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 THE LIFE 
 
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 THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 FRANCIS PLACE 
 
 1771-1854 
 
 BY 
 
 GEAHAM WALLAS, M.A. 
 
 LECTURER AT THE LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND 
 POLITICAL SCIENCE 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON 
 
 NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 
 
 1898 
 
 A" right* rexrrved
 
 Printed by BALLANTYNK, HANSON 6* Co. 
 At the Ballantyne Press
 
 Colleq-e 
 .Library 
 
 15 A 
 
 THE main sources of this biography are the well-known 
 Place manuscripts in the British Museum, referred to by 
 their number in the catalogue, and the autobiography 
 and letter-books lately in the possession of Francis Place's 
 descendants, to whom, and especially to Mr. Francis C. 
 Miers, I have to express my sincere thanks. I am glad 
 to say that by Mr. Miers' generosity the autobiography 
 and letter-books have now been deposited in the Museum 
 with the other manuscripts. 
 
 My own work has, of course, by no means exhausted 
 the interest of these documents. I have confined myself 
 to writing Place's life, and have made no attempt to deal 
 with the materials which he collected for the general 
 history of his time. Within these limits I have tried to 
 make my book useful to any future historian who may 
 deal with the period, by giving references to the original 
 sources for all statements of fact. For the punctuation 
 of quotations from Place's manuscript I am responsible. 
 Place punctuated extremely badly, and his printed works 
 were apparently repunctuated by the printer's reader. 
 He spelt pretty accurately, but made occasional mistakes, 
 which I have not reproduced. I have further, in one or 
 two instances, corrected little grammatical slips where the 
 insertion of a footnote seemed to be pedantic. 
 
 It is an important question for the historical student 
 
 i\. 4.J
 
 vi PREFACE 
 
 how far Place's evidence should be accepted on points as 
 to which (as in the case of some incidents in the Reform 
 struggle) he is the only witness. My own opinion, formed 
 after consulting independent evidence in newspapers and 
 elsewhere for a very large number of Place's statements, 
 is, that his accuracy on all questions of fact was most 
 remarkable. His memory seems to have been excellent, 
 and his description of events after 1 820 was written within 
 a few years or months of their occurrence, and was checked 
 by the use of a mass of printed documents and original 
 letters. 
 
 Finally, I have to record my gratitude to Mr. F. W. 
 Galton and Mrs. McKillop for their skilled assistance, 
 and to many other friends for exhortation and reproof. 
 
 GRAHAM WALLAS. 
 
 17 JOHN STBEKT, BEDFORD Row, 
 
 LONDON, W.C., December 1897.
 
 C N T E X T S 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGK 
 
 EARLY LIFE i 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1807-15 ..... 39 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 THE BENTHAMITES ........ 65 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 SCHOOLS FOR ALL ........ 93 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 . . . . .114 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 THE DISMAL SCIENCE 157 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 THE CHARING CROSS LIBRARY . . . . . .176 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE COMBINATION LAWS ... . . 197
 
 viii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 PAOK 
 
 THE FIRST REFORM CAMPAIGN 241 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 WAR ON Two FRONTS 265 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 THE SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN 289 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 THE REFORMED PARLIAMENT . . . . . .324 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 CHARTISM ......... 353 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 LAST YEARS ......... 385
 
 SUMMARY OF CHIEF EVENTS IN 
 PLACE'S LIFE. 
 
 1771. Born November 3. 
 
 1784-1789. Apprenticed to leather-breeches maker. 
 
 1791. Marriage. 
 
 1793. Strike of leather-breeches makers. Out of work for some 
 
 months. 
 
 1794-1796. Member of London Corresponding Society. 
 Went to Birmingham (1796) to defend delegates. 
 1796. Assisted in publication of Paine's "Age of Reason." 
 1799. Opened a shop at Charing Cross, with a partner. 
 1 80 1. Recommenced the business alone. 
 1804. Began to take interest in Lancastrian schools. 
 
 1807. First interest in Westminster elections. 
 
 1808. Introduction to Bentham and James Mill. 
 
 1810. (April) Burdett's arrest. (June) Inquest on Joseph Sellis. 
 
 Place's estrangement from Burdett. 
 1810-1814. Acquaintance with Godwin. 
 
 1813. Acquaintance with Robert Owen began. 
 1813-1814. Member of "British and Foreign School Society." 
 
 Introduction to Hume. 
 
 1814. Was instrumental in Repeal of Statute of Apprentices. 
 Gave up politics in Westminster for a time. 
 
 1815. Gave evidence before Committee on Mendicity. 
 
 1816. Gave evidence before Committee on Education. 
 Apparent maximum of business. 
 
 1817. Handed control of business to eldest son. 
 Visit to Bentham at Ford Abbey.
 
 x SUMMARY OF CHIEF EVENTS 
 
 1818. General Election : Romilly and Burdett elected at West- 
 
 minster. 
 
 1819. Westminster election for Eomilly's vacancy. Lamb de- 
 
 feated Hobhouse. (August) "Peterloo." (November 
 December) "The Savage Parliament." 
 
 1820. General Election. Hobhouse and Burdett elected at West- 
 
 minster : unopposed for thirteen years. 
 1824-1825. Repeal of Combination Laws. 
 1827. Death of first wife. 
 
 1830. Married Mr?. Chatterley. General Election. 
 1831-1832. Eeform agitation. 
 
 1833. Loss of capital. Removal to Brompton Square. 
 
 1834. The Dorchester labourers' imprisonment. 
 
 1834-1836. Work on: Repeal of Stamp Duty; Municipal Cor- 
 porations ; Corporation of London. 
 1836-1839. Wrote "History of Reform Agitation." 
 
 1837. Organised "Working- Men's Association." 
 
 1838. Drafted "The People's Charter." 
 
 1839. Joined in agitation for Penny Postage. 
 Imprisonment of Chartist leaders. 
 
 1840-1846. Joined in Anti-Corn-Law agitation. 
 1841. Visit to Manchester for Anti-Corn-Law League. 
 
 Health began to give way. 
 1844. Serious illness. 
 1851. Separated from his wife. Went to live at Hammersmith. 
 
 1853. Removed to Earl's Court. 
 
 1854. Death on January i.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 EARLY LIFE 
 
 ON January 7, 1854, an article in the Spectator announced 
 that Francis Place had died at the age of eighty -two. 
 " Few men," said the writer, " have done more of the 
 world's work with so little external sign. . . . He was 
 essentially a public man, but his work usually lay behind 
 the curtain. . . . He loved quiet power for the purpose of 
 promoting good ends." l 
 
 The lovers of quiet power are soon forgotten. The Spec- 
 tator article implies that Place's name, even in 1854, was 
 unknown except to his old political associates. During 
 the forty years which have since elapsed, the "Radical 
 tailor of Charing Cross " has only been known from his 
 friendship with Bentham and James Mill, and, it may be, 
 from Robert Owen's apparently absurd statement that he 
 was the "real leader of the Whig Party." 2 That Place took 
 no steps to secure notoriety during his lifetime, was partly 
 because his power over other men depended largely on his 
 readiness to give them the public credit of the work he 
 planned for them, and partly because indifference to popu- 
 larity was part of his philosophy. But, fortunately, that 
 indifference did not prevent him from taking a good deal 
 of trouble to make himself known to posterity. He 
 knew by what he had learnt from the scanty records of 
 
 1 The Spectator, No. 1332, ytli January 1854, p. 13. 
 
 2 The "Life of Robert Owen," written by himself (London, 1857),. 
 vol. i. pt. i. p. 122. 
 
 A
 
 2 EARLY LIFE 
 
 eighteenth-century Radicalism, that history is of great and 
 immediate usefulness to a politician ; and being himself a 
 maker of history, he was sensible of a moral obligation to 
 leave authentic records of the public work in which he 
 had borne a hand. From 1813 to 1850 he carefully kept 
 and indexed his political letters; and in 1823, under the 
 persuasion of Bentham, he commenced an autobiography 
 for publication. The result was what might have been 
 expected from a man whose sense of the importance of 
 facts made him over -anxious to record every possible 
 detail. The autobiography, which never was, and never 
 will be, published, branched off into a series of long and 
 unwieldy monographs on the Westminster Elections, the 
 repeal of the Combination Laws, the Reform Agitation of 
 1830-32, and the numerous other public and private enter- 
 prises in which he took part, and was accompanied by huge 
 collections of illustrative documents. No less than seventy 
 volumes make up in this way the " Place Manuscripts " in 
 the British Museum. 1 Other volumes are in the posses- 
 sion of his family. But besides the facts which he was so 
 diligent to collect, these volumes contain the history of an 
 extraordinarily interesting man, who, from 1793, when he 
 became Secretary to the Leather-breeches Makers' Trade 
 Club, to 1838, when he drafted the "People's Charter," was 
 a master in the inception and execution of those difficult 
 and uncertain reforms which we have now come to think 
 of as having been from the first easy and irresistible. 
 
 Francis Place was a Londoner ; he was born on Novem- 
 ber 3, 1771, in a "sponging house," or private debtor's 
 prison, in Vinegar Yard, near Drury Lane, kept by his 
 father, Simon Place, who was at that time a bailiff to the 
 Marshalsea Court. Francis was lucky enough to be sent 
 regularly to some sort of school from the age of four till 
 he was nearly fourteen. The private adventure schools 
 1 Additional MSS., vols. 27,789-27,859.
 
 EARLY LIFE 3 
 
 round Drury Lane and Fleet Street in the eighteenth 
 century were not, however, exactly places of education, and 
 he did not learn much until, in his twelfth year, he came 
 under a kindly ineffectual teacher, who lent him books, 
 gave him good advice, and lectured him with the other 
 pupils every Thursday afternoon on the elements of 
 morality. With this exception, the surroundings of his 
 early life were so unfavourable, that in later years he and 
 other believers in the sufficiency of Bentham's " Table 
 of the Springs of Action" were often puzzled to account 
 for the resolution and self-control which he developed. 
 
 When Francis Place was nearly nine years old the 
 sponging house was given up, and Simon Place took a 
 tavern with the savings which he had made by legalised 
 blackmail. Place describes his father as a bony, muscular 
 man, about five feet six or seven inches in height, of dark 
 complexion, and very strong. " He was a resolute, daring, 
 straightforward sort of a man, governed almost wholly by 
 his passions and animal sensations, both of which were 
 very strong, and careless of reputation, except in some 
 particulars in which he seems to have thought he excelled. 
 These were few, mostly relating to sturdiness and dissolute- 
 ness. . . . He never spoke to any of his children in the 
 way of conversation ; the boys never ventured to ask him 
 a question, since the only answer which could be anticipated 
 was a blow. If he were coming along a passage or any 
 narrow place such as a doorway, and was met by either me 
 or my brother, he always made a blow at us with his fist 
 for coining in his way. If we attempted to retreat he 
 would make us come forward, and as certainly as we came 
 forward he would knock us down." He was an inveterate 
 gambler, the home being more than once broken up owing 
 to his losses in the State lotteries of the time. On such 
 occasions he would wander away for months, supporting 
 himself by his old trade as a journeyman baker, while
 
 4 EARLY LIFE 
 
 his wife kept the family by needlework. Out of school 
 Francis Place, who was short and sturdy, took his full 
 share in that now incredible street life which flourished 
 in London before the new police. He was skilled in street 
 games, a hunter of bullocks in the Strand, an obstinate 
 faction fighter, and a daily witness of every form of open 
 crime and debauchery. In school, however, he became 
 easily head boy, and was regularly employed to teach his 
 fellow-scholars. 
 
 Some months before Francis was fourteen years old his 
 father announced that he should be apprenticed to a con- 
 veyancer. The boy flatly refused to be "made a lawyer," 
 and declared that he would prefer anything else if it were 
 a trade. " This," he says, " was in the evening, and my 
 father went immediately into his parlour and offered me 
 to any one who would take me. A little man named 
 France said he would, and I was sent the very next morn- 
 ing on liking for a month to learn the art and mystery of 
 leather-breeches making." France was a drunken little 
 wretch, and Place, left to take care of himself, though he 
 worked hard during the day, spent his evenings, as he 
 afterwards unflinchingly confessed, in a sorry enough 
 fashion among his associates in Fleet Street and the sur- 
 rounding courts. He belonged to a " cutter club " an 
 eight-oared boat's crew who used to drink and sing 
 together after the evening's row. The cockswain of the 
 crew was some years later transported for a robbery, and 
 the stroke oar was hanged on a charge of murder. Place, 
 however, did not even at this time go really to the bad. 
 He was less dissolute than his companions, and could not 
 afterwards recollect a single act of dishonesty during his 
 apprenticeship. That this was so was probably due at 
 least as much to a certain dogged personal pride as to the 
 wide views of life which he had learnt at school from the 
 Thursday afternoon lectures on morality.
 
 EARLY LIFE 5 
 
 In July 1789, before he was yet eighteen years old, his 
 indentures were given up, and he became an independent 
 journeyman breeches-maker. He had been working for 
 nine months somewhat irregularly at his trade, when he 
 met, in April 1 790, his future wife, Elizabeth Chadd. This 
 was the turning point in his career. His innate toughness 
 of fibre definitely asserted itself, and he became steady, 
 frugal, and industrious. He could, however, save little or 
 nothing. He was a highly skilled workman, but leather- 
 breeches making was a decaying trade, and he could earn 
 no more than fourteen shillings a week. His father, whose 
 health had broken down, had sold his public-house and 
 lost in a lottery all that he had received from the sale, and 
 his mother was working as a washerwoman. But Place 
 was hopeful, and Elizabeth Chadd was unhappy at home. 
 So in March 1791, when he was nineteen and a half, and 
 she not quite seventeen, they were married, and went to 
 live in one room in a court off the Strand. Their joint 
 earnings were under seventeen shillings a week. " From 
 this we had to pay for lodging three shillings and sixpence 
 a week, and on an average one shilling and sixpence a 
 week for coals and candles. Thus we had only twelve 
 shillings a week for food and clothes and other necessaries. 
 Nothing could be saved from this small sum. We how- 
 ever continued to dress ourselves respectably, and were 
 comfortable with each other. As our poverty would not 
 permit us to give anything away, we kept ourselves very 
 much to ourselves, had scarcely any acquaintance, and 
 visited nobody except our parents and my eldest sister. 
 . . . We soon acquired the character of being proud and 
 above our equals. This was the certain consequence of 
 our having no acquaintance with any one, and being 
 better dressed than most who were similarly circum- 
 stanced, and we were contemptuously called ' the Lady 
 and Gentleman.' "
 
 6 EARLY LIFE 
 
 As his own trade of leather-breeches making was in so 
 bad a way, he commenced to make stuff breeches, and 
 formed "clubs" of working-men to raffle for his produc- 
 tions. Though he lost money by this speculation he 
 gained experience, and was soon able to get fairly well- 
 paid employment as a stuff-breeches maker, taking work 
 from various master tailors to be done at home. But mis- 
 fortune was near at hand. In March 1793, two years after 
 his marriage, and a year after the birth of his first child, 
 a strike took place in the leather-breeches making trade. 
 His description of this event is worth giving at some 
 length, as the earliest existing account of a strike written 
 from the inside. 
 
 " Some time before I was married I became a member of 
 the Breeches-Makers' Benefit Society, for the support of 
 the members when sick, and to bury them when dead. I 
 paid my subscription regularly, but I never attended at 
 the public-house at which the club was held, excepting on 
 the evenings when the stewards were chosen. The club, 
 though actually a benefit club, was intended for the pur- 
 pose of supporting the members in a strike for wages. It 
 had now, in the spring of 1793, about 250 in its chest, 
 which was deemed sufficient; a strike was agreed upon, 
 and the men left their work. It was a badly paid, badly 
 conducted trade; a good workman, who was constantly 
 employed, might earn a guinea a week ; but scarcely any 
 one was fully employed. It required from an hour to an 
 hour and a half, when two were employed, to cut out and 
 get ready a pair of leather breeches ; and as no one master 
 had an arrangement so complete as to have work always 
 ready, and as the whole was piecework, the masters were 
 regardless of the loss and inconvenience the men suffered. 
 The men in the best shops could not therefore earn more 
 than eighteen shillings a week, and in all the others much 
 less. They had therefore resolved to strike for wages, which
 
 EARLY LIFE 7 
 
 would put them as to earnings on a level with other trades. 
 So many of them had become makers of stuff breeches 
 that, notwithstanding the trade of leather-breeches making 
 had declined, the proportion of hands to employment was 
 less than formerly, and trade was brisk. The leaders there- 
 fore calculated as they thought securely on obtaining 
 the advance they demanded. They did not foresee that the 
 masters would represent the strike as unreasonable, and 
 persuade their customers to wear stuff breeches, at least 
 for a time, and that they could get this sort of work done 
 by tailors. As I had not been at the club-house for more 
 than three months, and had now no acquaintance with 
 any one in the trade, I was neither aware of the intention 
 to strike, nor of the strike when it took place. The first I 
 heard of it was from Mr. Bristow. On taking some work 
 home one evening he, instead of giving me more as I 
 expected, gave me my discharge. I asked the reason ; he 
 would assign none, and I reproached him with acting 
 unjustly, and in a way I should not have done towards 
 him. He then alluded to the strike, to which he supposed 
 I was a party. I assured him that I had never heard of 
 any intention amongst the men to strike, and had no 
 knowledge whatever on the subject, but that which he had 
 imparted. He was a kind and reasonable man ; he told 
 me he was satisfied I had not, and would not deceive him. 
 ' He was,' he said, ' very sorry to discharge me, but that at 
 a meeting of the masters it had been agreed that every 
 leather-breeches maker who was employed to make stuff 
 breeches should be at once discharged, to prevent them 
 assisting those who had struck.' Allison discharged me 
 next day. Thus at once were our hopes destroyed and 
 our views obscured. No chance of employment remained ; 
 so I went to the club-house, and here I was informed that 
 every man out of employment was to be paid seven shillings 
 a week from the fund. I found that the number of men
 
 EARLY LIFE 
 
 was at least equal to the number of pounds the club had 
 in its possession, and consequently there was provision 
 only for three weeks. In the evening, when the men were 
 assembled, I stood up upon one of the tables and addressed 
 them. I pointed out the inadequacy of the sum they 
 had collected, the privations they would probably have to 
 endure. I proposed that as many as were willing should 
 receive one week's pay in advance and a certificate, pro- 
 vided each of them would go on the tramp and engage not 
 to return to London for a month. It was well known that 
 a man who brought a certificate to any leather- breeches 
 maker's shop in the country would be sure of a day's keep, 
 a night's lodging, and a shilling to start again with the next 
 morning, and in some of the larger towns a breakfast and 
 half-a-crown in money to help him along. Many therefore 
 were willing to leave London on the terms proposed. The 
 proposition was adopted, and arrangements made to carry 
 it into effect the next morning. I then proposed that, 
 instead of giving each man seven shillings for his week's 
 subsistence, they should make up Rag Fair breeches, 1 and 
 let as many as would take them have two pairs a week, 
 at four shillings a pair, journeyman's wages. This was 
 a shilling a week more than was proposed to be given, 
 and as the loss on each pair would not be more than two 
 shillings and sixpence, the fund would last more than 
 twice as long as it would if seven shillings were given to 
 each for doing nothing. Besides this, there was another 
 advantage, namely, that every man who could procure 
 any sort of employment could not make, and would not 
 perhaps be desirous to make, two pairs of Rag Fair 
 breeches a week; and if there were men who, having 
 other employment, were mean enough to take money 
 from the fund, this would put an end to any such prac- 
 tice. This proposition was highly applauded, and instantly 
 1 i.e. leather breeches made of inferior materials.
 
 EARLY LIFE 9 
 
 adopted. A committee of three, of which I was one, was 
 appointed to make the necessary arrangements, and to 
 report on the next evening. I then proposed that a very 
 convenient shop, under the Piazza in Covent Garden, 
 which I had been to look at, should be taken, in which 
 the trade should be carried on. This proposition was 
 referred to the committee, who were empowered to take 
 the shop if they approved of it. I then proposed to 
 them to prepare an address setting forth the reasons for 
 the strike, that it should be printed and circulated. This 
 was also agreed to, and referred to the committee. A 
 report on all these matters was made by me on the next 
 evening, and as my knowledge of Rag Fair breeches- 
 making was well known and duly appreciated, I was 
 unanimously elected sole manager of the whole concern, 
 and the stewards of the club were directed to furnish the 
 money necessary for the purpose. My pay was to be 
 twelve shillings a week, on condition that I would arrange 
 the whole business in a plain manner and conduct it ; and 
 those whom I might find it necessary to employ under 
 me in the business should have nine shillings a week each. 
 The business was immediately commenced, and was so 
 managed that legal proceedings could not be taken against 
 us for a combination. Things went on thus until the close 
 of the month of May, when the money was all expended, 
 and the men were compelled to return to their employ- 
 ment without any advance of wages. The masters in their 
 turn punished the men as much as they could ; and as the 
 whole number of masters was small, and the whole number 
 of men few, it was by no means difficult for the combined 
 masters to effect their purpose. All who had been in any 
 way active in the strike were not to be employed so long 
 as any other man was unemployed ; I and another young 
 man named James Ellis were never again to be employed 
 in any way whatever, by any master breeches-maker."
 
 10 EARLY LIFE 
 
 The terrible description which follows might be written 
 of thousands of families to-day. "During the strike, 
 which continued three months, we expended what little 
 we had saved. Soon after the commencement of the 
 strike our child was taken with smallpox, and died. 
 During the child's illness we, of course, lived and slept 
 in the same room ; it was a small one, and it may easily 
 be supposed that our condition was one of extreme chagrin. 
 To my wife it was one of great suffering. Persons who 
 have never been in such circumstances can form but 
 faint ideas of the misery even the best and most frugal 
 of workmen sometimes endure. 
 
 " During the next eight months I could obtain no sort 
 of employment, either in my own trade or in any other 
 way. At the commencement of this state of things I 
 contrived so to conduct myself, as to keep away every one 
 who was likely to visit us, and no one excepting my 
 brother ever called upon us ; and thus none knew how 
 poor we really were. We visited nowhere except now and 
 then our parents, ... so we were left alone, which, in 
 our circumstances, was what we desired. We made many 
 efforts to procure some sort of employment, but were 
 wholly unsuccessful. We suffered every kind of privation 
 consequent on want of employment and food and tire. 
 This is the only period of my life on which I look back 
 with shame. The tricks and pranks of my boyhood were 
 common, and were not thought disgraceful ; no one would 
 have abandoned me for what every one did and was ex- 
 pected to do, though the knowledge of it might have 
 distressed my mother. My temper was bad, and instead 
 of doing everything in my power to soothe and comfort 
 and support my wife in her miserable condition; instead 
 of doing her homage for the exemplary manner in which 
 she bore her sufferings ; instead of meeting, as I ought on 
 all occasions to have done, her good temper and affection :
 
 EARLY LIFE 11 
 
 I used at times to give way to passion, and increase her 
 and my own misery. The folly and absurdity of giving 
 way to bad temper was always apparent to me, and I 
 never attempted either to palliate or excuse it to myself. 
 I was indeed ashamed of it, and set about to rectify it, 
 and this I soon did to a considerable extent. It is but too 
 common for a man and his wife, whose circumstances 
 compel them to be almost constantly together in the same 
 room, to live in great discomfort. Our disagreements were 
 not, however, frequent, and when they did occur, the fault 
 was always on my side. Nothing conduces so much to 
 the degradation of a man and woman in the opinion of 
 each other, and of themselves in all respects but most 
 especially of the woman than her having to eat and 
 drink, and cook and wash and iron, and transact all her 
 domestic concerns, in the room in which her husband works, 
 and in which they sleep. In some cases men and women 
 are so ignorant and brutal that this mode of life is of no 
 moment to them ; but to those who have ever so small a 
 share of information, and consequently of refinement, it is a 
 terrible grievance, and produces sad consequences. . . . 
 
 " Our sufferings were great indeed. As long as we had 
 anything which could be pawned, we did not suffer much 
 from actual hunger ; but after everything had been pawned 
 'but what we stood upright in,' we suffered much from 
 actual hunger. My wife was a fine, handsome young 
 woman, and I was most affectionately and sincerely at- 
 tached to her, notwithstanding the ebullitions of temper I 
 have noticed ; and when I sometimes looked at her in her 
 comfortless, forlorn, and all but ragged condition, I could 
 hardly endure our wretched state, and know not what 
 mischief or crimes it might have driven me to commit, 
 had not the instructions of my good schoolmaster, and 
 my previous reading, enabled me to form something like 
 correct notions, and to hold to them.
 
 12 EARLY LIFE 
 
 " After about two months' privation I became somewhat 
 reconciled to my condition, hopeless as it at times seemed, 
 and at length I obtained such a perfect command of my- 
 self that, excepting commiseration for my wife, and actual 
 hunger, I suffered but little, and bore my lot without much 
 repining. I made up my mind to endure whatever I should 
 be compelled to suffer, and resolved to take advantage of 
 everything which might occur, to work myself into a con- 
 dition to become a master myself. I never afterwards 
 swerved in the least from this resolution. . . . 
 
 " My wife had never been at a pawnbroker's, and could 
 not go. I would not go myself. Hunger at last induced 
 her to request the wife of an old man, a carpenter who 
 lived in one of the garrets, to pawn something for her. This 
 she did, and continued to go as long as there was anything 
 which could be pawned. This woman was about fifty 
 years of age ; she was very poor, of quiet manners, and to 
 us, and as far as we could learn, very honest. It is pro- 
 bable that when she was no longer employed to pawn 
 things for us, she concluded we had nothing more to pawn, 
 and communicated her suspicions to our landlord's wife, 
 who, as well as her husband, offered my wife credit for 
 everything they sold ; and the wife almost forced bread, 
 coals, soup, and candles on her. And at the end of our 
 privation, notwithstanding we were only half fed on bread 
 and water, with an occasional red herring, we were six 
 pounds in debt to our landlord." 
 
 Those eight months of actual starvation had on Place 
 the same lasting influence that the sufferings of his boy- 
 hood had on Charles Dickens. Thirty years later, when he 
 was a rich man and had already for four years retired from 
 business, he writes with a pity still keen and fresh of those 
 whom he left behind amid the horrors from which he 
 himself escaped. " The hopes of a man who has no other 
 means than those of his own hands to help himself are but
 
 EARLY LIFE 13 
 
 too often illusory, and in a vast number of cases the dis- 
 appointments are more than can be steadily met ; and men 
 give up in despair, become reckless, and after a life of 
 poverty, end their days prematurely in misery. The mis- 
 fortune is the greater too, as it is only the better sort of 
 persons to whom this happens to the careful, saving' 
 moral men and women, who have set their hearts on 
 bettering their condition, and have toiled day and night in 
 the hope of accomplishing their purpose. None but such 
 as they tell how disappointment preys on them; how as 
 the number of their children increases, hope leaves them ; 
 how their hearts sink as toil becomes useless ; how adverse 
 circumstances force on them those indescribable feelings 
 of their own degradation, which sink them gradually to 
 the extreme of wretchedness. Others there are in much 
 larger numbers, whose views are narrower they who 
 hoped and expected to keep on in a decent way, who never 
 expected to rise in the world, and never calculated on ex- 
 treme poverty. I have seen a vast many such, who, when 
 the evil day has come upon them, have kept on working 
 steadily but hopelessly, more like horses in a mill, or mere 
 machines than human beings ; their feelings blunted, poor 
 stultified moving animals, working on, yet unable to 
 support their families in anything like comfort ; frequently 
 wanting the common necessaries of life, yet never giving 
 up until ' misery has eaten them to the bone,' none know- 
 ing, none caring for them ; no one to administer a word of 
 comfort, or, if an occasion occurred which might be of 
 service to them, none to rouse them to take advantage of 
 it; all above them in circumstances calumniating them, 
 classing them with the dissolute, the profligate, and the 
 dishonest, from whom the character of the whole of the 
 working people is taken. Yet I have witnessed in this 
 class of persons so despised, so unjustly judged of by their 
 betters, virtues which I have not seen to the same extent
 
 14, EARLY LIFE 
 
 as to means among any other description of the people. 
 Justice perhaps will never be done to them, because they 
 may never be understood, because it is not the habit of 
 men to care for others beneath them in rank, and because 
 they who employ them will probably never fail to look 
 grudgingly on the pay they are compelled to give them 
 for their services, the very notion of which produces an 
 inward hatred of them, a feeling so common, that it 
 is visible in the countenance and manners in nearly 
 every one who has to pay either journeymen, labourers, or 
 servants." 
 
 Again and again he urges the lesson that the only chance 
 for a working-man in bad times is to preserve, at the cost 
 of however much privation, his own sell' -respect. "No 
 working-man, or journeyman tradesman," he says, " is ever 
 wholly ruined until hope has abandoned him." He dwells 
 on the necessity of two rooms as a means of avoiding 
 degradation with the insistence which those who have had 
 practical experience of family life in one room always use, 
 and which sometimes seems exaggerated to those who have 
 not. Writing of a somewhat more fortunate time, he says : 
 "The room in which we lived (in 1795) was a front room 
 at a baker's shop. The house had three windows in the 
 front, two in the room and one in a large closet at the end 
 of the room. In this closet I worked. It was a great ac- 
 commodation to us ; it enabled my wife to keep the room 
 in better order. It was advantageous, too, in its moral 
 effects. Attendance on the child was not, as it had been, 
 always in my presence. I was shut out from seeing the 
 fire lighted, the room washed and cleaned, and the clothes 
 washed and ironed, as well as the cooking. We frequently 
 went to bed, as we had but too often been accustomed to 
 do, with a wet or damp floor, and with the wet clothes 
 hanging up in the room. Still, a great deal of the annoy- 
 ance and the too close interference with each other in
 
 EARLY LIFE 15 
 
 many particulars which having but one room made in- 
 evitable, were removed happily for ever. 
 
 " I have before remarked that the consequences of a 
 man and his wife living in the same room in which the 
 man works are mischievous to them in all respects, and I 
 here add as a recommendation to all journeymen trades- 
 men and other workmen who are much at home, and 
 even to those who are only at home at meal - times 
 and after working hours, and at other times such as 
 Sundays, and when they have no employment, to make 
 almost any sacrifice to keep possession of two rooms, how- 
 ever small and however inconveniently situated as regards 
 the place of their employment. Much better is it to be 
 compelled to walk a mile or even two miles to and from 
 their work to a lodging with two rooms, than to live close 
 to their work in a lodging of one room. I advise them 
 also to arrange these contrary to the usual custom of those 
 who have two rooms, and to put the bed in the room in 
 which as much as possible of the domestic work is done. 
 A neat clean room, though it be as small as a closet, and 
 however few the articles of furniture, is of more importance 
 in its moral consequences than anybody seems hitherto to 
 have supposed." 
 
 At the end of 1793, when there seemed no chance of 
 the boycott upon him being removed, Place determined to 
 leave his trade, and arranged to accept a post as overseer 
 of parish scavengers at eighteen shillings a week. He was 
 to have gone to this work on a Monday, but on the preced- 
 ing Friday he was sent for by one of his former employers. 
 He refused to go, as another employer had already endea- 
 voured to entrap him into an admission of the existence of 
 the Trade Club, in order to get him prosecuted under the 
 infamous Combination Laws. His wife, however, persuaded 
 him to allow her to go, and " in a short time she returned 
 and let fall from her apron as much work for me as she
 
 16 EARLY LIFE 
 
 could bring away. She was unable to speak until she was 
 relieved by a flood of tears." ..." All difficulty and appre- 
 hension vanished on our being again employed by Mr. 
 Allison. We both went to work with a hearty good-will. 
 The carpenter's wife, who was as well pleased as she could 
 have been had she been our mother, was now employed to 
 cook and wash for us, to keep our room clean, and to get 
 our things from the pawnbroker's as fast as we could pro- 
 cure money for the purpose. We now worked full sixteen, 
 and sometimes eighteen, hours a day, Sundays and all. I 
 never went out of the house for many weeks, and could 
 not find time for a month to shave myself. We turned 
 out of bed to work, and turned from our work to bed again. 
 My hair was black and somewhat curled, my beard was 
 very thick, my whiskers large, and my face somewhat 
 sallow, and upon the whole I must have been a ferocious- 
 looking fellow. 1 . . . 
 
 " We soon recovered from our deplorable condition, 
 bought clothes and bedding and other necessaries, a good 
 bedstead, and many other things which made us com- 
 fortable. We removed to a much more convenient room 
 in a small recently built house near the Angel Inn, in the 
 then open space at the end of Wych Street. We put an 
 iron rod close up to the ceiling, on which ran a couple of 
 curtains. We employed the wife of a hackney coachman 
 who lodged in the garret to cook and wash and clean for 
 us ; we had plenty of work, and we worked hard. I bought 
 a stove and had it set on a plan of Count Runiford's. Our 
 little furniture was good enough for our circumstances, 
 and the room was especially neat and clean. There was 
 a small yard to the house and a wash-house, and these 
 
 1 He has given earlier another description of his personal appear- 
 ance. "My complexion," hejsays, "was dark, my hair very black, and 
 my beard thick. I was^rather thin but muscular, was rive feet six 
 inches high, and had^altogether the appearance of being several years 
 older than I was."
 
 EARLY LIFE 17 
 
 were great conveniences. We had never before been so 
 well off, or had reason to be so well satisfied ; I was able 
 also to assist my mother. We used to work later than 
 usual on Friday nights, and earlier than usual on Saturday 
 mornings, so as to finish our week's labour by three o'clock 
 on the Saturday afternoon, and we ceased working on 
 Sundays. I used to clean myself and go to Mr. Allison's 
 to settle with him, and my wife and the coachman's wife 
 used to put the room into the best possible order. We 
 then put on our best clothes if the weather was fine and 
 took a walk. As we scarcely left our work for meals all 
 the week, we had a hot supper on the Saturday, a beef- 
 steak or mutton-chops. Our neat place, the absence of 
 want, the expectation of continuing to do well, the per- 
 suasion that our days of suffering were at an end, and our 
 mutual affection, made us perhaps as happy as any two 
 persons ever really were." l 
 
 It is one of the most astonishing signs of Place's resolu- 
 tion and courage, that throughout his "out-of-work" 
 months, while constantly faced with hunger and appre- 
 hension, he devoted a great part of his undesired leisure 
 to severe intellectual work. Even as a schoolboy, and 
 during the early years of his apprenticeship, he had done 
 some serious reading. Writing of that time he says : 
 " My desire for information was, however, too strong to be 
 turned aside, and often have I been sent away from a 
 bookstall when the owner became offended at my stand- 
 ing reading, which I used to do until I was turned away. 
 ... I used to borrow books from a man who kept a small 
 shop in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, leaving a small sum 
 as a deposit, and paying a trifle for reading them, having 
 
 1 Against this may be set an incidental remark in another part of 
 the autobiography : " During several years when I earned my living 
 by sewing I was scarcely ever free from headache, and had often to 
 endure terrible attacks." 
 
 B
 
 18 EARLY LIFE 
 
 one only at a time." During the first year of his married 
 life he had lodged with an old woman who took charge of 
 chambers in the Temple, and lent him books borrowed 
 from the rooms which she cleaned. At that time he says 
 he had already worked through " the histories of Greece 
 and Rome, and some translated works of Greek and 
 Roman writers ; Hume, Smollett, Fielding's novels, and 
 Robertson's works; some of Hume's essays, some trans- 
 lations from French writers, and much on geography ; 
 some books on anatomy and surgery; some relating to 
 science and the arts, and many magazines. I had worked 
 all the problems in the Introduction to Guthrie's ' Geo- 
 graphy,' and had made some small progress in geometry." 
 
 His landlady enabled him to read "Blackstone, Hale's 
 4 Common Law,' several other law books, and much bio- 
 graphy." When out of work he read "many volumes in 
 history, voyages and travels, politics, law and philosophy, 
 Adam Smith and Locke, and especially Hume's ' Essays ' 
 and 'Treatises.' These latter I read two or three times 
 over. . . . Reading of Hume put me on improving myself 
 in other ways. I taught myself decimals, equations, the 
 square, cube, and biquadrate roots. I got some knowledge 
 of logarithms, and some of algebra. I readily got through 
 a small schoolbook of geometry; and having an odd 
 volume, the first, of Williamson's ' Euclid,' I attacked it 
 vigorously and perseveringly. Williamson's is by no means 
 the best book on the subject, yet I am still of opinion that 
 it is the best book I could have had for the purpose of 
 teaching myself. My progress was for some time very 
 slow ; I was perplexed between quantity and number, and 
 could not readily abstract myself from the consideration of 
 numbers. I suspect that this has its baneful influence on 
 all who learn arithmetic before they acquire any knowledge 
 of geometrical figures and definitions of them, which, by 
 experience, I now know may be taught to children without
 
 EARLY LIFE 19 
 
 much difficulty; and which, being taught, assists the 
 learner to a great extent when he comes to be taught 
 mathematics as a science. Often and often did I find 
 myself at fault, and was as often obliged to turn back 
 again. I was sometimes brought to a standstill, and at 
 times almost despaired of making further progress. Wil- 
 liamson's ' Euclid ' is preceded by five dissertations ; these 
 I read carefully, working the problems as I went on. I 
 have no doubt that I should have had less difficulty had I 
 not been impressed with a persuasion of the great difficulty 
 of acquiring the information I sought. The volume con- 
 tained the first six books of Euclid. With labour such as 
 few would take, and difficulties such as few would encoun- 
 ter, I got through the six books; but not at all to my 
 satisfaction. I knew no one of whom I could ask a ques- 
 tion or receive any kind of instruction, and the subject 
 was therefore at times very painful." 
 
 All this was, of course, put an end to as soon as an 
 opportunity came to work " full sixteen or eighteen " hours 
 a day. But this busy time did not last long. After a few 
 months his employer sent less and less work, and soon he 
 was again discharged. He then reorganised the Breeches- 
 Makers' Union, early in 1 794, under the guise of a Tontine 
 Sick Club, became its secretary with a salary of 10 per 
 annum, and obtained in the spring of 1795, without a 
 strike, the advance which had been vainly asked for in 
 1793. This, however, led to the dissolution of the club, 
 the funds of which were shared out among the members, 
 and Place lost his office. He was then paid to draw 
 up articles or rules for various trade clubs, and became 
 secretary and organiser to those of the carpenters, plumbers, 
 and others. He spent much of his time in delivering by 
 hand the printed notices of meetings, and was allowed to 
 charge postage price for so doing. 
 
 The autobiography, till it reaches the year 1794, is curi-
 
 20 EARLY LIFE 
 
 ously individualistic in tone. Place, when he looked back 
 on the first twenty-three years of his life, and wished to 
 estimate the conditions under which his character was 
 built up, remembered almost exclusively the personal 
 temptations and errors of his boyhood, his intense love 
 for his wife, his early marriage, and the stern struggle for 
 regular work and opportunity of knowledge which followed. 
 The most impersonal intellectual interest to which he 
 refers is the religious question, and the series of doubts and 
 fears which were ended when David Hume's "Essays," 
 supplemented by a chance copy of Paine's " Age of Reason," 
 finally made him an agnostic. 
 
 But no young man could have lived as he did in London 
 throughout the five years which followed the French Revo- 
 lution, organising trade unions and suffering himself per- 
 sonally from the effects of unjust laws, without being 
 profoundly influenced by the great message which the 
 French Republic was proclaiming to the world. And 
 indeed when, " at the request of my landlord," he joined 
 the London Corresponding Society in June 1794, it is evi- 
 dent that this step was the result not of a casual impulse, 
 but of a steady intellectual development. Place was never 
 a man who incurred risk without due consideration, and 
 the risk involved in what he was doing was sufficiently 
 obvious. The English Government had now been for more 
 than a year at war with France. Burke, "in one of his 
 mad rants in the House of Commons," 1 had denounced 
 the Corresponding Society by name as " the mother of all 
 the mischief." Two delegates of the Society had been 
 arrested at the Edinburgh Convention six months before 
 and sent to Botany Bay, and finally, on May 12. 1794, a 
 few weeks before Place joined, Thomas Hardy, the origi- 
 nator and secretary of the Society, with ten others of the 
 most prominent members, had been arrested on a charge 
 
 1 27,808 ( 4 ).
 
 EARLY LIFE 21 
 
 of high-treason, and were then awaiting trial. These arrests 
 were the immediate cause of Place's action. " The violent 
 proceedings of the Government," he says, " frightened away 
 many of the members of the Society, and its number was 
 very considerably diminished. Many persons, however, of 
 whom I was one, considered it meritorious and the perform- 
 ance of a duty to become members now that it was threat- 
 ened with violence and its founder and secretary was perse- 
 cuted. This improved the character of the Society, as most 
 of those who joined it were men of decided character, sober 
 thinking men, not likely to be easily put from their purpose." 
 
 The London Corresponding Society had been founded 
 at the end of 1791, its object being "to correspond with 
 other societies that might be formed having the same 
 object in view, as well as with public-spirited individuals." 1 
 
 The Corresponding Society formed the working-class wing 
 of the Democratic movement of the time. The societies of 
 the " Friends of the People " and " Constitutional Informa- 
 tion " were already in existence, and engaged in spreading 
 the ideas of the French Revolution. But their annual sub- 
 scriptions of five guineas and two guineas and a half 
 respectively excluded working-men from membership 
 Hardy therefore fixed his subscription at a penny per week, 
 with a shilling entrance fee. The political programme of 
 the Society consisted of the " Plan of Radical Reform " 
 universal suffrage, annual parliaments, payment of mem- 
 bers which Major Cartwright had advocated in 1776, and 
 which was to reappear more than forty years later as " The 
 People's Charter." The name of the Society proved un- 
 fortunate. The British public always believed that it 
 implied an intention of corresponding with the French 
 Government, 2 a serious matter in war time. As a matter 
 
 1 27,808 (3). 
 
 2 Of. a survival of this tradition in Mrs. E. C. Gaskell's " Sylvia's 
 Lovers" (London, 1863), vol. i. p. 298.
 
 22 EARLY LIFE 
 
 of fact, the name had originally no reference to France, 
 but was due to the fact that the law forbade any federation 
 of political bodies. A regular exchange of letters between 
 kindred societies up and down the country was the easiest 
 way of evading the law, and the term had been used at 
 least once before by a society formed for a similar object. 1 
 Such a correspondence with the provinces did go on as far 
 as the expense of postage and the interference of Govern- 
 ment with the post-office would allow. But the main 
 strength of the Society was in London. " The Society 
 assembled," says Place, " in divisions in various parts of 
 the Metropolis. That to which I belonged was held, as 
 all others were, weekly, at a private house in New Street, 
 Covent Garden. Each division elected a delegate and sub- 
 delegate; these formed a general committee, which also 
 met once a week ; in this committee the sub-delegate had 
 a seat, but could neither speak nor vote while the delegate 
 was present. I was soon elected delegate, and became a 
 member of the general committee. In this Society I met 
 with many inquisitive, clever, upright men, and among 
 them I greatly enlarged my acquaintance. They were in 
 most, if not in all, respects superior to any with whom I 
 had hitherto been acquainted. We had book subscriptions, 
 similar to the breeches clubs before mentioned ; only the 
 books for which any one subscribed were read by all the 
 members in rotation who chose to read them, before they 
 were finally consigned to the subscriber. We had Sunday 
 evening parties at the residences of those who could accom- 
 modate a number of persons. At these meetings we had 
 readings, conversations, and discussions. There was at 
 this time a great many such parties ; they were highly 
 useful and agreeable. 2 
 
 1 "Mr. Burke belonged to the Corresponding Society in Bucking- 
 hamshire" [arc. 1780] (newspaper cutting, 27,837-48). 
 
 2 Place mentions an incidental result of these readings upon the 
 members of the inner circle of the Corresponding Society. "This
 
 EARLY LIFE 23 
 
 "Early in the month of October 1794, a special Commis- 
 sion was issued to try the persons accused of high-treason. 
 To prepare matters for the approaching trials, several com- 
 mittees were appointed. Of one of these I was a member ; 
 and when the nine days' trial of Thomas Hardy com- 
 menced, I used to attend daily at the Old Bailey from noon 
 till night, go to work when I came home, and again in the 
 morning early till noon ; and thus I contrived to do as 
 much as an ordinary day's work. I was very active and 
 useful in directing others, and was well pleased to see the 
 esteem in which I was held by those with whom I acted, who 
 were clever men in circumstances very superior to mine." 
 
 Few State trials are more famous than those which 
 followed. Thomas Hardy, Home Tooke, the old philologist, 
 who, like many moderate men, was supposed to be an 
 extremist merely because he was courageous, and Thelwall, 
 the Radical lecturer, were successively tried and acquitted. 
 Then the prosecutions of the remaining defendants were 
 abandoned. A quarter of a century later Place referred to 
 " the State trials in 1 794, the bare mention of which brings 
 to my mind an association of ideas the most exhilarating, 
 and sends me back to the Old Bailey with the most vivid 
 recollections of the men and things of that time. Never 
 can I forget the emotions I felt during the nine days' trial, 
 or the joy in which I partook on hearing the verdict 'Not 
 guilty' pronounced on my worthy and excellent friend 
 Thomas Hardy, on whose inoffensive, upright character the 
 breath of calumny has never breathed from the mouth of 
 any one who ever knew him." : 
 
 course of discipline compelled them to think more correctly than they 
 had been accustomed to do ; it induced them to become readers of 
 books, and the consequence, the very remarkable consequence, was that 
 every one of them became a master, and permanently bettered his con- 
 dition in life" (Place to Noble, March 10, 1836). 
 
 1 See the unpublished MS. of the second Reply to Lord Erskine 
 1819, referred to at p. 143.
 
 24 EARLY LIFE 
 
 The triumphant acquittal of Hardy, Tooke, and Thelwall 
 increased the membership of the Corresponding Society, 
 and by the end of May 1795 it consisted of seventy 
 different divisions, with an average weekly attendance of 
 over two thousand members. Place had from the first 
 been recognised as a capable organiser, and in the summer 
 of 1795 he usually took the chair at the weekly general 
 committee. Some of his decisions are still to be seen in 
 the British Museum, 1 entered in the dirty little minute- 
 book of the Society. The entry for August 27, 1795, is as 
 follows : " Citn. 2 Place in chair. A citizen said . . . there 
 was a person named Dykes amongst them, as he believed 
 was not a good citizen, as he belonged to the Loyal Britons. 3 
 Citn. Place said he had once been a Loyal Briton, but he 
 did not think himself any the worse for it, and he said he 
 knew that Dykes, and believed him to be a very good 
 citizen." 
 
 On the committee of the Corresponding Society Place 
 advocated the political tactics in which he continued to 
 believe throughout the rest of his life. The majority of 
 the members were always proposing large public meetings 
 with the view of intimidating the Government, so that they 
 might be " compelled to grant a reform in the House of 
 Commons." Place and a very few of his friends had no 
 such expectation. " I believed that Ministers would go on 
 until they brought the Government to a standstill that 
 was until they could carry it on no longer. It appeared to 
 me that the only chance the people either had or could 
 have for good and cheap government was in their being 
 taught the advantages of representation, so as to lead them 
 to desire a wholly representative government; so that 
 whenever the conduct of Ministers should produce a crisis 
 they should be qualified to support those who were the 
 
 1 27,813 (114). 2 i.e. Citizen. 
 
 3 This was no doubt a friendly society or sick club of some kind.
 
 EARLY LIFE 25 
 
 most likely to establish a cheap and simple form'of govern- 
 ment. I therefore advised that the Society should proceed 
 as quietly and privately as possible." Public meetings were, 
 however, held, and the effect upon the Government was, 
 not the granting of parliamentary reform but the passing 
 of the Treason and Sedition Bills, otherwise known as the 
 Pitt and Grenville Acts, in November 1795. By these 
 Acts almost every possible form of agitation, or indeed of 
 political action, was rendered illegal. At the same time 
 Habeas Corpus was suspended and many reformers were 
 arrested and sent to prison without trial. 1 
 
 From this blow the Corresponding Society never re- 
 covered. " Some thought it dangerous, others thought it 
 useless, to meet again, and the whole matter fell rapidly to 
 decay." Great efforts were made by some of the members 
 to revive the Society, but without much effect. "The 
 business of the Society," says Place, "increased after its 
 members fell off. It was necessary in order to keep it 
 from absolute ruin to appoint deputations from the general 
 committee to the divisions whose delegates ceased to 
 attend the district committee, as well as to those which 
 were sluggish or met in small [numbers. This was an 
 arduous undertaking. ... I remember having to attend 
 
 1 Place, although he was actively engaged in one of the societies 
 aimed at by these Acts, and although he and all his friends were 
 violently opposed to them, was never deluded into the belief that his 
 own set represented popular opinion. He declared several times that 
 these Acts were in reality extremely popular. Writing to Harrison on 
 February 15, 1842, he recounts the events which led to the passing of 
 the Acts, and says, " Infamous as these laws were, they were popular 
 measures. The people, ay, the mass of the shopkeepers and working 
 people, may be said to have approved them without understanding 
 them. Such was their terror of the French regicides and democrats, 
 such the fear that ' the throne and the altar ' would be destroyed, and 
 that we should be ' deprived of our holy religion,' that had the know- 
 ledge of the grand conspiracy been equal to their desires, they might 
 have converted the Government into anything they wished for the 
 advantage of themselves." [27,810 (91).]
 
 26 EARLY LIFE 
 
 in this way as many as three divisions on one evening, 
 and having to harangue each of them on their neglect, 
 and to urge them to a state of greater activity. The 
 correspondence with the country was also very con- 
 siderable." l 
 
 In 1796, the Society committed one of the most fatal 
 mistakes into which a body in want of funds can fall. 
 Against the urgent advice of Place and his party, a maga- 
 zine was started. This venture not only increased the 
 Society's debt, but absorbed the special fund which had 
 been collected for the defence of the delegates of the 
 Society, who had been arrested at Birmingham. 2 
 
 Place had been partly responsible for sending them. 
 "We cajoled ourselves and each other," he says, "with 
 delusive expectations," that a visit from deputies would 
 greatly increase the membership of the Society, which, 
 he adds, "proves us to have been very silly people." 3 
 
 He got more and more dissatisfied with the proceedings 
 of the Society, and at last took an opportunity of leaving 
 the committee. "I was out of office at midsummer 
 (1796)," he says, "and not liking the proceedings of the 
 executive committee, I refused to be elected to it again, 
 as I did also to be president of the general committee, 
 and became simply the delegate of the division to which 
 I belonged." 
 
 In March 1797 he resigned his delegation, and in June 
 of the same year his membership of the Society. A month 
 later the Society held a large public meeting in a field near 
 St. Pancras Church. All who were on the platform were 
 arrested by the Middlesex magistrates, and after this the 
 Society " declined rapidly, and by the end of the year was 
 
 1 27,808 (69). 
 
 2 John Gale Jones and John Binns. Cf. the very interesting " Re- 
 collections of the Life of John Binns," written by himself (Philadelphia, 
 1854, 8vo). Place was sent to Birmingham to conduct the defence. 
 
 3 27,808 (72).
 
 EARLY LIFE 27 
 
 in a very low state." But the Society did not actually 
 come to an end till 1798. In that year O'Quigley, the 
 Irish delegate to the French Government, was in London, 1 
 and an attempt was being made by a few revolutionists 
 to form a society of United Englishmen to act with the 
 United Irishmen in organising an armed rebellion. The 
 Government had nursed the plot by means of spies, and 
 on April i8th some dozen men were seized, including 
 Colonel Despard and three others, who against Place's 
 advice had gone down to dissuade from their purpose the 
 men who were really in earnest. 2 On the next night all 
 the members of the committee of the Corresponding Society 
 were seized. It requires some experience of the amount 
 of moderation which may be found among advanced bodies 
 to credit Place's statement that the subject for discussion 
 that night was the advisability of volunteering in all good 
 faith for resistance to the expected French invasion, and 
 that, just before the arrest, it had been " agreed to recom- 
 mend the members of the Society individually to join some 
 corps (each) in his own neighbourhood." Place explicitly 
 denies that the Society had as its object "the formation of 
 a Republic by the assistance of France." " This is a base 
 
 1 O'Quigley, or O'Coigley, as his name was sometimes spelt, was soon 
 afterwards caught on his way to France, and hanged for treason. 
 
 2 The members of the London Corresponding Society did all in their 
 power to dissuade those whom they knew from embarking in the 
 United Englishmen conspiracy, but without success. At last it was 
 agreed by Place and others that steps ought to be taken to put an end 
 to the plot. On this occasion, Place proposed one of those bold steps 
 which he sometimes took, and which, perhaps, helped afterwards to 
 produce the notion that he was a spy. " I was for doing this," he says, 
 "by sending for Evans, B. Binns, and a foolish fellow, their coadjutor, 
 named James Powell, and frankly telling them we would take means 
 to stop their proceedings by communicating to Mr. Ford, the magistrate 
 at the Treasury, who and what they were and what they intended, so 
 that unless they at once desisted they should be prevented from in- 
 volving others in mischief and disgrace, and bringing punishment upon 
 them. This was objected to, especially by Colonel Despard, as it would 
 appear dishonourable." [27,808 (92).]
 
 28 EARLY LIFE 
 
 lie," he says. " No such avowal was ever made. No pro- 
 position of the kind was ever discussed. On the contrary, 
 it ever was the prevalent opinion of the Society that the 
 people ought to work out their own regeneration, and that 
 it was their duty to resist the French if they attempted an 
 invasion, on whatever pretext it was made. That if this 
 nation was not wise enough to reform its own government, 
 the people could not be made free by a foreign power, 
 but might, as they would deserve, be made slaves. This 
 was the opinion generally, and indeed almost universally, 
 entertained by the members." 1 The seizure of its com- 
 mittee finally extinguished the London Corresponding 
 Society, " which never made any attempt to meet again, not 
 even, I believe, in any division. The members dispersed, 
 and wholly abandoned the delegates." Habeas Corpus 
 was again suspended, and the twenty-eight men who had 
 been arrested were kept in prison without trial for three 
 years. For the first eighteen months of this period Place 
 was left almost alone in the work of collecting and dis- 
 tributing subscriptions, and pressing for payment of an 
 allowance to the wives and families of the prisoners, which 
 was at last granted by the Government. 
 
 Towards the close of the year 1796, when he had left 
 the committee of the Corresponding Society, and for the 
 time had little public work on hand, Place formed the idea 
 of publishing a cheap edition of Tom Paine's "Age of 
 Reason," a book which had much influence on his own 
 mind. He induced a small jobbing bookbinder and seller 
 of his acquaintance, named Thomas Williams, to share 
 with him the expense and risk of publication, and an 
 edition of two thousand copies was prepared. Within a 
 fortnight of its publication the whole edition was sold 
 out, and Williams broke away from the agreement with 
 Place, and refused to share the profits. Williams then 
 1 27,808 (108-109).
 
 EARLY LIFE 29 
 
 produced on his own account another and still larger 
 edition, which was also selling rapidly, when he was indicted 
 for the publication of a seditious and blasphemous libel. 
 After a long delay he was convicted, and sentenced to a 
 year's imprisonment, with hard labour. Place devoted 
 himself to raising means for the support of the convict's 
 wife and family during his confinement. 
 
 It was hi 1795, while chairman of the Corresponding 
 Society, that Place began to take the first definite steps to 
 raise himself from the position of journeyman to that of 
 employer. He was still poor, but he had gained experience 
 in dealing with men. Above all, his studies had trained 
 his imagination. He could see his future career as clearly 
 as his present difficulties. He could think of society as a 
 whole, and of the processes of trade as being something 
 more than a mysterious iniquity. " It is remarkable 
 enough," he says, " that almost every honest journeyman 
 is deterred for a long time, and some for ever, from making 
 an attempt to get into business, lest he should be ' ruined,' 
 notwithstanding being ruined could only bring him back 
 again to journey-work. This must seem strange to all 
 who have not had practical experience on the subject. 
 The fear of doing injury to others by contracting debts he 
 may be unable to pay is a proper feeling, and when it is 
 not indulged to an extent which prevents a man from 
 bettering his own condition without doing injury to any- 
 body, operates beneficially. But besides this reasonable 
 apprehension, the fear of personal ruin operates to a very 
 considerable extent ; it did with me. The reason is, that 
 there is a sort of mystery in the matter, an uncertainty 
 which they who fear to do evil are not willing to encounter. 
 Mr. Godwin's book 1 extinguished this fear in me. It led 
 
 1 This reference is to the " Inquiry Concerning Political Justice, &c, n 
 by William Godwin (London, 1793, 2 vols.). Place says he learnt to 
 disbelieve in "abstract rights" from Godwin in 1793 (Place to War- 
 burton, May 5, 1839).
 
 30 EARLY LIFE 
 
 me to reason on the matter, and convinced me that a man 
 might turn others to account in every kind of undertaking 
 without dishonesty, that the ordinary tricks of tradesmen 
 were not necessary, and need not be practised. This was 
 to me the most grateful kind of knowledge I could acquire, 
 and I resolved to lose no time in putting it in practice." 
 He began by getting a few private customers, for whom he 
 could work directly. In this he could have made great 
 use of his position in the Corresponding Society, but " my 
 notions of independence," he says, " were somewhat absurd, 
 and they prevented me from deriving all the benefit I 
 might have received, and circumstances warranted. I was, 
 however, afraid of doing anything which might prospec- 
 tively debase me in my own opinion, and I acted on the 
 safe side." 
 
 His next step was to acquire credit with the drapers and 
 clothiers. With this purpose he made his purchases on an 
 elaborate and ingenious system. "I knew that by pur- 
 chasing materials at two or three shops, however small the 
 quantities, and letting each of them know that I made 
 purchases of others, each would sell to me at as low a price 
 as he could, and each would after a time give me credit. 
 I afterwards put this mode of proceeding into practice, and 
 whenever I had two things to purchase, I bought one at 
 one shop, and carried it under my arm to another shop, 
 where I bought the remainder of what I wanted. In a 
 little time credit was offered to me, each wishing to have 
 the whole of my custom, and each probably supposing it 
 was greater than it was. From this time I always bought 
 on short credit ; instead of paying for the goods, I put by 
 the money, taking care always to pay for what I had before 
 the term of credit expired. I thus established a character 
 for punctuality and integrity with three mercers and two 
 woollen-drapers, and, as I foresaw, I should, if I could once 
 take a shop, have credit for any amount whatever. This
 
 EARLY LIFE 31 
 
 was a work of time, but of less time than I had calculated 
 upon; I had supposed that it would scarcely be accom- 
 plished in less than six years ; it was accomplished in less 
 than four years. . . . 
 
 " The number of my customers was small, the prices I 
 charged were very low, and, what was worse, some few got 
 into debt with me and never paid their debts. My wife 
 frequently importuned me to go again to journey-work, 
 and offered to try to procure it herself if I would let her. 
 I, however, resolutely refused. I insisted upon it that I 
 should work myself into a condition to become a master 
 tradesman, and should then be able to maintain my family 
 respectably ; that no hope of my ever being able to do this 
 in any other way existed, and that nothing should therefore 
 divert me from my purpose ; that our present privations 
 were by no means so bad as those we had suffered, and 
 that there was something like a certainty that they would 
 at no very distant time be ended for ever ; that as every 
 day was a new day, the contemplation of the evils of one 
 day was as much as we ought reasonably to entertain, and 
 that it was disgraceful not to bear the evils of one day with 
 temper. This reasoning often repeated had its weight with 
 my wife, but it neither satisfied her nor reconciled her to 
 her condition. Still we were not unhappy ; upon the whole 
 we were comfortable, and at times very far indeed from 
 unhappiness. There was, however, one bad result of our 
 long state of probation and privation; it to some extent 
 destroyed my wife's cheerful disposition, and made her 
 apprehensive of misfortune ; and she never recovered from 
 this entirely. Her situation was necessarily worse than 
 mine on account of the two children. . . . Sometimes she 
 almost despaired of ever being better off in the world, and 
 at these times she used to complain of my folly in thinking 
 I should be able to take a shop and commence business ; 
 and as to my succeeding and being able to procure money
 
 32 EARLY LIFE 
 
 enough to live without business, she declared it was sheer 
 insanity. These fits were, however, of short duration, and 
 were always caused by some great privation she and the 
 children suffered. . . . The few good clothes we had left were 
 taken great care of, and when out of the house we always 
 made a respectable appearance, and were generally con- 
 sidered, by those who knew us, as flourishing people, who 
 wanted for nothing. In fine weather on Sundays we 
 usually walked into the fields, taking the children with us. 
 Our walk was frequently to White Conduit House, and the 
 fields beyond it towards Copenhagen House. Both these 
 places were celebrated tea-gardens, and the number of 
 persons who frequented them on Sundays was very great. 
 We carried the children nearly the whole of the way, and 
 returned as we went, never spending a single halfpenny." 
 
 From this time forward Place seems always to have 
 thought of himself, not as the half-starved journeyman 
 that he was, but as the prosperous tradesman that he 
 meant to be. He " resolved to give my children the best 
 possible education which my circumstances would afford." 
 With this view he determined to learn French. He and 
 four other members of the Corresponding Society arranged 
 to receive lessons from a " profound and pompous " fellow- 
 member, " who used to talk with great self-complacency of 
 his skill in teaching." Their first teacher did not prove 
 a success, and an emigrant priest was soon secured, under 
 whom the little class rapidly advanced. Place, though he 
 had now left the Corresponding Society, never found any 
 difficulty in borrowing books, and used to stay at home 
 to read Helvetius, Rousseau, and Voltaire for three or four 
 hours every evening. When at work, he fixed his French 
 grammar before him and steadily learnt it by rote. This 
 first-hand acquaintance with the French revolutionary 
 philosophers had an important influence on his political 
 ideas, and in after years his knowledge of French, though
 
 EARLY LIFE 33 
 
 never very scholarly, was of immense value to him in his 
 business. A Mr. William Frend of the Temple used also 
 to come and sit with Place at his work, answering his ques- 
 tions and guiding his studies in astronomy and algebra. 
 In the same way the rich and good-natured Colonel 
 Bosville, Colonel Despard till the time of his arrest, and 
 others used to come to talk with a man whose conversation 
 must already have been worth hearing. 
 
 Meanwhile his ambition was expanding, and instead of 
 taking a small shop in some Holborn back street as he 
 had originally intended, he entered into partnership with 
 a fellow-workman nearly as poor as himself, and opened a 
 tailor's shop at No. 29 Charing Cross, in the centre of 
 what was then a rapidly improving neighbourhood. The 
 partners took possession on April 8, 1799. The shop was 
 stocked on credit, and their joint cash funds on the day of 
 opening were one shilling and tenpence. But they were 
 both of them enterprising, skilful, and furiously industri- 
 ous, so that in less than two years' time they had thirty-six 
 men at work, and every prospect of a splendid business. 
 But a sickening disappointment was still to come ; Place's 
 partner married a wife with whom agreement was impos- 
 sible, and having the offer of a large loan, forced the busi- 
 ness into liquidation, and bought the goodwill for himself. 
 The effect on Mrs. Place was terrible. "Neither tongue 
 nor pen," says Place, " can describe her anguish. She saw 
 nothing before her but destruction. . . . She was sure we 
 should all be turned into the streets. Industry was of no 
 use to us ; integrity would not serve us ; honesty would be 
 of no avail. We had worked harder and done more than 
 anybody else, and now we were to suffer more than any- 
 body else." From that time till the day of her death she 
 never lost the apprehension of sudden and undeserved 
 misfortune. " This," Place says, " was undoubtedly the 
 bitterest day of my life." But the crisis was well fitted
 
 34 EARLY LIFE 
 
 to bring out his obstinate courage, and the skill in dealing 
 with men which he had developed in his political work. 
 At the meeting of creditors he completely turned the tables 
 on his late partner, and found every one so ready to advance 
 him money or goods that on April 8, 1801, three months 
 after his first discovery of the plot against him, and exactly 
 two years from the day of the opening of the first shop, he 
 opened a much larger and more conspicuous shop on his 
 own account at No. 16 Charing Cross. " I put in," he says, 
 " a new front as elegant as the place would permit. Each 
 of the panes of glass in the shop front cost me three 
 pounds, and two in the door four pounds each. . . . Such 
 shop fronts were then uncommon ; I think mine were the 
 largest plate-glass windows in London, if indeed they were 
 not the first. . . . Fitting up the shop cost me nearly three 
 hundred pounds. . . . There were five large Argand lamps 
 in the shop, besides candles, to make the windows and 
 every part of it as nearly equally light as possible." 
 
 Here for the next five or six years he lived the life 
 of any one of those successful money-makers whose bio- 
 graphies have been written by Dr. Smiles. He knew well 
 the method by which money was to be made. Though 
 a skilled breeches-maker, " I was," he says, " myself no 
 tailor. I could not cut out a coat as it should be cut, nor 
 make it up as it should be made up. I never thought it 
 was worth while to learn to do either. I knew I could 
 procure competent persons for these purposes, and that 
 the most profitable part for me to follow was to dance 
 attendance on silly people, to make myself acceptable to 
 coxcombs, to please their whims, to have no opinion of my 
 own, but to take special care that my customers should 
 be pleased with theirs." The student of Rousseau and 
 Godwin, and the future disciple of Bentham, shows him- 
 self in the reflection, " it was all matter of taste, that is, of 
 folly and caprice."
 
 EARLY LIFE 35 
 
 During these years he definitely gave up every form of 
 public life. " I never lost a minute of time, was never on 
 any occasion diverted from the steady pursuit of my busi- 
 ness, never spent a shilling, never once entertained any 
 company. The only things I bought were books, and not 
 many of them. I adhered steadily to 'the practice I had 
 adopted, and read for two or three hours every night after 
 the business of the day was closed, which never (happened 
 till half-past nine o'clock. I never went to bed till twelve 
 o'clock, and frequently not till one, but I indulged a little 
 in the morning by lying in bed till seven." He had the 
 power of dismissing any train of thought at a moment's 
 notice. " I had long since obtained," he says, " the power 
 of abstraction to a considerable extent. I could dismiss 
 a train of thought at pleasure and take up another, and 
 could leave any business of any kind and go to something 
 else without any reference to the subject I had left, and 
 when I concluded the new thoughts or finished the new 
 business I could revert to the old thoughts or business 
 and take them [up again where I had left them. I used 
 wholly to dismiss all thought of business when it was 
 closed for the day, and could therefore go to my book 
 quite unoccupied with anything else." In time he paid 
 off his own debts to the wholesale houses, and came nearer 
 to the point when he could himself pay cash, and when 
 his ten thousand pounds' worth of book debts represented 
 accumulated profit. 
 
 A man of his organising capacity could probably have 
 made money in any business in which he had found him- 
 self, and it was an ill chance that made him a tailor. Men 
 are still apt to look upon their tailor as in some sense a 
 menial servant. But eighty or ninety years ago the humi- 
 liations of the position were such as a proud man could 
 hardly endure. " How often have I taken away a garment 
 for a fault which did not exist, and which I, of course,
 
 36 EARLY LIFE 
 
 never intended to rectify. How often have I taken back 
 the same garment without it ever having been unfolded, 
 and been commended for the alteration which had not 
 been made, and then been reprehended for not having 
 done what was right at first. How often have I been 
 obliged to take back a garment and sell it to a Jew for 
 not much more or any more than one-third of its price, 
 because a man or his wife, or his mistress, disliked it when 
 it was made up. How often on the most trivial or frivolous 
 pretence have I been obliged to do the same thing, as, for 
 instance, because there was one button on the front of 
 a coat or waistcoat more or less than he or she at the 
 moment thought would make the garment more becom- 
 ing; how often have I done this, and on a subsequent 
 order from the same person for a similar garment taken 
 home the rejected one, which has been highly approved. 
 How often have I attended, at the command of a customer, 
 at a distance of two or three miles on a wet day, been kept 
 waiting in the hall for half-an-hour or an hour, and then 
 either been told that the customer had forgotten me, or 
 could not see me, and I must come again at a time named; 
 and when kept by one person so long that I was five 
 minutes beyond the time named, been rebuked for negli- 
 gence by another. In short, a man to be a good tailor 
 should be either a philosopher or a mean cringing slave, 
 whose feelings had never been excited to the pitch of man- 
 hood. One or the other he must be if he start poor and 
 hope to succeed in making a considerable business. He 
 who is neither the one nor the other, will never be any- 
 thing but a little master, and will probably die in debt. 
 " I had three things continually in my recollection : 
 " The first, and by far the most important, was to get 
 money, and yet to avoid entertaining a mercenary, money- 
 getting spirit ; to get money as a means to an end, and not 
 for its own sake.
 
