Chapter IV: , VII (19)

"The period which succeeded the passing of the Reform Bill was
one of immense activity and earnestness in legislation. ...
The first great reform was the complete abolition of the
system of slavery in the British colonies. The slave trade had
itself been suppressed so far as we could suppress it long
before that time, but now the whole system of West Indian
slavery was brought to an end [see SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D.
1834-1838]. ... A long agitation of the small but energetic
anti-slavery party brought about this practical result in
1833. ... Granville Sharpe, Zachary Macaulay, father of the
historian and statesman, Thomas Fowell Buxton, Wilberforce,
Brougham, and many others, had for a long time been striving
hard to rouse up public opinion to the abolition of the slave
system." The bill which passed Parliament gave immediate
freedom to all children subsequently born, and to all those
who were then under six years of age; while it determined for
all other slaves a period of apprenticeship, lasting five
years in one class and seven years in another, after which
they attained absolute freedom. It appropriated £20,000,000
for the compensation of the slave-owners. "Another reform of
no small importance was accomplished when the charter of the
East India Company came to be renewed in 1833. The clause
giving them a commercial monopoly of the trade of the East was
abolished, and the trade thrown open to the merchants of the
world [see INDIA: A. D. 1823-1833]. There were other slaves in
those days as well as the negro. There were slaves at home,
slaves to all intents and purposes, who were condemned to a
servitude as rigorous as that of the negro, and who, as far as
personal treatment went, suffered more severely than negroes in
the better class plantations. We speak now of the workers in
the great mines and factories. No law up to this time
regulated with anything like reasonable stringency the hours
of labour in factories. ... A commission was appointed to
investigate the condition of those who worked in the
factories. Lord Ashley, since everywhere known as the Earl of
Shaftesbury, ... brought forward the motion which ended in the
appointment of the commission. The commission quickly brought
together an immense amount of evidence to show the terrible
effect, moral and physical, of the over-working of women and
children, and an agitation set in for the purpose of limiting
by law the duration of the hours of labour. ... The principle
of legislative interference to protect children working in
factories was established by an Act passed in 1833, limiting
the work of children to eight hours a day, and that of young
persons under eighteen to 69 hours a week [see FACTORY
LEGISLATION]. The agitation then set on foot and led by Lord
Ashley was engaged for years after in endeavouring to give
that principle a more extended application. ... Irish tithes
were one of the grievances which came under the energetic
action of this period of reform. The people of Ireland
complained with justice of having to pay tithes for the
maintenance of the church establishment in which they did not
believe, and under whose roofs they never bent in worship." In
1832, committees of both Houses of Parliament reported in
favor of the extinction of tithes; but the Government
undertook temporarily a scheme whereby it made advances to the
Irish clergy and assumed the collection of tithes among its
own functions. It only succeeded in making matters worse, and
several years passed before the adoption (in 1838) of a bill
which "converted the tithe composition into a rent charge."

_J. McCarthy,
The Epoch of Reform,
chapters 7-8._

ALSO IN: C. Knight, Popular History of England,
volume 8, chapter 17.

_H. Martineau,
History of the Thirty Years' Peace,
book 4, chapters 6-9 (volumes 2-3)._

{957}

ENGLAND: A. D. 1833-1840.
Turko-Egyptian question and its settlement.
The capture of Acre.
Bombardment of Alexandria.

See TURKS: A. D. 1831-1840.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1833-1845.
The Oxford or Tractarian Movement.

See OXFORD OR TRACTARIAN MOVEMENT.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1834-1837.
Resignation of Lord Grey and the Reform Ministry.
The first Melbourne Administration.
Peel's first Ministry and Melbourne's second.
Death of William IV.
Accession of Queen Victoria.

