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Britain 1815 - 1902 :
Politics and Social Class in 19th century Britain
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Britain 1815 - 1902 :Politics and Social Class in 19th century Britain

Objectives

In the House of Commons, one of the two chambers of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, there is a ceremonial mace, which serves as the symbol of royal authority. Without it, the House cannot pass laws. In 2018, during a heated debate over Brexit, one of the Members of Parliament, as an act of protest, grabbed the mace and tried to leave the room. He immediately gave it back amidst shouts of anger. (Click on the icon to watch this short-lived act of rebellion)This anecdote illustrates the weight of tradition in Britain : the identity of the country and its system are deeply rooted in a system of customs and tradition, supposed to guarantee order and the proper functioning of institutions. In addition to this, it raises the question of reform : how to evolve when traditions are so rigid? How to find a balance between a certain respect of traditions and the need for social institutions to adapt to changing times?To study this question, we will examine Britain in the 19th century, a period when a new category of population, the bourgeoisie, with new liberal conceptions of society, started to gain weight and to challenge the existing traditional order of things.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we have learnt that the 19th century was a decisive period in the evolution of political, economic and social structures in Britain. The traditional order of things was challenged by the rise of the middle-class : new conceptions of individual freedom led to the extension of the franchise, to the deregulation of the economy and the implementation of free trade, and to a conception of poor relief based on morality and self-help. This evolution was the result of the debate between two competing visions of society : On the one hand, the Liberal (or Whig) Party acted as a force for change and pushed for reform and the abolition of rigid social categorisation. On the other hand, the Tory Party tried to counter this liberalisation and the dismantling of the social order, and to reaffirm the importance of hierarchy and stability. As always, our role is not to judge each vision. Whether you find the presence of the ceremonial mace in the House of Commons totally stupid or extremely important is not relevant. What we should focus on is the richness of democracy, the possibility to ask the question Do we need this ceremonial mace? and to hear the pros and cons. It is the very process of debating which allows a society to evolve and adapt while maintaining certain traditional elements to guarantee a stable structure.

4 : Social Reform

2 : Political Reform

1 : Context

3 : Economic Reform

Objectives

Conclusion

Famous figures

Glossary

Timeline

Time 4

Home page

The Working Class

The Middle Class

The Aristocracy

The Importance of Stability

The British Political System

The British Constitution

Here are some elements about the British political system that you have to know before you can understand the period under study :

1 : Context

Copy of the Magna Carta. Click to enlarge.

So far, we've studied the US Constitution : a remarkably short text which is constantly interpreted and serves as the basis for a constant reflection on the role of the government.The British Constitution is very different. Britain does not have a unique document called the constitution : the way power is organised is defined by a collection of different texts, judiciary decisions and traditions. For example, one of the first elements of this constitution is the Magna Carta, written in 1215 : the Magna Carta was a peace treaty between the King and rebel barons, which, for the first time in British history, established that all men have the right to justice and a fair trial, and that everybody, including the king, is subject to the law. For the first time in British history, it curtailed the power of the monarch. Many other acts and decisions followed, such as the British Bill of Rights in 1689 to name but the most famous, all of which gradually established the supremacy of Parliament over the Monarch, to end up with the current situation : a monarch who only has a consultative role : although, in theory, the monarch has the power to veto bills, this power hasn't been used since 1708! It has become the tradition for him/her not to use this power.

1 : Context : The British Constitution

First, watch the video to understand the organisation of Parliament. Here are a few additional remarks :- Notice that in Britain, there is no strict separation of power as in France or the USA : the members of the government are also Members of Parliament (MPs), therefore combining executive and legislative powers, and some members of the House of Lords, called the law Lords, have judicial functions.- Much of its functioning is just based on tradition, not on any written document. For example, traditionally, it's the leader of the political party with the largest number of Members of Parliament who becomes the Prime Minister (PM), but it's just a convention, and it hasn't systematically been respected, especially in the case of coalitions between different parties.- Parliament terms in the UK are much more flexible than what we are used to in France : a general election must be called at least every five years, but in fact, such an election can be called earlier by a government, and it is often the case : in 1974 for example, a Parliament lasted for only 6 months, then another general election was called.