 EARLY LIFE 37 
 
 "The second was to take care that the contumelious 
 treatment I had to endure should not make me a sneaking 
 wretch from principle to those above me, a tyrant to those 
 below me. 
 
 "The third was to beware of presumption, that I did 
 not become arrogant. I had no doubt of success, and 
 therefore felt most strongly the necessity of watching and 
 guarding myself, in the hope that when I had realised as 
 much money as I deemed requisite to a state of independ- 
 ence, my habits and manners should not be such as would 
 exclude me from what is called good society, if at that 
 time I should desire such society and should be occasion- 
 ally cast into it, or should not exclude me from the ac- 
 quaintance and even friendship of the better sort of men 
 of genius and talent. ... I, however, still continued to 
 act with the utmost reserve towards my customers, many 
 of whom were men in the public offices. I never made 
 free in conversation with my customers, and when any of 
 them made free with me I always let it pass with as little 
 notice as possible." 
 
 Later on as his books accumulated he had to be more 
 and more careful that none of his ordinary customers 
 should be allowed to go into the library at the back of the 
 shop, or to " know anything of me except as a tailor." He 
 complains that on several occasions he lost good customers 
 owing to their learning something of his habits of study, 
 and being perhaps quick enough to guess at the biting 
 scorn which underlay his guarded politeness. " Had these 
 persons been told that I had never read a book, that I was 
 ignorant of everything but my business, that I sotted in a 
 public-house, they would not have made the least objection 
 to me. I should have been a " fellow " beneath them, and 
 they would have patronised me ; but ... to accumulate 
 books and to be supposed to know something of their con- 
 tents, to seek for friends, too, among literary and scientific
 
 38 EARLY LIFE 
 
 men, was putting myself on an equality with themselves, 
 if not, indeed, assuming a superiority ; it was an abomin- 
 able offence in a tailor, if not a crime, which deserved 
 punishment. Had it been known to all my customers 
 that in the few years from 1810 to 1817 I had accumulated 
 a considerable library, in which I spent all the leisure time 
 I could spare; had the many things I was engaged in 
 during this period, and the men with whom I associated 
 been known, half of them at the least would have left me, 
 and these, too, by far the most valuable customers indi- 
 vidually." And ten years later he recurred to the same 
 subject, and noted the very little change which had taken 
 place in this respect. " The nearer a common tradesman 
 approximates in information and manners to a footman," 
 he says, " the more certainly will he please his well-bred 
 customers ; the less he knows beyond his business, jthe 
 more certain, in general, will be his success." 1 
 
 In spite of this the business rapidly and regularly in- 
 creased. In 1816, when it reached its maximum, the net 
 profits for the year were considerably over three thousand 
 pounds. At the same time, Place's family grew rapidly, 
 and in 1817, when he retired from business, and handed 
 the shop over to his eldest son, he had ten children living 
 out of fifteen who had been born to him. 
 
 1 27,823 (412).
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1807-15 
 
 UP to the Reform Bill of 1832, borough members of 
 Parliament might, according to the accidents of local 
 history, be elected by a few officials, a close corporation, 
 a body of " freemen " or " potwallopers," or, in a few 
 cases, by all payers of "scot and lot." 1 By far the 
 most important of the "scot and lot" boroughs was 
 the City and Liberty of Westminster, of which Place 
 became an elector when he moved to Charing Cross. 
 Westminster then included the whole of the ancient 
 property of the Abbey, a district stretching from Temple 
 Bar on the east to Kensington Palace on the west, 
 and from Oxford Street on the north to the Thames 
 on the south. At the beginning of the century about 
 half this district had been built over, and the census of 
 1 80 1 returns the population as 153,272, of whom rather 
 more than 10,000 were rated to the poor-rates for separate 
 houses, and therefore entitled to vote. Many of the streets 
 round the Abbey were extremely poor, and from the 
 description of the voters given in the poll-books, a clear 
 majority seem to have been artisans or very small trades- 
 men. Outside Westminster the freemen of London City 
 returned four members, but no other Londoner had a 
 vote at all unless he happened to be a freeholder to the 
 annual value of forty shillings, and as such entitled to 
 vote for the counties of Middlesex or Surrey. Until 
 1 i.e. of the local rates. 
 
 39
 
 40 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1807-15 
 
 1780 the members for Westminster were returned by 
 the "influence" of the Dean and Chapter in accordance 
 with the wishes of the Crown. In that year, however, 
 C. J. Fox, standing as an extreme democrat, succeeded in 
 winning one of the Westminster seats. Four years later, 
 after the famous contest in which the Duchess kissed the 
 butcher, a local arrangement was made, by which the 
 Tories and Whigs divided the two seats. At the elections 
 of 1790, 1796, and 1802, Radical candidates came forward, 
 but with little success. 
 
 In the old Corresponding Society days Place had not 
 concerned himself much with electioneering, and for the 
 first five years after taking the Charing Cross shop hi 
 1800 he had withdrawn himself entirely from public life. 1 
 When at last he again began to pick up the threads of 
 political life it was not with the Radical independents, but 
 with the well-to-do Whig tradesmen that he first made 
 acquaintance. "In 1805, having mastered all the diffi- 
 culties attending the establishment of a new business, . . . 
 I permitted several respectable and well-judging men to 
 come and gossip with me occasionally. They were most 
 of them electors of Westminster. Mr. Thomas and one 
 or two others of them were members of the Whig Club, 
 and great admirers of Mr. Fox, Mr. Erskine, Mr. Sheridan, 
 &c. I never had any respect for either Fox or Sheridan, 
 and not much for Erskine. I was satisfied that they were 
 trading politicians, Tories out of place, who cared little 
 for the people further than they could be made to promote 
 their own interests, whether those interests were popular 
 or pecuniary. Of the dispositions of the leading Whigs I 
 had proof enough, and with these I used to banter my 
 new friends. They on their part maintained that Fox and 
 his partisans were all good men and true, and if an oppor- 
 tunity occurred would redeem in the most perfect and 
 
 1 See p. 35.
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1807-15 41 
 
 complete way all the pledges they had ever given to the 
 people. 1 . . . My opinions of these Whigs and Tories, and 
 more especially of the Whigs, was of course shown only 
 to the few with whom I conversed. I was wholly un- 
 known in Westminster, and knew next to nothing of the 
 electors." 2 
 
 On January 23, 1806, Pitt died, and Fox, in alliance with 
 the Grenvillite Tories, came into office. Fox was at the 
 time the Whig member for Westminster, and a meeting 
 was at once called in Westminster Hall to congratulate 
 the King on the new administration, and to arrange for 
 Fox's unopposed re-election. " I suggested," says Place, " to 
 some of my Whig friends that, among the eulogiums which 
 would be lavished on the Whigs, Parliamentary reform 
 should be included, and that one of the resolutions should 
 declare that the electors relied on the many promises made 
 to them on the subject, and that they trusted the great 
 and important object would continue to receive the support 
 of Mr. Fox and his friends." Fox let it be known that 
 " he should be much obliged if no allusion to Parliamentary 
 reform were made at the meeting, as a separate meeting 
 could be held on the subject." 3 The resolution was omitted, 
 but no reform meeting was held, and after a few months 
 of office Fox died. The Ministers then brought forward 
 Lord Percy, eldest son of the Duke of Northumberland, " a 
 very young man, without pretensions to talents of any 
 kind," 4 and by putting up Sheridan as a sham candidate, 
 to be withdrawn at the last moment, secured the unopposed 
 return of their nominee. 
 
 At this time William Cobbett was attempting in his 
 Political Register to revive the democratic movement, 
 which since the coercive laws of 1795 and 1800 had almost 
 ceased to exist. He saw the chance which the Westminster 
 
 1 27,850 (6). 2 27,850 (9). 
 
 27,850(10). 4 27,850(12).
 
 42 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1807-15 
 
 " scot and lot " franchise offered for a representation of the 
 popular feeling of the Metropolis, and on August 9, 1806, 
 a month before Fox's death, published the first of four 
 eloquent " Letters to the Electors of Westminster." In his 
 last letter, written just after the return of Lord Percy, he up- 
 braided them for allowing themselves to be tricked by the 
 Government. " The letter," says Place, " was much read, 
 and was very useful. It produced shame in many and 
 a desire to do something on another occasion ; but it did 
 not remove from them the notion, which long practice had 
 confirmed, that a contested election could only be carried 
 by money, money in immense sums ; and this prevented 
 me from expecting any extraordinary exertions would be 
 made by the electors for themselves at the expected general 
 election." l 
 
 On the day of the election the Duke of Northumber- 
 land, the facade of whose house was only a few doors from 
 Place's shop, distributed bread and cheese and beer from 
 his steps. Place describes the scene and his own feelings. 
 " My indignation was greatly increased when I saw the 
 servants of the Duke of Northumberland, in their showy 
 dress liveries, throwing lumps of bread and cheese among 
 the dense crowd of vagabonds they had collected together. 
 To see these vagabonds catching the lumps, shouting, 
 swearing, fighting, and blackguarding in every possible 
 way, women as well as men, all the vile wretches from the 
 courts and alleys in St. Giles and Westminster, the Por- 
 ridge Islands, and other miserable places; to see these 
 people representing, as it was said, the electors of West- 
 minster, was certainly the lowest possible step of degrada- 
 tion, except, indeed, if it be possible, to hear it said, as it 
 was said, that ' the electors of Westminster had been treated 
 by the bounty of the Duke.' Some who mingled in the 
 mob were ashamed of the proceedings, and as the mob 
 i 27,850(22).
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1807-15 43 
 
 pressed round the butts which contained the beer, suggested 
 that the best way would be to knock in the heads as they 
 stood up on end. This was done immediately. The heads 
 were beaten in, and the coal-heavers ladled the beer out 
 with their long-tailed, broad-brimmed hats; but the mob 
 pressing on, the butts were upset, and the beer flowed along 
 the gutters, from whence some made efforts to obtain it. 
 It may be possible to imagine something like the disgraceful 
 scene, but it is not possible either to describe it or to excite 
 in the reader the almost uncontrollable feelings of a spec- 
 tator. I was not the only one who felt indignation. Almost 
 every man I knew was much offended with the whole of the 
 proceedings and with all who were concerned in them." 1 
 
 But the movement in favour of independent action in 
 Westminster soon received a more effectual supporter than 
 either William Cobbett or the little knot of disgusted 
 tradesmen round Charing Cross. Sir Francis Burdett was 
 the most popular political figure in London ; he had entered 
 Parliament ten years before, and had fought hard to im- 
 prove the treatment of the untried political prisoners in 
 Coldbath Fields Prison. In 1802 the metropolitan free- 
 holders had elected him as member for Middlesex. Since 
 then he had once gained and twice lost the Middlesex seat 
 on petition. His marriage with Miss Sophia Coutts had 
 made him one of the wealthiest men in England ; but 
 having spent nearly 100,000 in contesting three election 
 petitions before the shameless Parliamentary Committees 
 of the time, he had now lost patience with the whole 
 system of party government. In October 1806 he pub- 
 lished an address to the freeholders of Middlesex, in which 
 he said, " a double imposture is attempted to be passed on 
 you. The watchword of one party is ' the best of kings,' 
 the watchword of the other is ' the best of patriots ' ; but 
 neither of these parties will descend to particulars and 
 1 27,850(19, 20).
 
 44 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1807-15 
 
 inform you what the ' best of kings ' and the ' best of 
 patriots ' have already done or will do for you. What they 
 have done for themselves we know and feel ; what further 
 they will do for us we can only conjecture." l 
 
 A week after the publication of this address Parliament 
 was dissolved. Burdett refused to stand again for Middle- 
 sex, and nominated James Paull as an independent candi- 
 date for Westminster. Paull was a poor enough creature' 
 who had come home from India to carry on in Parliament 
 an old feud against the Governor-General, but because of 
 Burdett's influence he was less than three hundred votes 
 behind the official Whig. It was clear, therefore, that if 
 strong independent candidates could be brought forward 
 one or both seats might be carried. 
 
 Place had " plumped " for Paull, and towards the end of 
 the seventeen days' poll had sent him some suggestions as 
 to organisation. " I now enlarged my acquaintance among 
 the electors, and constantly maintained not only that the 
 people had the power to do themselves justice as electors, 
 but that no more was necessary in the first instance than 
 that a few men of business and spirit, no one of whom had 
 any sinister interest, should act together, and hold them- 
 selves ready for action when an opportunity offered." 2 A 
 chance of action soon came. The Ministry refused to 
 pledge themselves against Catholic Emancipation, and 
 towards the end of April 1 807 George III. dissolved Parlia- 
 ment and appealed to the country. On the evening after 
 the dissolution a few independent electors met at Place's 
 house and decided to run Burdett and Paull. Burdett 
 refused to come forward as a candidate or spend a shilling 
 on the election, but promised to sit if elected. Three days 
 later, and four days before the poll was to begin, Burdett 
 and Paull quarrelled, and in the duel which followed both 
 were seriously wounded. 
 
 i 27,850(23). 2 27,850(21).
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1807-15 45 
 
 The little independent committee, in spite of this 
 tremendous blow, and of the fact that they had no funds 
 to speak of, determined to go on. They dropped Paull, but 
 persisted with Burdett's candidature. At the public meet- 
 ing which had been advertised for the Crown and Anchor 
 Tavern they could not even obtain a hearing. Paull's 
 friends attached a stout broker's man to each of the com- 
 mittee, with orders to shout " Paull ! Paull ! " as soon as he 
 began to speak. " I know no word," writes Place, with a 
 lively recollection of the scene, " so well calculated to con- 
 found an audience as the open sound Paull." l 
 
 The committee, however, retired to a small room, 
 collected 34 among themselves in addition to the $o 
 which they had in hand, and decided to continue their 
 work. " We had," says Place, " a long discussion, in which 
 I put the matter in every form in my power. I offered 
 to give up every other thing and attend wholly to the 
 election till its close. After some time Mr. Brooks and 
 Mr. James Powell agreed to give the whole of their time, 
 and several others agreed to give a considerable portion of 
 theirs. Summonses were immediately issued to some thirty 
 persons who had been active at the last Middlesex and 
 Westminster elections to meet at six o'clock in the even- 
 ing at the Ship Tavern, Charing Cross. 2 . . . We were 
 all of us obscure persons, not one man of note among us, 
 not one in any way known to the electors generally, as 
 insignificant a set of persons as could well have been 
 collected together to undertake so important a public 
 matter as a Westminster election against wealth and 
 rank and name and influence. I again went over the 
 topics I had urged in the morning, said I would not only 
 undertake the management, but also whatever might other- 
 wise be necessary which others might dislike because it 
 was disagreeable. That as Mr. Brooks had allowed his 
 1 27,850 (68, 69). 2 27,850 (66).
 
 46 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1807-15 
 
 name to appear in public as chairman and treasurer, no 
 other name need be mentioned in any of our proceedings 
 which any one desired should not appear. That we could 
 not be of any importance as individuals, and it was there- 
 fore incumbent on us to make the matter clear to the 
 understandings of the electors, to call upon them to do 
 then* duty to themselves, and to leave display and exhibi- 
 tions of consequence to others. That if we proceeded 
 openly, and acted honestly, failure either from want of 
 money, or from the electors not coming forward to the 
 poll, would be no disgrace to any of us." l ..." It was 
 arranged that no money should be expended on account 
 of the election but by vote of the committee, on a printed 
 form filled up and signed by its order. That there should 
 be no paid counsellors, attorneys, inspectors nor can- 
 vassers, no bribing, no paying of rates, no treating, no 
 cockades, no paid constables, excepting two to keep the 
 committee-room doors. That notice of our intended pro- 
 ceedings should be sent to the magistrates, who should 
 be warned to see that the peace was kept. 2 
 
 "At the moment the election commenced some of my 
 coadjutors were exceedingly depressed. We had scarcely 
 any money, nobody had joined us, and we appeared as 
 forlorn as the Whigs and Tories had predicted we should 
 be. Some among us who had borne abuse very well could 
 not bear being laughed at, and the ridicule which was cast 
 upon us almost disabled them from acting." 3 
 
 All those of the committee and then" friends who 
 were voters polled early on the first morning, but at the 
 end of the day Burdett had received only 78 votes. 
 On the third day, a Saturday, his poll reached 309. 
 The committee had, however, money enough hi hand for 
 another day or two. On Saturday evening they "hired 
 three or four ponies, put decently dressed bugle boys on 
 1 27,850 (67). 2 27,850 (43). 3 27,850 (75).
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1807-15 47 
 
 them, gave each of them a dark blue silk cap, and sent 
 them about the streets to animate the people and distribute 
 handbills." 1 All Sunday was spent in canvassing. Even 
 Place left the central committee-rooms, and for the first 
 and only time in his life canvassed " some of the courts 
 and lanes in Westminster for about two hours and a half." 2 
 
 On the Monday Burdett received more votes than any 
 other candidate, and on the fifteenth and last day of the 
 poll he was at the head, with over five thousand votes. 
 Lord Cochrane, who had come forward as a Whig candidate 
 with a grievance against the Government, was second, while 
 neither Sheridan, the official Whig, nor Elliott, the official 
 Tory candidate, reached much more than half Burdett's 
 poll. " Sheridan was so far behind that he had no chance 
 of out-polling Cochrane, and as he begged hard to be 
 permitted to make as respectable a show of numbers as 
 he could, Lord Cochrane took his inspectors away, and 
 Sheridan polled whom he pleased, and the same man over 
 and over again as many times as he pleased." 3 
 
 " The moment the election was ended," says Place, " and 
 I had closed my accounts with Mr. Brooks the treasurer, 
 which was at five o'clock in the afternoon, I went home to 
 my business, which I had neglected for nearly three weeks ; 
 being from the commencement of the election to its close 
 at the committee-rooms at seven o'clock in the morning, 
 and remaining till all accounts for the day were made up, 
 all the books were posted up, and the business arranged 
 for the next day. This, excepting on the last day, never 
 occurred till after twelve o'clock at night." 4 
 
 The committee continued their existence after the 
 election, and thenceforward were the recognised political 
 authority in Westminster. Every year a public dinner 
 was held to commemorate the victory of 1 807, and West- 
 
 27,850 (79). 2 27)850 (8o) . 
 
 ' 27,850 (80). * 27,850 (81).
 
 48 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1807-15 
 
 minster meetings in Palace Yard or Westminster Hall 
 were summoned whenever a chance offered of damaging 
 the Government or spreading democratic principles. Thus 
 in March 1 809 a meeting was held to denounce the Duke 
 of York for having allowed Mrs. Clarke to sell commissions 
 in the army, and in May a dinner was given in honour of 
 Major Cartwright and Parliamentary Reform. 
 
 In the autumn of 1809 the Westminster Committee 
 found itself mixed up with the celebrated " 0. P." riots 
 in Covent Garden Theatre. This theatre which, with 
 Drury Lane, enjoyed a licensed monopoly of legitimate 
 drama, had lately been rebuilt after a fire, and on the 
 night of reopening prices were raised. The audience 
 hooted the performance, and called for the " Old Prices." 
 John Kemble, the lessee, lost his temper, and sent a Bow 
 Street Magistrate on to the stage to threaten to read the 
 Riot Act. Next day some of the Westminster politicians 
 who had been in the pit came to Charing Cross, and 
 Place made them a mould from "two hearthstones" for 
 casting the initial letters of their motto. "Powell and 
 Wall cast about a hundred ' 0. P's.,' and as the metal was 
 fresh from the mould it was very bright, and when stuck 
 against the crown of a black hat was very conspicuous." 
 After three months' wrangling in the theatre and police 
 courts Place was "the means of bringing about a recon- 
 ciliation, which at the desire of Mr. Kemble was made 
 at my house on the 23rd of December. Present for the 
 theatre, Mr. Kemble, Mr. Harris, Jun., and Mr. Este; for 
 the 0. P., Mr. Scott, Mr. Savage, Mr. Powell, and Mr. Willett 
 as a friend. When the whole affair was settled Mr. Harris 
 urged me to accept a free admission, which I refused." 1 
 
 In the spring of 1810 a contest began between West- 
 minster and the House of Commons, which attracted the 
 
 1 Henry Hunt in his "Memoirs" (2 vols., London, 1820-22), vol. ii. 
 p. 385, says that the 0. P. riots were a political affair.
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1807-15 49 
 
 attention of the whole country. On February 21 the 
 Commons ordered John Gale Jones to attend at the bar of 
 their House. Jones was the organiser of a debating society 
 near Covent Garden, and had advertised a harmless enough 
 discussion about the exclusion of strangers by the First Lord 
 of the Admiralty during the debate on the Walcheren expe- 
 dition. Jones came to Place for advice, " a poor, emaciated 
 crazy-looking creature, possessed of considerable talents, 
 but as devoid of judgment as any man well could be." * 
 Place strove to make him understand that submission to 
 the House would do him no good, while he had everything 
 to gam as an unflinching martyr in the cause of free 
 speech. Jones promised courage, but repented of his 
 promise. He went to the House, made an abject sub- 
 mission, and was committed to Newgate. 2 On March 12 
 Burdett moved for his release, and delivered a speech, 
 which he afterwards revised and published in Cobbett's 
 Register. This publication was brought before the House 
 as a breach of privilege. The question was debated for 
 three nights, and finally, at seven o'clock in the morning 
 of Friday April 6, a motion to commit Burdett to the 
 Tower was carried by a majority of 38. Burdett instantly 
 came up from Wimbledon, barricaded himself inside his 
 big house in Piccadilly, and announced that he considered 
 the Speaker's warrant to be illegal, and would repel force 
 by force. Huge crowds collected, greater, it was said, than 
 those at the Gordon riots in 1780. The main body were 
 decent orderly people, but small groups of rioters moved 
 about smashing windows and pelting those who refused to 
 cheer for Burdett. The only police force in London was 
 the shifting body of amateur "constables" under the 
 command of the sheriffs, one of whom at least 3 was 
 
 1 27,850(158). 
 
 2 "House of Commons Journals," vol. Ixv. p. 113, 2ist February 
 1810. s Alderman Wood. 
 
 D
 
 50 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1807-15 
 
 actively hostile to Lord Liverpool's government. The 
 Ministry, therefore, could only keep order by using troops, 
 and on each of the three next nights the Horse Guards 
 were sent to clear the streets. "It was their common 
 practice to ride upon the foot pavement and drive the 
 people before them, pressing on them in such a way as to 
 cause great terror, frequently doing some of them injury 
 and compelling them to injure one another, striking those 
 who could not get out of the way fast enough with the 
 flat of their swords. 1 On the other hand, the people " taking 
 a long ladder from a building, placed it across the street 
 in such a manner as to prevent the horses in the dark 
 pursuing them. They then did all they could to provoke 
 the Guards to charge upon them, and upon their doing so 
 they retreated round the ends of the ladder and under it, 
 and from the other side showered the rubbish they found 
 upon the soldiers." 2 "A rumour was extensively propa- 
 gated that the utmost hatred existed between the Foot 
 and the Life Guards, and it was said, and believed by vast 
 numbers of people, that the Foot Guards and the I5th 
 Light Dragoons were much more disposed to fight the 
 Life Guards than they were disposed to obey an order to 
 attack the people." 3 " There was a solemn stillness and a 
 gloom half visible which produced on me, as upon inquiry 
 I afterwards found it had done on others, that peculiar 
 sort of feeling which has been represented as being felt 
 by soldiers waiting for the dawn of day to commence a 
 battle." 4 
 
 Burdett wrote to the sheriffs demanding their pro- 
 tection, and the sheriffs with a body of constables "re- 
 moved the soldiers to some distance each way from Sir 
 Francis Burdett's house. Here they formed across the 
 street and permitted no one to pass." 5 
 
 1 27,850 (184). 2 27,850 (192). 3 27,850 (188, 189). 
 
 427,850(186). 5 27,850(190).
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1807-15 51 
 
 But the Ministers showed themselves more determined 
 than the City authorities. The volunteers were called out, 
 and "all the troops within a hundred miles of London, 
 both cavalry and infantry, were ordered to march to the 
 Metropolis." l At the Tower, guns were mounted on the 
 gates and water let into the ditch. 
 
 On the Sunday evening Burdett's brother came to call 
 Place to a council of war. They were admitted into a 
 house in Stratton Street belonging to the Coutts family ; 
 and thence made their way by cellar passages through 
 guarded iron doors (the watchword for the evening being 
 " Place ") to the great house in Piccadilly. They found 
 Burdett in consultation with the semi-lunatic Roger 
 O'Connor. It appeared that Cochrane, being a hare- 
 brained sailor Avith a passion for fighting, had " contrived 
 an effectual mode of defence against any force that could 
 be used." 2 Henry Hunt says that Cochrane drove up in a 
 hackney-coach and rolled into the passage a barrel of gun- 
 powder for mining the front of the house. 3 
 
 Place of course saw clearly that this was the kind of 
 step which should only be undertaken by men who 
 seriously contemplate the levying of civil war. " It will 
 be easy enough/' he told the conspirators, " to clear the 
 hall of constables and soldiers, to drive them into the 
 street or to destroy them, but are you prepared to take 
 the next step and to go on ? " 
 
 " This produced instant conviction of the folly of at- 
 tempting any (such) thing. It was all at once, and by all, 
 agreed that nothing should be done in this way, but that 
 as the sheriff had consented to avail himself of the civil 
 power, and as a large number of the inhabitants would 
 probably be collected to attend his orders at nine o'clock 
 
 1 27,850 (193). 2 27,850 (199). 
 
 3 See the " Memoirs of Henry Hunt," written by himself (2 vols., 
 London, 1820-22), vol. ii. p. 391.
 
 52 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1807-15 
 
 in the morning, the matter should be left to him." * . . . 
 "I did not then, I do not now (1826), disapprove of Sir 
 Francis Burdett's notions. Had circumstances been such 
 as to promise an effectual resistance, not only at the house 
 of Sir Francis but anywhere else, had there been anything 
 like a sufficient body organised to have assured the soldiers 
 that power enough existed to protect them, . . . there 
 would have been a fair chance in the then disposition of 
 men, and of no small portion of the army, that a successful 
 effort at the outset would have given them confidence, and 
 that many and perhaps nearly all the troops in London 
 would have revolted. But there was no organisation and 
 no arms, and to have resisted under such circumstances 
 would have been madness." 2 Place therefore returned 
 to Charing Cross to complete the arrangements for using, 
 as Wilkes had done forty years earlier, the police powers 
 of the City against the Government. 
 
 " It was late in the evening before all our arrangements 
 were fully made and persons appointed to carry them into 
 effect. Several were appointed to see as many house- 
 keepers 3 as they could, and induce as many as they could 
 to assent to go to the Gloucester coffee-house, where the 
 largest room in the house was taken, to be sworn in as 
 constables at a quarter before nine o'clock on the Monday 
 morning. It was intended that a number of these house- 
 keepers, some on horseback, but the principal part on foot, 
 should attend the sheriff to the officer commanding on the 
 spot, who was to be desired to withdraw his troops, and 
 upon his absolute refusal, or on his making a show of 
 resistance, he was to be taken into custody. If he resisted 
 this, he was to have notice of an action to be brought 
 against him, and the same process was to be gone through 
 
 1 27,850 (200). 2 27,850 (201, 202). 
 
 3 i.e. ratepaying householders, who could be legally called upon to 
 act as constables.
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1807-15 53 
 
 with any officer on duty." l "I was to have the direction 
 of them until they were placed under the command of the 
 sheriff. Bills were printed ready to be pasted on boards 
 to be carried by men on poles, informing the people that 
 the civil power under the orders of the sheriff would keep 
 the peace, and they were desired if necessary to lend their 
 aid, and they were informed that the military were directed 
 to withdraw. 2 . . . Our object was to gain time, to prevent 
 the capture of Sir Francis until after the House of 
 Commons had again met, which it was to do on the 
 Monday afternoon." 3 
 
 On Monday morning Place kept his appointment at the 
 Gloucester coffee-house. Fewer " housekeepers " presented 
 themselves for their extremely risky duties than had been 
 expected, but by half-past nine Place had a' hundred men 
 under him. Wood, the reforming sheriff, was late, and on 
 his way to Piccadilly was met with the news that all was 
 over. The [authorities had probably been kept well in- 
 formed of the proceedings at the Gloucester coffee-house, 
 and the troops had broken into Burdett's house at ten 
 o'clock. They broke up a hastily arranged scene, in which 
 Sir Francis was teaching his son to translate Magna 
 Charta, and carried him off in a coach surrounded by a 
 strong force of cavalry through a yelling mob to the 
 Tower. 4 
 
 Here, from April 9 till the prorogation of Parliament on 
 June 21, Burdett remained in custody. The House did 
 not dare to provoke another Wilkes campaign |by depriv- 
 ing him of his seat, and debated with more anger than 
 dignity the deliberately insolent petitions which came in 
 from Middlesex and Westminster. 
 
 While Burdett was still in the Tower, Place was called 
 
 1 27,850 (197). 227,850(198). 327,850(197). 
 
 4 See the Report of the Serjeant-at-Arms to the House of Commons, 
 "House of Commons Journals," April 9, 1810, vol. Ixv. p. 261.
 
 54 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1807-15 
 
 upon to perform a purely incidental duty under circum- 
 stances which affected all the rest of his political career. 
 During the night of May 30, 1810, the household in St. 
 James's Palace were aroused by cries for help, and it was 
 found that the Duke of Cumberland had been seriously 
 wounded. Half-an-hour later his valet, Joseph Sellis, was 
 discovered dead, with his throat cut, hi a closet not far 
 from the Duke's room. The Duke of Cumberland was 
 already the most unpopular of the King's sons, and a 
 rumour spread that he had murdered Sellis, and had been 
 wounded in the struggle. As the death had occurred in 
 the Palace the coroner of the King's Household held the 
 inquest, and the jury consisted of tradesmen and others 
 living " within the verge of the Court." Place was sum- 
 moned, and with his usual attention to detail went down 
 on the morning of the inquest to the rooms of a barrister 
 in Lincoln's Inn to read up the law of Coroner's Quest. 
 He was chosen foreman, and used his morning's studies to 
 insist successfully that reporters should be allowed to be 
 present, and that the seventeen jurymen who had answered 
 the summons should all be sworn. The King's coroner was 
 not a very competent person, and Place as foreman seems 
 to have very largely carried on the inquiry. " It is my 
 belief," he says, " that every one of the men who served on 
 the inquest was prejudiced against the Duke." But the 
 jury brought in a unanimous verdict of felo de se. Sellis 
 was shown to have attacked the Duke with a sword, and 
 afterwards to have committed suicide. No one who will 
 now take the trouble to read the evidence can doubt 
 for an instant that the verdict was just, but it keenly 
 disappointed those who had expected the chance of a 
 scandal greater even than that of Mrs. Clarke. Place 
 was promptly accused of having been bribed by the 
 Court, and the accusation was for the next ten years 
 continually revived by any one who wished to injure
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1807-15 55 
 
 him. 1 For the moment the chief importance of the inci- 
 dent was its effect on Burdett's mind. One cannot read 
 Magna Charta for ever, and Burdett was not a man who 
 read much else. He had therefore nothing to occupy him 
 in the Tower except the daily gossip of Roger O'Connor and 
 Colonel Wardle. These two men magnified the report 
 against Place, and Burdett came to believe that the 
 sheriff's delay at the storming of his house was due to 
 Place's treachery. Nothing of this, however, was known 
 outside the Tower. The Westminster Committee deter- 
 mined to arrange a triumphal procession for Burdett on his 
 release, and Place, though he hated shows of any kind, 
 consented to become chief organiser. 
 
 Parliament was to be prorogued on June 2 1 , and Burdett 
 must necessarily be set free as soon as the House rose. 
 For three days Place never left his post at the Crown and 
 Anchor Tavern, where he prepared the most elaborate 
 printed directions for the marshals, the processionists, and 
 the spectators, at every point on the route. People came 
 over from Ireland and Scotland to see the sight. " Almost 
 every decently dressed person had a blue cockade in his 
 hat. The ladies wore blue bonnets, blue feathers, and blue 
 necklaces made of very large beads manufactured for the 
 purpose ; many wore blue dresses, and all had blue ribbons. 
 Every open space was filled with people, and an immense 
 multitude assembled on Tower Hill. All London seemed 
 to be in the streets." ~ 
 
 But Burdett in his rooms in the Tower was every day 
 becoming more fidgety and suspicious, and half persuaded 
 himself that Place might arrange with the Government to 
 have him shot as he rode in the triumphal car. When the 
 
 1 Henry Hunt, for instance, says of this incident : " It is paid that 
 since that period Mr. Place has been, a very rich man, but that before 
 that he was a poor, very poor, democrat. "Memoirs of Henry Hunt" 
 (2 vols., London, 1820-22), vol. ii. p. 424. 
 
 2 27,850(235).
 
 56 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1807-15 
 
 news came by semaphore that the House had risen he 
 crossed the Thames quietly in a boat. Place made the best 
 of the situation, and ordered the procession to go on with an 
 empty car in front, and poor Gale Jones speechifying from 
 the top of a hackney-coach behind. But though the rest 
 of the committee soon got over their disappointment, Place 
 nursed his wrath. Henry Hunt said he called Burdett " a 
 damned coward and a poltroon," l which is likely enough. 
 Anyhow, for the next nine years Place and Burdett did not 
 speak to each other. 
 
 In 1812 there was a general election, and Burdett and 
 Cochrane were returned unopposed. In 1814 occurred 
 the well-known hoax on the Stock Exchange, for which 
 Cochrane and several others were sentenced to heavy 
 fines and imprisonment. 2 Cochrane's conviction was con- 
 sidered in Westminster to be due to a party intrigue, and 
 he was returned unopposed at the bye-election which 
 followed his expulsion from the House of Commons. 
 Place's name does not appear on the committee which 
 managed either of these elections. He prepared schemes, 
 drew up resolutions, and gave the use of his library for 
 preliminary meetings, but refused to do anything which 
 would require him to go out of his own house. 
 
 Meanwhile Burdett's suspicions, under the influence of 
 Henry Hunt and others, were steadily growing, and in July 
 1814 he sent a letter to the committee of the West London 
 Lancastrian Association, of which both Place and he were 
 members, demanding that " Place and John Richter might 
 be expelled the committee, Place being a spy employed by 
 the Government, and Richter being his tool." 3 Place wrote 
 
 1 See the " Memoirs of Henry Hunt," vol. ii. p. 423. 
 
 2 It was alleged that they had concocted, for Stock Exchange purposes, 
 a plan, in accordance with which several persons dressed as British 
 officers rode up to London from Dover and Sheerness reporting a victory 
 of the allied armies. 
 
 3 James Mill told Place that "in the preceding year, being at Oxford 
 with Mr. Bentham, where they saw Sir Francis Burdett, he told them
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1807-15 57 
 
 indignantly to the committee to offer his resignation. It 
 was accepted, and he resolved to have nothing further to 
 do either with the Westminster Reform Committee or the 
 members for Westminster. In less troubled times this 
 resolution would probably have been final ; as it was, it 
 lasted about two years. 1 Burdett and Place, however, did not 
 speak to each other till 1819. As to the accusation itself, 
 most people seem to have come to think of it as merely 
 Burdett's way of expressing a passing feeling of irritation. - 
 At this period of his life Place had the ill-fortune to be 
 admitted to the personal friendship of William Godwin, 
 and the singularly good fortune to escape from it without 
 ruin. " In the year 1810," that is to say, as soon as Place's 
 acquaintance had any pecuniary value, " Mr. William 
 Godwin sought my acquaintance, and I readily formed a 
 friendship with him. I had never heard anything alleged 
 against his moral character. I had heard much in his 
 praise, and I had benefited in no small degree by his 
 writings. 3 I was therefore pleased to have him for a friend. 
 Godwin had, however, a design of no small moment to him 
 in seeking my acquaintance, and he accomplished his 
 
 I was a spy, and he cautioned them against me, and upon Mr. Bentham 
 desiring some reason for his assertion and advice, he said that, when he 
 was resisting the Speaker's warrant, I had undertaken on the Sunday 
 before he was seized to fill his house with people to beat out the 
 soldiers if they should break in, but that instead of doing so I had 
 betrayed him." [27,823 (102-103).] 
 
 1 Even in 1815 Place seems to have taken part, probably with some 
 other organisation than the Westminster Committee, in opposing the 
 Corn Law of that year. Long afterwards he wrote to Cobden : " I was 
 one cause of preventing the enactment of the Corn Laws in 1814, and 
 all but fought against it in 1815" (Place to Cobden, November 15, 
 1841); and still later he recorded that "this atrocious Bill . . . was 
 passed behind immensely strong double barricades of timber which 
 blocked up the streets and other avenues to the Houses under the 
 cannon of the artillery, the swords of the cavalry, and the bayonets of 
 the infantry." " Autobiography." 
 
 2 See e.g. Hunt's remark on p. 55. 
 
 3 See p. 29.
 
 58 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1807-15 
 
 purpose beyond what could have been his most sanguine 
 expectations. It was, however, of no permanent use to 
 him, highly pernicious as it was to several others." l 
 
 " I soon found that he was uncomfortably circumstanced 
 in his pecuniary concerns, and needed my advice and 
 assistance. Both of these I was willing he should have to 
 the full extent of my capability. I made some inquiries 
 respecting the state of his affairs, and as I went on inquir- 
 ing saw, as I supposed, a probability of extricating him 
 from his difficulties, and placing him in comparatively 
 easy circumstances. . . . An account was shown to us, and 
 books were brought forward to verify the account. Such 
 a case was shown as induced us to conclude that if 5000 
 could be raised, Mr. Godwin would not only be placed in a 
 state of comparative ease, but that the business carried on 
 by his wife would, when disembarrassed, repay the loan, 
 
 1 Place gives a pathetic little picture of another man whom Godwin 
 helped to disillusionise. " Mr. Godwin's affairs brought me acquainted 
 with a Mr. Elton Hammond, whose father had been a wholesale tea- 
 dealer in the City of London, and had at his decease left a considerable 
 property to his two sons and two daughters. Mr. Hammond was tall 
 and well formed. The contour of his face was very like the imaginary 
 portraits of Jesus Christ as painted by eminent artists, but somewhat 
 thinner and rather longer, or it had the appearance of greater length 
 perhaps from its being thinner. His features were regular and hand- 
 some ; his countenance was mild, placid, benevolent, yet somewhat 
 sorrowful. . . . Mr. Hammond started in life with enthusiastic notions 
 of the capacity and desires of mankind to become virtuous and happy. 
 To their rapid improvement he hoped to devote himself. He persuaded 
 himself that he should be able to correct their vices and prevent them 
 committing crimes. He set about their reformation with uncommon 
 ardour. How little he was able to accomplish need not be told. He 
 consumed his time and expended his money in the vain pxirsuit of a 
 phantom, which was perpetually misleading him, and wearied and 
 weakened his intellectual powers before his experience had shown him 
 how hopeless his pursuit was. He was at length compelled to conclude 
 that the progress of mankind towards a state of virtuous benevolence 
 was an almost imperceptible increment ; he despaired, and in his 
 despair shot himself. He was emphatically my friend, and I loved 
 him with great sincerity to the moment of his death."
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1807-15 59 
 
 and to this hour ( 1 827) I am satisfied it might, and ought 
 to, have been so, notwithstanding the accounts laid before 
 us were not correct accounts, and did not contain a true 
 statement, but had been fabricated in order to induce us 
 to procure the money." 
 
 Place's letters give the history of the last months of the 
 acquaintance. On January 2, 1814, he writes to his friend 
 Wakefield : " Godwin has just left me after his Sunday's 
 usual visit, and I am happj 7 to find he has visited Sir J. 
 Mackintosh lately, and that these two men who ought to 
 have been enemies are perfectly good friends again." On 
 January 25, after some correspondence as to raising money 
 from Shelley's post-obit bonds, Place writes again to Wake- 
 field: "Godwin sends you a thousand thanks for your 
 information. He is hi some respects a poor creature. He 
 fears poverty, not, I think, much on his own account, but 
 for his family." In September of the same year the 
 acquaintance ends with an exchange of stern reproaches 
 from Place, and miserable shuffling excuses and upbraidings 
 from Godwin. On September 2, for instance, he writes to 
 Place: "My integrity I thoroughly know; it has always 
 adhered to me, and it supports me even against such an 
 attack as this, and from such a man as you. . . . Your 
 passions carry you so far as absolutely to assert the thing 
 that is not. You say 'I induced you to go to Lambeth 
 upon an undertaking that you should be paid.' This is not 
 so. There my integrity triumphed. You urged me again 
 and again to undertake for that, but in vain. I said, ' I 
 will see what can be done, I will do the very best I can.' " 
 September 3. "There is nothing more to be lamented 
 between persons of high worth and rare qualities, than that 
 they should quarrel. Poor Holcroft used to say that I 
 should never make him quarrel with or alienate himself 
 from me ; and as long as he remained perfectly the man he 
 had been, he kept his word. I think I can answer for it, you
 
 60 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1807-15 
 
 shall never make me quarrel with you." September n. 
 " You once told me you owed everything that you most 
 valued in yourself and your rules of conduct to the sole 
 perusal of my writings, and is this the man whose acquaint- 
 ance you disown ? " One quotation from Place's letters 
 will be enough. " I regret my own weakness in having 
 persuaded myself that trickery would in you, any more 
 than in other persons who resort to it, produce any but its 
 usual consequences. I regret still more that I ever lent 
 myself in any way, for ever so short a time, to assist you 
 either directly or indirectly in any such practice. Most of 
 all, I regret that you should have made it necessary for me 
 to write this to you." 
 
 He makes a calculation showing that Godwin muddled 
 away 1500 a year during the ten years 1804-1814, "not- 
 withstanding he had for the last four or five years paid no 
 rent for the house he lived in, which was worth 200 a 
 year." Place's own loss from his connection with this 
 prince of spongers was something under .400. 
 
 Even in the days of the Corresponding Society, Place 
 had been as keen a student of politics as he was a politician, 
 and when he became organiser at Westminster, his interest 
 in the more permanent questions underlying party struggles 
 became still deeper. By that time political theory in Eng- 
 land was in a state of rapid transition. The influence of 
 the French Revolutionary thinkers was disappearing, and 
 neither the " classical " political economy nor Bentham's 
 Utilitarianism had yet established themselves. Such 
 discussion as went on was largely in the hands of the 
 " cranks," the persistent men of one idea apiece, who make 
 popular movements, and thereby often force undesired 
 criticisms of established opinion upon better-equipped 
 thinkers. With them Place was always ready to spend 
 hours of patient discussion, and from them he learnt as 
 much as from his books.
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1807-15 (jl 
 
 Thomas Spence, the Land Nationalise!', was a typical 
 specimen of these political Poor Preachers. He had 
 been a schoolmaster in Newcastle, and had conceived of 
 "Spence's glorious plan" of "parochial partnership in 
 land without private landlordism," while engaged in a 
 quarrel between the corporation and freemen of New- 
 castle about the rents of the Town Moor. In 1792 he 
 was in London, and was imprisoned for selling Paine's 
 " Rights of Man." After his release he published a long 
 series of tracts, of which the best known was the periodical 
 " Pigs' Meat ; or, Lessons for the Swinish Multitude " (1793- 
 1795). In 1 80 1 he was again imprisoned for publishing a 
 tract called " The Restorer of Society to its Natural State." 
 Place came to know him in 1792, "when he kept a book- 
 stall at the top of Chancery Lane in Holborn. . . . He 
 was at that time as poor as any man could well be, and 
 with some trifling fluctuations in his affairs he continued 
 in this state to the day of his death. He was a very 
 simple, very honest, single-minded man, querulous in his 
 disposition and odd in his manners. . . . His disposition 
 was strongly marked on his countenance, which marked 
 him as a man soured by adverse circumstances, and at 
 enmity with the world. Still he loved mankind, and firmly 
 believed that the time would come when they would be 
 wise, virtuous, and happy. He was perfectly sincere, and 
 unpractised in the ways of the world to an extent few 
 could imagine in a man who had been pushed about in 
 it as he had been. ... A man so poor, so high in his 
 notions of independence, so fanatically certain of the un- 
 paralleled goodness of his system, and so easily excited, 
 could have no friends amongst the persons with whom he 
 associated. . . . He was unknown to such philosophical 
 men as would have formed a true estimate of his worth, 
 made allowance for his infirmities . . . and led him to a 
 better knowledge of the world. . . . Ordinary men could not
 
 62 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1807-15 
 
 be the friends of one whom they could not appreciate ; and 
 he on his part despised such men. . . . He looked upon them 
 as despicable, willing slaves, who deserved no better treat- 
 ment than they met with, and he frequently told them so." l 
 Hone afterwards described " Spence's vehicle, like a baker's 
 close barrow. The pamphlets were exhibited outside, and 
 when he sold one he took it from within, and handed and 
 recommended others, with strong expressions of hate to the 
 powers that were and prophecies of what would happen to 
 the whole race of landlords." 2 He used to distribute copper 
 tokens stamped with the words " Spence's Plan," a phrase 
 which his disciples " chalked on every wall in London." 3 
 He died in 1814, and handed on his message to Thomas 
 Evans, who in the year of his master's death founded 
 that "Society of Spencean Philanthropists" which so 
 frightened Lord Sidmouth in 1817. 
 
 Of Spence Place says, "Almost all the great changes 
 in the religion and government of mankind have either 
 been accomplished, or put in the way to be accomplished, 
 by men whose cast of thought was, like his, concentrated 
 on one object, pursued under all kinds of difficulties, and 
 accomplished at last almost against the consent of the 
 very people on whom they were to operate." 4 
 
 Major Cartwright, the originator of the six points of 
 the Charter, 5 and the founder of Lord Sidmouth's other 
 bugbear, the " Hampden Club," only differed from Spence 
 in the fact that he was a man of some fortune. Place 
 liked the "Old Gentleman," as he was generally called, 
 
 1 27,808(152-153). 
 
 2 W. Hone to Place (1830), 27,808 (315). The barrow was also used 
 for selling a mysterious compound called Saloup, 27,808 (310). 
 
 * 27,808 (230). 4 27,808 (151). 
 
 5 See " The Legislative Rights of the Commonalty Vindicated," by 
 John Cartwright (London, 1777, 8vo). This is a second and enlarged 
 edition of a pamphlet published in 1776, and called "Take your 
 Choice." See Address of the Metropolitan Parliamentary Reform 
 Association, 27,810 (5).
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1807-15 63 
 
 and helped him to get up his meetings and petitions, 
 but found him, apparently, a dreadful bore. "When he 
 was in town he used frequently to sup with me, eating 
 some raisins he brought in his pocket, and drinking weak 
 gin and water. He was cheerful, agreeable, and full of 
 curious anecdote. He was, however, in political matters 
 exceedingly troublesome, and sometimes as exceedingly 
 absurd. He had read but little or to little purpose, and 
 kneAV nothing of general principles. He entertained a 
 vague and absurd notion of the political arrangements 
 of the Anglo-Saxons, and sincerely believed that these 
 semi-barbarians were not only a polished people, but that 
 their 'twofold polity,' arms-bearing and representation, 
 were universal and perfect." l 
 
 In 1813 Kobert Owen brought to London the manuscript 
 of that " New View of Society," which may be regarded as 
 the starting point of modern Socialism. Place writing in 
 1836 says : " He introduced himself to me, and I found him 
 a man of kind manners and good intentions, of an imper- 
 turbable temper, and an enthusiastic desire to promote the 
 happiness of mankind. A few interviews made us friends." 
 ..." He told me he possessed the means, and was resolved 
 to produce a great change in the manners and habits of the 
 whole of the people, from the most exalted to the most 
 depressed. He found all our institutions at variance with 
 the welfare and happiness of the people, and had dis- 
 covered the true means of correcting all those errors 
 which prevented them having the fullest enjoyment 
 possible, and, consequently, of being wise and happy. 
 His project was simple, easy of adoption, and so plainly 
 efficacious, that it must be embraced by every thinking 
 man the moment he was made to understand it. He 
 produced a manuscript, which he requested me to read and 
 correct for him. I went through it carefully, and it was 
 1 27,850 (108).
 
 64 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1807-15 
 
 afterwards printed. . . . Mr. Owen then was, and is still, 
 persuaded that he was the first who had ever observed that 
 man was the creature of circumstances. On this supposed 
 discovery he founded his system. Never having read a 
 metaphysical book, nor held a metaphysical conversation, 
 nor having even heard of the disputes respecting free-will 
 and necessity, he had no clear conception of his subject, 
 and his views were obscure. Yet he has all along been 
 preaching and publishing and projecting and predicting in 
 the fullest conviction that he could command circum- 
 stances or create them, and place men above their control 
 when necessary. He never was able to explain these 
 absurd notions, and therefore always required assent to 
 them, telling those who were not willing to take his words 
 on trust that it was their ignorance which prevented them 
 from at once assenting to these self-evident propositions. 
 
 "January 7, 1836, Mr. Owen this day has assured me, 
 in the presence of more than thirty other persons, that 
 within six months the whole state and condition of society 
 in; Great Britain will be changed, and all his views will 
 be carried fully into effect." l 
 
 1 27,791 (264-268).
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE BENTHAMITES . 
 
 THE history of any definite " school " of philosophic or poli- 
 tical opinion will generally show that its foundation was 
 made possible by personal friendship. So few men devote 
 themselves to continuous thought, that if several think on 
 the same lines for many years it is almost always because 
 they have encouraged each other to proceed. And varieties 
 of opinion and temperament are so infinite, that those who 
 accept a new party name, and thereby make themselves re- 
 sponsible for each other's utterances, are generally bound 
 by personal loyalty as well as by intellectual agreement. 
 
 The "Benthamite," or, as it became later, the "Utili- 
 tarian " school, which adopted Bentham's formula of " the 
 greatest happiness of the greatest number" as its motto, 
 was no exception to this rule. Bentham's writings from 
 the year 1776, when he published the "Fragment on 
 Government," would in any case have had their effect. 
 But the enormous influence which, towards the end of 
 his life, he exerted upon liberal thought in England, was 
 very largely due to the care which he then took to secure 
 that a few able men should always enjoy the most com- 
 plete intellectual intimacy with himself and each other. 
 Of these men the ablest was James Mill. 
 
 Mill was introduced to Bentham in 1808, and from 
 thenceforward dined from time to time at his house in 
 Queen Square. 1 Place about that time came to know 
 
 1 Cf. " James Mill : A Biography," by Alexander Bain (London, 
 1882), page 72.
 
 66 THE BENTHAMITES 
 
 Edward Wakefield, 1 the writer of several good but now 
 forgotten books on social economics. "Soon after we 
 became intimately acquainted Mr. Wakefield introduced 
 Mr. James Mill to me. Mr. Mill at this time resided at 
 Stoke Newington, whence he came occasionally, generally 
 once a week, I believe, to dine with Mr. Bentham, who 
 lived in Queen Square Place, Westminster. Our ac- 
 quaintance speedily ripened into friendship, and he 
 usually called on me on his way to Mr. Bentham's, 
 when we spent an hour together." 2 
 
 Mill and Place worked hard during 1813 and 1814 on 
 the British and Foreign School Society at the West London 
 Lancastrian Association, 3 and wrote to each other in a tone 
 of warm affection. Thus Place in a letter of October 1814 
 wrote : " I do not know when I experienced more delight 
 than your letter has this day given me. Somehow or other 
 I have all my life long, and in all circumstances, met with 
 .so much of what was excellent, and even exquisite, that I 
 have had a happy life, one enjoyment scarcely passing 
 away before another presented itself. At present they 
 crowd upon me; to be esteemed and confided in by the 
 wise and good was the great end I always pursued, and 
 your letter tells me that I have both deserved and obtained 
 it from one whom everybody considers pre-eminently good 
 and wise. . . . Could I advise or perform anything which 
 tended to promote your comfort, how inexpressibly happy 
 should I be." 4 And again: "You tell me to write soon, 
 and I obey. It is a great pleasure to me to write to you, 
 and were it not that you are too learned in men and things 
 for me to venture any speculation I should indulge in some. 
 I am perfectly contented to be a learner, and am eagerly 
 desirous of instruction. Every one of your letters is to me 
 
 1 e.y. "An Account of Ireland, Statistical and Political" (London, 
 1812. 2 vols.). 2 27,823 (84). 
 
 3 See Chap. IV. pp. 96, 106-110. * Place to Mill, October 17, 1814.
 
 THE BENTHAMITES 67 
 
 a lesson. Anxious as I have always been to obtain infor- 
 mation, careful as I have likewise been to examine myself 
 and to divest myself of prejudices, yet intensely occupied, 
 as poverty compelled me to be, in a disagreeable and for 
 some years unhealthy business, my opportunities for mental 
 improvement have been comparatively few. It is true I 
 have at all times had the acquaintance of some men of 
 superior intellect, and have, I know, profited by it. But till 
 I became happily acquainted with you I had no person 
 with whom I could compare myself in the beneficial manner 
 I can now do. I am upwards of forty years of age, but 
 mind has little to do with age except in infancy and dotage, 
 and I would fain persuade myself that I am about twenty- 
 two or twenty-three years old, with a good prospect of 
 health and leisure for improvement before me." l 
 
 Mill himself drops his habit of reserve, and writes with 
 stiff goodwill: "Your place of a friend to me shall not 
 be a sinecure. You had no occasion for this declaration 
 to satisfy you respecting my opinion of you, to which I 
 should have been far from alluding, had it not been for 
 the malignity with which I see your character pursued, 2 
 and which makes it my duty to declare on all occasions 
 that I have met with few men in my whole life of whom I 
 think so highly." 3 
 
 Mill even writes of his own money affairs, and confesses 
 that " The History of India," on which he had been at work 
 since 1806, had "kept him as poor as a church mouse," 
 that he " practises much economy, a good school for him- 
 self and his children," but that he " hopes to be at his ease 
 when the work is finished." He passes from the subject 
 with the words, " so much for these affairs into which few 
 are so far admitted, and as few care whether I have little or 
 
 1 Place to Mill, November 27, 1814. 
 
 2 With reference to the accusation that Place was a Government spy. 
 .See pp. 54-56. 
 
 3 James Mill to Place, July 30, 1814 (in the family autograph book).
 
 68 THE BENTHAMITES 
 
 much." l Place answers : " What you have said of your cir- 
 cumstances does not in the least surprise me. My wife and I 
 saw as much long since, and we loved you the more for it." 2 
 
 Place and Wakefield wrote to each other, full of care for 
 Mill and schemes for his future. Mill and his family were 
 now living for a great part of the year at Ford Abbey, 3 the 
 huge Devonshire mansion which Bentham had rented, and 
 Wakefield was afraid that he might slip into a permanently 
 dependent position. " I am deeply interested about Mill, 
 for, with all my admiration of Mr. Bentham, he is too good 
 a man to become a dependant upon any individual ; and I 
 fear that the increasing expenses of his young family must 
 render him so, unless we can place him at the head of this 
 new school." 4 " Mill is hard at work upon his Indian work, 
 and has wrote it up to the year 1790. I wish it may ever 
 repay him for his labour. He says he is very well, but 
 looks otherwise thin in the face; and I misread him if 
 he be not in a state of anxiety." 5 "Do you think he is 
 calculating upon the sale of his work upon India ? If that 
 is the case, then I fear he will be disappointed ; and as for 
 maintaining a large family entirely by his pen, the thing is, 
 I think, impossible, unless he had managed to tumble on 
 to some popular work, such as Hayley's ' Life of Cowper,' 
 or something as great." 6 
 
 Place, in answer, asked, " Shall such a man be left to the 
 chance of sickness to reduce him to absolute want ? Shall 
 he be destroyed by anxiety and corroding cares, which the 
 
 1 James Mill to Place, October 14, 1814. [Letter dated afterwards 
 by F. Place, Jun., and accidentally ascribed to 1817.] 
 
 2 Place to Mill, October 17, 1814. 
 
 3 For a good description of the life at Ford Abbey in 1814, cf. 
 "Memoirs and Correspondence of Francis Homer" (London, 1843), 
 vol. ii. p. 178. 
 
 4 Wakefield to Place, August 17, 1814. The school is the Christo- 
 mathic School, cf. p. 130 (note). 
 
 6 Wakefield to Place (from Ford Abbey), October i, 1814. 
 8 Wakefield to Place, October 17, 1814.
 
 THE BENTHAMITES 69 
 
 firmest rnind cannot always repel when no prospect of 
 better days presents itself ? " l He then proposed a scheme 
 for raising ^300 among Mill's friends, to be put anony- 
 mously to his credit at the bank, a scheme which Wake- 
 field thought might do more harm than good. During 
 Mill's long absences from London, Place managed his 
 business affairs; and Professor Bain says that he has "heard 
 from very good authority that Francis Place . . . made 
 him advances while he was writing the history. These, of 
 course, were all repaid." 2 
 
 Mill, on his part, tried to cure Place of his habit of 
 "raving." 3 In a letter of December 1814 he says: "But 
 I am satisfied you are going on in the right path, and I 
 know now that you can do better than you are doing. 
 Only observe as much as possible of suavity in the manner, 
 while there is anything of asperity in the matter, and you 
 will be sure to succeed." 4 And some months later Place 
 wrote, after describing an outburst, " I suppose you to be 
 looking at me. I see the whole of what you intend, and 
 feel how deficient I often am, but I cannot talk of some 
 things with some people as calmly as I do of two and 
 two being four, but I will endeavour to improve." 5 At 
 the same time, he fears that if he ceases to feel intensely 
 and immoderately, he may ultimately sink into the vege- 
 table Philistinism of the ordinary retired tradesman. " I 
 have always contemplated the probability of being released 
 from business, and I have been afraid of too much caution 
 as tending to produce cold-heartedness. It would be dam- 
 nable to have little employment and no feeling." 
 
 1 Place to "Wakefield, October 7, 1814. 
 
 2 See " Janu-s Mill : a Biography," by Alex. Bain (London, 1882), 
 page 163. 
 
 3 Place, in a letter to Ensor, October 13, 1816, quotes Mill's expres- 
 sion, " to rave like Place." 
 
 4 James Mill to Place, December 31, 1814. 
 
 5 Place to .Mill, July 20, 1815. 
 
 6 Place to Mill, August 50, 1816.
 
 70 THE BENTHAMITES 
 
 The two friends exchanged descriptions of their children. 
 Mill recounted the amazing precocity of John Stuart, now 
 eight years old, and his sister Wilhelmina. " My two chil- 
 dren, John and Willie, are with me at six A.M., and then we 
 have half a day's work done before any other body is up 
 hi the house. John is now an adept in the first six books 
 of Euclid and in Algebra, performing simple questions with 
 great ease, while in Greek he has read since he came here 
 the last half of Thucydides, one play of Euripides and one of 
 Sophocles, two of Aristophanes and the treatise of Plutarch 
 on education. Willie has read along with him several lives 
 in Cornelius Nepos, and has got over the most difficult part 
 of the task of learning Latin, while John wants but little 
 of being able to read Latin with ease. His historical and 
 other reading never stands still, he is at it whenever he has 
 any time to spare. This looks like bragging, but as I tell 
 you the untoward part of my circumstances, it is but right 
 you should hear that which gives me pleasure also. There 
 are few to whom I talk of either." l 
 
 1 James Mill to Place (from Ford Abbey), Dec. 7, 1814. A passage 
 in one of Mill's letters throws some light on a disputed point in his 
 early life. " As for Sir John Stuart, he is one of the Barons of the 
 Exchequer in Scotland, and his estate and residence was near my 
 father's. I was at an early age taken notice [of] by him and Lady Jane. 
 When the time came for my going to college, it was my father's in- 
 tention to send me to Aberdeen, as both nearer and less expensive than 
 Edinburgh. Sir John, however, and Lady Jane insisted that he should 
 let them take me to Edinburgh, which was the more celebrated uni- 
 versity ; that they would look after me, and take care that the expense 
 to my father should not be greater than at Aberdeen. I went to 
 Edinburgh, and from that time lived as much in their house as in my 
 father's, and there had many advantages, saw the best company, and 
 had an educated man to direct my education, and who paid for several 
 expensive branches of education, but which for him I must have gone 
 without, and above all, had unlimited access in both town and country 
 to well-chosen libraries. So you see I owe much to Sir John Stuart, 
 who had a daughter, one only child, about the same age as myself, who, 
 besides being a beautiful woman, was in point of intellect and disposi- 
 tion one of the most perfect human beings I have ever known. We 
 grew up together and studied together from children, and were about
 
 THE BENTHAMITES 71 
 
 Mill and his friends seein often to have discussed the old 
 question as to how far a child's mind is a tabula rasa on 
 which education can produce any effect desired. " Wake- 
 field," wrote Place, "is a believer in innate propensities, 
 . . . and so fully is he satisfied of the truth of his theory, 
 that he expects to see your John's innate propensities 
 break out presently and form his character. . . . The posi- 
 tion I take against him is, that the generality of children are 
 organised so nearly alike that they may by proper manage- 
 ment be made pretty nearly equally wise and virtuous." l 
 
 Place's own children, though clever enough, were not so 
 remarkable as the little Mills, while his paternal affection 
 expressed itself in a somewhat more human form, and Mrs. 
 Place was apparently not so willing as Mrs. Mill to allow 
 unlimited educational experiments. " Tom," he wrote of 
 one of them, " is a little Bonaparte of a fellow, three years 
 old, with reasoning powers very far beyond his age and 
 beyond his ability to express in words ; but his courage, 
 activity in mischief, and his determined manner are the 
 constant causes of as delightful a discord as ever prevailed 
 among as many small brats. I have given all the time 1 
 could in any way spare to them, and have no doubt they 
 would be infinitely more to my mind could I bestow a 
 certain portion of time every day on them, notwithstanding 
 the difficulty there is of convincing I might have said the 
 impossibility of convincing the grown females that I know 
 at all what I am about." 2 Some of Place's elder children 
 
 the best friends that either of us ever had. She married Sir William 
 Forbes, and after producing him six children died a few years ago of a 
 decline. Her poor mother told me with her heart ready to break that 
 she spoke about me with almost her last breath, and enjoined them 
 never to allow the connection which subsisted between us to be broken. 
 So much for the old friendship with Sir J. Stuart, which it is very 
 proper you should know, but which I do not wish to be talked about." 
 (James Mill to Place from Ford Abbey, Oct. 26, 1817.) 
 
 1 Place to Mill, October 30, 1816. 
 
 2 Place to Mill, July 20, 1815.
 
 72 THE BENTHAMITES 
 
 were now grown up, and to one of them, from her letters 
 evidently a bright and attractive girl, Mill wrote much 
 advice on beginning work at six in the morning, and other 
 points. Mrs. Mill and Mrs. Place enjoyed a separate friend- 
 ship of their own. In December 1816, Place sent a post- 
 script of kind messages from his wife and daughters to 
 Mrs. Mill : " She is their favourite acquaintance, the more 
 so as she, poor woman, as well as my wife, has ' a grumpy 
 husband who bites her nose off.' " 1 
 
 Mill about this time proposed to settle in France, 2 and 
 there was now a plan that Place, who expected soon to be 
 able to retire from business, should settle there beside him. 
 " You give me abundant pleasure," wrote Mill, " by hinting 
 the probability of your settling yourself down beside me in 
 France. I foresee nothing there which would make it un- 
 comfortable for us to reside as soon as we please. Assure 
 yourself that the French people will soon be very quiet 
 and contented slaves ; and the despotism of the Bourbons, 
 a quiet, gentle despotism. There I may live cheap, my 
 children will acquire a familiarity with the language and 
 with the manners and character of a new people. When 
 they have enough of this we shall remove into Germany 
 till the same effects are accomplished, and after that if we 
 please we may go to Italy. We shall then return accom- 
 plished people, and men and women of us, I hope, able to 
 do something for the cause of mankind. We shall, at any 
 rate, have plenty of knowledge, the habit of living upon 
 little, and a passion for the improvement of the condition 
 of mankind." 3 
 
 In the course of 1812 Mill introduced Place to Bentham. 4 
 For three years after this there is no evidence that Place 
 
 1 Place to Mill, December [N.D.] 1816. 
 
 2 For a similar proposal a year earlier, cf. " James Mill : a Biography," 
 
 P- 139. 
 
 3 James Mill to Place, September 6 [1815]. 
 
 4 " Autobiography."
 
 THE BENTHAMITES 73 
 
 was in any way intimate with the Master. When, in 1814, 
 Bentham and Mill began their yearly residence at Ford 
 Abbey, Place, at Mill's request, sent long letters on "all 
 that goes on in the world, political and domestic." 1 The 
 Bentham MSS. hi the British Museum record that on May 
 21, 1816, Bentham lent Place the Federalist to read. 2 
 Place's position as a disciple began in August 1817, when 
 he went to stay at Ford Abbey. His letters to Mrs. Place 
 during this visit give a detailed description of the Mill 
 family life. 
 
 "I cannot but admire the children here, who give no 
 one any trouble; they have a hard time of it, learning 
 their lessons from six every morning to nine, and saying 
 them, and learning others from eleven to one ; and learn- 
 ing again in the afternoon learning, too, with a precision 
 utterly unknown by others ; even little Jim spells words of 
 four syllables well; and Clara reads, as she herself says, 
 ' Natural History.' At present she ' is reading of quadru- 
 peds,' and really knows what she reads in a surprising 
 manner, and explains the meaning of the terms used with 
 ease and correctness. As for crying and bawling, it may 
 be said to have no existence here ; some of them cry when 
 scolded or cuffed over their lessons, but it is all but un- 
 known on other occasions. Mrs. Mill is a patient, quiet 
 soul, hating wrangling, and although by no means meanly 
 submissive, manages to avoid quarrelling in a very admir- 
 able manner." 3 
 
 A little earlier he had described his own daily life : " I 
 have been pacing the walks from ten to two four hours' 
 hard work at Latin. I use all the care and diligence I 
 possess or can command at this very, very difficult study : 
 but my master gives me a good character, and says I 
 
 1 James Mill to Place, July 6, 1815. 
 
 2 Brit. Mus. Addl. MSS. 33,564. 
 
 3 Place to Mrs. Place, August 28, 1817.
 
 74 THE BENTHAMITES 
 
 shall certainly accomplish my purpose. Nouns substan- 
 tive and adjectives have been gone through, not slightly, 
 but fiilly ; pronouns as much as they are said to be useful ; 
 the verb esse-sum has been subdued ; and I am loving 
 away in all possible moods and tenses with am -are. I 
 shall cease loving in two days, and shall be teaching away 
 with doc-eo, doc-ui, doc -turn, doc -ere. Every day I am 
 obliged to decline a number of nouns and adjectives 
 chosen at random by others, and to say all I have gone 
 through. If I am not at school, no one ever was. 1 Mill 
 is beyond comparison the most diligent fellow I ever knew 
 or heard of; almost any other man would tire and give up 
 teaching, but not so he ; three hours every day, frequently 
 four, are devoted to the children, and there is not a 
 moment's relaxation. His method is by far the best I 
 ever witnessed, and is infinitely precise ; but he is exces- 
 sively severe. No fault, however trivial, escapes his notice ; 
 none goes without reprehension or punishment of some 
 sort. Lessons have not been well said this morning by 
 Willie and Clara ; there they are now, three o'clock, 
 plodding over their books, their dinner, which they knew 
 went up at one, brought down again ; and John, who dines 
 with them, has his book also, for having permitted them 
 to pass when they could not say, and no dinner will any of 
 them get till six o'clock. This has happened once before 
 since I came. The fault to-day is a mistake in one word. 
 Now I could not be so severe; but the learning and 
 reasoning these children have acquired is not equalled by 
 any children in the whole world. John is truly a prodigy, 
 a most wonderful fellow ; and when his Logic, his Languages, 
 his Mathematics, his Philosophy shall be combined with a 
 
 1 Any one who went to Ford Abbey seems to have been expected to 
 work. Place writes to Wakefield (Sept. 3, 1814): "Hume is gone 
 to Ford Abbey, where he intends staying some time, as he sent his 
 carriage on, and was, when I saw him, packing up Smith's "Wealth 
 of Nations" to study there.
 