"On May 27th, Mr. Ward, member of St. Albans, brought forward
... resolutions, that the Protestant Episcopal Church of
Ireland much exceeded the spiritual wants of the Protestant
population; that it was the right of the State, and of
Parliament, to distribute church property, and that the
temporal possessions of the Irish church ought to be reduced.
The ministers determined to adopt a middle course and appoint
a commission of inquiry; they hoped thereby to induce Mr. Ward
to withdraw his motion, because the question was already in
government hands. While the negotiations were going on, news
was received of the resignation of four of the most
conservative members of the Cabinet, who regarded any
interference with church property with abhorrence; they were
Mr. Stanley, Sir James Graham, the Duke of Richmond, and the
Earl of Ripon. ... Owing to the difference of opinion in the
Cabinet on the Irish coercion bill, on July 9, 1834, Earl Grey
placed his resignation as Prime Minister in the hands of the
king. On the 10th the House of Commons adjourned for four
days. On the 14th, Viscount Melbourne stated in the House of
Lords that his Majesty had honored him with his commands for
the formation of a ministry. He had undertaken the task, but
it was not yet completed. There was very little change in the
Cabinet; Lord Melbourne's place in the Home Department was
filled by Lord Duncannon; Sir John Cam Hobhouse obtained a
seat as First Commissioner of Woods and Forests, and Lord
Carlisle surrendered the Privy Seal to Lord Mulgrave. The
Irish Church Bill was again brought forward, and although it
passed the Commons, was defeated in the Lords, August 1st. The
king much disliked the church policy of the Whigs, and dreaded
reform. He was eager to prevent the meeting of the House, and
circumstances favored him. Before the session Lord Spencer
died, and Lord Althorpe, his son, was thus removed to the
upper House. There was no reason why this should have broken
up the ministry, but the king seized the opportunity, sent for
Lord Melbourne, asserted that the ministry depended chiefly on
the personal influence of Lord Althorpe in the Commons,
declared that, deprived of it as it now was, the government
could not go on, and dismissed his ministers, instructing
Melbourne at once to send for the Duke of Wellington. The
sensation in London was great; the dismissal of the ministry
was considered unconstitutional; the act of the king was
wholly without precedent. ... The Duke of Wellington, from
November 15th to December 9th, was the First Lord of the
Treasury, and the sole Secretary of State, having only one
colleague, Lord Lyndhurst, who held the great seal, while at
the same time he sat as Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer.
This temporary government was called a dictatorship. ... On
Sir Robert Peel's return from Italy, whence he had been
called, he waited upon the king and accepted the office of
First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer.
With the king's permission, he applied to Lord Stanley and Sir
James Graham, entreating them to give him the benefit of their
co-operation as colleagues in the Cabinet. They both declined.
Prevented from forming a moderate Conservative ministry, he
was reduced to fill his places with men of more pronounced
opinions, which promised ill for any advance in reform. ...
The Foreign, Home, War, and Colonial offices were filled by
Wellington, Goulburn, Herries, and Aberdeen; Lord Lyndhurst
was Lord Chancellor; Harding, Secretary for Ireland; and Lord
Wharncliffe, Privy Seal. With this ministry Peel had to meet a
hostile House of Commons. ... The Prime Minister therefore
thought it necessary to dissolve Parliament, and took the
opportunity [in what was called 'the Tamworth manifesto'] of
declaring his policy. He declared his acceptance of the Reform
Bill as a final settlement of the question. ... The elections,
though they returned a House, as is generally the case, more
favorable to the existing government than that which had been
dissolved, still gave a considerable majority to the Liberals.
... Lord John Russell, on April 7th, proposed the resolution,
'That it is the opinion of this House that no measure upon the
subject of the tithes in Ireland can lead to satisfactory and
final adjustment which does not embody the temporalities of
the Church in Ireland.' This was adopted by a majority of 27,
and that majority was fatal to the ministry. On the following
day the Duke of Wellington, in the House of Lords, stated that
in consequence of the resolution in the House of Commons, the
ministry had tendered their resignation. Sir Robert made a
similar explanation in the Commons. Ten days later, Viscount
Melbourne, in moving the adjournment of the House of Lords,
stated that the king had been pleased to appoint him First
Lord of the Treasury. ... On June 9, 1837, a bulletin issued
from Windsor Castle informing a loyal and really affectionate
people that the king was ill. From the 12th they were
regularly issued until the 19th, when the malady, inflammation
of the lungs, had greatly increased. ... On Tuesday, June 20th,
the last of these official documents was issued. His Majesty
had expired that morning at 2 o'clock. William died in the
seventy-second year of his age and seventh year of his reign,
leaving no legitimate issue. He was succeeded by his niece,
Alexandrina Victoria."

_A. H. McCalman,
Abridged History of England,
pages 565-570._

ALSO IN:
_W. C. Taylor,
Life and Times of Sir Robert Peel,
volume 2, chapters 10-12._

_W. M. Torrens,
Memoirs of Viscount Melbourne,
volume 2, chapters 1-8._

_J. W. Croker,
Correspondence and Diaries,
chapters 18-20 (volume 2)._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1836-1839.
Beginning of the Anti-Corn-Law Agitation.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION (ENGLAND): A. D. 1836-1839.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1837.
Separation of Hanover.

See HANOVER: A. D. 1837.

{958}

ENGLAND: A. D. 1837-1839.
Opening of the reign of Queen Victoria.
End of personal rule.
Beginning of purely constitutional government.
Peel and the Bedchamber Question.

"The Duke of Wellington thought the accession of a woman to
the sovereign's place would be fatal to the present hopes of
the Tories [who were then expecting a turn of events in their
favor, as against the Whig administration of Lord Melbourne].
'Peel,' he said, 'has no manners, and I have no small talk.'
He seemed to take it for granted that the new sovereign would
choose her Ministers as a school-girl chooses her companions.
He did not know, did not foresee, that with the accession of
Queen Victoria the real reign of constitutional government in
these islands was to begin. The late King had advanced
somewhat on the ways of his predecessors, but his rule was
still, to all intents and purposes, a personal rule. With the
accession of Victoria the system of personal rule came to an
end. The elections which at that time were necessary on the
coming of a new sovereign went slightly in favour of the
Tories. The Whigs had many troubles. They were not reformers
enough for the great body of their supporters. ... The
Radicals had split off from them. They could not manage
O'Connell. The Chartist fire was already burning. There was
many a serious crisis in foreign policy--in China and in
Egypt, for example. The Canadian Rebellion and the mission of
Lord Durham involved the Whigs in fresh anxieties, and laid
them open to new attacks from their enemies. On the top of all
came some disturbances, of a legislative rather than an
insurrectionary kind, in Jamaica, and the Government felt
called upon to bring in a Bill to suspend for five years the
Constitution of the island. A Liberal and reforming Ministry
bringing in a Bill to suspend a Constitution is in a highly
awkward and dangerous position. Peel saw his opportunity, and
opposed the Bill. The Government won by a majority of only 5.
Lord Melbourne accepted the situation, and resigned [May 7,
1839]. The Queen sent for the Duke of Wellington, and he, of
course, advised her to send for Peel. When Peel came, the
young Queen told him with all the frankness of a girl that she
was sorry to part with her late Ministers, and that she did
not disapprove of their conduct, but that she felt bound to
act in accordance with constitutional usages; Peel accepted
the task of forming an Administration. And then came the
famous dispute known as the 'Bedchamber Question'--the
'question de jupons.' The Queen wished to retain her
ladies-in-waiting; Peel insisted that there must be some
change. Two of these ladies were closely related to Whig
statesmen whose policy was diametrically opposed to that of
Peel on no less important a question than the Government of
Ireland. Peel insisted that he could not undertake to govern
under such conditions. The Queen, acting on the advice of her
late Ministers, would not give way. The whole dispute created
immense excitement at the time. There was a good deal of
misunderstanding on both sides. It was quietly settled, soon
after, by a compromise which the late Prince Consort
suggested, and which admitted that Peel had been in the right.
... Its importance to us now is that, as Peel would not give
way, the Whigs had to come back again, and they came back
discredited and damaged, having, as Mr. Molesworth puts it,
got back 'behind the petticoats of the ladies-in-waiting.'"

