Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-m8s7h Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-22T04:31:26.282Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Bradford and the American Civil War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2014

D. G. Wright
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In recent years the received picture of contemporary English attitudes to the American Civil War has been considerably modified. It has been demonstrated that there were a great many more currents of feeling, cutting across both party and class lines, than the traditional version, sowed by pro-Northern propagandists, allowed. Liberals, Conservatives, and intellectuals were all divided among themselves to some degree. If there was a good deal more pro-Federal sympathy among the English ruling class than was once thought, there was more pro-Southern sympathy among the middle and working classes, at least before 1863. At the same time, the British Government was more sincere in its stance of neutrality than was formerly suggested. The purpose of this article is to examine responses to the Civil War in Bradford, a West Riding industrial town where opinions were strongly influenced by newspapers, chapels, and Radical politicians — in other words, the kind of town where the Federal cause could expect to obtain solid support.

II

During the first half of the nineteenth century, Bradford's population had grown from thirteen thousand to over 100,000. By 1861 Bradford was the ninth largest town in the country. Now almost the whole of Britain's worsted industry was concentrated in an area of the West Riding of Yorkshire around Leeds, Bradford, Halifax, and Huddersfield. Within this area Bradford had replaced Halifax as “the principal seat and emporium of the worsted manufacture.” The town was predominantly nonconformist in religion and Radical in politics; in fact the two were closely linked.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , May 1969 , pp. 69 - 85
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1969

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Nevins, Alan, The War for the Union (New York, 1960), II, 242–51Google Scholar; Jones, W. D., “The British Conservatives and the American Civil War,” A.H.R., LVIII (1953), 527–43Google Scholar; Whitridge, A., “British Liberals and the American Civil War,” History Today, XII (1962), 688–95Google Scholar.

2. Harrison, R., “British Labour and the Confederacy,” International Review of Social History, II (1957), 78–105CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Read, D., The English Provinces (London, 1964), p. 159Google Scholar; Maurer, O., “Punch on Slavery and Civil War in America,” Victorian Studies, I (1957), 5–28Google Scholar.

3. Adams, E. D., Great Britain and the American Civil War (London, 1925)Google Scholar; Beloff, M., “Great Britain and the American Civil War,” History, new series, XXXVI (1952), 40–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Allen, H. C., Great Britain and the United States (London, 1954), pp. 452–518Google Scholar; Nevins, , War for the Union, II, 252–63Google Scholar.

4. Mitchell, B. R. and Deane, P., Abstract of British Historical Statistics (Cambridge, 1962), Table, p. 24Google Scholar; Hoskins, W. G., Local History in England (London, 1959), Table, p. 178Google Scholar.

5. White, W., Directory of the Borough of Bradford (Sheffield, 1861), p. 445Google Scholar; see also Sigsworth, E. M., Black Dyke Mills (Liverpool, 1958), chs. i-ivGoogle Scholar.

6. Census of Religious Worship, Report and Tables, Parliamentary Papers (1852–1853), LXXXIX, Table FGoogle Scholar.

7. Wright, D. G., “Politics and Opinion in Nineteenth Century Bradford 1832–1880” (Ph.D. thesis, Leeds, 1966), chs. ii-ivGoogle Scholar.

8. Dunsmore, M. R., “The Working Classes, the Reform League and the Reform Movement in Lancashire and Yorkshire” (M.A. thesis, Sheffield, 1961), pp. 193–225Google Scholar.

9. Sigsworth, , Black Dyke Mills, pp. 99, 336Google Scholar.

10. For Bradford slavery meetings see Bradford Observer, 9 Feb. 1834 (hereafter cited as B.O.); Leeds Mercury, 27 Mar., 14 Apr. 1830; see also Brougham, H., The Life and Times of Henry Lord Brougham (London, 1871), III, 41Google Scholar.

11. See, for example, B.O., 6 Jan. 1853, for lecture by “a fugitive slave”; ibid., 27 Nov. 1856, for lecture by W. E. Forster to Bradford Mechanics' Institute.