 THE BENTHAMITES 75 
 
 general knowledge of mankind and the affairs of the world, 
 he will be a truly astonishing man ; but he will probably 
 be morose and selfish. Mill sees this ; and I am operating 
 upon him, when the little time I can spare can be so ap- 
 plied, to counteract these propensities, so far as to give him 
 a bias towards the management of his temper, and to pro- 
 duce an extensive consideration of the reasonings and 
 habits of others, when the time shall come for him to 
 observe and practise these things." l 
 
 " Wednesday, August 20. 2 I have now been here long 
 enough to know all about the family ; Mrs. Mill is both 
 good-natured and good-tempered, two capital qualities in a 
 woman; she is, however, not a little vain of her person, 
 and would be thought to be still a girl. Since I have been 
 here there has not been one single instance of crying 
 among the children, who certainly give less trouble, and 
 have fewer ridiculous propensities and desires than any I 
 ever knew; notwithstanding they have a plentiful lack of 
 manners, and as much impertinence, sometimes called 
 impudence, as any children need have. You would be 
 surprised to see little Jim trundling a hoop nearly as tall 
 as himself round the Great Hall, going as fast as the others, 
 and turning the corners with admirable dexterity." 
 
 "August 7, 1817. All our days are alike, so an account 
 of one may do for all. Mill is up between five and six ; he 
 and John compare his proofs, John reading the copy and 
 his father the proof. Willie and Clara are in the saloon 
 before seven, and as soon as the proofs are done with, John 
 goes to the farther end of the room to teach his sisters. 
 When this has been done, and part of the time while it is 
 doing, he learns geometry ; this continues to nine o'clock, 
 when breakfast is ready. 
 
 " Mr. Bentham rises soon after seven, and about eight 
 
 1 Place to Mrs. Place, August 17, 1817. 
 
 2 Postscript to the foregoing letter.
 
 76 THE BENTHAMITES 
 
 gets to his employment. I rise at six and go to work ; at 
 nine breakfast in the parlour present, Mrs. Mill, Mill, I, 
 John, and Colls. 1 
 
 " Breakfast ended, Mill hears Willie and Clara, and then 
 John. Lessons are heard under a broad balcony, walking 
 from end to end, the breakfast parlour on one hand and 
 pots of flowers rising one above another as high as your 
 head on the other hand ; this place is in the front of the 
 Abbey. All the lessons and readings are performed aloud, 
 and occupy full three hours, say till one o'clock. 
 
 " From nine to twelve Mr. Bentham continues work- 
 ing ; from twelve to one he performs upon an organ in the 
 saloon. 
 
 " From, breakfast time to one o'clock I am occupied in 
 learning Latin ; this is also done aloud in the walks, and 
 already I have conquered the substantives and adjectives. 
 During this period Colls, who is a good boy, gets a lesson 
 of Latin from Mill, and of French from me : his is a capital 
 situation for a boy of genius. 
 
 "At one we all three walk in the lanes and fields for 
 an hour. At two all go to work again till dinner at six, 
 when Mrs. Mill, Mill, Bentham, I, and Colls, dine together. 
 We have soup or lish, or both, meat, pudding, generally 
 fruit, viz., melons, strawberries, gooseberries, currants, 
 grapes; no wine. The first day I came, wine was put 
 upon the table ; but as I took none, none has since made 
 its appearance. After dinner, Mill and I take a sharp 
 walk for two hours, say, till a quarter past eight, then one 
 of us alternately walks with Mr. Bentham for an hour ; then 
 comes tea, at which we read the periodical publications; 
 and eleven o'clock comes but too soon, and we all go to 
 bed. 
 
 " Mrs. Mill marches in great style round the green in 
 front of the house for about half an hour before breakfast 
 1 Bentham's amanuensis.
 
 THE BENTHAMITES 77 
 
 and again after dinner with all the children, till their bed- 
 time." l 
 
 When Place returned after two months at Ford Abbey 
 he was profoundly influenced by James Mill's philosophy 
 of life, and had caught that " habit of analysis " which 
 John Stuart Mill notices as the result of his father's train- 
 ing. 2 A few days after his return he writes : " I have not 
 been out of the house since Thursday, so off I set to Hyde 
 Park alone, and as I tramped I thought of you and yours, 
 and of the Abbey and Mr. Bentham, and of mine, and of 
 all the world and all its virtues and vices, its pleasures 
 and its pains, upon the misery of some wretch at every 
 hundred yards' distance in this thick, hazy, gloomy day's 
 atmosphere, and I gave away all my money. I prosed on 
 
 1 Place to Mrs. Place, August 7, 1817. The following letter, written 
 on the inner fold of one from Place dated August 4, 1817, reporting his 
 arrival at Ford Abbey, is interesting as a glimpse of John Stuart Mill's 
 mother : 
 
 Mrs. James Mill to Mrs. Place. 
 
 " MY DEAR MRS. PLACE, I will take all possible care of your lord 
 and master, and see that his [clothes] return from the wash regularly. 
 I am much pleased to hear that he admires the Abbey. He will pass 
 his time very pleasantly here, I have no doubt. I have recovered my 
 youth now. I was more fatigued than usual, owing to the child not 
 going to the new servant. I think she will answer very well, as there 
 is less to do on account of the washing all being put out. I am very 
 glad, as I brought a great deal of work to do. Give my kind love to 
 Miss Place, and best remembrances to all the rest of the family. Yours 
 truly and sincerely, H. MILL." 
 
 Sir Samuel Romilly stayed at Ford Abbey during part of the time 
 that Place was there. In a letter to Uumont he describes Place. " He 
 is self-educated, has learnt a great deal, has a very strong natural 
 understanding, and possesses great influence in Westminster, such 
 influence as almost to determine the elections for members of Parlia- 
 ment. I need hardly say that he is a great admirer and disciple of 
 Bentham." ["James Mill : a Biography," by A. Bain (London, 1881), 
 page 78.] Place writes to his wife that Miss Romilly supposed him for 
 some days to be a Member of Parliament. [Place to Mrs. Place, Sep- 
 tember 29, 1817.] 
 
 2 See J. S. Mill's "Autobiography" (London, 1873), page 137.'
 
 78 THE BENTHAMITES 
 
 happiness and misery, and reviewed ray own propensities 
 and conduct, the motives by which I had been governed 
 and the results, and conjectured what the result might 
 have been had different reasons operated." l 
 
 Mill was now nearly at the end of his twelve years' task, 
 the "History of India." Place took an almost painfully 
 intense interest in the book. Towards the end of 1816 he 
 wrote : " I have been thinking that possibly I might be 
 useful to you in your Indian history, by reading or writing 
 or taking down from dictation, and three or four hours a 
 day are at your service." 2 In the winter of 1817-18, as 
 the work was in the press, Place arranged details with the 
 publisher, helped to revise proofs, and worked at the pre- 
 paration of the index. When he had read part of the 
 proofs, he writes in terms of enthusiastic praise, but warns 
 Mill that " My opinion must be cautiously taken, because I 
 am not, and cannot be, altogether an impartial evidence. I 
 am too much interested in your prosperity and fame too, 
 that my desire for uncommon success accompanies me in 
 all my reading ; and although I endeavour to divest myself 
 of all partiality, and try to read the book as I should read 
 the work of an indifferent person, there can be no doubt 
 that this is never really done." 3 
 
 The history was published at the beginning of January 
 1818, and was immediately successful. In February there 
 was already a proposal on foot that Mill should be ap- 
 pointed to an assistant examinership in the East India 
 House, with a salary beginning at 800 a year. The 
 appointment was made in May 1819, after a vigorous 
 canvas by Ricardo, Hume, Place, and the rest of his 
 friends. "As soon as I had heard," says Place, "that he 
 had been named as a person fit for the office, ... I stood 
 
 1 Place to Mill, October 20, 1817. 
 " Place to Mill, September 15, 1816. 
 3 Place to Mill, October 21, 1817.
 
 THE BENTHAMITES 79 
 
 on no ceremony with anybody. Mill was to be served ; he 
 deserved the best exertions in his favour of every one who 
 knew him, and I, as one who knew his transcendent merits, 
 went to work at once without consulting any one, in a way 
 which I knew no one would advise, no one could think 
 likely to produce any good consequences. It was a chance 
 well worth taking ; it was the only one I had, or could have, 
 of serving him effectually." l 
 
 After his appointment to the India House, Mill had 
 naturally to live in or near London, and Place's long 
 weekly budget of news was no longer needed. But the 
 two remained intimate friends. Place on several occasions 
 stayed with Mill at Marlow and elsewhere, and Mill's letters 
 show that he consulted Place on all important questions. 
 Only once is there any sign of a misunderstanding. In a 
 diary which he kept for 1826, Place writes on May 18: 
 " Walked with James Mill to Cheapside. Home again at 
 eleven A.M. As I am here a recorder of time more than of 
 opinions, I shall not say why it has happened that, such 
 friends as Mill and I are, his name has not before appeared 
 in this diary." Three days later Place went down to stay 
 with the Mills at Dorking, and the diary for the next few 
 months shows them to have been very often together. 
 Yet in spite of Place's constant loyalty, one has the feeling 
 that Mill rather starved the affection of his friends as well 
 as that of his children. " He could help the mass," wrote 
 Place, "but he could not help the individual, not even 
 himself, or his own." ~ 
 
 After Mill's appointment Bentham lost his constant 
 companionship, and from 1819 relied more and more 
 on Place. In one of Place's fragments of diary, there is 
 an entry 
 
 "Tuesday, June 19, 1827. From Saturday evening till 
 this morning at nine no one, for a wonder, called upon me 
 " Autobiography." - Ibid.
 
 80 THE BENTHAMITES 
 
 excepting my old, very dear friend, Jeremy Bentham, who 
 came with a volume of his book now in the press a 
 volume on Evidence * to request me to read the first 462 
 pages for the purpose of ascertaining whether (i) the 
 matter was such as would interest the generality of readers 
 who read on matters not quite frivolous ; (2) if, as to style, 
 it was such as would not deter them ; (3) if yea on both 
 these questions, how far it could be aided by notes and 
 references to facts and practice ; if no, on the second ques- 
 tion, how it could be amended, the object being to print so 
 much of the work in a separate volume." This is followed 
 by a note: "Visits from and to Mr. Bentham have not 
 been hitherto mentioned, as each of our houses were as 
 frequently entered by either as his own." 
 
 In the diary kept for Bentham by his secretary from 
 1821 to 18252 there are constant entries of copies of 
 Bentham's works, sent to Place for distribution among his 
 political friends, and of books lent to him for his own 
 reading. From the same diary, it would seem that Place 
 managed most of Bentham's minor business matters. But 
 Bentham by no means thought of Place merely as a 
 useful performer of small commissions. Richard Carlile, 
 who knew both men well, wrote in 1836 that "Jeremy 
 Bentham, twenty years ago, pronounced Mr. Place to be 
 the most fit man living, from extensive knowledge of the 
 state of the country and its parties, the condition and 
 wants of the people, and from his own probity and mental 
 energy, to become a Secretary of State for the Home 
 Department." 3 
 
 1 The reference is to Bentham's " Rationale of Judicial Evidence " 
 (London, 1827. 5 vols.), which was finally put into form and finished 
 by John Stuart Mill. Cf. p. 83, and J. S. Mill's "Autobiography" 
 (London, 1873), P a g e ri 4- 
 
 8 Brit. Mus. AddL MSS. 33,563. 
 
 3 See the Old Monthly Magazine, May 1836, p. 445, article entitled 
 " The Real Nobility of the Human Character," by A. P. [i.e. Richard 
 Carlile 1 .
 
 THE BENTHAMITES 81 
 
 Place in a letter to Hodgskin, in 1817, quotes Bentham as 
 saying, " ' Tell Mr. Hodgskin that I am a comical old fellow 
 only for a day or two, until those who do not know me 
 become acquainted with my manner.' And," he adds, 
 " this is strictly the truth, for he is the most affable man 
 in existence, perfectly good-humoured, bearing^ and for- 
 bearing, deeply read, deeply learned, eminently a reasoner, 
 yet simple as a child ; annoyed sometimes by trifles, but 
 never by anything but trifles never worth a contentious 
 observation." l 
 
 The letters between Place and Bentham 2 are, as would 
 be expected from the fact that they lived within two 
 minutes' walk of each other, and met constantly, mostly 
 short notes sent by hand to ask questions or make appoint- 
 ments. A longer letter than usual, written a year before 
 Bentham's death, is worth quoting : 
 
 J. B. to F. P. 
 
 "Q. S. P. 8 April 24, 1831, Sunday. 
 
 "DEAR GOOD BOY, I have made an appointment for 
 you; and you must absolutely keep it, or make another. 
 It is to see Prentice, 4 and hear him express his regrets for 
 calling you a ' bold bad man.' (Oh, but the appointment 
 it is for Tuesday, one o'clock, commencement of my cir- 
 cumgiration time.) 5 I said you were a bold man, but 
 denied your being a bad one, judging from near twenty 
 years' intimacy. I asked him why he called you a bad 
 
 1 Place to Hodgskin, May 30, 1817. 
 
 2 These are now among the Bentham MSS. in the British Museum ; 
 others are in Place's Letter Books, and among the Bentham MSS. in 
 University College Library. 
 
 3 i.e. Queen's Square Place. 
 
 4 Archibald Prentice, author of a " History of the Anti-Corn Law 
 League" (London, 1853. 2 vols.), and several other works. He gives 
 a delightful account of this visit in his " Historical Sketches of Man- 
 chester," pp. 379-386. 
 
 6 i.e. a trot round his garden for an hour. 
 
 F
 
 82 THE BENTHAMITES 
 
 man ; his answer was because of the pains you had taken 
 to disseminate your anti-over-population (I should have 
 said your over-population-stopping) expedient. The case 
 is, he is iuergical; 1 Calvinistic; is descended from two 
 
 \) OO 
 
 parsonical grandfathers of considerable notoriety. I ob- 
 served to him that every man is master of his own actions, 
 but no man of his own opinions ; that on the point in 
 question he was no less far from you than you from him ; 
 and that if every man were to quarrel with every man 
 whose opinions did not on every point whatsoever coincide 
 with his, the earth would not be long burdened with the 
 human race. As to the point in question, I took care not 
 to let him know how my opinion stood; the fat would 
 have been all in the fire, unless I succeeded in converting 
 him, for which there was no time ; all I gave him to 
 understand on the score of religion as to my own senti- 
 ments was, that I was for universal toleration ; and on 
 one or two occasions I quoted scripture." . . . The rest 
 of the letter is taken up with a minute description of 
 Prentice's character. 2 
 
 1 "Jug" (short for Juggernaut) with its derivations, "juggist," 
 "anti-jug," &c., were constantly used in the Bentham circle as a 
 conveniently unintelligible synonym for orthodox Christianity. 
 
 2 A letter of Place's will show his way of addressing Bentham : 
 
 F. P. to J. B. 
 
 " December 24, 1827. 
 
 "Mr DEAR OLD FATHER, Doone says you desire to have a gossip 
 with me ; say when and where, and I will write to you. 
 
 " The Mechanics' Institution [the present Birkbeck] is about to cele- 
 brate the anniversary by a dinner, and, instead of having the masses 
 of ostentatious men who have done nothing to deserve it to be made 
 stewards, the committee of the Institution are desirous to have for 
 stewards those benefactors by whose aid it was they became an 
 organised body, that it may appear clearly that they who were once 
 its friends are still its friends. Give me leave, then, to put down 
 your name. You will not be required to attend any meeting, you 
 will not be liable to expense, nor to be annoyed by any application 
 whatever. Yours most sincerely, FRANCIS PLACE." (Brit. Mus. Addl. 
 MSS. 33,546, p. 179-)
 
 THE BENTHAMITES 83 
 
 One service which all Bentham's disciples were allowed 
 to perform was the writing of Bentham's later books. The 
 Master used to spend each day his allotted number of 
 hours in producing those piles of almost illegible manu- 
 script, which are now warehoused at University College. 
 Their general character may be fairly described by John 
 Stuart Mill's account of the papers on " Evidence." " Mr. 
 Bentham had begun this treatise three times, at con- 
 siderable intervals, each time in a different manner, and 
 each time without reference to the preceding; two of 
 the other three times he had gone over nearly the whole 
 subject." 1 Out of such materials the books through which 
 Bentham exercised his influence on the thoughts of 
 Europe were patiently pieced together by his friends. 
 Dumont spent his whole life in preparing a series of French 
 editions. John Mill's earliest important literary work con- 
 sisted in " editing " the " Rationale of Judicial Evidence ; " 2 
 Bingham, with a great deal of assistance from Place and 
 Mill, put together the " Book of Fallacies ; " 3 Grote, under 
 the name of Philip Beauchamp, the " Natural Religion ; " 4 
 and James Mill the "Table of the Springs of Action." 5 
 Even Hobhouse was pressed into the service, and writes 
 early in 1819: "I never was to translate Mr. Bentham. 
 I was to arrange his MSS. and put his words into the 
 vernacular, which, by the way, you may perhaps call 
 translating, although I suspect it would be difficult to 
 find language more to the purpose than Bentham's own." 6 
 Place's share in this work consisted, besides his help on the 
 
 1 See J. S. Mill's " Autobiography," pages 114, 115. 
 
 2 Cf. J. S. Mill's "Autobiography," page 114. 
 
 3 "The Book of Fallacies," by Jeremy Bentham (London, 1824). 
 See Place to Hobhouse, August 7, 1819. 27,837 (166, 167). 
 
 4 London, 1822. 
 
 5 " A Table of the Springs of Action," &c., by Jeremy Bentham 
 (London, 1815). 
 
 6 Hobhouse to Place, April 13, 1819. 27,837 (141, 142).
 
 84 THE BENTHAMITES 
 
 " Fallacies," in preparing Bentham's " Plan of Parliamentary 
 Reform," 1 so as to "make the reading more easy to the 
 commonalty," and adding notes to it with the help of 
 Wooller, the Radical editor of the Black Dwarf* He 
 also saw " Chrestomathia " 3 through the press, and put 
 together the whole work called " Not Paul, but Jesus," by 
 "Gamaliel Smith." 4 
 
 Place seems at first to have been rash enough to hope 
 that temperate criticism might lead Bentham to improve 
 his way of writing. Bentham's " Codification Papers," he 
 complains in a letter to Mill, " instead of being written in 
 a plain, familiar style, which would allure a common man 
 (and how very few are there who are not common men) 
 to read it, is so written that to comprehend all that is said, 
 each paragraph, nay, each sentence, must be studied, and 
 most men think it trouble enough to study the subject 
 itself, be it what it may, even in the plainest language, 
 without being obliged at the same time to make a study of 
 the phraseology of the author. ... I can take the neces- 
 sary pains, for at least two reasons : first, the knowledge I 
 have acquired of Mr. Bentham personally, added to my 
 
 1 Plan of Parliamentary Reform in the form of a Catechism (Lon- 
 don, 1818). 
 
 2 Place to Hume, March i, 1839. 
 
 8 "Chrestomathia," by Jeremy Bentham (London, 1815, 1816, 
 1817, &c.). 
 
 4 Place does not say this in any of his letters or diaries. The Utili- 
 tarian circle for obvious reasons kept that side of their work rather quiet. 
 But Dr. Richard Garnett has a copy of " Not Paul, but Jesus," on the 
 inside leaf of which Place has written, " The matter of this book was 
 put together by me, at Mr. Bentham's request, in the months of August 
 and September 1817, during my residence with him at Ford Abbey, 
 Devonshire." Bentham's rough manuscript of " Not Paul, but Jesus," 
 in University College, is endorsed in Place's hand with the various 
 dates on which he read the sheets, that is to say, mostly during his 
 stay at Ford Abbey. When Bowring published Deontology from Ben- 
 tham's notes (1834), Place wrote, " It is no work of my very dear and 
 good old master, but of that wild poetical surface man Bowring." (Place 
 to Wheatley, February 21, 1840.)
 
 THE BENTHAMITES 85 
 
 knowledge of his reputation ; second, because I never read 
 anything of his without being both wiser and, as I believe, 
 better in consequence of that reading, or rather studying. 
 ... I do my duty in thus endeavouring to cause the evil 
 to be removed ; for an evil it is, whether the fault be in the 
 writer or in the reader." 1 
 
 Mill replies in a great fright : " Your letter had nearly 
 done mischief. Reading it to him, as he expects your 
 letters, as he sees them come in, should be read, I stumbled 
 on your saying, . . . when observing what followed, I pre- 
 tended to find a difficulty in reading, and slipped the whole 
 of what you said about the style. He never would have 
 forgiven you, and to excite dislike where no good is to be 
 done by it is evil for both parties. There is no one thing 
 upon which he plumes himself so much as his style, and 
 he would not alter it if all the world were to preach to him 
 till Domesday." 2 
 
 At one time Bentham intended that Place should be his 
 literary executor. On August 9, 1 826, Place writes in his 
 diary " Mr. Bowring a long conversation respecting Mr. 
 Bentham's will. Mr. B. made his will in 1817, when I was 
 with him at Ford Abbey, making me his executor, and 
 leaving me 1000 for the purpose of arranging and printing 
 from his MSS. Subsequently Mill and I supposed he had 
 made Bowring his executor. This does not appear to be 
 the case ; but Bowring has reason to fear that he has altered 
 and complicated his will, and that his MSS. may not be 
 properly attended to.". 3 
 
 In the Utilitarian movement there are two distinct 
 periods divided roughly by the year 1824. Up to that 
 time Bentham had been the active leader of the group; 
 
 1 Place to James Mill, October 20, 1 8 1 7. 
 
 2 James Mill to Place, November 6, 1817. 
 
 3 Bentham's final will made Bowring literary executor, and left 
 Place a mourning ring, which was one of his most valued possessions.
 
 86 THE BENTHAMITES 
 
 and although Mill and Place were the only two members 
 of the school who were in constant personal intimacy with 
 Bentham himself, Dumont, Brougham, Grote (after 1818), 
 and others would have accepted the name Benthamite. 1 
 Apart from their writing and thinking, James Mill and 
 Bentham were constantly occupied with practical projects. 
 They used the ordinary methods of committees, subscrip- 
 tions, and newspaper articles for the direct improvement of 
 schools, and law courts, and political machinery. 
 
 In 1823 James Mill's greater son, John Stuart Mill, then 
 seventeen years old, entered. the India Office, and began 
 his independent intellectual life. In the spring of 1824 
 the Westminster Review was founded. From 1824 John 
 Stuart Mill, with the younger generation of Utilitarians 
 Charles Austin, Eyton Tooke, G. J. Graham, and others 
 formed the real centre of the movement. They wrote books 
 and reviews rather than newspaper articles, and were more 
 really interested in speculative questions than in practical 
 politics or social work. 
 
 In the first period Place had taken his full part of the 
 work. He had not only kept Bentham and Mill in contact 
 with the outside world, but himself originated much of 
 their activity. In the second movement he had little or 
 no share. Though he could do effective work in his own 
 way on a newspaper, he could not make himself felt in a con- 
 test carried on by the methods of deliberate high literature. 
 If he had been a more skilled writer, or had understood 
 better the conditions of good literary work, his chance would 
 have come in 1824, when the Utilitarians, old and young, 
 found themselves, rather against their will, responsible for 
 the new Westminster Review. He was asked to send an 
 article to the first number, but refused, except on condition 
 that no alteration should be made in his work without his 
 consent. "Mine," he said, "must be legitimate children, 
 1 Cf. J. S. Mill's "Autobiography" (London, 1873), page 101.
 
 THE BENTHAMITES 87 
 
 however ugly and ungraceful they may be." l Bentham, 
 who was superintending the arrangements and providing 
 the money for the new Review, wrote him a long letter 
 describing and justifying editorial custom, and pointing out 
 that Mill's articles in the Edinburgh Review had been 
 " cut and slashed without mercy." He enclosed his letter 
 with a characteristic little note to Bowring, the editor. 
 " Ugly or ungraceful children we cannot adopt, nor can we 
 traffic in pigs in a poke. If you approve of my reply, 
 perhaps you will send it to the proud man." Three years 
 later Bowring seems to have accepted Place's terms, and in 
 July 1826 his first article appeared. Bowring was a most in- 
 competent editor, 2 and the book sent to Place was actually a 
 " History of Egypt." 3 Place spent a fortnight on his article, 
 working nine hours a day, and conscientiously examining 
 such ancient Egyptian history as then existed. Bowring 
 did not send him a proof, and the article was miserably 
 misprinted. But however well it had been printed, it would 
 have remained inexpressibly dull and wooden. Later a 
 better chance was given him in an article on the " History 
 of Parliaments," in the form of a review of Major Cart- 
 wright's life, which was arranged for and largely written 
 in 1826, but appeared in October I82/. 4 
 
 The fifty pages occupied by that article simply cannot 
 be read. Place had been working at Parliamentary history 
 ever since his visit to Ford Abbey in 1817, and three great 
 folios in the British Museum 5 contain his notes on the 
 subject. He had known the old Major well, and an inter- 
 
 1 Place to Bowring, September 1823. 
 
 2 Cf. J. S. Mill's "Autobiography" (London, 1873), page 97. 
 
 3 See the Westminster Review, July 1826, Article VIII., pp. 158-201. 
 A review of Histoire de i'Egypt sous le gouvernement de Moliammed-Alij, 
 &c., par M. Felix Mengin. 
 
 4 See the Westminster Revieiv, October 1827, Article I., pp. 253-303. 
 A review of " The Life and Correspondence of Major Cartwright," 
 edited by his niece, F. D. Cartwright. 
 
 5 27,853-5-
 
 88 THE BENTHAMITES 
 
 esting magazine article might be put together from the 
 notices of Cartwright and other reformers actually con- 
 tained in his papers. But the article gets no further than 
 1688, and consists of a pointless series of facts from original 
 sources, put together in a style, compared with which that 
 of Stubbs' " Constitutional History " is airy and journalistic. 
 The promised second instalment of the " History of 
 Parliaments" did not appear, and Place never again 
 succeeded in getting into print anything longer than a 
 pamphlet or a newspaper article. Jeffrey, editor of the 
 Edinburgh, wrote to Place in February 1827, that he was 
 willing to take an article from him. " I think your article 
 will be improved by avoiding those asperities of style in 
 which you sometimes indulge, and which are the great 
 blemish of the Westminster." l But the proposal does not 
 seem to have led to anything. Again when the two Mills 
 seceded from the Westminster Review in 1829, Bentham 
 wrote to Bo wring, "get Place to set matters right; he is the 
 best man in the world." 2 Perhaps if Place had submitted 
 patiently to the cutting and slashing of a magazine editor, 
 he might have avoided some of those literary faults which 
 henceforward, writing as he was without criticism or direc- 
 tion, steadily increased upon him. He probably could 
 never have acquired certain habits of mind necessary for 
 great literary success. He was absolutely wanting in 
 humour. Writing in 1836 to Mrs. Grote, he mentions 
 Walter Scott, and says, " I never could read even half of 
 any one of his novels. I tasked myself to it; I tried 
 several times at different stories; I never could succeed; 
 I became wearied, and grew angry as often as I made the 
 attempt." 3 And when describing his boyhood, he says, " I 
 read Bunyan's ' Pilgrim's Progress,' and parts of equally 
 
 1 Jeffrey to Place, February 1827 (in the family autograph book). 
 
 2 Bowring to Place, December 7, 1829 (in the family autograph 
 book). 
 
 3 Place to Mrs. Grote, January 8, 1836 (" Autobiography ").
 
 THE BENTHAMITES 89 
 
 absurd books." 1 In the masses of notes on old plays 
 which he made in 1828 and 1829, he is simply concerned 
 to prove the increased decency of manners in his own 
 time, and shows no sign of feeling the poetic value of 
 what he reads. 2 
 
 But the main source of his defects as a writer was the 
 fact that he transferred to his literary work the enormously 
 long hours of an artizan, and the lifeless, mechanical 
 "stroke" by which such hours are alone made possible. 
 Most of his deliberate literary work was tired work, and 
 the result is that his familiar notes are better than his 
 formal letters, and his letters better than his treatises. 
 
 But apart from his literary limitations, there were other 
 sufficient reasons for Place's falling out of the second stage 
 of the Utilitarian movement. Bentham and James Mill, 
 though they broke with the French revolutionary thinkers 
 and the whole doctrine of Natural Rights, nevertheless 
 retained many of the characteristic habits of eighteenth- 
 century thought. They believed themselves to have found 
 a common-sense philosophy, by which ordinary selfish men 
 could be convinced that the interests of each invariably 
 coincided with the interests, if not of all, at any rate, of the 
 majority. Pleasures, according to this philosophy, are all 
 of the same kind in so far as they are pleasures, and it 
 happens that the acts which secure the interests of the 
 majority are also the most pleasurable. Every man, 
 therefore, if he were reasonably well educated in his 
 
 1 "Autobiography." 
 
 2 Even in ordinary social intercourse his matter-of-fact seriousness 
 must have been sometimes rather trying. On April 20, 1826, for 
 instance, he walked to Kotherhithe "to see Mr. Brunei's tunnel. 
 Found Lord Darnley, Lady Darnley, and three other women there, 
 with Sir George Cunningham. They were joined by Lord Paget and 
 another well-dressed animal whose name I did not hear, who made a 
 singular discovery. On the steam-engine being named simply as the 
 engine, he observed that ' it must be very hard work for the engine.' 
 Got away, not much liking my company." (Diary, April 20, 1826.)
 
 90 THE BENTHAMITES 
 
 youth, would throughout the rest of his life aim at " the 
 greatest happiness of the greatest number," simply because 
 he would recognise that that was the way to gain for 
 himself the greatest amount of "the pleasure of self- 
 approbation," and because self-approbation, being pure, 
 contained more units of enjoyment per unit of time than 
 any other pleasure. This was Place's position. "The 
 motive to benevolence," he wrote hi 1833, "is always 
 self-approbation. The motive in itself is neither good 
 nor bad ; it is, however, imperative, and I obey it." l 
 " Self-approbation " is a term which can be used as a 
 meaningless synonym for any kind of human motive, but 
 if adopted in its ordinary sense as the conscious end of 
 human action, it is apt to produce the kind of result 
 which one can trace from time to time all through Place's 
 letters. When a man is in the mood for that kind of 
 enjoyment, he is encouraged by such a philosophy to in- 
 dulge in a good deal of naive self-glorification; and when 
 he is out of the mood, he finds it difficult to fix on a 
 reason for living at all. The life which Place or James 
 Mill actually lived was too laborious to seem worth much 
 if tested by the quantity of personal pleasure which they 
 got from it. Accordingly their prevailing habit of mind 
 was apt to be that which John Stuart Mill ascribes to his 
 father. " His standard of morals was Epicurean, inasmuch 
 as it was Utilitarian, taking as the exclusive test of right 
 and wrong the tendency of actions to produce pleasure 
 or pain. But he had . . . scarcely any belief in pleasure. 
 . . . He thought human life a poor thing at best, after 
 the freshness of youth and of unsatisfied curiosity had 
 gone by." 2 
 
 The eighteenth-century quality in the elder Utilitarians 
 comes out also in their extraordinary positiveness on 
 
 1 Place to Harrison, December 14, 1833. 
 
 2 See J. S. Mill's "Autobiography " (London, 1873), page 48.
 
 THE BENTHAMITES 91 
 
 psychological and metaphysical points. In 1817 James 
 Mill was beginning to plan the " Analysis of the Human 
 Mind," which he published in 1829. "If I had time to 
 write a book," he says, "I would make the human mind 
 as plain as the road from Charing Cross to St. Paul's." 1 
 A year earlier he wrote, " I am reading, at least I have 
 begun to read, the ' Critique of Pure Reason.' I see clearly 
 enough what poor Kant is about." - 
 
 Against this position John Stuart Mill revolted with 
 all his soul. His " Autobiography " describes his growing 
 sense of the difficulty of ultimate problems, and his grow- 
 ing dissatisfaction with the mere arithmetical calculation 
 of pleasure as the end of human existence. " I never in- 
 deed wavered," he says, " in the conviction that happiness 
 is the test of all rules of conduct and the end of life. But 
 I now thought (in 1830) that this end was only to be 
 attained by not making it the direct end. Those only are 
 happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some 
 object other than their own happiness on the happiness 
 of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some 
 art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an 
 ideal end. Aiming thus at something else, they find happi- 
 ness by the way. . . . Ask yourself whether you are happy, 
 and you cease to be so." 3 
 
 Place, like Mrs. Grote and the other sectarian Ben- 
 thamites, was grievously disappointed at this tendency in 
 John Mill's writings. " I think John Mill," he wrote in 1 838, 
 " has made great progress in becoming a German meta- 
 physical mystic. Eccentricity and absurdity must occa- 
 sionally be the result." 4 
 
 1 James Mill to Place, December 6, 1817. 
 
 2 James Mill to Place, October 8, 1816 (autograph). 
 
 3 See J. S. Mill's "Autobiography" (London, 1873), p. 142. 
 
 4 Place to Falconer, September 2, 1838. In 1837 Mrs Gi-ote called 
 him in a letter to Place, " that wayward intellectual deity " (August 
 1 6, 1837).
 
 92 THE BENTHAMITES 
 
 From Place's diary for 1826 one learns that John Mill, 
 then twenty years old, was a frequent caller at Charing 
 Cross. But the few letters between them which have 
 been preserved are short, and, though friendly enough in 
 manner, confined to business matters. 
 
 Bentham died in 1832, and Place, two years later, wrote 
 of him as " my twenty years' friend, my good master from 
 whom I learned I know not how much, as it spread in so 
 many directions. He was my constant, excellent, venerable 
 preceptor, of whom I think every day of my life, whose 
 death I continually lament, whose memory I revere, and 
 whose absence I deplore." l 
 
 James Mill died on June 23, 1836. Ten days previously 
 Place saw him for the last time. On his return he de- 
 scribed his visit in a letter to Mrs. Grote. " Stayed too 
 long with poor Mill, who showed me much more sympathy 
 and affection than ever before in all our long friendship. 
 But he was all the time as much of a bright reasoning 
 man as ever he was, reconciled to his fate, brave and calm 
 to an extent which I never before witnessed, except in 
 another old friend, Thomas Holcroft, the day before and 
 the day of his death." - 
 
 1 Place to Harrison, May 2, 1834. 
 
 2 See "Jarnes Mill : a Biography," p. 409.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 SCHOOLS FOR ALL 
 
 " So complete was my father's reliance on the influence of 
 reason over the mind of mankind, whenever it is allotved to 
 reach them, that he felt as if all would be gained if the whole 
 population were taught to read, if all sorts of opinions were 
 allowed to be addressed to them by word and in ivriting, 
 and if, by the means of the suffrage, they could nominate 
 a legislation to give effect to the opinions they adopted." l 
 
 The existing system of popular education in England 
 can be traced directly back to the formation of the Royal 
 Lancastrian Association in 1810. In 1798 a young Quaker 
 named Joseph Lancaster had begun to teach a few poor 
 boys in a shed adjoining his father's house in the Borough 
 Road. He was an enthusiastic teacher, with a good deal 
 of personal magnetism, and he soon had more pupils than 
 he could manage himself on the usual method. Dr. 
 Andrew Bell had published in 1797 a pamphlet describing 
 the " Madras System " of setting the children to teach each 
 other. 2 This system Lancaster copied or reinvented, and 
 soon formed vague plans of covering all England with 
 schools, in each of which a thousand children should 
 be taught in squads of ten by a hundred monitors. 
 He believed, and induced others to believe, that this 
 could be done at an annual cost of not more than 
 five shillings per head. But he had more than the 
 
 1 See J. S. Mill, "Autobiography," p. 106. 
 
 2 See " An Experiment in Education, made at the Male Asylum of 
 Madras,'' &c., by Andrew Bell, D.D., &c. (London, 1797).
 
 94 SCHOOLS FOR ALL 
 
 usual allowance of the faults of the enthusiastic tempera- 
 ment, and within a few years found himself heavily 
 in debt and obliged to issue a public appeal for funds. 
 Place read this appeal in 1804, found time to visit the 
 school, and " having examined the teacher and seen 
 the mode of teaching practised," became a subscriber 
 of half a guinea monthly. 1 Unfortunately Lancaster, after 
 his success in collecting funds, became still more extrava- 
 gant, and by 1807 owed 4000, and was in momentary 
 danger of arrest. From this he was saved by Joseph Fox, 
 a rich Quaker dentist. Fox paid Lancaster's debts, and 
 persuaded William Allen, Joseph Forster, and others of the 
 "Saints" to become trustees. By 1810 they had formed 
 the Royal Lancastrian Association, on the committee of 
 which the names of James Mill, Henry Brougham, and 
 Samuel Rogers appear among a number of Quaker philan- 
 thropists and Nonconformist ministers. Lancaster travelled 
 up and down the country lecturing on his principles ; many 
 Lancastrian schools were founded ; and the Church party in 
 1811 formed the "National Society for the Education of 
 the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church," with 
 the avowed object of bringing the growing movement under 
 safe control. 2 Lancaster, however, soon quarrelled with 
 the trustees, and, in 1812, set up against their wish a 
 middle-class boarding school in Tooting. Here he was 
 more reckless than ever, and when he became bankrupt in 
 1813, it was found that he had spent ^8000 in the previous 
 four years. Place had a son at the Tooting school, and relates 
 that Lancaster "sometimes kept one and sometimes two 
 carriages. He seldom went from home but in a carriage, 
 and generally had some of his lads in one or two post- 
 chaises following him ; and, as if to waste his time, in- 
 dulge his love of ostentation and squander the money of 
 other people, he used to take excursions in the manner 
 1 27,823 (8). 2 Cf. 27,823 (6).
 
 SCHOOLS FOR ALL 95 
 
 described to some distance, dine sumptuously, and of 
 course expensively, and return home in the evening. 
 Sometimes these excursions occupied two or three days." l 
 
 Place gave him much good advice, and for a time vainly 
 attempted to make peace between him and the trustees. 
 After the failure of this attempt, Place took part in 
 the disagreeable arrangements by which Lancaster was 
 pensioned off with the title of Superintendent, and the 
 Royal Lancastrian Association became in 1813 the British 
 and Foreign School Society. Place had already for two 
 years been an intimate friend of James Mill, was "re- 
 puted rich," and well known to be an excellent man of 
 business ; so that when the Society was reconstructed 
 he was put upon the new committee, and managed to 
 find time for a great deal of work. In January 1814 
 he writes to his friend Wakefield: "Indeed, I never was 
 so intensely occupied in my life as I have been lately 
 with the two (school) committees, the statute of Elizabeth, 2 
 closing, balancing, and making out my yearly bills and 
 accounts, and in addition to my usual business fitting out 
 the Dutch officers at Yarmouth to take the field, or rather 
 the mud-banks, of Holland to defend William the First 
 at the expense of their own liberties." 3 His constant fear 
 was that the Lancastrian schools might become instru- 
 ments of social oppression by being connected with the 
 idea of "charity." 4 For this reason, in drawing up the 
 by-laws for the British and Foreign Society on its forma- 
 tion, he " wholly omitted the words ' poor ' and ' labouring 
 poor,'" which had hitherto been employed, "and took 
 special care that " there should be no phrase in " them which 
 could give offence or hurt the feelings of any one." 5 And 
 with the same object he tried to persuade the committee 
 
 1 27,823 (18, 19). 
 
 2 i.e. the Statute of Apprentices, repealed in 1814. 
 
 3 Place to Wakefield, January 2, 1814. 
 
 4 Wakefield to Place, December 7, 1813. 6 27,823 (22).
 
 96 SCHOOLS FOR ALL 
 
 that those parents who were able to do so should be made 
 to pay a penny a week for the education of each child. 
 
 From the first, Wakefield, Place, Mill, and Brougham, 
 " who," Place says, " is one of the few who see the whole 
 scope and extent of what it may lead to," 1 were bent on 
 nothing less than the organisation of a complete system 
 of primary and secondary education, at any rate for London. 
 With regard to primary education, the plan was that the 
 central institution in the Borough Road should be used 
 exclusively for the work of training schoolmasters and 
 mistresses, and that London should be divided into dis- 
 tricts, to be controlled by independent school committees. 
 Place says that with this view "the whole of London 
 south of the Thames was to be organised somewhat on the 
 plan of the Bible Society, and a penny a week subscription 
 was to be pressed in every direction. When the plan was 
 digested and quite complete, a public general meeting of 
 the inhabitants was to be called, at which the Royal Dukes, 
 several noblemen, and a large number of influential inhabi- 
 , tants were to be induced, as could then have been done, to 
 attend. This meeting was to have been followed by meet- 
 ings in as many districts as it might be found advisable to 
 divide this portion of the Metropolis into. I wrote out the 
 plan carefully, omitting nothing which I thought was at 
 all likely to be useful. I procured the sheets of Howard's 
 large plan of London, and having divided the portions 
 intended to be operated upon according to population into 
 a number of nearly equal parts, I coloured and hung it up 
 in the committee room." 2 
 
 In 1813 the West London Lancastrian Association was 
 formed on Wakefield's suggestion, to arrange for the western 
 half of London north of the Thames. Districts were allotted 
 for the inspection of various members, and Wakefield drew 
 
 1 Place to Wakefield, February 20, 1814. 
 8 27,823 (23).
 
 SCHOOLS FOR ALL 97 
 
 up a valuable report on the educational and social condi- 
 tion of the Drury Lane district, which was afterwards, 
 printed by Brougham's Education Committee in 1816. He 
 had the idea, of which Mr. Charles Booth has since made 
 such brilliant use, that if permanent educational visitors 
 were appointed for all London a thorough collection of 
 social statistics might be made. 1 
 
 The motto of the West London Lancastrian Association 
 was the exhilarating phrase, " Schools for All," and every 
 now and then a note of joyful expectation breaks through 
 the practical strain of Place's letters. In writing to Allen, 
 for instance, he speaks of the "health and beauty," the 
 "mass of intellect" that he had observed in the Lan- 
 castrian schools, "which, if properly managed, would 
 reflect the greatest credit on the country, and all but 
 infinitely promote the happiness of the rising generation." 2 
 
 1 Wakefield's proposal was as follows : "The account you give me," 
 he says, "is excellent. But let me impress upon you to place each 
 section under permanent inspection. Many useful queries might be 
 added to those of the W. L. L. A., particularly to examine whether the 
 heads of a wretched family can read and write. Do not by any means 
 allow the books of those sections which I have visited to be considered 
 as an example they are not half filled up. A school once established, 
 and a detailed account of every labouring family shall be furnished to 
 the Association. The statement of the celebrated Lipsmitch in his 
 ' Divine Ordinances,' that the rate of life in London is of shorter dura- 
 tion than in any great town in Europe, has long been with me an object 
 of inquiry. Now, if permanent visitors can be paid for the whole of 
 London we shall ascertain the truth of this assertion, and, if possible, 
 develop the cause, without a knowledge of which a remedy cannot be 
 proposed, much less applied." (Wakefield to Place, January 6, 1814.) 
 
 2 27,823 (67). With this letter Place forwarded to Allen three 
 specimens of illustrated reading lessons, dealing with the commoner 
 tools, &c., very much on the lines of the illustrated " Headers" now 
 used in the lower standards of elementary schools. Allen replied 
 strongly approving, and saying that the lessons were like the Dutch 
 school-books, and were in "the manner in which Pestalozzi goes to 
 work." But they were never used, and one of the committee told 
 Place that "it had been decided privately that no lesson, unless it 
 was taken from the Scripture, could be laid before the committee." 
 27,808 (72). 
 
 G
 
 98 SCHOOLS FOR ALL 
 
 At the same time, Place and his friends were equally 
 keen in promoting a system of Lancastrian higher schools. 
 This was Place's own proposal. He had at this time nine 
 children alive, and it was a matter of serious difficulty for 
 him to secure for them such education as he desired, at an 
 expense no greater than he could afford. Writing, in 1833, 
 of this period, he says : " It was my intention to change, 
 and had I succeeded in establishing a superior school it 
 would, I am persuaded, have changed the whole system of 
 teaching. All the large towns throughout the country 
 would have set up similar schools, and have produced 
 incalculable advantages. Some years hence, when the 
 exertions which have been made, and are still being made, 
 to increase the desire of men in the middle ranks of life to 
 have their children properly educated, shall have suc- 
 ceeded, it will scarcely be believed how difficult, not to 
 say impossible, it was for any man who could not afford 
 to pay a very large sum of money to procure an adequate 
 education for his children. I do not mean a merely 
 classical education, i.e. the rudiments, or very little more 
 than the rudiments, of Greek and Latin, and some of the 
 elements of mathematics, which is all that nine in every 
 ten of those who are classically educated obtain; but I 
 mean besides these rudiments something more than the 
 mere elements of mathematics, modern languages, political 
 economy, politics, and morals, including the broad and 
 comprehensive doctrine of motives. 
 
 " I have never yet been able to find any school, either in 
 or out of the Metropolis, in which, at an expense within the 
 amount which an ordinary tradesman is able to pay, he 
 can have his sons taught as he wishes they should be 
 taught, or even as persons in inferior stations in Scotland 
 are taught, defective even as that education is. It was 
 this knowledge which first induced me to think of the 
 application of Joseph Lancaster's system to the purpose of
 
 SCHOOLS FOR ALL 99 
 
 educating the children of those who having comparatively 
 small means are yet desirous of giving a really useful edu- 
 cation to their children." 1 Wakerield took up the idea 
 eagerly : Mill, " from the first moment the plan was men- 
 tioned, heartily concurred in it." 2 He " goes into it most 
 heartily," says Place elsewhere, " and consents to assist in 
 procuring money, &c. ; " 3 and Wakerield adds that " Mill is 
 always at work, but never shows himself." 4 Bentham also 
 " came heartily into the project," . . . and offered his garden 
 a,t Queen's Square Place for the site of the school. 5 The 
 group of friends were immensely cheered by hearing that 
 the monitorial system had already been applied with success 
 to secondary education in Scotland. Place's second daughter 
 Annie had just gone to be governess in a family in Edin- 
 burgh. She mentioned her father's plan to Mr. Gray, one 
 of the masters of the Edinburgh High School, who there- 
 upon wrote to Wakefield to say that he had practised the 
 Lancastrian method in teaching Latin and Greek for the 
 last two years, and that it had met with " the most distin- 
 guished success. I ... had no conception of the advan- 
 tages to be derived from it till I fairly made the experi- 
 ment. I believe it to be equally applicable whether the 
 numbers be great or small, and in teaching every branch 
 of human knowledge. In my own case it has converted a 
 laborious and often an irksome profession into the most 
 easy and delightful employment possible. . . . Instead of 
 that inattention, drowsiness, and even insubordination that 
 too frequently prevail at the bottom of large classes in the 
 old way, all is activity, cheerfulness, and prompt obedience ; 
 
 1 27,823 (135). 2 27,823 
 
 3 Place to Wakefield, February 20, 1814. 
 
 4 Wakefield to Place, December /, 1813. In a letter to Colonel 
 Jones, written some years later, Place says, " Mr. James Mill . . . 
 wrote the memorable and admirable essay, 'Schools for All, not 
 Schools for Churchmen only."' See 27,824 (349). 
 
 5 27,823 (144).
 
 100 SCHOOLS FOR ALL 
 
 ... no boy becomes incorrigibly idle, because he is kept 
 in employment, conquers every difficulty, and soon begins 
 to love his labour." 1 Gray was at once urged to give fuller 
 details, and in reply wrote a long and enthusiastic descrip- 
 tion of his experiences, which was copied, circulated, and 
 finally published. Soon afterwards Place heard that 
 the plan had also been successfully tried in the academy 
 at Perth, and Fox received an enthusiastic letter from 
 Pillans, the Rector of the Edinburgh High School, de- 
 scribing its good effect in his own class. The monitorial 
 system is now amply discredited. . but one can imagine 
 that it was, at any rate, better than the dreadful old 
 method, whereby, for hours together, one boy at a time 
 translated, while two hundred played. It was, indeed, the 
 first serious attempt in England to think out any system 
 of class-teaching whatsoever. The master who in those 
 early years adopted the Lancastrian system, did really try 
 to provide, in Lancaster's words, "every boy with some- 
 thing to do, and a motive for doing it," and when Gray or 
 Pillans wrote about the 'delightfulness of the new system, 
 they were thinking, not only of the practice by which the 
 elder boys heard the repetition lessons of the younger, but 
 of the rapid fire of question and answer between the boys 
 and the master in the succeeding lesson, the use of the 
 blackboard in teaching geography, and that general in- 
 ventiveness in devising expedients and arousing interest, 
 which the new system seemed to encourage, and the old 
 had made impossible. 2 
 
 Place and Wakefield recognised the danger as well as 
 the expense of great boarding-schools, and advocated 
 higher day-schools, where boys should receive " the advan- 
 tages which are to be derived from the learning of a 
 master, and the emulation which results from the society 
 
 1 James Gray to Wakefield, December 17, 1813. 
 27,823 (67).
 
 SCHOOLS FOR ALL 101 
 
 of other boys, together with the affectionate vigilance ex- 
 perienced in the house of their parents." l In a letter to 
 William Allen, 2 Place suggests that these higher schools 
 should be used to give the young teachers from the Borough 
 Road some years of secondary education before they began 
 their professional life, and that evening-classes for adults and 
 apprentices should be held on the school premises. " I do 
 not believe," he says elsewhere, " there is at the present 
 time a single carpenter in this great metropolis who pos- 
 sesses any practical geometry." 3 The actual curriculum 
 proposed for the higher Lancastrian schools was largely 
 borrowed from the systematic treatise on Chrestomathia 
 (i.e. Useful Education), at which Bentham was then work- 
 ing; but Place's notes to Bentham's first draft, in June 
 1814, show that here too he was thinking for himself. 
 He proposes that mineralogy should be taught by dia- 
 grams and specimens, and hints that Bentham might 
 help William Smith, who is " unable to go to press unless 
 he can obtain assistance," in bringing out that geological 
 map which was afterwards to prove the real beginning 
 of systematic geology in England. He asks very per- 
 tinently whether more than two cases of English nouns, 
 except the personal pronouns, should be taught, and urges 
 the necessity of making boys constantly observe and even 
 handle geometrical forms in order to enable them to over- 
 come the difficulty in turning their thoughts from number 
 to dimension, to which he refers in his account of his own 
 youth. 4 Nor did he overlook the educational value of 
 games, though he did not realise that a game which is 
 partly a lesson is neither a good game nor a good lesson. 
 " It is as necessary," he wrote, " for boys to play together, 
 as it is that they should be taught together. It is 
 therefore intended if possible to provide a space large 
 
 1 27,823 (147, 148). 2 27,823 (149-154). 
 
 3 27,823 (168). * Cf. ante, p. 18.
 
 102 SCHOOLS FOR ALL 
 
 enough for this purpose, in which their games may 
 be made more attractive and more useful than they 
 have hitherto been ; where new ones may be introduced ; 
 and thus their very amusements out of school may be 
 made to conduce to their improvement, and their morals 
 made much more conducive to their happiness, by 
 teaching them, as it were, in a little world of their own, 
 patience, forbearance, and kindness to one another. I see 
 no reason why their games should not be made the means 
 of instruction, of calling to remembrance the instruction 
 they have received. Nothing can be more easy, nothing 
 more pleasant. The boy who plays at marbles may as well 
 draw a map as a ring, and by shooting at a marble placed 
 on Dublin, recollect that by striking it under a certain 
 angle he will place his ' taw ' in a situation to attack 
 another marble placed on Cork, or Limerick, or Belfast. 
 In playing at fives, what should prevent him driving his 
 ball against the belt of Orion, or the tail of the Bear ; and 
 why may not other games be invented equally entertaining 
 and instructing ? " l 
 
 Above all, he dwelt on the social value of a real educa- 
 tion. If the leisured classes could be taught to think, 
 Place was convinced that enough social feeling could be 
 created among them to result in effective action. " I appeal 
 to your own experience," he wrote in the letter to William 
 Allen already quoted. " How few are there on whom you 
 can rely for active co-operation in promoting the happiness 
 of the people ! Your connection is principally among those 
 whose rank is at the top of the middle class, who, enjoying 
 wealth and leisure, might be expected to possess the dis- 
 position to do the greatest service to humanity, with the 
 knowledge necessary to give full effect to their disposition. 
 But is this so ? Alas, it is not so, and it cannot be ex- 
 pected to exist in any great quantity as we descend ! Why 
 1 27,823(153).
 
 SCHOOLS FOR ALL 103 
 
 is this ? Plainly because of ignorance ; people do not see 
 how much is in their power ; they doubt their own ability 
 to effect any real and permanent good on a large scale, and 
 they therefore attribute the evils they have no hope of 
 removing to the very constitution of society. They would 
 remove the evils they are constantly obliged to witness, 
 but unable to contemplate the possibility of accomplishing 
 their wishes, they endeavour to get rid of uneasy sensations 
 by trying to forget them, and by continued efforts to free 
 themselves from them they stifle the best feelings of their 
 nature, become morose, and disqualify themselves from 
 the performance of any good whatever; or they relieve 
 themselves by the performance of what is vulgarly called 
 charity; they give money, victuals, clothes, &c., and thus 
 by encouraging idleness and extinguishing enterprise, in- 
 crease the evils they would remove." l 
 
 With regard to the monitorial system, Place was no 
 wiser than his generation. He conceived of it not as a 
 necessary makeshift in the absence of trained masters 
 and of money to pay them, but as the best method pos- 
 sible. He quotes with approval Gray's statement that 
 " boys are better qualified to teach boys than men." 2 In 
 the "proposals" 3 for a higher Lancastrian school which 
 
 1 27,823 (149, 150). 2 Cf. 27,823 (140, 141). 
 
 3 " Proposals for Establishing in the Metropolis a Day School in 
 which an example may be set of the application of the Methods of Dr. 
 Bell, Mr. Lancaster, and others, to the higher branches of Education'' 
 (London, 1815), 16 pp. Svo. Eepublished 1816 and 1817, with lists of 
 subscribers, &c., added. Copies of all three editions are preserved in 
 27,823 (21 1-235). Place has left the following account of the authorship 
 of these Proposals : " Mr. Mill returned to town with Mr. Bentliam 
 early in the month of February 1815, Mr. Bentham bringing with him 
 his ' Chrestomathia' ; and as Mr. Mill and I had reason to believe that 
 he would attempt to draw up proposals as a prospectus for the intended 
 school, we set about preparing such proposals as we thought would 
 sufficiently explain the purpose, and be likely to induce persons to join 
 us. We were quite certain from what we knew of Mr. Uentham's habit 
 of endeavouring to exhaust almost everything he took in hand, that the
 
 104 SCHOOLS FOR ALL 
 
 Place and James Mill drew up in 1815, it is distinctly 
 declared that " when the boys who are trained in the 
 school have made sufficient progress to perform the duties 
 of upper monitors in all the stages of instruction, no ushers, 
 it is presumed, will be required." l 
 
 In 1814 the idea that a school building should be specially 
 constructed for its purpose was valuable, and if not new, at 
 least newly discovered. But the design of the proposed 
 Chrestomathic school, 2 as drawn by an architect under 
 Place's supervision, is such that no good teaching could pos- 
 sibly have been given there. In February 1814 Place had 
 written to Wakefield, " Mr. Bentham has sent me his books 
 on the construction of Panopticons and the plates I shall 
 read them most carefully." 3 The " books on the construc- 
 tion of Panopticons " 4 were the mass of controversy that 
 resulted in the creation of Millbank Prison as the one 
 material memorial of Bentham's genius, and the ground 
 plan of the new school has a certain resemblance to that 
 dreary syllogism in brick. It was intended that the build- 
 ing should consist of a single huge polygonal room, with 
 
 drawing up of proposals if left to him would terminate in a goodly- 
 sized pamphlet, if not in a volume. I therefore made notes of what I 
 considered the principal points necessary to convey a knowledge of our 
 purpose, and the reasons for each note. From these Mr. Mill and I 
 composed a paper, which we caused to be printed as ' Proposals,' &c., 
 leaving a space in page 13 for the names of the managers when they 
 should be obtained. This paper was by Mr. Bentham considered as 
 adequate to the purpose intended, and these Proposals are the papers 
 commented on by Mr. Bentham in appendix to his ' Chrestomathia,' 
 printed anonymously in the summer of 1815. . . . 
 
 "In 1817 Mr. Bentham republished his 'Chrestomathia' with a new 
 title-page, on which his name appeared. It was now twice the size in 
 which it first appeared, having Part II. attached to it, containing what 
 Mr. Bentham called Appendix V." 27,823 (182, 183). 
 
 1 See the "Proposals" preserved in 27,823 (211-218). 
 
 2 See Bentham's papers on "Chrestomathia" (London, 1815, 1816, 
 1817, &c.). 
 
 3 Place to Wakefield, February 20, 1814. 
 
 4 See Bentham's " Panopticon, or the Inspection House " (London, 
 1791), 2 vols., and other papers.
 
 SCHOOLS FOR ALL 105 
 
 nine concentric rows of desks, divided into blocks by pas- 
 sages leading to the centre ; at the centre point the master 
 was to sit on a revolving chair, " so that he may turn him- 
 self round and see every part of the school without rising." 
 Place even contemplated complacently the fearful din 
 which would result from monitorial education carried on 
 under one vast sounding-board. " A boy," he wrote, " who 
 has been taught to think accurately on one subject only, 
 amidst discordant noises, without having his attention 
 drawn off from the subject, has acquired a power of no 
 ordinary kind." l 
 
 Even in 1816, when giving evidence before Brougham's 
 commission, Place seems to have had no more conception 
 than any one else that Lancaster's method may have helped 
 to produce that persuasion among parents which he there 
 laments, that their children in elementary schools "play, 
 and learn nothing." 2 
 
 But in 1814 a recognition of the limitations of the moni- 
 torial system would have been simply one more obstacle 
 to Place's harmonious working with the other members of 
 the British and Foreign School Society, and there were 
 obstacles enough as it was. Most of the rich Quakers 
 who provided the current funds, and to whom the Society 
 was heavily in debt, were earnest adherents of evangelical 
 orthodoxy. Place used to horrify them by using the word 
 " infidel" as the commonly accepted name for his own 
 opinions and those of his friends. The British and Foreign 
 Society had a rule that no reading lesson whatever should 
 be given except from the Bible. This, by the influence 
 of Place and Mill, was dropped from the declarations of 
 principles of the West London Lancastrian Association, 
 and a statement substituted that "of religious books, 
 
 1 27,823 (133). 
 
 2 See Place's evidence before the Select Committee of the House of 
 Commons on Education in the Metropolis, 1816 [June 13].
 
 106 SCHOOLS FOR ALL 
 
 the Bible alone, without gloss or comment, written or 
 spoken, will be read." l At the same time, the rule of the 
 parent society, that all children were to be taken to some 
 place of worship on Sundays, was also omitted. Joseph 
 Fox was the secretary of both societies. Place at first did 
 his best to keep on good terms with him ; but by January 
 1814 he had lost patience, and wrote to Wakefield about 
 Fox : " I would willingly he should take the credit of 
 everything I care not who has it ; but I do not like this 
 accommodation to the dispositions of other men; it is 
 damned hypocrisy. He shall keep all he has obtained of 
 me in this way, but I will practise on him no longer. I 
 have missed many points because I would not gain them 
 by these means, and I will never gain another by them." 2 
 
 In March Fox Avrote a long and querulous letter to 
 Place, urging that his drafts should be printed just as he 
 wrote them, and adding that " to write merely to have the 
 very pith and marrow of one's ideas picked out, is what 
 I cannot submit to. Confidence has been placed in Mr. 
 Allen and me in our other quarter, and we have acted as 
 the occasion demanded ; " 3 to which Place replied, declin- 
 ing to cease exercising his rights as a member of the 
 committee. 4 
 
 From that time forward Fox steadily ignored the re- 
 commendations of committees w r hen he did not agree with 
 them, and pledged the funds of the societies in the most 
 intolerably irresponsible fashion. Everything was justified 
 by a reference to that Inner Light which is the strength 
 and weakness of Quakerism. Place complained indig- 
 nantly. " The notions he himself formed he succeeded in 
 persuading himself were ordinances of God ; and as he 
 thus made his own personal purposes holy, every means 
 
 1 27,823 (97). 2 Place to Wakefield, January 2, 1814. 
 
 3 Fox to Place, March 26, 1814. 
 
 4 See Place to Fox, March 27, 1814.
 
 SCHOOLS FOR ALL 107 
 
 was fair for their accomplishment. . . . His sanctity did 
 not prevent him being liberal or mean or ostentatious, or 
 valiant or cowardly, or civil or insolent, for he was one 
 or the other as suited his purpose, or as he was impelled 
 by his feelings, or his fears or his hopes." 1 
 
 In March 1814 a small committee was appointed to 
 investigate an unsavoury scandal about Lancaster. The 
 evidence against him was conclusive, and he only avoided 
 certain dismissal by resigning his post of superintendent. 
 In his letter of resignation he deliberately, and with some 
 success, set himself to turn the religious members of the 
 society against Place, whom he calls "a professed adversary 
 of the sacred writings," " a firebrand of discord," and refers 
 to as among " those who profess infidel opinions, and boast 
 of having been leaders and founders of the London Corre- 
 sponding Society." 2 The intolerant section of the com- 
 mittee, led by Fox, saw an opportunity of attacking Place, 
 and a special meeting was called at Kensington Palace. 
 Place attended the meeting, and has left a description of 
 the concourse of Quakers and dissenting ministers who 
 always flocked to those meetings which were called at the 
 Palace, and of Hume, who, every time either of the dukes 
 spoke to hin], kept " bowing his unwieldy, because un- 
 manageable, body as awkwardly as an elephant might be 
 supposed to do." 3 The Duke of Kent opened the meeting, 
 and having referred to Lancaster's charges, paused, evi- 
 dently waiting for a reply. Place, however, being deter- 
 mined not to speak, an embarrassing silence followed. " I 
 had no desire," says Place, " to embarrass the Duke, who 
 always behaved in the kindest and best possible manner ; 
 but my course had been taken, and I was resolved not to 
 depart from it." After a delay, the Duke was about to 
 proceed further on the subject, when " Mr. Whitbread, in a 
 hurried manner, and in an undertone, interrupted him by 
 1 27,823 (45). 2 27,823 (29-31). 3 27,823 (36).
 
 108 SCHOOLS FOR ALL 
 
 saying, ' Let him alone ; let him alone.' " The Duke took 
 the cue, and said that, as Lancaster had behaved badly 
 and deserted the Institution, the best way was to dismiss 
 his letter entirely. " Mr. Whitbread said ' Certainly ; ' upon 
 which the Duke of Sussex, who was always good-humoured, 
 but seldom discreet, called out across the table to me, 
 ' Prosecute him, Place ! Prosecute him, Place ! ' I said 
 very calmly, ' I never prosecute anybody for what they 
 say respecting me. I have no personal enmity to Joseph 
 Lancaster, and he, like every one else, may say what he 
 pleases of me. What he has said which is true, he is quite 
 at liberty to say ; and for what he has said which is not 
 true, I care nothing.' Thus terminated this mighty affair." l 
 A more serious incident occurred a few months later, 
 when, as already described, Sir Francis Burdett denounced 
 Place as a Government spy, 2 and called for his dismissal from 
 the West London Lancastrian Association. Against the 
 advice of Mill and Wakefield, Place now resigned his position 
 in a society where he believed that he could no longer 
 be of any use. His formal resignation was conveyed in a 
 letter in July, but he did not at once cease his work on the 
 central British and Foreign Committee. Here he had 
 two main objects to introduce such a system of accounts 
 as should give the committee some real control over its 
 officers, and to put the school in the Borough Road 
 on a business-like and economical footing. It had now 
 become a resident training college for the Lancaster 
 schools throughout the country. But Lancaster's original 
 idea that it was to be a free school, where the poorest of 
 poor children should be taught reading and writing and 
 the printing trade, still affected the management. A ridicu- 
 lously expensive printing business was carried on in con- 
 nection with the school. No sufficient attempt was made 
 to select the children who were taken into the schools, and 
 1 27,823 (36-40). 2 Cf. p. 56.
 
 SCHOOLS FOR ALL 109 
 
 the monitors were boarded, lodged, and clothed, though 
 many of them were obviously unfit to become teachers. 
 Place forced Fox to confess that two boys who had just 
 been sent to Edinburgh had cost the institution upwards 
 of .500 each. He then proceeded to argue " that so far 
 from its being necessary for us to take ignorant, ill-bred 
 boys and girls to be trained at an enormous expense, there 
 were plenty of decent, respectable people who would be 
 glad to send their sons and daughters to have them taught 
 the system, on the chance of their being appointed to 
 schools, without any expense to us, and that the boys and 
 girls so sent would come better educated in other respects 
 than any one ever had been educated in the institution, 
 and would, as to manners, be greatly to be preferred." l He 
 was anxious as far as possible to avoid a quarrel. Furious 
 as he often was with Fox, yet he pitied his mental suffer- 
 ings, and had been in spite of the differences of their creeds 
 originally on terms of intimate friendship with him. For 
 William Allen, " good William Allen " as he called him, he 
 always retained a sincere and deep affection, and he ad- 
 mitted that the two men had saved the Lancastrian system. 
 " They had kept it from being extinguished ; they had 
 carried it on for six years, certainly expensively and ab- 
 surdly, yet to some extent with their own money." But the 
 hard fact remained that in the year ending November io r 
 1814, ^2950 contributed by outside subscribers had been 
 expended, " and yet all that the committee which expended 
 the money did, was furnishing not more than six teachers 
 to other schools (at a cost of ^1200) and maintaining two 
 free day-schools, which did not together contain more than 
 350 boys and girls." z 
 
 Place failed in this as he failed, for the time, in all his 
 educational schemes. From the beginning he had recog- 
 
 1 27,823 (44-45)- 
 27,823 (47, 48) ; cf. also Place to Wakefield, October 7, 1814.
 
 110 SCHOOLS FOR ALL 
 
 nised how rare was that social enthusiasm which formed 
 the guiding principle of his own life and those of his 
 friends, and how weak a force it constituted as compared 
 with religion or self-interest, or even vanity. In March 
 1814 he had written to Wakefield: "With what ease you 
 talk of 3000 shares at 10 each and of two large com- 
 mittees ! You will procure neither. There is no political 
 tclat, no crawling to the great, no ostentation with which 
 the great may please themselves, no fashion, no reversion 
 in heaven to be purchased, and wanting all these things, 
 there remains nothing but an enlarged view of things and 
 virtue enough to cause activity. Whether there be more 
 of these than just enough to allow us to crawl on, I very 
 much doubt. You know how few there are who pursue 
 the thing from right principles, and how inefficient all 
 others are." x Nevertheless to the end of the year he kept 
 steadily on with his scheme of reconstruction. Joseph 
 Hume was on his side ; and Mill writes hi October to say 
 that Brougham has told William Allen that he would 
 " blow up the whole Lancastrian concern if he should find 
 a tendency for converting it into an instrument of bigotry 
 and superstition." 2 But Hume despaired of success, and 
 Brougham never kept his promise of support. There were, 
 however, other parties on the committee, and Place, in 
 December 1814, describes in a letter to Mill how he had 
 walked home arm-in-arm between two dissenting ministers 
 who hated Fox, and " would be well pleased to get rid of 
 him in any way, and for what do you think ? why, to 
 make a missionary society of it, to send out preachers all 
 over the three kingdoms to preach for it. ... Precious 
 hypocrites these. Only think of those two lugging hold of 
 my arms and cramming their nonsense into me that I may 
 fight Fox for their purpose." 3 
 
 1 Place to Wakefield, March 25, 1814. 
 
 2 James Mill to Place, October 14, 1814. 
 
 3 Place to James Mill, December 10, 1814.
 
 SCHOOLS FOR ALL 111 
 
 In the end Place did succeed in converting a majority of 
 the committee to his plan, Avhen Allen and Fox announced 
 that they would resign if the vote of the committee was 
 acted upon. They could of course sell up the whole in- 
 stitution at any moment; Place, therefore, rather than 
 destroy what good was being done, ceased to attend 
 the meetings, and in the summer of 1815 his name was 
 removed by Fox from the committee. 
 