_J. McCarthy,
Sir Robert Peel,
chapter 12._

ALSO IN:
_W. N. Molesworth,
History of England, 1830-1874,
volume 2, chapter 1._

H_. Dunckley,
Lord Melbourne,
chapter 11._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1837.
The Victorian Age in Literature.

"It may perhaps be assumed without any undue amount of
speculative venturesomeness that the age of Queen Victoria
will stand out in history as the period of a literature as
distinct from others as the age of Elizabeth or Anne, although
not perhaps equal in greatness to the latter, and far indeed
below the former. At the opening of Queen Victoria's reign a
great race of literary men had come to a close. It is curious
to note how sharply and completely the literature of Victoria
separates itself from that of the era whose heroes were Scott,
Byron, and Wordsworth: Before Queen Victoria came to the
throne, Scott, Byron, Coleridge, and Keats were dead.
Wordsworth lived, indeed, for many years after; so did Southey
and Moore; and Savage Landor died much later still. But
Wordsworth, Southey, Moore, and Landor had completed their
literary work before Victoria came to the throne. Not one of
them added a cubit or an inch to his intellectual stature from
that time; some of them even did work which distinctly proved
that their day was done. A new and fresh breath was soon after
breathed into literature. Nothing, perhaps, is more remarkable
about the better literature of the age of Queen Victoria than
its complete severance from the leadership of that which had
gone before it, and its evidence of a fresh and genuine
inspiration. It is a somewhat curious fact, too, very
convenient for the purposes of this history, that the
literature of Queen Victoria's time thus far divides itself
clearly enough into two parts. The poets, novelists, and
historians who were making their fame with the beginning of
the reign had done all their best work and made their mark
before these later years, and were followed by a new and
different school, drawing inspiration from wholly different
sources, and challenging comparison as antagonists rather than
disciples. We speak now only of literature. In science the
most remarkable developments were reserved for the later years
of the reign."

_J. McCarthy,
The Literature of the Victorian Reign
(Appletons' Journal, January, 1879, page 498)._

"The age of Queen Victoria is as justly entitled to give name
to a literary epoch as any of those periods on which this
distinction has been conferred by posterity. A new tone of
thought and a new colour of style are discernible from about
the date of the Queen's accession, and, even should these
characteristics continue for generations without apparent
break, it will be remembered that the Elizabethan age did not
terminate with Elizabeth. In one important respect, however,
it differs from most of those epochs which derive their
appellation from a sovereign. The names of Augustus, Lorenzo,
Louis XIV., Anne, are associated with a literary advance, a
claim to have bequeathed models for imitation to succeeding
ages. This claim is not preferred on behalf of the age of
Victoria. It represents the fusion of two currents which had
alternately prevailed in successive periods. Delight and
Utility met, Truth and Imagination kissed each other.
Practical reform awoke the enthusiasm of genius, and genius
put poetry to new use, or made a new path for itself in prose.
The result has been much gain, some loss, and an originality
of aspect which would alone render our Queen's reign
intellectually memorable.
{959}
Looking back to the 18th century in England, we see the spirit
of utility entirely in the ascendant. Intellectual power is as
great as ever, immortal books are written as of old, but there
is a general incapacity not only for the production, but for
the comprehension of works of the imagination. Minds as robust
as Johnson's, as acute as Hume's, display neither strength nor
intelligence in their criticism of the Elizabethan writers,
and their professed regard for even the masterpieces of
antiquity is evidently in the main conventional. Conversely,
when the spell is broken and the capacity for imaginative
composition returns, the half-century immediately preceding
her Majesty's accession does not, outside the domain of the
ideal, produce a single work of the first class. Hallam, the
elder Mill, and others compose, indeed, books of great value,
but not great books. In poetry and romantic fiction, on the
other hand, the genius of that age reaches a height unattained
since Milton, and probably not destined to be rivalled for
many generations. In the age of Victoria we witness the fusion
of its predecessors."

_R. Garnett,
Literature (The Reign of Queen Victoria,
edited by T. H. Ward, volume 2, pages 445-446)._

"The most conspicuous of the substantial distinctions between
the literature of the present day and that of the first
quarter or third of the century may be described as consisting
in the different relative positions at the two dates of Prose
and Verse. In the Georgian era verse was in the ascendant; in
the Victorian era the supremacy has passed to prose. It is not
easy for anyone who has grown up in the latter to estimate
aright the universal excitement which used to be produced in
the former by a new poem of Scott's, or Byron's, or Moore's,
or Campbell's, or Crabbe's, or the equally fervid interest
that was taken throughout a more limited circle in one by
Wordsworth, or Southey, or Shelley. There may have been a
power in the spirit of poetry which that of prose would in
vain aspire to. Probably all the verse ages would be found to
have been of higher glow than the prose ones. The age in
question, at any rate, will hardly be denied by anyone who
remembers it to have been in these centuries, perhaps from the
mightier character of the events and circumstances in the
midst of which we were then placed, an age in which the
national heart beat more strongly than it does at present in
regard to other things as well as this. Its reception of the
great poems that succeeded one another so rapidly from the
first appearance of Scott till the death of Byron was like its
reception of the succession of great victories that, ever
thickening, and almost unbroken by a single defeat, filled up
the greater part of the ten years from Trafalgar to
Waterloo--from the last fight of Nelson to the last of
Wellington. No such huzzas, making the welkin ring with the
one voice of a whole people, and ascending alike from every
city and town and humblest village in the land, have been
heard since then. ... Of course, there was plenty of prose
also written throughout the verse era; but no book in prose
that was then produced greatly excited the public mind, or
drew any considerable amount of attention, till the Waverley
novels began to appear; and even that remarkable series of
works did not succeed in at once reducing poetry to the second
place, however chief a share it may have had in hastening that
result. Of the other prose writing that then went on what was
most effective was that of the periodical press,--of the
Edinburgh Review and Cobbett's Register, and, at a later date,
of Blackwood's Magazine and the London Magazine (the latter
with Charles Lamb and De Quincey among its
contributors),--much of it owing more or less of its power to
its vehement political partisanship. A descent from poetry to
prose is the most familiar of all phenomena in the history of
literature. Call it natural decay or degeneracy, or only a
relaxation which the spirit of a people requires after having
been for a certain time on the wing or on the stretch, it is
what a period of more than ordinary poetical productiveness
always ends in."

