Table Of ContentHENRY HUNT AND ENGLISH WORKING-CLASS RADICALISM, 1812-1832
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William J? Neman
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A DISSERTATION
PRESENTED TO THE
FACULTY OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE
OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
RECOMMENDED FOR ACCEPTANCE BY THE
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
FEBRUARY 19^0
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ABSTRACT
The career of Henry Hunt (1773-1835) as an early nineteenth-
century agitator is significant for his increasingly direct
appeal to the working-classes of England and for his ennuncia-
tion of a program of working-class political ends. It was
from this combination of activities that Hunt drew his leader
ship and thereby helped bring to birth the political movement
of the English workers. An evaluation of his leadership must,
however, take into consideration not only this achievement but
also the extent to which Hunt solved the tactical problems
which faced his movement. In this connection the examples of
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later working-class movements are helpful for they make it
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possible to erect a standard of working-class tactics. Marx
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and the Fabians presented a framework of action using a
method of social analysis which enabled them to recognize
-v- their economic and political situation at a given moment
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More important, this analysis created assurance of eventual
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o Henry Hunt was bom into the rural Toryism of the
^ Wiltshire farming class. Although he later turned to other
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fields of endeavor and other opinions, he retained the
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independent spirit of the yeoman. It was this independence
which brought him into conflict with his betters of the
country-side and forced him to go‘to Bristol to search for a
living. There he discovered his powers as a mob orator. In
the Bristol elections of 1812 using the Radical creed as his
weapon of attack against a corrupt Whig-Tory political bargain,
he proved his ability to attract an audience if not their votes
It was at this same time that the Radical Movement was being
resurrected in London by the efforts of Sir Francis Burdett,
William Cobbett, and Major Cartwright. These men with their
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eighteenth-century concepts of political action accepted Hunt
as one of their group. By l8l5 Hunt had moved from Toryism
to Radicalism.
But he was not to stop there. In the economic and
social stress of post-Waterloo Ihgland he found an opportunity
to develop a new brand of Radicalism - a brand which looked
to the workers as the source of its support and inspiration.
The condition of the workers in the years l8l5-19 deteriorated
rapidly under the double impact of depression and unemployment
and the introduction of the new machines of the industrial
revolution. It was to the hungry workers of the North, who
were turning to political action through their Hampden Clubs,
that Hunt began to address himself. In the Spa Fields meetings
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of 1816-17 he brought to his working-class followers a
political program of universal suffrage, annual parliaments,
and the ballot. This was an appeal to class consciousness
and for class rights. Splitting with the Radical leader
Burdett on the issue of working-class suffrage, he became
the embodiment of the hopes of the workers for relief from
poverty through constitutional means.
The government was quick to use its force against this
movement and succeeded in stamping it out in the spring of
1817, but it flamed up again in 1819. It was in this year
and on St. Peters Helds at Manchester that Hunt's leader
ship reached its peak of glory and effectiveness. But,
Peterloo massacre brought an abrupt end to working-class
Radicalism. Hunt was arrested and imprisoned for two years.
He was never again able to stand forward as the undisputed
leader of the masses.
The years after 1819 may have been an anti-climax, but
the earlier period of fruitful activity had sown well the
seeds of a working-class movement. Hunt had been willing to
champion the workers when no one else had been. He gave them
a program which appealed to them as a class and in terns of
their class interest. This was his achievement. His failure
was his inability to create a schemework of tactics which
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~ embodied a concept of optimistic action. He told the -workers
-what was theirs by right but did not promise them that they
would achieve their goal.
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CONTENTS
PREFACE page
I THE ARENA OF ACTION: ENGLAND, 1815
The Eighteenth Century Heritage
The Nineteenth Century in Embryo
The Three-Cornered Class Struggle
The Issue of the Day
II A STANDARD OF WORKING-CLASS TACTICS
The Purpose of a Standard of Tactics
Marxian Tactics
Fabian Tactics
What Is Required of a Working-Class Leader
III HUNT THE FARMER
Wiltshire in the Late Years of the Eighteenth Century
Hunt’s Youth
IV THE REVIVAL OF RADICALISM
The Political Foundations of the New Radical Movement
Burdett Leads the Revived Movement
Cobbett Moves from Toryism to Radicalism
Cartwright Attempts to Organize Radicalism
V HUNT BECOMES A RADICAL POLITICIAN
Hunt and the Whigs: First Steps in Politics, 1802-6
Bristol Politics in the Early Years of the Nineteenth
Century
Hunt in Bristol Politics, 1807
Hunt Attends County Meetings
Romilly and the Middle Class of Bristol
The.Bristol Election of June-July, 1812
The Bristol Election of October, 1812
VI HUNT MAKES HIS NAME, 1815-17
Post-War Economic Problems
Preparations for a Working-Class Agitation, 1816
The First and Second Spa Fields Meetings,
November-Deeember, 18165 Spa Fields and the North
The Hampden Clubs Meeting; London, January, 1817
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VII GAGGING ACTS AND WESTMINSTER ELECTIONS 378
The Passing of the Gagging Acts
Westminster Elections, 1818-19
VIII PETERLOO lp.6
The Radical Agitation of 1818-19
The Days before the Peterloo Meeting; Peterloo
Massacre; The Trial of Hunt
Hunt in London after Peterloo; Working-Class Radicalism
after Peterloo
Tory Reactions to Peterloo! Fear of Revolution
The "Whig Reaction to Peterloo: Rejection of the Workers
Middle-Class Reactions to Peterloo: "ELoody Neros Rip
Open their Mother’s Womb.”
IX THE YEARS AFTER PETERLOO: CONCLUSIONS 526
The Great Northern Political Union, 1821-23
Hunt and the Reform Bill Crisis
Conclusions - An Estimate of Hunt1s Tactical Leadership
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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PREFACE
Henry Hunt has long been one of the neglected
figures of British labor history. The nineteenth
century followed Francis Place in briefly considering
and then quickly condemning him as a worthless dema
gogue. To an era seeking political democracy the safe
way, he was a force for evil and better forgotten.
Further, he was looked upon as an ephemeral bubble
floating on the sea of agitation; his most important
accomplishment was his momentary fame as the persecuted
speaker at Peterloo. To the historians of the nine
teenth century Hunt's activities had nothing to
recommend; stirring the people to demand their rights
in the eyes of Victorian orthodoxy could only lead
to incalculable harm. Cobbett at least was a writer
of undoubted genius; Place was essentially a Liberal.
But Hunt was simply daemonic. More, recent historical
writing has admitted that Hunt was sincerely interested
in the welfare of the workers, and that vain though he
was, he at least ventured the danger of speaking for
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them. let, even this more friendly tone has failed
to bring forth an appreciative estimate of his impor
tance in shaping British labor politics.
Hunt was neither an evil force, nor ephemeral.
He was the first great leader, along with Cobbett,
of the English working class. In the following pages
an effort will be made to portrajr and evaluate his role
in first, the establishment and development of a
political working-class movement, and second, the
process by which he gave to this movement a program
of universal suffrage, annual parliaments, and the
ballot. These -were the demands which became the doc
trinal groundwork of the working-class movements which
followed Hunt's agitation.
But Hunt was a leader, not a thinker. An evalua
tion of his leadership must be based, therefore, on
his ability to solve the tactical problems which faced
him; in this way a study of Hunt becomes a study in
vrorking-class tactics. To organize effectively and
solidify his movement Hunt had not only to present a
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