Chapter I: Preface

Many histories have been written of the governing class that ruled England with such absolute power during the last century of the old régime. Those histories have shown how that class conducted war, how it governed its colonies, how it behaved to the continental Powers, how it managed the first critical chapters of our relations with India, how it treated Ireland, how it developed the Parliamentary system, how it saved Europe from Napoleon. One history has only been sketched in outline: it is the history of the way in which this class governed England. The writers of this book have here attempted to describe the life of the poor during this period. It is their object to show what was in fact happening to the working classes under a government in which they had no share. They found, on searching through the material for such a study, that the subject was too large for a single book; they have accordingly confined themselves in this volume to the treatment of the village poor, leaving the town worker for separate treatment. It is necessary to mention this, for it helps to explain certain omissions that may strike the reader. The growth and direction of economic opinion, for example, are an important part of any examination of this question, but the writers have been obliged to reserve the consideration of that subject for their later volume, to which it seems more appropriate. The writers have also found it necessary to leave entirely on one side for the present the movement for Parliamentary Reform which was alive throughout this period, and very active, of course, during its later stages.

Two subjects are discussed fully in this volume, they believe, for the first time. One is the actual method and procedure of Parliamentary Enclosure; the other the labourers’ rising of 1830. More than one important book has been written on enclosures during the last few years, but nowhere can the student find a full analysis of the procedure and stages by which the old village was destroyed. The rising of 1830 has only been mentioned incidentally in general histories: it has nowhere been treated as a definite demand for better conditions, and its course, scope, significance, and punishment have received little attention. The writers of this book have treated it fully, using for that purpose the Home Office Papers lately made accessible to students in the Record Office. They wish to express their gratitude to Mr. Hubert Hall for his help and guidance in this part of their work.

The obligations of the writers to the important books published in recent years on eighteenth-century local government are manifest, and they are acknowledged in the text, but the writers desire to mention specially their great debt to Mr. Hobson’s _Industrial System_, a work that seems to them to throw a new and most illuminating light on the economic significance of the history of the early years of the last century.

Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Ponsonby and Miss M. K. Bradby have done the writers the great service of reading the entire book and suggesting many important improvements. Mr. and Mrs. C. R. Buxton, Mr. A. Clutton Brock, Professor L. T. Hobhouse, and Mr. H. W. Massingham have given them valuable help and advice on various parts of the work.

HAMPSTEAD, _August 1911_

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I. THE CONCENTRATION OF POWER, 1

Comparison between English and French Aristocracy--Control
of English Aristocracy over (1) Parliament; (2) Local
Government--The Justices--Family Settlements--Feudal Dues.

II. THE VILLAGE BEFORE ENCLOSURE, 26

The Common-field System--Classes in the Village--Motives
for Enclosure--Agricultural Considerations--Moral
Considerations--Extent of Parliamentary Enclosure.

III. ENCLOSURE (I), 43

Procedure in Parliament--Composition of Private Bill
Committees--Proportion of Consents required--Helplessness
of Small Men--Indifference of Parliament to Local
Opinion--Appointment and Powers of Enclosure
Commissioners--Story of Sedgmoor.

IV. ENCLOSURE (II), 71

Standing Orders--General Enclosure Bills--Consolidating Act of
1801--Popular Feeling against Enclosure--Proposals for Amending
Procedure--Arthur Young’s Protest--Story of Otmoor.

V. THE VILLAGE AFTER ENCLOSURE, 97

Effects of Enclosure on (1) Small Farmers; (2) Cottagers;
(3) Squatters--Expenses--Loss of Common Rights--Village
Officials--Changed Outlook of Labourer.

VI. THE LABOURER IN 1795, 106

Loss of Auxiliary Resources--Fuel--Gleaning--Rise in
Prices--Effect of Settlement Laws--Food Riots of 1795.

VII. THE REMEDIES OF 1795, 123

The Remedies proposed but not adopted: (1) _Change of
Diet_--Cheap Cereals--Soup; (2) _Minimum Wage_--Demand from
Norfolk Labourers--Whitbread’s Bills, 1795 and 1800; (3) _Poor
Law Reform_--Pitt’s Poor Law Bill---Amendments of Settlement
Laws; (4) _Allotments_--Success of Experiments--Hostility
of Farmers--The Remedy adopted: Speenhamland System of
supplementing Wages from Rates--Account of Speenhamland
Meeting--Scale of Relief drawn up.

VIII. AFTER SPEENHAMLAND, 166

Prosperity of Agriculture during French War--Labourers
not benefited--Heavy Taxation--Agricultural Depression at
Peace--Labourers’ Rising in 1816--Poor Law Legislation of
1818, 1819 to relieve Ratepayers, compared with Whitbread’s
Scheme in 1807--Salaried Overseers--Parish Carts--Drop in
Scale of Relief for Labourers after Waterloo--New Auxiliary
Resources--Poaching--Game Laws--Distress and Crime--Criminal
Justice--Transportation.

IX. THE ISOLATION OF THE POOR, 207

Attitude of Governing Class towards the Poor--An Ideal Poor
Woman--Gulf between Farmers and Labourers due to Large
Farms--Bailiffs--Lawyers and the Poor--The Church and the
Poor--Gloom of the Village.

X. THE VILLAGE IN 1830, 225

Poor Law Commission Report of 1834--Effects of Speenhamland
System: Degradation of Labourer; Demoralisation of Middle
Classes--Possible Success of Alternative Policies--Minimum
Wage--Cobbett’s Position.

XI. THE LAST LABOURERS’ REVOLT (I), 240

Rising in Kent--Threshing Machines--Sussex Rising: Brede--Spread
of Rising Westwards--Description of Outbreak in Hampshire,
Wiltshire, Berkshire--Alarm of Upper Classes--Melbourne’s
Circular--Repressive Measures--Archbishop’s Prayer.

XII. THE LAST LABOURERS’ REVOLT (II), 272

Special Commissions--Temper of Judges--Treatment of
Prisoners--Trials at Winchester, Salisbury, Dorchester,
Reading, Abingdon, Aylesbury--Cases of Arson--Position of Whig
Government--Trials of Carlile and Cobbett--Proposals for helping
Labourers--Lord King--Lord Suffield--Collapse of Proposals.

XIII. CONCLUSION, 325

INDEX, 405