_G. L. Craik,
Compendious History of English Literature,
volume 2, pages 553-555._

"What ... are the specific channels of Victorian utterance in
verse? To define them is difficult, because they are so subtly
varied and so inextricably interwoven. Yet I think they may be
superficially described as the idyll and the lyric. Under the
idyll I should class all narrative and descriptive poetry, of
which this age has been extraordinarily prolific; sometimes
assuming the form of minstrelsy, as in the lays of Scott;
sometimes approaching to the classic style, as in the
Hellenics of Landor; sometimes rivalling the novellette, as in
the work of Tennyson; sometimes aiming at psychological
analysis, as in the portraits drawn by Robert Browning;
sometimes confining art to bare history, as in Crabbe;
sometimes indulging flights of pure artistic fancy, as in
Keats' "Endymion" and "Lamia." Under its many metamorphoses
the narrative and descriptive poetry of our century bears the
stamp of the idyll, because it is fragmentary and because it
results in a picture. ... No literature and no age has been
more fertile of lyric poetry than English literature in the
age of Victoria. The fact is apparent. I should superfluously
burden my readers if I were to prove the point by reference to
Byron, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth, Rossetti,
Clough, Swinburne, Arnold, Tennyson, and I do not know how
many of less illustrious but splendid names, in detail. The
causes are not far to seek. Without a comprehensive vehicle
like the epic, which belongs to the first period of national
life, or the drama, which belongs to its secondary period, our
poets of a later day have had to sing from their inner selves,
subjectively, introspectively, obeying impulses from nature
and the world, which touched them not as they were Englishmen,
but as they were this man or that woman. ... When they sang,
they sang with their particular voice; and the lyric is the
natural channel for such song. But what a complex thing is
this Victorian lyric! It includes Wordsworth's sonnets and
Rossetti's ballads, Coleridge's' Ancient Mariner' and Keats'
odes, Clough's 'Easter day' and Tennyson's 'Maud,' Swinburne's
'Songs before Sunrise' and Browning's 'Dramatis Personæ,'
Thomson's 'City of Dreadful Night' and Mary Robinson's
'Handful of Honeysuckles,' Andrew Lang's Ballades and Sharp's
'Weird of Michael Scot,' Dobson's dealings with the eighteenth
century and Noel's 'Child's Garland,' Barnes's Dorsetshire
Poems and Buchanan's London Lyrics, the songs from Empedocles
on Etna and Ebenezer Jones's 'Pagan's Drinking Chant,'
Shelley's Ode to the West Wind and Mrs. Browning's 'Pan is
Dead,' Newman's hymns and Gosse's Chant Royal.
{960}
The kaleidoscope presented by this lyric is so inexhaustible
that any man with the fragment of a memory might pair off
scores of poems by admired authors, and yet not fall upon the
same parallels as those which I have made. The genius of our
century, debarred from epic, debarred from drama, falls back
upon idyllic and lyrical expression. In the idyll it satisfies
its objective craving after art. In the lyric it pours forth
personality. It would be wrong, however, to limit the wealth
of our poetry to these two branches. Such poems as
Wordsworth's 'Excursion,' Byron's 'Don Juan' and 'Childe
Harold,' Mrs. Browning's 'Aurora Leigh,' William Morris's
'Earthly Paradise,' Clough's 'Amours de Voyage,' are not to be
classified in either species. They are partly
autobiographical, and in part the influence of the tale makes
itself distinctly felt in them. Nor again can we omit the
translations, of which so many have been made; some of them
real masterpieces and additions to our literature."

_J. A. Symonds,
A Comparison of Elizabethan with Victorian Poetry
(Fortnightly Review, January 1, 1889,
pages 62-64)._

The difference between the drama and the novel "is one of
perspective; and it is this which in a wide sense
distinguishes the Elizabethan and the Victorian views of life,
and thence of art. ... It is ... the present aim of art to
throw on life all manner of side-lights, such as the stage can
hardly contrive, but which the novel professes to manage for
those who can read. The round unvarnished tale of the early
novelists has been dead for over a century, and in its place
we have fiction that seeks to be as complete as life itself.
... There is, then, in each of these periods an excellence and
a relative defect: in the Elizabethan, roundness and balance,
but, to us, a want of fulness; in the Victorian, amplified
knowledge, but a falling short of comprehensiveness. And
adapted to each respectively, the drama and the novel are its
most expressive literary form. The limitations and scope of
the drama are those of its time, and so of the novel. Even as
the Elizabethan lived with all his might and was not troubled
about many things, his art was intense and round, but
restricted; and as the Victorian commonly views life by the
light of a patent reading-lamp, and so, sitting apart, sees
much to perplex, the novel gives a more complex treatment of
life, with rarer success in harmony. This rareness is not,
however, due to the novel itself, but to the minds of its
makers. In possibility it is indeed the greater of the two,
being more epical; for it is as capable of grandeur, and is
ampler. This largeness in Victorian life and art argues in the
great novelists a quality of spirit which it is difficult to
name without being misunderstood, and which is peculiarly
non-Elizabethan. It argues what Burns would call a castigated
pulse, a supremacy over passion. Yet they are not Lucretian
gods, however calm their atmosphere; their minds are not built
above humanity, but, being rooted deep in it, rise high. ...
Both periods are at heart earnest, and the stamp on the great
literature of each is that of reality, heightened and made
powerful by romance. Nor is their agreement herein greatly
shaken by the novel laying considerable stress on the outside
of life, while the drama is almost heedless of it; for they
both seek to break into the kernel, their variance being
chiefly one of method, dictated by difference of knowledge,
taste, and perception."