12. Ibid., 12 Jan. 1837, 19 May 1842, for speeches on the virtues of Jacksonian democracy.

13. Bradford Review, 29 Dec. 1860 (hereafter cited as B.R.).

14. Ibid., 5 Jan. 1861.

15. Ibid., 26 Jan. 1861.

16. Ibid., 16 Mar. 1861.

17. Ibid., 25 May 1861.

18. Ibid., 17 Aug. 1861.

19. Ibid., 30 Nov., 5, 7, 12, 21 Dec. 1861.

20. Ibid., 21 June, 15 Nov. 1862.

21. Ibid.

22. Ibid., 15 Jan. 1863.

23. Ibid., 24 Jan. 1863.

24. Ibid., 25 June, 2 July 1863.

25. Ibid., 31 Oct. 1863.

26. Ibid., 21 Jan. 1864.

27. Ibid., 23 Feb. 1865.

28. Ibid., 27 Apr. 1865.

29. Byles, F. G., William Byles by His Youngest Son (Weymouth, 1932), pp. 25–27Google Scholar. The Bradford Observer sold about twenty thousand copies in 1860.

30. B.O., 5 Oct. 1861.

31. Ibid., 2 Jan. 1862.

32. Ibid., 4 Sep. 1862.

33. Ibid., 9 Oct. 1862.

34. Ibid., 20 Nov. 1862, 1 Jan. 1863.

35. Ibid., 5 Feb. 1863.

36. Ibid., 30 July 1863.

37. Ibid.

38. Ibid., 27 Aug., 24 Sep. 1863.

39. Ibid., 7 July 1864; see also Ibid., 1 Sep. 1864.

40. Ibid., 13 Oct. 1864.

41. Ibid., 22 Dec. 1864.

42. Ibid., 27 Apr. 1865.

43. Ibid.

44. Reid, T. Wemyss, Life of the Right Honourable William Edward Forster (London, 1888), I, 31, 295, 21, 59, 60, 102-27, 288-92, 303–06Google Scholar; Adams, , Great Britain and the American Civil War, I, 58nGoogle Scholar.

45. Reid, , Life of Forster, I, 332-33, 357-59, 362–63Google Scholar.

46. B.O., 3 Oct. 1861; Reid, , Life of Forster, I, 337–40Google Scholar.

47. B.O., 10 Oct. 1861.

48. Ibid., 2 Jan. 1862; Times, 2 Jan. 1862.

49. For Forster's annual addresses in Bradford, see B.R., 22 Nov. 1862; B.O., 14 Jan. 1864, 12 Jan. 1865.

50. Ibid., 5 Feb. 1863.

51. Ibid., 2 Jan. 1862.

52. Ibid., 1 Jan. 1863.

53. Ibid., 13 Feb. 1862.

54. Ibid., 7 Jan. 1864, 5 Jan. 1865.

55. Ibid., 4 Jan. 1866; Sigsworth, , Black Dyke Mills, pp. 193, 197Google Scholar.

56. B.O., 4 Jan. 1866

57. B.R., 2 Jan. 1862.

58. Ibid., 4 Jan. 1862.

59. Ibid., 24 Jan. 1863.

60. Ibid., 27 Nov. 1862, 5 Mar. 1863, for lectures by Independent ministers.

61. Ibid., 20 Feb. 1864, for lecture by Henry Vincent.

62. B.O., 5 Feb. 1863, which admitted an attendance of four thousand.

63. Ibid., 4 May 1865; B.R., 29 Apr., 4 May 1865.

64. B.O., 6 Nov. 1862.

65. Some went into print. J. S. Colefax, a Tory Orangeman, wrote a pro-Confederate pamphlet in May 1863.

66. B.R., 21 Dec. 1861.

67. Ibid., 10 Oct. 1863.

68. Ibid., 21 Apr. 1864, for his letter defending working-class apathy towards parliamentary reform.

69. Liveing, S., A Nineteenth Century Teacher: J. H. Bridges, pp. 75, 95Google Scholar, cited by Harrison, R., Before the Socialists (London, 1965), p. 69Google Scholar.

70. B.R., 11 Feb. 1864.

71. Owsley, Frank L., King Cotton Diplomacy (Chicago, 1931), p. 565Google Scholar.

72. B.R., 20 Jan. 1866.