The
Sheffield Political Union and the Corn Law Rhymer
Political unions were set up in the 1830s as a result of
a lack of confidence in the way that the country was governed. In fact,
the
government of the day was not open to reform, believing that the status
quo was
ok. The working classes and middle classes saw the need for
parliamentary reform
though and flocked to join political unions. The political unions were
peaceful
but also powerful and did much to restrain outbreaks of violence. They
may even
have prevented the country from a disastrous revolution.
The first political union was set up in Birmingham in
1830. In the same year the Sheffield Political Union was established. A
meeting
was held on the 27th of November 1830 in Campo Lane at the
home of
George Knowles. William Lee was selected as chairperson and Thomas Orme
as
secretary. It is believed that Ebenezer Elliott was not on the
committee. The main
objects of the Union were:-
1. The reform
of parliament
2.
The
redress of all public and political grievances
3. If the
franchise was achieved, they were for promoting and securing the return
of free,
able and efficient members of parliament to represent Hallamshire.
On the 3rd of December 1830, the Sheffield Political
Union decided the subscription to join the Union was to be 6d a
quarter. The
meeting also decided that they should adopt the rules and regulations
of the
Birmingham Political Union.
Some of the Articles
of the Sheffield Political Union
Article
1:
To be good, faithful and loyal subjects to the king
Article
2:
To obey the laws of the land, and, where they ceased to protect the
rights,
liberties, and interests of the community, to endeavour to get them
changed by
just, legal, and peaceful means only.
Article
6:
To bear in mind the strength of our society consists in the peace,
order,
unity, and legality of our proceedings; and to consider all persons as
enemies
who shall in anyway invite or promote violence, discord, or any illegal
or doubtful
measures.
[A
complete listing of the rules of the Sheffield Political Union is
available in
Sheffield Libraries Local History
pamphlets volume 63 number 14]
At a meeting of the Sheffield Political Union on 14th of December 1830, it was agreed to set up a sub committee which would see that the rules of the Political Union were published. (Note here that Ebenezer Elliot was surprisingly not on this sub committee). Another meeting would be held to set up a Council. The rules of the Union contained ten objects, 16 rules and regulations, and 7 duties of members. There were also 9 duties of council members plus two pages of comments. The rules of the Political Union were to be published and were sold at the price of 1d.
Another meeting was held on Jan 10th 1831; the meeting announced:-
We, the undersigned, a committee appointed after preliminary
meeting of the Sheffield Political Union, held this day at the town hall,
hereby convene a public meeting of the members of the Sheffield political
union, to be held at the town hall, on Monday the 24th instant, at
12:00 at noon, to elect a council for the present year, and any other business.
The next meeting was on 24th of January 1831 at 12 noon. (The meeting was reported in the Sheffield Independent on Jan 31st pages 2 and 4). There was so much interest that not everyone could get into the Town Hall where the meeting was held. Thomas Asline Ward was elected President, and a Council of thirty members was appointed; they are listed below:-
|
Thomas
Asline Ward , Dr Knight, S Bailey, B Sayle, J Sykes, Rev F Dixon, Dr
Holland, J
S Bramhall, Linley,
Joshua Wigfull, B. Skidmore, D. Haslehurst,
e Bramley, John Ward, Thomas Orme, E. Jackson, John Bridgeford, E.
Barker, G.
Dalton jun, J Wild, W. Fisher, L. Palfreyman, R. Swallow, W. Lee, J. Tobin, R Leader, A. Davidson, J. Gibson,
S Woodcock George Johnson, Isaac Ironside, W Simpson, E Rhodes. |
This meeting was the first official
meeting of
the Union - this date of 1831 has sometimes wrongly been taken as the founding
of the
Union. [Thomas Asline Ward was a very important Sheffield man in
the 19th century. Brief notes on him are available in the
article Friends and Contacts of the Corn Law Rhymer].