_T. D. Robb,
The Elizabethan Drama and the Victorian Novel
(Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, April, 1891,
pages 520-522)._

England: A. D. 1838-1842.
The Chartist agitation.

"When the Parliament was opened by the Queen on the 5th of
February, 1839, a passage in the Royal Speech had reference to
a state of domestic affairs which presented an unhappy
contrast to the universal loyalty which marked the period of
the Coronation. Her Majesty said: 'I have observed with pain
the persevering efforts which have been made in some parts of
the country to excite my subjects to disobedience and
resistance to the law, and to recommend dangerous and illegal
practices.' Chartism, which for ten subsequent years
occasionally agitated the country, had then begun to take
root. On the previous 12th of December a proclamation had been
issued against illegal Chartist assemblies, several of which
had been held, says the proclamation, 'after sunset by
torchlight.' The persons attending these meetings were armed
with guns and pikes; and demagogues, such as Feargus O'Connor
and the Rev. Mr. Stephens at Bury, addressed the people in the
most inflammatory language. ... The document called 'The People's
Charter,' which was embodied in the form of a bill in 1838,
comprised six points:--universal suffrage, excluding,
however, women; division of the United Kingdom into equal
electoral districts; vote by ballot; annual parliaments; no
property qualification for members; and a payment to every
member for his legislative services. These principles so
quickly recommended themselves to the working-classes that in
the session of 1839 the number of signatures to a petition
presented to Parliament was upwards of a million and a
quarter. The middle classes almost universally looked with
extreme jealousy and apprehension upon any attempt for an
extension of the franchise. The upper classes for the most
part regarded the proceedings of the Chartists with a contempt
which scarcely concealed their fears. This large section of the
working population very soon became divided into what were
called physical-force Chartists and moral-force Chartists. As
a natural consequence, the principles and acts of the
physical-force Chartists disgusted every supporter of order
and of the rights of property."

_C. Knight,
Popular History of England,
volume 8, chapter 23._

"Nothing can be more unjust than to represent the leaders and
promoters of the movement as mere factious and self-seeking
demagogues. Some of them were men of great ability and
eloquence; some were impassioned young poets, drawn from the
class whom Kingsley has described in his 'Alton Locke'; some
were men of education; many were earnest and devoted fanatics;
and, so far as we can judge, all, or nearly all, were sincere.
Even the man who did the movement most harm, and who made
himself most odious to all reasonable outsiders, the once
famous, now forgotten, Feargus O'Connor, appears to have been
sincere, and to have personally lost more than he gained by
his Chartism. ... He was of commanding presence, great
stature, and almost gigantic strength. He had education; he
had mixed in good society; he belonged to an old family. ...
There were many men in the movement of a nobler moral nature
than poor, huge, wild Feargus O'Connor. There were men like
Thomas Cooper, ... devoted, impassioned, full of poetic
aspiration, and no scant measure of poetic inspiration as
well. Henry Vincent was a man of unimpeachable character. ...
{961}
Ernest Jones was as sincere and self-sacrificing a man as ever
joined a sinking cause. ... It is necessary to read such a
book as Thomas Cooper's Autobiography to understand how
genuine was the poetic and political enthusiasm which was at
the heart of the Chartist movement, and how bitter was the
suffering which drove into its ranks so many thousands of
stout working men who, in a country like England, might well
have expected to be able to live by the hard work they were
only too willing to do. One must read the Anti-Corn-Law Rhymes
of Ebenezer Elliott to understand how the 'bread tax' became
identified in the minds of the very best of the working class,
and identified justly, with the system of political and
economical legislation which was undoubtedly kept up, although
not of conscious purpose, for the benefit of a class. ... A
whole literature of Chartist newspapers sprang up to advocate
the cause. The 'Northern Star,' owned and conducted by Feargus
O'Connor, was the most popular and influential of them; but
every great town had its Chartist press. Meetings were held at
which sometimes very violent language was employed. ... A
formidable riot took place in Birmingham, where the
authorities endeavoured to put down a Chartist meeting. ...
Efforts were made at times to bring about a compromise with
the middle-class Liberals and the Anti-Corn-Law leaders; but
all such attempts proved failures. The Chartists would not
give up their Charter; many of them would not renounce the
hope of seeing it carried by force. The Government began to
prosecute some of the orators and leaders of the Charter
movement; and some of these were convicted, imprisoned and
treated with great severity. Henry Vincent's imprisonment at
Newport, in Wales, was the occasion of an attempt at rescue
[November 4, 1839] which bore a very close resemblance indeed
to a scheme of organised and armed rebellion." A conflict
occurred in which ten of the Chartists were killed, and some
50 were wounded. Three of the leaders, named Frost, Williams,
and Jones, were tried and convicted on the charge of high
treason, and were sentenced to death; but the sentence was
commuted to one of transportation. "The trial and conviction
of Frost, Williams, and Jones, did not put a stop to the
Chartist agitation. On the contrary, that agitation seemed
rather to wax and strengthen and grow broader because of the
attempt at Newport and its consequences. ... There was no lack
of what were called energetic measures on the part of the
Government. The leading Chartists all over the country were
prosecuted and tried, literally by hundreds. In most cases
they were convicted and sentenced to terms of imprisonment.
... The working classes grew more and more bitter against the
Whigs, who they said had professed Liberalism only to gain
their own ends. ... There was a profound distrust of the
middle class and their leaders," and it was for that reason
that the Chartists would not join hands with the Anti-Corn-Law
movement, then in full progress. "It is clear that at that
time the Chartists, who represented the bulk of the artisan
class in most of the large towns, did in their very hearts
believe that England was ruled for the benefit of aristocrats
and millionaires who were absolutely indifferent to the
sufferings of the poor. It is equally clear that most of what
are called the ruling class did really believe the English
working men who joined the Chartist movement to be a race of
fierce, unmanageable, and selfish communists, who, if they
were allowed their own way for a moment, would prove
themselves determined to overthrow throne, altar, and all
established securities of society."

