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EBENEZER ELLIOTT
(1781 - 1849)

Municipal Corporations Reform Bill

Ebenezer's 1835 Speech

The Sheffield Independent newspaper for 8th August 1835 contained a notice of a meeting to be called to discuss the above bill. An account of the meeting then appeared in the newspaper on August 15th. Both items were discovered by Sheffield's Diane Gascoyne, an admirer of the Corn Law Rhymer.

To the Master Cutler of Sheffield

SIR, - We, the undersigned, respectfully request you to convene a MEETING of the Inhabitants of the Borough of Sheffield, as early as possible, in order to petition the House of Lords in Support of the MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS REFORM BILL.

(Ebenezer Elliott was one of the 58 prominent citizens who were listed here as signatures.)

In the absence of the Master Cutler, and as Senior Warden of the Cutlers' Company, I hereby in pursuance of the above Requisition, convene a MEETING of the Inhabitants of the Borough of Sheffield, to be held at the TOWN-HALL, on MONDAY next, at 12 o'Clock at Noon.

August 7, 1835. JOHN SPENCER.

Two reports from the Sheffield Independent are drawn upon in reporting the Corn Law Rhymer's speech to the public meeting. In the issue for 15/8/1835, the newspaper reported:-

On Monday noon, a numerous meeting of the inhabitants of this borough was held in the Town Hall, to petition the House of Lords to pass unmutilated the bill for the Reform of Municipal Corporations. On the motion of Mr. S. Bailey, seconded by Mr. Dunn; Mr. Spencer, Senior Warden of the Cutlers' Company, who, in the absence of the Master Cutler, had convened the meeting, was called to the chair.

Several speakers addressed the meeting before Elliott stood up. It should be pointed out here that Elliott's speech is only a reporter's summary of the speech, not the actual text. However, elsewhere in the same issue of the newspaper an amusing extract from the speech itself does appear followed by a note from the editor:-

"Are not these Lords foreigners in their hearts? Do they not every day utter sentiments fit only for the meridian of St. Petersburgh? Has not their leader sworn allegiance to a foreign despot? Do they not represent here the interests of the King of the Huns? Who gave Poland to Russia? Our Tory Lords, by delaying the Reform Bill. Do they not propose to give him the Dardanelles? Why not the Humber? Give Constantinople to Russia, and you give her Sheffield. What care the bankrupt Peers to whom they sell the country? Their opposition to Municipal Reform proves that they mean to sell you - and you know there is a bidder in the market." (Hear and Cheers)
This passage from Mr. ELLIOTT's speech, at the Town-hall, on Monday, seemed to startle some of his hearers. They might be surprised by the boldness of its tone; but more, we suppose, by the novelty of the ideas. But let them not be deemed the fictions of a poetic imagination. There may be more truth in them than is apparent at first sight.

Mr S. Bailey proposed the first resolution at the meeting; the resolution was accepted. The second resolution expressed alarm and regret at the delay of the Corporation Reform Bill in the House of Lords. It declared that such conduct must produce dissatisfaction and disappointment throughout the country. Mr Palfreyman's resolution was seconded by the Corn Law Rhymer.

After the national triumph of the 1832 Reform Act, there was great enthusiasm for the work of a democratic House of Commons. Naturally, there was also massive resentment towards the Lords who were bent on wrecking legislation by the lower house!

Mr. ELLIOTT rose to second the resolution. He said - Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, - You will pardon me if I unintentionally say anything which may be deemed uncharitable of any of my countrymen. It is necessary, I feel, that certain mistaken men in this country should know what they are. They can only acquire such knowledge by hearing the opinions of honest men. You, Sir, being a plain man, will allow me, another plain man, to call a spade a spade. The aristocracy wish you to believe that they represent the property of the nation, and mainly support its religion. If they can succeed in persuading you of these things, they "divide and conquer." We have, indeed, a splendid Peerage, and a priesthood of princes; but neither does the one represent property, nor the other religion. What is religion? Is it the mitre, the cloven crown, which reminds you of cloven feet? (Laughter.) Christ wore no mitre. His kingdom is here, Christ in the heart, and what else can it be in heaven? (Hear, hear.) Surely those magnificent fishermen do not expect us to believe that there are palaced-parsons in heaven! Then for the sake of property and religion, I warn you against the enemies of both. If the true state of their affairs were known as it ought to be, in this wealth-worshipping country, our street beggars would turn up their noses at them. Though they have robbed the people of 300 millions sterling, by their corn laws alone, yet their extravagance having kept pace with their rapacity, they are, with a few exceptions, insolvent. (Hear, hear.)
It is not thirty hours since I read a list of the names of 173 Tory lords, whose estates, if sold at the present monopoly price of land, would not pay two-thirds of their debt. I shall not read those names here, because I do not wish to be involved in lawsuits with 173 aristocrats, not worth powder and shot. (Laughter.)