Ward made a long speech. Other speeches were made by Mr B. Sayle, Dr
Knight, Mr Bramley, Luke Palfreyman, Isaac Ironside and Mr Dalton.
Another meeting was held on 7th
February 1831. This was the "First Meeting Called By The Council
Of The Political Union." An article about the meeting appeared in the
Sheffield Independent Sat 12th Feb 1831 page 2 column 3. Thomas Asline
Ward was in the chair. The meeting was: -
"To
consider the propriety of petitioning parliament to pass a law to
compel the votes at elections for members of parliament to be taken by
ballot." The meeting agreed to petition Parliament: "Your petitioners respectfully represent that any plan of reform would be unsatisfactory
which did not prevent the bribery and corruption, intimidation, tumult,
profligacy, and expense which now takes place at the election of
members of Parliament." They added: "Your petitioners therefore humbly
pray .... that you will enact a law to compel all electors to give
their vote by ballot."
Public Meeting On Parliamentary Reform
Shortly after the Political Union
meeting in February, members of the Political Union petitioned the
Master Cutler to arrange a public meeting on the reform of Parliament. The Master Cutler agreed to do this. (The Corn Law Rhymer was not a signatory to the petition: his "Corn Law Rhymes" had been published to some acclaim the previous year and he was busy producing a new edition). The Sheffield Independent gave extensive coverage of the reform meeting in its edition for Sat March 5th 1831. Robert Leader, the proprietor of the newspaper was a member of the Political Union.
In June 1832, there was great jubilation at the Passing
of the Reform Bill. On Monday June 18th, there was a massive
march in Sheffield with 30,000 people taking part; the
march taking 45
minutes to pass. According to the Sheffield Courant newspaper: "The
procession was the most imposing thing we ever saw." The procession
began at 12 noon with several prominent citizens leading on horseback.
The Political Union
(all 5,000 of them) then followed; each member proudly wearing a Union Jack "ribband" and a
Political Union medal made
especially for
the occasion by James Dixon & Sons at their Cornish Place
works. This exuberant procession was a huge, triumphant
celebration of the passing of the Reform Bill. There were dozens
of flags flying, several banners were displayed and there were at least
three bands marching. Thirty friendly societies were in the procession
and also twelve freemasons' lodges. Two unions took part and at least
eight large manufacturers had floats.
For instance, the print workers of Sheffield had two floats; each with
a
working press on board. One press was printing and distributing a poem
by the Corn Law Rhymer called "The Press."
The poem is shown at the end of this article. As the procession
wound its way around the town centre, rockets were set off at several
points and even the town guns were fired. What an occasion!
The
Rotherham Political Union also struck a medal to celebrate the
Reform Bill. The
medal revealed that the Political
Union was founded on May 12th 1832. It is not
known if Ebenezer Elliott, with his Rotherham background, was involved
with the
Rotherham Political Union, but this seems very likely. As the Corn Law
Rhymer
wrote a poem for the Rotherham Political Union, this would suggest that
he had
a role in the Rotherham Political Union.
After the Sheffield march was over, the Sheffield Political Union
gathered at 4pm in the Hyde Park Cricket Ground for a celebratory meal.
One
thousand people sat down to dinner! The Union had eleven tables with a
band
playing at the top table. Thomas Asline Ward, President of the Union,
made a
speech from the top table while the Rev
Jacob Brettell said the prayers and also
made a speech. Ebenezer Elliott made a speech, too, and proposed a
toast, as did several other
members of the Union. Elliott's speech is shown lower down this Page
Jacob Brettell was a minister in Rotherham and was a
great influence on Elliott when the latter was living in Rotherham.
With both
Brettell and Elliott being important figures in the Sheffield Political
Union,
it is almost certain that the two friends were in the Rotherham
Political Union as well. Probably on the committee.
In March 1833, Elliott and other officers resigned and
the Sheffield Political Union collapsed. Their reforming energies then
went
into the Sheffield Mechanics’ Anti-Bread-Tax Society which Elliott had
established in 1830.