1 : Context : Political System

A House of Lords session. Click to enlarge

The House of Lords is a good example to examine the importance given to stability in the British political system : contrary to the House of Commons, subject to recurring changes due to frequent elections, the House of Lords embodies tradition : its members are not elected but nominated for life. The House is composed of Lords Spiritual (archbishops and bishops, that is to say religious figures), and Lords Temporal (hereditary peers, who pass on their titles to their children, and life peers, who are nominated for life but can't pass on this title).The existence of this undemocratic political body in a parliamentary democracy has been the subject of much debate, and its role has been reduced over the years (it lost its power to veto bills in 1911, and the number of hereditary peers was drastically reduced in 1999), but its existence nonetheless proves the importance given to the presence of an element of stability and tradition in the British political system.

1 : Context : The Importance of Stability

The publishing company Debrett's regularly publishes a short history of the family of each title holder. Click to enlarge

The division of an entire population into 3 social classes is a form of oversimplification, but it will be helpful to study the dynamics between political power and population.Let's start with what we will call the upper class, or the aristocracy, and try to list some of its distinctive features :- The superior status of the aristocracy over the common man, or commoner, is codified in Britain through nobility titles. Even within the nobility, there is a form of hierarchy : The five most prestigious titles (Duke, Marquess, Earl, Viscount and Baron) historically conferred to those nobles, called peers, the right to sit in the House of Lords. Other lower titles such a Knight are just social distinctions. In addition to this, the loose term gentry, not linked to any nobility title, shows that the aristocracy is in fact also based on social perception and not only on actual titles : any educated person owning land could pretend to belong to the gentry, even without an official nobility title.- Historically, members of the aristocracy were the ones who owned the land : According to T.Piketty, by 1880, 7000 noble families (less than 0,1% of the population) owned 80% of the land in Britain.- Since titles, wealth and estate are passed on from one generation to the other, aristocratic families tend to keep these political and economic privileges.- Because the members of the aristocracy are usually attached to their privileges, which according to them allow to maintain a certain social order, they tend to be rather conservative, and to belong to the corresponding party, the Conservative (or Tory) Party.

1 : Context : The Aristocracy

A poorhouse during the Industrial Revolution. Engraving from 1863. Click to enlarge

To finish, let's focus on the working class, also called lower class or labouring class :If we look up in a dictionary, we can notice that the definition of such a class is also built in opposition to the other two : Collins : The working class are the group of people in a society who do not own much property, who have low social status, and who do jobs which involve using physical skills rather than intellectual skills.- In Marxist theory, they are therefore those who do not own capital, and must live by selling their labour power in exchange for a wage. They are sometimes called the proletariat.- In terms of ideology, we have to keep in mind that, due to the lack of education and class-consciousness, and to the absence of a clear ideology designed to liberate the working class (Labour and socialist parties only developed at the end of the 19th century), we can't really say that the working class followed an ideology of its own : they could either agree with the traditional, conservative vision of society associated to the upper class, or the liberal conception, based on freedom and equal opportunity corresponding to the middle class.

1 : Context : The Working class

Engraving for Charles Dickens's Christmas Books, representing wealthy bourgeois. Click to enlarge

Let's continue with the middle class, harder to define. Even dictionaries can't seem to find a definition apart from its distinction from the other two classes :Collins : The middle class are the people in a society who are not working class or upper class. Not very helpful... Let's nonetheless try to identify a few distinctive features :- When we talk about the 19th century, we usually associate the middle class with a rather wealthy part of the population but which, unlike the members of the aristocracy, achieved success thanks to self-help and entrepreneurship. The typical members of the middle class in the 19th century were for example factory owners. - Since their success was based on entrepreneurship, the size and influence of the middle class increased exponentially with the Industrial Revolution.- According to Marxist theory, they therefore correspond to the capitalist owners of the means of production, what is sometimes called, a bit pejoratively, the bourgeoisie.- Because members of the bourgeoisie achieved such a status through entrepreneurship and not inheritance, they were usually opposed to rigid social categories and to the transmission of privileges. Ideologically speaking, they therefore tended to be liberal and focus on ideals of free trade and individual freedom. Politically speaking, they often belonged to the Liberal Party (also called the Whig Party at that time)

1 : Context : The Middle-Class

Extension of the Franchise

Chartism

The Great Reform

The Maintaining of Privileges

Voting Rights Before the Reform

Here are a few elements to show how the dynamics between social classes in the 19th century led to important modifications of the political system :

2 : Political Reform

Copy of a 1825 county register listing the freeholders

The first thing to know is that in Britain, before the 1832 Reform Act, the right to vote depended on land ownership : only those who possessed land with an annual rent of 40 shillings could vote (hence their names : the 40 shillings freeholders). They represented only about 8% of the population, almost all members of the aristocracy : this property qualification excluded the middle and the working class.