But thanks to heaven, who has cursed them with their granted wish, their boasted land interest is a protected, and, therefore, an endangered interest; they have put an instrument into the hand of God which will bring their estates to the hammer; thanks to their corn laws, two or three good harvests would ruin every mortgaged aristocrat in the kingdom, because the surplus would cost too much to allow its being exported, and be in too many hands to permit its being destroyed; and it is equally certain that one really bad harvest would revolutionize this country, and rid us of the aristocracy for ever; because no country on earth is growing corn for us.

If, then, these unproductive landed annuities cannot, - and they have declared by Act of Parliament that they cannot - secure 2½ per cent. without taxing all productive interests 80 per cent., they are bankrupts as 2½ are to 80, and in no condition to make war on 24 millions of self-supported men. (Hear, hear.)

Before they call out their dragoons, whom we pay at present, they should inquire how long they could pay them. The first syllable of their declaration of war would make their credit worth its weight in waste paper. They should remember, too, that the Whigs have renewed the Bank Charter, and that paper money is again a legal tender. If they do not know what this means, the sound of their first gun would inform them by proclaiming a financial revolution, and bringing cureless poverty on them and their mortgagees. (Hear, hear.)

If we are to be frightened at shadows, as Mr. Hume said the other day, let there be something behind them; let us not be frightened at the shadow of splendid beggary. (Laughter.) But if we really are to be misruled by a horde of beggars, let them at least be Englishmen. Let it not be said of us that we are trampled upon by a few hundred of emissaries of foreign despots. Are not these Lords foreigners in their hearts? Do they not everyday utter sentiments fit only for the meridian of St. Petersburgh? Has not their leader sworn allegiance to a foreign despot? Do they not represent here the interests of the King of the Huns? Who gave Poland to Russia? Our Tory Lords, by delaying the Reform Bill. Do they not purpose to give him the Dardanelles? Why not the Humber? Give Constantinople to Russia, and you give her Sheffield. What care bankrupt Peers to whom they sell their country? Their opposition to Municipal Reform proves that they mean to sell you - and you know there is a bidder in the market. (Hear, and cheers.)
Down, then, with these Anglo-Russians! These British aliens! These collared hounds of Nicholas!
I once thought that a House of Lords might be endured if elective; but I
no longer think so; and the conduct of the American Senate, in supporting the Bank against the people, proves that such aristocratic bodies are necessarily mischievous. You have lately had a specimen of lordly legislation in your own private affairs. You know a noble Lord, who, if he did you justice, would give you a rail-road. (Hear, hear, hear.) What did he give you? He gave you his successful opposition. (Cheers.) It is impossible that your business can be well done in the House of Irresponsibles (laughter) while Lady Charles wants a douceur - while Lord Fanny, if she vote for you, must finger ten pounds (renewed laughter) - while Whig Lords declare that noble Lords must not be coerced by public opinion, which governs all things, and is the expressed will of God on earth; and while Tory Lords boast that they - a gang of self-declared beggars - do not care a straw for the honest representatives of twenty-four millions of self-supported Britons. (Cheers.) Have you, then, prepared your back for the knout? Are you prepared for the Duke of Wellington's Siberian whip? (Hear.) Or, have you determined to tell these Lords, that as you keep both yourselves and them - as you are independent men, and they beggars fed by you - they shall not defeat, nor mutilate, nor delay, your Bill for Corporation Reform? (Loud cheers.)

(The resolution was carried with enthusiasm.)

The government's commission on municipal reform had found that councils were inefficient, power was vested in just a few individuals as not many people could vote and this had sometimes led to corruption. The Bill resulting from the commission went to the House of Commons in June 1835. Wards would be formed with councillors who would be elected; all ratepayers could vote. The changes would make councils more democratic, more efficient & more accountable. To citizens who wanted improvements in how their town was administered, the reforms were very welcome. First, change had been brought about by the 1832 Reform Act which galvanized interest in parliament & how it functioned. Attention now turned to the reform of local administration. The House of Lords saw the Municipal Corporations Bill as an attack on their privileges and tried to delay the Bill & make changes in their favour. The Lords' attack on the Bill explains Elliott's outrage in the speech above. The Poet of the Poor was not alone in his attitude: soon after the Sheffield meeting, a notice appeared in the Sheffield Independent signed by 652 worthies advising of a meeting for the whole of the West Riding. One of the signatories was Ebenezer Elliott, iron master. The newspaper's issue for August 29th 1835 announced:-

WEST - RIDING MEETING

We, the undersigned FREEHOLDERS, ELECTORS, and INHABITANTS of the WEST-RIDING of the COUNTY of YORK, request our Fellow-Electors and Inhabitants to meet us at the CORN MARKET, in WAKEFIELD, on MONDAY, the 31st of August, at Eleven o'Clock in the Forenoon, to express the opinions of the Riding on the Measure of CORPORATION REFORM, proposed by his Majesty's Ministers, passed by the House of Commons, and subsequently mangled and transformed by the House of Lords; and to consider the propriety of Addressing his Majesty and his Majesty's Ministers, and of Petitioning the House of Commons on this important measure.

The government managed to get the Bill through, "unmutilated" by the Lords; the Act appearing on the Statute Book in September 1835.

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