The Corn Law Rhymer wrote a song for the Sheffield Political Union and also one for the Rotherham Political Union. Both are shown below.
According to Wikipedia, the prime movers with the Sheffield Political Union were Ebenezer Elliott and his friend, Isaac Ironside.
| ELLIOTT'S
SPEECH & TOAST AT THE POLITICAL UNION'S DINNER |
|
MR.
EBENEZER ELLIOTT, Author of “Corn Law Rhymes,” being
called for, mounted the table, and in a maiden speech, spoke as
follows:- “Fellow
Countrymen! my confidence in the manly integrity of the British
character
assures me, that the toast which I am about to propose, will be
welcomed unanimously. ‘OUR
AGRICULTURAL FRIENDS, AND MAY THEY FARE BETTER WITHOUT
CORN LAWS, THAN THEY HAVE YET FARED WITH THEM.’ (Cheers.) If
I proceed to make a few observations, you, I am sure,
will not condemn them, merely because they come from one of the people.
Many
years ago, I remember, during the trial of our broken- hearted,
murdered Queen,
- a magistrate of this district suddenly making his appearance in our
humble
newsroom at Rotherham. I forgot which of the ‘Non mi recordo' cross
examinations it was that provoked an
indignant grunt from me, but this I do not forget, that I was
immediately treated
as a swine by the magistrate. I had the misfortune to say, that I
thought such
prosecutions as that of the ill-used Queen, had a tendency to cover all
England
with jacobinism. ‘You think so, do you?’ said the magistrate staring at
me,
with the eyes of a coal heaver. ‘You think so, do you? but of what
consequence
is it what such people as you think?’ (Hear, hear.) The person, mark
you, who
thus insolently addressed me, was an intruder. He would not now address
me, in
a similar way, any where. Things are altered. It is, at length, of some
importance
what the productive classes of the people of England think. (Hear,
hear). Would
they have been permitted, and taught to think earlier! And would to
heaven, that
their betters, as they call themselves, after the battle of Waterloo,
instead
of converting our customers into rivals, and defending themselves from
taxes by
means of corn laws, had manfully set to work to reduce the taxation!
They would
have now been safe, and far better off, without corn laws, than with
them. But
that they are yet, and, I hope, soon destined to thrive better without
corn
laws than with them I firmly believe, because I believe in God; because
I can’t
believe, the Author of all good ever intended to bring into existence
more
human beings than could live comfortably upon the surface which he has
allotted
for the habitation and which surface is limited - limited by his
goodness and
wisdom for the promotion of our intellectual growth. When
the great, the all-important, and most awful
question of the corn laws shall come under the consideration of a
parliament
truly representing us and our interests, it will, I trust, in
accordance with
the calm and honest character of Englishmen, be considered coolly and
decided
mercifully. Of this I am sure, wronged though we have been and are,
through the
bone and marrow – that no tradesmen, no manufacturer, will wish his
representative to forget - no not for a moment, that there are men
called
farmers, our brethren, who have wives and children, and yet some little
capital
left to lose like ourselves. (Cheers.) But let them not
lose it, placed as they are by the unnatural
competition for farms, of which the corn laws are the cause, in a
situation of
tremendous danger; let not their little remaining capital be
sacrificed. Let
there be no more legislative destruction of capital. (Hear, hear). We
have
suffered too much in that way too lately. Not
many years ago, an administration,
calling itself liberal and pretending to advocate the principles of
free trade,
rashly interfered with the freedom of trade in money. Not only did they
compel
us to receive the note which we did not want, and prevent
us from having the note which we did
want, but this they did without shewing, as they were bound to shew,
that there
is any difference in principle between a one pound note and a five
pound note.