2 : Political Reform : Voting Rights Before the Reform

Cartoon denouncing the suspension of Habeas Corpus. Made in 1817. Click to enlarge.

If only the members of the upper class could vote, political power was in the hands of the aristocracy. The government was a tool the nobility could use to its own ends; which they sometimes did, in an excessive way. One famous example is the 1817 Habeas Corpus Supension Act : After the beginning of the 19th century in Britain, there was an upsurge in demands for political reform and the extension of the vote, fuelled by the memories of the recent successful French Revolution. Mobs took to the streets to ask for reform of the notoriously corrupt and elitist political system, but also for improvement in the lives of working people. Afraid of riots, the government accused supporters of parliamentary reform of fomenting political violence, and they rushed a law through Parliament : This law temporarily suspended Habeas Corpus, the basic right not to be imprisoned arbitrarily. This suspension only lasted a few months, but allowed the government to crush the rebellious movements. It went down in history as a notorious example of abuse of power by an aristocracy determined to maintain its privileges.

2 : Political Reform : The Maintaining of Privileges

Signing of the Great Reform Act. Click to enlarge.

Before 1830, the Prime Ministers were all resolutely opposed to constitutional reform. However, there was growing support within both parties (Whigs and Tories) for limited change : many argued that giving the members of the middle class the right to vote would allow the wealth and influence of this growing and successful class to be exploited. Many also feared that, if nothing was done, violence would escalate and discontent would turn into a revolution.In 1830, Earl Grey, a Whig, became Prime Minister and pledged to carry out parliamentary reform. It took time, mostly because the Lords tried everything they could to stop this reform which meant the end of the political supremacy of the aristocracy, but the reform was finally passed and received Royal Assent in 1832.This reform modified the property qualification : technically, it extended the franchise to all householders who paid a rent of £10 or more, which means that you didn't necessarily have to own land anymore, you just had to have money. It gave the right to vote to the middle class, but still excluded the working class.This Act is known as the Great Reform Act, showing its importance in political history : actually, it didn't change much, but it was the first step towards a more democratic system. It proved that change was possible ,and over the next decades the call for further parliamentary reform continued.

2 : Political Reform : The Great Reform

Cartoon representing the Chartist petition presented to Parliament. Click to enlarge

A large part of the working class was disappointed with the limits of the Reform Act, which didn't give them the right to vote. This discontent gave birth to a social movement named Chartism, considered as the first movement both working class in character and national in scope. The Chartists' main demand was universal manhood suffrage : in June, they presented a petition to the House of Commons with 1.25 million signatures. When the petition was rejected, some Chartist leaders organised an armed rising at Newport, which was quickly suppressed. The main leader, John Frost, was banished to Australia, and nearly every other Chartist leader was arrested and sentenced to a short prison term.Although unsuccessful, the Chartist movement remains important as the first attempt to build an independent political party to represent the interests of the labouring sections of the British population.

2 : Political Reform : Chartism

We'll jump forward in time here just to notice that, as many predicted, the decades following the Great Reform Act saw a further extension of the franchise. The first reform had opened Pandora's box : progress towards universal suffrage couldn't be stopped for several logical reasons :- The Whigs' liberal vision of society was incompatible with the idea of a property qualification. If we should tend towards more freedom, as liberals think, then logically you can't prevent people from voting because they're poor, this violates basic principles of freedom. - Extending the franchise became a political weapon : the party who would give the right to vote to the working class would then be almost sure to get these votes in future elections.As a result, other reforms took place : constitutional reforms were passed in 1867 and 1884, which lowered the property qualification again. Universal male suffrage (and vote for women over 30) was finally granted in 1918.

2 : Political Reform : Extension of the Franchise

The Condition of the Working Class

Consensus on Free Trade

The Repeal of the Corn Laws

The Maintaining of Privileges (again!)

The Whigs' liberal conception of society and the Tories' conservative tendencies also confronted each other on matters of economics.

3 : Economic Reform

Engraving representing riots against the Corn Laws. Click to enlarge.