 Meanwhile the West London Lancastrian Association 
 was practically dead. The school which the Association 
 had hired from the parent society was given back, and 
 rules insisting on the Bible only being read and on com- 
 pulsory church-attendance were adopted. Fox, who had 
 killed the scheme, rejoiced over his own zeal in the cause 
 of religion, and called the Association an "abortion."' Place, 
 in a letter to Brougham, retorts that " any fool can do mis- 
 chief, because any fool can by sympathy excite the bad 
 passions in his fellow-fools, and thus Fox has been enabled 
 to triumph." l 
 
 The further history of the Chrestomathic Higher School 
 project is easily told. Money, in spite of Place's efforts, 
 came in very slowly. The estimated cost of the school 
 building was about .4000, and by 1817 only ^2500 had 
 been provided. But the estimate was calculated on the 
 assumption that Bentham would carry out his promise to 
 allow the school to be built in his garden, and already, in 
 October 1817, Mill wrote that although Bentham's "eager- 
 ness " to have the school in his garden " was originally 
 very great," and he was still " quite keen," yet it was be- 
 coming evident that he would not continue to like the 
 idea, and that " there are a multitude of disagreeables con- 
 nected with it of which he will not at present allow himself 
 to think, but which will swell into great objections here- 
 after." 2 This prophecy was exactly fulfilled. Bentham 
 1 Place to Brougham, November 23, 1814. 2 27,823 (181).
 
 112 SCHOOLS FOR ALL 
 
 imposed harder and harder conditions, and in 1820, after 
 an enormous correspondence, his ofter of a site was finally 
 declined, and the project was given up. 
 
 Three years later Place saw another chance of educa- 
 tional work in the proposal to found a London Mechanics' 
 Institute, made by his friend Hodgskin in 1823. He had 
 now handed over the shop at Charing Cross to his son 
 and was able for some weeks in the autumn of 1823 to 
 give " the whole of his time, from morning to night," to 
 the work of hunting up Trade Union secretaries and 
 " houses of call," drafting rules and circulars, or collecting 
 subscriptions from his political acquaintances. 1 By Feb- 
 ruary 1825 he had collected over 1500 out of the 2000 
 which had then been contributed. There were, of course, 
 the usual difficulties. The working-men suspected that 
 the Institute would be controlled by their employers for 
 their own purposes, and passed a resolution on one occasion 
 against any request being made for donations to the build- 
 ing fund. On the other hand, possible donors were often 
 equally suspicious. Place gives, for instance, an account of 
 an interview with Lord Grosvenor (afterwards Marquis of 
 Westminster). " He said he had a strong desire to assist 
 the institution, but he had also some apprehension that 
 the education the people were getting would make them 
 discontented with the Government. I said the whole mass 
 of the people were discontented with the Government, and 
 that although teaching them would not remove their dis- 
 content, it would make them less disposed to turbulence." 
 . . . He said, " True, but we must take care of ourselves." 2 
 In the result he gave nothing. The London Mechanics' Insti- 
 tute was, however, more successful than the Chrestomathic 
 school. At the first set of lectures, in March 1 824, Place 
 writes to Burdett, describing his joy at seeing " from 800 
 to 900 clean, respectable-looking mechanics paying most 
 1 27,823 (244, 245). * 27,823 (278).
 
 SCHOOLS FOR ALL 113 
 
 marked attention " to a lecture on chemistry. 1 As years 
 went on the Institute, under Dr. Birkbeck's superintend- 
 ence, steadily developed ; and at this moment, under the 
 name of the "Birkbeck," it is one of the most useful 
 educational agencies in London. 2 
 
 1 Place to Sir F. Burdett, May i, 1824. 27,823 (337). 
 
 2 Place states that his own name never appeared in print in connec- 
 tion with the Institute, but in the report of the first anniversary dinner 
 it is mentioned that his health was drunk as one of the founders of the 
 institution, the chairman describing him " as a most useful auxiliary 
 in the formation of the Society." See the Report preserved in 
 27,824 (55).
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 
 
 ON July 15, 1815, Napoleon surrendered at Rochefort, and 
 the long war which had covered the whole of Place's political 
 life was at an end. Peace, however, brought with it social 
 conditions even worse than those which had resulted from 
 war prices and war taxation. From the beginning of 1816 
 England w r as visited by an unexampled stagnation of trade. 
 " The poor," said Brand in the House of Commons on March 
 28, 1816, "in many cases have abandoned their own resi- 
 dences. Whole parishes have been deserted, and the crowd 
 of paupers increasing in numbers as they go from parish to 
 parish, spread wider and wider this awful desolation." l In 
 May came the agricultural hunger riots at Ely. In July 
 there were " distress meetings " attended by the royal dukes 
 and the magnates of the Church. The trade depression was 
 followed by one of the worst of recorded harvests. " The 
 state of the weather and crops," wrote Jarnes Mill to Place 
 on August 26, 1816, "alarms me. There will be no flour 
 in the ear, no work for the people, and scarcity will pro- 
 duce an amount of misery which the heart aches to think 
 of. How many a lovely child and meritorious man and 
 woman will perish in all the miseries of want ! A curse a 
 tenfold curse upon the villains by whom such scenes are 
 prepared." On October 2 Place wrote to Mill : " London is 
 in a sad state ; there are more people unemployed than was 
 ever known at the same time of the year, and many more 
 
 1 Hansard, vol. xxxiii. p. 671. 
 
 114
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 115 
 
 will soon be dismissed. The ensuing winter will be dread- 
 ful. Four-fifths of all the tailors are out of work, and the 
 remaining fifth, though they pay a shilling a day out of 
 their wages, cannot save the mass from starving. They are 
 actually starving, and many of them must perish from want 
 of food." 
 
 Next year, on June 4, 1817, Place wrote to Thomas 
 Hodgskin in Italy : " What you say of the miseries on the 
 north-eastern side of Italy may be nearly paralleled by 
 some places in England. Take, as an example, that Mr. 
 Wakefield travelling with another person from Worcester 
 towards Wales overtook many groups of distressed people ; 
 and upon inquiry where they were going, was told that 
 they had heard of workers being wanted in Wales, and 
 were going thither. They were composed of young and 
 middle-aged men, who were so worn with hunger that 
 many of them could hardly walk. He and his friend gave 
 a shilling to each group, which amounted to eighteen 
 shillings. Hundreds have died, thousands will die of 
 starvation. Comparing the quantity of business done 
 now with the quantity done four years ago, I do not believe 
 that more than one-third of the people can find constant 
 employment." 
 
 As long as the war lasted any resistance to the Govern- 
 ment had been of necessity local and spasmodic. A 
 Radical member might be elected for Westminster, or a 
 few country labourers might burn ricks or break machines, 
 but any attempt at a national agitation for a political 
 object could always be put down by the cry of treason. 
 With the peace, however, came the first signs of a general 
 democratic movement. In the winter of 1814-15, during 
 the few months between the first Peace of Paris and the 
 Hundred Days, old Major Cartwright formed an associa- 
 tion called the Hampden Club, and in April 1815 sent 
 printed petitions all over England for signature, asking
 
 116 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 
 
 for annual parliaments, equal electoral districts, and the 
 suffrage for all direct taxpayers. 1 
 
 In the following year the movement came into the much 
 more capable hands of William Cobbett. In November 
 1815 Cobbett lowered the price of his Political Register 
 from a shilling and a halfpenny to twopence. The " Two- 
 penny Trash," as it came to be called, at once acquired 
 an enormous influence, and through it Cobbett, with his 
 friend " Orator Hunt," began to crystallise the widespread 
 discontent into a definite demand for parliamentary 
 reform. 
 
 In the national agitation of 1816-17 Place took little 
 part. He was, till the summer of 1817, still engaged with 
 his business, and his leisure was largely given to that 
 enormous mass of reading which the note-books for those 
 years record. When in 1814 his associates in West- 
 minster countenanced the charge that he was a Govern- 
 ment spy, 2 he had determined to withdraw from open 
 political work, and to this determination he kept as long 
 as he could. Writing of December 1814 he says : "I was 
 now freed from all connection with public politics. In 
 this state I intended to remain, not inactive, not useless. 
 . . . With Mr. Brooks and his coadjutors all co-operation 
 was at an end. ... I visited nobody. I was, as I have 
 always been, desirous to promote and willing to assist in 
 measures likely to increase the knowledge of the com- 
 monalty, and ready therefore to co-operate with any man 
 or any body of men for this desirable and important 
 object. But I did not intend to mix again in politics 
 beyond writing occasionally in a newspaper, or consulting 
 and advising privately with particular persons." 3 His 
 whole temperament was opposed to the loose - tongued 
 vituperation, the reckless use of second-hand facts, the 
 
 1 27,809 (8) ; c/. also ante, p. 62. 2 See p. 56. 
 
 3 27,809 (5).
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 117 
 
 appeals to every form of unthinking prejudice, which 
 were the tools of Cobbett's trade. 1 Indeed, wherever Place 
 mentions Cobbett it is generally with some phrase like " im- 
 pudent mountebank " 2 or " unprincipled cowardly bully." 3 
 
 The agitation carried on by Cobbett and Hunt from 
 1816 to 1819 was addressed to the working-classes only, 
 and aimed at separating them entirely from the whole 
 body of well-to-do politicians. Place believed that such 
 a separation must of necessity lead to failure. Cobbett, 
 he says, was " too ignorant to see that the common people 
 must ever be imbecile . . . when not encouraged and 
 supported by others who have money and influence." 4 
 
 In the spring of 1 8 1 6 Place seems to have thought that 
 the " money and influence " of those Whig Radicals who 
 had drawn their political ideas to some extent from 
 Bentham might be used to help the Reformers in West- 
 minster. Of these, Henry Brougham was by far the 
 ablest, and Place hoped that Brougham might be induced 
 to separate himself from the regular Whig opposition. 5 
 
 1 Place first met Cobbett after the Westminster election of 1 807, and 
 the two remained pretty good friends for some years. In January 1810 
 Cobbett was prosecuted for an article in the Register against flogging in 
 the army, and Place helped with the preparation of his defence. He 
 describes how, when they met at the Crown Office to arrange for the 
 picking of the jury. Cobbett "sprung from his chair, threw his hands 
 above his head, and paced the room damning and blasting the Attorney- 
 General." At the trial ''lie made a long defence, a bad defence, and his 
 delivery of it and his demeanour were even worse than his matter. He 
 was not at all master of himself, and in some parts where he meant to 
 produce great effect he produced laughter. So ludicrous was he in one 
 part that the jury, the judge, and the audience all laughed at him. I was 
 thoroughly ashamed of him, and ashamed of myself for being seen with 
 him. ... I never saw Cobbett but once after his trial. He called on 
 me in a few days, but I was unable to congratulate him on any part of 
 his conduct. I never spoke to him afterwards." ("Autobiography.'") 
 
 2 Article in Artisan's Newspaper. 
 
 3 27,809 (17). 4 27,809 (17). 
 
 5 " I wished that Mr. Brougham might be detached from the faction 
 and make common cause with the Reformers," 27,809 (26).
 
 118 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 
 
 Cochrane's father, Lord Dundonald, was ill, and in the 
 event of his death Cochrane would vacate his seat by 
 becoming a Scotch Peer. No one had been suggested for 
 the seat except Major Cartwright, "who was utterly in- 
 competent, and for whom the electors would not vote." 1 
 On March 20, 1816, Brougham made a speech in the 
 House on the Salaries of the two Secretaries of the 
 Admiralty, which greatly offended Ministers and as greatly 
 pleased the Reformers. " I was pleased with it, 2 and on 
 the 23rd wrote a letter to him encouraging him to proceed 
 in the course he had at length taken. ... I was desirous 
 Brougham should if possible be kept up to the mark 
 with a view to his becoming member for Westminster." 3 
 " Some pains were taken to ascertain if he could be re- 
 lied upon to maintain the right of the people to annual 
 parliaments, and suffrage as extensive as direct taxation. 
 This having been ascertained, yet not in quite so openly 
 and satisfactory a manner as it was desirable, ... it be- 
 came necessary that he should be made known to the 
 electors." 4 
 
 But Brougham was by no means prepared to sacrifice 
 his political future for the sake of the democratic idea. 
 
 "Several good opportunities were offered him to mix 
 in a proper way with the electors. He availed himself of 
 none of them. . . . He, a lawyer, mistook the law, and 
 travelled out of his way to justify Ministers for having 
 illegally transported Bonaparte to St Helena. . . . He 
 said that no man dissented from the grant of 60,000 
 to the Princess Charlotte for an outfit, and 60,000 per 
 annum to her for marrying a German soldier to breed 
 
 1 27,809 (13). 
 
 2 Twelve years later Place wrote : " I have just now read the speech 
 (December 14, 1829). It does by no means appear to deserve the praise 
 I bestowed on it, nor scarcely any praise at all," 27,809 (14). 
 
 3 27,809 (13). 
 
 4 Place to Bennet, October 12, 1816. See 27,809 (29).
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 119 
 
 public beggars, while the truth really was, and is, that 
 scarcely a man who was likely to have voted for him 
 thought that a single shilling should either have been 
 given to her or added to her then immense income." l 
 
 By October 1816 Place had made up his mind. Early 
 in that month he was shown a letter from Brougham 
 asking " what chance there was of his being returned for 
 Westminster in the event of a dissolution." - He answered 
 by describing Brougham's omissions and commissions, and 
 declaring that " the electors . . . say if Brougham is look- 
 ing to the Court for preferment he has been consistent, 
 but then he ought not to expect to be taken up by the 
 people." 3 
 
 It was just at the time when he determined to abandon 
 the idea of Brougham's candidature that Place had what 
 seems to have been his first interview with Orator Hunt. 
 He wrote to James Mill on September 2, 1816: "Hunt 
 has been with me. He is a pretty sample of an ignorant, 
 turbulent, mischief-making fellow, a highly dangerous one 
 in turbulent times. It Avas not until he had been two 
 hours with me that I discovered the whole of his reasons 
 for calling upon me. I should not have known them at 
 all, had he not talked himself into full confidence, and 
 then supposed it was I who reposed it in him. . . . He 
 got warmed and ' as foolish as a waggon-horse,' and told 
 me all he knew in relation to me and Burdett ; said it 
 was Wardle who had persuaded Burdett while in the 
 Tower that I was a spy : that he was also persuaded by 
 Wardle ; that Burdett had made a mistake ; and if he had 
 called me a spy, I had called him a coward and a rascal, 
 and it was time this was put an end to ; ... that an 
 attempt had been made to put the Whigs upon West- 
 
 1 Place to Bennet, October 12, 1816. See 27,809 (29, 30). 
 
 2 Place to Hodgskin, May 30, 1817. 
 
 3 Place to Bennet, October 12, 1816. 27,809 (30).
 
 120 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 
 
 minster, and that Brougham had been brought to the 
 Crown and Anchor Tavern by one Mill, a Scotchman, 
 who afterwards turned Westminster up because Brougham 
 had been rejected. Place. ' What do you know of Mill ? ' 
 Hunt 'I never saw the man in my life, but I am told 
 he is one of the Edinburgh Reviewers.' Place. ' And what 
 of that?' Hunt. 'Why, it is a damned rascally review, 
 and has done a deal of mischief.' Place. 'And some 
 good, I hope.' Hunt. 'I never see it.' ... I told Hunt 
 it was miserable to see the avidity with which they (he 
 and his political friends) sought to cut each other's throats, 
 and that it would require nothing more in days of turbu- 
 lence, whenever they should arise, than for those who hate 
 the people to stimulate them to destroy one another, which 
 would be as easy as putting yeast to the dough to make 
 it rise. . . . Hunt says his mode of acting is to dash at 
 good points, and to care for no one ; that he will mix with 
 no committee, or any party ; he will act by himself ; that 
 he does not intend to affront any one, but cares not who is 
 offended." 
 
 On January 28, 1817, Parliament met. By this time 
 Hunt was the most conspicuous figure in the Reform 
 movement. He had presided over a great meeting in 
 the Spa Fields on November 15, 1816, which had been 
 adjourned to December 2, and the second meeting had 
 been followed by an absurd attack on the Tower, organised 
 by a few physical-force revolutionists under the direction 
 of a Government spy. In January 1817 Hunt and Major 
 Cartwright induced Burdett to lend his name to what 
 Place calls the silly plan of collecting some seventy 
 deputies from various towns in England to present peti- 
 tions on the first day of the Session. Burdett seems to 
 have become alarmed and drove straight to Parliament 
 without taking any notice of Hunt and the deputies. 1 
 i See 27,809 (37).
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 121 
 
 But enough occurred to give the Government an excuse 
 for repression, and in particular "as the Regent went to 
 open Parliament some groans and hisses were heard, and 
 on his return a pane of glass in the State coach was 
 broken." l 
 
 On February 3 a message from the Regent on the 
 disturbed state of the country was sent with a sealed 
 bag of papers to the two Houses. The Government and 
 their organs in the press at once set themselves deliber- 
 ately to excite public terror. 2 " The ministerial newspapers 
 were indefatigable in magnifying every movement into 
 treason and sedition. All the talent, all the acrimony, 
 all the malignity and falsehood which the most venal 
 and corrupt and base amongst the basest of mankind 
 as some of the fellows connected with the newspapers 
 are had their full swing against the reformers. Every 
 loyal slave, every one whose situation in corporations was 
 gainful, or who expected to gain, was active in his way." 3 
 
 "The Castlereagh administration ... in time of peace 
 adopted the means " which Pitt " had used in time of war. 
 They took advantage of the general distress and partial 
 discontent of the people, and employed spies to excite 
 tumults, to form plots, to foment sedition, and to produce 
 treason. . . . Every plot, real or imaginary, every movement 
 of the populace which could be instigated, every paltry 
 penny publication (some of which were their own) which 
 could be made to talk seditiously, as the nonsense they 
 contained was called, were magnified into serious, seditious, 
 outrageous tumults, horrid and widely extended treasons, 
 shaking the very foundations of the Government and 
 threatening its overthrow. And even the poor harmless 
 Spenceans, with their library consisting of an old Bible 
 
 1 27,809 (49). 
 
 2 See " Sir R. Peel from his Private Correspondence," by C. S. Parker 
 <London, 1891), 8vo, pp. 234-237. 3 27,809 (34).
 
 122 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 
 
 and three or four small publications, a high-priest under 
 the name of librarian, and some forty or fifty followers, 
 were held out as a bugbear to all men of landed property, 
 who were to succumb to these formidable and numerous 
 speculators, and (be) compelled to resign their lands to 
 the parishes for the use of the whole community." l 
 
 " Any administration which is base enough may in times 
 of severe distress have as many plots and conspiracies as 
 it pleases. There are always reckless, desperate men eager 
 to listen to tales from spies set on to impose upon them. 
 There are others again so ignorant, that they may be made 
 to believe almost anything which a cunning fellow may 
 project under the pretence of bettering their condition. 
 Such men may be led on imperceptibly to themselves to 
 lengths they never contemplated going, and to conse- 
 quences which they could hardly at any time appreciate." 2 
 
 The Whigs in Parliament were more concerned to 
 prove that they had no dealings with the Radicals than 
 to oppose coercion. Some of them voted for the suspen- 
 sion of Habeas Corpus, and for the " Gagging Act " which 
 followed, and all of them by their abuse of the Reform 
 leaders helped to encourage the Government. Place wrote 
 to his friend Hodgskin on May 30, 1817 : "At the opening 
 of the Session, as no doubt you know, the Regent was 
 hooted at and pelted, and his Ministers, taking advantage 
 of this, if they did not themselves cause it, proposed a 
 suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act." 
 
 " At the same moment petitions from all parts for reform 
 of Parliament were presented, and they ultimately amounted 
 to as many as would have filled a waggon, and were signed 
 by at least a million of men. . . . Brougham came to England 
 just before the Parliament met, and finding himself dis- 
 appointed for Westminster, knowing, too, that unless he 
 made a strong party among the Whigs he would not be in 
 
 2 27,809 (44-46), see pp. 61, 62. - 27,809 (70).
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 123 
 
 the next Parliament, he at once took a most decided part 
 against the petitioners for reform. Their petition was 
 for annual parliaments, and pretty generally for universal 
 suffrage. Brougham called them all manner of vile 
 names, and imputed to them all manner of vile motives 
 they were ignorant, deluded, vile, mischievous incen- 
 diaries, &c. &c. . . . 
 
 " The Ministers found by far the best support for the vile 
 measures they contemplated in the Whigs, who by their 
 abuse of the people gave encouragement to the Ministers 
 to go much further than they themselves contemplated. 
 And these dirty Whigs who had been vigour itself against 
 the claims of the people were perfectly imbecile against the 
 abominable measures of the Ministers, who have all the 
 power and all the law in their own hands to imprison 
 whom they please, for any time they please, at their own 
 will and pleasure, and without any accusation even." l 
 
 Of the coercive laws of 1817, Place was never able to 
 speak with patience. Ten years later he wrote : " Knowing 
 as I do how much it is in the power of Government to 
 promote the instruction and well-being of the common 
 people, how much the wealth and happiness of the whole 
 community might be increased by proper conduct on the 
 part of the Government, and seeing that instead of per- 
 forming these important duties it busies itself in matters 
 as mean as they are mischievous and as unjust as they 
 are cruel, I feel quite unable to satisfy myself, and I 
 despair of being able adequately (to express) correct ideas 
 of the singular baseness, the detestable infamy, of their 
 equally mean and murderous conduct."- And again, 
 ' They who passed the Gagging Acts in 1817 and the Six 
 Acts in 1819 were such miscreants, that could they have 
 acted thus in a well-ordered community they would all 
 have been hanged, and when I say this, I may add that it 
 1 Place to Hodgskin, May 30, 1817. - 27,809 (69).
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 
 
 would have been no more than they deserved. I do not 
 think that I say anything harshly." 1 
 
 His anger was the greater because he believed at that 
 time that the suffering of the people was solely due to the 
 misgovernment of the ruling classes. " By an unvaried 
 and unqualified support of all the violent measures of 
 Ministers, both at home and abroad, they have reduced 
 the mass of the nation to a state of poverty, of dependence, 
 of starvation ; until, alarmed for themselves, they have 
 established soup-kettles to dole out broth in scanty por- 
 tions to the industrious people who, but for their conduct, 
 would have been living as became men independent men 
 on their own earnings." 2 
 
 Place's share in the fight against the Gagging Act was 
 carried on by means of a little paper called Hone's Register. 
 In January 1817 Colbett's Register was selling 50,000 a 
 week of its twopenny edition, and Place offered to help 
 William Hone, a needy bookseller, who was afterwards to 
 become famous, 3 by writing weekly a similar paper for him. 
 The second number of the Register, published on February 
 8, 1817, contained Place's reply to Brougham, entitled 
 "Universal Suffrage and Annual Parliaments against Mr. 
 Brougham, and the Whigs." And in a special fourth 
 number, entitled the Register Extraordinary, on February 
 17, 1 8 1 7, he printed, from a copy corrected by Brougham 
 himself, a report of the speech delivered by Brougham at 
 
 1 Place to Colonel Jones, November 5, 1829. 
 
 2 27,809 (52). Twelve years later he made a note against this passage, 
 which shows the effect which his complete acceptance of the Malthusian 
 economics had then had upon his social views. " Many who are now as 
 well as myself convinced that the condition of the working people . . . 
 was almost wholly attributable to the too rapid increase of population, 
 concurred in the statement" (27,809, 51(6), dated Dec. 26, 1829). 
 
 3 When Hone was three times tried and acquitted for blasphemy in 
 December 1817 Place gave ^5 to a subscription raised on his behalf. 
 See The proceedings at the Public Meeting . . . for the purpose of enabling 
 Wm. Hone to surmount the difficulties in which lie has been placed, ii-c. 
 (London, 1818), 8vo. List of Subscribers, p. 21.
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 125 
 
 the City of London Tavern in June 1814, when he expected 
 to become the Reform candidate for Westminster. " Having 
 determined to print the Register Extraordinary," he wrote, 
 " I took care to let Mr. Brougham know not only of my 
 determination, but also the matter it would contain. This 
 perplexed him, so he sent for Mr. Mill and advised him to 
 come to me and if possible prevent the publication. Mr. 
 Mill came, and with his usual honesty told me what had 
 passed. I replied that if Mr. Brougham would assure me 
 that he would desist from attacking the Reformers, and say 
 as many words in the House as should plainly indicate his 
 hostility was at an end, the Register should not be printed. 
 I heard no more on the subject. On Monday the Register 
 was published, and several thousands were sold in the space 
 of a few hours." l 
 
 After the appearance of the Register, Brougham attacked 
 the Reformers more fiercely than before. Burdett " being 
 out of favour with the Reformers," because of his conduct 
 at the opening of Parliament, Cochrane stood alone in the 
 Commons, and " the speech-making, gabbling Whigs, with 
 Mr. Brougham for leader, anticipated no difficulty in putting 
 him down." 2 To Cochrane, therefore, Place handed a 
 letter, in which Brougham had avowed himself a supporter 
 of many of the doctrines which he was now denouncing, 
 and Cochrane read it in the House. 3 
 
 1 27,809(56). See Hone's Register, No. 2, ' Universal Suffrage and 
 Annual Parliaments against Mr. Brougham and the Whigs," and the 
 Register Extraordinary, No. 4. '-' 27,809 (50). 
 
 3 Hansard, vol. xxxv. p. 370, February 17, 1817. Place only wrote 
 five numbers of Hone's Register. "My other avocations would not 
 permit me to write Weekly Registers, and I was obliged to desist. I 
 was conducting a considerable business at the time, and had with diffi- 
 culty obtained as much leisure as enabled me to attend to passing events, 
 to listen to people who called on me, and superintend the printing of 
 the Register. The crisis was now past, the mischief to the people was 
 certain, the Whigs were scoffed at by Ministers and despised by the 
 people ; I had put Hone's Register fairly on its legs ; the profit was con- 
 siderable, and I was in hopes he would have been able to continue it,
 
 126 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 
 
 The harvest of 1817 was comparatively successful, and 
 for a few months the distress was relieved. Place consoled 
 himself with the reflection that the campaign against 
 political liberty had failed of its mam object. It had not, 
 as the Pitt and Grenville Acts of 1795 had done, crushed 
 out the will to resist. "The people had become too well 
 informed to be deceived." x 
 
 " Notwithstanding the impediments thrown in the way of 
 the people in their search for knowledge notwithstanding 
 the Acts passed for the very purpose of strengthening the 
 hands of Ministers notwithstanding the immense increase 
 of the standing army in time of peace notwithstanding 
 the excessive number of persons who are more or less 
 dependent on the Government notwithstanding the 
 monstrous amount of money of which it had the distribu- 
 tion notwithstanding the increased and increasing influ- 
 ence and patronage it possessed, its actual power was 
 much less than that which Mr. Pitt had. " 2 
 
 But the events of 1817 intensified the disgust with 
 which Place regarded the whole body of politicians in 
 Parliament. He wrote of this time: "Nothing but an 
 acquaintance with such men, nothing but hearing from 
 their own mouths the loose notions they entertain on 
 almost all subjects, could convince those who only hear 
 of them in connection with public matters how very little 
 they know, and how very little these idle persons can be 
 prevailed upon to take the trouble necessary to become 
 acquainted with any important matter of politics and 
 legislation. They are proud, conceited, and overbearing. 
 They represent their own money or their patrons. They 
 look towards the Government as the means of providing 
 for themselves or their relations. They are not account- 
 
 and by its means have found a maintenance for his family ; to this he 
 was unequal the sale soon declined. The work lingered on till October 
 25, and then expired." 27,809 (57). 
 
 i 27,809 (46). 2 27,809 (47, 48).
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 127 
 
 able to any but their patrons, and are as different from 
 what a set of men elected by the people, and accountable 
 to the people, would be as it is possible to conceive." l 
 
 At the same time he noticed that the excitement of the 
 time was leading men outside Parliament to do serious in- 
 tellectual work. In a letter written at the time he said : 
 <( The bad conduct of the Whigs produced one effect, it 
 called forth the talents of many men who at once showed 
 the law and customs of Parliament in former times, and 
 the reasonableness of the people's petitions, and, of course, 
 exposed the folly and ignorance of those who in the two 
 Houses had gone out of their way to abuse them. It is 
 surprising that not one man in either House knew enough 
 of the history of his country to do it justice, and thus all 
 the knowledge and all the learning has been exhibited 
 out of the Houses. Several very able treatises have been 
 published, and a great sensation has been produced by a 
 book in favour of universal suffrage and annual Parlia- 
 ments written by Mr. Bentham. 2 Men have appeared as 
 writers who were never before heard of, and have pro- 
 duced works full of good matter, good style, and good 
 thinking, exhibiting altogether a diffusion of knowledge 
 far surpassing any former period. On this rest our hopes, 
 on this rest the fears of the legitimates, who seem to 
 imagine that in proportion as the people grow wiser and 
 more capable of enjoying freedom they should be deprived 
 of it. I have no fears for the result ; the corruption will 
 destroy its own means of corrupting, and then we shall 
 start fair again, with full scope for our knowledge and 
 courage." 3 
 
 In the summer of 1817 Place determined to help in 
 this work of political education by gathering the materials 
 for a History of Parliament. " In consequence of the 
 
 1 27,809 (27). - See p. 84. 
 
 3 Place to Hodgskin, May 30, 1817.
 
 128 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 
 
 agitation of the question of Parliaments and the interest 
 a very large proportion of the people took in the dis- 
 cussion, I set to work to prove from authentic documents 
 the practice and the law of Parliament, and shall, I hope, 
 set the dispute at rest. It is a laborious job, but from 
 being a lazy fellow lying in bed till eight or nine o'clock 
 hi the morning, I have risen at six, and work as hard as 
 I can till breakfast-time and from tea-time in the after- 
 noon to ten or eleven at night. 
 
 "You will justly remark, what have the usages of 
 antiquity to do with the reasonableness of our present 
 claims ? why the customs of a rude age govern us now ? 
 What we ought to desire is that we should adopt such 
 an arrangement as may be in accordance with our im- 
 proved state of knowledge. And this would be conclusive 
 if numbers were not led more by authority than by reason. 
 When Lords Grey and Holland and others in high stations 
 assert roundly that the custom was so-and-so, and, mis- 
 applying the word Right, tell us that the people have no 
 rigid to certain things they claim to exercise, and no 
 right to certain laws, because they did not formerly 
 exist, ... it becomes necessary for some one to stop the 
 mouths of such preachers by showing them they are 
 teaching false doctrine." l 
 
 But the mass of materials which resulted from this 
 study 2 was never turned into a book, and Place was 
 forced to devote himself for the next two years to the 
 daily business of political organisation. 
 
 Between 1807 and 1818 there was no contested election 
 for Westminster. In the three years 1818-1820 there 
 was one every year. The first of these came at the 
 general election of 1818. Cochrane had accepted the 
 command of the Chilian fleet, and Burdett and the West- 
 
 1 Place to Hodgskin, May 30, 1817. 
 
 2 See them in 27,853-27,855.
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 129 
 
 minster Committee chose Douglas Kinnaird as the second 
 Reform candidate. Place helped in the preliminary discus- 
 sions, but refused to take any part in the actual business 
 of the election. "I went into it until a public meeting 
 was called at the Crown and Anchor, and then, as I had 
 told those who were acting, I withdrew from all public 
 interference." 1 He had not yet forgiven the committee 
 for the calumnies of 1814, and already felt the incon- 
 venience in politics of a reputation for industry. " I 
 objected," he wrote in 1816, "to become active among 
 men who invariably left me to do all the business, and 
 when I had done it found fault not with the business, but 
 with me, that when they could do without me I was a spy, 
 and when they could not do without me I was a fine 
 fellow." 2 
 
 While Place remained in his tent the committee got 
 into all sorts of difficulties. Cobbett had been carrying 
 on for the last six months a disreputable quarrel with 
 Burdett on money matters. Burdett was lazy and in- 
 different in the details of his parliamentary work, and 
 Cobbett and Hunt abused the Westminster Committee 
 as a Rump of Burdett's personal followers. 3 Douglas 
 Kinnaird was a young and unknown man. 
 
 Under these circumstances an official Whig candidate 
 
 1 Place to Enson (undated), 1819. 
 
 2 Place to Mill, September 2, 1816. 
 
 " I cannot consent that anything in which I engage on the part of 
 others should be neglected in any way, or rather that any possible 
 thing should be omitted which could in any way promote the object. 
 Some of my colleagues know this, and whenever, therefore, I am fairly 
 committed they slink away and leave the burden upon me." Place 
 to Hobhouse, October 29, 1819. 27,839 (188). 
 
 3 "Why were we obliged to fight up Burdett to the popularity he 
 had lost, when, even at the very time he was losing it, he desired to 
 have it increased 1 How did this happen 1 Simply by the incessant 
 din Cobbett rang in the ears of the people, and the assistance it received 
 from the old crazy Cartwright and others." Place to Hobhouse, July 
 II, 1819. See 27,837 (164). 
 
 I
 
 130 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 
 
 seemed to have a good chance, and Sir Samuel Romilly 
 was approached. On June 8 he accepted, and wrote in 
 his diary that he expected an easy victory over Douglas 
 Kinnaird, " with whose name, till the present moment, the 
 public was wholly unacquainted, and who is set up by a 
 little committee of tradesmen, who persuade themselves 
 that they are all-powerful in Westminster." 1 The Tories 
 ran Sir Murray Maxwell. 
 
 On June 9 Brooks, the chairman of the committee, 
 wrote to Place, " We are much in want of your assistance 
 ... to be put in the way to proceed;" 2 and Percy, the 
 paid secretary, also wrote, asking him to come down " and 
 set us a-going, whatever you may do afterwards." 3 On 
 June 12 Percy wrote again, "I attribute all to your 
 absence; one word or proposition from you to form the 
 arrangements would have done it." 4 
 
 On June 15 Place so far gave way as to attend a 
 meeting on arrangements held in his own house. 5 Mean- 
 while the poll had begun, and the result of the first few 
 days gave ground for fear that both the Reform candidates 
 would be beaten, and that the Whig and Tory would be 
 elected. The Reform Committee therefore hastily decided 
 to withdraw Kinnaird, and to concentrate all their resources 
 on securing Burdett's seat. 
 
 This decision was taken on June 1 7, and on the same 
 day came an urgent letter from the committee imploring 
 Place to pay " one more visit " to the committee room. 6 
 Place replied raging against the desertion of Kinnaird, and 
 against a suggested coalition with the Whigs, "which in 
 my eyes is as base as anything of the sort can possibly be." 
 
 Next day, however, he buckled on his armour. Writing 
 in 1819 he says, " I was obliged to go, so I went, and became 
 
 1 Sir S. Romilly's Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 360. See also ante, p. 77, note i. 
 
 2 27,841 (153)- 3 27,841 (154). 4 27,841 (178). 
 6 27,841 (212). 6 27,841 (253).
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 131 
 
 at once King, Lords and Commons, Judge. Jury, and Jack 
 Ketch. I found a number of people employed as clerks, a 
 room engaged for me. everything in the utmost confusion, 
 and no person there of any authority or consequence, and, 
 in fact, no one whom I could consult. So I went to work 
 with the tools I found, did just what I pleased, got the 
 matter into form in about three hours, issued books, sum- 
 moned everybody, set them to work, and in two days had 
 above 200 regular canvassers. I went every morning at 
 six o'clock, and never quitted the room until ten or eleven 
 at night, not even for meals. Generally I had only one 
 each day, and that on a piece of paper at my table. On 
 the last day of the election, at one o'clock, I despatched a 
 canvasser to bring up the last voter who had made a 
 promise, and then I went home ; but from the time I 
 went to the time I finally left, I never saw even a single 
 meeting of the committee. The dirty Whigs did all they 
 could to revive the abominable practices of former times, 
 to introduce the old debauchery, but they did not succeed. 
 They gave a public breakfast, set out with profusion; about 
 forty attended. We met this by bills and placards. 1 They 
 offered another at the Hummums ; we met this also ; and, 
 what must seem incredible, not a dozen people attended it, 
 and only one of these was an elector. This put an end to 
 treating." 2 
 
 Burdett's seat was saved, though he was only second to 
 
 1 " A public breakfast was announced at the Hummums, in Covent 
 Garden. Here all who chose to go might stuff themselves out with the 
 best and most expensive viands, and then like slaves be marched to the 
 poll. This was defeated so completely that no other attempt of the 
 kind has since been made. Men were placed at and near the tavern 
 door with placard poles, on both sides of which was a large posting 
 bill containing these words : ' Esau sold his birthright for a mess of 
 pottage. Electors, sell not yours for a paltry breakfast.'" (Place to 
 Unett and Parkes, January 8, 1828.) But see p. 42. The breakfast, 
 however, of 1819 was not technically "public." 
 
 2 Place to Ensor, 1819 (undated, but apparently written about 
 February 5, 1819).
 
 132 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 
 
 Romilly. In the country the Whigs gained thirty seats, 
 and increased their numbers from 1 50 to about 1 80. There- 
 upon Brougham wrote a florid article on The State of Parties 
 for the Edinburgh Revieiv, in which he declared that " even 
 the more respectable zealots of Reform have failed to 
 estrange them (the people) from their natural leaders. To 
 these leaders they have evinced their willingness to return." 1 
 
 Place set himself steadily to win back both seats for 
 the Reformers, and proposed an elaborate plan for a federal 
 organisation of the various parishes of Westminster on 
 the lines of the ward committees of a modern political 
 association. 2 The fight came sooner than he expected. 
 On November 2, 1818, occurred Romilly's lamentable 
 suicide. "As soon as I heard of Romilly's death and 
 that was within two hours from the time it happened I 
 wrote a bill calling upon the electors to support Kinnaird. 
 I printed the bill, and in the course of the next day 
 caused several thousands to be distributed in parcels to 
 the electors who had been the most active during the 
 last election, an alphabetical list having been previously 
 made under my direction as a part of the plan before 
 mentioned. 3 
 
 Kinnaird, however, refused to stand, and Place persuaded 
 the committee to support John Cam Hobhouse. The com- 
 mittee, in their fear of doing anything undemocratic, 
 decided to call a public meeting and to ask for nomina- 
 tions, it being arranged that Hobhouse's name should be 
 proposed. "This," said Place, "was in fact an advertise- 
 ment for a riot. It should have been to nominate some 
 
 1 Edinburgh Review, vol. xxx., June 1818, p. 204. For Brougham's 
 authorship of the article, see Hobhouse, "A Defence of the People 
 against Lord Erskine," p. 123. 
 
 8 The original MS. of the plan is preserved, 27,842 (12-21). See 
 the letter to Ensor, 1819, and the account of the working of the plan in 
 the "Authentic Narrative of the Westminster Election of 1819" (in 
 British Museum). 3 Place to Ensor, 1819.
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 133 
 
 one person, not to ask the question who ? " l He expressed 
 this view in a curt note to a leading member of the com- 
 mittee : " Miller, when a man has a set of words ringing in 
 his ears to which he has attached no specific idea, it is 
 almost impossible to make that man attend to reason. He 
 is not in a state to discriminate. . . . The words that are 
 doing the mischief are ' Public meeting.' " 2 
 
 The meeting was held on November 1 7, Place taking no 
 part in it. 3 It went off peacefully and successfully. A 
 Whig nominated Lord John Russell, and Hunt nominated 
 Cobbett, who had fled to the United States. Both were, 
 however, beaten, and Hobhouse's name carried by an over- 
 whelming majority. 
 
 The election would not come on till the meeting of 
 Parliament in the spring, and there was plenty of time for 
 careful preparation. A managing committee met daily, 
 with Place in the chair. Hobhouse worked hard at address- 
 ing parish meetings, and the organisation grew rapidly. In 
 February 1819 Place wrote: "The results are, a large com- 
 mittee in each of the parishes, a general public meeting in 
 each of the parishes, a complete canvass of the whole city 
 and liberty by the parish committee, and books in as fine 
 a state as perhaps it is possible to make them ; a public 
 dinner also in each of the parishes : and on Monday week 
 next another public general meeting of the whole body of 
 the electors, to whom a Report will be made, it then to be 
 printed and extensively circulated. You must know that 
 we never before dared to call a public meeting in the 
 parishes, never had a proper parish committee, and no 
 
 1 Place to Ensor, 1819. 
 
 2 Place to Miller, November 7, 1818. 27,842 (57). 
 
 3 Place wrote at the time : " I shall have no more to do with the 
 business except at home, and as little as possible there, for I am not dis- 
 posed when the business has been once made plain and easy to have it 
 made difficult by others, and then to go to fight through those difficulties." 
 Place to Mill, November 5, 1818. 27,842 (51).
 
 134 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 
 
 system of regular canvassing. The general committee now 
 consists of upward of 330 persons, and the subscriptions 
 amount to 1800. This is a New View of Society. All 
 this has been done very quietly, and at a comparatively 
 very small expense, and the long period from November 3 
 to the present moment has been so well occupied that the 
 enthusiasm of the people, which was roused at the begin- 
 ning, has never subsided. The Minister has been fairly 
 driven off the ground, and all the contrivances of the dirty, 
 sneaking Whigs have ended in nothing. They have done 
 all they could, but to both the factions the matter has 
 appeared wholly hopeless. Attempts are now being made 
 by the high-flying aristocrats to catch a fool who will meet 
 us at his own expense, but I do not believe they will find 
 one." 1 
 
 Place's Keport to the Westminster electors was presented 
 to a public meeting on February 9, 1819. It contained a 
 history of the Westminster Reform movement since the 
 election of 1 809, at which " the electors of Westminster 
 emancipated themselves from the control of both the 
 aristocratical factions." It plainly referred to the Whigs 
 as a "corrupt and profligate faction," and to Lord Grey 
 as one of those who had been " solemnly pledged " to 
 the cause of Reform. 2 It added that Westminster 
 had "become a school of political morality, instead of 
 
 1 Place to Ensor, 1819. 
 
 2 Lord Grey and his son-in-law Lambton (afterwards Lord Durham) 
 had just before the election denounced the Reformers at a meeting of 
 the Newcastle Fox Club. Lambton called the " Radical Reformers " 
 " brawling, ignorant, but mischievous quacks," with whom " the true 
 people of England hold no communication." Lord Grey, with an obvious 
 reference to the Westminster Committee, reprobated the introduction of 
 the American " caucus" into English politics. (See unpublished MS. of 
 the Second Reply to Lord Erskine, and "Narrative," p. 34 ; also Morning 
 Chronicle, January 6 and 8, 1819.) 
 
 This early reference to the Caucus may have been derived from an 
 article in the Edinburgh Review for December 1818 (p. 201).
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 135 
 
 being, as it formerly was, one common scene of 
 depravity ! " l 
 
 The Report, like most of Place's literary work, was much 
 too long. It would have taken some fifty minutes to read, 
 and the crowded meeting endured about a quarter of an 
 hour of it, but after that cries of " Print it " were heard, and 
 the remainder was taken as read. The Report had not 
 been shown to Hobhouse or Burdett, who perhaps were 
 annoyed at its tone. 2 But Hobhouse in his speech took 
 the same line as the Report. He said that " the country 
 is sick of party," 3 and that if he were sent to Parliament it 
 would be " as one of those extravagant Reformers " 4 whom 
 the Edinburgh Review had been abusing. Finally, he 
 pledged himself to vote for "Parliaments of short dura- 
 tion " and a " full, free, and equal share " for all in the 
 choice of their representatives. 5 
 
 Hitherto the Whigs had sulkily acquiesced in Hob- 
 house's candidature, but Place's Report and Hobhouse's 
 speech compelled them either to fight or to accept a con- 
 spicuous defeat. They first tried to induce Hobhouse to 
 disavow the Report. 6 On his refusal they determined to 
 fight, and at the last moment nominated Lord Melbourne's 
 
 1 " Authentic Xarrative," p. 49. The whole Report is there printed, 
 pp. 44-70- 
 
 2 A writer in the Edinburgh Review (vol. cxxxiii.), April, p. 300, who 
 had access to the privately printed memoirs of Hobhouse, says : 
 " Citizen Place, who was proud of his pen, wrote a bitter appeal 
 which irritated and divided the party." 
 
 3 " Authentic Xarrative," p. 60. 4 Ibid. p. 63. 5 Ibid. p. 63. 
 
 6 See Greville, " Memoirs of the Reign of George IV. and William 
 IV.," vol. i. p. 17, February 14, 1819. "George Lamb has been pro- 
 posed in opposition to Hobhoiise. The latter drew this opposition 
 upon himself by his speech, and still more by the reports of his 
 committee, in which they abused the Whigs in unmeasured terms. 
 Lambton went to Hobhouse and asked him if he would disavow the 
 abuse of Lord Grey, which his committee had inserted in the document 
 they printed ; he refused, on which the opposition was determined 
 upon and began. ... It is generally supposed that Lamb will win."
 
 136 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 
 
 brother, George Lamb. The Morning Chronicle afterwards 
 (February 22, 1819) said: "It was not till the evening of 
 Friday the I2th instant that it was decided on proposing a 
 Whig candidate the following day, at the nomination of 
 candidates for Westminster, in opposition to Mr. Hobhouse, 
 in consequence of his speech on the Tuesday proceeding 
 out of Mr. Place's report, and it was actually past twelve 
 on the same night before Mr. Lamb finally decided to 
 stand." 
 
 The election which followed lasted from February 1 3 to 
 March 3, 1819, and was fought hard up to the last moment. 
 The electoral arrangements of those days are open to many 
 serious objections, but taken in a sporting spirit, they must 
 have provided glorious fun ; and in that spirit high society 
 in West London went into the battle. Mr. Lamb's can- 
 vassers were " composed of the great body of the aristo- 
 cracy, with the young gentlemen of almost all the Club 
 Houses;" 2 and Hobhouse described how one of Lamb's 
 committee was heard to tell his candidate as the best 
 possible joke, "I have just been shaking hands with these 
 blackguards for you." 3 Lamb's sister-in-law, Lady Caroline 
 Lamb (Byron's Lady Caroline Lamb), rushed with her 
 usual energy into a new form of excitement. She and " a 
 number of ladies of rank " went round canvassing in the 
 rain and snow of February 1819. " She was seen galloping 
 over all parts of Westminster, and where her horse could 
 not go she walked, leaving few lanes and alleys un- 
 explored." 4 
 
 Meanwhile all the wit of the West End was directed to 
 
 1 "Authentic Narrative," February 22, 1819, p. 168, quoted from 
 Morning Chronicle of that day. It was reported that the Whigs had 
 said amongst them, "If we carry the election, we shall be Ministers 
 in a fortnight afterwards." ("Narrative," p. 384. See also the un- 
 published MS. of Place's Second Reply to Lord Erskine.) 
 
 2 "Authentic Narrative," p. 116. 
 
 3 Ibid. p. 159. * Ibid. p. 131.
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 137 
 
 the task of ridiculing Place. The Morning Chronicle 
 published an epigram 
 
 " ' England/ quoth tailor Place, ' shall quickly see, 
 That I have power to make young Hob. M.P. ; 
 'Tis strange indeed if I, so devilish clever, 
 Can't make the mob roar out, " Hobhouse for ever ! " ' 
 'Tis stranger still that Snip should not reflect 
 The mob may bawl, but others may elect. 
 Yet let not Hobhouse feel too much displeasure, 
 Poor Snip has only taken a wrong measure." l 
 
 A pun on Place's name and the " place " which Hob- 
 house's father, Sir Benjamin Hobhouse, received on the 
 occasion of his change of political opinions, appears in 
 several forms, of which perhaps the best is 
 
 " Old Hobhouse once had got a name, 
 But lost for Place his better fame, 
 So now his son, a louder railer, 
 Loses his seat by Place the Tailor. 
 How fatal to the Hobhouse race 
 Is an excessive love of Place ! " : 
 
 The main object of the Whig tactics was to represent 
 the " Rump " as a little knot of " slanderers and levellers," 3 
 discarded both by gentlemanly politicians and by real 
 Radicals. Orator Hunt was therefore encouraged to come 
 down daily to the hustings in Covent Garden and abuse 
 Hobhouse in support of the bogus candidature of old 
 Major Cartwright. Unfortunately Hunt's work was made 
 extremely easy. Hobhouse after his Radical speech of 
 February 9 had a severe and untimely attack of con- 
 scientiousness, as a result of which he read on the 
 nomination day a laboured and ambiguous statement of 
 his opinions on the franchise question. The statement 
 showed that what he really wanted was not universal 
 suffrage, but the substitution of a uniform and perhaps 
 
 1 "Authentic Narrative," p. 300. - 27,842 (523). 
 
 3 Morning Chronicle, February 20, 1819.
 
 138 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 
 
 considerable qualification for the existing anomalies of 
 borough representation; that is to say, the Reform Bill 
 of 1832. Lamb's party offered a thousand pounds for an 
 explanation of the statement, and proved that if it meant 
 anything it implied the disfranchisement of a large section 
 of the Westminster voters. Lamb himself seems to have 
 held just the same views on the franchise as Hobhouse, 
 and represented that he was prepared to go further. 
 Hobhouse having recovered from his conscientiousness 
 outbid Lamb, but the mischief was already done. Lady 
 Caroline persuaded forty incautious voters, living in or 
 near the courts and alleys of Shepherd's Market, May Fair, 
 that "Mr. Hobhouse had abandoned his principles, and 
 that Mr. Lamb was the Liberty candidate" 1 Sir Charles 
 Wolseley, Thelwall, Wooler, and other honest Radicals, 
 who were more concerned with principles than organisa- 
 tions, appeared on the hustings, repudiated Hobhouse as 
 a "political humbug," and accused Burdett of trying to 
 make Westminster a rotten borough. - 
 
 It was hardly to be expected that the Whigs would be 
 very scrupulous as to electioneering methods in a contest 
 of this kind. Breakfasts, for instance, were given to 
 ",Mr. Lamb's committee," at one of which twenty-six 
 dozen of wine were drunk. What was more important 
 was that the Whigs hired all the rate collectors of the 
 Westminster parishes as inspectors. The High Bailiff 
 decided that no ratepayer was qualified to vote unless he 
 had actually paid his rates, and left it to the rate-collectors 
 to settle the point in each case. Accordingly if such a 
 voter came up for Lamb no notice was taken; if for 
 Hobhouse, his vote was refused. 
 
 1 "Authentic Narrative," p. 131. 
 
 2 " Well indeed might Mr. Oldfield say in his next edition of his 
 'History of Boroughs' : 'The Borough of Westminster, 14,000 voters ; 
 Sir F. Burdett, Patron.'" (Speech by Northmore, in "Authentic 
 Narrative," p. 126.)
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 139 
 
 Under these conditions it is surprising that the West- 
 minster organisation held together as well as it did. 
 Lamb was elected with 4465 votes, including those of the 
 Tories and of the faggot voters attached to the Govern- 
 ment Offices. Hobhouse received 3861 votes. He re- 
 tained throughout the favour of that section of the 
 population which goes to meetings. Hunt spoke every 
 day in actual peril of his life. Not a word of Lamb's 
 speeches reached any one but the reporters. On the last 
 day a squadron of mounted Whig gentlemen were pelted 
 out of Covent Garden. 
 
 As soon as the election was over, Lord Erskine issued 
 a pamphlet entitled a " Short Defence of the Whigs against 
 the Imputations attempted to be cast upon them during 
 the late Election for Westminster." 1 To this both Place 
 and Hobhouse replied. Place's " Reply to Lord Erskine " 
 was finished first, and Hobhouse wrote of it, " The reply is 
 decisive, a home-thrust." 2 In it Place, with the help of 
 his new historical reading, drew up a most damaging 
 account of the Government of England by the Whigs 
 during the eighteenth century. He defended the Report, 
 and declared that the contest which was forced upon the 
 Whigs by its publication has convinced " a large portion 
 of " the people " that there is no real difference between 
 the Whig and Tory factions, except the difference which 
 always existed ; namely, that the Tories would exalt the 
 kingly power that it might trample upon the aristocracy 
 and the people, while the Whigs would establish an 
 aristocratical oligarchy to trample on the King and the 
 people." 3 
 
 In Parliament the Whigs were stronger during the 
 summer of 1819 than they had been since they left office 
 
 1 See it in the British Museum. 
 
 2 Hobhouse to Place, March 29, 1819. 27,837 (140). 
 
 3 " A Reply to Lord Erskine by an Elector of Westminster," p. 4.
 
 140 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 
 
 in 1 807. The currency question was one of great difficulty, 
 and the ministry suffered from " a want of concert and co- 
 operation. 1 " On May 1 8, Tierney, as leader of the Opposi- 
 tion, moved for an inquiry into the state of the nation, and 
 received 178 votes to the 357 of the Tories. 2 But when 
 on July i Burdett brought forward a studiously moderate 
 resolution in favour of parliamentary reform he found 
 only fifty-eight supporters. The nearer the Whigs thought 
 themselves to office, the more anxious were they to remain 
 unpledged on that point. 
 
 Meanwhile, in the manufacturing districts the three 
 years' agitation for radical reform was resulting in a 
 really formidable popular movement, and in Lancashire 
 the long summer evenings were being used for open-air 
 meetings and secret drilling. On July 7, 1819, Lord 
 Sidmouth sent out a circular to the Lord-Lieutenants. 
 On July 30 the Regent issued a proclamation against 
 seditious meetings. On August 16 a huge Reform meet- 
 ing, with Hunt as chief speaker, took place in St. Peter's 
 Fields, at Manchester. The magistrates determined to 
 arrest Hunt, and with that object instructed a body of 
 yeomanry to force their way through the crowd. The 
 
 1 Wilbraham, Feb. 24, 1 8 1 9 (in Diary of Lord Colchester, vol. iii. p. 7 1 ). 
 
 2 In this debate, Canning, to Place's delight, used the incidents of 
 the Westminster election as a disproof of the claim of the Whigs to be 
 the popular party. " He should have thought they would not so soon 
 have forgot the Westminster election. He had in his time faced 
 popular election, and it was not impossible he might do so again. But 
 he had never been obliged to go home accompanied by a file of 
 grenadiers. His retreat had been effected with somewhat more safety 
 than this essence of popularity ; this routed cavalcade, this assemblage 
 of ribbons and rubbish, with laurel at their heads and brickbats at 
 their tails, who were rescued from their overpowering popularity by his 
 Majesty's Horse-guards." (" Narrative," p. 385. See also Hansard, vol. 
 xl. p. 545, May 18, 1819.) "Party names now go for little. We, at 
 Westminster, killed the Whigs as a party as Whigs and Canning 
 shouted their requiem ; ' Ribbons and rubbish. Favours at their heads, 
 and brickbats at their tails.' There ended all respect for that party 
 name." (Place to Burdett, January 7, 1829.)
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 141 
 
 yeomen were surrounded and used their swords, where- 
 upon the whole meeting was dispersed by a charge of 
 Hussars. Eleven of the spectators were killed, and be- 
 tween four and five hundred wounded. 1 
 
 Place when he heard the news of " Peterloo " wrote to 
 Hobhouse : " These Manchester yeomen and magistrates 
 are a greater set of brutes than you form a conception of. 
 They have always treated the working people in a most 
 abominable manner. I know one of these fellows who 
 swears 'Damn his eyes, seven shillings a week is plenty 
 for them ' ; that when he goes round to see how much 
 work his weavers have in their looms, he takes a well-fed 
 dog with him, almost, if not entirely for the purpose of, 
 insulting them by the contrast. He said some time ago 
 that 'The sons of bitches had eaten up all the stinging 
 nettles for ten miles round Manchester, and now they had 
 no greens to their broth.' Upon my expressing indigna- 
 tion, he said, ' Damn their eyes, what need you care about 
 them ? How could I sell you goods so cheap if I cared 
 anything about them.' I showed him the door, and never 
 purchased any of his goods afterwards. Another of these 
 fellows, a manufacturer and yeoman, said yesterday, we in 
 London did not know what a set of damned villains the 
 fellows at Manchester were. They must be kept quiet 
 by the sword. He was told to take care of himself; he 
 laughed and said, ' Ah, you know nothing of the weight 
 of a sabre ; that's the argument ! ' What but what has 
 happened could be expected from these fellows when let 
 loose. They never for a moment thought of consequences. 
 They cut down and trampled down the people ; and then 
 it was to end just as cutting and trampling the furze 
 bushes on a common would end. You may see what was 
 thought of the transaction by the conduct of the fellow 
 
 1 See A. Prentice, "Historical Sketches of Manchester" (1851), 
 p. 167.
 
 142 WESMTINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 
 
 who hung the flag he had seized out of his window. The 
 law will, from the want of proper interference, afford no 
 redress. Should the people seek it by shooting their 
 enemies one by one and burning their factories, I should 
 not be at all surprised, nor much outraged." l 
 
 Far more menacing even than the Manchester massacre 
 itself were the signs which showed that the Government 
 intended henceforth to put down popular agitation by 
 military force. On August 21 the Regent sent a letter 
 to the Lord-Lieutenants of Lancashire and Cheshire, re- 
 questing them to convey to the magistrates and yeomanry 
 of those counties " the great satisfaction derived by his 
 Royal Highness the Prince Regent from their prompt, 
 decisive, and efficient measures for the preservation of the 
 public tranquillity." 2 
 
 The Westminster Reformers felt that if the right of 
 public meeting in England was not to be lost for ever, 
 it was necessary to assert it now. On August 25, at 
 9 p.m., Place wrote to Hobhouse: "I have not had a 
 moment to myself. The people are all in motion, and 
 I am obliged to put up with being consulted by those 
 who have brains, and pestered by those who have 
 none." 3 
 
 As usual his plans Avere interfered with by the irre- 
 concilables. " The first movement in London consequent 
 on the news of the massacre at Manchester was a meeting 
 precipitately called by Major Cartwright and Wooler. It 
 was attended in the course of three hours by at least 3000 
 generally well-dressed persons, but they were disgusted and 
 driven away by Dr. Watson, Jones, Preston, Thistlewood, 
 and the meeting came to nothing." 4 After this failure it 
 was all the more important to secure a really impressive 
 
 1 Place to Hobhouse, August 20, 1819. 27,837 (179). 
 
 2 Annual Register, vol. Ix. 1819, App. p. 125. 
 
 3 27,837(181). 
 
 * Place to Hodgskin, September 8-12, 1819.
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 143 
 
 Westminster meeting. In such a meeting Place honestly 
 attempted to induce the Whig leaders to take part. 1 
 
 " As soon as it was known that a Westminster meeting 
 would be certainly held, I had several persons with me who 
 are connected with the Whigs to inquire what was intended 
 to be proposed. The reply was, ' If the Whigs will call the 
 meeting we will join them, if they will not call the meeting 
 we will, and if any of the leading men among them will call 
 upon me I will show them the matters intended to be 
 brought forward ; or, if any of them will even request to 
 see them, they shall be called upon.' This was several 
 times repeated, as well to those who called upon me as to 
 some of the people of the Morning Chronicle, who were, it 
 was understood, in communication with Mr. Brand, Lord 
 John Russell, and Mr. William Smith, all of whom were in 
 
 London. But no desire for co-operation was shown 
 
 Not one of them attended the meeting, and the lying 
 Chronicle states on the Saturday, only two days after the 
 meeting, that the reason none of the Whigs attended was 
 that the proceedings included propositions for a reform 
 of Parliament. A more deliberate lie was never before 
 told, even by the pre-eminent liar, Perry. But were it 
 true even, what an excuse ! The Whigs would not come 
 because parliamentary reform was to be mentioned. Be 
 it so, but then it ought to be clearly understood that the 
 Whigs make no part of the people. Up to this time, 
 Sunday, September 12, there has been no meeting but 
 of Reformers; not a finger has been stirred but by the 
 Reformers ; not a shilling has been subscribed but by the 
 Reformers ; even the necessary legal assistance would have 
 
 1 Place even decided to suppress a Second Reply to Lord Erskine, 
 which was nearly ready for the press. In a preface to the MS. he says, 
 " The Manchester massacres induced the author to lay it aside. He 
 was resolved that if the Whigs did not do their duty to their country 
 in so trying an occasion, they should have no excuse for not doing it, so 
 far at least as he was concerned."
 
 144 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 
 
 been wanting but for the aid given by the Reformers ; and 
 the open violators of the laws, the murderers of the people, 
 would have had their triumph complete. Add to this that 
 the famous Whig Lord Derby and his son, Lord Stanley, 
 and the other Whig Lord Belgrave, have all applauded the 
 murderers." l 
 
 The great meeting was held on September 2, and was 
 attended by 100,000 persons, " at the risk of military execu- 
 tion, and under the musquetry and sabres of the household 
 army." 2 
 
 Between September 8 and September 12 Place wrote a 
 long letter to Thomas Hodgskin in Edinburgh, which was 
 to be shown to M'Culloch, the economist and editor of the 
 Scotsman. M'Culloch had written a manifesto on Peterloo, 
 in which he lamented the division of classes, vaguely advo- 
 cated parliamentary reform, and prophesied that " we shall 
 soon see public men and the public, the Whigs and the 
 people, united." 
 
 This letter contains, perhaps, the best statement of that 
 strong though moderated optimism with which Place at 
 this period of his career regarded the political outlook. 
 " You say," he wrote, " ' the men in ragged coats have 
 proved by their conduct and their resolutions that they 
 understand the business they are about.' This is very 
 true. I know of no paper deserving unqualified praise 
 more than the Smithfield declaration, of which I send 
 you a copy. Mr. M'Culloch says: 'The people possess 
 more singleness of purpose, more honesty, more kind- 
 heartedness and generosity, more principle, moral and 
 religious, than their superiors.' Nothing could be more 
 true or better expressed; and did Mr. M'Culloch mix 
 with the working people as I have done, and obtain their 
 confidence as I have done, even he would be astonished 
 
 1 Place to Hodgskin, September 8-12, 1819. 
 8 See Hobhouse, " A Trifling Mistake," p. 43.
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 
 
 at finding the qualities he praises existing in an excess, 
 of which by theory he can form but a faint notion. He 
 may well say ' public men have no solid right to those 
 airs of superiority which are commonly expressed by 
 them.' Well may he add that ' it is a mockery to call 
 that law which does not protect the poor as well as uphold 
 the rich.' Mr. M'Culloch says, ' It is quite a mistake to 
 impute the existing discontents to the existing distress ; 
 they originate in other causes,' and that 'wise measures 
 will never be adopted without a reform in Parliament.' 
 This is a plain statement of two very important truths, 
 and the conviction of their truth has been steadily and 
 regularly inarching and spreading over the face of the 
 country ever since the Constitutional and Corresponding 
 Societies became active in 1792. The effects of this inarch 
 are no less singular than wonderful. I have watched its 
 progress with some attention, being fully persuaded that it 
 was and is of momentous importance. One of its effects 
 has been almost, if not entirely, overlooked, and when 
 stated will not be believed by those persons who have 
 been so admirably depicted by Mr. M'Culloch. It is 
 that in spite of the demoralising influence of many of 
 our laws, and the operation of the poor-laws, it has 
 impressed the morals and manners, and elevated the 
 character of the working-man. I speak from observation 
 made on thousands of them, and I hold up this fact as 
 enough of itself to satisfy any man not wholly ignorant 
 of human nature as a very portentous circumstance. Look 
 even to Lancashire. Within a few years a stranger walking 
 through their towns was 'touted,' i.e. hooted, and an 
 ' outcomling ' was sometimes pelted with stones. ' Lanca- 
 shire brute ' was the common and appropriate appellation. 
 Until very lately it would have been dangerous to have 
 assembled 500 of them on any occasion. Bakers and 
 butchers would at the least have been plundered. Now 
 
 K
 
 146 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 
 
 100,000 people may be collected together and no riot 
 ensue, and why ? Why, but for the fact before stated, 
 that the people have an object, the pursuit of which 
 gives them importance in their own eyes, elevates them 
 in their own opinion, and thus it is that the very 
 individuals who would have been the leaders of the riot 
 are the keepers of the peace. In every place as reform 
 has advanced, drunkenness has retreated, and you may 
 assume that a cause which can operate so powerfully as 
 to produce such a change, is capable of producing almost 
 anything. It must continue to operate still more and 
 more extensively. It will not be materially retarded, and 
 cannot by any means be extinguished as it is the result 
 of conviction in the minds of the people of their own 
 importance, and not the ebullitions of enthusiasm 
 although that at times has its effects; it will not sub- 
 side into indifference, notwithstanding its energies will 
 only be displayed at intervals, and under peculiar circum- 
 stances." 
 
 On August 27 Hunt was committed for trial, and 
 released on bail. On September 13 he entered London 
 in triumph. Place in his description of the day showed 
 that he was better able than the Whigs to sympathise 
 with an enemy in times of common danger. 
 
 "There was not much waving of handkerchiefs, but 
 there was a good deal of respect at times paid to the 
 man. How in a mass of 300,000 people could it be 
 otherwise ? Aye, and he deserved it too, and more than 
 he got. If the people I mean the working people are 
 to have but one man, they will, as they ought, support 
 that man at least with their shouts. And there are very 
 many cases too in which they would fight with him, or 
 for him. Whose fault is it that no better man goes among 
 the people ? Not theirs ; they will cling to the best man 
 that makes common cause with them. I remember how
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 147 
 
 I felt when I was a working-man, and know how they 
 feel, and how far they reason. If none shows himself 
 but Hunt, Hunt must be their man." l 
 
 For a moment, however, it looked as if the Whigs might 
 after all lead the agitation. Hobhouse wrote enthusiasti- 
 cally to Place to say that Lord Fitzwilliam had been 
 dismissed from his Lieutenancy for attending an indig- 
 nation meeting in the West Riding, and that Lord 
 Tavistock had given ^50 to the Defence Fund. Place 
 answered denying that this meant much. " Tavistock and 
 his 50 ! Well, I dare say if I knew him, I should find 
 him a soft-headed fellow. All his public conduct seems 
 to say as much for him and no more. Kindness, or at 
 the least the absence of harshness, and good-nature are 
 very common characteristics in this sort of animal; and 
 it is very probable that he is really a good sort of a man. 
 But we want in public men dogged thinking, clear ideas, 
 comprehensive views, and pertinacity, i.e. a good share of 
 obstinacy or hard-headedness." 2 
 
 On November 23, Parliament was specially assembled to 
 consider the state of the country. For the first fortnight 
 of the ensuing session Place made a regular analysis of the 
 proceedings "of the Savage Parliament." His marginal 
 annotations, " infamous lie," " blundering fool," and " well 
 done, Wilson," or " good stuff," show the state of mind in 
 which he read the debates. In the analysis itself, Wilber- 
 force, who declared that " the great body of the thinking 
 part of the people were satisfied " with the action of the 
 Manchester magistrates, is " an ugly epitome of the devil," 
 and emphasis is laid on Tierney's approval of the shocking 
 sentence just passed upon Carlile, and on his declaration 
 that the Whigs " had ever stood in the front rank against 
 the deluded Radicals." 
 
 1 Place to Hobhouse, September 19, 1819. 27,837 (192). 
 
 2 27,837(192).
 
 148 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 
 
 The Savage Parliament lasted from November 23 to 
 December 30, and spent that period in passing the cele- 
 brated Six Acts, 1 by which writing and speaking on 
 political questions was made nearly as dangerous as under 
 the Pitt and Grenville Acts of 1795. In the debates on the 
 Six Acts the Whigs occasionally made good speeches, but 
 offered no really serious resistance. 
 
 The temper of the House of Commons was well shown 
 on December 1 3 in the discussion on an alleged breach of 
 privilege. Hobhouse in continuation of the controversy 
 with Erskine had published about the beginning of 
 November a pamphlet called " A Trifling Mistake of Lord 
 Erskine corrected." The greater part of this pamphlet 
 consisted of the poorest sort of verbal controversy, but the 
 last few pages are in a different style, and handle with 
 unflinching frankness the situation created by Peterloo. 
 "What prevents the people from walking down to the 
 House and pulling out the members by the ears, locking 
 up their doors, and flinging the key into the Thames ? . . . 
 Do we love them ? Not at all. . . . Their true practical 
 protectors then, the real efficient anti-Reformers, are to 
 be found at the Horse -guards and the Knightsbridge 
 Barracks. . . . Nothing but brute force, or the pressing 
 fear of it, will reform the Parliament." ~ 
 
 Even Burdett declared that he did not defend the 
 language of the pamphlet, 3 and the moral feelings of the 
 House were so outraged that Hobhouse's instant com- 
 mittal to Newgate was carried by 198 to 65, against the 
 moderate proposal that he should first be heard in his 
 defence. Perhaps Burdett's willingness to throw over the 
 language of the pamphlet may have been due to the fact, 
 
 1 (i) Against delay of justice ; (2) against drilling ; (3) against 
 blasphemy and sedition ; (4) for disarming ; (5) newspaper stamp ; 
 (6) against open-air meetings. 
 
 2 "A Trifling Mistake," pp. 49-51. 
 
