Great Britain1815-1851

Section 11.54, 11.56 & 57

McKay Ch 23 (772-775)

Great Britain 1815-1850

1815 1820 1825 1830 1835 1840 1845 1850

-Peterloo Massacre (1819)-Six Acts Passed

-Cato Street Conspiracy

-London Police Force formed

(1828)-Catholic

Emancipation Act (1829)

-Irish Potato Famine begins

-Corn Laws repealed

(1846)

Chartists issue Six Points (1836)

Ten Hour Act (1847

Great Exhibition in

Crystal Palace (1851)

Great Reform Bill (1832)

Corn Law passed

Factory Act of 1833

Mines Act

(1842)

Corn Laws• Tories (Landed classes)

– feared competition of grain agricultural after Napoleonic wars ended

– Passed 1st in series of “Corn Laws” (1815-1846)

• tariff on imported (grain) that maintained high prices for domestic produce

• Stopped importation of cheaper foreign grains

– Helped Tory aristocrats who owned land

– Hurt everyone else• Wages could not keep up with

prices• Contributes to the spread of

radicalism

What is the Point of View of this membership card?

• Corn laws raised tensions– Riot broke out in London in Dec 1816 – In Feb, the Prince Regent was attacked in

carriage• Coercion Acts of 1817

– Gov suspended habeas corpus• Allowed arbitrary arrest and punishment• Curtailed freedom of press and assembly

– Infiltrated radical groups with agents provocateurs (spies who egged on radicals)

• Peterloo Massacre– Peaceful protest of 80 thousand at St. Peter’s

Fields in Manchester, England– Reformers demanded

• Repeal of Corn Laws• Universal male suffrage• Annual elections of HOC

– Government cavalry rushed the crowed– 11 killed, 400 wounded, including 113 women– Dubbed the Peterloo Massacre in comparison

to Waterloo

Peterloo Massacre (1819)

Henry Addington, Viscount Sidmouth on the Petterloo Massacre (1819)

A conspiracy existed for the subversion of the constitution in church and state, and of the rights of property... He should now describe the measures designed to meet this evil... It was proposed, that any person having been tried, convicted and punished for a blasphemous or seditious libel, should on conviction of a second offence, be liable ... to fine, imprisonment, banishment, or transportation ... [and] that all publications, consisting of less than a given number of sheets, should be subjected to a duty equal to that paid by newspapers.To obviate the danger of tumultuous and seditious meetings... any parties wishing to meet for consideration of subjects connected with church or state, should notify their intention by a requisition signed by seven householders, and it should be illegal for any person not usually inhabiting the place where it was called, to attend. It was proposed to give the magistrates the power, with some limitations, of appointing the time and place of meeting.…The Annual Register, Vol.61 (1819) pp.128-9

Six Acts (1819)• Parliament laws meant to

repress political agitators• Highpoint of political repression

in post Napoleonic Great Britain• Preamble said: every meeting

for radical reform is an overt act of treasonable conspiracy against the King and his government – Outlawed seditions and

blasphemous literature– Stamp tax on newspapers– Search of private houses for

arms– Restricted the right of public

meetingsPolitical Cartoon commenting on

the suppression of the English Bill of Rights under the Six Acts

Cato Street Conspiracy (1820)• George III died in 1820• Newspaper announced that

important minister of parliament were to dine at home of Lord Harrowby

• Revolutionary socialist republicans saw this as chance for coup d'état of the Tory government– Had been egged on by agent

provocateurs • Caught by police on Cato Street

(1820)• Five members of the Cato Street

Conspiracy were hanged & beheaded

• Used to justify the passage of the Six Acts

• Great Britain is on the verge of becoming a reactionary state

The EXECUTION of THISTLEWOOD, INGS, BRUNT, DAVIDSON, and TIDD for High

TREASON in Forming of a plot to assassinate his Majesty's Ministers whilst at a cabinet

Dinner. They were Executed on Monday May 1st in Front of Newgate and after hanging half an

hour they were cut down and their heads severed from their Bodies and help up and

proclaimed the head of a traitor.