Political power, in the hands of the aristocracy before 1832, was also tool for the maintaining of economic privileges. The most famous example of that was the passing of the Corn Laws : After the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the subsequent increase of trade with Europe, landowners (therefore, the aristocrats) were worried that imported cereals would lower the price of food in Britain, and therefore the value of their land. In 1815, they applied pressure on the members of the House of Commons to pass a Corn Law, that is to say a protectionist measure imposing a duty, a tax on foreign corn. This legislation was hated by the people living in Britain's fast-growing towns who, as a consequence, had to pay higher food prices. The workers saw the Corn Laws as an example of how Parliament passed legislation that favoured large landowners, and the manufacturers (and therefore the middle-class) were concerned that the Corn Laws would result in a demand for higher wages.

3 : Economic Reform : The Maintaining of Privileges (again!)

Coin celebrating the repeal of the Corn Laws.

With the middle class gaining more and more power and weight during the 19th century, protest against economic privileges increased : members of the middle class founded in 1829 the Anti-Corn Law League, an organisation devoted to fighting protectionist measures such as the Corn Laws, and to promoting free trade and equal opportunity. One of the most famous advocates of free trade and of the repeal of the Corn Laws at that time was David Ricardo.Pressure was mounting and culminated when the Great Famine hit Ireland in 1845 : millions of Irishmen were starving, and Britain could not and would not allow imports of food. For many, the protectionist measure was worsening the devastating effects of the famine. In 1846 the Tory Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, accepted to repeal the Corn Laws, with the support of the Whigs and despite the opposition of the Tories (who excluded Peel from the party after).It might just look like debates about taxes on cereals, but economic historians often see the repeal of the Corn Laws as a decisive shift toward free trade in Britain. Once again, the liberal vision had defeated the conservative one, the need for reform had defeated tradition.

3 : Economic Reform : The Repeal of the Corn Laws

The Crystal Palace. Click to enlarge.

During the decades after the repeal of the Corn Laws, the effects of the Industrial Revolution combined with free trade boosted British economy to impressive levels of growth and prosperity. Textile and steel production increased dramatically, especially in the northeastern counties because of the proximity of coal and iron mines. Some historians have called this period 'the Factory Age'.For a while, there seemed to be a political consensus on the concept of free trade : although Conservative and Liberal politicians usually despised each other, on economic matters they seemed to agree on the advantages of free trade.The glorious benefits of industrialisation and free trade were celebrated in the 1851 Great Exhibition in London, the first of its kind : six million people came from all over the world to marvel at the wonders made possible by industrialisation, the most impressive being the Crystal Palace, an impressive iron and glass structure. The Great Exhibition went down in history as a one of the defining points of the nineteenth century.

3 : Economic Reform : Consensus on Free Trade

Click to read a quote.

The Great Exhibition was just the pleasant side of the coin. The downside of industrialisation was far less glorious. The condition of the working class deteriorated dramatically.The working class sometimes voiced their discontent about the deterioration of their working conditions : in 1830, during what was called the Swing Riots, agricultural labourers destroyed threshing machines, one of the symbols of industrialisation. But most of the time, these riots were crushed by local authorities.You may already know that the German writer and political theorist Friedrich Engels, before writing The Communist Manifesto with Karl Marx in 1848, had spent time in England and compiled his observations in a book, the Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844. In revolutionary language, he described his experiences while living in Manchester, then at the heart of the industrial revolution. Engels was horrified by the child labour, low wages, poor health, and high death rates that constituted the condition of the working class.Fifty years later, the situation seemed to have worsened : in 1902, the American writer Jack London decided to go to the East End of London, an area notorious for its deep poverty and associated social problems, in an attempt to observe and understand the condition of the working class. The account he published, entitled The People of the Abyss, exposed to the public the unthinkable living conditions existing in the capital of the most powerful and richest empire in the world.

3 : Economic Reform : The Condition of the Working Class

One Nation Conservatism

Theoreticians of Reform

The Workhouse System

New Conception of Poverty

In addition to political and economic reform, Britain in the 19th century also witnessed changes in the perception of what society was, especially in the definition of poverty, which led to a series of social reforms.

