Epstein, James and Thompson, Dorothy (eds), The Chartist experience: studies in working-class radicalism, 1830-1860 (London, 1982).CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Rudé, George, The crowd in history: a study of popular disturbances in France and England, 1730-1848 (New York, 1964), p. 181.Google Scholar

5 Ward, , Chartism, p. 170.Google Scholar

6 Ibid., pp 26, 65. The old Chartist veteran of 1848 encountered in prison by Michael Davitt during the 1870s who had studied Irish history and thought that the English ought ‘to make some atonement for the crimes of the past by allowing the Irish to select what form of government might best conform to their national feelings and social requirements’ ( Davitt, Michael, Leaves from a prison diary (London, 1885; repr. Shannon, 1972), i, 201-11Google Scholar) was untypical. But Dorothy Thompson demonstrates that in .the early years Ireland figured importantly as a Chartist issue and that there was significant support for Chartism among many of the Irish in Britain ( Thompson, Dorothy, ‘Ireland and the Irish in English radicalism before 1850’ in Epstein, & Thompson, (eds), The Chartist experience, pp 126-30, 136-8, 140, 144-6Google Scholar).

7 Northern Star, 5 Feb. 1848.

8 Read, & Glasgow, , Feargus O’Connor, p. 49.Google Scholar

9 For reports of Repeal Association meetings in Lancashire, set Manchester Courier, 1 Mar., 20 Sept. 1846; Liverpool Mercury, 10 July 1846.

10 Epstein, , Lion of freedom, pp 39–42 Google Scholar; Read, & Glasgow, , Feargus O’Connor, pp 50, 123Google Scholar; Treble, J. H., ‘O’Connor, O’Connell and the attitudes of Irish immigrants towards Chartism in the north of England, 1838-48’ in Butt, M. J. and Clark, I. F (eds), The Victorians and social protest (Newton Abbot, 1973), pp 42, 48-49Google Scholar; O’Higgins, Rachel, ‘The Irish influence on the Chartist movement’ in Past and Present, no. 20 (Nov 1961), p. 87.Google Scholar

11 Lyons, F S. L., Ireland since the Famine (London, 1973), pp 105-7Google Scholar; Tuathaigh, Gearóid Ó, Ireland before the Famine (Dublin, 1972), pp 194-5.Google Scholar

12 Read, & Glasgow, , Feargus O’Connor p. 123 Google Scholar; O Tuathaigh, , Ireland before the Famine, p. 200.Google Scholar

13 Lyons, , Ireland since the Famine, p. 109.Google Scholar

14 Census of England and Wales, 1841: enumeration abstract, pp 149-50, [496], H.C., 1843, xxii, 191-2.

15 Edward Rushton to Sir George Grey. Home Office, 5 Mar. 1848 (P.R.O., H.O. 45/OS/2410, pt 1 A). All MS correspondence from Lancashire cited here is drawn from this large file unless otherwise stated. For a cursory treatment of the Confederates in Liverpool, based largely on secondary sources, see Bisceglia, Louis R., ‘The threat of violence: Irish Confederates and Chartists in Liverpool in 1848’ in Irish Sword, xiv (1980-81), pp 207-15.Google Scholar

16 Rushton to Grey. 6 Mar. 1848. At this same time a great deal of excitement was caused by a dock strike, with large numbers of men meeting daily at the Liverpool Exchange. There does not seem to be a connexion between this dispute and the Chartist or Irish Confederate agitation. See T. B. Horsfall to Grey, 7-13 Mar. 1848.

17 S. M. Phillips to Thomas Horsfall, 11 Mar. 1848 (P.R.O. H.O. 41/19, p. 30).

18 Horsfall to Grey, 14 Mar. 1848.

19 Liverpool Courier, 18 Mar. 1846, 19 Mar. 1847 (supplement).

20 Horsfall to Grey, 15 Mar. 1848.

21 The dock strike had been settled several days before 17 March, but, though it had been a major dispute, involving large meetings of dock labourers, the prospect of violence from the Irish community was more worrying than demonstrations by angry dockers.

22 Manchester Courier, 11 Mar. 1848; Manchester Guardian, 11 Mar. 1848.

23 Manchester Courier, 18 Mar. 1848.

24 Ibid.

25 Treble, , ‘O’Connor, O’Connell and the attitudes of Irish immigrants’, pp 65-6.Google Scholar

26 Manchester Courier, 18 Mar. 1848; Hovell, Mark, The Chartist movement, edited and completed by Tout, T. F (Manchester, 1925), p. 288.Google Scholar

27 Manchester Courier, 22 Mar. 1848; Gammage, R. G., History of the Chartist movement (London, 1894), pp 297-8.Google Scholar At a Chartist meeting in Preston on 22 March it was mentioned that a letter from Ireland had arrived offering support for the charter and asking for help in achieving repeal for Ireland.