 3 Hansard, vol. xli., p. 1019, December 13, 1819.
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 149 
 
 for Avhich there is a good deal of evidence, that the 
 incriminated passages were not written by Hobhouse at all, 
 but by Place. 1 
 
 On January 29, 1820, George III. died, and a general 
 election followed. At Westminster, Burdett and Hob- 
 house stood against Lamb. The polling lasted from 
 March 9 to March 25. Place inserted in the book in 
 which at that time he recorded his reading : " March 
 1820 Occupied from seven in the morning every day to 
 midnight in the Westminster election, where my presence 
 seemed so absolutely necessary, that I was unable to take a 
 single meal at home or even so much time as was required 
 to read half a column in a newspaper." 
 
 The Westminster Reformers fought under better con- 
 ditions than in 1819. Hobhouse had been in prison from 
 December 14, 1819, to February 29, 1820, and Burdett was 
 sentenced on March 23 at Leicester to a fine of 2000 and 
 three months' imprisonment for a letter to the West- 
 minster electors, written in the preceding August on the 
 news of Peterloo. Even the most ignorant ratepayer in 
 the Seven Dials could now have no doubt as to who were 
 the " Liberty Candidates." Nor was there any opposition 
 from the extremists. Hunt was in prison, and the con- 
 viction of Thistlewood and his companions for the Cato 
 
 1 The evidence is shortly as follows : Carlile in a passage preserved 
 by Place, and not contradicted by him, says : " Even in going to New- 
 gate, by order of the House of Commons, the then Mr. Hobhouse 
 fathered a pamphlet which was not his own, but which was written by 
 Mr. Place " {Monthly Magazine, May 1836, p. 455, in an article by 
 A. P. Richard Carlile). 
 
 Place, writing to Hobhouse on October 29, 1819, apologises for his 
 " presumption," apparently in stopping the press while " A Trifling 
 Mistake " was being printed, and says " the alteration in the last page 
 is worth all the expense, and would be worth it were it ten times as 
 much." 27,837 (188). Hobhouse (in "Proceedings as to a TriHing 
 Mistake, 1 ' pp. 31 and 66) hints that he did not write the last two 
 sheets. The style of the pages is also much more like Place's than 
 Hobhouse : s.
 
 150 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 
 
 Street plot 1 had cowed the small body of real revolu- 
 tionists in London. The Judges' ruling in an action 
 against the High Bailiff of Westminster had also made 
 it impossible for the rate collectors to repeat their whole- 
 sale disfranchisement. 2 
 
 Hobhouse and Burdett were elected, with Lamb some 
 400 votes behind Hobhouse, and Westminster was again 
 handed over to " the aristocratic borough-mongering con- 
 trol of Messrs. Brooks, Plaice & Co." 3 
 
 During the half-year which followed the general election 
 of 1820 the interest of the whole nation was concentrated 
 on the attempt of George IV. to divorce his wife. The 
 new Queen as Princess of Wales had lived abroad since 
 1813, and the best that could be said of her manner of 
 life was that it was better than that of her husband. 
 On the death of George III. the Cabinet opened negotia- 
 tions with her in the hope that she might be induced to 
 remain out of England, but on June 5, 1820, she suddenly 
 landed at Dover, and on June 6 drove into London. 
 Round her all the discontent of the time instantly 
 crystallised. 
 
 Place's Guard Book of documents relating to the Queen 
 has been lost, but casual references elsewhere imply that 
 he helped to direct the agitation. He complains, for 
 instance, at the Westminster meeting, held on July 4, 
 to address the Queen, "not a single Whig attended," 4 
 and writes on August 5, 1820: "The Queen has been 
 here some weeks, and nearly the whole of the people 
 have repeatedly and vehemently expressed their opinion 
 on the infamous conduct of the King and his Ministers 
 towards her. And now when the spirit of the people, 
 
 1 The plot to murder all the Ministers at a Cabinet dinner on 
 February 23, 1820. The plot was betrayed, and in part arranged, by a 
 Government spy. 
 
 3 See 27,837 (142). 3 Morning Post, March 27, 1820. 
 
 4 Loose sheet in Commonplace Book.
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 151 
 
 instead of subsiding rises day by day as the Queen be- 
 comes more and more determined not to submit to her 
 powerful and manifold enemies, . . . the dirty sneaking 
 Whigs, who had held aloof in expectation of the Queen's 
 submission, and the triumph they in consequence expected 
 over the people, find themselves in a worse dilemma than 
 then* opponents, and would do almost anything, if any- 
 thing could be done without the people." l 
 
 But the evidence of the Queen's guilt was unanswerable, 
 and Place had to content himself with the hope that the 
 whole business would go far to destroy any illusions with 
 respect to royalty which the people might still retain. 
 " Multitudes of all ranks below the Peerage, even to the 
 barelegged sailors along shore below London Bridge, 
 costermongers, and common porters, went in processions 
 to Brandenburgh House, saw the Queen, and heard her 
 converse. She was the very woman herself, beyond all 
 other women, to satisfy the inquisitive people that the 
 distinction claimed by high rank was merely fictitious. 
 She was vulgarly familiar and commonplace in her lan- 
 guage and deportment, much less genteel in all respects 
 than many of the well-dressed women who went to her in 
 the processions. . . . Those of the aristocracy who attended 
 the Queen had little either in their manners or appearance 
 to produce any favourable impression on the multitudes 
 whom, day after day and hour after hour, they had to 
 introduce to the presence of the Queen. Eoyalty was, 
 judged of by the Queen, and aristocracy by the noblemen 
 and the ladies in her suite, and both fell amazingly in the 
 estimation of the people." 2 
 
 The Whigs, although they came late into the agitation 
 
 on behalf of the Queen, were yet the real gainers by it. 
 
 The newspapers which brought thousands of columns of 
 
 cheap obscenity into every corner of England, brought 
 
 1 Commonplace Book C, p. 156. - 27,789 (125, 126).
 
 152 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 
 
 also the speeches in which Brougham and Denman lashed 
 the King, and the Whigs found that without pledging 
 themselves to any constitutional change they had become 
 the leaders of an almost universal popular movement. 
 On September 12, 1820, Wilbraham wrote from Lathom 
 House to Lord Colchester: "Radicalism has taken the 
 shape of affection for the Queen and has deserted its 
 old form, for we are all as quiet as lambs in this part of 
 England, and you would not imagine that this could have 
 been a disturbed country twelve months ago." l And on 
 November 24, Lord John Russell said to Tom Moore that 
 " the Queen's business had done a great deal of good in 
 renewing the old and natural alliance of the Whigs and 
 the people, and weakening the influence of the Radicals 
 with the latter." 2 
 
 When the excitement about the Queen died down, Place's 
 work as a director of Westminster elections, and an organiser 
 of Westminster meetings, came for a long period to an end. 
 A rapid improvement of trade put a stop to social exas- 
 peration and political activity. At the beginning of 1820 
 others besides Place thought that the country was on the 
 verge of civil war. 3 At its close England had entered into 
 a period of social peace ; the " truce " had begun " between 
 Parliament and the people," 4 which continued until 1831. 
 
 In Westminster, Burdett and Hobhouse held their seats 
 for the next thirteen years without a contest, and the work 
 . of local political organisation took up but a small part of 
 Place's attention. The two Reform members for West- 
 minster were after all somewhat of a disappointment. 
 Burdett was "too rich, too high, and too lazy," 5 and 
 Place's letters to him are written in the dryest and most 
 
 1 "Diary and Correspondence of Lord Colchester," vol. iii. p. 164. 
 
 2 "Life of Lord John Russell," by Spencer Wulpole, vol. i. p. 122. 
 
 3 Grenville, " Memoirs," vol. i. p. 37. 
 
 * Article signed " Editor of the Scotsman," preserved in 27,809 (268). 
 
 * 27,791 (116).
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 153 
 
 formal style. Nor was Hobhouse of the stuff of which 
 really efficient political workers are made. As early as 
 August 27, 1819, he writes to Place: "It is, I say, natural 
 that a politician trudging steadfastly along the thorny, 
 narrow, and uninviting road should now and then look 
 about him to see whether the eyes of his countrymen 
 are upon him. It is natural that he should expect his 
 perseverance ought to be rewarded by a smile at least." l 
 For two years, and two years only, Hobhouse did " trudge 
 steadfastly along." In 1826, speaking of the sessions of 
 1821 and 1822, he said: "We divided on every item of 
 every estimate we were glued to these seats. The evening 
 sun went down upon us in this hostile array, and w T hen 
 he rose in the morning he shone upon our undiminished 
 ranks. If an Opposition despised hunger and thirst and 
 watchfulness for conscience' sake, it was the Opposition 
 that was led by my friend (Joseph Hume) during those 
 never-ending sessions." 2 But on April 18, 1822, he was 
 already excusing himself. "You are wrong in thinking 
 me lazy. I can work hard enough when there is anything 
 to do. But the Den is a damper to industry." 3 
 
 "As it is," Place wrote in 1826, " Burdett and Hobhouse 
 are little if any better than mere drawling Whigs ; but the 
 influence of the people in their own affairs was assisted and 
 maintained in 1820, and the fear of the Reformers still 
 remains." 4 In 1827 Place says in his diary (December 7), 
 that Hobhouse had been writing from his dictation, and 
 adds, " If this man would learn how to work, he would 
 make a figure." In 1829 Place wrote to Colonel Jones 
 of Hobhouse : " When spoken to he says lacrimoniously 
 enough, ' How r hard it is that when a man has done his 
 best he should give no satisfaction ! ' ' He then describes 
 
 1 27,837 (i 86). 
 
 2 Hobhouse, Speech on Reform, April 27, 1826. 
 
 3 27,837 (205). 4 27,843 (391).
 
 154 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 
 
 how Hobhouse shirked all work at that Vestry Bill, by 
 which Place hoped to reform the obscure iniquities of 
 London local government, and proceeds: "He does not 
 suit the electors of Westminster, nor they him, and 
 the probability is that they will not go on much longer 
 together." l 
 
 But however small might be the direct result of the 
 Westminster contests, they had given Place himself an 
 invaluable political education. He had learned the tactics 
 which suited his own powers. "I know," he wrote to 
 Hobhouse on October 29, 1819, " I have obtained a char- 
 acter for precipitancy, and I know I shall always retain 
 that character. It may be partly deserved, but I know 
 also that it has partly been acquired by acting promptly 
 when action became necessary, it being in my opinion 
 much better and less mischievous to act on those occasions 
 even at the risk of doing wrong, than be, as Bentham calls 
 it, LordEldonish." 2 
 
 But above all, he, almost alone among the English 
 politicians of his time, had now an intimate and practical 
 acquaintance with the working of democracy. L T niversal 
 suffrage in local or national elections meant for him neither 
 a hideous nightmare nor a glorious Utopia, but simply the 
 extension of the system existing in the city of Westminster 
 and the few " open " parishes of the metropolis to the rest 
 of the kingdom. " The people who are the most dreaded 
 are the most confiding. So long as there is no glaring 
 misconduct in their trustees, and no marked oppression 
 upon themselves, they will not interfere ; and, spite of all 
 that has been said of demagogues misleading them, if a 
 man cannot show them that they are really oppressed, 
 treated with contumely and plundered, he can produce 
 no effect upon them. Vague generalities will not avail 
 him in parish matters where the people have the power 
 
 1 Place to Colonel Jones, November 5, 1829. 2 27,837 (188).
 
 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 155 
 
 to choose their own representatives. To excite them to 
 any extent sufficient to induce them to act in any way he 
 must go far beyond supposed grievances, he must have 
 real grievances to work upon, and even this would not 
 answer his purpose unless the people had been previously 
 dissatisfied, were ill used, and saw some chance of a 
 remedy through the exertions of the demagogue. And 
 whenever these circumstances existed, a demagogue would 
 be a very desirable person." 
 
 " The truth is, that the vulgarity will not choose men from 
 among themselves; they never do so when left perfectly 
 free to choose. In all such cases they invariably choose 
 men of property, in whom they expect to find the requisite 
 appropriate talent, honesty, and business-like habits, and 
 they make fewer mistakes than other men are apt to do. 
 The reason for this is, they have fewer sinister interests to 
 induce them to do wrong; their choice is influenced by 
 the desire to do good to themselves, and it so happens that 
 their good must always be the public good." l 
 
 " If they who have the power had the requisite know- 
 ledge, they would at once pass an Act giving to every parish 
 both the right and the power to elect their own Vestries 
 annually, giving to each Vestry the power to originate and 
 control all parish matters in every department, compelling 
 them, however, to proceed in one uniform way all over the 
 country, doing everything openly, and publishing their 
 audited accounts every three months. It is objected that 
 if men are elected for short periods they will have no time 
 to acquire the necessary experience, but will be continually 
 displaced by others who will proceed in the same course. 
 The very reverse is the fact, and always will be so where 
 the elections are really free, and the periods short, and 
 accountability as perfect as it can be made. It might be 
 decided a priori that this must be so. Annual election is 
 1 Place to Hobhouse, March 22, 1830.
 
 156 WESTMINSTER POLITICS, 1815-30 
 
 election for life if the representative do his duty in a 
 becoming manner. If he do otherwise, his removal is a 
 positive good. ... I, who have had much to do in 
 managing and conducting of many associations as well as 
 of large, very large, bodies of people, and especially of 
 working people, know that they are the most docile and 
 most orderly of all classes. . . . The fact really is, not 
 that they are too clamorous, but that they are too tame 
 and quiescent. Fear, the child of ignorance, as Hudibras 
 states, creates bugbears. . . . Our business should be to 
 dispel fear and put reason in its place." l 
 
 1 Place to Hobhouse, March 22, i83o(?).
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE DISMAL SCIENCE 
 
 " THE ' Inquiry into the Wealth of Nations ' is not a book 
 much to my taste. It is very proper that such subjects 
 should be discussed, but I own that there is something in 
 the discussion that makes me feel, while engaged in it, 
 a painful contraction of the heart." 1 Place, in criticising 
 this passage, says: "Every man who greatly desires the 
 well-being of his species . . . has no doubt felt the repug- 
 nance which Mr. Godwin has mentioned, at finding him- 
 self compelled to abandon, as it were, the notions he would 
 fain indulge without alloy, and to descend to calculations 
 and comparisons of losses and gains, of trade, commerce, 
 and manufactures, of the nature of rent, profit, and wages, 
 the accumulation of capital, and the operation of taxes. 
 But he who would essentially serve mankind has no choice ; 
 he must submit himself patiently to the pain he cannot 
 avoid without abandoning his duty." 2 
 
 Godwin wrote his complaint in 1820, more than forty 
 years after the publication of the " Wealth of Nations," 
 and both he and Place were probably thinking not so 
 much of Adam Smith, as of the " classical " political 
 economists Malthus, James Mill, Ricardo, and M'Culloch, 
 who first appeared as a force in political thought at the 
 
 1 William Godwin's " Of Population : an Enquiry concerning the 
 Power of Increase in the Numbers of Mankind," &c. (London, 1820), 
 p. 611. 
 
 2 "Illustrations and Proofs of the Principle of Population," by 
 Francis Place (London, 1822), pp. 269, 270. 
 
 157
 
 15S THE DISMAL SCIENCE 
 
 end of the great war with France. Between 1815 and 
 1820, everybody in England who thought at all was 
 forced to form definite opinions on a series of very diffi- 
 cult economic problems. The war had left an enormous 
 national debt, a depreciated paper currency, a heavy 
 income tax, a poor law causing more misery than it 
 relieved, and a system of agriculture depending on a 
 price of food which only the most rigid protection could 
 keep up in times of peace. The revolutionary proposals 
 of Cobbett on the National Debt, and of Thomas Spence 
 on private ownership of land, were daily becoming better 
 known and more popular. Journalists, professors, men of 
 business, and a few statesmen were obliged to take down 
 Adam Smith from their shelves, and " descend to calcula- 
 tions and comparisons" on Currency, the Law of Rent, 
 and the causes which regulate International Trade. At 
 first a rather scattered discussion on particular points was 
 carried on by letters to newspapers, pamphlets, and maga- 
 zine articles ; but when a general, though incomplete, agree- 
 ment on principles and methods had shown itself among 
 the dominant school of writers, systematic treatises were 
 published, by Ricardo in 1817, by Mai thus in 1820, by 
 James Mill in 1821, and by M'Culloch in 1825. 
 
 Place was from the first in the thick of the controversy. 
 Since 1795 he had read every book or pamphlet of any im- 
 portance which had appeared on social or economic ques- 
 tions. His correspondence with James Mill, Wakefield, 
 Ensor, and Hodgskin, from 1813 onwards, is full of economic 
 disputation. J. B. Say, the most eminent French economist 
 of the time, when staying for some months in England in 
 1814, formed a strong personal friendship with Place, and 
 wrote to him at intervals during the next twelve years. 1 
 
 1 Place may have been known to other Frencli economists. Blanqui 
 calls him, "un des hommes les plus judicieux de 1'Angleterre." Dic- 
 tionnaire de I'Economie Politique, de MM. Coquelin et Guillaumin 
 (Paris, 1853), article "Place," vol. ii. p. 369, written by Blanqui.
 
 THE DISMAL SCIENCE 159 
 
 On economic questions Place's instincts were practical 
 rather than speculative. As soon as he had formed an 
 opinion, he looked round to find the definite persons whom 
 it was important to convince on the particular point. On 
 one matter he long felt himself helpless. When, in 1814, 
 the proposed Corn Law was being discussed, he wrote to 
 James Mill: "It is only for the purpose of diffusing in- 
 formation that it can be at all desirable to interfere with 
 the Corn Laws ; for the legislature will certainly do all in 
 its power to keep up the rent of land, and will pass an 
 Act for that purpose next session in spite of everything 
 which can be done to prevent it. The rich landholders 
 will see nothing but the decrease of rents, and having the 
 power they will certainly prevent it, be the consequences 
 whatever they may." l 
 
 On other points he was more successful. Sergeant 
 Onslow, in 1814, carried through an Act by which the 
 Statute of Apprentices was finally repealed, and Eng- 
 lish employers were left for a few years absolutely free 
 from legislative interference. Place wrote to Wakefield, 
 "The affair of Sergeant Onslow partly originated with 
 me, but I had no suspicion it would be taken up 
 and pushed as vigorously as it has been, and is likely 
 to be." 2 
 
 A large folio volume in the British Museum 3 contains 
 the record of Place's fight against the Sinking Fund, which 
 Pitt had started in 1786 for the gradual extinction of the 
 National Debt. During the French war the scheme had 
 developed into an incredibly stupid arrangement by which 
 
 1 Place to James Mil], September 9, 1814. His efforts to diffuse 
 information on this subject included the organisation of a riot in 
 Westminster. See p. 57, footnote. 
 
 2 Place to Wakefield, January 2, 1814. See p. 59. 
 
 3 27,836. This volume contains letters on the question written by 
 Bicardo to Place in 1819, and reprinted in the Economic Journal, 
 vol. iii. No. X., June 1893, pp. 289-93.
 
 160 THE DISMAL SCIENCE 
 
 new stock was created at a loss to the Government in 
 order to buy up old stock. For seventeen years, from 
 1812 to 1829, Place hammered away at the subject, 
 writing articles for the Morning Chronicle, the Traveller, 
 and any other paper that would take them, giving away 
 thousands of copies of the same articles in pamphlet form, 
 and towards the end coaching Hume for speeches in the 
 House. In 1829 the whole system was quietly abolished 
 by Act of Parliament, and Place wrote a few days later in 
 his autobiography : " If to exult at the accomplishment 
 of one's wishes be vanity, I plead guilty to that offence. 
 I am as well pleased as I am capable of being at the 
 termination of an affair in which I have no personal 
 interest beyond that which I ought to have for the wel- 
 fare of the country generally, an affair, however in which 
 I have laboured as often as circumstances presented the 
 least hope of success assiduously." 
 
 While agitating against the Sinking Fund, Place suffered 
 much inconvenience from the apparently deliberate con- 
 fusion in which the national accounts were kept. " Mr. 
 Ricardo and Mr. Hume were both very desirous to form 
 accurate conceptions of the Finance Accounts. We had 
 frequent consultations on the subject, to which I gave a 
 very considerable portion of my time, dissecting collating 
 and compiling the Public Finance Accounts and State- 
 ments. No balances had ever been stated in any of these 
 accounts. ... I had for several years past turned my 
 attention to the subject, and understood more of these 
 accounts than perhaps any other person out of office. I 
 was not however able to construct an accurate balance 
 sheet from the accounts and papers printed by order of 
 Parliament. No two papers agreed, and when others 
 were moved for, the disagreement was increased. . . . This 
 at length led to proceedings, which early in the year 1822 
 terminated in a select committee of the House of Com-
 
 THE DISMAL SCIENCE 161 
 
 mons "to consider of the best mode of simplifying the 
 accounts annually laid before Parliament." * 
 
 In 1826 he wrote in a working-men's paper a defence 
 of political economy, and pointed to what the economists 
 had already done. "It was the political economists who 
 developed the baneful effects of the Corn Laws, and it 
 is they, and they alone, who, by their writings, their 
 lectures, their speeches, and their conversations, have 
 so far enlightened the people as at length to produce 
 an almost general demand for the repeal of those mis- 
 chievous and unjust laws. To the political economists 
 we owe the relaxation of our absurd Navigation Laws. 
 To them we owe the repeal of the manifold laws which 
 constituted the obnoxious laws known by the name of 
 the Combination Laws. To them we owe the knowledge, 
 which is fast pervading the community, respecting a secure 
 currency. Their knowledge has at length made its way 
 into the Houses of Parliament and into the Cabinet, and 
 has produced very important effects. And the good which 
 has resulted from this knowledge has happily been such 
 that ignorance will never more obtain the ascendency. 
 How much more good the principles advocated by the 
 political economists will do this country, it is quite im- 
 possible for any one to predict, but that they will be 
 very great, no reasonable man can doubt. The poli- 
 tical economists are the great enlighteners of the people. 
 Look at their works from the time of the great man 
 Adam Smith to the ' Essay on Wages,' just published 
 by Mr. M'Culloch, and see if they have not, all along, 
 deprecated everything which was in any way calcu- 
 lated to do injury to the people ; see if they have 
 not been pre-eminently the advocates for increasing the 
 knowledge of the working classes in every possible way, 
 and then let any man say, if he can, that they have 
 1 " Autobiography."
 
 162 THE DISMAL SCIENCE 
 
 not been as pre-eminently the best friends of those 
 classes." l 
 
 Place was, however, far from being one of the mere 
 "practical" politicians, of whom he often spoke with 
 unmeasured scorn. He strove by severe and minute 
 study to acquire a consistent intellectual basis for his 
 work. The beautifully written notes which he made 
 when reading Ricardo's "Principles of Political Eco- 
 nomy" are nearly as long as the book itself. He 
 was an industrious collector of tables of wages, statistics 
 of population, and any other information by which an 
 old generalisation could be tried or a new one suggested. 2 
 And he brought to this work an experience of industrial 
 life which saved him from some of the characteristic 
 faults of the Rlcardian school. He never consciously or 
 unconsciously looked upon the mass of the people merely 
 as instruments for enriching a " nation " of capitalists and 
 landlords. His anger was always most vehemently excited 
 by the cheap accusations of idleness and vice, which news- 
 papers and members of Parliament were never tired of 
 bringing against the whole working class. In a pamphlet 
 written in 1829, he says: "A labouring man should have 
 no fits of idleness ; so says pride, wilfulness, and ignorance. 
 He who of all men, the negro slave excepted, has the fewest 
 inducements to constant, unremitted toil, should be free 
 from idle feelings. This is impossible. Every man has 
 his fits of idleness. No man in any class has always the 
 
 1 The Trades' Newspaper and Mechanics' Weekly Journal, No. 52, 
 June 1 8, 1826. 
 
 2 Cf. e.g., the tables of wages from 1777, collected by Place and 
 published in the Gorgon, 1818, and a letter from Place to James 
 Mill (September 9, 1814). "Have you seen the Corn Reports of the 
 Lords' Committee? I have been comparing parts of them with the 
 returns to the Population Acts, 1811, [and] the tables of progressive 
 increase of the population in the last century. The table of births, 
 burials, and baptisms when compared with the price of bread and the 
 wages of labour, exhibits some curious and important phenomena."
 
 THE DISMAL SCIENCE 163 
 
 same desire for exertion or investigation ; no, nor even for 
 the pursuit of pleasure, when even pleasure alone is the 
 object of his useless life. No man at all times follows even 
 the most gratifying pursuit or inquiry with the same zeal ; 
 relaxation becomes absolutely necessary, and this is sought 
 in change in his pursuits and in change of place, by every 
 one whose means enable him to indulge in what is, in 
 relation to the working-man, called idleness the word 
 being used in respect to him in its worst and most oppro- 
 brious sense. The working-man must have no relaxation ; 
 he who drudges constantly against his will, must have no 
 such propensities as are allowed and cherished in his supe- 
 rior ; the unintellectual man must exert greater powers of 
 mind than the intellectual man ; must show by his conduct 
 that his is the superior understanding, or he is condemned 
 .as unworthy ; and this is called judging him fairly. The 
 most painstaking, saving, industrious man is not free from 
 the desire of leisure ; there are times when he is unable to 
 bring himself to the conclusion that he must continue 
 working. I know not how to describe the sickening aver- 
 sion which at times steals over the working-man, and 
 utterly disables him, for a longer or shorter period, from 
 following his usual occupation, and compels him to indulge 
 in idleness. I have felt it, resisted it to the utmost of my 
 power, but have been so completely subdued by it that, spite 
 of very pressing circumstances, I have been obliged to submit 
 and run away from my work. This is the case with every 
 workman I have ever known ; and in proportion as a man's 
 case is hopeless will such fits more frequently occur and be 
 of longer duration. The best informed amongst the workmen 
 will, occasionally, solace themselves at such times with liquor; 
 the uninformed will almost always recur to the same means 
 to procure the excitement which must be procured." l 
 
 1 " Improvement of the Working People," by Francis Place, Sen. 
 .(London, 1834), pp. 13-15. A misprint in the second line is corrected 
 by Place in the copy preserved in 27,825 (217-225).
 
 164 THE DISMAL SCIENCE 
 
 He had been himself secretary of several trade unions, 
 and refused to denounce as fools or criminals those who 
 would face any suffering rather than accept less than the 
 trade union rate of wages. In 1815 he told the Committee 
 on Mendicity that "When journeymen tradesmen in the 
 Metropolis were unemployed, and however long the period 
 they remained unemployed, they never would work for less 
 than the full wages." Lord Lascelles, the chairman of the 
 committee, called out, "Here is the evil. Do you not 
 think, Mr. Place, that this is very wrong?" "No," he 
 answered, " it is the perfection of wisdom in them. Let us 
 suppose there were 40,000 men unemployed, and 40,000 
 employed. All the work required is, at the time, done by 
 40,000 men, and there is no demand for any more. If the 
 40,000 unemployed men were so unwise as to undersell the 
 others, they might displace them. But these in their turn 
 would be displaced, and they would soon be reduced to 
 the situation to which you have reduced the agricultural 
 labourer. They would all be paupers, and being so in this 
 large city, they would lose all the independence and self- 
 respect they now possess; they would no longer dress 
 decently and becomingly: they would lose all the admir- 
 able intelligence they possess ; they would become vicious 
 and beastly, and full of crimes of all sorts; cruel, vindic- 
 tive, and miserable beyond all example ; and the whole 
 nation would feel the sad consequences. Gentlemen need 
 not be alarmed ; there can be no reason for concealment ; 
 you, not they, are ignorant of these things. They know 
 them well, understand them thoroughly, and act most 
 wisely. No danger can therefore arise from their seeing in 
 print what they already know." l 
 
 In the same way, though he defends Malthus' general 
 position, he turns to denounce the crude statement in the 
 
 1 Place to James Mill, July 20, 1815. This evidence was omitted 
 from the official report as irrelevant.
 
 THE DISMAL SCIENCE 165 
 
 " Principles of Population," that no man has a " right " to 
 public support, and that therefore the system of Poor Relief 
 should be entirely abolished. " Mr. Malthus denies to the 
 unemployed poor man the right to eat, but he allows the 
 right to the unemployed rich man. He says, ' Every man 
 may do as he will with his own ' ; and he expects to be 
 able to satisfy the starving man with bare assertions of 
 abstract rights. Mr. Malthus is not speaking of legal right, 
 for, he says, the poor have a legal rigid, which is the very 
 thing he proposes to destroy. It is an abstract right which 
 is denied to the poor man, but allowed to the rich ; and 
 this abstract, which has no meaning, although dignified 
 with the title of the 'law of nature, which is the law of 
 God,' is to be explained and taught to the poor, who are 
 to be fully convinced.' " 1 
 
 Again, when, in 1815, all his friends were clamouring for 
 the repeal of the income tax, he opposed them, on the 
 ground that the burden would be " shifted from the rich 
 to the other classes. . . . The rich will be relieved, the 
 middle classes injured, and the labourer distressed." 2 In 
 the same year a Mr. Benett of Warminster, in advocating 
 the Corn Law, " threatened the meeting that, unless the 
 Parliament passed an Act to protect his property, he would 
 remove to a country where his diminished income would 
 support him as it ought to do." Place added, " One thing 
 he omitted to say, which was, to threaten to take the land 
 away." 3 Again and again he denounces the great land- 
 lords of his time. " All they cry out against is the high 
 wages of labour, and they exult at every opportunity to 
 reduce them. They (as Paine said some years ago) depend 
 more on breaking the spirit of the people by poverty, than 
 
 1 " Illustrations and Proofs of the Principle of Population " (London, 
 1822), p. 137. 
 
 2 Place to Mill, February 15, 1815. 
 
 3 Place to Mill, January 16, 1815.
 
 166 THE DISMAL SCIENCE 
 
 they fear goading them into insurrection by oppression. 
 Thus the whole value of all the improvements in agricul- 
 ture goes to the landowners, and the price, so far as it is 
 advanced by the increased rent, is levied by them upon 
 the people, who are unable to purchase necessaries with 
 the miserable pittance they receive for their labour." l 
 
 With all his courage and industry and sympathy, 
 Place never attained, perhaps never could have attained, 
 the intellectual force required for original and creative 
 economic thought. He was to the end a disciple rather 
 than a maker, and a disciple who accepted without 
 reserve the one doctrine from which the classical politi- 
 cal economy followed as a series of corollaries, Malthus' 
 celebrated "Principle of Population." Replying, in 1818, 
 to Ensor, who was just about to publish his essay on 
 population, 2 and who boasted that it contained, among 
 other things, " a refutation of Malthus," 3 Place says : 
 "As for your answer to Malthus, I shall judge of it 
 when I see it. I do not know exactly what you mean 
 wheti you say, ' I have refuted Malthus.' His propositions, 
 assumed at random, may be easily refuted ; they were 
 assumed for the purpose of illustration, and are necessarily 
 incorrect. Much, too, of his reasoning may be refuted. 
 But I do not expect to see what I call the principle dis- 
 proved ; namely, that in all old settled countries the popu- 
 lation presses against starvation, and is kept from increasing 
 with the rapidity which, but for the want of produce, it 
 would increase." 4 
 
 It is difficult at the present time to appreciate with 
 anything like justice the fears of those who studied the 
 population question at the beginning of this century. 
 
 1 Place to James Mill, October 17, 1814. 
 
 2 "An Inquiry Concerning the Population of Nations," &c., by 
 George Ensor (London, 1818). 
 
 3 Ensor to Place, January [N.D.] 1818. 
 
 4 Place to Ensor, January 18, 1818.
 
 THE DISMAL SCIENCE 167 
 
 Food-stuffs can now be brought in time of peace from 
 thinly populated to thickly populated countries with an 
 ease then undreamt of, and whole populations can, as far 
 as transport is concerned, move in search of food with 
 equal ease. The population question has become inter- 
 national rather than national, and its merely numerical 
 urgency has been at least postponed for some centuries. 
 The increase of wealth per head has, during the last 
 half -century, been greatest just in those countries in 
 which population has increased most rapidly. In addi- 
 tion to this, both in Europe and America, the birth- 
 rate during recent years has been steadily falling, while 
 in France population has remained almost stationary. 
 Social distress is still everywhere to be found, but it has no 
 apparent relation either to population per acre, or to excess 
 of births over deaths. Compare with this the facts acces- 
 sible to those who had to study the results of the first 
 three English censuses of 1801, 1811, and 1821. All 
 statistics went to show that population throughout Europe 
 had been growing at a geometrical ratio, which actually 
 increased during the period of the Napoleonic wars. 
 Emigration hardly existed. There were no railways and 
 no steamships. Each nation had to look to its own fields 
 for its own subsistence, and the law of diminishing returns 
 to agriculture was believed to be already operative in every 
 part of Europe. The English economists saw continually 
 before them the state of Ireland, which had then nearly 
 two million one hundred thousand more inhabitants than 
 at the present time, 1 and where the congestion of population 
 most undoubtedly did keep down the standard of comfort. 
 In England the increase of population had been accom- 
 
 1 The census of 1821 was the first which was taken in Ireland by 
 the Census Commissioners. Their report returned a population of 
 6,801,827. The census of 1891 gave a population of only 4,704,750, a 
 decrease of 30.87 per cent.
 
 168 THE DISMAL SCIENCE 
 
 panied by a rapid improvement of industrial processes ; and 
 yet Place, in 1826, referring to the trade depression of the 
 preceding winter, could say that " a race has been run be- 
 tween the improvement of machinery and the increase 
 of population, and population has beaten machinery." 1 
 Ricardo, sitting in his study, could quietly prophesy that 
 this would go on until the " natural " point was reached, 
 at which, either from the distress consequent on the fall 
 of wages, or from a decrease of marriages, the death-rate 
 of the working classes overtook their birth-rate. 2 
 
 But to Place, a merely " scientific " attitude was impos- 
 sible. When he thought of the "working classes," he 
 pictured to himself an endless procession of men such as 
 he had been, with wives and children like his own. The 
 lowering of wages to their " natural " level meant to him 
 the repetition, millions of times over, of the starvation 
 and weariness and despair which he had gone through, 
 before he had been willing to give up his skilled trade 
 and apply for work as a parish scavenger. He, like other 
 political economists, believed that population was in Eng- 
 land already redundant, and that no permanent social 
 improvement could be looked for until its increase had 
 been checked. But, unlike the others, he was filled with 
 a burning sense that something had to be done, and done 
 immediately, and done by him, to check it. Malthus had 
 expressed a hope that late marriages would become the 
 
 1 Diary, July 19, 1826. 
 
 2 Ricardo, in his "Principles of Political Economy" (London, 1817), 
 p. 90, says : " The natural price of labour is that price which is neces- 
 sary to enable the labourers, one with another, to subsist, and to per- 
 petuate their race, without either increase or diminution." In the 
 same sense Place writes : " The real wages of the labourer in a redun- 
 dant population are no more than, according to the habits of the country, 
 will enable him to subsist and propagate his race, and he must have 
 the same real wages, and will have no more, while the population is 
 redundant, whether the taxes remain or are all repealed." (Diary, 
 October 12, 1826.)
 
 THE DISMAL SCIENCE 169 
 
 rule. But Place was convinced that for the working 
 classes, and, indeed, for all classes, delay of marriage was 
 harmful, even if it were possible. 
 
 To go even as far as Malthus and Mill had gone was 
 dangerous. Careful as Malthus had been, his name was 
 already spitten upon by almost every decent and religious- 
 minded man or woman in the country. To doubt that 
 " God sent food for every mouth which He sent into the 
 world " was blasphemous ; to inquire further was obscene. 
 With all Place's dogged courage,' it must have cost him 
 a struggle before he entered, as he did about 1820, upon 
 a deliberate propaganda of neo-Malthusianism. In a book 
 which he published in 1822, he plainly, though carefully, 
 stated his position, and in the introduction said: "The 
 author is perfectly aware that he has exhibited views and 
 proposed remedies which will with some persons expose 
 him to censure ; but he is also aware of the utility of thus 
 exposing himself." J 
 
 From this time forward Place continually advanced 
 the neo-Malthusian position in argument with every 
 working-man whose confidence or gratitude he could earn 
 in every working-class newspaper that would admit his 
 letters, and in his correspondence with private friends 
 and public acquaintances. As a consequence his name, for 
 twenty years, was hardly ever mentioned in print without 
 some reference, deprecatory or abusive, to his notorious 
 opinions. Good men refused to be introduced to him, 
 and, in 1834, his help was declined on this ground alone 
 by the strongly liberal "Society for the Promotion of 
 Useful Knowledge." * 
 
 1 " Illustrations and Proofs of the Principle of Population," by 
 Francis Place (London, 1822), p. 12. 
 
 2 Of. the MS. account of matters relating to "Essays for the People," 
 1834. The rest of the inner circle of the Benthamites seem to have 
 shared Place's opinion, though he alone faced the public scandal. See 
 the letter from Bentham to Place on p. 81, James Mill's article on
 
 170 THE DISMAL SCIENCE 
 
 Among the leaders of the workmen he met. with but 
 little success. "All were opposed," he says, "to the 
 ' Malthusian doctrine,' as they called the ' Principle of 
 Population,' plain and simple as it is, namely, ' The people 
 have the power to increase their number.' All disregarded 
 the fact that the people had increased and were increasing, 
 and over-running the means of subsistence ; and that under 
 the hindrances opposed by the landlords to the improve- 
 ment of husbandry by the application of chemistry and 
 machinery to land, the actual increase of produce was very 
 small, whilst the increase of people was very great, that 
 the disproportion would continually increase, until the time 
 should come when a stop would be put to all increase of 
 capital, and consequently of employment, and the working 
 people be reduced to the mud cabins and potato diet of the 
 Irish cottars, and ruin follow in its train, or that the people 
 should generally revolt, produce a frightful revolution, in 
 which would be sacrificed an incalculable amount of property, 
 and the extirpation of the aristocracy in all its branches." l 
 
 Place was often accused of invincible prejudice on this 
 point. "On all other subjects but Malthusianism, Mr. 
 Place is a close, a candid, and a most even - tempered 
 reasoner; but doubt the infallibility of his anti-population 
 creed, and he is ready to treat you as the Homoousian 
 Christians did their diphthongal controvertists, the Homoi- 
 ousians, in the fifth century. The only answers he will 
 condescend to give are, 'You don't understand political 
 economy ; your words have no sense in them ; they con- 
 tain no distinct ideas.' " 2 
 
 Colonies in the supplement to the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," 1824, 
 vol. iii. p. 257, and the incident recorded of John Mill by Christie. 
 ("John Stuart Mill and Mr. Abraham Hay ward, Q.C.," by W. D. 
 Christie, London, 1873, p. 9). For Place's neo - Malthusianism, see 
 letter to Burdett, May i, 1824, and also 27,823 (337). 
 
 1 27,819(74). 
 
 2 The Northern Liberator, December 30, 1837, in an article by 
 A. H. Beaumont.
 
 THE DISMAL SCIENCE 171 
 
 This is not the occasion to enter upon that unwritten 
 chapter of English working-class history which begins 
 with Robert Dale Owen and Francis Place, and ends with 
 Charles Bradlaugh. But without reference to it, it is im- 
 possible to understand Place's general position with regard 
 to social reform. His desire was, not that population 
 should be stationary, but that its increase should be slower 
 than the probable improvement in methods of production 
 in his phrase, that " machinery should be allowed to 
 beat population in the race." He could Avork for educa- 
 tion, democracy, freedom of combination, everything that 
 tended to the general diffusion of knowledge and self-respect, 
 because he believed that knowledge and self-respect were 
 not only good in themselves, but likely to lead to a restraint 
 of population. Once men had become wise on that one 
 point, he was prepared to welcome economic equality, 
 though on an individualistic basis, as readily as political 
 equality. But so long as population continued without 
 restraint, a more equal distribution of wealth would, he 
 thought, simply drag every one down to a common level. 1 
 " No doubt," he wrote in 1 8 1 8, " a somewhat better mode 
 of producing, accumulating, and enjoying might be desired, 
 but the time when this will be understood and acted upon 
 is, I fear, very distant. ... It is not of much consequence 
 whether England contains twelve or fifteen millions of 
 bipeds, or Ireland six or eight millions of similar animals, 
 but of much importance it is that they should be well 
 instructed and well governed, and made comfortable ; but 
 these desirable purposes can only be accomplished by 
 restraining their increase." - Or again, when arguing 
 against Ensor in the Trades Newspaper, he says : " In 
 Ireland there are 365 persons to every square mile, while 
 in England there are not more than 200. In England, 
 
 1 Cf. the same argument in J. S. Mill's " Principles of Political 
 Economy" (London, 1865, 2 vols.), vol. i. pp. 238, 239. 
 
 2 Place to Ensor, January 1 8, 1 8 1 8.
 
 172 THE DISMAL SCIENCE 
 
 with 200 persons to a square mile, there are always a con- 
 siderable number of poor persons; but in Ireland, with 
 365 persons to a square mile, a large proportion of the 
 whole population is constantly in a state of such extreme 
 wretchedness that there is no parallel to it in England, 
 except in some few instances, and on some extraordinary 
 occasions. The misery which has some time past prevailed 
 in portions of our manufacturing districts always exists 
 in Ireland. . . . ' But,' says Mr. Ensor, ' there is sufficient 
 food for all the people, if that food was distributed as God 
 intended it should be, for the use, and not the abuse, of 
 the idle and the aristocratic.' This is another fallacy a 
 misleading, mischievous fallacy. Mr. Ensor's proof that 
 there is food enough is that the people have subsisted. 
 True enough it is that the people who have subsisted have 
 subsisted ; and true enough it is that by a better arrange- 
 ment of society, capital might have increased somewhat 
 faster than it has increased; but if the population had 
 increased as rapidly as capital increased, the people would 
 have been precisely in the same relative situation as they 
 now are; all the difference would have been that the 
 number of sufferers would have been greater than it is. 
 Strange it is that Mr. Ensor should not have seen through 
 his fallacy. That there has been, and that there is, the 
 means of subsistence for the people, is proved by their 
 being alive. But the political economists are not satisfied 
 with this; they want something better for the people; 
 they are not satisfied that those who exist should barely 
 exist that they should have low wages, and no leisure, 
 and no pleasure, no recreation, and no instruction. They 
 are not satisfied that their number should be constantly 
 kept up to the starvation point, and that hunger, disease, 
 and misery should be the only means of keeping down 
 their number." l He opposed, on Malthusian grounds, the 
 1 The Traded Newspaper and Mechanics' Weekly Journal, Jan. 18, 1826.
 
 THE DISMAL SCIENCE 173 
 
 encouragement of allotments or small holdings; 1 but though 
 he argued against any immediate alteration in the distribu- 
 tion of land, he was for the greater part of his life a land 
 nationaliser. He had been converted in the old days by 
 Thomas Spence, and hoped that when the population 
 difficulty had once been settled, private property in land 
 would come to an end. 2 
 
 On such immediate legislative proposals as could not be 
 judged merely by their effect on the growth of population, 
 Place followed the economists of his time in leaning strongly 
 towards individual freedom. He gave evidence, for instance, 
 before the Committee on Drunkenness in 1834, in favour 
 of absolute free trade in the liquor traffic. But to the end 
 of his life he was too much influenced by the habits of 
 thought which he had learned as a trade union secretary, 
 to be either comfortable or consistent in preaching absolute 
 freedom of industrial contract. He strongly urged, for 
 instance, the trade unions in the factory districts to ex- 
 clude Avomen and children from the mills, 3 and to lower 
 the hours of labour by general action. He even advocated 
 the exclusion of children and girls under twenty-one by 
 law. 4 On the other hand, the Ten Hours Bill, which 
 proposed to shut the factories outright at the end of the 
 legal day, aroused his strongest opposition, and he wrote 
 
 1 Cf. e.g., Place to Beauclerk, April 7, 1831. 
 
 2 Cf. Place to Whytoch, October 28, 1839. "It is my hope and 
 belief that the time Avill come when men will be sufficiently wise to 
 agree that all the land shall belong to the people, and that too upon 
 the plan, or some such plan, as Mr. Spence has promulgated, by which 
 the people shall be the sole landlord, and receive all the rent." Cf. also 
 the Northern Liberator, December 30, 1837, and an article in the 
 Traveller for January 1821, which shows that at that time he was 
 against land nationalisation, on account of the great and uncontrolled 
 revenue which it would give to the central Government. 
 
 3 Cf. Place's article, " Handloom Weavers and Factory Workers, a 
 Letter to James Turner, cotton spinner," in J. A. Eoebuck's " Pam- 
 phlets for the People," September 29, 1835, P- 5- 
 
 4 Ibid, p. 9.
 
 174 THE DISMAL SCIENCE 
 
 in reference to it, " Every suggestion which does not tend 
 to the reduction in number of the working people is use- 
 less, to say the least of it. All legislative interference must 
 be pernicious. Men must be left to themselves to make 
 their own bargains ; the law must compel the observance of 
 compacts, the fulfilment of contracts. There it should 
 end. So long as the supply of labour exceeds the demand 
 for labour, the labourer will undersell his fellows, and pro- 
 duce poverty, misery, vice, and crime." 
 
 " The remedy again is good teaching, which will in time 
 make men see the evils of redundant population, cause 
 them to respect themselves, induce them to marry at an 
 early age, give them a companion in a wife, the only true 
 companion which a man may ever have for a real and long 
 continuance, give him a home in which he may improve 
 himself and enable him to teach the few, very few, children 
 he may choose to propagate, and enjoy himself as a rational 
 being ought to do." 1 
 
 It is probable that his intellectual conviction upon 
 the point of freedom was strengthened by the fact 
 that his personal acquaintance with industrial life was 
 confined to a home-working trade. " I have never," 
 he wrote in 1835, "seen the inside of a cotton factory. 
 It is almost certain that I never shall see the inside 
 of one. I have read all the evidence taken by Com- 
 mittees of Parliament ; I have read books and pamphlets ; 
 I have conversed with numbers of cottoners, masters as 
 well as men ; I understand much of the machinery used in 
 all sorts of mills, and should like to see it in use. But 
 I cannot voluntarily submit to see the misery of working 
 it before my eyes. I abhor such scenes of degradation, as 
 even the best of the cotton-mills cannot be free from. 
 
 1 27,827 (194). See also the "Letter to James Turner," p. 8, and 
 27,820(153). Place several times declared that in those trades where 
 children work the whole family earned no more than a man in trades 
 open to men only. See, for instance, 27,828 (117).
 
 THE DISMAL SCIEN 7 CE 175 
 
 This will be treated as a ridiculous feeling, as an absurd 
 prejudice ; but to ine, to whom human beings are valuable 
 as they are intellectual and free, a cotton-mill is more ab- 
 horrent than I can find words with which to describe it." l 
 But he seems to hesitate in his individualism when writing 
 of so clear an invasion of individual freedom as a proposed 
 Truck Act. He declares indeed that, " No restrictive laws 
 should exist. Every one should be at liberty to make his 
 own bargain in the best way he can." But he adds, " I 
 cannot, however, but lament that the tendency of this free- 
 dom is against the interest of the workman, and in favour 
 of his employer. Whatever any man who employs a large 
 number of work-people proposes as a regulation is sure to 
 be something for his own advantage, and for the disadvan- 
 tage of the work-people ; it can scarcely ever be otherwise." 
 Then he bursts out into a fury against those great em- 
 ployers whom the Truck Acts were intended to check. " I 
 go sick at heart when I think of such men as Yates ; I 
 always become a savage when I see them ; I would not 
 have such men even for common acquaintances, no, not 
 for ' all the gold which sinews bought and sold have 
 ever earned.' " 2 
 
 1 See the " Letter to James Turner," p. 9. 
 
 2 Place to Hume, January 7, 1830.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE CHARING CROSS LIBRARY 
 
 " The writer of this, though by circumstances separated 
 from the immediate acquaintance of Mr. Place for several 
 years past, can, by the experience of eighteen and the well- 
 founded report of forty years, pronounce him a prodigy of 
 useful, resolute, consistent, political exertion, and indefati- 
 gable labour, which evidently continues unabated to this 
 day. . . . Francis Place, by his assistant labours and 
 advice given to members of the House of Commons, has 
 produced more effect in that House than any man who 
 was ever a member." l 
 
 There is an old gentleman still alive and active, who can 
 remember being taken as a boy, about the year 1 820, up 
 into a big room lined with books at the back of Place's 
 shop, and being told in a reverential voice that this was. 
 the headquarters of English Radicalism. 2 Place had 
 been a collector of books ever since his school-days, 
 and continued to collect nearly to the end of his life. 
 From the first the library was especially rich in Parlia- 
 mentary papers, catalogued by subjects, and in pamphlets 
 and newspaper cuttings, bound and lettered with his own 
 hand. Everything was arranged with that scrupulous 
 " method and tidiness and comfort " to which Place's 
 correspondents often refer. 3 
 
 1 See article on "The Real Nobility of the Human Character," by 
 A. P. [i.e. Richard Carlile], in the Monthly Magazine, May 1835, p. 454. 
 
 2 Cf. also "Sixty Years of an Agitator's Life," by G. J. Holyoake: 
 (London, 1893, 2 vols.), vol. i. p. 215. 
 
 3 Cf. e.g., T. Hodgskin to Place, May 19, 1819. 
 
 no
 
 From the original drawing in South Kensington A/H;CUHI, by MACI.ISK, 
 reproduced in " Fraud's Magazine," April 1836. 
 
 To face page 177.
 
 THE CHARING CROSS LIBRARY 177 
 
 This was the " Civic Palace, Charing Cross," where the 
 " Arch Radical " l sat all day long on a high stool at his 
 desk, as before his retirement from business he had sat 
 all day long in the adjoining shop. Every member of 
 Parliament who lived, as most members then did, in 
 Bloomsbury or the City, would pass Charing Cross twice 
 a day. In any case, the House of Commons and Downing 
 Street were both within a few minutes' walk. 
 
 " My library," says Place, 2 " was a sort of gossiping shop 
 for such persons as were in any way engaged in public 
 matters having the benefit of the people for their object. 
 . . . No one who knew me would hesitate to consult with 
 me on any subject on which I could either give or procure 
 information." And again, " When I lived at Charing Cross 
 my library was frequented very much in the manner of a 
 common coffee-house room. It was open to a considerable 
 number of persons, many of them members of Parlia- 
 ment." 3 In times of excitement the room became crowded. 
 
 A very good description of Place and his daily life 
 about this time, was given in the Northern Liberator. 
 " Francis Place ... is in the sixty-fifth year of his 
 age. He is about five feet seven inches high, with a 
 head which would delight the phrenological taste of our 
 worthy friend Alderman Fife, and is of a stout, stalwart 
 frame. A walk of twenty or thirty miles a day is one of 
 
 1 George Ensor to Place, 1820 [N.D.]. 
 
 2 In a loose sheet, dated April 1834. There is a good description of 
 Place and the company at his library in " Lord Melbourne," by Henry 
 Dunckley (1890), pp. 150, 151. 
 
 :i Place to B. Hawes, M.P. [for Lambeth], April 24, 1839. Hawes' 
 reply is interesting, as showing the view taken of Place by his political 
 pupils. 
 
 " LAMBETH, May i, 1839. 
 
 " MY DEAR SIR, In reply to your note, I only wish you and your 
 library were where it was. The good sentry, well posted as you were, 
 would do us all a world of good. . . . Never mind. I'll tight on and 
 be satisfied with your honest approval and fight on till you cry hold. 
 Yours sincerely, B. HAWKS." 
 
 M
 
 178 THE CHARING CROSS LIBRARY 
 
 his favourite amusements; but his time, from six in the 
 morning to eleven at night, is generally spent in his 
 library, where he is surrounded with books, pamphlets, 
 journals, and memoranda of every kind political, philo- 
 logical, physiological, and every other 'cal' which can be 
 imagined, all arranged in such perfect order that he can 
 put his hand on any book or paper he may want in a 
 moment. The bump of order is in him very prominent 
 indeed." 1 
 
 Among the politicians who attended the " Civic Palace " 
 there were always some who came not merely to gather 
 facts, but to obtain general political guidance from their 
 host. To such Place was rather a hard taskmaster. He 
 never expected them to take his advice, but if they did 
 not he dealt very faithfully with them. " I told Bennet," 2 
 he wrote in 1819, "from the first that I should wear him 
 out, and that he would be 'obliged either to shun me or 
 lead a dog's life with his party. He said, No ; I said, Yes. 
 He has done so. But next session he will come again, 
 and as he certainly means well, I shall be pleased to see 
 him. I never suffer the motives which operate in another 
 man's mind to have much influence on my conduct." 3 
 
 A few entries in the private diary for 1826 record Place's 
 experience of a better-known politician, Colonel Torrens. 
 
 " Thursday, October 12. A long conversation with 
 Colonel Torrens on the most prominent matters likely 
 to be brought before Parliament in the ensuing session, 
 . . . and the means of keeping himself independent of 
 cabals, which never fail to compromise a man's usefulness." 
 
 "Saturday, October 28. Colonel Torrens is willing to 
 do all he can to get a meeting of such titled and other 
 
 1 The Northern Liberator, December 30, 1837. Article by the editor, 
 A. H. Beaumont. 
 
 '" The Hon. Grey Bennet, M.P., whom Place coached for some time. 
 3 Place to Hobhouse, August 16, 1819. 27,837 (172).
 
 THE CHARING CROSS LIBRARY 179 
 
 landowners as may be willing to publish a declaration 
 against the Corn Laws." 
 
 "Friday, November 3. Colonel Torrens . . . mueh 
 talk. . . . There is some chance that a nucleus will be 
 formed in the new House of Commons of a few men who 
 are too discreet to join the worn-out, palsied Whigs, and 
 are better informed on the true mode of legislating than 
 men have hitherto been. Cautioned Torrens against join- 
 ing the club at the Clarendon, in which the miserable 
 Whigs stultify every fresh-catched member." 
 
 "Thursday, November 16. Colonel Torrens who is 
 somewhat puzzled with the annoyance of his pretended 
 Whig friends, who, he says, are advising him not to do 
 anything this session of Parliament, telling him that if 
 he does so he will be called a talking, busy fellow, and 
 will lose himself. ... I advised him, as I have often done 
 before, not to make speeches, but to say whatever he 
 thought was necessary on subjects which he thoroughly 
 understood." 
 
 "Tuesday, November 21. Torrens, it is evident, is play- 
 ing a game in which he may not, and I hope will not, be 
 a gainer. He admitted that he did not mean to take a 
 manly, decided part . . . but to act cautiously, that is, to 
 feel his way to some place or office." 
 
 " Monday, November 27. Colonel Torrens with whom 
 a long conversation respecting the House of Commons. 
 He, as usual, paltering and shuffling." 
 
 " Tuesday, December 5. To Colonel Torrens on the sub- 
 ject of Mr. Hume's motion or notice for to-morrow night 
 relating to the exportation of machinery. Was not a little 
 disappointed at finding Torrens utterly ignorant of the 
 subject, and that, notwithstanding his knowledge of poli- 
 tical economy, he talked like a silly old woman of the 
 advantages of impeding the French manufacture of cotton 
 goods. . . . But he is a poor creature, and will make no
 
 180 THE CHARING CROSS LIBRARY 
 
 figure as an opponent of Ministers in what is bad, and 
 will not be worth their purchasing." 
 
 " Wednesday, December 13. Colonel Torrens he is a 
 shuffler, and we do not agree. We shall soon cut." 
 
 The entry for a day in 1826, which happens to be in 
 rather shorter form than usual, will give a specimen of 
 Place's average day's work at that time. 
 
 "Monday, April 10, 1826. Wrote a long letter to Sir 
 Francis Burdett on the expenses and arrears of the last 
 West. Elections in 1820. The election cost 1600 and 
 ,96 still remained unpaid. I have paid .130; and Mr. 
 Henry Brooks, who is liable for the 96, cannot afford to 
 pay it so I asked Sir F. B. to pay that sum on Henry 
 Brooks's account. 
 
 "Heard at the Royal Institution M'Culloch's third 
 Lecture on Political Economy. 
 
 "Called on Mr. Hobhouse had a long conversation, 
 on the case of Dr. Thorpe, and got a promise of an 
 appointment for Dr. Thorpe to see him and Burdett 
 together. 
 
 " Walked with my wife, out from half-past ten to half- 
 past two. 
 
 " Read at Mr. Hume's request and for the satisfaction of 
 the seamen of the Tyne and Wear who had written to me 
 on the subject, " a Bill to enable commissioners for trying 
 offences upon the sea," &c. &c. Noted it, and wrote to 
 the seamen. The Bill, if passed into a law as it is at pre- 
 sent worded, would be an act of injustice towards the 
 seamen. 
 
 " Read six letters sent to me by Mr. Hume correspond- 
 ence respecting the absurd Potteries Bill which I noted 
 on the 6th, and about which I conferred with Mr. Mayre 
 the potter. 
 
 " N.B. The Bill is bad in every respect, and will not be 
 passed.
 
 THE CHARING CROSS LIBRARY 181 
 
 " Read proof of Sheet B, vol. ii., ' Travels in Chili and 
 La Plata.' 
 
 "Interrupted in the evening by Mr. Tijou and Charles 
 Blake and afterwards by George White, a clerk in the 
 House of Commons, who came to tell me ' the good news ' 
 that ministers had been beaten from their project. 
 
 "Read two articles in the Bolton Chronicle respecting 
 the miserable state t of the weavers and others, and con- 
 taining absurd proposals to fix a minimum of wages and 
 to stop the use of machinery. 
 
 "Wrote a short paper composed of questions for the 
 Bolton Chronicle. 
 
 " Mr. Benn respecting D. Richards, the Vicar, who wants 
 a clause in the Charing X Improvement Bill to compel 
 the parishioners to pay his curate. Refused to see the 
 Dr., but took care to defeat his purpose through Mr. 
 Hobhouse." 
 
 It is very curious to note how much Place's businesslike 
 and methodical habits dominated his political as well as 
 his private life. In spite of his constant meetings with 
 politicians and important persons, he seldom made friends 
 with any of them. They were almost invariably treated 
 as persons engaged in business might have been, and just 
 as his customers were invited to come to his shop, so his 
 political associates were expected to come to his library. 
 He consistently declined to call upon them at their own 
 homes under any circumstances. He valued his inde- 
 pendence too highly to meet them on any but absolutely 
 equal terms, which he knew by experience it was not 
 always easy for " the tailor " to secure. A year before 
 Colonel Torrens' visits, Place wrote a general account 
 of his relations with all such political catechumens, 
 which explains his attitude admirably. " The various 
 public, political, and parliamentary matters in which I 
 have interfered," said he, " have brought me acquainted
 
 182 THE CHARING CROSS LIBRARY 
 
 with many great men, and caused me to be most 
 graciously invited to call upon some of them. This 
 I have never done, unless something which related to 
 others made it necessary, and this happened very 
 seldom. It was a rule with me from the first never to 
 call on any great man in any other case, and I do not 
 believe I have seen so many as half-a-dozen lords and 
 commoners at their own houses, excepting Burdett, Hob- 
 house, and Hume, and not even either of them unless on 
 business. To all invitations I have replied, that I was at 
 home till eleven o'clock in the morning, and after four 
 o'clock in the afternoon; was always ready to attend to 
 any suggestion, and to co-operate in any project which 
 was likely to be useful, and especially if it related to the 
 working people. With those public men who called I 
 always communicated freely. Several have expressed a 
 desire to become better acquainted with me; but this I 
 always declined, as our circumstances and habits of life 
 differed greatly, and I could not consent to be patronised, 
 or to be a ' humble friend ' ; to come when I was sent for, 
 and to go when my presence was not quite agreeable, and 
 to take care not to be in the way when other great men 
 or women were there. To those who wished to be better 
 acquainted I said, you can be as much better acquainted 
 with me as you please by calling here when you have 
 anything to do for the public good in which I can in 
 any way assist. But as their notions of what was for the 
 public good very often differed from my notion of what 
 was for the public good ; as almost the whole of them made 
 party politics their rule of action ; as I disliked both the 
 great political parties, and as my notions were well known 
 to be republican, a few interviews were generally sufficient 
 for their purposes, and our intercourse as generally ceased." l 
 
 1 Place to Thomas Campbell, February 10, 1825. [In the "Auto- 
 biography," chap. 14.]
 
 THE CHARING CROSS LIBRARY 183 
 
 Place's greatest and most permanent success as a Parlia- 
 mentary schoolmaster was with Joseph Hume. Hume's 
 dogged industry, and the enduring strength of his short 
 and awkward body, saved him from any accusation of 
 idleness and frivolity. A certain dulness of feeling was 
 useful to him, not only in protecting him for thirty 
 years against the slings and arrows of the House of 
 Commons, but also in enabling him placidly to receive 
 and act upon those angry letters and remonstrances which 
 Place's other pupils must often have found intolerably 
 overbearing. 
 
 Hume was advised by his friend the Duke of Kent 
 to make Place's acquaintance, and in July 1813 they 
 were introduced to each other by Fox the Quaker, 
 with whom Place was then busily engaged in the pro- 
 motion of the Lancastrian school system. 1 Place, at first, 
 had no great liking for his new acquaintance, but he was 
 persuaded by Mill to take Hume up. In a letter to Mrs. 
 Grote, in 1836, Place described their connection with each 
 other. "Mill fixed him upon me some twenty-five years 
 since. 2 I found him devoid of information, dull and 
 selfish. From the country he came from, India, and the 
 way in which he commenced his public life here, I had no 
 reliance on him for good service, and no grounds for placing 
 confidence in his integrity. Mill said, ' Work on with him 
 and he will come out ; there is much in him that will grow 
 by good nursing ; and even if after a while he turn out ill, 
 we shall have the advantage of all the good he may have 
 done.' Our intimacy brought obloquy upon both of us, to 
 which he was nearly as callous as I was. He was taunted 
 with ' the tailor his master,' without whom he could do 
 nothing. I was scoffed at as a fool for spending time 
 
 1 Cf. Chap. IV. 
 
 2 James Mill had been at school with Hume at Montrose Academy. 
 See "James Mill: a Biography," by Alexander Bain (London 
 1882), p. 7.
 
 184 THE CHARING CROSS LIBRARY 
 
 uselessly upon 'Old Joe,' upon 'The Apothecary.' He 
 was treated as no man before him ever was treated, and 
 worse, too, by the Whigs than by the Tories. Some of the 
 leading men at Brooks's treated him with feigned respect 
 to his face, and scoffed at him behind his back, and talked 
 of him as ' the fellow who dined at three o'clock and knew 
 nothing of the habits and manners of a gentleman.' The 
 slightest error in a calculation was imputed to him as 
 imbecility and ignorance. The mistake of saying ' tear and 
 wear,' putting the last word first, was matter of exultation 
 against him, and was held forth by the Whigs as a proof 
 that he was stupid and good for nothing. Often have I 
 repeated such things as these to him, and cautioned him 
 not in anything to rely upon the hollow-hearted, shallow- 
 headed men who would make friends with him if they saw 
 therein the prospect of destroying his utility. Mill's pre- 
 dictions were realised. Hume showed his capabilities and 
 his imperturbable perseverance, which have beaten down 
 all opposition ; and there he stands, the man of men." 1 
 
 It was easy enough for Place at any time between 1822 
 and 1827 to justify his furious contempt for ordinary party 
 politics. George Canning had become Foreign Secretary 
 and leader of the House of Commons in 1822. For the 
 next five years he, with Peel as Home Secretary, and 
 Huskisson as President of the Board of Trade, developed 
 a policy which was Tory in little but name. Canning did 
 all that he could do to encourage the reaction against 
 despotism abroad ; while Huskisson and Peel, accepting in 
 large part the doctrines of the political economists, freed 
 the internal trade of the country from some of its most 
 harassing restrictions, and seriously alarmed those whose 
 rents depended upon protection against foreign imports. 
 The Whig leaders could only hope to represent themselves 
 as more advanced than the Tories, by advocating either 
 1 Place to Mrs. Grote, May 13, 1836 ("Autobiography").
 
 THE CHARING CROSS LIBRARY 185 
 
 absolute freedom of trade or a democratic extension of the 
 franchise. But they did not believe in Free Trade, and 
 were nervous about anything except the mildest measures 
 of Parliamentary reform. As long therefore as the Tories 
 allowed the Canningites to lead them the Whigs were a 
 negligible quantity in politics. Writing in 1821, Place 
 declared : " Much has been done by the electors in West- 
 minster since 1806 towards unmasking this faction, and 
 never was it in a more contemptible state than at the pre- 
 sent moment. Without power or the hope of power, less 
 popular, and deservedly so, than the party in power, it 
 is of no political importance whatever. Distrusted, if not 
 despised, by a considerable portion of the people, even its 
 name will probably in a few years be lost. Or, if it remain, 
 it will be received as the name of Tories out of place, and 
 will be simply applied to any opposition not composed 
 of Radical reformers, however and of whomsoever con- 
 stituted." * 
 
 Under such circumstances the Parliamentary debates 
 became the merest faction fights, and the obvious duty of 
 a reformer in the House of Commons was, not to combine 
 and compromise, but to educate. " Hitherto," complained 
 Place, " the government of the country had been adminis- 
 tered on no general principles, but by temporary expedients 
 for the purpose of accomplishing particular objects or to 
 ward off particular inconveniences." 2 He firmly believed 
 that the necessary "general principles" had now been 
 worked out by Benthani and the economists, and that if 
 only they were continually advertised, the steady increase 
 of popular knowledge must ultimately lead to their adop- 
 tion. It did not matter, therefore, whether the reformers 
 in Parliament numbered six or sixty, provided that they 
 were resolute, consistent, and intelligible. Meanwhile an 
 
 1 Article by Place in the Traveller, January 4, 1821. 
 
 2 27,849 (5, 6).
 
 186 THE CHARING CROSS LIBRARY 
 
 energetic man could carry detailed reforms which should 
 be not mere " temporary expedients," but logical appli- 
 cations of valid principles. It was "an opinion of" Place's 
 "that a man must have a good many projects in hand 
 to accomplish any." 1 The diaries which he kept from 
 September 1825 till December 1827 show him to have 
 been toiling and contriving in literally scores of differ- 
 ent schemes. Many of them, such as the formation of 
 mechanics' institutes, the organisation of linen-drapers' 
 assistants, or the conciliation of a quarrel between the 
 seamen of London and those of South Shields, were not 
 directly political. But he was also working at the repeal 
 of the Wool Laws, the Cutting and Flaying Acts, the laws 
 prohibiting curriers from becoming tanners, and those 
 regulating hackney coaches and the system of pressing 
 seamen. Other schemes of his aimed at improved adminis- 
 tration, as, for instance, the appointment of six Finance 
 Committees of the House of Commons for controlling 
 supply, the improvement of the law of creditor and debtor, 
 and the appointment of special commissioners to try 
 offences committed at sea. And in addition to all this 
 purely public work, his time was always very much taken 
 up in helping individual cases of hardship, in negotiating 
 and settling disputes between employers and workmen, 
 and in acting as arbitrator in numerous commercial 
 disputes. 
 
 The library at Charing Cross, besides its use as a political 
 workshop, was also the centre of a very practical system of 
 publication. "When it was thought advisable to print a 
 tract for distribution on any subject a notice was put up 
 over the fireplace, e.g., ' It is proposed to print for distribu- 
 tion an extract from the report of the Select Committee on 
 Metropolis Police Offices.' This was read by those who 
 
 1 Hodgskin to Place, September 2, 1819 (continuation of letter dated 
 July 9, 1819).
 
 THE CHARING CROSS LIBRARY 187 
 
 came in, and they who approved of it put down a sovereign. 
 Some hundreds of pounds were collected in this way, and 
 many tracts were carefully and usefully distributed." l 
 The most important of the reprints were Mill's articles 
 from the "Supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica" 
 (1820-23), including the famous essay on "Government." 
 Among the others, one traces Mill's article on the " Ballot " 
 from the Westminster Review of July 1830, a tract by 
 Place himself on the "Law of Libel" (1823), and J. R. 
 M'Culloch's "Essay on Wages" (1826). 
 
 By 1826 the proceedings at the Charing Cross Library 
 had evidently at last begun to attract a certain amount of 
 public attention. In that year a writer in the European 
 Magazine takes " Francis Place of Westminster, Esq.," 2 as 
 the fourth of a series of " Characters for Charity's Sake," 
 the preceding three having been Henry Brougham, M.P., 
 John Cam Hobhouse, M.P., and Joseph Hume, M.P. 
 