_J. McCarthy,
History of Our Own Times,
chapter 5 (volume 1)._

Among the measures of coercion advocated in the councils of
the Chartists was that of appointing and observing what was to
be called a "'sacred month,' during which the working classes
throughout the whole kingdom were to abstain from every kind
of labour, in the hope of compelling the governing classes to
concede the charter."

_W. N. Molesworth,
History of England, 1830-1874,
volume 2, chapter 5._

ALSO IN:
_T. Cooper,
Life, by himself,
chapter 14-23._

_W. Lovett,
Life and Struggles,
chapters 8-15._

_T. Frost,
Forty Years' Recollections,
chapters 3-11._

_H. Jephson,
The Platform,
part 4, chapters 17 and 19 (volume 2)._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1839-1842.
The Opium War with China.

See CHINA: A. D. 1839-1842.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1840.
Adoption of Penny-Postage.

"In 1837 Mr. Rowland Hill had published his plan of a cheap
and uniform postage. A Committee of the House of Commons was
appointed in 1837, which continued its inquiries throughout
the session of 1838, and arrived at the conviction that the
plan was feasible, and deserving of a trial under legislative
sanction. After much discussion, and the experiment of a
varying charge, the uniform rate for a letter not weighing
more than half an ounce became, by order of the Treasury, one
penny. This great reform came into operation on the 10th of
January, 1840. Its final accomplishment is mainly due to the
sagacity and perseverance of the man who first conceived the
scheme."

_C. Knight,
Crown History of England,
page 883._

"Up to this time the rates of postage on letters were very
heavy, and varied according to the distance. For instance, a
single letter conveyed from one part of a town to another cost
2d.; a letter from Reading, to London 7d.; from Brighton, 8d.;
from Aberdeen, 1s. 3½d.; from Belfast, 1s. 4d. If the letter
was written on more than a single sheet, the rate of postage
was much higher."

_W. N. Molesworth,
History of England, 1830-1874,
volume 2, chapter 1._

ALSO IN:
_G. B. Hill,
Life of Sir Rowland Hill._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1840.
The Queen's marriage.

"On January 16,1840, the Queen, opening Parliament in person,
announced her intention to marry her cousin, Prince Albert of
Saxe Coburg-Gotha--a step which she trusted would be
'conducive to the interests of my people as well as to my own
domestic happiness.' ... It was indeed a marriage founded on
affection. ... The Queen had for a long time loved her cousin.
He was nearly her own age, the Queen being the elder by three
months and two or three days. Francis Charles Augustus Albert
Emmanuel was the full name of the young Prince. He was the
second son of Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and of his
wife Louisa, daughter of Augustus, Duke of
Saxe-Gotha-Altenberg. Prince Albert was born at the Rosenau,
one of his father's residences, near Coburg, on August 26,
1819. ... A marriage between the Princess Victoria and Prince
Albert had been thought of as desirable among the families on
both sides, but it was always wisely resolved that nothing
should be said to the young Princess on the subject unless she
herself showed a distinct liking for her cousin.
{962}
In 1836, Prince Albert was brought by his father to England,
and made the personal acquaintance of the Princess, and she
seems at once to have been drawn toward him in the manner
which her family and friends would most have desired. ... The
marriage of the Queen and the Prince took place on February
10, 1840."

_J. McCarthy,
History of Our Own Times,
chapter 7 (volume 1)._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1841-1842.
Interference in Afghanistan.
The first Afghan War.

See AFGHANISTAN: A. D. 1803-1838; 1838-1842; 1842-1869.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1841-1842.
Fall of the Melbourne Ministry.
Opening of the second administration of Sir Robert Peel.