28 See Belchem, John, ‘1848: Feargus O’Connor and the collapse of the mass platform’ in Epstein, & Thompson, (eds), The Chartist experience, p. 289 Google Scholar; Belchem, ‘English working-class radicalism and the Irish, 1815-50’, paper presented at the American Historical Association annual meeting in Washington, D.C., in 1982.

29 Col. Arbuthnot to T. Cathcart, 4 Apr. 1848 (P.R.O., H.O. 45/OS/2410, pt 4 AB).

30 Horsfall to Grey. 1 Apr. 1848.

31 Transcript with Horsfall to D. le Marchant, 8 Apr. 1848.

32 Horsfall to D. le Marchant, 8 Apr. 1848, with transcript.

33 Ibid.; The Times, 10 Apr. 1848.

34 Liverpool Mercury, 11 Apr. 1848.

35 D. Maude to Grey, 26 Mar. 1848.

36 William Jenkinson to H.O., 30 Mar. 1848.

37 J. F Foster to D. le Marchant, 31 Mar. 1848.

38 E. Armitage to Grey, 4 Apr. 1848.

39 Manchester Courier. 8 Apr. 1848. Mayor Horsfall in Liverpool telegraphed London that the Chartists in Manchester planned an attack that would begin with the overpowering of the special constables, but Armitage in Manchester contradicted the report in another telegram (Mayor of Liverpool to Grey, 10 Apr. 1848; Mayor of Manchester to Grey, 10 Apr. 1848, P.R.O., H.O. 45/OS/2410, pt 2).

40 Belchem, , ‘1848: Feargus O’Connor and the collapse of the mass platform’, p. 289.Google Scholar

41 Gammage, , History of the Chartist movement, p. 299.Google Scholar

42 Liverpool Courier. 26 Apr. 1848. It was also rumoured that Mitchel and Doheny were on their way to Manchester to be delegates of the Chartists to the ‘National Assembly’ (sic), which indicates how closely the Chartists and the Confederates were associated in some minds.

43 Manchester Courier, ‘12 Apr. 1848.

44 Queen v. Archdeacon and others (P.R.O., T.S. 11/137/374). These were meetings attended by Constables Cookson and Cuttingham. For press reports of individual meetings, see Manchester Courier. 12, 19, 22, 29 Apr., 10, 20 May 1848.

45 Manchester Courier, 10 May 1848.

46 Ibid., 27 May 1848.

47 Ibid., 31 May 1848.

48 For accounts of occurrences during 31 May, see Manchester Courier, 3 June 1848; Gammage, History of the Chartist movement, p. 333. During the day several persons were arrested for possessing pikes. See also Queen v. Flynn, Downey and others (P.R.O., T.S. 11/142/389).

49 See Riot depositions, 2 June 1848 (Lancashire Record Office, QJD/1/214, 215); Manchester Courier, 3 June 1848; Oldham Magistrates to Grey, 31 May 1848. The Oldham incident is also mentioned in Foster, J. O., Class struggle and the industrial revolution (London, 1974), p. 145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

50 Cole, G. D. H., Chartist portraits (London, 1941), pp 246-8Google Scholar; Saville, John, Ernest Jones, Chartist (London, 1952), pp 31-3.Google Scholar

51 It should be noted that there were efforts among English Chartists in 1848 (for example at Darlington) to reorganise their movement on lines “similar to the repeal clubs in Ireland’ See A. Robson to Major Wemyss (Durham Constabulary), 21 June 1848 (P.R.O., H.O. 45/OS/2410, pt 3 B-Z); Frost, Thomas, Forty years’ recollections: literary and political (London, 1880), pp 143-4.Google Scholar

52 M. Dowling to Horsfall, forwarded with Horsfall to Grey, 7 June 1848.

53 Horsfall to Grey, 30 June 1848.

54 Thomas A. Redin to Dowling, 29 June 1848.

55 Horsfall to Grey, 8 July 1848.

56 Report of the committee of magistrates appointed at a general meeting of magistrates held on 8 July 1848, with Horsfall to H.O., 12 July 1848 (P.R.O., H.O. 45/OS/2410, pt 1A).