The consequences have been incalculably disastrous. For had one pound
being
allowed to circulate, regulated only by its own law,
- the simple law of the case, the plain law
of free trade, commonsense, and common honesty – namely, that it should
be paid
in cash on demand at the counter of the issuer, and not in bank notes,
for
there was the fallacy, thence came the ruin; had the thousand banks of
the
empire, each and all, being compelled to find gold for themselves,
instead of
being made to expect, that one huge overgrown nuisance of an
establishment,
could or would find gold for all England, and find it in greatest
quantity when
it was contrary to the interests of that establishment to furnish any
gold at
all, namely when bullion was rising in price; then, I say, the crisis
of 1825
would not have happened - the destruction of capital which we have
witnessed,
or sustained, would not have taken place; and the enormous consequent
misery -
slow, silent, unheard, unseen, or loud and invisible, everywhere heard,
and
seen everywhere - we should not now have to deplore, and deplore in
vain. Let
us, then, have no more legislative destruction. No man gains by
destruction of
capital. By the destruction to which I have alluded, the pensioners
themselves,
whose incomes have been doubled by it, will not gain, - no, for in the
end, it
will deprive them of their pensions; and, perhaps, it may be said, as
some
believe, and as I have thought – that Peel's bill has carried the
Reform Bill!
(Hepar, hear). Let us, then, I repeat, have no more wholesale ruin by
Act of
Parliament. But when we come to the consideration of the awful, vital
question
of bread, through the medium of men who shall indeed represent the
people of
England, let us meet it as members of one firm, determined to secure
the
greatest profit, with the least possible loss, and then, with the
wisdom and
honesty which I ascribe to the British character, calmly and fairly
divide the
proceeds, that is, according to the just share of each partner in the
concern.
If a person so very inconsiderable as I am, after trespassing on your
forbearance in a way which many of you may deem irrelevant, might
presume,
might venture to express his humble, perhaps, contemptible opinion, of
what
ought to be done, when the time for action arrives, then, I say, the
trade in
corn ought to be free, but a duty ought for a time, to be imposed on
foreign
corn, and that duty or not, at first, to be a small one. (Hear). The
duty
would, at least, have this great advantage, that it would go into the
Britisth
Exchequer, instead of going, as at present, into the pockets of
foreigners and gamblers.
I am prepared to show that a fixed duty would conduce to the final and
speedy
extinction of the Corn Laws; for, though there are unhappily many men
who
cannot, or will not understand even so simple a proposition as that two
loaves
are better than one, yet we can all understand that a tax is a tax –
(Laughter)
- we are all willing to have less to pay, and we are never unwilling to
believe
that a heavy burden ought to be made lighter. A fixed duty would have
the
further advantage of shewing what the landlords cost us. When the day
for
consideration arrives, and may it come quickly, we had need exert all
our best
good qualities, or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl
be broken
- ere the bulwarks of property be overthrown- ere calamity come as one
that travelleth,
and want as an armed man- ere the walls of the social edifice give way,
the
floor sink beneath our feet, and the roof descend in thunder. I propose
then- 'Our agricultural
friends, may they fare better without Corn
Laws than they will or can with them'". |
Elliott's speech above was taken from The Courant. This Sheffield
newspaper gave a great coverage of the procession and of the speeches
made afterwards at the celebratory Political Union dinner. The next
speaker, Mr Boultbee, praised the Corn Law Rhymer for "his
very eloquent address." I suppose that Boultbee had to say
something positive about Elliott's speech but the speech seems rambling
and without the poet's usual power and bombast. It probably was not
prepared in advance and was spouted off the cuff.
[For further
information on the Sheffield Political Union,
see “Radical Activity in Sheffield 1830-1848” by Betty Thickett.
(Durham
University thesis, 1952). A copy is available at Sheffield Library
Archives,
ref no. MD 2108/2].