4 : Social Reform

This video will show you that the tendency to judge one's financial situation with regard to his moral or immoral behaviour still exists :

How to deal with the poor? This question has been animating debates for centuries : should we help those in need, or expect them to find solutions on their own? Before the 19th century, the answer to this question was to be found in what we call charity : in 1601, Elizabeth I passed a Poor Law, stating that local institutions could collect money from landowners to help the poor. The upper-class had the moral duty to provide relief. The rich helped the poor, it was the traditional, natural order of things.With the rise of the middle-class in the 19th century, this perception started to change. Middle-class liberals started to argue that charity could not solve the problem of poverty, because it reinforced class divisions : how could the poor be free if they depended on the generosity of the aristocrats? They started to try and identify the roots, the causes of poverty. And because they firmly believed in self-help as the ultimate means to achieve success, they floated the idea that the reason for poverty was above all a lack of self-help and determination : being poor was the consequence of laziness, alcoholism or other forms of immoral behaviour. Practicing charity would therefore mean encouraging this immoral behaviour.A distinction was being progressively made between the deserving poor (those who deserved relief because they were not responsible for their situation : orphans, widows, the elderly, the sick etc) and the undeserving poor (those who lacked self-help, who were morally responsible for their poverty and therefore did not deserve to be helped).

4 : Social Reform : New Conception of Poverty

Want to visit a workhouse? Click here :

With this new conception of the origins of poverty in mind, the liberals in power from 1830 to 1834 started to consider social reform. The Liberal Prime Minister, Lord Grey, commissioned a report on the social state of the country, which was published in 1834 and entitled the Poor Law Commissioners' Report. The report called for the end of the charity system, and its replacement by a system encouraging self-help, based on the concept of the workhouse.The idea was simple : those who needed help had to go to a building, the workhouse, where they had to work to get a meal and a bed for the night. In reality, the working and living conditions in workhouses were absolutely horrible, and people knew it : it was meant to dissuade them from applying for relief. The objective was in fact to cure immoral behaviour and encourage self-help : because the conditions in the workhouse were far worse than any other job or place to live, those who could work, the undeserving poor, the able-bodied, would stop being lazy and find a real job rather than to ask for help.

4 : Social Reform : The Workhouse System

John Stuart Mill

Samuel Smiles

Be prepared : we'll get a bit conceptual here. In the case of these new liberal conceptions of society which were advanced in the 19th century, here are two important thinkers to keep in mind. Click to learn more.

4 : Social Reform : The Theoreticians of Reform :

Benjamin Disraeli, probably the most famous Tory PM

Although Tories and Whigs agreed on the benefits of free trade, their conceptions of social order were fundamentally different. We've studied utilitarianism and the system of workhouses developed by the Liberals, let's focus on the Tory Party now, with one of its most famous Prime Ministers : Benjamin Disraeli.Disraeli was not just a politician but also a writer. In his novel, Sybil, or the Two Nations, he described Britain as Two Nations to underline the social divide. He wrote : “Two nations; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets; who are formed by a different breeding, are fed by a different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws . . . . THE RICH AND THE POOR.”His solution to improve the situation relied on the belief in the virtues and stability of the social class system. Indeed, when you think about it, what shape is more stable than a pyramid in architecture? Click on the pyramid to learn more about this vision of society.

4 : Social Reform : One Nation Conservatism

Disraeli's theory was that the social divide and the unprecedented level of poverty had been caused by the liberals who, by introducing social mobility and the superiority of success over order, had destroyed the social fabric. Disraeli's vision of society was called One Nation Conservatism (in opposition to the Two Nations he described in his book) : he wanted to reassert the importance of social order, he envisioned a society in which classes existed to maintain the social order, but in which each class looked after the other. In short, he tried to reaffirm the importance of stability and hierarchy against the instability provoked by social mobility.We won't go into the details of Disraeli's policies, but it is interesting to notice that, during his terms as Prime Minister (1874-1880), he managed to pass a series of laws to improve the condition of the working class. Ironically enough, at that time, it was not the Liberals and their ideals of freedom and equal opportunity who did the most for the working class, it was the Tories with their paternalistic conception of social order. Here are a few examples of measures passed by Disraeli :1875 Trade Union Act : workers can organize in trade unions to defend their interests.1875 Public Health Act : to improve sanitary conditions.1878 Factory Act : 56-hour workweek.

4 : Social Reform : One Nation Conservatism (2)

Timeline

1902

1884

1867

1846

1844

1839

1834

1832

1830

1817

1815

Famous figures

  • Social fabric
  • Habeas Corpus
  • Able-bodied
  • Deserving poor
  • Franchise
  • Undeserving poor
  • Whig
  • Free trade
  • One nation conservatism
  • Peer
  • Commoner
  • Gentry
  • Property qualification
  • Chartism
  • Tory

Glossary

  • General Election