The Making of the English Working Class

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1963

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Preface-Part 1, Chapter 4

Part 1, Chapter 5

Part 2, Chapters 6-9

Part 2, Chapters 10-12

Part 3, Chapters 13-14

Part 3, Chapter 15

Part 3, Chapter 16

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Part 3, Chapters 13-14Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 3: “The Working-Class Presence”

Part 3, Chapter 13 Summary: “Radical Westminster”

Chapter 13 returns to the historical narrative of English Radicalism. The government’s counter-revolutionary repression of the late 1790s had crushed organized Jacobinism. The movement remained formidable, but its adherents were scattered and isolated. This chapter, therefore, represents Thompson’s “attempt” at a “coherent historical account of an incoherent presence” (451).

Three important developments illuminate the changing nature of English Radicalism in the first decade of the 19th century. First, Napoleon Bonaparte’s imperial ambitions and assumption of dictatorial powers meant that English Jacobins no longer could look to France for inspiration or support. An English Revolution, therefore, would have to originate with the English people. Second, the Tory polemicist William Cobbett turned his pen against Old Corruption and gave Radicals libertarian rhetoric with which to challenge the English government’s most exploitative and authoritarian practices. In so doing, Cobbett established himself as Radicalism’s most effective spokesman. Third, in 1807, through the tireless exertions of the Westminster Committee, Radicals won two seats in Parliament. This committee ensured that the two London-based Westminster seats would remain reliably Radical throughout the early 19th century. The Westminster Committee’s success, however, stands in marked contrast to the situation in England’s industrializing North, where counter-revolution had driven Radicalism underground.

Part 3, Chapter 14 Summary: “An Army of Redressers”

Chapter 14 examines English Radicalism’s “illegal tradition” (472), in particular the mysterious Luddite movement of 1811-1817. Chapter 14 is divided into six subsections: “The Black Lamp,” “The Opaque Society,” “The Laws against Combination,” “Croppers and Stockingers,” “Sherwood Lads,” and “By Order of the Trade.”

The first three subsections offer different ways of approaching the Luddite movement from a historical perspective. “The Black Lamp” describes Luddism as part of a continuous illegal tradition dating to the 1790s, peaking at the arrest and execution of the Irish-born officer-turned-conspirator Edmund Despard in February 1803. In West Riding, for instance, references to a shadowy organization called The Black Lamp appear in official communications as early as 1802. In “The Opaque Society,” Thompson points to surviving records from the English government’s Home Office to suggest that authorities believed something serious and potentially revolutionary was brewing among the people in the industrial centers. Based on these records, Thompson casts doubt on historical interpretations of the Luddites as a small group of malcontents mainly concerned with violent opposition to labor-saving machinery. “The Laws against Combination” instead argues that the Luddites must be understood in the context of the 1799 and 1800 Combination Acts, which effectively prohibited organized trade unions. Secret organizations existed in defiance of these laws. Thompson views the 1824 repeal of the Combination Acts as evidence for the illegal tradition’s vitality in industrial communities: The primary pro-repeal argument, made by Francis Place and others, emphasized the Acts’ ineffectiveness in preventing illegal trade unions from forming.

The fourth subsection, “Croppers and Stockingers,” provides Luddism’s “industrial context” (521). The croppers (or harvestmen) of the West Riding, the weavers of Lancashire, and the stockingers (or framework-knitters) in and around Nottingham comprised the core of the Luddite movement. Each group had a particular industrial grievance. Croppers resisted the introduction of the labor-saving gig-mill and shearing-frames. Weavers sought the enforcement of Elizabethan-era apprenticeship laws designed to protect artisans and their trade. Framework-knitters objected to a series of exploitative practices by which their industry’s products had been cheapened and their own labor degraded. For years leading up to the first Luddite disturbances in March 1811, industrial workers had been claiming constitutional rights and seeking legal remedies. Significantly, correspondence from the leaders of the Nottingham Committee, formed on behalf of the aggrieved framework-knitters, includes multiple disparaging references to the doctrines of Adam Smith. This suggests that the Luddites knew and despised the economic philosophy favored by industrial capitalists and their allies in government.

The fifth subsection, “Sherwood Lads,” provides a historical narrative of Luddism in 1811-1812. The first wave of Luddite activity began in March 1811 with demonstrations, riots, and frame-breaking by large groups of Nottingham framework-knitters. Parliament responded by making frame-breaking a capital offense. In early 1812, as authorities concentrated on quelling disturbances in Nottingham, croppers in Yorkshire led a second wave of violence, this time against mill owners who used shearing frames. Yorkshire Luddism peaked in April 1812 with an unsuccessful attack on a mill at Rawfolds, followed by the murder of a mill owner. At the same time, Lancashire weavers attacked a power-loom mill. The government responded by sending 12,000 troops to the affected counties, and this incredible show of force put a stop to large-scale attacks; however, even after Prime Minister Spencer Perceval was assassinated on May 11, rumors of oath-taking, arming, and drilling persisted into the summer.

“By Order of the Trade” attaches meaning to these events. Although much of Luddism remains shrouded in mystery, the surviving record leaves “an impression of active moral sanction given by the community to all Luddite activities short of actual assassination” (585). More importantly, the traditional interpretation of Luddism as a simple manifestation of anti-technological and industrial grievances fails to consider the movement’s broader insurrectionary scope.

Part 3, Chapters 13-14 Analysis

These chapters are transitional. Having devoted Part 2 to various forms of exploitation perpetrated by leading industrial capitalists, Thompson returns to the political context, describing the evolution of French-influenced Jacobinism into English Radicalism in the first decades of the 19th century, spurred by figures like pamphleteer William Cobbett, Radicalism’s most influential writer. Radicalism’s success in Westminster, however, stood in sharp contrast to the situation in England’s industrial North. In Chapter 14, Thompson for the first time fuses the political and industrial contexts, and he does so by focusing on the Luddites.

Every historian is at the mercy of surviving sources. In the case of Luddism, historians must overcome two obstacles. First, the Luddites themselves left few records. Second, the evidence that does exist is slanted toward the authorities’ perspective. Thompson views the first obstacle as a sign of Luddism’s success in keeping its secrets. After all, one reason the “sources are clouded is that working people intended them to be so” (487). Furthermore, given the scope of the disturbances in 1811-1812, the Luddites’ collective silence shows extraordinary discipline on the part of the secret societies that organized and executed the attacks, as well as on the part of the communities that shielded the perpetrators. As for the second obstacle, Thompson concludes that it is still possible to form general impressions of the situation from government reports, many of which suggested that something was brewing in the industrial centers, but locals would not talk. Parliamentary legislation imposing the death penalty for the destruction of a shearing frame was harsh even by counter-revolutionary standards, which shows that the authorities were eager to deter whatever was happening. The deployment of 12,000 troops to three Luddite counties is the most compelling evidence that revolutionary sentiment inside the nascent working class threatened to manifest as full-fledged insurrection.

The blending of political and industrial grievances in an era of counter-revolution and exploitation might have been the most important factor in the making of the working class. Chapter 14 shows that the group supposedly driven only by industrial grievances actually had a mature political consciousness: Radicals achieved the repeal of the Combination Acts, weavers cited centuries-old apprenticeship laws, the Nottingham Committee wrote about Adam Smith’s philosophy in disparaging terms, and a Nottingham crowd recognized that the slain Prime Minister Perceval had been their enemy.