 The article begins with a saying of Archimedes, " Give 
 me place for my fulcrum and I'll move the world," and 
 contains six pages of good-humoured and amusing chaff 
 of "this most indefatigable and efficient individual," 
 and the whole company of Benthamite Radicals. " Upon 
 Joseph Hume the country has rained teapots and pepper- 
 castors, and the tide of cyder has emulated the November 
 swell of the Severn; Hobhouse has been plastered with 
 speeches, and pots of beer innumerable have flowed to his 
 glory ; and in the matter of Brougham, the very thin-ribbed 
 men of the Modern Athens, 3 forgetting at once their politics 
 and their parsimony, have delved their one arm up to the 
 shoulder in haggis and bathed the other in sheep's-head 
 broth renown. . . . But notwithstanding all this, not even 
 
 1 Place to Benjamin Hawes, M.P., April 24, 1839. 
 
 2 The European Magazine, New Series, vol. ii. No. 7, March 1826, 
 pp. 227-33. 
 
 3 The reference is to Brougham's celebrated Edinburgh tour, from 
 which he had just then returned.
 
 188 THE CHARING CROSS LIBRARY 
 
 a ballad singer in petit France l has trolled the name of 
 Place, not a bone has been gnawed or a pint of small-beer 
 emptied to his glory ; and that ungrateful country, which 
 was pouring pots of all denominations, shapes, and sizes 
 upon the heads of mere puppets of his science, has voted 
 him nothing, no, not so much as a pointless and eyeless 
 needle." . . . "Now, speaking candidly and without any 
 amplification, we scarcely know of a thing that he has not 
 done meaning, of course, in the way of promoting civil, 
 religious, and other kinds of liberty. He is, adopting the 
 Oriental similitude, the cow's horn upon which stands the 
 tortoise upon which stand the worlds in all their number 
 and variety. . . . No one needs to be told that the 
 whole popular liberties of this country, and, by connection 
 and consequence, of the world, depend upon the electors of 
 Westminster; and just as necessarily as the sinking of lead 
 depends upon its weight, do these electors depend upon 
 Mr. Place, not only in the choice of the men whom they 
 entrust as their representatives, but in the very subjects in 
 which those men deal. When it is said that Sir Francis 
 Burdett or John Cam Hobhouse made a proposition or a 
 speech, thus or thus, there is a misnomer in the assertion ; 
 for the proposition or the speech belongs in justice to Mr. 
 Place, and in all that demonstration of frantic freedom, 
 that tumultuous tide of popularity which they propel, he 
 is the influential luminary, the moon which stirs up the 
 waters. . . . Look over the notices of motions, and see 
 when Joseph [Hume] is to storm sixpence laid out in the 
 decoration of a public work, or sack the salary of a clerk 
 in a public office, and when you find that in a day or two 
 it is to astonish St. Stephen's and delight the land, then 
 go, if you can find admission, to the library of this inde- 
 fatigable statesman, and you will discover him schooling 
 the Nabob like a baby. There upon that three-footed 
 1 " Petty France," a street in Westminster, since pulled down.
 
 THE CHARING CROSS LIBRARY 189 
 
 stool, gowned in wholesome grey, with an absolute ava- 
 lanche of schemes, scraps, and calculations around him, 
 sits the philosophic sage, delivering his golden rules with 
 the slowness and the certainty of the choicest alembic ; 
 and yonder, squatted upon a pile of unread pamphlets, sits 
 the substantial pupil, with his Avhole countenance perked 
 into one gigantic ear of astonishment and delight. ' The 
 wild ass quaffing the spring in the desert,' says the Arabian 
 proverb, ' is not so lovely as the countenance of him who 
 drinketh understanding.' 
 
 "Nor is it in the senate-house alone that the political 
 tact and talents of this illustrious man are exerted in 
 benefiting the world. All those schemes which are now 
 in progress for rendering Westminster the fountain of 
 philosophy and civilisation, as well as of liberty, can have 
 originated with none other than Mr. Place. It is true that 
 Jeremy Bentham is his senior by a year or two ; but still 
 we see no reason why Jeremy should not be the pupil, and 
 Mr. Place the instructor; and we are quite sure that of 
 the other philosophers of Queen's Square l he is the manu- 
 facturer. Now, the singular part of the business is, that 
 the others should get all the merit. Those codes, cate- 
 chisms, and constitutions which, if the world had but 
 read them, would have done it so much good, all have his 
 imprint upon them or rather, perhaps we should say, 
 his spirit in them. The government of Mill, the political 
 economy of M'Culloch, the speeches of Dr. Borthwick 
 Gilchrist, the lectures of Dr. Birkbeck, the poetry of 
 Bowring, and, as we have sometimes been inclined to 
 think, the holdings forth of Gast 2 and Gregory all have a 
 smack of Place in them. . . . 
 
 1 i.e. Bentham's house in Queen's Square Place, Westminster. 
 
 2 Secretary to the Shipwrights' Union and the leading Trade Unionist 
 at this time in London. He was a friend of Place's. See Webb, 
 " History of Trade Unionism,' 1 p. 76 (note).
 
 190 THE CHARING CROSS LIBRARY 
 
 " We are not sure that he was the absolute inventor of 
 mechanics' institutions, but we do think that either he or, 
 which is the same thing, some of his pupils gave to the 
 London combination bearing that name that unity and 
 bias which cannot fail to make it a very efficient organ of 
 civil liberty in Westminster, in the event of a contested 
 election. . . . Left to mere science and literature, an insti- 
 tution of this kind might have lasted for a while, though 
 it would soon have gone the way of all institutions ; but by 
 making it political, it is connected with that which is both 
 inexhaustible and indestructible, and therefore it is made 
 permanent. Even here, however, Mr. Place is as modest 
 and as self-denying as he is in his literature, his philosophy, 
 and his greater politics. He does not always attend, and 
 when he does, he sits in his corner, ' modest as the maid 
 that sips alone,' although a knowing person may discover 
 from the expression of his countenance when the actor 
 does, and when he does not, give the sense of his author." 
 
 In spite, however, of the great influence which Place 
 had acquired, and of the very real and important reforms 
 which he had secured, he sometimes lost patience com- 
 pletely. The trickery and dishonesty of the Whig party, 
 the weakness of the Radicals, and the frequency with 
 which those whom he had helped allowed themselves to 
 be cajoled or bought over by Governments opposed to all 
 progress, disgusted him. Thus, writing to Hume in 1830, 
 he says : " I am a tolerably patient fellow, but on this one 
 subject this rascally House of Commons I cannot always 
 command my feelings. This atrocious assembly, when- 
 ever I think of it, excites in me indignation, hatred, utter 
 abhorrence. Whenever I think of them, I involuntarily 
 run over a long list of their diabolical acts, their abomin- 
 able conduct, which perhaps has no parallel, and I get ease 
 only by cursing them most heartily and sincerely. I need 
 not more particularly point out to you the cause of my
 
 THE CHARING CROSS LIBRARY 191 
 
 abhorrence. You know these people in their corporate 
 capacity thoroughly, and can scarcely think better of them 
 than I do." l 
 
 The year 1830 seeins indeed to have been a particularly 
 trying one to him. The revival by Scarlett, the Attorney- 
 General of the Whig Government, of the barbarous press 
 prosecutions, and the attempt to alter the stamp duty on 
 newspapers, and to increase the stringency of the laAV 
 against their proprietors, had thoroughly aroused him. 
 He took active steps to combat these proceedings. But 
 members were dilatory, and all sorts of provoking delays 
 were put in his way. In the " loose gossiping account " - 
 of his doings during the year 1830, which he wrote late in 
 that year and in 1831, he reveals the very great chagrin 
 and disappointment he felt. " These things sometimes vex 
 me, and almost make me resolve to cut my parliamentary 
 acquaintance ; and this I certainly should do were it not 
 that the matters I have accomplished encourage me to 
 hope I shall still be successful. It was only after six years 
 of continued exertion in a great many ways that I at 
 length induced Mr. Hume to procure a committee, which 
 led to the repeal of the laws against combinations of work- 
 men, and the Act which forbade artisans leaving the 
 country. 3 It was only after long-continued efforts that 
 the exportation of machinery was brought to the state it 
 now is. It was in defiance of the opinions of the Speaker 
 and the Attorney-General that I procured the repeal of 
 the Cutting and Flaying Act ; and it was only after efforts 
 continued during seven years that I at length was the 
 means of a committee sitting on the conduct of the Com- 
 missioners of Hackney Coaches, which will probably put 
 an end to the abuses and to the absurd laws which incom- 
 mode this business arid inconvenience the public. If I did 
 
 1 Place to Hume, May 25, 1830. 2 "Autobiography." 
 
 3 See Chap. VIII.
 
 THE CHARING CROSS LIBRARY 
 
 not console myself with these and similar results, I should 
 abandon all such efforts, shut out my political friends, and 
 betake myself to more agreeable pursuits. It is now the 
 ipth November. The Parliament has been sitting for 
 business only three weeks, and I have been requested to 
 do as much in the way of research and statement as would 
 occupy me for three months. I will do no one of these 
 tilings, unless I have very good reason to believe that my 
 time will not be wasted, nor the matters on which I may 
 employ myself be laid aside. With some I will insist that 
 old matters be brought forward before I attend to any new 
 ones, unless these shall be decidedly of as much urgency 
 as importance." : But his despair was always short-lived. 
 " I am always doing all that can be done," he had once 
 written, " but I have learned to let that which we cannot 
 accomplish go without regret." 2 
 
 There is one danger to which those who are in close 
 contact with the actual facts of political work are peculiarly 
 liable, but which Place entirely escaped. He did not 
 become cynical. It often happens that a politician, 
 having started with the idea that he is following the 
 rushing current of popular enthusiasm, and having found 
 that his real work consists in creating, by all sorts of 
 ingenious shifts, a poor semblance of interest among a 
 deeply indifferent public, comes to think of himself as a 
 charlatan, and of his work as a rather disreputable amuse- 
 ment. Place, however, understood the machinery of poli- 
 tics without despising it. " By the word ' people,' " he 
 once wrote, " when, as in this letter I use the word in a 
 political sense, I mean those among them who take part 
 in public affairs, by whom the rest must be governed." 3 
 
 From another danger, incident to his position as an ex- 
 
 1 "Autobiography," vol. v. chap. 7, under date May 1830. 
 
 2 Place to Wakefield, December 5, 1813. 
 
 3 Place to Sir J. Hobhouse, June 2, 1832.
 
 THE CHARING CROSS LIBRARY 193 
 
 working-man who had become a powerful politician, he did 
 not perhaps escape so entirely. The facts of his own career 
 were the best demonstration of the validity of his principles, 
 and for a time he was apt to expect his acquaintances to be 
 as interested as he was himself in his wonderful success in 
 gaining education, wealth, and political influence. In Feb- 
 ruary 1825, for instance, Thomas Campbell, the poet, had 
 written a letter in the Times, in which he had given an 
 eulogistic description of Place as an argument in favour 
 of establishing a University for London, and putting the 
 highest education within the reach of the commercial 
 classes. Place, therefore, sent Campbell a long private 
 letter describing the exact limits of his knowledge of lan- 
 guages, science, law, political economy, metaphysics, the fine 
 arts, &c., and of the studies by which that knowledge had 
 been acquired. He then proceeds : " The subject on which 
 without pretension I have prided myself most, is the power 
 I have possessed of influencing or governing other men 
 individually and in bodies I am sure I may say truly by 
 honest means and for what at the time always appeared to 
 me to be useful purposes. This has always been to me a test 
 of the information I had acquired, and had I not succeeded 
 as I have done, I should have been disappointed, and 
 turned back to inquire why I had failed. I have never 
 interfered in any way, in any one single instance out of 
 my business, for the purpose of any personal advantage 
 whatever, except intellectual advancement. In all public 
 matters in which I have been engaged I have either been 
 the leader or one of the leaders, and I am not aware of any 
 one instance in which I did not obtain as much, and, in 
 some instances, considerably more credit than was due to 
 me." l After his failure, however, as a contributor to the 
 Westminster Review, and in other literary work on which 
 he had set his heart, there is little trace in his correspond- 
 1 Place to Campbell, February 10, 1825.
 
 194- THE CHARING CROSS LIBRARY 
 
 once of that self-complacency which is apt to disguise 
 itself as scientific frankness. 
 
 But a much heavier blow, and one which left its marks 
 on all he said and did during the remainder of his long and 
 busy life, now befell him. On October 1 9, 1 827, his first wife 
 died of cancer. They had been married for thirty-six years, 
 and she had borne him fourteen children, of whom ten 
 were then alive. She had always been busy in household 
 affairs, and had never attempted to share his intellectual 
 interests, so that he had found it difficult, when his grown- 
 up sons and daughters were at home, to prevent her from 
 feeling herself excluded from their talk. But her death 
 revealed that passionate intensity of feeling which was the 
 real driving force of Place's life. Ten years before, when 
 William Allen became a widower, Place had written that 
 " Allen has no philosophy to enable him to reason rightly, 
 to induce him to see things as they are, none to hold him 
 up against those common calamities which ought to be 
 borne with firmness; and the consequence is that he 
 has been both miserable in mind and ill in body." l Now 
 he himself was to learn that no amount of right reasoning 
 can make calamities anything but calamities. His wife 
 was buried in the churchyard of Angmering, the little 
 Sussex village where she died. " On the day of her 
 funeral," Place wrote, " I suffered more than I had ever 
 before done, and more than I believed I could suffer on 
 any occasion, more, I am sure, than I can again suffer. I 
 held up against it all I could, I resisted as much as man 
 could do, but it was useless, and I was utterly subdued, so 
 much so, indeed, that I could willingly have died also. . . . 
 All that was in my power was hiding myself in a barn to 
 indulge my sorrow. Go to the funeral I could not ; I had 
 no power left equal to such a purpose, and here, therefore, 
 in the barn I remained ... a mere child without a par- 
 1 Place to J. Mill, October 30, 1816.
 
 THE CHARING CROSS LIBRARY 195 
 
 ticle of resolution or self-control left in him. . . . Such 
 was the impression on me that for some time after her 
 'death I frequently thought I heard her moving along 
 the passages of the house or in the rooms. These noises 
 were made by others, yet I very often looked up expecting 
 to see her." 1 
 
 Of the succeeding months he wrote to his son-in-law at Rio 
 de Janeiro, "No one can imagine how wretched I was. . . . 
 So completely was I thrust out from all which to me was 
 most dear, that I knew not what to do. ... Much as I love 
 my children, desirous as I am to do them every possible 
 service, it was, and is, quite out of my power to find among 
 them the society which is necessary to my comfort. I 
 cannot, like many other men, go to a tavern; I hate taverns 
 and tavern-company. I cannot drink, I cannot for any 
 considerable time consent to converse with fools. I dislike 
 set, formal dinners, at which a man must either show off 
 or be voted a bore, and show off to very little purpose after 
 all, to come home in the middle of the night discontented. 
 I was utterly uncomfortable. I read and wrote all day, and 
 almost all night. I had some matters of laborious research 
 in hand, and I went on doggedly with them. I thought I 
 might become reconciled to my circumstances. ... In this, 
 however, I totally failed. ... I had no one to converse 
 with, no one to talk over, as I had been accustomed to do, 
 the occurrences of the day, no one to sympathise with 
 me in anything I was doing, and my thoughts were there- 
 fore turned in upon myself and upon my poor deceased 
 wife. I then went solitarily to my sofa I could not sleep 
 in the bed, and had discarded it from the day of my poor 
 wife's death there to endure the thoughts I could not 
 dismiss, there to suffer as I had never before suffered. I 
 assure you, John, that during many nights I never slept at 
 
 1 " Autobiography," chap. 14.
 
 196 THE CHARING CROSS LIBRARY 
 
 all. I wasted away, and at the end of three months had 
 lost nearly twenty pounds in weight." l 
 
 Before his wife's death Place had been several times con- 
 sulted on business matters by Mrs. Chatterley, a clever 
 middle-aged actress at Covent Garden Theatre. She now 
 called to condole with him, and during the year 1828, when 
 absorption in the details of politics had become impossible 
 to him, he formed the habit of spending a few hours each 
 day at her house in Brompton Square. This continued 
 for two years, but though, in 1828 and 1829, he left the 
 library every day at three o'clock, his mornings were occu- 
 pied as much as ever. On May 4, 1829, for instance, he 
 notes that he has on hand schemes dealing with Corn 
 Laws, Silk Laws, Police, Vestries, Parliamentary Reform, 
 and the employment of children in cotton factories. 
 
 In February 1830 he and Mrs. Chatterley were married, 
 and, with some regret, he determined to remain at Charing 
 Cross instead of removing to Brompton Square; to con- 
 tinue to live, that is to say, in the daily work of politics, 
 and not in literature and research. "It was utterly im- 
 possible for me to detach myself from the business of others 
 if I resided at Charing Cross. So I at once abandoned the 
 schemes I would willingly have indulged, and especially 
 the attempt I had long since contemplated of writing a 
 history of North America (and for which I have collected 
 upwards of 600 volumes), and at once reconciled myself to 
 my old way of consuming time." 2 
 
 1 Place to J. Miers, March 7, 1828 ("Autobiography, 1 ' chap. 14). 
 
 2 "Autobiography," vol. v.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE COMBINATION LAWS 
 
 " The Labour Question may be said to have come into 
 public view simultaneously with the repeal, betiveen sixty 
 and seventy years ago, of the Combination Laics, which 
 had made It an offence for labouring men to unite for the 
 purpose of procuring by joint option, tlirounl peaceful 
 means, an c.agmentation of their wages. From this point 
 progress began." l 
 
 The repeal of the Combination Laws in 1824-25 was the 
 most striking piece of work that Place ever carried through 
 single-handed. During the eighteenth century there had 
 been passed a series of statutes directed against combina- 
 tions of journeymen in particular trades. The first of the 
 series was an act of 1721 ''for regulating the journeymen 
 tailors within the bills of mortality," and the last the 
 general act of 1 799 " to prevent unlawful combinations of 
 workmen." 2 This legislation was not successful in putting 
 a stop to combination : but, together with the common law 
 as interpreted and developed by the judges, it enabled a 
 master who had a quarrel with his workmen to punish 
 them with the most abominable tyranny. 
 
 1 Extract from au article on "The English Labourer.'' by the Right 
 Hon. W. E. Gladstone, in the Weekly Star, Xo. i, vol. i., February 6, 
 1892. 
 
 - For the history of the Combination Laws see "The History of 
 Trade Unionism," by Sidney and Beatrice Webb (London, 1894), 
 chap. ii. As to their operation in the case of the London tailors, 
 see "Select Dociunents Illustrating the History of Trade Unionism 
 in the Tailoring Trade," by F. W. Galton (London, i!
 
 198 TIIK COMBINATION LAWS 
 
 A unanimous refusal to work at reduced prices was 
 regarded as sufficient evidence of unlawful combination, 
 and the non-acceptance by an unemployed journeyman of 
 work offered to him by any employer in his trade, meant 
 liability to undergo a long period of imprisonment or to 
 be impressed into his Majesty's sea or land forces. The 
 material which Place collected in eight thick volumes, 1 to 
 illustrate the history of the Combination Laws, includes 
 several cases where the magistrates threatened the men 
 with imprisonment as an alternative to work on the 
 masters' terms, and one case where a summons for com- 
 bination was used to put a stop to a suit for wages owing. 2 
 It also shows that, as Place said, the laws "were not so 
 much the consequence of the desire to keep the people in 
 an abject state of subjection to their employers, as of a 
 persuasion that they enabled those employers to get their 
 work done at less expense." 3 " Justice," Place wrote, " was 
 entirely out of the question ; the working-men could seldom 
 obtain a hearing before a magistrate never without impa- 
 tience and insult ; and never could they calculate on even an 
 approximation to a rational conclusion. . . . Could an ac- 
 curate account be given of proceedings, of hearings before 
 magistrates, trials at sessions and in the Court of King's 
 Bench, the gross injustice, the foul invective and terrible 
 punishments inflicted, would not, after a few years have 
 passed away, be credited on any but the best of evidence." 4 
 
 Many of the statutes against combination nominally 
 applied to the masters equally with the men, but though 
 the masters openly formed agreements to lower wages, 
 with penalties attached to their violation, and circulated 
 black-lists of insubordinate journeymen, not a single case 
 
 1 Brit. Mus. Addl. MSS. 27,799-806. 
 
 2 See First Report and Minutes of Evidence of the Select Committee 
 on Artisans and Machinery Evidence of W. Ablett, March 8, 1824, 
 p. 147. Place's copy, preserved in 27,800 (161). 
 
 3 27,798 (6). * 27,798 (7, 8).
 
 THE COMBINATION LAWS 199 
 
 lias been discovered where they were successfully prose- 
 cuted for these offences. 
 
 Though Place in the year 1799 became an employer, he 
 never forgot what he had suffered as a black-listed and 
 starving journeyman breeches-maker, or while in constant 
 danger of arrest as the underpaid secretary of the carpen- 
 ters' and plumbers' trade clubs. In a MS. report to the 
 Council of the National Political Union in 1831 he wrote: 
 " When I became a master I did not forget that I had 
 been a journeyman, and I acted accordingly. Never in 
 my life did I call any man who worked for me out of 
 his name. I always paid the highest rate of wages, and 
 whenever the men struck for an increase of wages I never 
 suffered them to leave me, but at all the three strikes 
 which occurred whilst I remained in business I gave the 
 advance as soon as it was asked, though these advances 
 raised the men's wages from a guinea and ninepence a 
 week to six and thirty shillings. Since I left business 
 in 1818 I have constantly employed some portions of my 
 time to promote the welfare of the working people, and 
 at times a very considerable portion of my time, as for 
 instance in procuring, after efforts continued for years, the 
 repeal of the laws against combinations of workmen, and 
 in establishing the mechanics' institutions. This explana- 
 tion will, I hope, be received as evidence that I really am, 
 what I pretend to be, the ardent and active friend of the 
 working classes." l 
 
 Place gives the grounds of his hostility to the Combi- 
 nation Laws in a pamphlet written at the time of the 
 debates on the Act of 1825 : "If keeping down wages in 
 some cases, by law, was a national good ; if the degrada- 
 tion of the whole body of the working people by law was 
 desirable ; if perpetuating discord between masters and 
 workmen was useful ; if litigation was a benefit ; if living 
 1 MS. Report, preserved in 27,822 (51, 52).
 
 200 THE COMBINATION LAWS 
 
 in perpetual violation of law was a proper state for work- 
 men and their employers to be placed in, then the laws 
 against combinations of workmen were good laws, for to 
 all these did they tend." l 
 
 In 1810 the journeymen compositors employed by the 
 Times were prosecuted for the crime of belonging to a 
 combination and taking part in a strike. As in 1 806 the 
 scandals of the Westminster election brought Place back 
 into democratic politics, 2 so now this practical example of 
 the operation of the Combination Laws started him on the 
 work of obtaining freedom of association. " The cruel 
 persecutions of the journeymen printers employed on the 
 Times newspaper in 1810 were carried to an almost in- 
 credible extent. The judge who tried and sentenced some 
 of them was the then Common Serjeant of London, Sir 
 John Silvester, commonly known by the cognomen of 
 " Bloody Black Jack." He was a remarkably large bluff 
 man. with large, uncouth features, and a somewhat ferocious 
 aspect. He obtained the cognomen in consequence of his 
 hasty disposition, the satisfaction he expressed when sen- 
 tencing criminals, and the heavy sentences he inflicted." 3 
 The men were sentenced on December 11, 1810, and the 
 Times of two days afterwards contains the text of " Bloody 
 Black Jack's " pronouncement. " Prisoners, you have been 
 convicted of a most wicked conspiracy to injure the most 
 vital interests of those very employers who gave you bread, 
 with intent to impede and injure them in their business ; 
 and, indeed, as far as in you lay, to effect their ruin. The 
 frequency of such crimes among men of your class of life, 
 and their mischievous and dangerous tendency to ruin the 
 fortunes of those emplo} r ers which a principle of gratitude 
 and self-interest should induce you to support, demand of 
 
 1 "Observations on Huskisson's Speech," by F. P. (Francis Place). 
 London, 1825, p. 21. 
 8 Cf. Chap. II. 3 27,798 (8).
 
 THE COMBINATION LAWS 201 
 
 the law that a severe example should be made of those 
 persons who shall be convicted of such daring and flagitious 
 combinations, in defiance of public justice, and in violation 
 of public order. N"o symptom of contrition on your part 
 has appeared no abatement of the combination in which 
 you are accomplices has yet resulted from the example 
 of your convictions." * The men were then sentenced to 
 terms of imprisonment varying from nine months to two 
 years. 
 
 In the same year the master tailors of London made an 
 effort to obtain such a drastic Act of Parliament as would 
 enable them to put down the long-established union in the 
 trade. 2 " I was applied to," says Place, " to subscribe, but I 
 refused; yet notwithstanding this, I was appointed a mem- 
 ber of their committee. I attended once, and explained 
 to them, very calmly and deliberately, the reasons why I 
 did not and could not concur with them, and why 1 
 thought it advisable for them to desist, and make an 
 attempt to procure the repeal of all the laws against com- 
 binations of workmen. I showed them that their present 
 proceedings could cause nothing but mischief: that they 
 would not succeed in procuring an Act of Parliament ; and 
 that if they could, it would be evaded, no matter how it 
 was worded. I showed them how it happened that in 
 their particular trade, they had never been able to make 
 use of the law as it stood, and explained to them that, so 
 long as the men continued to repose confidence in those 
 they appointed to manage their concerns, no law could 
 reach them, and that a more severe law would, as they 
 very well knew, increase that confidence. I gave no offence, 
 
 1 The Times, December 13, 1810. 
 
 2 Special Acts had been passed in 1721. and again in 1768, fixing the 
 wages and forbidding combinations in the tailoring trade. The 
 employers had been attempting f> r some years to get these laws 
 strengthened and more stringently administered. See Galton, " The 
 Tailoring Trade" (supra).
 
 202 THE COMBINATION LAWS 
 
 but the} 7 proceeded ; and a Committee (a select committee 
 of the House of Commons, but an open committee, that is, 
 a committee which any member who chose might attend) 
 was appointed to take evidence. When the Committee 
 had sat two cr three days I went down to the House, and 
 after hearing some witnesses examined, requested that I 
 might be examined. I had given a sketch of what I wished 
 to depose, to the parliamentary agent for the journeymen, 
 who mismanaged the business sadly ; but still my evidence 
 was sufficient to destroy the bill. I was well known by 
 name in the trade, and pretty w r ell known personally, 
 though I knew scarcely half-a-dozen of the masters. There 
 were many in the room, yet in no instance was the person 
 of any one of them known to me. My evidence produced 
 a strong ebullition among those who took a different view 
 of the matter. Mr. Barton was chairman of the Commit- 
 tee ; he was a Welsh Judge, and at this time was totally 
 blind. When my evidence was concluded, some of the 
 spectators hissed ; upon which Mr. Barton, in the name of 
 the Committee, thanked me for coming forward as I had 
 done and giving the evidence I had given. Two of the 
 principal master tailors then told the chairman that they 
 concurred completely in all I had said, and wished my 
 evidence should stand as theirs also. It was explained to 
 the Committee that I was entirely unknown to these 
 gentlemen, and had had no communication with either of 
 them. This put an end to the proceedings in Parliament. 
 Several master tailors called on me afterwards and thanked 
 me ; but not a single journeyman, nor an}' one for them, 
 came near me, nor at any subsequent time did they do 
 anything to promote the repeal of the Combination Laws ; 
 except a small number at one house of call signing a 
 petition for that purpose at my request, when I had pre- 
 pared it for them." l 
 
 1 27,798 (9-11).
 
 THE COMBINATION LAWS 
 
 The workmen "could not be persuaded to believe that 
 the repeal of the laws was possible. Every one else either 
 thought the laws were useful, or that any attempt to pro- 
 cure their repeal would be loss of time ; and some few, as 
 they came gradually into the persuasion that the laws 
 ought to be repealed, refused to have anything to do with 
 so hopeless a case. I was not to be put from my purpose, 
 as I had seen strange things accomplished by perseverance, 
 and I was resolved to persevere. 
 
 "In 1814, therefore, I began to work seriously to procure 
 a repeal of the laws against combinations of workmen, but 
 for a long time made no visible progress. As often as any 
 dispute arose between masters and men, or when any law 
 proceedings were had, and reported in the newspapers, I 
 interfered, sometimes with the masters, sometimes with the 
 men, very generally, as far as I could, by means of some 
 one or more of the newspapers, and sometimes by acting as 
 a pacificator, always pushing for the one purpose, the repeal 
 of the laws. 
 
 " I Avrote a great many letters to trade societies in 
 London, and as often as I heard of any dispute respect- 
 ing the Combination Laws in the country I wrote to some 
 of the parties, stated my purpose, and requested informa- 
 tion. Few condescended to notice my applications, and 
 scarcely any furnished me with the information I wished 
 to have ; but many of the country papers inserted the 
 articles I sent to them, and these must have produced some 
 effect, though no signs of any appeared. Working-men 
 had been too often deceived to be willing to trust to any 
 one who was not well known to them. Habitually cunning, 
 and suspicious of all above their own rank in life, and 
 having no expectation of any mitigation, much less of a 
 chance of the laws being repealed, they could not persuade 
 themselves that my communications were of any value to 
 them, and they would not therefore give themselves any
 
 204 THE COMBINATION LAWS 
 
 trouble about them, much less to give such information as 
 might, they thought, be some day used against them. I 
 understood them thoroughly, and was neither put from my 
 purpose nor offended with them. I was resolved to serve 
 them as much as I could. I knew well enough that if they 
 could be served in this as in many other particulars, it must 
 be done without their concurrence, in spite of them. 
 
 " The papers I continued to write for the daily and 
 weekly press were not wholly thrown away; there was, 
 after some time, an evident reluctance in many places to 
 enforce the laws against the workmen ; and some who did 
 enforce them no longer met with the general support which 
 had formerly been given to such proceedings. 1 
 
 "In 1 8 1 8 a Mr. Wade, a wool-comber by trade, as I 
 afterwards learned, commenced a Aveekly publication called 
 the Gorgon? which he sold for three-halfpence. I learned 
 his character and advanced him some money, as did also 
 Mr. Benthain and Mr. Bickersteth. He was an honest 
 man, and although I never saw him, his letters pleased me, 
 and assured me I had done well in procuring him assistance. 
 He repaid all the money which had been lent to him. 
 
 "A number of this small publication was distributed 
 among trade societies ; copies were sent to some master 
 manufacturers and to some newspapers. The publication 
 was political, but it contained much that related to trade, 
 manufactures, and domestic policy. This paper induced 
 
 1 In 1819 Place, in a letter to Hobhouse, wrote : "Only think of it, 
 that I, sitting in my skylight as the sycophant Perry called it, have, 
 by taking advantage of circumstances, induced the Chronicle, and even 
 the Times, to set the matter on its right footing. The Star is a powerful 
 auxiliary, and I expect the Scotsman, to whom I have written at much 
 length, will be a useful coadjutor. It has always appeared to me to be 
 good policy to work with the press in any way it may at any time be 
 willing to work for the public good.'' Place to Hobhouse, August 16, 
 1819, 27,837 (173). 
 
 2 Place's own bound volume of the Gorgon for 1818-1819 is in the 
 British Museum.
 
 THE COMBINATION LAAVS 205 
 
 Mr. Hume to come into my project much more than he 
 had hitherto done ; and to observe much more particularly 
 the operations and consequences of the obnoxious laws. 
 I caused several members of Parliament to read the papers 
 on trade as they appeared in the Gorgon, and I supplied 
 the editor with much of the matter, which he worked up 
 in his own way into essays. 1 The Gorgon was not alto- 
 gether such a publication as I should have preferred, but 
 is was the only one which could be used with any con- 
 siderable effect, and this was a sufficient reason why I 
 should assist the proprietor and make the most I could 
 of it. Progress was now made. Many persons began to 
 wish for the repeal of the laws ; almost every member of 
 Parliament whom I knew became convinced that the 
 laws could do no good ; most of them were satisfied they 
 did mischief, and ought to be repealed." 2 
 
 On August 1 6, 1819, Place wrote in high spirits to 
 Hobhouse : " Next session we shall have a Committee 
 on the wages of labour, and, whether the Act against 
 Combinations of Workmen be or be not repealed, the 
 examination and discussion of the subject will elevate the 
 w T orking-man in his own opinion. If it be repealed, the 
 effect will be much greater than you can have any correct 
 conception of. If it be not repealed, 10,000 petitions will 
 be presented to the two Houses in the following session, 
 signed by from two to three millions of men and women 
 who actually receive wages. I am persuading the work- 
 men in London, Manchester, and some other places openly 
 to commence penny-a-week societies to defray the ex- 
 penses of sending some of the ablest among them to 
 attend the Committee. The repeal of the Combination 
 
 1 See, in particular, an account of the London tailors and their 
 combinations, which appeared in the issues of the Gordon of September 
 26, October 3 and 10, 1818, and is reprinted by F. AV. Galton, "The 
 Tailoring Trade," pp. 146-160. 
 
 2 27,798 (12-14).
 
 206 THE COMBINATION LAWS 
 
 Laws would make thousands of reformers among the 
 master tradesmen and manufacturers." l And a few weeks 
 later he wrote, even more hopefully, to Hodgskin: "When 
 it was agreed to bring in the bill to repeal so much of the 
 laws against combinations of workmen as relate to the 
 rate of wages and hours of working, which is all that is 
 intended to be done, it was supposed that it would require 
 several years to get it through the House of Commons. 
 But, from the decided part the newspapers have taken, 
 the correspondence which has been going on, and the 
 number of master tradesmen and manufacturers who not 
 only desire the repeal, but are willing to petition for it, 
 and to give evidence also before a Committee of the 
 House of Commons, hopes are entertained that it may be 
 got through next session. Mr. M['Culloch] can do much 
 service by helping this on, as he is looked to as an 
 authority on these matters. It is of vast importance, and 
 would do more towards destroying the existing animosities 
 between the working-men and their employers, than any 
 other circumstance whatsoever." - 
 
 These high hopes and spirits were not, however, justified 
 by events, and Place continued to devote his time to the 
 collection of evidence, and to the personal conversion of 
 individual members of Parliament, editors nnd econo- 
 mists. At last, in 1822, Joseph Hume, encouraged by 
 several members to bring the matter before the House of 
 Commons, announced that he intended to bring in a bill 
 to repeal all the laws against combinations of workmen. 
 
 " Parliament," says Place, " was not as yet in a condition 
 to deal properly with the subject; and I was therefore in 
 no hurry to urge Mr. Hume to proceed beyond indicating 
 his purpose. I supplied him with a considerable quantity 
 of papers, printed and MS., relating to the subject, advised 
 
 1 Place to Hobhouse, August 16, 1819. 
 
 2 Place, to Hodgskin, September 8, 1819.
 
 THE COMBINATION LAWS 207 
 
 him to examine them carefully, and promised my assist- 
 ance to the greatest possible extent for the next session. 
 These papers were afterwards sent to Mr. M'Culloch at 
 Edinburgh, who was at this time editor of the Scotsman 
 newspaper, and he made admirable use of them in that 
 paper. This gave a decided tone to several other country 
 papers, and caused the subject to be discussed in a way, 
 and to an extent, which it had never before been. Towards 
 the end of the session, Mr. Hume informed me that many 
 of the Opposition members had consented to a repeal of 
 the laws ; and that Mr. Huskisson, Mr. Wallace, Mr. 
 Copley the Attorney-General, and some others who were 
 high in office, had promised not to oppose the appoint- 
 ment of a Select Committee to inquire respecting the 
 efficiency of the laws against combinations of workmen, 
 and their effects in other particulars. Thus a consider- 
 able advance was made." l 
 
 Of what happened in Parliament during the next two 
 years, Place has left a detailed chronological account. 
 
 "Parliament met on February 4, 1823, and a few days 
 afterwards Mr. Hume exerted himself to obtain the 
 concurrence of as many members as he could to his 
 proposal ; he did not, however, make much progress. 
 But a circumstance soon occurred which induced many 
 of them to consent to support his proposition for a Com- 
 mittee. 
 
 "A Mr. George White, a clerk of committees at the 
 House of Commons, had formed a partnership with a 
 Mr. Gravener Henson, 2 a bobbin netmaker at Nottingham ; 
 
 1 27,798 (15). 
 
 2 Gravener Henson had long been a leader of the framework 
 knitters' unions, and is sometimes alleged to have been " King Lud," 
 the organiser of the mobs who visited obnoxious manufacturers and 
 smashed their machinery. He suffered several terms of imprisonment, 
 and published in 1831 a "History of the Framework Knitters," now ;i 
 scarce work.
 
 208 THE COMBINATION LAWS 
 
 they, and some half-dozen others, some of them Coventry 
 men, had concerted a plan with Mr. Peter Moore l to bring 
 in a bill to repeal the laws against combinations of work- 
 men. White understood the progress Mr. Hume was 
 making; but he and Mr. Henson had a beautiful scheme 
 of legislation, as complicated and absurd as two such ill- 
 instructed men could well contrive. They meant well, 
 but did not understand the means necessary to do well. 
 They were both active, indefatigable men. White went 
 to work heartily, and collected from the statutes every- 
 thing he could find which in any way related to masters 
 and workmen; this he showed to Peter Moore together 
 with the draft of a bill ; and Mr. Moore at once agreed to 
 introduce the bill. This course was taken to prevent Mr. 
 Hume either from moving for a Committee or bringing in 
 a bill ; and they were very near effecting their purpose. 
 
 " On March 3, 1823, Mr. Moore obtained leave to bring in 
 his bill. . . . Mr. Moore's bill produced considerable alarm 
 to many members, and especially to ministers, at whose 
 request Mr. Moore at length consented that the discussion 
 on its merits should be postponed to the next session. 
 
 " Parliament met again on February 3, 1824. Just before 
 this time appeared the Edinburgh Review, No. 78, con- 
 taining from the pen of Mr. M'Culloch a very excellent 
 essay on the propriety of repealing the laws against com- 
 binations of workmen, and those which forbade the emi- 
 gration of artisans. Its effect on many members was 
 remarkable; several of them told me there was no re- 
 sisting the conclusive arguments it contained, and one of 
 them said he was prepared to speak the substance of the 
 essay in the House. 
 
 " Mr. Hume, however, met with more opposition than he 
 anticipated. Mr. Moore's bill was a bug-a-boo. I advised 
 him to take no notice of the bill, but to move at once for 
 1 Then the member of Parliament for Coventry.
 
 THE COMBINATION LAWS 209 
 
 a Select Committee. When the time came for doing so, Mr. 
 Huskisson shrunk back. He advised Mr. Hume to forego 
 his intention of moving for a Committee on the Combina- 
 tion Laws, and to take in only the Emigration of Artisans 
 and the Exportation of Machinery. Mr. Hume was cajoled 
 and gave notice accordingly. This was February 6, and 
 thus was all the labour I had bestowed on the subject, as 
 it had been on other subjects, at once pushed aside ; all 
 the letters and all the communications I had made and 
 received were to go for nothing, and the papers for Mr. 
 Hume's guidance were at once rendered useless. 
 
 " On his return from the House he came to me with 
 Alderman Wood. Mr. Hume said Mr. Huskisson had 
 consented to the appointment of a Committee on Artisans 
 and Machinery, but he objected to take in the Combina- 
 tion Laws, as Peter Moore would come with his bill, make 
 a schism in the Committee, and cause a deal of trouble. I 
 argued the propriety of taking in the Combination Laws, 
 and Mr. Hume seemed half convinced of the propriety of 
 doing so, but he did not promise to do so. He left with 
 me the motion in the form he proposed to make it, and 
 the names of the members for the Committee, for me to 
 revise. After some very serious consideration, I wrote as 
 follows : 
 
 "'February 7, 1824. 
 
 " ' I am decidedly of opinion that you should take in the 
 Combination Laws, and also that you should at once take 
 Peter Moore into the Committee. Moore is not a man to 
 be put aside, and the only way to put him down is to let 
 him talk his nonsense in the Committee, where being out- 
 voted, he will be less an annoyance in the House. I know 
 Mr. Moore well know how pig-headed he is, that he will 
 be sure to go in the opposite way to which he is pulled, 
 and I also know that he must be borne with. If you do
 
 210 THE COMBINATION LAWS 
 
 not take him into the Committee, he will come with his 
 book of petty legislation before the House, and compel the 
 House to negative his mass of absurdities. The public 
 will, however, see nothing in this but, as they will conclude, 
 an evident resolution in the Government not to do justice. 
 Peter Moore will be looked to by millions, and all sorts of 
 obloquy will be cast upon every other man in the House. 
 Moore's Bill might be cut down in the Committee, and if I 
 were a member of that Committee, I would set my foot to 
 his on this part of the business, and although I should not 
 convince him, I would beat him from all his positions. 
 
 " ' The business is really very simple, and it lies in a small 
 space. Repeal every troublesome and vexatious enactment, 
 and enact very little in their place. Leave workmen and 
 their employers as much as possible at liberty to make 
 their own bargains in their own way. This is the way to 
 prevent disputes ; but when they do occur, leave them to 
 settle them amongst themselves, with an appeal to a 
 Justice of the Peace in cases (and they will be very few) 
 in which the parties cannot of themselves come to a de- 
 cision. Let the magistrate decide on the evidence before 
 him, and make his decision final. I have no doubt at all 
 that you will find this not only by far the pleasantest but 
 the shortest way of proceeding. Yours truly, 
 
 " ' FRANCIS PLACE.' 
 
 " The above was written to be shown to Mr. Huskisson 
 and others; it was accompanied by another letter which 
 was intended to be private. 
 
 "'i. It was generally understood last session that you 
 would move for a repeal of the Combination Laws in this 
 session. Nobody seemed to care much about Mr. Moore ; 
 everybody seemed to rely on Mr. Hume. 
 
 " ' 2. You and I had a similar understanding, and I acted
 
 THE COMBINATION LAWS 211 
 
 upon it very extensively. I took every opportunity to 
 prepare people to expect your motion ; and many thousands 
 do expect it. I have sent circular letters to a great many 
 houses of call for journeymen, telling them, as I was fully 
 warranted in telling them, that the Committee you would 
 move for was, amongst other matters, to consider of the 
 repeal of the Combination Laws. I have this day been at 
 houses of call for hatters, smiths, carpenters, weavers, boot 
 and shoe makers, and metal workers. To-morrow I am to 
 be at those of the bakers, tailors, plumbers, painters and 
 glaziers, bricklayers, and bookbinders. Now if, after all, 
 you do not go on with the Combination Laws, what will 
 be the consequence ? I shall have to say to hundreds of 
 persons that you did agree to go into it; that this was 
 the reason I talked with them on the subject and wrote to 
 them ; but that, when the time came, you, without reason, 
 declined doing it. You will at once see that I have no 
 choice. I must say this. 
 
 '"3. If you do not go into the Combination Laws by 
 making it one reason for a Committee, Peter Moore will 
 take advantage of the multitude of petitions that will 
 be presented to the House; he will introduce his bill 
 again. . . .' 
 
 " Mr. Hume consulted Mr. Huskisson, and it was agreed 
 that the motion should be made, as I had suggested it. 
 Thus the matter about which so much pains had been 
 taken, so much time, and some money also, had been 
 spent, and which was all but set aside, was again put upon 
 its legs. 
 
 On the 1 2th February, Mr. Hume made his motion, and 
 obtained his Committee. It was with difficulty Mr. Hume 
 could obtain the names of twenty-one members to compose 
 the Committee ; but when it had sat three days, and had 
 become both popular and amusing, members contrived to
 
 212 THE COMBINATION LAWS 
 
 be put upon it, and at length it consisted of forty-eight 
 members. 
 
 "When the Committee met for business, Mr. Hume 
 found himself in a very difficult situation ; he had been so 
 assiduously employed in various other matters, that it had 
 been impossible for him to give attention to the details of 
 this. He was much annoyed and embarrassed ; no one 
 assisted him, and some put obstacles in his way. I offered 
 to attend the Committee as his assistant, but the jealousy 
 of the members prevented this ; they ' would not be dictated 
 to' that is, they would not have the business put in a 
 plain way by the only man who had made himself master 
 of it in all its bearings, because he was neither a member of 
 the honourable House, nor even a gentleman. Thus does 
 pride and ignorance, in all situations, from a Committee 
 of the honourable House to a chandler's shop in an alley, 
 show itself much in the same way, always absurd, always 
 pitiful, very generally mischievous. Happily nothing can 
 subdue Mr. Hume's perseverance, and, like almost every 
 man who perseveres in a right course, he almost always 
 finds himself firm upon his legs at the end of his labour. 
 Mr. Hume wrote a circular letter announcing the appoint- 
 ment of the Committee, and inviting persons to come and 
 give evidence ; copies of this were sent to the mayors and 
 other officers of corporate towns, and to many of the 
 principal manufacturers. Some one country paper having 
 obtained a copy, printed it, and it was presently reprinted 
 in all the newspapers, and thus due notice was given to 
 everybody. Meetings were held in many places ; and both 
 masters and men sent up deputations to give evidence. The 
 delegates from the working people had reference to me, and 
 I opened my house to them. Thus I had all the town and 
 country delegates under my care. I heard the story which 
 every one of these men had to tell. I examined and cross- 
 examined them ; took down the leading particulars of
 
 THE COMBINATION LAWS 213 
 
 each case, and then arranged the matter as briefs for Mr. 
 Hume ; and, as a rule, for the guidance of the witnesses, 
 a copy was given to each. This occupied days and nights, 
 and occasioned great labour ; much of it might have been 
 saved if the Committee would have permitted me to re- 
 main in the room and assist the chairman as I had done 
 on former occasions. As it was, I had no choice. Each 
 brief contained the principal questions and answers. That 
 for Mr. Hume was generally accompanied by an appendix 
 of documents, arranged in order with a short account of 
 such proceedings as was necessary to put Mr. Hume in 
 possession of the whole case. Thus he was enabled to 
 go on with considerable ease, and to anticipate or rebut 
 objections. 
 
 " Mr. George White was clerk of the Committee. He was 
 at first annoyed by the interference of Mr. Hume, whose 
 conduct had set Peter Moore entirely aside. Mr. Moore 
 never once attended the Committee. Mr. White soon, 
 however, became satisfied that I was pushing the matter 
 in the right way, sought my acquaintance, and gave all 
 the assistance in his power. He told me that some 
 members of the Committee, seeing Mr. Hume's briefs in 
 my handwriting, were much offended, and had hinted at 
 having me called before the Committee, for tampering, 
 as they called it, with the witnesses. It would have well 
 pleased me to have been so called, as I should have been 
 able to have shown up some honourable members in a 
 new light before the public. 
 
 " The workmen were not easily managed. It required 
 great care and pains and patience not to shock their pre- 
 judices, so as to prevent them doing their duty before 
 the Committee. They were filled with false notions, all 
 attributing their distresses to wrong causes, which I, in 
 this state of the business, dared not attempt to remove. 
 Taxes, machinery, laws against combinations, the will of the
 
 214 THE COMBINATION LAWS 
 
 masters, the conduct of magistrates, these were the funda- 
 mental causes of all their sorrows and privations. All 
 expected a great and sudden rise of wages, when the Com- 
 bination Laws should be repealed ; not one of them had 
 any idea whatever of the connection between wages and 
 population. I had to discuss everything with them most 
 carefully, to arrange and prepare everything, and so com- 
 pletely did these things occupy my time, that for more 
 than three months I had hardly time for rest. 
 
 " As the proceedings of the Committee were printed from 
 day to day for the use of the members, I had a copy sent 
 to me by Mr. Hume, which I indexed, on paper ruled in 
 many columns, each column having an appropriate head 
 or number. I also wrote remarks on the margins of the 
 printed evidence; 1 this was copied daily by Mr. Hume's 
 secretary, and then returned to me. This consumed much 
 time, but enabled Mr. Hume to have the whole mass con- 
 stantly under his view. And I am very certain that less 
 pains and care would not have been sufficient to have 
 carried the business through. 
 
 " I had still one fear, namely, of speech-making. I was 
 quite certain that if the bills came under discussion in the 
 House they would be lost. Mr. Hume had the good sense 
 to see this, and wholly to refrain from speaking on them. 
 
 " There was another difficulty, not easily to be sur- 
 mounted, and this was the Report of the Committee. 
 When evidence before a Select Committee has been taken, 
 it is usual to discuss the matter of the report, and here it 
 but too often happens that some sinister interest prevails. 
 In the present case the report must have been drawn by 
 me for Mr. Hume, and the consequence would have been 
 such alterations, omissions, and additions, as would have 
 made it useless and defeated the purpose intended. It was 
 
 1 The volumes of evidence thus prepared and annotated by Place 
 are now preserved in vols. 27,800-27,801.
 
 THE COMBINATION LAWS 215 
 
 therefore agreed to deviate from the usual mode, and draw 
 up resolutions which, if possible, should be substituted for 
 a report. It was quite clear to both me and Mr. Hume 
 that it would not only be more difficult for members to 
 cavil at and alter short resolutions, each containing a fact, 
 than it would be to bedevil a report drawn in the usual 
 way, but as the means of detecting and exposing sophistry 
 in this form would be easy and certain, few if any of the 
 members would make the attempt. Resolutions were 
 accordingly drawn, printed, and circulated amongst the 
 members of the Committee. 1 They were cavilled at, but 
 nothing in the way of alteration was proposed. Time was 
 thus gained, and at length, when all were pretty well 
 wearied with attending at the Committee, it was agreed 
 that Mr. Hume should report the resolutions. This was 
 gaining a point of the utmost importance, and ensuring the 
 progress of the bills through the House. 
 
 " There were, however, other difficulties to be encoun- 
 tered. Mr. White and I had put the bills into form with 
 the fewest words possible. Mr. Hume, however, suffered 
 the Attorney- General to employ Mr. Anthony Hamond, a 
 barrister, to draw the bills; he took our MSS., and pretty 
 specimens of nonsense he made of them ! He had all the 
 necessary documents, some suggestions in writing, and the 
 bills themselves as perfectly drawn as we could draw them ; 
 but he knew not how to use them. This caused consider- 
 able perplexity. We attacked his draft, and afterwards 
 the printed bills. He paid but little attention to us, but it 
 so happened that when the bills were once printed he con- 
 sidered himself as having performed all that he was likely 
 to be remunerated for, and he gave himself no further 
 concern about them. We now got them into our hands, 
 
 1 The resolutions as agreed to by the Committee were presented to 
 Parliament in the Sixth Report of the Select Committee on Artisans 
 and Machinery, 1824.
 
 216 THE COMBINATION LAWS 
 
 altered them as we liked, had MS. copies made and pre- 
 sented to the House. No inquiry was made as to who 
 drew the bills; they were found to contain all that was 
 needful, and with some assiduity in seeing members to 
 induce them not to speak on the several readings, they 
 passed the House of Commons almost without the notice 
 of members within or newspapers without. 
 
 "When the bill went to the Lords, 1 a new difficulty 
 occurred. The half-crazy Lord Lauderdale intimated that 
 he should oppose the bills. He approved, he said, of the 
 principle of the bills, but it was beneath the dignity of the 
 House of Lords to pass them, until noble members had 
 had an opportunity of perusing the evidence taken before 
 the Commons' Committee, which had not as yet been re- 
 printed by their Lordships' printer. If Lord Lauderdale 
 had used these words in the Noble House, the bills would 
 have been put off till the next session, when it is very pro- 
 bable they would have been rejected. With almost incre- 
 dible pains taken, Lauderdale was induced to hold his 
 tongue, and three Acts were passed : 
 
 " (i.) An Act to repeal the laws relating to the combina- 
 tions of workmen, and for other purposes therein men- 
 tioned (5 Geo. IV. c. 95). 
 
 " (ii.) An Act to consolidate and amend the laws relative 
 to the arbitration of disputes between masters and work- 
 men (5 Geo. IV. c. 96). 
 
 1 A very vigorous canvass of the Lords was made by Hume and 
 Place. On June 9 Hume wrote to Place : " I send you a letter re- 
 ceived from Lord Lansdoune and a copy of my answer to him. 1 
 have also written to Lord Rosslyn to the same purport, and wish you 
 to press through M'Intosh and Brougham the support of Lords Lauder- 
 dale, Ackland, &c. You should send the several deputies now in town 
 to the several Lords who take a part, and to the Lord Chancellor, Lord 
 Liverpool, to request their support of the bills. I have written to 
 Mr. Huskisson to get the support of Lord Liverpool. ... A canvass 
 for the bills must be made to ensure success." Hume to Place, 
 June 9, 1824, 27,801 (148).
 
 THE COMBINATION LAWS 217 
 
 " (iii.) An Act to repeal the laws relative to artisans going 
 abroad (5 Geo. IV. c. 97)." l 
 
 Place was of opinion that the repeal of the Combination 
 Laws would lead to the disappearance of trade unions. 
 He thought that these were formed chiefly to resist the 
 continuous combination of employers, and to defend the 
 workmen against the tyranny of the law. 
 
 In 1811 he had argued, as against the attempt of the 
 London master tailors to impose fresh restrictions upon their 
 workmen, that " the combinations of the men are but de- 
 fensive measures resorted to for the purpose of counteract- 
 ing the offensive ones of their masters. . . . When every 
 man knew that he could carry his labour to the highest 
 bidder, there would be less motive for those combinations 
 which now exist, and which exist because such combina- 
 tions are the only means of redress that they have. 2 Again, 
 in 1825, he wrote to Sir Francis Burdett : "Combinations 
 will soon cease to exist. Men have been kept together 
 for long periods only by the oppression of the laws ; these 
 being repealed, combinations will lose the matter which 
 cements them into masses, and they will fall to pieces. 
 All will be as orderly as even a Quaker could desire. He 
 knows nothing of the working people who can suppose 
 that, when left at liberty to act for themselves, without 
 being driven into permanent associations by the oppression 
 of the laws, they will continue to contribute money for 
 distant and doubtful experiments, for uncertain and pre- 
 carious benefits. Even now in a very populous part of the 
 country, and where the people are particularly ill treated, 
 the men have refused to contribute a penny each per week 
 to pay the expense of a delegate to be sent to London. If 
 
 1 27,798 (15-24). 
 
 2 " An Address to the Legislature of Great Britain, from . . . the 
 Master Tailors of London," &c. (London, 1811, 8vo), pp. 3, 4. Brit. 
 Mus. Addl. MSS. 27,799 (16). Reprinted in " The Tailoring Trade," 
 by F. W. Gal ton (London, 1896), pp. 108-114.
 
 218 THE COMBINATION LAWS 
 
 let alone, combinations, excepting now and then, and for 
 particular purposes, under peculiar circumstances, will 
 cease to exist." l 
 
 These opinions were shown by the event to have been 
 entirely erroneous. The repeal of the Combination Laws, 
 happening to coincide with a time of great commercial 
 prosperity, everywhere produced an outbreak of trade 
 unionism and strikes. From one end of the country to 
 the other masters and men were engaged in industrial 
 conflict. 
 
 Nassau Senior a few years later described the removal 
 of the oppressive legislation as having produced " a great 
 moral effect. ... It confirmed in the minds of the opera- 
 tives the conviction of the justice of their cause, tardily and 
 reluctantly, but at last fully conceded by the Legislature. 
 That which was morally right in 1 824 must have been so, 
 they would reason, for fifty years before." 2 In the Avinter 
 of 1824-25 the employers petitioned the Government on 
 all sides to re-enact the old laws or to devise some new 
 and even more drastic legislation. Place and Hume did 
 what they could to restrain the men. At Place's instigation 
 Hume wrote letters to the leaders of many of the trades 
 on strike and to many of the provincial newspapers, urging 
 them to desist from their action, and warning them that 
 any violent conduct could only result in the re-enactment 
 of the laws." 8 
 
 Place wrote several similar letters, one of the most in- 
 teresting of which is that to the Glasgow cotton- weavers. 
 
 1 Place to Sir Francis Burclett, June 20 and 25, 1825, 27,798 
 
 (57, 58). 
 
 2 See the MS. Report of Nassau Senior to Lord Melbourne, on Trade 
 Combinations [1831, unpublished, in the Home Office Library], quoted 
 on pp. 92, 93 of the "History of Trade Unionism," by Sidney and 
 Beatrice Webb (London, 1894). 
 
 3 See Hume's letter to the Manchester cotton-spinners, Dec. 27, 
 1824, to the Glasgow weavers, Sept. 18, 1824, preserved with others 
 and several newspaper cuttings of such letters in 27,801 (241-272).
 
 THE COMBINATION LAWS 219 
 
 To Mr. PETER M'DOUGAL and Mr. WILLIAM SMITH 
 at Glasgow. 
 
 "LONDON, Sept. i, 1824. 
 
 " When you were in London as delegates for the purpose 
 of being examined by the Select Committee of the House 
 of Commons on Artisans and Machinery, you had oppor- 
 tunities enough of witnessing the interest I took in the 
 welfare of the working classes. You then learned that I 
 had been for several years past employed, as well personally 
 as by means of the press, in endeavouring to procure the 
 repeal of the laws against combinations of workmen. I 
 remind you of this as one proof that, in differing from the 
 weavers of Glasgow as to the propriety of their present 
 conduct, I am not very likely to be less disposed towards 
 their interest than I ever was at any former period. It 
 seems to me necessary to say this in order to procure the 
 serious attention of a large body of men, one of whom has 
 said, and no doubt very justly, 'We have been so often 
 imposed upon by designing artifice, or led into the ditch 
 by ignorance, that we can hardly trust anybody.' . . . The 
 newspapers inform me that the weavers in and near Glasgow 
 are forming themselves into societies for the purpose of 
 raising their wages. For attempting by all legal means to 
 increase the amount of their low wages they deserve com- 
 mendation. A weaver for his time and talents deserves to 
 be paid as well as a spinner is paid for his time and talents. 
 Why a weaver has not been as well paid admits of easy 
 explanation. The spinners being together in considerable 
 bodies, were able to a great extent to resist the attempts 
 made to lower their wages, and by the resistance they made 
 they saved themselves from the degradation which the 
 weavers, from being isolated and spread over a large sur- 
 face, unfortunately experienced. The laws against com- 
 binations of workmen, enforced as they were, and the
 
 220 THE COMBINATION LAWS 
 
 perversion of the law against conspirators, inflicted many 
 evils upon workmen. But spite of these laws and their 
 perversion, those who, from the particular nature of their 
 employments, were able to evade those laws or oppose them- 
 selves in a body to their employers, maintained their ground 
 and preserved themselves from degradation, whilst those 
 who were not in such circumstances could not do so, and 
 this unfortunately was the case of the weavers and some 
 other journeymen. Those laws which thus degraded and 
 demoralised the working people having been repealed, and 
 the weavers for the first time finding themselves at liberty 
 to act for themselves, might reasonably have been expected 
 to commit some errors, and this has accordingly happened. 
 The error I now allude to is the resolution to exclude a 
 particular factory altogether, to work no more on any terms 
 for a particular person. This is equally reprehensible and 
 absurd. Reprehensible because the Act repealing the laws 
 against combinations of workmen should have been ac- 
 cepted by both workmen and employers as an Act of obli- 
 vion ; and because such a conspiracy as that against Mr. 
 Hutcheson is equally unreasonable and unjust. Absurd 
 because it is impracticable. . . . Enough has, I hope, been 
 said to induce you to abandon the attempt to exclude any 
 factory, and in future promptly to condemn every such 
 proposition, let it come from whom it may. I am, your 
 well-wisher, FRANCIS PLACE." 1 
 
 By this time ministers had become thoroughly alarmed, 
 and early in the session of 1825 made an effort to undo the 
 effects of their previous legislation. 
 
 " It unfortunately happened that from the close of the 
 session in 1824 the price of provisions had been rapidly 
 rising, and was still rising when the Parliament again 
 assembled on February 3, 1825. Trade in all its branches 
 
 1 The letter is preserved in 27,801 (237).
 
 THE COMBINATION LAWS 221 
 
 was flourishing, and the workmen were very generally em- 
 ployed. Released from the law which had oppressed them, 
 persuaded that their wages had been kept down lower than 
 they ought to have been, and believing that it was now in 
 their power to obtain an advance, many trades contem- 
 plated a strike. Great pains were taken to prevent the 
 men striking, and much effect was produced. Many trades 
 turned their attention solely to the grievances which the 
 operation of the laws had imposed on them, and, having 
 removed these, remained content. Others attempted more : 
 they struck for wages, or to restore their wages to the sum 
 they had some time before been. Some obtained an advance, 
 some were standing out when the Parliament assembled. 
 
 " The cotton-spinners of Glasgow were the most repre- 
 hensible. They struck at a mill belonging to a Mr. Dunlop, 
 a bad man, at whose factory, it has been observed, ' peace 
 never came.' This led to a strike on the part of the master 
 cottoners against all their workpeople, thousands of whom 
 were deprived of the means of subsistence by their own 
 labour, and reduced to indescribable distress and misery. 
 
 " The body of cotton-masters had been merciless oppres- 
 sors at all times, and on this occasion their conduct towards 
 their workpeople was remarkably cruel. They had, for 
 the fault of some, condemned many thousands to starva- 
 tion. Still the working people, miserably ill used, and 
 goaded as they were to the act, had done unwisely in 
 attempting to prevent Mr. Hutcheson (whom they con- 
 sidered their particular oppressor) from ever employing his 
 mill again. 
 
 "Next to these master cottoners were the shipbuilders, 
 and some of the shipowners, headed by some rich and 
 influential men on the river Thames. The workmen com- 
 plained of certain obnoxious proceedings of their employers, 
 of breach of contract, and want of regularity in the prices 
 paid for their labour. They did not desire any advance
 
 222 THE COMBINATION LAWS 
 
 of wages, but requested a conference for the purposes of 
 regulation. This was peremptorily refused, and the men 
 struck. The [shipbuilders then came to a resolution not 
 again to employ any man who belonged to the Ship- 
 wrights' Union. Disputes had been going on for some 
 time amongst the sailors and the shipowners, but the con- 
 duct of both the sailors and shipwrights was exemplary ; 
 no disorderly acts could be alleged against them. But as 
 the shipping interest, as it is called, had the ready ear of 
 ministers, they most shamefully misrepresented the con- 
 duct of the men, and represented the consequences as likely 
 to lead to the destruction of the commerce and shipping of 
 the empire. Ministers were so ignorant as to be misled by 
 these misrepresentations, and were mean and despicable 
 enough to plot with these people against their workmen. 
 
 " The interest of the unprincipled proprietors of the 
 Times newspaper was intimately connected with the ' ship- 
 ping interest,' and it lent its best services to their cause. 
 It stuck at nothing in the way of false assertion and 
 invective ; it represented the conduct of Mr. Hume as 
 mischievous in the extreme, and that of the working 
 people all over the country as perfectly nefarious ; and 
 it urged ministers to re-enact the old laws, or to enact 
 new ones, to. bring the people into a state of miserable 
 subjection. 
 
 " In this state were matters when the Parliament assem- 
 bled. Care had been taken to circulate a report that the 
 laws against combinations would be re-enacted. This spread 
 alarm all over the manufacturing districts, and had some 
 effect in keeping the people quiet. I was appealed to from 
 various places, and by various bodies, many of whom had 
 been supine while the laws were in existence, but who were 
 now apprehensive of the recurrence of the evils which had 
 been removed. 
 
 " Nothing indicating any such intention on the part of
 
 THE COMBINATION LAWS 223 
 
 ministers had transpired, and on Mr. Hume mentioning 
 the matter to Mr. Huskisson, he led him to believe that 
 nothing of the kind was at all contemplated. I therefore 
 wrote to, and otherwise informed those who had applied to 
 me, that Mr. Hume's bill would not be repealed, and this, 
 on my authority, was stated in several of the country 
 newspapers. 
 
 "Just at this time, a fresh deputation of shipbuilders, 
 men of wealth and influence, waited upon Mr. Huskisson 
 to complain of the conduct of their men. They endea- 
 voured to persuade him either to repeal Mr. Hume's Act, 
 or to pass another, the substance of which they laid before 
 him, and which they said would be much more effectual. 
 It was a scheme to prevent workmen from subscribing 
 money for any purpose whatever, unless they first obtained 
 the consent and approbation of some local magistrate, and 
 unless that magistrate, or some other such magistrate, also 
 consented to become their treasurer, and see to the due 
 application of the money. Either Mr. Huskisson did not 
 think any interference of the Government was at that time 
 necessary, or he played the hypocrite to the acme of per- 
 fection; for he told Mr. Hume of the visit of the ship- 
 builders, and said ' he had told them that he did not 
 understand the matter, and recommended them to see Mr. 
 Hume, who had paid great attention to it.' 
 
 " The shipbuilders called at Mr. Hume's house. Mr. 
 Hume was, however, unfortunately indisposed, and could 
 not see them ; he, however, wrote a note and requested an 
 interview, but they took no notice of his request. 
 
 " Complaints continued to be made to ministers, and Mr. 
 Huskisson suggested to Mr. Hume that it would answer all 
 good purposes if he (Mr. Huskisson) were to notice these 
 complaints in the House, and threaten the workmen that, 
 unless their conduct was lawful and their demands reason- 
 able, the old laws should again be restored ; and if he (Mr
 
 224 THE COMBINATION LAWS 
 
 Hume) were to say something in the same strain. This 
 was done, and it was concluded the matter would rest here. 
 Mr. Hume was therefore much surprised when, in a few 
 days, Mr. Huskisson gave notice that he should on the 
 morrow move for a Committee on the Act of the last 
 session (Mr. Hume's Act). Mr. Hume asked him what it 
 was he intended to propose, when he said he did not in- 
 tend to restore the old laws, but to introduce some com- 
 mercial regulations principally relating to the refractory 
 seamen ; and that what he intended to say in moving for 
 the Committee would be in favour of the workmen gene- 
 rally. Mr. Hume was thus thrown off his guard. On 
 March 29, Mr. Huskisson made his speech, which he 
 concluded by moving ' for the appointment of a Select 
 Committee to inquire into the effect of the Act 5 Geo. IV. 
 c. 95, in respect to the conduct of workmen and others in 
 different parts of the United Kingdom, and to report their 
 opinion how far it may be necessary to amend or repeal 
 the said Act.' 
 
 " Mr. Huskisson commenced his speech by declaring 
 that repealing the Combination Laws seemed likely to be 
 attended with the most inconvenient and dangerous con- 
 sequences. He admitted that the Act 5 Geo. IV. c. 95 
 was fair in principle, but not so in practice. He com- 
 plained that the Committee had made no report, and he 
 made several objections to the resolutions. He excused 
 himself for neither having attended in his place in the 
 Committee, nor to the progress of the bill in Parliament, 
 and having thus cleared his way, he fell furiously to work 
 upon his subject. He pulled the Act to pieces ; complained 
 of it as an anomaly. It not only repealed the statute law, 
 but forbade the operation of the common law, which had 
 thus introduced a great public evil. (It had done nothing 
 of the kind, and he did not know the meaning of the words 
 he was using.) The bill had been hurried through the
 
 THE COMBINATION 7 LAWS 225 
 
 House without discussion. He then drew a false and 
 exaggerated picture of the state of the country, and pre- 
 dicted the most fatal consequences. Liberty, property, life 
 itself was in danger, and Parliament must speedily inter- 
 fere. He held the regulations of men in combinations in 
 his hand ; some he read, and described their proceedings as 
 very terrible indeed, when in fact there was nothing the 
 least terrible in them. He endeavoured to make his way 
 to the feelings and foolings of the members by the old 
 cant he and his former accomplices had so successfully 
 used against the reformers. Congresses were formed ; 
 federal republics were established by these wonderfully wise 
 and hard-working people. He supposed the monstrous 
 absurdity of ' all the different branches of mining, manu- 
 facturing, navigating and shipping in the country,' being 
 thus combined into a perpetual confederacy, and drew just 
 such inferences as a three-parts crazy creature might have 
 drawn from his bewildered imagination, with shame be it 
 spoken. It is with shame I write this of a man who should 
 have had more sense and more honesty, but who, at any 
 rate, if he had neither, should have been too proud to have 
 exposed himself thus in the character of a statesman. He 
 described several clauses in the Act as particularly mis- 
 chievous and utterly repugnant to all good legislation ; as, 
 in fact, exciting and encouraging the commission of crimes ; 
 and yet, in the end, he was himself compelled to re-enact 
 nearly every one of the clauses he objected to. Xo funda- 
 mental alteration was ultimately made in any one of them, 
 and very few were altered at all. The law is, however, less 
 precise. 
 