“The
Triumph of Reform”
This poem by Elliott was written in 1832 for the Sheffield Political Union and was sung to the tune “Rule Britannia.”
|
When
woe-worn France first sternly spread Her
banner'd rainbow on the wind; To
smite rebellious Reason dead, The
kings of many lands combined. Did
they triumph? So they deem’d: Could
they triumph? No! They dream’d. From
Freedom’s ashes at their call A
form of might arose, and blazed: ‘Tis
true they saw the phantom fall; ‘Tis
true they crush’d the powers they raised; But
in conflict with the wise, Vain
are armies, leagues, and lies. Not
Freedom – no! but Freedom’s foe, The
baffled league of kings o’erthrew; We
conquer’d them, though slaves can show They
conquer’d us at Waterloo: Mind
is mightier than the strong! Right
hath triumph’d over wrong! By
sordid lusts to ruin led, Come
England’s foes, ye self-undone! Behold
for what ye taxed our bread! Is
this the Mont Saint Jean ye won? Hark
the rabble's triumph lay!- Sturdy beggars! who are they? |
Go,
call your Czar! hire all his hordes! Arm
Caesar Hardinge! League and plot! Mind
smites you with her wing of words, And
nought shall be, where mind is not. Crush’d
to nothing – what you are – Wormlings! will you prate of war?
No
paltry fray, no bloody day, That
crowns with praise, the baby-great; The
Deed of Brougham, Russell, Grey, The
Deed that’s done, we celebrate! Mind’s
great Charter! Europe saved! Man
for ever unenslaved! O
could the wise, the brave, the just, Who
suffer’d – died – to break our chains; Could
Muir, could Palmer, from the dust, Could
murder’d Gerald hear our strains; Then
would martyrs, throned in bliss, See
all ages bless’d in this. |
|
We thank Thee, Lord of earth and
heav’n, For hope, and strength, and
triumph given! We thank Thee that the fight is
won, Although our work is but begun. We met, we crush’d the evil powers; A noble task must now be ours – The victims maim’d and poor to
feed, And bind the bruised and broken
reed. O let not Ruin’s will be done, When Freedom’s fight is fought and
won! The deed of Brougham, Russell,
Grey, Outlives the night! Lord, give us
day! Grant
time, grant
patience, to renew, What England’s foes and thine
o’erthrew ; - If they destroy'd, let us restore, And say to Misery, mourn no more. |
Lord, let the human storm be
still’d! Lord, let the million mouths be
fill’d! Let labour cease to toil in vain! Let England be herself again! Then shall this land her arms
stretch forth, To bless the East, and tame the
North; On tyrants' hearths wake buried
souls, And call to life the murder’d
Poles. Sing, Britons, sing! The sound
shall go Wherever Freedom finds a foe: This day a trumpet’s voice is blown O’er every despot’s heart and
throne. / |
|
God
said---"Let there
be light!" Grim darkness
felt his might, And
fled away; Then
startled seas and mountains cold Shone
forth, all bright in blue and gold, And
cried---"'Tis day! 'tis
day!" "Hail, holy
light!" exclaim'd The thund'rous
cloud, that flamed O'er
daisies white; And,
lo! the rose, in crimson dress'd, Lean'd
sweetly on the lily's breast; And,
blushing,
murmur'd---"Light!" Then
was the skylark born; Then rose th'
embattled corn; Then
floods of praise Flow'd
o'er the sunny hills of noon; And
then, in stillest night, the moon Pour'd
forth her pensive lays. Lo, heaven's
bright bow is glad! Lo, trees and
flowers all clad In
glory, bloom! Be
senseless as the trodden clod, And
darker than the tomb? |
No,
by the mind of man! By the swart
artisan! By
God, our Sire! Our
souls have holy light within, And
every form of grief and sin Shall
see and feel its fire. By earth, and
hell, and heav'n, The shroud of
souls is riven! Mind,
mind alone Is
light, and hope, and life, and power! Earth's
deepest night, from this bless'd hour, The
night of minds is gone! "The Press!" all
lands shall
sing; The
Press, the Press we bring, All
lands to bless: O
pallid Want! O Labour stark! Behold,
we bring the second ark! The
Press! the Press! the Press! |