57 Dowling to Horsfall, 15 July 1848.

58 James SmythetoT M. Halpin, 18 Apr 1848, among documentary evidence seized in Dublin reproduced in Queen v. Archdeacon (P.R.O., T.S. 11/137/374, pt II).

59 Report of the committee of magistrates (Liverpool) held on 8 July 1848.

60 Superintendent Taylor, list of Confederate club meetings in Manchester-Salford (P.R.O.,T.S. 11/137/374).

61 Horsfall to Grey. 26 July 1848.

62 Wittke, Carl, The Irish in America (Baton Rouge, 1956), p. 143.Google Scholar

63 Liverpool Mercury, 12 Dec. 1848.

64 Ibid. The tenth man was Edward Murphy.

65 Horsfall to Grey, 24 Aug. 1848.

66 Queen v. Archdeacon (P.R.O., T.S. 11/137/374).

67 Queen v. Ernest Jones and 45 others (P.R.O., T.S. 11/142/389); Saville, , Ernest Jones, pp 31-3Google Scholar; Cole, , Chartist portraits, pp 246-8.Google Scholar

68 Queen v. Archdeacon (P.R.O., T.S. 11/137/374).

69 Denvir, John, The Irish in Britain from the earliest times to the fall and death of Parnell (London, 1892), p. 133.Google Scholar

70 Ibid., Denvir, John, Life story of an old (Irish) rebel (London, 1914), p. 52 Google Scholar; Lowe, W J., ‘Lancashire Fenianism, 1864-71’ in Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, cxxvi (1977), pp 156-85.Google Scholar

71 Queen v. Archdeacon (P.R.O., T.S. 11/137/374).

72 Thomas Cooper thought that the greater interest in violence was due to the fact that ‘the changes on the Continent seemed to have unhinged the minds of thousands’ and that ‘Chartists were wilder’ than ever before (The life of Thomas Cooper (London, 1872), pp 303-4, 311). See also Belchem, , ‘1848: Feargus O’Connor and the collapse of the mass platform’, pp 278-9.Google Scholar

73 These preparations are detailed principally in P.R.O., H.O. 45/OS/2410, pt 1A, and in the local press.

74 Jones, , Chartism & the Chartists, pp 149-50.Google Scholar

75 Ibid., pp 157-9; Mathers, F C., Public order in the age of the Chartists (Manchester, 1959), pp 24-6Google Scholar; Read, & Glasgow, , Feargus O’Connor, pp 137-8Google Scholar; Denvir, , Irish in Britain, pp 141-2.Google Scholar See also the papers by John Belchem cited above, n. 28.

76 Liverpool Courier, 26 Apr. 1848; Denvir, , Irish in Britain, p. 139.Google Scholar

77 Horsfall to Grey, 8 June 1848. In this same report Horsfall mentions a rumour that ’it is the intention of the repealers and Chartists to make a demonstration on Monday next [12 June]’ They were to use carrier pigeons to co-ordinate actions between towns. Even though 12 June was supposed to have been the original date for a Chartist-Confederate uprising in the north-west ( Jones, , Chartism & the Confederates, p. 159 Google Scholar; Read, & Glasgow, , Feargus O’Connor, pp 137-8Google Scholar; Frost, , Forty years’ recollections, pp 151-2, 155Google Scholar), there is no indication in the police reports that any active preparation for such a movement was detected. Though it appears the 12 June rising was a rumour, a meeting called for that date in Manchester was banned (Manchester Courier, 14 June 1848).

78 Horsfall to Grey, 13 July 1848.

79 Thomas Frost thought that the ‘futility of moral force’ pushed many in the direction of physical force ( Frost, , Forty years’ recollections, p. 143 Google Scholar).

80 Queen v. Archdeacon (P.R.O., T.S. 11/137/374); Denviijrish in Britain, pp 139-40.

81 Queen v. Flynn, Downey and others (P.R.O., T.S. 11/142/389).

82 Manchester Courier, 9 Aug. 1848.

83 Horsfall to Grey, 23 July 1848, with annotation by Henry Waddington; Waddington to Horsfall, 25 July 1848.

84 Horsfall to Grey, 26 July 1848.

85 Liverpool Courier, 15 Nov. 1848.

86 Horsfall to Grey, 1 Aug. 1848.

87 Horsfall to Grey, 18 Aug. 1848; Lowndes, Robinson & Bateson (solicitors) to Waddington, 28 Aug. .1848.

88 Dowling to Horsfall, 7 June 1848; see also Frost, Forty years’ recollections, p. 146.

89 Manchester Guardian, 26 July 1848.

90 T Arbuthnot to Waddington, 26 July 1848 (P.R.O., H.O. 45/OS/2410 AB, pt 4).

91 Notice of impending disturbance by the Irish Confederates to mill and property owners’, 27 July 1848 (Manchester Central Library, MSC, F 323.2).