 " Mr. Hume showed that in those cases where there was 
 anything worth complaining of, the masters were more 
 culpable than the men. 
 
 " Mr. Peel l related circumstances respecting the ship- 
 
 1 Afterwards Sir Robert Peel, at that time Home Secretary. 
 
 P *
 
 226 THE COMBINATION LAWS 
 
 wrights and sailors which were afterwards shown to be 
 false. But he relied principally on some outrages which 
 had been committed in Dublin, reprehensible enough to 
 be sure, but transient and worthy of little notice. 
 
 " The Committee was appointed. When Mr. Huskisson 
 made his furious speech, Mr. Hume was astonished, and 
 was very ill prepared to reply to him. He had always 
 maintained to me that Mr. Huskisson was a man ot 
 honour, incapable of such gross and shameless deception. 
 I always thought Mr. Hume mistaken ; I had observed 
 Mr. Huskisson much longer than Mr. Hume had, and 
 entertained no doubt at all that he was courtier enough 
 to attempt anything likely to answer his purpose. Mr. 
 Hume was deceived by his too good opinion of Mr. 
 Huskisson: had he been less credulous he would have 
 been provided with the means of showing how false and 
 scandalous and ill-judged the assertions of Mr. Huskisson 
 were. Many laughed at him for his folly, but any man 
 may at any time be deceived by any other man to 
 whom he gives his confidence, if that other man, like Mr. 
 Huskisson, be mean enough and base enough to lie to 
 himself, and shameless enough openly to declare that 
 in public which is in direct contradiction to what he has 
 pledged himself in private. Mr. Huskisson and Mr. Peel 
 had concerted the whole matter. They had adopted the 
 suggestions of the shipbuilders and shipowners, and had 
 consented to prepare a bill on the basis of their sugges- 
 tions. They had looked too lightly at the matter, or they 
 would not have undertaken it; they undervalued the 
 enemy they had to encounter, and thought to walk over 
 the field without a battle. It was to be a Committee 
 more of form than of business, and was to sit but a very 
 few days. Mr. Huskisson named his Committee from 
 amongst those whom he knew to be inimical to the 
 men, and such as were sure to follow his and Mr. Peel's
 
 THE COMBINATION LAWS 227 
 
 views. Mr. Hume could not, however, be excluded ; there 
 would have been a demand in the House that he should 
 be placed on the Committee ; and it was therefore advis- 
 able to put him on at once. In any other case the old 
 Committee would have been revived, but that Committee 
 had acted fairly, had made its purpose generally known, 
 had examine;! every one who offered to be examined, with 
 care and the utmost impartiality. It was not therefore 
 calculated for a special purpose, and the usual mode was 
 impudently departed from. Neither Mr. Hume nor 1 
 expected we should be able to beat such a Committee as 
 we did. 
 
 "Mr. Huskisson was unfortunate in wording his motion 
 ' to inquire respecting the conduct of workmen' He might, 
 had he foreseen the consequence, have so worded his 
 motion as to have shut us out ; as it was he let us in, 
 spite of every effort which was made to the contrary. 
 When it was demanded that workmen against whom no 
 complaint had been made, should be examined for the 
 purpose of proving the benericial effects of Mr. Hume's 
 Act, and the demand was grounded on the words of the 
 motion, Mr. Huskisson was astounded. He meant no 
 such thing; it was not intended to have any such in- 
 quiries made ; and, notwithstanding the words of the 
 motion, the Committee determined that none of the work- 
 ing people should be examined, excepting only such as 
 might be personally accused. Even this partial and un- 
 just decision was extended to the exclusion of men 
 who were accused of heinous crimes which they had not 
 committed. Another circumstance of moment seems to 
 have escaped the observation of Mr. Huskisson ; this was 
 the Easter holidays. So near to these holidays was the 
 appointment of the Committee, that it could not sit for 
 nearly a fortnight. Mr. Hume and I availed ourselves 
 of this circumstance, and were indefatigable. I wrote to
 
 228 THE COMBINATION LAWS 
 
 many places in the country, and induced them to send 
 up delegates. I went amongst the London trades, per- 
 suaded them to meet and appoint delegates to co-operate 
 with those from the country, formed a permanent and 
 large committee of them, induced them to collect moneys, 
 and collected some myself for them. They were thus 
 enabled to pay Parliamentary agents, and other expenses. 
 These men (the deputies) were vigilant and intelligent, 
 especially the shipwrights, some of whom were very clever 
 men, as were some also from Lancashire, Glasgow, York- 
 shire, and the sailors from the Tyne. The delay in the 
 meeting of the Committee gave me the opportunity to write 
 the small pamphlet, " Observations on Mr. Huskisson's 
 Speech," &c. Two thousand copies were printed by the 
 Trades Committee, and very carefully distributed, especially 
 amongst members of the two Houses, and considerable 
 effect was produced by it in favour of the men and 
 Mr. Hume's Act. My mind was fully made up. I laid 
 every other matter and thing aside ; opened my house to 
 the workmen ; did everything I could ; and saw every- 
 body who was at all likely either to be made useful, or 
 prevented being mischievous. Nothing that could be 
 done by me, by Mr. Hume, by the Trades Committee, or 
 by others, was omitted to be done; and the effect pro- 
 duced was such as could not have been easily anticipated, 
 nor very easily credited. 
 
 " Many of the members who had been on the Committee 
 in the preceding session, requested to be put upon the 
 present Committee, but Avere refused, Mr. Huskisson 
 telling these gentlemen the Committee would sit no more 
 than three or four days; and yet he contrived to place 
 some half-dozen more of his own partisans upon it. 
 
 "When the Committee assembled, the Right Honour- 
 able Thomas Wallace l was appointed chairman. He was 
 1 At that time Master of the Mint.
 
 THE COMBINATION LAWS 
 
 a man singularly well qualified for his office, conversant 
 with Parliamentary business, not too wise for the purposes 
 of his masters, but more than sufficiently conceited with 
 his own wisdom and his own importance. In many 
 respects he was perhaps the most unmanageable man 
 that could have been pitched upon. He had a purpose 
 to accomplish, and would attend to no suggestions from 
 those who were opposed to him. The Committee were 
 informed that about half-a-dozen gentlemen would be 
 examined, and then a bill would be submitted to the 
 Committee to remedy the evils complained of. Mr. Peel, 
 who was in a great hurry to come to a conclusion, 
 proposed a bill on the plan before mentioned, and the 
 Attorney -General, Copley, was requested to prepare it 
 forthwith. Both Mr. Hume and I were acquainted with 
 the intended enactments. We conversed on the subject, 
 and Mr. Hume undertook to speak to the Attorney- 
 General. He did so, and put it to Mr. Attorney, how he 
 could draw a bill on the plan proposed, so as not to make 
 it the most obnoxious nonsense that ever had been pro- 
 posed to Parliament ? How, if money Avas not to be sub- 
 scribed but by permission of a magistrate; and how, if 
 none but a Justice of the Peace was ever to be a treasurer, 
 school societies, Bible societies, charitable societies, and 
 other useful associations, could exist ? In fact, how any 
 association for desirable purposes could be formed in 
 which contributions were necessary, unless every such 
 society first obtained an Act of Parliament ? Whether, 
 indeed, in the present state of society, such an Act could 
 be passed ; and whether, if it could be passed, it would 
 not be calculated to change the character of the whole 
 body of the people for the worse ? Mr. Attorney Copley 
 saw the force of the objections, shrunk from the task, and 
 declined drawing the bill. Thus a most material point 
 was gained. Copley was disliked, and, had he drawn the
 
 230 THE COMBINATION LAWS 
 
 bill, would have had to encounter great obloquy. So 
 disgraceful a bill would have caused a great sensation, 
 and would probably have been defeated in consequence of 
 the clamour it would have excited. But that was not the 
 game we had to play. It was our purpose to break down 
 the matter, little by little, in every possible way, and then 
 to encounter what remained as vigorously as we could. 
 
 "Notwithstanding the Attorney -General shrunk from 
 the bad work, the shipbuilders of the Thames stuck close 
 to it, and in a bill which they printed as a comment on 
 the report of the Committee, they urged the adoption of 
 the plan they had proposed to ministers ; and this bill 
 they caused to be put into the hand of every one of the 
 members as he entered the House on the second reading 
 of the bill. 
 
 " The Committee soon found that it was not quite so 
 easy to proceed in the way proposed as they had antici- 
 pated. They Avere not a little surprised at finding the 
 passage to the committee - room blocked up by men 
 demanding to be examined, and still more so at finding 
 that some of them sent in offers to rebut the evidence 
 which had been given on the preceding day. Every 
 accusation was denied almost as regularly as it was made, 
 and evidence to the contrary was offered, not only by 
 notes to the chairman, but by letters to individual mem- 
 bers, and this was constantly repeated. 
 
 "In the Committee of 1824 every case was made as 
 public as possible. In this Committee great pains were 
 taken that nothing which passed in the Committee should 
 be known, but they were all pains to no purpose. I knew 
 everything that passed, and always had the men ready to 
 reply. Mr. Hume, with unexampled courage and perse- 
 verance, supported the claims of the men to be heard. 
 Petitions to be heard were sent to the House and referred 
 to the Committee; they who petitioned attended at the
 
 THE COMBINATION LAWS 
 
 committee-room and demanded a hearing:. The members 
 
 O 
 
 could hardly get to their room or from it, so completely 
 was the passage blocked by the men, and so well had they 
 been instructed not readily to make way for the members. 
 This produced considerable effect on the members of the 
 Committee, and attracted the attention of a great many 
 members of the House, who in consequence were apprised 
 of the course the Committee had chosen to adopt. 
 
 " Mr. Hume insisted upon it, that his bill had produced 
 great and extensive good, and he offered the proofs by the 
 mouths of many witnesses who were anxiously waiting 
 outside the committee-room to be examined, they having 
 come from various parts of the United Kingdom for the 
 very purpose of being examined. The Committee found 
 themselves in a dilemma, and at length consented to 
 examine some men. This was a consequence of their 
 fears. The injustice they contemplated was so very gross 
 they could not encounter the exposure with which they 
 were threatened as well in the public papers as in the 
 House. It was this, and no love of justice, which at length 
 operated on them. Still they did not give up their inten- 
 tion, but endeavoured to limit the examination to those 
 only who were accused by name, and to this they adhered 
 so pertinaciously as to exclude a large number of those 
 they ought to have examined. They wholly excluded the 
 deputies from Birmingham, Sheffield, and several other 
 places, who were in London, and so fully satisfied was I of 
 the impossibility of inducing them to examine others that 
 I prevented many places sending deputies. 
 
 " The working people of Dublin and Glasgow were 
 accused of serious crimes. These accusations were re- 
 corded by the Committee, and intended to be laid before 
 the House. Still the Committee would hear none of the 
 persons whom it was desirable should have been sent from 
 these places to rebut the accusations. Men's names were
 
 232 THE COMBINATION LAWS 
 
 used as having in Glasgow abetted murder ; and yet, not- 
 withstanding the very men who had been so named wrote 
 to Mr. Hume and to the chairman of the Committee 
 requesting to be examined, the Committee persisted in 
 refusing to hear them. The men said, 'We are men of 
 good character, have done no wrong to any one, are at 
 work in the same shops and factories in which we have 
 worked for years, and have nothing objected to us by our 
 employers ; AVC demand the opportunity to clear ourselves 
 from the imputation.' But no, the Committee would not 
 hear them ; it would record the accusation, add the weight 
 of its authority to it, and leave the accused without a 
 defence. Mr. Huskisson was base enough to call the men 
 thus accused, and thus refused a hearing, 'acquitted 
 felons'; and yet they were unacquitted, for they had 
 been accused only before the Committee, who had not 
 condescended to do either them or themselves the justice 
 of trying them at the bar of the Committee. 
 
 "Notwithstanding this, no one was refused a hearing 
 who came with a complaint against the workmen ; no one 
 was refused payment for his time and travelling expenses 
 who gave evidence against the men, while many of the 
 men who had been weeks in attendance, and were at 
 length forced on the notice of the Committee and were 
 examined by them, were refused any remuneration what- 
 soever. It was attempted to avoid payment by a mean 
 shuffle. It was said the men were not summoned by the 
 Committee, but it was shown that some of those who had 
 received the highest rate of pay, and were men of property 
 who did not need to be reimbursed, were not summoned ; 
 and a direct refusal to give anything to the men was the 
 consequence. Some, however, were paid. 
 
 " My time was wholly occupied from the day Mr. Hus- 
 kisson made his speech till some time after the passing of 
 the Act. I examined a vast number of persons; made
 
 THE COMBINATION LAWS 
 
 digests and briefs for Mr. Hume; wrote petitions to the 
 House and to the Committee ; many letters to Mr. Wallace, 
 the chairman ; and many to other persons, all as the agent 
 of the men, and for their adoption. No one thing that 
 could be done was omitted, every possible advantage was 
 taken of even the most minute circumstance, and it was 
 by these and Mr. Hume's extraordinary exertions that the 
 intentions of Mr. Huskisson and Mr. Peel were at length 
 so completely defeated, and the bill called Mr. Wallace's 
 bill was passed. 1 
 
 "The Committee as it proceeded became exceedingly 
 indignant. Its anger when it discovered that I obtained 
 correct accounts of its proceedings was violent and absurd. 
 It could not bear that I should be thus informed; that 
 their measures should be anticipated in letters and peti- 
 tions ; and that, spite of all their exertions and the advan- 
 tages they possessed, they should every day be losing 
 ground. They threatened to punish me for my temerity. 
 I was to be sent for, to be questioned, to be reported to the 
 House, to be committed to Newgate, for daring to interfere 
 and tampering with their witnesses. 
 
 " These were the notions these wise men entertained 
 of justice. The masters might consult when and where 
 they pleased; give what instructions they pleased; have 
 the ears of members of the Committee, and go in and out 
 of the committee-room while the Committee was sitting as 
 often as they pleased. But the workmen were to have no 
 one to assist them ; no one was to instruct them, notwith- 
 standing they were the party who most needed instruction. 
 They, such as the Committee chose, were to go before a 
 body of their superiors great squires and members of Par- 
 liament be cross-questioned, bullied, and intimidated, and 
 
 1 In a letter to S. Harrison, October 3, 1840, Place says, "The repeal 
 of the laws against combinations of workmen in 1824 and 1825 cost 
 me upwards of ,250 in money."
 
 234 THE COMBINATION LAWS 
 
 no one was either to advise or assist them. So they con- 
 cluded ; so I resolved that it should not be. It happened, 
 however, that every one of the men who entered the com- 
 mittee-room in awe of the great men, came out of it with 
 feelings of contempt for those who had treated them, as 
 they invariably did, with contumely and insult, and while 
 they did so, as invariably exposed their ignorance and their 
 malice to the observation of the men; and this, too, to 
 such an extent as to take away all respect and put the 
 men at perfect ease while under an examination which 
 many had previously looked to with considerable dread. 
 
 " Mr. Hume was at first alarmed at the threats of the 
 Committee to send for me. He sent a messenger from the 
 Committee to me with a note expressing his apprehension. 
 I replied by the messenger ; and urged him to provoke the 
 Committee thus to commit themselves. He did so; but 
 they could not be prevailed to put their threat into execu- 
 tion. I was very desirous of being examined. I could 
 have contrived to have had questions put to me which 
 would have enabled me to say everything I wished to say, 
 and the newspapers would have given it insertion at length ; 
 some because it would have answered their purposes, and 
 others because, as some inserted it, they could not keep it 
 out; most would, however, have done it willingly on my 
 furnishing them with copies. The worst the Committee 
 could have done would have been to report me to the 
 House, and move that I should be called to the bar. In 
 the meantime the examination would have appeared in the 
 newspapers, and a very pretty piece of business they would 
 have made of it. A debate in the House on such a motion 
 would have been a fine exposure of the conduct of the Com- 
 mittee. After all, the House could only have sent me to 
 Newgate for contumacy at their bar ; the session Avas draw- 
 ing to a close, and I should have been nearly as comfortable 
 in one of the rooms of the gaoler's house as at home.
 
 THE COMBINATION LAWS 35 
 
 ' I kept on steadily telling the men to inform the Com- 
 mittee that they had been examined and instructed by me. 
 I sent written demands on the chairman for them to be 
 paid as others were paid ; and at length some of the men 
 were paid, though only half or one-third the usual sum. 
 There were two shipwrights from Shields named Shippon 
 and Welsh, remarkably sturdy men. They had been 
 examined and were refused any remuneration. They both 
 knew Sir Matthew White Ridley, the member for New- 
 castle, and on these men I fixed for an experiment. I 
 accordingly wrote a petition to the House against the 
 Committee in their favour. This was an unprecedented 
 step, and it required some nerve on the part of the men to 
 go through with it. It was agreed that a copy of the 
 petition should be sent to the Committee under cover to 
 Sir Matthew White Ridley before it was presented to the 
 House. The Committee was very indignant, and sent for 
 the men. Sir M. W. Ridley was appointed to bully them ; 
 and this he did in his own particular style, to the amuse- 
 ment of the men and some two or three members of the 
 Committee. The men were not at all intimidated, but 
 remained unmoved at his threats to send them to prison, 
 as well as their advisers, and the consequence was that 
 Ridley, having uselessly exhausted his stock of abuse, and 
 the Committee finding they could not put the men from 
 their purpose, Ridley tore the petition in pieces, and the 
 men had an order for payment. 
 
 " After the report had been printed and the bill came to 
 be discussed, great efforts were made by the shipbuilders 
 and others to introduce coercive clauses, while Mr. Hume 
 was effectually active to modify the bill. There was much 
 vehemence and ill-temper in some of the debates which 
 attended the presentation of petitions, and still more when 
 the bill was in committee of the whole House. Mr. 
 Denman and Mr. John Williams, whose great legal know-
 
 i>36 THE COMBINATION LAWS 
 
 ledge was respected, did good service in showing that the 
 repeal of the common law was proper. These debates were 
 considered by the newspaper reporters as matters of small 
 consequence; and, like many others, might be passed by 
 so as to save them trouble ; and they are very inadequately 
 reported. Once when the bill was in committee the debate 
 was singularly acrimonious. I was in the House under 
 the gallery ; was accosted by many members, and assured 
 by some that there had been no such a stormy debate 
 during the whole session. The House was thin, and on 
 the Opposition side not so many as twenty members. Sir 
 Francis Burdett and Mr. Hobhouse supported Mr. Hume, 
 but he had to bear the vehement attacks of the whole 
 Ministerial bench Huskisson, Peel, Wallace, Canning, the 
 Attorney-General, &c. &c. No terms either as to truth or 
 decency of language, to the utmost extent which ingenuity 
 could use, so as not to be reprehended by the Speaker, 
 were spared. Wallace gave loose to invective, and Avas 
 disgracefully abusive. Huskisson became enraged, and 
 most grossly insulted Sir Francis Burdett and Mr. Hob- 
 house. Mr. Peel stuck at nothing ; he lied so openly, so 
 grossly, so repeatedly, and so shamelessly, as even to 
 astonish me, who always thought, and still do think him, 
 a pitiful, shuffling fellow. He was repeatedly detected by 
 Mr. Hume, and as frequently exposed. Still he lied again 
 without the least embarrassment, and was never in the 
 smallest degree abashed. 1 This was, upon the whole, a 
 very disgraceful exhibition. 
 
 1 Sir Robert Peel's view of the proceedings may be gathered from 
 his letter to Mr. Leonard Homer, dated November 29, 1825. "Suffi- 
 cient precautions," he says, "were not taken in the Act of 1823 (sic), 
 the first substitute for the old Combination Laws, to prevent that 
 species of annoyance which numbers can exercise towards individuals, 
 short of personal violence and actual threat, but nearly as effectual for 
 its object." "Sir Robert Peel, from his Private Correspondence," 
 edited by C. S. Parker (London, 1891), p. 379.
 
 THE COMBINATION LAWS 237 
 
 " Mr. Huskisson accused Mr. Hume of having betrayed 
 the Committee and suffered himself to be led by the 
 opinions of others. He told Mr. Hobhouse he was obliged 
 to talk as he did, in opposition to his better judgment. 
 Mr. Canning and Mr. Peel went over the same ground. 
 Mr. Canning told Sir Francis Burdett he did not under- 
 stand the matter, but being under surveillance, he was 
 obliged to talk as he did. 
 
 " Sir Matthew W. Ridley followed in the same course. 
 I was repeatedly alluded to, and stared at by all the House ; 
 but as I caught Mr. Hume's eye several times, and saw that 
 it in no way annoyed him, I remained. When they had 
 all done speaking, Mr. Hume addressed the House, and in 
 about twenty minutes gave an account of his conduct, 
 described the Committee, named me repeatedly as the man 
 to whom he owed much assistance, justified us both, and 
 made, as I thought, a triumphant speech. He challenged 
 any one to show that I had in any w r ay interfered impro- 
 perly, or had been otherwise than serviceable in all respects. 
 No man on any occasion ever more completely beat his 
 opponents before him. I confess I thought myself a toler- 
 ably sturdy fellow ; but Mr. Hume's sturdiness had, on this 
 occasion, my most unqualified admiration. I am certain 
 no man but himself could have been found who would have 
 behaved with such unshaken firmness, and so successfully 
 have replied to a host of opponents as he did. It was a 
 very extraordinary instance of intrepidity and tact, and so 
 it has since been acknowledged to have been by men on 
 both sides of the Housa 
 
 " When the bill was reported I was again in the House, 
 and Mons. J. B. Say 1 was with me. On this occasion 
 the most rancorous hostility was again shown ; allusions 
 to me were so particularly personal and graceless, that at 
 
 1 See the reference to J. B. Say, the distinguished French economist, 
 at p. 158.
 
 238 THE COMBINATION LAWS 
 
 length M. Say proposed that we should leave the House, as 
 he observed my friends were made uncomfortable, and we 
 withdrew. Nothing of this was reported in the newspapers. 
 In matters of this kind little is ever reported ; and at all 
 times as little as can be conveniently of Mr. Hume. He is 
 generally disliked by the reporters, who, like other men 
 who follow laborious employments, are disposed to make 
 the labour as light as they can. They object to Mr. Hume 
 that his pertinacity prolongs the session, as it very fre- 
 quently also docs the hours the House sits. And on the 
 two occasions when the House was in committee on the 
 Combination Laws Bill the reporters not only neglected to 
 report Mr. Hume as they ought to have done, but they so 
 reported the debate as to give the appearance of defeat to 
 him, when, in fact, he was remarkably triumphant. 
 
 " Ultimately the Act differed very little from Mr. Hume's 
 Act. It is substantially the same. The words 'common 
 law' are omitted, but by the 4th and 5th enacting clauses 
 it is wholly excluded, both in the commencement and close 
 of the clauses ; and this being the principal purpose of the 
 Act, the other alterations were of comparatively small 
 moment. There is a long clause, differently Avorded in 
 some particulars from Mr. Hume's Act, respecting intimida- 
 tion, and the punishments for offences are increased ; but 
 the partial, unjust, and mischievous laws which forbade 
 combinations of workmen to alter their wages and hours of 
 working are all swept away, and the new Act 6 Geo. III. 
 c. 129 has, by the 4th and 5th clauses, declared combina- 
 tions for these purposes to be legal. 
 
 " The principal objection to leaving out the words ' com- 
 mon law' is that the perversity or ingenuity of lawyers 
 may, in some circumstances, ground vexatious proceedings 
 on the vagueness of the law ; and in other times, men may 
 be again indicted for conspiracies and horridly punished 
 when they have committed no crime. This is a state in
 
 THE COMBINATION LAWS 239 
 
 which no law should ever be left. Men may combine to 
 regulate wages and hours of working, but if at any meet- 
 ing held for either or both of these purposes, the men 
 should be led to deviate into any other matter, they may 
 then be, all or any of them, indicted under the common 
 law for conspiracy ; and the mercy they would meet with, 
 under the operation of this process, may be guessed at by 
 the terrible punishments many have heretofore endured. 
 This ground of objection was taken by Lord Rosslyn in the 
 House of Lords, when the Chancellor Eldon explained that 
 such proceedings were not contemplated by the Act, and 
 would not be permitted. 1 
 
 " The laws against combinations were inimical to the 
 working people in many respects. They induced them to 
 break and disregard the laws. They made them suspect 
 the intentions of every man who tendered his services. 
 They made them hate their employers with a rancour 
 which nothing else could have produced. And they made 
 them hate those of their own class who refused to join them, 
 to such an extent as cordially to seek to do them mischief. 
 The amendment on the repeal of the laws was immediate, 
 and has been increasing ever since. The people have come 
 better together, have now [1829] incomparably more con- 
 fidence in the good intentions of others to serve them 
 than they ever had before, and are much better disposed 
 to serve themselves. None but good results can follow. It 
 is true the old leaven has not yet worn out. Power-looms 
 have been broken since the repeal of the Combination Laws, 
 and now the Spitaltields weavers, in their state of misery, 
 have destroyed a good deal of silk in the looms. Still the 
 extent of the mischief has been comparatively small as 
 
 1 Place had considerable success in the House of Lords. In addition 
 to this declaration from the Chancellor, Lord Rosslyn, at I'lace's sugges- 
 tion, proposed several amendments. One of these, which conceded the 
 right of appeal to Quarter Sessions, was accepted l>y the Government, 
 and was afterwards of some value.
 
 240 THE COMBINATION LAWS 
 
 compared with, former times, and a few years will probably 
 put an end to everything of the kind. 
 
 "The tumults caused by combinations of workmen on 
 account of wages have generally ceased. There are now 
 none of those outrageous proceedings which were formerly 
 perpetual ; and although it is very probable that there will 
 be occasional ebullitions, it is not at all likely that the 
 conduct so very generally pursued up to the repeal of the 
 Combination Laws will ever again be resumed. 1 
 
 "Soon after the proceedings in 1825 were closed the 
 seamen of the Tyne and Wear sent me a handsome silver 
 vase, paid for by a penny- a- week subscription, and the 
 cutlers of Sheffield sent me an incomparable set of knives 
 and forks in a case. They are not only the finest specimen 
 of workmanship I ever saw, but men well acquainted with 
 cutlery have declared that they excel anything they have 
 ever seen." 2 
 
 1 27,798 (25-41)- 2 27,798 (66).
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 THE FIRST REFORM CAMPAIGN 
 
 ON April 15, 1830, Place after his second marriage returned 
 to Charing Cross, and to his " old way of consuming time." 
 On June 26, George IV. died. His death had been for 
 some time expected, and politicians had been preparing 
 themselves for the consequent general election, and for the 
 accession of a king who was understood to be a reformer. 
 The Whigs were on the look-out for a popular cry, and found 
 it in what was known ten years later as the Condition of the 
 People Question. They therefore moved an amendment to 
 the address declaring that the partial distress mentioned in 
 the king's speech on February 4 was really general. This 
 was a question of fact as to which most members of 
 the House of Commons knew nothing at all ; but because 
 it was a question of fact gentlemen could make sonorous 
 declarations of popular sympathy without committing 
 themselves to any definite policy. 
 
 Accordingly the " speech -making gabbling Whigs" 1 
 filled pages of Hansard with vague chatter about their 
 own observations and the testimony of their friends, and 
 in the great Whig club-house at Brooks' men declared 
 that " it would be impossible to go on " beyond June. 2 
 In the Commons, the Whigs were supported by some dis- 
 affected Tories who had not yet forgiven Wellington for 
 passing Catholic Emancipation in 1829. 
 
 1 27,509 (5)- ' 2 7,789 (142). 
 
 241 Q
 
 242 THE FIRST REFORM CAMPAIGN 
 
 But even outside the little circle of the Commons the 
 Condition of the People Question was being discussed 
 more widely than it had been since 1817. Prices were 
 going up, and the newspapers were full of those confused 
 complaints which any change in the standard of value 
 always produces. Place looked on with grim disgust. 
 " Between the landowners on the one side, who wanted 
 laws to make food dear and commodities cheap, and the 
 generality of the manufacturing people who wanted high 
 profits and high wages with cheap produce, there was as 
 absurd and as unintelligible a state of things as had 
 perhaps ever existed." l 
 
 The general impression that times were changing was 
 heightened by the behaviour of the new king. "George 
 the Fourth," wrote Place to Hume, " shut himself up from 
 mere hatred of the people. The present silly man is court- 
 ing them most absurdly. N"o sooner was he made king, 
 than he who had been private became public ; he walked 
 in the streets; he rode among the people ; he went about 
 with his queen in an open carriage ; he bowed and waved 
 his hat, and laughed, and was as merry as the silliest of 
 the mob. The people, too, took off their hats and hurrahed 
 and shouted, and were as pleased as so many children with 
 a new toy. . . . The king goes on making a nonsensical 
 exhibition of himself and his queen, making speeches as 
 often as he can find an occasion, speeches which a board- 
 ing-school girl would be ashamed of. And what is the 
 consequence of all this ? The consequence is that the 
 seamen of the North have sent a petition to him by a 
 deputation who are charged to see him, and beg him to 
 attend to their prayer, which is, that he will redress their 
 grievances and raise their wages. Others are asking for 
 and expecting to receive from him similar advantages. 
 The housekeepers [i.e. ratepayers] are much in the same 
 1 27,789(144).
 
 THE FIRST REFORM CAMPAIGN 
 
 way ; they too expect him to do for them they know not 
 what." l 
 
 At the general election in August, as Westminster was 
 not contested, Place undertook the unpaid " management " 
 of Middlesex for his friend Hume. 2 The elections produced 
 more interest than usual, and at the moment when the 
 excitement was at its highest, came the Three Days' Revo- 
 lution in Paris, and the forcible substitution of a consti- 
 tutional monarchy under Louis Philippe for the reactionary 
 despotism of Charles X. Place has described the recep- 
 tion of the news at Hume's committee-room. 
 
 " There had been no arrivals from Paris at London for 
 three or four days, and great indeed was the anxiety it 
 caused. It was said there had been a coup d'etat which 
 had succeeded, and this increased the anxiety. . . . AVhcn 
 the news arrived I was in the large room used as a public 
 room by Mr. Hume's committee. The anxious state in 
 which men were had caused a large attendance of highly 
 respectable people, among whom were many members of 
 the late Parliament. The company was in large groups 
 talking of the probable events at Paris, when a gentleman 
 came in with a French publication, printed at Paris in the 
 evening of the 2Qth [July], announcing the people's victory 
 after the three days' fighting. Mr. Hobhouse was near 
 the door, and was the first to possess himself of the news, 
 which, having announced, he raised his hat above his head 
 
 1 Place to Hume, November i, 1830. 
 
 - On this occasion lie was made very angry by the eagerness of the 
 Whig magnates to get as much out of him as possible, and their fear 
 of demeaning themselves by being grateful. In his diary he accuses 
 Hobhouse of contriving " to induce his Whig friends to object, as they 
 did, to my being placed on the Committee of Middlesex freeholders. 
 . . . lint the most curious circumstance was, that the very same men 
 who had done so passed a resolution a fortnight before the election 
 came on, putting the management of the Committee into my hands, 
 and the uncontrolled disposal of the funds at my discretion ! " 
 (" Diary," July 1830.)
 
 244 THE FIRST REFORM CAMPAIGN 
 
 and cheered loudly. All present were electrified, and many 
 cheers were given in as loud voices and as heartily as ever 
 they were given on board a man-of-war at the moment 
 of victory. No assembly of men were ever more elated, 
 or congratulated one another more heartily or more 
 sincerely." l 
 
 The easy success of the Revolution of July not only 
 gave a strong impetus to the movement in favour of Parlia- 
 mentary Reform in England, 2 but also helped to decide the 
 particular form which that movement was to take during 
 the next two years. The first French Revolution had 
 completely discredited in England any policy of forcible 
 resistance to Government. Now, however, an organised 
 rising began to seem not only a reasonable, but a virtuous 
 and tolerably safe method of solving constitutional diffi- 
 culties. " This new Revolution produced a very extraordi- 
 nary effect on the middle classes, and. sent a vast number 
 of persons to me with all sorts of projects and propositions. 
 Every one was glorified with the courage, the humanity, 
 and the honesty of the Parisians, and the common people 
 became eagerly desirous to prove that they too were brave 
 and humane and honest. All soon seemed desirous to 
 fight against the Government if it should attempt to 
 control the French Government." 3 
 
 Place himself came under the influence of this change 
 of feeling. During the next two years the thought was 
 always at the back of his mind that, horrible as an armed 
 revolution must almost necessarily be, and he had no illu- 
 sions on this point, such a revolution might yet be worth 
 while. In April 1831 Major Beauclerk wrote: "Most 
 sincerely do I hope it may not be necessary for us to pass 
 
 1 27,789(162, 163). 
 
 2 " The ' three days ' produced much of our political excitement."- 
 " The Greville Memoirs, a Journal of the Reigns of King George IV. 
 and King William IV." (3 vols., London, 1874-1887), vol. ii. p. 219. 
 
 3 "Diary," July 1830.
 
 THE FIRST REFORM CAMPAIGN 245 
 
 through the ordeal of a revolution to restore us to a state 
 of sanity, but much as I dread such a crisis. I must confess 
 I should prefer it a thousand times to the alternative of 
 again returning to the same vicious and rotten system." l 
 Place replied : " I hope with you almost against mv con- 
 viction that we shall be able to avoid a violent revolution 
 in working out our reformation. A violent revolution in 
 this country would be dreadful in the extreme. . . . The 
 horrors perpetrated by the Parisian mobs in the early 
 stages of their revolution, were the immediate consequences 
 of supplies not being brought to the city as usual. Con- 
 template seriously what would be the consequences of the 
 failure of supplies to this great metropolis. Think of the 
 mischief which would be produced if neither corn nor 
 cattle were brought to market for only three days, includ- 
 ing one market-day at Smithfield and Mark Lane, and you 
 will be convinced that the horrors of Paris would be far 
 exceeded by those of London. . . . Do you think you can 
 estimate with anything like precision the terrible conse- 
 quences of a starving and an enraged populace in London 
 and its example on all parts of the country ? If you do so 
 you will dread a convulsion as much as I do. Yet I agree 
 with you that even a convulsion should be risked rather 
 than have the borougliniongering system continued." 2 
 
 O O O *J 
 
 For ten years Place's whole habits of work had been 
 opposed to " pitched battle " tactics. He had steadily ex- 
 ploited the fact that the most bigoted of Tory Governments 
 cannot continuously resist the passage of small reforms, or 
 prevent accumulated small reforms from having their 
 effect. Now, however, in view of the possibility of an 
 armed revolution he welcomed the idea that the end of 
 such concessions was come, and that the Duke of Welling- 
 ton, like Polignac, would make a final stand against pro- 
 
 1 A. H. Beauclerk to Place, April 7, 1831. 
 Place to Major Beauclerk, April 7, 1831.
 
 246 THE FIRST UK FORM CAMPAIGN 
 
 gress. " The Duke thinks this is not the time to meet the 
 wishes of the people. He does not understand them, and 
 has therefore resolved to make no concessions. I hope he 
 will stick to his resolve. If I thought as the Duke thinks, 
 and were in his place, I would permit no change to be 
 made and would be obstinate to the death. It is a 
 question of longer or shorter change will come. It is 
 a very simple question, there must be a radical change, 
 not a sharn reform, but a radical change from the top 
 to the bottom, and this you may if you please call a 
 revolution. 
 
 " The whole scheme of our Government is essentially 
 corrupt, and no corrupt system ever yet reformed itself. 
 Our system could not reform itself if it would. Take away 
 the corruption and nothing remains. His Dukeship and 
 his coadjutors know this as well as I do, but they think 
 they can continue to cajole the people. Catholic emanci- 
 pation was to appease them. Repeal of taxes on beer and 
 on leather was to satisfy them. . . . He has seen that 
 concession goes for nothing, while anything remains to be 
 conceded, and he will concede no more. Well done, brave 
 Duke ! It is a happy circumstance that when the people 
 have obtained the thing they clamoured for, they set very 
 little store by it. This is the security for good government 
 in the end. The Duke is like the school-boy who objected 
 to say A. 
 
 ' If I say A, I must say B, 
 
 And so go on to C and 1) ; 
 
 And so no end I see there'll be 
 
 If I but once say ABC.' 
 
 " But we are told, if all concession be refused the people 
 will become outrageous, and no one can tell what may 
 follow. Yes, I think any one can tell. There will be much 
 grumbling and growling, and meeting and petitioning will 
 follow. They will become more and more dissatisfied ',
 
 THE FIRST REFORM CAMPAIGN 247 
 
 and in time they will use force, and after a while they 
 will triumph. This is inevitable." l 
 
 On November 2, King William the Fourth opened his first 
 Parliament. One result of the excitement of the preceding- 
 summer was that 129 new members an unusual propor- 
 tion in the unreformed House of Commons had been 
 elected, and though politicians were not so clearly labelled 
 as they are noAV, the Whigs were known to be hopeful. 
 One sentence in the king's speech produced something 
 like a panic. The Revolution in Paris had been followed 
 by another in Brussels, by which the Belgians had declared 
 themselves independent of the Dutch Crown. " I am en- 
 deavouring," the king was made to say, " in concert with 
 my allies, to devise such means of restoring tranquillity as 
 may be compatible with the welfare and good government 
 of the Netherlands, and with the future security of other 
 states." This seemed to point to an attack by Prussia 
 upon Belgium, a new alliance against France, and a repeti- 
 tion of the whole dreary course of the Napoleonic wars. 2 
 
 On that evening Place " dined alone with Mr. Bentham^ 
 . . . The printed speech of the king was brought to us soon 
 after dinner, and it greatly disconcerted us. We had no 
 doubt that the Lords had been sounded on the subject, 
 and had warranted the insertion of the hostile paragraphs 
 
 1 Place to Hume, Nov. i, 1830. 
 
 2 " We expected that arrangements would be made privately for 
 Prussia to assist Holland to recover the Netherlands, that France would 
 then interfere, and there would be a general war. The king's speech 
 was therefore expected with anxiety, and when the time for the Parlia- 
 ment to meet came, the people in the metropolis were unusually agitated. 
 Parliament assembled on the 26th October, and the hopes of the people 
 were dashed to the ground by the passage it contained respecting Bel- 
 gium. War seemed inevitable, and many were the suggestions to place 
 impediments in its way. Amongst others, a refusal of the housekeepers 
 to pay taxes, and to form themselves into a National Guard. ... I did 
 not expect any hostile expressions would be put into the king's speech, 
 and I had therefore no expectation of any extraordinary proceedings, 
 nor of any change of ministers." (" Diary," 1830.)
 
 248 THE FIRST REFORM CAMPAIGN 
 
 in the speech. Every sort of evil seemed to follow in the 
 train of a general war, and our forebodings were dismal 
 enough." l 
 
 Wellington had already on that same evening made 
 his celebrated declaration of hostility to any change of 
 the system of representation, and Grey in the Lords, and 
 Brougham in the Commons, had, on behalf of the Whig 
 party, given notice of motions in favour of some undefined 
 measure of Parliamentary reform. In the existing temper 
 of the House of Commons it was generally felt that the 
 Whigs could now come into office as soon as they liked. 
 Next evening Place again saw Mr. Bentharn, " when we con- 
 gratulated ourselves and one another on the occurrence of 
 the preceding evening, being quite convinced that great 
 changes were at hand," but he adds the modest avowal that 
 " we were also a little perplexed at not being able to see 
 exactly how they would be brought about." 2 On Novem- 
 ber 7, four days later, Wellington made his defeat in- 
 evitable by countermanding, on the ground of his own 
 unpopularity and the danger of a riot, a visit in state by 
 the king to the City, which had been arranged for Lord 
 Mayor's Day. 3 
 
 1 27,789(17^). 2 27,789(177). 
 
 3 Though Place was perfectly willing to make political use of the 
 possibility of disorder in London, he was at that time doing his best to 
 make the new police (established in 1829) as efficient as possible. His 
 administrative instinct rejoiced over their substitution for the "con- 
 ceited and interested people who managed the old watch in parishes " 
 [27,789, (182)], and Mr. Thomas, the police-inspector, used to visit him. 
 On one such occasion about this time, " I advised Mr. Thomas not again 
 to wait until his men were attacked, and then, when they had been 
 maltreated and bruised, to take a few vagabonds into custody ; but 
 when he saw a mob prepared to make an attack, to lead his men on and 
 thrash those who composed the mob with their staves as long as any 
 of them remained together, but to take none into custody ; and that 
 if this were done once or twice, there would be no more such mobs. 
 On the gth November a large mob gathered in the City and sallied 
 through Temple Bar, armed with pieces of wood from a fence in Chan- 
 cery Lane, for the purpose of beating the police. My advice was
 
 THE FIRST REFORM CAMPAIGN 249 
 
 The fall of the Tory ministry and the immediate coming 
 into office of the Whigs, unchastened and unpledged, was 
 exactly what Place did not want. "The old Whigs," he 
 wrote, "thought silence the most prudent course. They 
 knew that Lord Wellington's administration was drawing to 
 a close, and they did not like to object to many things which 
 under other circumstances they would have unsparingly 
 condemned, and they did not like to propose any of those 
 reforms which under other circumstances they would have 
 declared were necessary to save the country from ruin, 
 lest they should commit themselves and be called upon, 
 should they be in power, to perform their promises." 1 On 
 November 8 Place wrote a long letter to Hobhouse, putting 
 as many of his real reasons for desiring delay as he dared, 
 and probably a good many more than was wise. " ' Miracles 
 never will cease.' Here am I, ' the furious republican,' 
 whose opinions have induced many to fear, and more to 
 hate him, become a mod6r6, writing to you not to accelerate 
 an instant, but to retard, not a mere reform, but an actual 
 change. 
 
 " The folly of the king and his ministers has precipitated 
 matters. . . . The king refuses to make a procession along 
 the streets, and the playhouses are from very fear to be 
 shut up to-morrow. This is the first time, observe, that 
 apprehension of violence by the people against an adminis- 
 tration has induced them openly to change their plan of 
 proceeding. 
 
 " Put these matters in any way you please. Let men do 
 all they can to reconcile themselves to the conduct of 
 
 followed. The police retreated up Wych Street, and collected to about 
 sixty men in Catherine Street, from whence they sallied and beat the 
 mob before them to Temple Bar. This at once put an end to all rioting ; 
 no one was killed, no limb was broken, but many were bruised and 
 many heads were broken ; but there were no more mobs." (" Diary," 
 November 1830.) 
 1 27,789 (181).
 
 250 THE FIRST REFORM CAMPAIGN 
 
 ministers. ... Its nature cannot be changed, neither can 
 they make it other than the first step in the British 
 Revolution. You know my opinion of the weakness of the 
 present Government. You know my opinion that there 
 never can be a strong Government again in England until 
 there has been a change in its very form, and neither you 
 nor any one else will argue the contrary against me. 
 
 " I, then, want no instant change of ministers. I am as 
 certain as a man can be who is not desirous to cheat him- 
 self or be deceived by others, that a present change of 
 ministers would do more towards producing or rather 
 accelerating a revolution than all the other circumstances 
 of the time taken together ; and the time is not yet come 
 when a radical change can be made, either so effectually as 
 to prevent other similar changes, or so beneficially as to 
 answer the purposes of any class of reformers. ... If they 
 were to be ousted at once, who are to come in ? Not 
 another Tory set. There are not Tory materials of suf- 
 ficient importance to build up an administration Avhich 
 could continue in office to the end of the session. Not a 
 Whig administration, for, in spite of the wishes of their 
 friends, here is hardly anything but imbecility. Who 
 would be minister ? Earl Grey ? Look at him. Is he 
 competent to do the duty ? . . . The Marquis of Lans- 
 downe ? Why should the fact be concealed that he is in 
 no way competent to the duties of the office ? . . . Lord 
 Holland ? He has gone by, or rather circumstances have 
 gone by and left him behind. . . . 
 
 " Do pray do all you can to prevent the unwise conduct 
 of your friends in resisting ministers in such a way as to 
 compel them to resign at once. Abuse their proceedings 
 as much as you please, but beyond this do nothing to 
 prevent them sinking gradually as low as possible, and 
 then leave them to work themselves out of office, which 
 will happen quite soon enough. . . .
 
 THE FIRST REFORM CAMPAIGN 251 
 
 " I have seen a letter from the man whom I consider the 
 most influential man in England, Thomas Attwood of 
 Birmingham, 1 proposing an association to collect the names 
 of persons in London who will pledge themselves to pay 
 no more taxes if ministerial interference should produce 
 the probability of a war with Belgium, and I believe some- 
 thing of the kind will be done. There has long been 
 growing a disposition to refuse paying taxes, but it is only 
 now that rich men who have any influence have coun- 
 tenanced it. Now there are many such willing to take 
 part in it. 
 
 " Now mark the consequences. If any considerable 
 portion of the housekeepers were to refuse paying taxes, 
 and especially if this were to happen in London, a revolu- 
 tion -would be effected in a week, in spite of the Govern- 
 ment and the army. If taxes were refused it would 
 instantly produce a panic, Bank of England notes would 
 no longer circulate, and Government would be powerless. 
 No one would bring a sack of flour, a bullock or a sheep, 
 to the London markets. The moment taxes were really 
 refused the shops would be all closed, decent people would 
 remain at home until the populace and the soldiers had 
 
 1 In January 1830, Mr. Thomas Attwood and his friends had founded 
 the formidable "Birmingham Political Union of the Middle and Lower 
 Classes," with a Populist programme, to use the American term, of 
 manhood suffrage and paper monej'. In regard to the proposal to 
 refuse to pay taxes, Place wrote, "I was induced to put Att wood's 
 proposition into a form which, if not strictly legal, was yet not 
 punishable, as his certainly was, by all who should sign it. 1 there- 
 fore wrote out a declaration in a very few words, thus : 'That in the 
 event of the present ministers so misconducting the affairs of the 
 country as to make it probable we shall be involved in a Continental 
 war, we will consider the propriety of checking so mischievous an 
 event by withholding the means as far as may lay in our power, and 
 will then consider whether or not refusing to pay direct taxes may not 
 be advisable.' This was readily agreed to by a great many of the most, 
 prosperous shopkeepers, and by many other persons of property and 
 influence." 27,789 (197).
 
 252 THE FIRST REFORM CAMPAIGN 
 
 fought and were reconciled. A provisional government 
 would thus be formed no man can tell what fortuitous 
 circumstances may produce a revolution. . . . That it will 
 happen before many years have passed away seems to me 
 a reasonable expectation. You know my opinion, that 
 when men ought to act they should act promptly, and go 
 through with the business, be it whatever it may. You 
 know that I have a great dislike to undertake any matter 
 unless circumstances seem to warrant the conclusion that 
 it can be wholly and not partially accomplished. I have 
 always held that when action becomes necessary it is much 
 better to risk doing wrong than doing nothing, and if the 
 Opposition had no choice, I should say, go on, don't 
 hesitate a moment, oust the ministers as soon as possible. 
 But they have a choice, and may do mischief if they 
 refuse or neglect to take that choice." 1 
 
 Events, however, moved much too rapidly for such 
 tactics. On November 15 the Tories were defeated in a 
 division on the Civil List, and Lord Grey took office with a 
 Ministry of Whigs and Canningites, or, as Place describes 
 them, a " motley assembly " of " Whigs, Whig reformers, 
 half-and-half Tories, and others who cared little about 
 anything beyond their emoluments, and knew little beyond 
 what they learned in the drawing-rooms of their associates, 
 the clubs to which they belonged, or the clique Avith which 
 they congregated. . . . Lord Grey had in 1810 openly 
 abandoned the notions of reform which he had previously 
 promulgated, and quarrelled with those whom he had 
 helped to convince, because they did not apostatise as he 
 did. And they who remembered his conduct placed little 
 reliance on the vague declaration he made on accepting 
 office." 2 
 
 But the Whigs were in, and Place at once took up the 
 
 1 Place to Hobhouse, November 8, 1830. 
 3 27,789 (203).
 
 THE FIRST REFORM CAMPAIGN 253 
 
 task of worrying them into granting as much reform as 
 possible. " The Reformers," he wrote to Hume on Novem- 
 ber 22, " will not, however, be again cajoled," and he pro- 
 ceeds to suggest the public cross-examination of ministers 
 on those points on which they were likely to be weak. 
 " A question was put to Lord Althorp on Saturday, thus, 
 ' Will any man in office be permitted to advocate voting by 
 ballot ? ' The reply was, ' Certainly not.' The question 
 was put by a member of Honourable House, who was pre- 
 pared to make certain propositions, but on receiving this 
 answer he proceeded no further. The reason for my writ- 
 ing to you now is to tell you these things, and to suggest 
 to you the propriety of asking the same question and 
 another of a like nature in the House." l 
 
 Lord Melbourne, who was Home Secretary in the new 
 Government, found himself fully occupied by the growth of 
 the more or less revolutionary " Political Unions " in the 
 towns, and the rick-burning by the agricultural labourers 
 in the country. 2 Under these circumstances he sent his 
 brother, Mr. George Lamb, to see Place, and endeavour to 
 induce him " to write two or three papers to the working 
 people, and especially the agricultural labourers, to per- 
 suade them to desist from the enormities they were com- 
 mitting. . . . Mr. Lamb said, ' We are of opinion that you 
 can write to them with more effect than any one else.' " 3 
 But Place declined the task, on the ostensible ground that 
 such pamphlets would be interpreted as a sign of fear 
 and so encourage the labourers to proceed still further. 
 Though he was afterwards persuaded to write a pamphlet to 
 show that rick-burning was of no use as a means of increas- 
 ing wages, he could not help recognising that " Captain 
 
 1 Place to Hume, November 22, 1830. 
 
 2 See "Lord Melbourne's Papers," edited by Lloyd C. Sanders 
 (London, 1889), pp. 120-165. 
 
 s 27,789 (207-208'.
 
 THE FIRST REFORM CAMPAIGN 
 
 Swing " l was helping to bring reform within the range of 
 practical politics. 
 
 " Incendiary fires continued to increase, and by the middle 
 of December they had extended over thirteen counties. 
 These fires, and the general discontent of the working 
 people, had caused great alarm, and many were the schemes 
 and projects for putting an end to them, and the Govern- 
 ment was compelled to appoint a Special Commission to 
 try such of the incendiaries and rioters as could be caught. 
 This increased the discontent of the working classes, who, 
 though they generally condemned the burning of ricks, 
 found an excuse for the farmers' labourers in their igno- 
 rance, their low wages, their pauper allowance, the oppres- 
 sions they were made to endure, and the want of means 
 and intelligence to meet in societies as mechanics and 
 artisans met, and settle their differences with their em- 
 ployers. 
 
 " It seemed certain that no Special Commission nor any 
 other mode of coercion would prevent rick-burning Avhile 
 wages were very low, and were made up by pauper allow- 
 ances from the parishes; that it was useless either to 
 punish or advise, unless a more just and wiser system 
 were adopted ; and a great many persons of property and 
 understanding were of opinion that the fires were calcu- 
 lated to compel attention to the actual state and condition 
 of the labourers, and ultimately to produce such changes 
 as would place them and their immediate employers in a 
 better state than they had for years been, in as good a 
 state, indeed, as it was possible they could be placed by 
 any interference of Government. The measures which it 
 seemed likely would be forced on the Government were 
 thought to be a better administration of the Poor Laws, 
 a repeal of the Corn Laws, of all laws restricting trade and 
 
 1 The title given to the leader of the gangs of labourers who went 
 about rick-burning.
 
 THE FIRST REFORM CAMPAIGN 255 
 
 commerce, economy in the administration of the public 
 revenue, decrease of taxation, reform of the laws, especially 
 those which related to the administration of justice, and 
 above all, reform of Parliament, which would ensure all 
 the other reforms." l 
 
 Poor old Richard Carlile 2 put the same idea rather 
 more bluntly in the Prompter, 3 and to Place's furious 
 indignation, the Government of Whig rick-owners decided 
 to prosecute him, though the article was one " which would 
 not probably have been noticed by the Wellington Adminis- 
 tration." 4 Place stormed at his friends in Parliament, and 
 particularly at Colonel Leslie Grove Jones, 5 who, as Place 
 was careful to point out, had himself used more violent 
 language in letters to the Times. 6 The ministry, however, 
 held to their prosecution, and Carlile received the savage 
 sentence of two years' imprisonment and a heavy fine. 7 
 After this it was not surprising that when Hume proposed 
 to Lord Grey that the Newspaper Stamp Duties should be 
 immediately repealed, he was told that " these matters did 
 not press." s 
 
 When Parliament met, the Whigs introduced an ill- 
 contrived Budget, including proposals for a heavy tax on 
 steamboat passengers, and an increase of the army by 10,000 
 
 1 27,789 (206,^207). 
 
 2 Ricliard Carlile, the well-known martyr of free speech, had lately 
 spent six years (1820-26) in Dorchester gaol. 
 
 3 The Prompter, November 27, 1830. 
 
 4 27,789 (236). 
 
 ' Lieutenant-Colonel Leslie Grove Jones, born 1/79, died 1839. Hi- 
 served through the -Peninsular War. After leaving the army lie took 
 up politics as an advanced Radical and reformer, and gained consider- 
 able notoriety by his violent letters in the Times signed " Radical." 
 " Justitia," &c. 
 
 6 Place to Jones, January 7, 1831. 
 
 " At the same time prosecutions were commenced against several 
 other papers [27,789 (238)], which were all abandoned except that 
 against Cobbett, in whose case the jury disagreed. 
 
 8 Place to Hume, January 12, 1831.
 
 256 THE FIRST REFORM CAMPAIGN 
 
 men. There seemed now to be no prospect of a Reform 
 Bill which would make any serious change in the system 
 of representation. A friend of Place's was, he says, told by 
 Lord Grey, early in December 1830, "that whatever pro- 
 position for reform might be made by ministers, it must be 
 such an one as the House of Commons would entertain." l 
 
 Place however hammered on : " The old reformers fore- 
 saw that the only chance for the production of a good bill 
 was, as Lord Grey had said (1797), the resolutions of the 
 people acting on the prudence of the House." 2 And the 
 note in his diary for February 1831 is, "Writing petitions 
 and resolutions for reform of Parliament, and consulting 
 with persons on this subject." 
 
 But the people were now getting thoroughly impatient 
 lor a change to be made. Men outside the House of Com- 
 mons, Place says, adopted one of Lord John Russell's 
 phrases, and were everywhere saying, "We must have 
 reform to save the constitution," by which word, he adds, 
 " they meant everything and nothing, but it helped them 
 in the struggle which soon succeeded." 3 "Meetings of 
 almost every description of persons," wrote Place, " were 
 held. In cities, towns, and parishes, by journeymen trades- 
 men in their clubs, and by common workmen who had 
 no trade clubs or associations of any kind. . . . The sys- 
 tematic way in which the people proceeded, their steady 
 perseverance, their activity and skill, astounded the enemies 
 of reform, and produced an effect sometimes observed in 
 considerable bodies of men, yet scarcely ever in a nation. 
 The enemies of reform had so strong a feeling of the im- 
 possibility of anything like a successful opposition, that 
 they remained in a state of comparative quiescence quite 
 at variance with their proceedings on former occasions." 4 
 
 The bill was to be introduced on March I, and on 
 
 1 27,789 (209). * 27,789 (263). 
 
 8 27,789 (273)- 4 27,789 (252).
 
 THE FIRST REFORM CAMPAIGN 257 
 
 February 16, when ministers would be finally making up 
 their minds on its details, Place sent Hume a message 
 which he obviously hoped would be passed on : "I think 
 that as soon as ministers have fairly exposed themselves, 
 as they will scarcely fail to do on the ist March, and the 
 weekly press has got the cue, for the daily press is too 
 venal and corrupt to be useful in this way ; I think I shall 
 be induced to put aside every man and every thing who or 
 which now occupies my time, and labour day and night to 
 expose them in every possible way. And I doubt not I 
 shall soon find plenty of able coadjutors." l 
 
 On the evening of March i, Lord John Russell made 
 his statement. " I was alone in the evening," says Place, 
 "anxiously expecting some one to come from the House 
 to tell me what had occurred. At length, a friend who 
 had taken a report of about half of Lord John Russell's 
 speech for the Morning Chronicle came in and told me 
 the particulars of the ministerial plan. It was so very 
 much beyond anything which I had expected, that, had 
 it been told to me by a person unused to proceedings in 
 the House, I should have supposed that he had made a 
 mistake. Both I and my informant were delighted, and 
 we at once took measures to cause it to be known in the 
 coffee-houses in the neighbourhood, whence it spread like 
 wildfire." 2 
 
 Next day Hobhouse, with whom Place had lately had 
 "almost daily conversations," 3 called at Charing Cross, 
 and in his privately printed memoirs has left an account 
 of the visit. On March i, after Lord John Russell's 
 statement, he says : " Burdett and I walked home to- 
 gether, and both agreed that there was very little chance 
 of the measure being carried. We thought our West- 
 minster friends would oppose the 10 qualification clause; 
 
 1 Place to Hume, February 16, 1831. 
 227,789(265). 3 27,789(264). 
 
 R
 
 258 THE FIRST REFORM CAMPAIGN 
 
 but we were wrong, for calling the next day on Mr. Place, 
 we found him delighted with the bill, and were told that 
 all our supporters were equally pleased with it." 1 
 
 Place's daily breathings of fire and slaughter had ob- 
 viously answered their purpose in convincing Hobhouse, 
 and through him the Government, that the reformers 
 would not be easily satisfied. And it is a remarkable 
 proof of the pivotal position of Westminster, that Hob- 
 house believed that the opposition of that constituency 
 would be fatal to the .bill. Place was in fact now offered, 
 with apologies, infinitely more than he had ever dreamt 
 of getting. "The statement," he writes in his diary, 
 "surprised all parties. The reformers, the enemies of 
 reform, and the boroughmongers, Avere all equally sur- 
 prised, and all for the same reason, namely, that the plan 
 of reform had been made so extensive. None believed, 
 none expected any such propositions. But they were 
 plain and easily understood ; there was no leaning to party. 
 The fear of a revolution if they were not passed, and the 
 sneaking servility of the ridiculously loyal, who will go 
 with the king, made the propositions acceptable to a 
 much more decided majority of the whole people than 
 any other measure proposed to Parliament had ever before 
 been within the memory of any man living. 
 
 " Any general description of the state of feeling would 
 but feebly depict the excitement caused by the proposed 
 reform. But much may be learned from the leading articles 
 of the newspapers, and the accounts they contain of the 
 many meetings held all over the country. It was im- 
 
 1 See the Edinburgh Review, April 1871, pp. 283-337. The article 
 contains extracts from the memoirs of Sir John Cam Hobhouse, Lord 
 Broughton. The memoirs themselves have not yet been published 
 (1897). Greville says that " Hobhouse told me he had at first been 
 afraid that his constituents would disapprove this measure, as so many 
 of them would be disfranchised, but that they had behaved nobly, 
 and were quite content, and ready to make any sacrifice for such an 
 object." ("The Greville Memoirs, &c.," vol. ii. p. 124.)
 
 THE FIRST REFORM CAMPAIGN 259 
 
 possible for me to be an idle spectator." l "I saw that the 
 time was coming when it would be the duty of every man 
 to go forward and do his best for the public good. It 
 seemed to me that he who neglected this duty was a bad 
 citizen, and deserved severe reprehension. True enough 
 it was that the actual amount of service which each 
 ordinary man could perform was small, but it was equally 
 true that unless there was an immense aggregate of such 
 services, ministers would be unable to carry the bill, which 
 if carried could not fail greatly to benefit the country, 
 and tend to the advantage of the whole civilised world. 
 Undecided in what way I should devote myself to the 
 public service, I thought my exertions would as yet be 
 most useful at home, but this notion was soon changed 
 by the persons who . . . called upon me and induced 
 me to take the management of a public meeting at the 
 Crown and Anchor Tavern, on March 4, i83i." 2 
 
 At this meeting Place intended to stiffen the ministers 
 in giving as much as they had promised by asking for a 
 great deal more. He accordingly passed through the 
 organising committee a series of resolutions in favour 
 of Triennial Parliaments and the Ballot, " to make the 
 plan of reform proposed by his Majesty's ministers effec- 
 tual." 3 Hobhouse, however, when the meeting began, 
 jumped on the table, and carried in the name of unanimity 
 a proposal that no resolution except one of confidence in 
 ministers should be put, an exhibition of " true Whig 
 tactics" for which, says Place, the reformers never for- 
 gave him, 4 and which helped to lose him his seat at 
 Westminster two years later. 
 
 On March 21, the second reading of the bill was carried 
 by a majority of one. There w r as a general illumination 
 in London, and Place was approached by " a gentleman 
 
 1 "Diary," March i, 1831. 2 27,789 (318, 319). 
 
 a 27,789 (278). 27,789 (278, 279)-
 
 260 THE FIRST REFORM CAMPAIGN 
 
 from the Controller of the King's Household," who asked 
 him to try to arrange that the unilluminated windows of 
 the Tories should not be broken, as those of protesting 
 Radicals had been on former occasions. Place refused 
 to make any such attempt. He recalled the saying of 
 various London magistrates to "disloyal persons" in the 
 past, that " a few farthing candles would have saved their 
 windows." Not much window -breaking was likely to 
 take place, since no one would now pay money for it, but 
 if no window were broken, the Tories would argue a re- 
 action of public opinion, and declare that " even the mob 
 had respected the houses of those who had been falsely 
 represented as their worst enemies, but whom they knew 
 were truly their best friends." In the event, as he con- 
 tentedly remarks, "the windows in a very few houses of 
 the inveterate Tories were partially broken." l 
 
 But a majority of one on the second reading meant a 
 certain defeat in committee. Such a defeat came on 
 April 19, and was followed by another defeat on the 
 Estimates on April 21. On April 22 the king was per- 
 suaded to drive suddenly down to the House and prorogue 
 Parliament, with a view to its immediate dissolution. 
 
 Place was at this time mainly occupied with the w T ork 
 of the " Parliamentary Candidates' Society," a sub-com- 
 mittee of which met daily. 2 This society was in intention 
 a predecessor of the "National Liberal Federation," and 
 was imitated from " the American Correspondence Societies 
 and Caucuses," 3 which are supposed to give the rank 
 and file of a party some control over its electoral policy. 
 Its career was, however, a very troubled one. Most of 
 the well-known men who joined the Committee found 
 Place's methods too high-handed, and soon left, while 
 Place himself had as usual the greatest difficulty in 
 
 1 27,789 (287, 288). 2 27,789 (350). 
 
 3 Erskine Perry to Place, April i, 1831.
 
 THE FIRST REFORM CAMPAIGN 261 
 
 keeping his temper among the gentlemen amateurs who 
 tried to combine democratic opinions with fashionable 
 life. 
 
 " It is not so with the Tories in public political matters : 
 they persuade themselves that everything they do is 
 genteel. . . . They had no fear of being looked upon as 
 ungcnteel, none of being discountenanced by Holland 
 House people and Brooks' Club people, like the poor 
 half-and-half people with whom it was necessary I should 
 associate. . . . Every one of them had the fear of the club 
 before his eyes. Colonel Jones could not as yet bring 
 himself to offend the men with whom he associated at 
 Brooks'. Beauclerk was kept in check by the Travellers'. 
 Perry must not be cut at the Universities'. Hume could 
 not bear the taunts of the House, and nearly all the rest 
 were either similarly circumstanced, or afraid to com- 
 promise their gentility by doing what would be condemned 
 as going much too far by their friends the half dandy, 
 half idiot fashionable people, who sometimes condescended 
 to notice them, or with whom they usually associated, 
 as well as bv the fools who would call them vulgar-r-r 
 
 \J O 
 
 fellows. . . . 
 
 " The working classes, who are of little importance in 
 any useful political proceeding unless countenanced by 
 those called their betters, might have been made useful 
 to the public cause. . . . The shopkeeping race and such 
 as they, who are among the most despicable people in 
 the nation in a public point of view, might have been of 
 much importance, . . . ought on this occasion to have 
 been, and might have been turned to good account, had 
 the men who have leisure and considerable acquirements 
 been in other respects qualified to have proceeded in the 
 right direction. But they were not. 
 
 " The curse of gentility is upon them all, and this in- 
 duces them to attend to minor objects, to neglect major
 
 262 THE FIRST REFORM CAMPAIGN 
 
 objects, to trifle with matters the most serious, and when 
 any considerable difficulty occurs, to shuffie away from it, 
 and then when reproached with such pitiful conduct, to 
 make an off-hand lying excuse which an honest boy or 
 girl would be ashamed to make. These people whenever 
 they interfere in Liberal political affairs endeavour to 
 accomplish two incompatible things first, to go on with 
 the public matter ; secondly, not to lose caste with their 
 fashionable friends and acquaintances. This being im- 
 possible, the first is sacrificed invariably. They shrink 
 back as it were into their shells. . . . Not one of them 
 has the courage to cut his drawing - room friends and 
 become, as he ought to be, a highly useful and important 
 man." l 
 
 The particular question on which Place's tactics came 
 most definitely into contact with the gentlemanly feelings 
 of his fellow committee-men of the Parliamentary Candi- 
 dates' Society, was the expediency of collecting and pub- 
 lishing a record for electioneering purposes of the votes 
 and other public action of Tory members of Parliament. 
 After the well-known politicians had resigned, the greater 
 part of the work of the society seems to have consisted 
 in preparing such records, 2 and shortly after the election 
 the society, which had been furiously abused by almost 
 every paper, Whig or Tory, came to a quiet end. Place 
 wrote its obituary. . 
 
 " The Parliamentary Candidates' Society was of short 
 duration, as such a society ought to be, and as I, at least, 
 intended it should be. ... It would, if it had been con- 
 tinued, have degenerated into a cabal for the advantage of 
 some very few persons, and those by no means the most 
 
 1 27,789 (336-339). 
 
 2 Place wrote that by April 20 the public characters, in full detail, 
 of twenty-two members of Parliament had been prepared. They were, 
 however, never published. 27,789 (369).
 
 THE FIRST REFORM CAMPAIGN 
 
 respectable." l But when all is said, Place probably remem- 
 bered the society as one of the least fortunate of his 
 efforts. 
 
 The new Parliament met on June 14. It contained a 
 majority of more than a hundred for " the bill, the whole 
 bill, and nothing but the bill." "The election of the 
 members to the new Parliament in 1831 was a very extra- 
 ordinary circumstance, one which no man could have 
 anticipated as possible a year before it took place. It 
 could not have been anticipated that a boroughmonger- 
 ing Parliament would have been called together with an 
 express recommendation from the king to put an end to 
 the boroughmongering by which alone it could exist." 2 
 
 He quotes the figures given by the Society of the 
 Friends of the People in 1793, as to the extent to which 
 members of the Commons were nominated by individual 
 owners of property, and proceeds : " This scandalously 
 corrupt state of the House in 1793 was somewhat in- 
 creased in 1831, and against this infamous power, and 
 the infamous manner in which it was used, the people 
 had to contend. The necessary misgovernment of an 
 irresponsible king, an irresponsible House of Peers, and 
 a luxurious, rich, overbearing, benumbing clergy, with a 
 
 1 27,789 (317). The society was for a time heartily supported by 
 the Whig newspapers, especially the Spectator, which described it as a 
 society for securing the return of Reform candidates, and for selecting 
 new candidates to serve the Reform party in Parliament. In a leading 
 article (Saturday, March 12, 1831, pp. 254, 255), short biographies of a 
 number of such possible candidates are given, including Grote, Henry 
 Drummond, Hume, and others, and Place himself, who in a very eulo- 
 gistic notice is described as " the leader of that organised body which 
 liberated Westminster and preserved its independence of the Dukes 
 of Newcastle [mistake for Northumberland] and the Court." Else- 
 where Place alludes incidentally to the fact that he was " waited upon 
 with an offer " to stand for Westminster against Burdett and Hobhouse, 
 and received "offers from one or two other places of seats, free of 
 expense," but declined. 27,844 (34). 
 
 2 27,789(384).
 