In 1841, the Whig Ministry (Melbourne's) determined "to do
something for freedom of trade. ... Colonial timber and sugar
were charged with a duty lighter than was imposed on foreign
timber and sugar; and foreign sugar paid a lighter or a
heavier duty according as it was imported from countries of
slave labour or countries of free labour. It was resolved to
raise the duty on colonial timber, but to lower the duty on
foreign timber and foreign sugar, and at the same time to
replace the sliding scale of the Corn Laws then in force [see
TARIFF LEGISLATION (ENGLAND): A. D. 1815-1828] with a fixed
duty of 8s. per quarter. ... The concessions offered by the
Ministry, too small to excite the enthusiasm of the free
traders, were enough to rally all the threatened interests
around Peel. Baring's revision of the sugar duties was
rejected by a majority of 36. Everybody expected the Ministers
to resign upon this defeat; but they merely announced the
continuance of the former duties. Then Peel gave notice of a
vote of want of confidence, and carried it on the 4th of June
by a single vote in a House of 623 members. Instead of
resigning, the Ministers appealed to the country. The
elections went on through the last days of June and the whole
of July. When the new Parliament was complete, it appeared
that the Conservatives could count upon 367 votes in the House
of Commons. The Ministry met Parliament on the 24th of August.
Peel in the House of Commons and Ripon in the House of Lords
moved amendments to the Address, which were carried by
majorities of 91 and 72 respectively." The Ministry resigned
and a Conservative Government was formed, with Peel at its
head, as First Lord of the Treasury. "Wellington entered the
Cabinet without office, and Lyndhurst assumed for the third
time the honours of Lord Chancellor." Among the lesser members
of the Administration--not in the Cabinet--was Mr. Gladstone,
who became Vice-President of the Board of Trade. "This time
Peel experienced no difficulty with regard to the Queen's
Household. It had been previously arranged that in the case of
Lord Melbourne's resignation three Whig Ladies, the Duchess of
Bedford, the Duchess of Sutherland, and Lady Normanby, should
resign of their own accord. One or two other changes in the
Household contented Peel, and these the Queen accorded with a
frankness which placed him entirely at his ease. ... During
the recess Peel took a wide survey of the ills affecting the
commonwealth, and of the possible remedies. To supply the
deficiency in the revenue without laying new burthens upon the
humbler class; to revive our fainting manufactures by
encouraging the importation of raw material; to assuage
distress by making the price of provisions lower and more
regular, without taking away that protection which he still
believed essential to British agriculture: these were the
tasks which Peel now bent his mind to compass. ... Having
solved [the problems] to his own satisfaction, he had to
persuade his colleagues that they were right. Only one proved
obstinate. The Duke of Buckingham would hear of no change in
the degree of protection afforded to agriculture. He
surrendered the Privy Seal, which was given to the Duke of
Buccleugh. ... The Queen's Speech recommended Parliament to
consider the state of the laws affecting the importation of
corn and other commodities. It announced the beginning of a
revolution which few persons in England thought possible,
although it was to be completed in little more than ten
years."

_F. C. Montague,
Life of Sir Robert Peel,
chapter 7-8._

ALSO IN:
_J. R. Thursfield,
Peel,
chapter 7-8._

_W. C. Taylor,
Life and Times of Sir Robert Peel,
volume 3, chapters 3-5._

_J. W. Croker,
Correspondence and Diaries,
chapter 22 (volume 2_).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1842.
The Ashburton Treaty with the United States.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1842.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1845-1846.
Repeal of the Corn Laws and dissolution of the League.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION (ENGLAND): A. D. 1845-1846.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1845-1846.
First war with the Sikhs.

See INDIA: A. D. 1845-1849.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1846.
Settlement of the Oregon Boundary Question with the United
States.

See OREGON: A. D. 1844-1846.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1846.
The vengeance of the Tory-Protectionists.
Overthrow of Peel.
Advent of Disraeli.
Ministry of Lord John Russell.

"Strange to say, the day when the Bill [extinguishing the
duties on corn] was read in the House of Lords for the third
time [June 25] saw the fall of Peel's Ministry. The fall was
due to the state of Ireland. The Government had been bringing
in a Coercion Bill for Ireland. It was introduced while the
Corn Bill was yet passing through the House of Commons. The
situation was critical. All the Irish followers of Mr.
O'Connell would be sure to oppose the Coercion Bill. The
Liberal party, at least when out of office, had usually made
it their principle to oppose Coercion Bills, if they were not
attended with some promises of legislative reform. The English
Radical members, led by Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright, were
certain to oppose coercion. If the protectionists should join
with these other opponents of the Coercion Bill, the fate of
the measure was assured, and with it the fate of the
Government. This was exactly what happened. Eighty
Protectionists followed Lord George Bentinck into the lobby
against the Bill, in combination with the Free Traders, the
Whigs, and the Irish Catholic and national members. The
division took place on the second reading of the Bill on
Thursday, June 25, and there was a majority of 73 against the
Ministry."

_J. McCarthy,
The Epoch of Reform,
page 183._

{963}

The revengeful Tory-Protectionist attack on Peel was led by
Sir George Bentinck and Benjamin Disraeli, then just making
himself felt in the House of Commons. It was distinctly
grounded upon no objection in principle to the Irish Coercion
Bill, but on the declaration that they could "no longer trust
Peel, and, must therefore refuse to give him unconstitutional
powers.' ... He had twice betrayed the party who had trusted
his promises. ... 'The gentlemen of England,' of whom it had
once been Sir Robert's proudest boast to be the leader,
declared against him. He was beaten by an overpowering
majority, and his career as an English Minister was closed.
Disraeli's had been the hand which dethroned him, and to
Disraeli himself, after three years of anarchy and
uncertainty, descended the task of again building together the
shattered ruins of the Conservative party. Very unwillingly
they submitted to the unwelcome necessity. Canning and the
elder Pitt had both been called adventurers, but they had
birth and connection, and they were at least Englishmen.
Disraeli had risen out of a despised race; he had never sued
for their favours; he had voted and spoken as he pleased,
whether they liked it or not. ... He was without Court favour,
and had hardly a powerful friend except Lord Lyndhurst. He had
never been tried on the lower steps of the official ladder. He
was young, too--only 42--after all the stir that he had made.
There was no example of a rise so sudden under such
conditions. But the Tory party had accepted and cheered his
services, and he stood out alone among them as a debater of
superior power. Their own trained men had all deserted them.
Lord George remained for a year or two as nominal chief: but
Lord George died; the conservatives could only consolidate
themselves under a real leader, and Disraeli was the single
person that they had who was equal to the situation. ... He
had overthrown Peel and succeeded to Peel's honours."