92 Mathers, , Public order, pp 24-5.Google Scholar

93 Ibid., p. 25.

94 Ibid., pp 24-5; Gammage, , History of the Chartist movement, p. 337.Google Scholar

95 Manchester Guardian, 19 Aug. 1848.

96 Abortive attempts at organising trouble also occurred in London in mid-Aug. 1848 ( Cooper, , Life, p. 305 Google ScholarPubMed; Gammage, , History of the Chartist movement, p. 337 Google Scholar: Frost, , Forty years’ recollections, p. 163 Google Scholar; P.R.O., T.S. 11/139/381).

97 Queen v. Archdeacon (P.R.O., T.S. 11/137/374).

98 Queen v. Archdeacon (ibid.).

99 Jones, Chartism & the Chartists, p. 159.

100 Thomas Frost probably spoke for most Chartists in August 1848 by stating that ‘I was so impressed with the conviction that the success of a revolutionary movement was hopeless that I resolved to keep aloof from the conspiracy’ (Frost, Forty years’ recollections, p. 162).

101 Queen v. Archdeacon; Queen v. McManus [sic] and others with Lowndes & Co. to Waddington, 28 Aug. 1848; Liverpool Courier, 23 Aug. 13 Dec. 1848.

102 Horsfall to Grey, 8 June 1848, with Waddington’s endorsement.

103 Queen v. Archdeacon (P.R.O., T.S. 11/137/374).

104 Waddington to Horsfall, 13 July 1848 (P.R.O., H.O. 41/19, p. 243).

105 Waddington to George Maule, 8 Sept. 1848 (ibid., H.O. 49/9, p. 217).

106 Maule to Waddington, 20 Oct. 1848 (ibid., H.O. 48/40). The opinion is not found with either Maule’s covering letter or the law officers’ miscellaneous reports (ibid., H.O. 119/17-18).

107 G. C. Lewis to Maule, 24 Oct. 1848 (ibid., H.O. 49/9, pp 223-4).

108 Rushton to Lewis, 15 Nov. 1848; Maule to Lewis, 17 Nov. 1848; Lewis to Horsfall, 18 Nov. 1848 (ibid., H.O. 41/19, p. 323).

109 Waddington to Horsfall, 1 July 1848 (ibid., H.O. 41/18, p. 230).

110 39Geo. Ill, c. 79.

111 Waddington to Horsfall, 1 July 1848 (P.R.O., H.O. 41/19, p. 230).

112 57Geo. Ill, c. 19.

113 60Geo. Ill, c. 1.

114 J. S. James, Strand’s judicial dictionary of words and phrases (4th ed., London, 1971), pp 547. 563; J. B. Saunders (ed.), Words and phrasing legally defined (London, 1969), p. 321.

115 Liverpool Mercury, 12 Dec. 1848.

116 Ibid., 15 Dec. 1848.

117 Queen v. Archdeacon (P.R.O., T.S. 11/137/374).

118 The Times, 20 Dec. 1848.

119 Queen v. Archdeacon (P.R.O., T.S. 11/137/374).

120 Queen v. Archdeacon (ibid.).

121 Queen v. Archdeacon (documentary evidence) (ibid., pt II).

122 The Times, 20 Dec. 1848.

123 Queen v. Archdeacon (P.R.O., T.S. 11/137/374, pt II).

124 The Times, 20 Dec. 1848.

125 Ibid., 21 Dec. 1848; Liverpool Mercury, 22 Dec. 1848; Liverpool Courier, 29 Dec. 1848.

126 Northern Star, 23 Dec. 1848.

127 During January 1849 nine of the Manchester prisoners forwarded a petition to the Home Office to protest against unfair treatment by prison staff at Kirkdale. The covering letter from the local magistrate said that there was no ‘reasonable ground for complaint’ (Chartist prisoners to Grey, 23 Jan. 1849, P.R.O., H.O. 45/OS/2619).

128 Denvir, , Irish in Britain, p. 149.Google Scholar

129 A shortened version of this paper was read at the American Historical Association annual meeting in Washington, D.C., in 1982.1 wish to acknowledge the assistance of Mrs Ann Morton of the Public Record Office, London, who rediscovered the four important cartons of Home Office documents pertaining to events in 1848 that furnish the core of this paper. I wish also to thank Mrs Dorothy Thompson for her comments on an early draft of this paper.