Catholic Emancipation Act• Act of Union (1800)

– Made Ireland part of the United Kingdom (Great Britain = England, Wales, & Scotland)

– Now Irish Protestants (Anglicans) could vote

• Penal Laws – Irish Catholics still excluded from

running for office or voting• Daniel O’Connell

– Irish nationalist was elected to Parliament in 1828 (but legally could not take a seat)

• Duke of Wellington (Conservative) feared nationalists revolt– Pushed through Catholic

Emancipation Act • Catholics could now run for office• Provision in it required substantial

property to vote

This is an anti-Catholic cartoon: Peel and Wellington are the

"gravediggers" of the Constitution, Daniel O'Connell

and the Pope are taking over St. Paul's Cathedral (renamed St.

Patrick's) and the King is heading out of the picture (right)

Tory Reform• Sir Robert Peel(1788-1850)• Conservative Prime Minister

(1834-36, 1841-1846)– “Orange Peel” for his

outspoken opposition to Catholic Emancipation

• Initiates Gaols Act of 1823– Prison reform bill

• Capital punishment eliminated for about 100 offenses

• Sponsored law for the creation of the Metropolitan Police Force on London streets (1829)

– Paid professionals who were visible to help prevent crime

– Known as “Bobbies” or disparagingly as Peelers

– Greatly helped to reduce crime

Great Reform Bill of 1832• House of Commons

– did not represent the population or economy• Rotten Boroughs

– Some boroughs were empty and had representation

– one was under water in the North Sea• New factory towns were un-represented (Manchester)• Whigs propose reform bill on elections• Tories under Wellington (victor of Waterloo was most

extreme conservative) refuse to reform• Great Reform Bill of 1832

– Got rid of hundreds of “rotten boroughs”– Large industrial cities like Manchester now had

representatives in Parliament– Extended right to vote to men who owned a house

worth at least 10 pounds• Bourgeoisie Middle Class liberals

• BUT– United Kingdom still not democratic

• Tenant farmers, urban workers, Irish Catholic peasants still can not vote

Whigs v Tories• After Reform Bill of 1832 two

defined political parties emerge who compete for votes by reforming

• Whig Party– Classic Liberal– Party of Factory Owners, some

aristocrats– Party of Big

Business/Enlightenment Ideals• Tory Party

– Conservative party (Tories)– Party of Landowners,

traditionalists, the Old Order, factory workers

Whigs v ToriesLiberals Reforms• 1833 Slavery is abolished• 1834 New Poor Law is

passed– Provided relief for sick and

aged (not able bodied)• Municipal corporations act

– Helped cities manage urban life problems

• Corn Laws Repealed in 1846!!!

– Industry became the mainstay of the British economy

– Textile manufactures, coal, shipping, and financial services become the basis of the new economy

– Agricultural decreases– Britain depended on the

maintenance of free trade and naval power

Tory Reforms•Tories become champions of the industrial workers

– Publicized the social evils of rapid and ruthless industrialization

– Humanitarian industrialists were sympathetic

•Factory Act 1833 forbade child labor (under 9)

– Paid inspectors to insure compliance

•Mines Act of 1842– underground mine work was

forbidden for women, girls, and boys under 10

•Ten Hours Act of 1847– limited the labor of women and

children to 10 hours– eventually men only worked ten

hours

Ireland and the Great Famine• Irish historically resisted English attempts at

assimilation and modernization– Remained defiantly Catholic

• Majority were Tenant farmers – Rented land from absentee English

Protestant landlords– lived in shocking poverty– Yet experienced tremendous population

growth – growth was due to potato cultivation, early

marriage, and high rents• Potato required little land, provided high

vitamin and caloric yield • From 1844-1846 potato crop decimated by fungus• Relief efforts were inadequate

– landlords continued to demand rents or evict tenant farmers

– government continued to collect taxes and export unaffected food

• Held to laissez faire economics• Millions died or left Ireland; anti-British feelings &

Irish nationalism grew

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Big Idea• Political Zeitgeist (1815-1851)

– Extreme conservativism throughout Europe• Repression of all other isms

– Industrialism breeds radicalism• Conditions in factories, child labor, mines, urban

poverty/ overcrowded conditions, high price of grain, romantic lamentations of industrialization

– Great Britain may have experienced a revolution (1848) but does not

– Why?– Parliamentary system

• Party system allows for gradual reform

Crystal Palace (1851)

• Reflects the Industrial and technological dominance of Great Britain in 1851