_J. A. Froude,
Lord Beaconsfield,
chapter 9._

Although the Tory-Protectionists had accomplished the
overthrow of Peel, they were not prepared to take the
Government into their own hands. The new Ministry was formed
under Lord John Russell, as First Lord of the Treasury, with
Lord Palmerston in the Foreign Office, Sir George Grey in the
Home Department, Earl Grey Colonial Secretary, Sir C. Wood
Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr. Macaulay
Paymaster-General.

W. C. Taylor, Life and Times of Sir Robert Peel,
volume 3, chapter 11.

The most important enactment of the Coercion Bill "(which
subsequently gave it the name of the Curfew Act) was that
which conferred on the executive Government the power in
proclaimed districts of forbidding persons to be out of their
dwellings between sunset and sunrise. The right of proclaiming
a district as a disturbed district was placed in the hands of
the Lord-Lieutenant, who might station additional constabulary
there, the whole expense of which was to be borne by the
district."

_J. F. Bright,
History of England,
period 4, page 137._

ALSO IN:
_S. Walpole,
Life of Lord John Russell,
chapter 16 (volume 1)._

_B. Disraeli,
Lord George Bentinck,
chapter 14-16._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1846.
Difference with France on the Spanish marriages.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1841-1848.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1848.
The last Chartist demonstration.

"The more violent Chartists had broken from the Radical
reformers, and had themselves divided into two sections; for
their nominal leader, Feargus O'Connor, was at bitter enmity
with more thoroughgoing and earnest leaders such as O'Brien
and Cooper. O'Connor had not proved a very efficient guide. He
had entered into a land scheme of a somewhat doubtful
character. ... He had also injudiciously taken up a position
of active hostility to the free-traders, and while thus
appearing as the champion of a falling cause had alienated
many of his supporters. Yet the Parliament elected in 1846
contained several representatives of the Chartist principles,
and O'Connor himself had been returned for Nottingham by a
large majority over Hobhouse, a member of the new Ministry.
The revolution in France gave a sudden and enormous impulse to
the agitation. The country was filled with meetings at which
violent speeches were uttered and hints, not obscure, dropped
of the forcible establishment of a republic in England. A new
Convention was summoned for the 6th of April, a vast petition
was prepared, and a meeting, at which it was believed that
half a million of people would have been present, was summoned
to meet on Kennington Common on the 10th of April for the
purpose of carrying the petition to the House in procession.
The alarm felt in London was very great. It was thought
necessary to swear in special constables, and the wealthier
classes came forward in vast numbers to be enrolled. There are
said to have been no less than 170,000 special constables. The
military arrangements were entrusted to the Duke of
Wellington; the public offices were guarded and fortified;
public vehicles were forbidden to pass the streets lest they
should be employed for barricades; and measures were taken to
prevent the procession from crossing the bridges. ... Such a
display of determination seemed almost ridiculous when
compared with what actually occurred. But it was in fact the
cause of the harmless nature of the meeting. Instead of half a
million, about 30,000 men assembled on Kennington Common.
Feargus O'Connor was there; Mr. Maine, the Commissioner of
Police, called him aside, told him he might hold his meeting,
but that the procession would be stopped, and that he would be
held personally responsible for any disorder that might occur.
His heart had already begun to fail him, and he ... used all
his influence to put an end to the procession. His prudent
advice was followed, and no disturbance of any importance took
place. ... The air of ridicule thrown over the Chartist movement
by the abortive close of a demonstration which had been
heralded with so much violent talk was increased by the
disclosures attending the presentation of the petition." There
were found to be only 2,000,000 names appended to the
document, instead of 5,000,000 as claimed, and great numbers
of them were manifestly spurious. "This failure proved a
deathblow to Chartism."

_J. F. Bright,
History of England,
period 4, pages 176-178._

ALSO IN:
_S. Walpole,
History of England from 1815,
chapter 20 (volume 4)._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1848-1849.
Second war with the Sikhs.
Conquest and annexation of the Punjab.

See INDIA: A. D. 1845-1849.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1849.
Repeal of the Navigation Laws.

See NAVIGATION LAWS: A. D. 1849.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1849-1850.
The Don Pacifico Affair.
Lord Palmerston's speech.

The little difficulty with Greece which came to a crisis in
the last weeks of 1849 and the first, of 1850 (see GREECE: A.
D. 1846-1850), and which was commonly called the Don Pacifico
Affair, gave occasion for a memorable speech in Parliament by
Lord Palmerston, defending his foreign policy against attacks.
{964}
The speech (June 24, 1850), which occupied five hours, "from
the dusk of one day till the dawn of another," was greatly
admired, and proved immensely effective in raising the
speaker's reputation. "The Don Pacifico debate was
unquestionably an important landmark in the life of Lord
Palmerston. Hitherto his merits had been known only to a
select few; for the British public does not read Blue Books,
and as a rule troubles itself very little about foreign
politics at all. ... But the Pacifico speech caught the ear of
the nation, and was received with a universal verdict of
approval. From that hour Lord Palmerston became the man of the
people, and his rise to the premiership only a question of
time."

_L. C. Sanders,
Life of Viscount Palmerston,
chapter 8._

ALSO IN:
_Marquis of Lorne,
Viscount Palmerston,
chapter 7._

_J. McCarthy,
History of Our Own Times,
chapter 19 (volume 2)._

_J. Morley,
Life of Cobden,
volume 2, chapter 3._

_T. Martin,
Life of the Prince Consort,
chapter 38 (volume 2)._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1850.
The so-called Clayton-Bulwer Treaty with the United States,
establishing a joint protectorate over the projected Nicaragua
Canal.

See NICARAGUA: A. D. 1850.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1850.
Restoration of the Roman Episcopate.
The Ecclesiastical Titles Bill.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1850.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1850-1852.
The London protocol and treaty on the Schleswig-Holstein
Question.

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (DENMARK): A. D. 1848-1862.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1851.
The Great Exhibition.