 264 THE FIRST REFORM CAMPAIGN 
 
 House of Commons thus chosen or rather appointed the 
 long war and its multiplied horrors, the waste of human 
 life, the amount of human suffering, the unparalleled 
 waste of the public money . . . were not the greatest evils 
 to the nation which its vicious and vitiating government 
 produced. The bribery, the perjury, the corruption, the 
 immorality and the consequent enormous and widespread 
 criminality and debasing notions it produced, encouraged 
 and maintained all over the country . . . were much more 
 lamentable than all the other evils, enormous as they 
 were." : 
 
 The bill was, of course, at once reintroduced. Owing to 
 Tory obstruction it proceeded very slowly. "Complaints 
 were made," wrote Place, " but they were useless. The 
 people were angry and were growing sulky when, as the 
 Committee at length approached its termination, they 
 dropped petitioning the House and once more became 
 lively as their attention was turned to the House of 
 Lords." 2 On September 21 it finally passed the House 
 of Commons and was sent to the Lords. There it met 
 with short shrift, and on October 8 the Reform news- 
 papers announced in black-edged editions that, at six 
 o'clock that morning, the Lords had refused the second 
 reading by a majority of forty-one. 
 
 1 27,789 (387, 388). 2 27)7 g 9 (4o6j 407) .
 
 CHAPTER X 
 WAR ON TWO FRONTS 
 
 IN the general anger and excitement which followed the 
 action of the Lords on October 8, Place kept before him 
 as the one supreme necessity of the situation the continu- 
 ance of the alliance between the Whig Cabinet and the 
 " People." 
 
 The most immediate danger was that the Whigs might 
 abandon part of the Bill, and allow the Lords to save 
 their credit by a compromise. But there was another 
 danger which Place, better than any one else, was able 
 to estimate that an agitation for social revolution might 
 develop among the working classes, against which Whigs 
 and Tories would unite as they had united against 
 Cobbett and Hunt in 1817 and 1819. The two possible 
 centres for such a movement were Lancashire and London. 
 In Lancashire the rapid development of the textile in- 
 dustry had divided the whole population into two irre- 
 concilable camps of organised masters and organised men. 
 Preston, like Westminster, was a scot and lot borough, and 
 at a bye-election in 1 830 Hunt, standing on a strictly revo- 
 lutionary platform, had beaten the Whig Irish Secretary, 
 Lord Stanley. At Manchester John Doherty had begun 
 in 1829 that federation of the cotton spinners which was 
 the origin of the socialistic Grand National Trades Union 
 in 1833-34. Doherty called on Place in October 1831. 
 "He maintained that the people ought no longer to be 
 shuffled off with a Bill which could do them no good,
 
 266 WAR ON TWO FRONTS 
 
 but ought to take the affair into their own hands, and 
 by force to compel the Government to do what was right." 
 " I told him," says Place, " it was absurd to expect such a 
 combination among the working people as would enable 
 them to defeat the army and others who would not 
 quietly submit to be plundered. That the working people 
 unaided by the middle class never had accomplished any 
 national movement, and that it was insane in him to 
 suppose that they could effect any change by force. He 
 acknowledged they never had made a national movement, 
 but said that they were now resolved to have their rights, 
 and I should soon be convinced I was in error. They were 
 now organised, were determined to bring the matter to 
 issue, and if it were possible they could fail, it were better 
 to be slain in the attempt than to go on as their enemies, 
 the wealth accumulators, now made them go, in misery 
 unmitigated, and as they intended, perpetually." l But 
 the working - class leaders in Lancashire received their 
 ideas from London, 2 and in London Place had for some 
 years watched the formation of a small group of revo- 
 lutionary thinkers holding an economic creed much 
 more definite and coherent than the vague denuncia- 
 tion of social injustice to which Cobbett and Hunt 
 had trusted. He describes this movement as having 
 originated in the teachings of Robert Owen and Thomas 
 Hodgskin. 
 
 1 27,791 (242). 
 
 2 The "Union" (i.e. the London "National Union of the Work- 
 ing Classes") had "great influence over a considerable portion 
 of the working classes, more especially in the great manufacturing 
 counties. Daring the time the Reform Bills were before the Parlia- 
 ment this was particularly the case. The attention of the whole 
 people was then drawn to the subject, and the working people were 
 quite as much excited as any class wliatever. The consequence of 
 this excitement was a general persuasion that the whole produce of 
 the labourers and workmen's hands should remain with them."- 
 27,791 (242).
 
 WAR ON TWO FRONTS 267 
 
 Owen since 1817, when his public propaganda began, 
 had kept round him a body of devoted disciples, who 
 believed with him that man was what circumstances made 
 him, and that the existing industrial system made the 
 creation of favourable circumstances impossible. Hodgskin 
 was a man of wider education than Owen, and greater 
 intellectual subtlety. In 1813, being a young naval 
 lieutenant, he had been put upon half-pay for writing 
 a pamphlet against pressing, had then lived in Edin- 
 burgh, trying to eke out his pay by writing, and had 
 travelled on the Continent, first as a companion to Place's 
 eldest son, and afterwards by himself on foot. 1 
 
 In Edinburgh he read Ricardo's " Principles of Political 
 Economy," and carried on during 1820 a long argumen- 
 tative correspondence with Place about the book. In this 
 correspondence Hodgskin developed the " surplus value ' 
 theory, 2 that inevitable corollary of Ricardo's "labour 
 value," which, since the publication of Marx's " Capital," 
 has raised in Germany and elsewhere "a Ricardian socialism, 
 
 1 For a description of Hodgskin, see 27,791 (263). 
 
 2 For instance, Hodgskin complains, in a letter dated May 28, 1820, 
 of " the want of an accurate distinction between natural price and 
 exchangeable value. Natural price is measured by the quantity of labour 
 necessary to produce any commodity ; its exchangeable value, or what 
 another will give, or is obliged to give, for this commodity when pro- 
 duced, may or may not be equal to the quantity of labour employed in 
 its production. Mr. R. has, I think, made a mistake by supposing these 
 two things to be equal. They are not, or the wages of labour would 
 always be equal to the produce of labour. It requires, for instance, a 
 certain portion of labour to produce a quarter of corn. This quarter 
 of corn, however, when produced, and in the possession of a man who 
 is at the same time both landlord and farmer, will at present exchange 
 for a prodigious deal greater quantity of labour than it cost to produce 
 it. There is, therefore, a great difference between real natural price and 
 exchangeable value, and by not attending to this Mr. R. has been led 
 into, I think, gross mistakes relative to the decrease of profits in an 
 improving state of society." For Marx's debt to Hodgskin, see "Capi- 
 tal" (English edition, 1887), vol. i. pp. 331, 345, 348 ; vol. ii. pp. 547, 
 5 8 7 774, 775-
 
 268 WAR ON TWO FRONTS 
 
 appearing like the ghost of the deceased Ricardian ortho- 
 doxy sitting crowned on the grave thereof." l 
 
 In 1825, just after the struggle against the re-enactment 
 of the Combination Laws, Hodgskin, then living in London, 
 published an extremely able pamphlet, entitled " Labour 
 Defended against the Claims of Capital," by "A Labourer," 2 
 in which he attacked the existing system of wealth pro- 
 duction and the arguments by which it was defended, and 
 claimed that all the products of labour should be distributed 
 among the labourers, manual or mental. Place, though he 
 had a great personal liking for Hodgskin, steadily fought 
 against his ideas, and in 1827 unsuccessfully opposed his 
 appointment to a lectureship on Political Economy at the 
 Mechanics' Institute. 3 
 
 Hodgskin's own style was too technical to have had 
 much influence on popular political thought ; but William 
 Thompson brought out "Labour Rewarded" (1827), in 
 which Hodgskin's doctrine was expanded and put into 
 rhetorical form. Henceforward the writings and speeches 
 
 1 James Bonar, "Mai thus," p. 214. 
 
 2 The greater part of this pamphlet consisted of a temperate and 
 searching criticism of what are now acknowledged to be two of the 
 main defects of the " classical " economics, the clumsy assumption that 
 all commodities were sold exactly a year after the commencement of 
 their production and that in consequence all labourers were supported 
 for each succeeding twelve months by the accumulated capital of their 
 employers and the unpardonable ignoratio elenchi, by which an 
 analysis of the differential advantages of land and capital in production 
 was treated as an ethical and political justification of the landlord and 
 the capitalist. The constructive proposals amount to little more than a 
 suggestion that the problem of distribution would be solved if "all 
 kinds of labour" were "free." A copy is in the British Museum. 
 
 3 27,823 (369). The lectureship resulted in Hodgskin's longer, but 
 less outspoken, book, " Popular Political Economy" (1827). In 1820, 
 Place apparently succeeded in persuading Hodgskin not to write 
 a large book explaining his position. Hodgskin writes, " I had 
 the intention, till I received your last letter, to devote all my spare 
 time first to these subjects, and to put together a book on them," and 
 then proceeds to sketch a book curiously like Marx's " Capital." 
 Hodgskin to Place, June 4th (no year, but apparently 1820).
 
 WAR ON TWO FRONTS 
 
 of the agitators of the time, though mainly consisting of 
 such denunciations of in equality as are to be found in all 
 periods of human history, yet contained ideas and phrases 
 which had obviously come from the more scientific revolu- 
 tionists. The first number, for instance, of the Poor Mans 
 Guardian ( 1 83 1 ) contains a poem by " One of the Know 
 Nothings." 
 
 " Wages should form the price of goods ; 
 
 Yes, wages should be all, 
 Then we who work to make the goods, 
 
 Should justly have them all ; 
 
 But if the price be made of rent, 
 
 Tithes, taxes, profits, all ; 
 Then we who work to make the goods, 
 
 Shall have just none at all" 
 
 Owen was a communist who at this time seems to have 
 believed in aristocratic government, and Hodgskin was 
 politically an anarchist. 1 But in 1831 the Owenite working- 
 men had come to think of the new criticism of society as 
 the basis of a claim for democracy. Their transition from 
 voluntary communism to social democracy is well illus- 
 trated by the successive titles assumed by their organisa- 
 tions in London. In the two years between 1829 and 1831 
 they successively called themselves " The London Co-opera- 
 tive Trading Association," " The British Association for 
 the Spread of Co-operative Knowledge," " The Metropolitan 
 Trades Union," and finally " The National Union of the 
 Working Classes." William Lovett, the most thoughtful 
 of them, sent Place the following account of the process : 2 
 " They had read and admired the writings of Robert 
 
 1 27,823 (369) ; cf. also 27,791 (263). 
 
 * Place afterwards knew Lovett well, and liked him. He describes 
 him as follows : " Lovett was a journeyman cabinetmaker, a man of 
 melancholy temperament, soured with the perplexities of the world. 
 He was, however, an honest-hearted man, possessed of great courage, and 
 persevering in his conduct. In his usual demeanour he was mild and 
 kind, and entertained kindly feelings towards every one whom he did
 
 270 WAR ON TWO FRONTS 
 
 Owen, Peter (sic) Thompson, Morgan, Gray, and others, and 
 resolved to be instrumental to the extent of their means 
 and their abilities in spreading a knowledge of these 
 works throughout the country. They intended, however, 
 to avoid the course taken by Robert Owen. He had all 
 along, though in his mild manner, condemned the Radical 
 Reformers, believing, as he did, that reform was to be 
 effected solely on this plan, the Radical Reformers of 
 the working classes believing that his plan could only be 
 carried out when the reforms they sought had been 
 accomplished. Many among them also considered his 
 proceedings inimical to their interests. These notions 
 were at length entertained to so great an extent among 
 his disciples that they opposed him, and carried their 
 own resolutions at the meeting, in direct opposition to 
 those proposed by him. The persons before named, there- 
 fore, during Mr. Owen's visit to North America, 1 resolved 
 to take up such parts of his system as they believed would 
 be appreciated by the working classes, and be the means 
 of uniting them for specific purposes, taking care that 
 these purposes should not interfere more than was pos- 
 sible with opinions in the proceedings to be adopted in 
 matters on which great differences of opinion existed. . . . 
 " The British Association, the central organ of all these 
 societies, some months before its dissolution, was applied 
 
 not sincerely believe was the intentional enemy of tlie working people ; 
 but when either by circumstances or his own morbid associations he 
 felt the sense he was apt to indulge of the evils and wrongs of mankind, 
 he was vehement in the extreme. He was half an Owenite, half an 
 Hodgskinite, a thorough believer that accumulation of property in the 
 hands of individuals was the cause of all the evils that existed." 27,791 
 (67). And again, " He is a tall, thin, rather melancholy man, about 
 thirty-two years of age, in ill-health, to which he has long been subject ; 
 at times he is somewhat hypochondriacal ; his is a spirit misplaced." 
 27,791 (241). See also Lovett's " Lif e and Struggles "(an autobiography), 
 London, 1867. 
 
 1 i.e. the visit from Nov. 1828 to April 1829.
 
 WAR ON TWO FRONTS 271 
 
 to by a few carpenters, who held their meetings at a 
 public-house in Argyle Street, and who, being imbued 
 with co-operative views, wanted assistance in carrying 
 into effect some modified plan ; this was done by the 
 advice of Mr. Hetherington, Mr. Warden, and Mr. Foskett. 
 These persons attended at a meeting in Argyle Street on 
 Wednesday, April 2, 1831. They first called themselves 
 ' The Metropolitan Trades Union,' l and subsequently took 
 the more extensive name of ' The National Union of the 
 Working Classes and others.' 2 
 
 " The National Union of the A^ ^ orking Classes sprang 
 out of another society called ' The British Association for 
 promoting Co-operative Knowledge.' The Co-operative 
 Society was a branch of Mr. Robert Owen's plan for 
 establishing 'a new order of society.' This Association 
 (i.e. the 'British Association, &c.') was formed on May n, 
 1829, principally by a number of persons who belonged 
 to a society in Red Lion Square called ' The London 
 Co-operative Trading Association.' It was intended to 
 accumulate a capital for co-operative purposes by dealing 
 among themselves and acquaintances, and thus saving 
 the profit of the retail trader. . . . 
 
 " The persons who took the lead in this affair were James 
 
 1 The published objects of the Metropolitan were in part political. 
 The first was, " to obtain for all its members the right of electing those 
 who make the laws which govern them ; " . . . and the second, " to 
 afford support and protection, individually and collectively, to every 
 member of the Metropolitan Trades Union, to enhance the value of 
 labour by diminishing the hours of employment, and to adopt such 
 measures as may be deemed necessary to increase the domestic comfort 
 of working-men." Handbill of the Metropolitan Trades Union, March 
 23, 1831. 27,791 (247). 
 
 2 27,791 (244-246). The word "others" caused dissensions, and 
 "motions were twice made to permit 'None but Wealth Producers' to 
 be members of the committee, or to hold any office in the Union. In 
 discussing the proposition it was shown that several of their leaders 
 were not wealth producers in the meaning of the words, in the re- 
 stricted sense the words were used, and the motions were not adopted." 
 27,891 (281).
 
 272 WAR ON TWO FRONTS 
 
 Watson, 1 William Lovett, John Cleave, 2 George Foskett, 
 Robert Wigg, Philip and George Skene, William Millard, 
 Thomas Powell, Henry Hetherington, 3 and Benjamin 
 Warden, all working-men. As the affairs of the British 
 Association were now brought to a close, the remainder 
 of its committee, namely, John Cleave, James Watson, 
 William Lovett, Julian ^Hibbert, and several others joined 
 this new union. These persons conceived it a fit oppor- 
 tunity for blending their own peculiar views of society, 
 especially those of the production and the distribution of 
 wealth, with those of the Radical Reformers." * 
 
 The National Union of the Working Classes contained 
 in 1831 about 500 regular paying members, as well as 
 about i ooo " who paid only occasionally at times of great 
 excitement, and yet reckoned themselves members." 5 The 
 Union had about a dozen branches in different parts of 
 London, but by far the most important of its activities 
 was the weekly public meeting at the Rotunda in Black- 
 friars Bridge Road, which, says Place, "would probably 
 contain a thousand persons, and I have seen hundreds 
 outside the doors for whom there was no room within." 6 
 Their title was too long for general use, and they were 
 usually known as " The Rotundanists." 
 
 They had taken no part or interest in the general 
 election of 1*83 I, 7 and were just now exasperated against 
 
 See a Memoir of James Watson, by William Linton, and 27,796 
 (302). When Place died, Watson sent a letter to the Reasoner, in 
 which he called him "The English Franklin" (Reasoner, 1854, p. 210). 
 
 2 See 27,791 (67). 
 
 3 1792-1849. Publisher and proprietor of Poor Man's Guardian, 
 See Life of, by G. J. Holyoake, 1849. 
 
 4 27,791 (247, 248). 5 27,791 (242). o 27,791 (243). 
 
 7 The new Parliament was now assembled ; there had been a 
 general election, and unusual efforts had been made to procure the 
 return of members likely to promote the passing of the Reform Bills. 
 It will be seen how little this interested the leaders of the " National 
 Union of the Working Classes," since in none of their resolutions is 
 there any expression denoting any particular interest taken by them in 
 the elections. 27,791 (285).
 
 WAR ON TWO FRONTS 273 
 
 the Whig Government by the fact that several of their 
 members were in prison for selling unstamped publi- 
 cations. Lovett had the additional grievance that his 
 goods had been sold (in September 1831), because he had 
 refused to serve in the Militia, and had given "no vote, 
 no musket" as his reason. 1 The original Co-operative 
 Radicals had been lately joined by Mr. Dios Santos, Mr. 
 William Benbow, the author of a plan for a general strike, 
 and certain other more or less disreputable revolutionists. 
 
 Place, who suffered much at their hands, writes of them 
 and of their conduct at the time with undisguised dislike : 
 " There was a strong muster of the men who led the meet- 
 ings at the Rotunda. Some of these men were remarkably 
 ignorant, but fluent speakers, filled with bitter notions of 
 animosity against everybody who did not concur in the 
 absurd notions they entertained, that everything which 
 was produced belonged to those who, by their labour, 
 produced it, and ought to be shared among them ; that 
 there ought to be no accumulation of capital in the hands 
 of any one to enable him to employ others as labourers, 
 and thus by becoming a master make slaves of others 
 under the name of workmen; to take from them the 
 produce of their labour, to maintain themselves in idleness 
 and luxury, while their slaves were ground down to the 
 earth or left to starve. They denounced every one who 
 dissented from these notions as a political economist, 
 under which appellation was included the notion of a 
 bitter foe to the working classes, enemies who deserved'no 
 mercy at their hands. Most of these men were loud and 
 long talkers, vehement, resolute, reckless rascals. Among 
 these men were some who were perfectly atrocious, whoso 
 purpose was riot, as providing an opportunity for plun- 
 dering." 2 
 
 The Rotund anists were often believed to represent the 
 
 1 27,791 (300). 2 27,791 (48).
 
 274 WAR ON TWO FRONTS 
 
 whole working class in the Metropolis, a belief which they 
 themselves fully shared. They entertained the "strange 
 notion," says Place, which has long existed " among small 
 as well as large bodies of working-men who frequently 
 meet together, that they are the working people." l And 
 "it was very generally supposed a vast majority of the 
 working people in London were members, and that they 
 were under the control of its managers." 2 
 
 1 27,791 (343)- 
 
 2 27,790 (23). On October 25, 1831, James Mill wrote in great 
 anxiety to Place about a deputation " from the working classes " who 
 had been preaching communism to Mr. Black, the editor of the Morn- 
 ing Chronicle. " Their notions about property look ugly ; they not only 
 desire that it should have nothing to do with representation, which is 
 true, though not a truth for the present time, as they ought to see, but 
 they seem to think that it should not exist, and that the existence of it 
 is an evil to them. Rascals, I have no doubt, are at work among them. 
 Black, it is true, is easily imposed upon. But the thing needs looking 
 into. Nobody has such means of probing the ulcer as you, and nobody 
 has so much the means of cure. The fools, not to see that what they 
 madly desire would be such a calamity to them as no hands but their 
 own could bring vipon them." 
 
 Place answered : 
 
 " MY DEAR MILL, As you sometimes take pains to serve the common 
 people, and as you are an influential man, I send you an essay in reply 
 to your note. The men who called on Black were not a deputation 
 from the working people, but two out of half-a-dozen who manage, or 
 mismanage, the meetings of the Rotunda in Blackfriars Road, and at 
 the Philadelphian Chapel in Finsbury. The doctrine they are now 
 preaching is that promulgated by Hodgskin in a tract in 1825, entitled 
 ' Labour Defended against the Claims of Capital,' "... and so on 
 through a long letter. (Place to Mill, October 26, 1831.) A year 
 later Mill passed on Place's information to Brougham, " The nonsense 
 to which your Lordship alludes about the rights of the labourer to the 
 whole produce of the country, wages, profits, and rent, all included, 
 is the mad nonsense of our friend Hodgskin (sic) which he has pub- 
 lished as a system, and propagates with the zeal of perfect fanaticism. 
 Whatever of it appears in the Chronicle, steals in through his means, he 
 being a sort of sub-editor, and Black (the editor) not very sharp in 
 detecting ; but all Black's opinions on the subject of property are 
 sound. These opinions, if they were to spread, would be the sub- 
 version of civilised society ; worse than the overwhelming deluge of 
 Huns and Tartars." (Mill to Brougham, September 3, 1832, in Bain's 
 "James Mill," p. 364.)
 
 WAR ON TWO FRONTS 275 
 
 Such was the position in London the Ministry anxious 
 to avoid a contest with the Lords, and the only working- 
 class political organisation in the hands of a group of 
 doctrinaire revolutionists, who were convinced that the 
 Bill would do more harm than good. 
 
 For once, however, it was possible to appeal to that rare 
 but overwhelming force, the political activity of the non- 
 political man. " There are times and circumstances, and 
 both were now combined, when quiescent men, who take 
 the most moderate views of public matters, and are willing 
 to let political movements take their own course, shake off 
 their usual apathy, assume a new character, and become 
 the resolute promoters of the greatest changes. This was 
 now about to become the case here." l 
 
 The Bill had been rejected by the Lords on Saturday 
 morning, October 8, 1831. Next day two young men 2 
 came to Place with a proposal for a procession through 
 London, to present an address to the King on the follow- 
 ing Wednesday. This was exactly what Place wanted. A 
 great procession would be more likely than anything else 
 to intimidate Ministers, and would raise no difficult ques- 
 tions as to the amount of reform which was to be 
 
 1 27,791 (24). 
 
 2 Bowyer, " a journeyman bookseller, and a very respectable working- 
 man," and Powell, " an attorney's clerk," afterwards sub-editor of the 
 Morning Chronicle. 27,790 (24). Autograph accounts of the procession 
 by both of them are in the Letter-Book. In his account, Bowyer 
 describes the situation : " Meetings had been held in the manufac- 
 turing districts, at which petitions for universal suffrage had been 
 agreed to, and delegates had arrived in London from various parts of 
 the country to enforce the separate claims of the working people. The 
 language used by these delegates and their associates, and that used by 
 the unstamped publications, was directed to the object of inducing the 
 working people to believe that the constituency which the Reform Bill 
 would create would belong exclusively to the class of tradesmen and 
 shopkeepers, or, as they were termed, the middlemen a class which 
 at all times, it was said, had been the worst enemies of the working 
 people."
 
 276 WAR ON TWO FRONTS 
 
 demanded, or the economic principles on which the 
 demand was to be based. 1 He accordingly gave all the 
 help he could to the proposal, drew up and signed a letter 
 asking for funds, and gave them a list of probable sub- 
 scribers, including the name of Tom Young, Lord Mel- 
 bourne's mysterious factotum, 2 through whose hands a 
 good deal of the Government's Secret Service Fund seems 
 to have passed. 
 
 On Monday, Place attended four public meetings, ending 
 up with one at the Rotunda. On Tuesday came bad news. 
 Parkes wrote from Birmingham to Grote, " I have been 
 written to by the Government to-day. They are still the 
 same men, not suited to the occasion. I do fear their 
 going out. We have all written up to them, ' PEERS OR 
 REVOLUTION.' . . . All the cards are ours, and the whole 
 nation deserves to stand before the world in a pillory if we 
 are swindled. I only fear a compromise." 3 Brougham on 
 Monday night had said in the Lords : " Careless whether I 
 give offence in any quarter, I must say that I am so far 
 moved by some points urged, as to be ready to reconsider 
 some matters on which I had deemed that my mind waai 
 made up, although in the greater proportion of the objec- 
 tions to the Bill I cannot concur. Nevertheless, I am 
 uninfluenced as regards the bulk of its principles." And 
 Lord Althorp had hinted at "modifications" in the 
 Commons. 
 
 Place at once sat down and wrote (9 A.M., Tuesday) a 
 letter to Hobhouse, which he obviously intended to be 
 shoAvn to Ministers : " You recommend ' Patience, patience, 
 
 1 Place also says that many working-men called on him, whom he 
 advised to get up "trade meetings and meetings of working-men 
 indiscriminately," and at these meetings to speak in favour of universal 
 suffrage, but propose resolutions in support of the Government. 27,790 
 
 (23). 
 
 a 27,790 (25). For Tom Young, see p. 303 and note. 
 
 3 Parkes to Grote, undated, indexed by Place as October 10, 1831.
 
 WAR ON TWO FRONTS 277 
 
 patience.' The word ' Patience ' must mean, if it mean 
 anything, a reasonable expectation that all which is 
 necessary will be done forthwith. Do circumstances 
 warrant such a conclusion ? I say no, they do not. If 
 they did, I too should say ' Patience, patience, patience.' 
 I say the people have no sufficient reason to conclude 
 that what ought to be done to ensure the passing of the 
 Reform Bill will be done, and unless they be as ' stupid as 
 waggon horses,' they cannot, ought not to be patient. . . . 
 I have stood up firmly against proceedings which had a 
 tendency to produce a panic. Others of my friends have 
 done the same, and our success was perfect until yesterday 
 afternoon, when at the close of the meeting at the Crown 
 and Anchor Tavern many persons avowed their determina- 
 tion to withdraw their balances from their bankers in 
 gold." ! 
 
 From everywhere came accounts of huge meetings, 
 of occasional riots, and of effusive expressions of con- 
 fidence in Ministers, founded upon a growing distrust 
 of them. 
 
 " So thoroughly were the people at a loss respecting 
 the course which ought to be pursued, that besides 
 attending meetings called by they did not care whom, 
 the people did nothing. 2 "All, however, talked vaguely 
 of ' being firm,' that is, as a man said at one of the 
 public meetings, ' staring at the Government, staring at 
 them firmly.' " 3 
 
 The great London procession (on October 13) was a 
 complete success, though no Rotundanist leader took part 
 in it. 4 But on the same day came leading articles in the 
 Courier (the official ministerial paper) and the Morning 
 
 1 Place to Hobliouse, October 11, 1831. 
 * 27,791 (6). 
 
 3 Place to Parkes, October 13, 1831. 
 
 4 27,790 (39)-
 
 278 AVAR ON TWO FRONTS 
 
 Herald, hinting at a compromise with the Lords and a 
 modified Bill ; l and Warburton, the Radical member for 
 Bridport, " one of Lord Althorp's most confidential friends," 2 
 called on Place with the news that Parliament was to be 
 prorogued for three months. 3 
 
 On that evening Place broke through his habit of 
 working behind the scenes, and took a step which brought 
 his name for a day or two into almost all the newspapers. 
 He went down to a meeting of parochial delegates at the 
 Crown and Anchor Tavern, told them what he had heard 
 of the intentions of Ministers, drew up a strong memorial 
 to the effect that if the Bill were not reintroduced after 
 the shortest possible prorogation, "this country will in- 
 evitably be plunged into all the horrors of a violent 
 revolution," and organised a deputation there and then 
 to see Lord Grey at his house in Downing Street. The 
 deputation arrived at a quarter to eleven at night, and 
 were told by Lord Grey that "it would be absurd" for 
 Ministers "to propose a measure which they could not 
 hope to carry through"; that a new Bill would be 
 prepared " not less efficient than the old " ; that the 
 preparation of such a Bill would take "much time and 
 consideration " ; and finally, and emphatically, that any 
 disturbances would be put down by military force. 4 
 
 The Courier and the Chronicle during the next few 
 days carried on an angry controversy as to what had been 
 said and intended. Lord Grey gave his account of the 
 interview in the House of Lords on October i/, 6 and 
 Greville writes a month later of " the domiciliary visit of 
 
 1 e.g. " We have never joined in any cry for ' the whole Bill.' " 
 (Morning Herald, October 12, 1831.) 
 
 2 Place to Parkes, October 13, 1831. 
 
 3 27,790 (54). 
 
 4 27,790 (61-70). 
 
 6 Hansard, Third Series, vol. viii. 850, 851.
 
 WAR ON TWO FRONTS 279 
 
 Place and his rabble " as having helped to open the eyes 
 of the moderate members of the Cabinet. 1 
 
 On Saturday, October 15, Grote spoke in favour of con- 
 fidence in Ministers at a Mansion House meeting, and next 
 day Place wrote to him : " Last Sunday we feared, and 
 had cause to fear, that the working people would not take 
 part with the middle classes. You lamented this; . . . 
 they, however, soon demonstrated their feelings, and 
 proved that they were ready, at any risk, and at any 
 sacrifice, to stand by us. And then what did we do ? We 
 abandoned them, deserted, betrayed them, and shall have 
 betrayed them again before three more days have passed 
 over our heads betrayed them again, for 'we shall all of 
 us before that time be well acquainted with the new 
 facts, that no Peer will be created, that Parliament will 
 be prorogued for a very long period, that such a Bill as 
 the Lords will please accept will be promised to be 
 brought in a conciliatory Bill. And we, yes we, the 
 dastardly, talking, swaggering dogs, will sneak away with 
 our tails between our legs." 2 
 
 Meanwhile the excitement was sinking, the Tories were 
 announcing a reaction of public opinion, and the only 
 hope of a continued and successful agitation lay in the 
 "political unions of the middle and working classes," 
 which had been formed up and down the country on the 
 Birmingham model. Such a union for London was pro- 
 posed by Perry on October 15, and initiated by a meeting 
 of fifty persons at the Crown and Anchor on October ig. 3 
 
 Place worked hard at the preliminary organisation, but 
 warned by the fate of the Parliamentary Candidates' 
 
 1 Greville, " Journal of the Reigns of George IV. and William IV.," 
 vol. ii. p. 213 (November 19, 1831). 
 
 2 Pla.ce to Grote, October 16, 1831. Mrs. Grote wrote an amusing 
 reply, beginning, " Don't you go for to row my good man." (Mrs. Grote 
 to Place, October 19, 1831.) 
 
 3 27,791 (8, 9, 31).
 
 280 WAR ON TWO FRONTS 
 
 Society, took care to leave himself an opening for retreat. 
 " Mr. Perry had acted a capital part, and Major Beauclerk 
 seconded him excellently. But I was unable to place con- 
 fidence in their steady perseverance. They had faltered in 
 the Parliamentary Candidates' Society. I doubted if they 
 were the men to go through steadily the difficulties and 
 dangers I saw before us. I did not therefore formally 
 become a member of the Union, was not appointed on the 
 committee, nor did I in any way commit myself so as to 
 draw upon me the duty of assisting, as I must otherwise 
 have done, the business of the Union, and be compelled to 
 go on if others abandoned it and it did not progress in the 
 right way. Mr. Perry and Major Beauclerk were willing 
 to take the lead, and they were permitted to do so." l 
 
 If the Union was to attract any attention, some well- 
 known man must be secured as chairman. Hume refused, 
 and suggested that the very name "Union" should be 
 dropped, "because we have already twenty National 
 Unions in London of the admirers of Mr. Owen and Mr. 
 Hunt, and you will be confounded with them."^ 
 
 At last Burdett accepted the post, on condition that 
 "the Union were made specifically to support Ministers 
 in carrying the Bill." 3 Place at about the same tune 
 joined the committee, and his hope that 100,000 mem- 
 bers would join seemed likely to be fulfilled. 
 
 But the most serious trouble was still to come. If the 
 National Political Union was to claim any authority, it 
 must, according to the political ideas of the time, be 
 formed at a public meeting, and all who presented them- 
 selves must be allowed to join. At the preliminary " com- 
 mittee" meetings resolutions moved by the Rotundanists 
 and their sympathisers in favour of universal suffrage and 
 
 1 27,791 06, i/O- 
 
 2 Hume to Major Beauclerk, October 20, 1831. 27,791 (12, 13). 
 
 3 27,791 (17).
 
 AVAR ON TWO FRONTS 281 
 
 annual parliaments had been with difficulty defeated, 1 and 
 it seemed likely that amendments in that sense would 
 be carried at the public meeting advertised for Monday, 
 October 3 1 , at the Crown and Anchor in the Strand. 
 
 Place as usual was waging a war on two fronts. While 
 he was determined that the Union should assist the Bill 
 to pass, he was equally determined that it should not be 
 used to uphold the Bill as a final measure. He therefore 
 induced the committee to suggest that the object of the 
 Union, as put to the meeting, should be " to obtain a real 
 and effectual representation of the middle and working 
 classes of the people in the Commons' House of Parlia- 
 ment," 2 and furiously insisted in a letter to Perry that the 
 resolution should not be confined to a mere support of the 
 Bill, even though Burdett should threaten to resign. 
 
 " The working people would see in the proceeding the 
 old desire to use them for a purpose and then to abandon 
 them. The gap between the working and middle classes 
 would be widened, the rancour that exists would be 
 increased, and all chance of conciliation put off for years. 
 ... I am a member of the Council only because the Union 
 includes working people. I have some reputation among 
 them, and can at times exercise a wholesome influence 
 over more or less of them ; this I should lose were my 
 name to appear to anything which was either ambiguous 
 or delusive." 3 
 
 October 31 must have been, as Place describes it, a 
 sufficiently exciting day. The meeting was called for 
 eleven o'clock, and there was a preliminary meeting to 
 finally settle the resolutions at half-past ten in a room 
 "about 25 feet long and 12 broad. "Before eleven o'clock 
 it was crowded almost to suffocation, and the door was 
 blocked up with a crowd of persons vainly endeavouring to 
 
 1 27,791 (39). 2 27,791 (39). 
 
 3 Place to Perry, October 28, 1831.
 
 282 WAR ON TWO FRONTS 
 
 gain admittance. 1 ... A tumult was expected, and it had 
 therefore been determined to put me in the chair. I am a 
 pretty resolute chairman, and know, I think, how to manage 
 a tumultuous assembly, but it is with extreme difficulty that 
 I was able to manage this." 2 
 
 A resolution in favour of universal suffrage was defeated, 
 but the uproar communicated itself to the crowds in the 
 great Crown and Anchor hall, and it became necessary to 
 adjourn the meeting to Lincoln's Inn Fields. There were 
 twenty thousand persons in the Fields, and " as not more, 
 perhaps, than half of the people assembled could understand 
 what was addressed to them, it was probable that any 
 amendment or new resolutions they (the Rotundanists) 
 proposed would be carried." 3 
 
 Burdett took the chair, lost his temper, and put the 
 crowd against him. After the usual speeches from W. J. 
 Fox 4 and others in denunciation of the Lords, Lovett moved 
 a universal suffrage amendment, and asked the working- 
 men present "what the middle classes wanted except to 
 make them the tools of their purposes/ 5 Finally, an 
 amendment of Wakley's, 6 that half the Council of the new 
 Union should consist of working-men, was carried, and the 
 meeting dispersed. 
 
 Place concluded that the middle-class politicians would 
 now leave the Union, and that the working classes would 
 not join it. Intending members had been told to enrol 
 themselves at the Crown and Anchor, and " while the vote 
 of thanks, which was not at all merited by the chairman, 
 was being proposed," Place left the meeting and went to the 
 Crown and Anchor. "Here I remained alone till I con- 
 cluded no one would come, and then I went home." 7 
 
 1 27,791 (48). 2 27,791 (52). 3 27,791 (57). 
 
 4 William Johnson Fox (1786-1864), Unitarian minister, editor of 
 Monthly Repository; member of Parliament for Oldham, 1847-1863. 
 
 5 27,791 (64). 
 
 6 One of the members of Parliament for Finsbury, editor of the Lancet, 
 and at this time an ally of the Rotundanists. 7 27,791 (70).
 
 WAR ON TWO FRONTS 283 
 
 This time, however, some of Place's colleagues were more 
 persevering than himself. Erskine Perry came later to the 
 tavern with Roebuck, enrolled names, drew up a cheerful 
 handbill, signed it with Burdett's name, and then " looked 
 in upon Place, who thought the whole thing was crushed in 
 the bud, and that there was very faint possibility of estab- 
 lishing the Union." The two ended the evening by going 
 " down to the Rotunda, where we heard ourselves denounced, 
 and the Union also, as aristocratical, &c., by Cleave and 
 others." l 
 
 Next morning Place took heart and determined to 
 make the best of the situation. If half the Council 
 was to consist of political working-men, steps must be 
 taken that they should not be Rotundanists ; and if, as 
 was very nearly true, there were no effective politicians 
 among the working-men who were not in sympathy 
 with the Rotundanists, such men must be created. 
 Next day, therefore (November i), Place says: "I and 
 my friends were early at the tavern, and remained there 
 all day and until late at night. Between three and four 
 hundred men entered their names as members. When- 
 ever any respectable working-man took a ticket he was 
 asked questions for the purpose of ascertaining if he were 
 a Rotundanist, and upon finding that he was not, he was 
 invited into the committee room, questioned as to his 
 political notions, and requested to give the name or names 
 and references to the character of any man or men whom 
 he knew in his trade who was a sober, discreet, clever man, 
 and many such men were designated. Almost every man 
 who was invited into the committee room appeared to 
 understand the men who managed at the Rotunda, dis- 
 liked them much, and were willing to aid us as well as they 
 could to promote the election of such working-men for the 
 Council as were honest, sensible, well-intentioned men, 
 1 27,791 (46, 47). (Perry's notes.)
 
 284 WAR ON TWO FRONTS 
 
 having the confidence of their fellow-workmen. Many of 
 our coadjutors came in, and as no time was to be lost, 
 and no one in our circumstances was to be either idle or to 
 regard the consumption of his own time, each of them was 
 despatched to see the workmen who had been named to 
 us, inquire their characters of their employers and their 
 neighbours, and then to invite them to join the Union 
 with a view to their being elected on the Council. The 
 Bill 'this is not an Union, &c.,' and copies of all our 
 publications, were given to these men, as they were to 
 every one who became a member ; and in a few days we 
 had a sufficient number of such men for the Council, and 
 the certainty that their fellow-workmen would vote for 
 them. They who were constant attendants at the Rotunda 
 and other such meetings were much more desirous of 
 having nonsense talked to them for a penny a week or for 
 nothing than to work for the good of others and to pay a 
 shilling to put them in a position to <k^ so, kept away from 
 the Union, and we saw very clearly that the mischief- 
 makers had no chance to become members of the Council 
 in any considerable number. We saw plainly enough that 
 Wakley's resolution had produced the anticipated conse- 
 quences, as a comparative few who were not working-inen 
 joined us, and some of those who were not working-men 
 left us. Still we hoped that if we could succeed in pro- 
 curing a really respectable Council we should be able to 
 induce a large number of such persons to join us, and we 
 were not mistaken." l 
 
 The Rotundanists had now come to look upon the 
 
 1 2 7>79 l (?!> 72). The Government, acting through Mr. Merle, the 
 editor of the Courier, tried exactly the same tactics against the National 
 Political Union as Place used against the Rotundanists. A " respect- 
 able Association" was started, which excluded "persons" (like Place) 
 " of known Republican opinions." But that sort of tactics requires 
 skill and perseverance, and the " respectable Association " died in three 
 weeks. 27,791 (81, 82).
 
 WAR ON TWO FRONTS 285 
 
 National Political Union as their chief enemy. It was at 
 that time apparently taken for granted by every one that 
 the members of the " Political Unions " were to possess 
 themselves of arms, 1 and this was represented as the creation 
 of an armed force for the prevention of real reform. 2 
 
 Accordingly, the Rotundanists not only advised their 
 members to join the rival Union in such numbers as to 
 capture it, but themselves announced a great meeting on 
 November 7, in the open space by the White Conduit 
 House. Benbow, with a view to this meeting, laid in a 
 stock of heavy constables' staves, which he retailed at a 
 few pence each to such of the members as desired to 
 protect themselves against the police. But he and his 
 friends so overdid their truculence that the Government, 
 alarmed by the riots at Bristol (October 29, 1831), brought 
 up troops to London, and swore in hundreds of special 
 constables. 3 The White Conduit House meeting had to 
 be abandoned, and the National Political Union held the 
 field. 
 
 On November the 22nd it was announced that Parlia- 
 ment was to reassemble for the consideration of the Reform 
 Bill on December 6. Lord Grey's plan of a long proroga- 
 tion and a remodelling of the Bill had therefore been 
 abandoned. How serious the danger had been is shown 
 by Greville's account of the negotiations which went on 
 
 1 The Times (November i, 1831) speaks approvingly of it as a system 
 " of voluntary national armament." 
 
 2 " The working people in their meetings deprecated the organising 
 and arming the housekeepers alone as a scheme to depress them." 
 27,791 (101). The development of the July monarchy in France had 
 shown how effectual a middle-class " National Guard," even of revolu- 
 tionary origin, might be in keeping the unarmed working classes quiet. 
 The term "National Guard" was already so invidious that, on October 
 8, 1831, 27(6' Poor Alan's Guardian (the organ of the Rotundanists) pro- 
 posed a " Popular Guard " against the " National Guard " for England. 
 See it in 27,791 (303). 
 
 3 27,791 (254).
 
 286 WAR ON TWO FRONTS 
 
 during November between a section of the Cabinet and 
 the Tory leaders. 1 On November 19, he writes of Ministers 
 as being convinced, " that if existing institutions are to be 
 preserved at all, there is no time to be lost in making such 
 an arrangement as may enable all who have anything to 
 lose to coalesce for their mutual safety and protection." - 
 If this had happened the Chartist movement would 
 have begun in 1832 instead of 1837, and the history of the 
 British Empire during the nineteenth century might have 
 been a good deal more like the history of the German 
 Empire after 1871 than most people would now think 
 possible. The negotiations, however, came to nothing, and 
 Parliament was summoned for the reintroduction of the Bill 
 on December 6. Place knew what had been going on both 
 from the gossip of the House of Commons and from 
 Parkes' letters, 3 and he, like the rest, was relieved when 
 the danger, for the moment, was over. After the calling 
 of Parliament for December 6 " the people became calm, 
 and agitation in most places ceased." 4 
 
 Things were still quieter after the new Bill was found to 
 be as good, if not better, than the old one, and it was natu- 
 raHy more difficult to keep the National Political Union 
 
 1 On November 10, 1831, Greville (vol. ii. p. 211) describes the 
 arrangement for a compromise as being carried on by Lord Wharncliffe, 
 Lord Palmerston, and Lord Grey. On November 23, he writes that 
 the Duke of Richmond, Lord Grey, and Lord Palmerston voted in the 
 Cabinet against the calling together of Parliament before Christmas. 
 (Vol. ii. p. 217.) 
 
 2 Greville Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 213. 
 
 3 e.g. "Half the Cabinet stand slyly on tiptoe looking over Lord 
 Grey's shoulders to see if they can discern their successors, and trim to 
 coalesce with them." Parkes to Grote, October 26, 1831, and November 
 28, 1831, Parkes to Grote : " I am glad to hear to-day that the silly 
 attempt to compromise is over." 
 
 4 27,791 (112). The announcement of the short prorogation was 
 accompanied by a proclamation so worded that it might satisfy the 
 King without checking the Unions. Place explained its limitations 
 in a tract for the National Political Union on "The Laws relating 
 to Political Associations." 27,791 (99, 104).
 
 WAR ON TWO FRONTS 287 
 
 going in quiet than in exciting times. Of the Christmas 
 weeks in 1831 Perry writes: "This fortnight was the 
 most critical period in the existence of the Union. We 
 were without funds. From one to three members per 
 day and no more joined us." 1 
 
 On December 12 Place writes anxiously to Hume: 
 " The cholera will spread all over the country, and by the 
 time the Bill shall have reached the Third Reading, and 
 the country shall have become tired, if not wearied out 
 and disgusted, we shall have quarantine regulations against 
 our shipping in all parts of the world. The consequence 
 may be a great impediment to navigation, diminution of 
 trade and commerce, embarrassment, stagnation, panic, 
 multitudes of people discharged in all our great manu- 
 factures. Ministers should look well to this without loss 
 of- time; but they are after all but a poor set of creatures, 
 and will probably let the thing take its course. It is plain 
 they have sadly embarrassed themselves by taking in hand 
 a matter too large for them to manage; they hesitated 
 and vacillated about reform like weak men as they are, 
 and then plunged into it rashly. Hardly had they un- 
 folded their scheme than they wished they had not done 
 so, and would have withdrawn it if they could. In- 
 sufficient as it is (notwithstanding it is more than any one 
 expected them to propose), it is too much for them, and 
 has made them imbecile for any other good purpose. 
 The people have kept them to it, and they must continue 
 to keep them to it. It seems to be the lot of almost every 
 country that in eventful periods the men who govern shall 
 be especially weak and absurd. Strong-minded, discreet, 
 bold men would have carried the Bill before this time, 
 have had the people with them, and fixed themselves so 
 firmly in power for all good purposes, that Taxes on Know- 
 ledge, and Gagging Bills, and Printing Press Registering 
 
 1 27,791 (121).
 
 288 WAR ON TWO FRONTS 
 
 Bills would all be repealed, to their honour and glory and 
 the permanent advantage of the country." l 
 
 After Christmas the apathy in London continued with 
 that startling completeness which only London politicians 
 know. The Council of the National Political Union held 
 weekly meetings, to which the public were admitted. On 
 January 4, 1832, "it was necessary on account of the audi- 
 ence that a show of business should be made. . . . Mr. 
 Wakefield therefore proposed the appointment of a com- 
 mittee to draw up a petition relating to partnerships, more 
 especially banking partnerships. ... It caused an ani- 
 mated discussion, and interested every one of the auditors." 2 
 
 On February 2 there was friction, and Burdett left the 
 Union. On February 6 there was an election of the 
 Council, with an elaborate object-lesson in voting by 
 ballot. The Rotundanists ran candidates, but they were 
 all beaten by the " ticket " organised by the old committee. 
 And so with debates on the Anatomy Bill 3 and Newspaper 
 Stamps, the winter wore on. 
 
 Perhaps after all the trouble that had been taken the 
 National Political Union might not seem a very great 
 thing. But its promoters had secured a vitally important 
 strategic position. They now controlled an organisation 
 which at the critical moment every London reformer must 
 necessarily join. 
 
 1 Place to Hume, December 12, 1831. 
 
 2 27,791 (126). 
 
 3 The Anatomy Bill (for facilitating the provision of dead bodies for 
 dissection) was a question after Place's own heart, in which unanswer- 
 able arguments had to meet almost unconquerable prejudices. He had 
 been working on the point since 1828, when, after arranging for the 
 purchase of an urgently needed " subject " from a resurrection man, he 
 had drawn up a petition to Parliament for a law enabling unclaimed 
 bodies to be dissected. The murders by Burke in 1828, and Bishop in 
 1831, kept the question alive, and finally in July 1832 the Bill was 
 passed. Place has left a long account of this struggle (27,828, 261-337). 
 He was especially annoyed at the opposition of Wakley, the editor of 
 the Lancet, and himself a surgeon.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN 
 
 Ox March 26, 1832, after another term of obstruction in 
 the Commons, the Reform Bill was for the second time 
 introduced into the House of Lords. The most important 
 change in the situation since the preceding October was 
 that the King, under the influence of his wife, his sisters, 
 and his illegitimate children, was now nervous about the 
 Bill, and disinclined to secure Ministers a majority by 
 creating Peers. But this change, though known among 
 the Tory leaders, was unknown elsewhere ; and in other 
 respects, the position of the Lords had been weakened by 
 the five months' delay. Every man in the country had 
 been by this time compelled to form an opinion on the 
 Bill, and most men had come to think with Sydney Smith, 
 that the Atlantic would beat Mrs. Partington. The Lords 
 must either enormously increase their power by a victory, 
 or enormously decrease it by a defeat. The settled doctrines 
 of the English Constitution " that nose of wax which 
 every one twists to his purpose " l against which Bentham 
 had so often railed, could now be turned against them. 
 ' The theory of ' the Constitution ' was against them : 
 the elucidation by ' constitutional writers ' was against 
 them ; the whole doctrine of checks was against them ; 
 that beautiful system so lauded by Whigs and Tories, 
 and believed by almost everybody, as constituting the 
 very essence of the best of all possible governments, was 
 
 1 27,793 (65).
 
 290 THK SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN 
 
 against them. . . . The doctrine of checks had long been 
 a maxim, and so it remained. The answer to all assertions 
 to the contrary was, ' If the king cannot be a check upon 
 the Lords, he is nothing.' " l 
 
 The danger, on the other hand, that the working classes 
 would break away from the Reform alliance had not grown 
 less. Manchester and London were still the two centres 
 of working-class revolutionary feeling 2 and middle-class 
 intolerance. " The great peculiarity causing a difference 
 between the Political Unions and the Unions of the 
 working classes was, that the first desired the Reform 
 Bill to prevent a revolution, the last desired its destruction 
 as the means of producing a revolution." :i 
 
 One writer sent an article to the Poor Man's Guardian, 
 dated Manchester, March 19, in the course of which he 
 said : " The Bill is the most illiberal, the most tyrannical, 
 the most abominable, the most infamous, the most hellish 
 measure that ever could or can be proposed. ... I there- 
 fore conjure you to prepare your coffins, if you have the 
 means. You will be starved to death by thousands if this 
 Bill passes, and thrown on the dunghill or on to the ground 
 naked like dogs." 4 
 
 In Manchester four working-men had been prosecuted 
 by the Whig Attorney-General, and sentenced on March 
 15 to a year's imprisonment, for a peaceable open-air 
 meeting. 5 In London, Lovett, Watson, and Benbow, the 
 
 1 27,792 (41). 
 
 2 "... a revolution in which they might gain, but could not lose. 
 It was this expectation and desire which, to a considerable extent, 
 prevented them (considerable bodies of the working classes) from 
 joining the Political Unions in London, Manchester, Bristol, and other 
 places, and led them to use no efforts to promote the passing of the 
 Bill." 27,792(15)- 
 
 3 27,793 (76). 
 
 4 See the Poor Man's Guardian, April i r, 1832, article entitled, "Last 
 Warning on the Accursed Reform Bill," by One of the Oppressed. 
 
 5 27,791 (365)-
 
 THE SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN JJ91 
 
 three leaders of the National Union of the Working Classes, 
 were now out on bail for organising a procession on March 
 2 i , on which day the Government had ordered a solemn 
 fast as a means of averting the cholera. The Rotundanists 
 had then walked through the streets, carrying a loaf of 
 bread and a round of beef with the inscription, " The True 
 Cure for the Cholera." l 
 
 Before the debate on the first reading came on, Place 
 drew up for the National Political Union a petition to the- 
 House of Lords. This petition was mainly historical, and 
 put Place's views as to the political evolution of English 
 society with a quiet offensiveness that secured its insertion 
 into most of the Reform newspapers : " That your petitioners 
 humbly submit to your noble House that the time has 
 arrived when a great change must be made in the system 
 under which this nation has been long governed. 
 
 " That this inevitable change may be gradual and peaceful, 
 or sudden and violent. That it remains with your noble 
 House to determine in which of these two ways the change 
 shall be made. . . . 
 
 " That in former times there was little wealth in this 
 country beyond that which was held by the aristocracy in 
 Church and State. 
 
 " That there was little learning and knowledge beyond 
 that which the aristocracy possessed, the people being left 
 in a state of profound ignorance. . . . 
 
 " That so different, indeed, are the present from former 
 times, that, instead of nearly all the wealth in the nation 
 being possessed by the aristocracy, the whole amount pos- 
 sessed by them is a small fraction. That so different, in- 
 deed, are the present from former times, in respect to 
 intellectual acquirements in every branch of knowledge, 
 that it can be no disparagement to the privileged classes 
 to say that the country abounds with men in every depart- 
 
 1 27,791 (255, 392).
 
 292 THE SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN 
 
 inent of knowledge to whom no superior can be found in 
 the aristocracy. . . . 
 
 " Your petitioners therefore submit to your noble House, 
 that any endeavour to prevent the proposed reform in the 
 House of Commons will be an attempt to govern knowledge 
 by ignorance, than which nothing can be more absurd and 
 more impossible." l 
 
 As soon as the Bill was introduced in the Lords it 
 was seen that it would probably pass a second reading. 
 Lord Harrowby, on behalf of Lord Wharncliffe and the 
 " Waverers," who had negotiated with Lord Grey in the 
 preceding November, announced that he would vote for 
 the second reading, and " endeavour to alter" the Bill in 
 Committee. Lord Grey, in reply, said, " He would attend 
 to suggestions in Committee, and agree to such alterations 
 as might appear to him reasonable, which did not tend to 
 destroy the principle of the Bill." 
 
 At once suspicions began to be formed, though little was 
 actually known. One fact, however, reached Place in spite 
 of " the strictest silence, caution, and secrecy of Minis- 
 ters." - On April 7 he received a letter from Colonel Jones, 
 stating that there was a " conspiracy " to substitute a 
 franchise of 20 for the 10 franchise in London. "No 
 stir," Colonel Jones wrote, " is made by the metropolitan 
 districts, and this serves as a sufficient excuse to the luke- 
 warm reformers in the Cabinet. I have worked like a mule 
 to set them in motion, but in vain. You must try your 
 hand." 3 He ends by asking for a letter which Lord 
 Durham could use in speaking against the proposal to 
 mutilate a Bill " which had been drawn principally by 
 himself." Place replied : " I am told that Sir Francis Bur- 
 dett says that withholding the franchise from the metro- 
 
 1 A copy of the petition as adopted March 21, 1832, is preserved in 
 27,792 (18). 
 
 - 27.792 (37). 3 27,792 (44)-
 
 THE SECOND HEFO1UI CAMPAIGN 293 
 
 politan boroughs is a matter of small importance, that, 
 notwithstanding they are populous, the people who have 
 property in them very generally live in other places, where 
 they will be represented. This, if it be correctly reported 
 to me, is very absurd language for him to hold. Sir Francis, 
 on consideration, would not say this any more of Maryle- 
 bone or Finsbury than he would of Westminster. Let it, 
 however, be supposed that his words relate only to ' the 
 dreaded Tower Hamlets.' Of this large and wealthy place 
 Sir Francis knows nothing. To him, and such as him, it is 
 an unknown land, and so it is to every one of the Peers. 
 Very different indeed would be his opinion, or that of any 
 one else capable of correct observation and reasoning who 
 should occupy himself for two or three days in walking 
 about this part of the metropolis and seeing what it con- 
 tains. He would be surprised at the vast masses of property 
 there collected, as well as at the people to whom much of 
 the property belongs, who live there and nowhere else." 
 
 ' 1 1 P.M. Just now, as I was closing this paper. Sir 
 Francis came in. We have gone over the matter again, 
 and he concurs in all I have written." l 
 
 On April 9, after an adjournment over the Easter holi- 
 days, the Lords' debate on the second reading began. Things 
 were still so far quiet that Lord Grey and Lord Melbourne 
 both referred to the " general silence," and the ' silence of 
 the people," but politicians were already preparing for a 
 struggle. Cobbett on March 3 1 had begun to preach in his 
 Register a "no-rent" campaign among the tenant-farmers, 
 and the London reformers were gathering facts as to the 
 military force which would be brought against them in 
 case of a right. "The army at this time in Great Britain 
 consisted of about 11,000 men. This number was never 
 thought of as having any relation to the number of the 
 people. It was doubtless thought sufficient for the pur- 
 1 Place to Colonel Jones, April 9, 1832. 27,792 (50, 51).
 
 J294 THE SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN 
 
 poses of intimidation and coercion. Of this 11,000 nearly 
 7000 were congregated round London, and 4000 alone 
 remained to coerce all the towns in England, Wales, and 
 Scotland. It has been seen at the time of the Bristol riots, 
 how very small a number of troops could be spared when 
 that large city was being burned by a mere mob, among 
 whom there was no organisation, and when every other 
 place, Nottingham alone excepted, was not only quiescent, 
 but showed no disposition to rioting. And yet a much 
 larger force than was sent to Bristol would be of no avail 
 against a more general and well-organised insurrection, 
 aided and countenanced by other places in the same 
 state." * On the other hand, the aristocratic " club men 
 were more than ever desirous to provoke the people to 
 show fight, that they might lick them." 2 
 
 The second reading debate took up four nights, and 
 was for the most part carried on by both sides in a tone 
 that caused Place to state in language of studied precision, 
 " I have had communication with a considerable number " 
 of Peers " on various occasions, and those communications 
 have been of kinds and of sufficiently long continuance 
 to enable me to decide accurately: and true it is that I 
 never knew one that as a politician was not a mean 
 shuffler." 3 
 
 On April 14, at seven in the morning, the second reading 
 was carried by a majority of nine. But the " Waverers," 
 who had voted so far with the Government, made no secret 
 of their intention to transform the Bill in Committee, and 
 there were many complaints amongst the reformers that 
 Lord Grey did not make things sure by creating Peers. 
 Place held it wiser to fight the Lords as they were. 
 " Several of the best-informed men in the council of the 
 National Political Union were not desirous that Peers 
 
 1 27,792 (38, 39). 2 27)792 (3 e). 
 
 3 27,792 (244).
 
 THE SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN 
 
 should be made in the gross." l On May 7 the Govern- 
 ment met their inevitable defeat. Lord Lyndhurst brought 
 forward a procedure resolution, Avhich Lord Grey declared 
 would be fatal to the Bill, and carried it by a majority of 
 thirty-live in a house of 267 Peers. 
 
 On the next day (Tuesday, May 8) Lord Grey went 
 down to Windsor and presented to the King a minute 
 signed by the whole Cabinet, Avith the exception of the 
 Duke of Richmond, asking for the creation of fifty Peers. 
 The King refused, and Lord Grey resigned. Then followed 
 the situation which had been so anxiously hoped and feared. 
 On Wednesday the King, at Lord Lyndhurst's suggestion, 
 sent for the Duke of Wellington, who promised to attempt 
 the formation of a Tory ministry. For six days the 
 attempt went on, but no Tory ministry could maintain 
 any show of defence in the House of Commons to which 
 Peel did not belong, and Peel would not take office. He 
 gave as his reason the fact that the King had required the 
 new ministry to pledge themselves to a Reform Bill as 
 efficient as that introduced by the Whigs. Wellington 
 accepted the condition in order to save the prestige of the 
 Lords : Peel, from whatever motive, refused it. 
 
 But of these negotiations nothing was knoAvn outside, 
 except the broad facts that the King had refused to create 
 Peers, and that Wellington was forming a government. It 
 was unfortunate for the Tories that Wellington was their 
 only possible Prime Minister. Two years before, his abso- 
 lute refusal to consent to any degree of reform had brought 
 the Whigs into power. On Mav 7 he had signed an 
 obstinately worded protest against the second reading. 
 Above all, he was a soldier. In 1830 he had told Charles 
 Greville that his own regiment alone could beat all the 
 populace of London: in October 1831 he had told a Man- 
 chester deputation that " the people of England are very 
 1 27.792 (295).
 
 296 THE SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN 
 
 quiet if they are let alone, but if they won't be quiet, 
 there is a way to make them." l His appointment meant 
 just that open appeal to brute force which infuriates 
 a nation accustomed to any measure of political liberty. 
 Men had been in a state of nervous tension even before 
 the division in the Lords. Place describes the feeling in 
 London. " On Monday the 7th of May, the excitement 
 was wound up to the highest pitch it had hitherto at- 
 tained. It was to a very considerable extent a holiday. 
 Solicitude was not only visible in the countenances of 
 men, but in their words and actions also. Anxiety made 
 them neglectful of business concerns to an extent never 
 before observed. They seemed to say, ' Let us wait until 
 to-morrow ; let the day pass as it may, we can attend to 
 nothing correctly until we know the fate of the Reform 
 Bill, a fate which may determine for us whether we may 
 pursue our occupations in peace and orderly quietness, or 
 whether we are to enter into a new and much less pleasant 
 occupation.' " But as soon as the King's action was 
 known, London put on the aspect of a city in revolution. 
 "London Avas placarded in a manner never before wit- 
 nessed. The placards called upon the people to support 
 Ministers, to meet in Unions, parishes, trades, &c., and 
 demand that the Reform Bill be passed by the Lords." 3 
 
 The Bishop of Lichfield, who was announced to preach 
 on Sunday at St. Bride's, was mobbed in church, and 
 with difficulty rescued. 4 The King could hardly venture 
 abroad. On the day after his sending for the Duke, " a 
 desperate rush was made at his horses on Constitution 
 Hill. Execrations, instead of blessings, heretofore be- 
 
 1 Quoted by Alderman Potter (afterwards M.P. for Wigan) in a 
 speech at the meeting of the Union in May 1832. 27,794 (168). Place 
 says, " I was assured by a general officer who dined with him (the 
 Duke) at the house of a common friend, that he made no secret of his 
 wish to carry the threat into execution." 27,794 (22). 
 
 2 27,792 (203-204). 3 22,793 (22). 4 27,793 (193, 194)-
 
 THE SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN 297 
 
 stowed, were heard, both deep and loud, as his carriage 
 drove off with a military escort. Many such escorts will 
 be necessary should King William take a military ruler 
 to his councils." 1 
 
 But if the King was now unpopular, the Queen, to 
 Avhom the change in his attitude was ascribed, was simply 
 detested. It has been a not unimportant fact in preserv- 
 ing the balance of the English Constitution, that German 
 court manners are disagreeable to us. Queen Adelaide, 
 the widow, before she married King William, of the Duke 
 of Saxe-Meiningen, had the worst manners of a small 
 German court. 2 The Queen's Theatre announced a change 
 of name, the Adelaide omnibuses plied with paper pasted 
 over the hated letters, and the Reform newspapers printed 
 a paragraph about " German frows " from Cobbett's Register, 
 of quite indescribable brutality. 
 
 Cards with " No Taxes paid here " were beginning to 
 appear in the windows, and many householders were pre- 
 paring for a state of siege. " It was somewhat curious to 
 hear, as I heard from several heads of families, the inten- 
 tion which numbers besides themselves entertained of pur- 
 chasing a quantity of flour, bacon, and potatoes, on which 
 to live during the time the markets might be either wholly 
 deserted or badly supplied." 3 Above all, there were meet- 
 ings everywhere, and of all sorts and conditions, meetings 
 of trades, of parishes, of the Licensed Appraisers' Western 
 Society (to express their unanimous determination not to 
 distrain for assessed taxes), of the city corporation, all 
 urging the Commons to stop supplies, to appoint Parlia- 
 
 1 2 7,793 (20). Extract from the True Sun. 
 
 2 Place describes how " the jolly, good-natured, laughing King drove 
 about the streets :> at the beginning of his reign, wliile " the Queen, 
 with her spare form, her sour countenance, and her straight, stiff, 
 German back, sat bolt upright, squeezing out her gracious smiles." 
 27,789(152). 
 
 3 27,793 (143)-
 
 298 THE SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN 
 
 mentary Commissioners, to do anything which should make 
 government by the Duke of Wellington impossible. 
 
 Place had now his reward for the Avork of establishing 
 the National Political Union during the preceding autumn. 
 The Union held " general meetings " every evening, at each 
 of which hundreds of new members joined "decent, 
 well-dressed tradesmen," as the Jlloriiiny He mid described 
 them. Before the general meeting, the Council, now con- 
 sisting mainly of Place's personal following, regularly held 
 a preliminary meeting, at which all important resolutions 
 were taken, and at which Place was always in the chair. 
 
 His position in the National Political Union, his reputa- 
 tion for fearlessness, 1 and his personal friendship with 
 Joseph Parkes, the Birmingham organiser, made him 
 the chief centre for that preparation for armed resist- 
 ance to the Duke which had been long considered, 
 and was now definitely taken in hand. On May 3, 
 Place, who was already " working like a devil in a mud 
 wall," Avrote to Parkes : " Tell Hadley I am particularly 
 well pleased at the working of the thing among you and 
 among the people generally. It is altogether much more 
 systematic, and in all respects much better than he, and 
 you, and I, and the Glasgow and Nottingham men, antici- 
 pated." - In the narration of this time he says : " Com- 
 munications had been had, as well personally as by 
 other means, between the leaders of the National Political 
 Union and many influential men in nearly all the large 
 towns in England and Scotland and in many other places, 
 all of which would have followed the example of, or rather 
 simultaneously with Birmingham, have barricaded their 
 respective towns, and awaited the result of the proceedings 
 in London." 3 
 
 1 " I am not conscious to myself of that perfect fearlessness which I 
 envy so much in you." (Grote to Place, October 20, 1831.) 
 
 2 27,792 (307). 3 27.793(i40-
 
 THE SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN 299 
 
 Before the resignation of Lord Grey the Birmingham 
 Political Union had been heavily in debt, 1 but now the 
 respectable inhabitants were all joining, and the Scots Greys 
 were confined to barracks, sharpening their swords. Even 
 in Manchester the " timid men," the " whole Bill and 
 nothing but the Bill men," and the " Himtites," were now 
 united.- Orator Hunt himself declared for the Bill in the 
 House of Commons, and there was in fact no longer any 
 reason for the extremists to stand aside from a contest in 
 which they might hope to come to the front. 
 
 On Friday, May 11, a Birmingham deputation came to 
 London, authorised to pledge the Birmingham Union to a 
 rising. " Between eight and nine o'clock on the morning 
 of the 1 1 th I received a note from Mr. Parkes, saying that 
 a spontaneous meeting of 100,000 persons had been held 
 at Birmingham on the preceding afternoon at Newhall 
 Hill; that expresses had been sent to all the Lon:lon 
 morning newspapers with an account of the proceedings, 
 each of which would have a notice inserted. The people 
 at Birmingham had determined not to pay taxes to arm 
 themselves. A deputation consisting of himself and others 
 had arrived in London with a petition to the Commons, to 
 be presented in the evening. They would be with me at 
 ten o'clock. They intended being present at the West- 
 minster meeting and at the Common Hall in the City of 
 London, and to call upon the people of London to stand 
 fast by them. All Birmingham had joined the Union. . . . 
 At ten o'clock the Birmingham deputation and several 
 other gentlemen, members of deputations from several 
 important places, assembled in my library. AVe soon 
 came to a clear understanding on the most material points. 
 
 1 Parkes wrote to Place, May 2, 1832, that the Union was ,200 in 
 debt, and still had to face the expenses of the great meeting of May 7. 
 He asks Place to collect money in London. 27,792 (305). 
 
 - See extract from a local paper for May 15, 1832. 27,794 (55)-
 
 JJOO THE SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN 
 
 The state of the Government and the country was as freely 
 as fully discussed. It was clear to us all that it would be 
 impossible for the King to form any administration of 
 which the Duke of Wellington was not placed at the head. 
 It was as clear to us that the public was prepared to resist 
 such an administration, and that if the means they em- 
 ployed should be unsuccessful in preventing its formation, 
 they would at once openly revolt against it. The means 
 of organising the people for effectual resistance were also 
 discussed, and there was a general agreement that Bir- 
 mingham was the place in which to hoist the standard of 
 revolt, and it was understood that the first hostile defence 
 against the Duke of Wellington's administration should be 
 made there." l 
 
 Next day (Saturday, I2th) a secret council of deputies 
 was held. "It was agreed to consult during the day in 
 every way with as many influential men as possible, . . . 
 and to meet in a body with as many of the deputies from 
 various parts of the country as could be collected together. 
 Towards noon a meeting was held at a tavern in Covent 
 Garden. Many deputies attended. The business was 
 entered upon at once, and at once every one present was 
 determined to go through with it. There was no reserve 
 on any part of the whole of the case between the people 
 and the Tories. The persons present were all men of sub- 
 stance ; some were very rich men. All were persons of 
 influence, and whom circumstances had made of consider- 
 able importance. Some were only known to others by 
 name, some not in any way ; but it seemed to be concluded 
 that all who were present were good men and true, and 
 there was as much confidence in each other's integrity as 
 there could have been had each been the well-known friend 
 of every one else. ... It was clearly understood that in the 
 event of Lord Wellington being appointed Premier and 
 1 27,793 (98- 1 co).
 
 THE SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN 301 
 
 forming an administration, as every one expected would be 
 at once attempted, that if necessary, as no doubt was enter- 
 tained that it would be, open resistance should at once be 
 made, and in the meantime all that could be done should 
 be done to prevent such an administration being formed." 1 
 
 Place seems to have recognised that all this would pro- 
 bably be reported to the authorities, and to have deliberately 
 exploited that fact. There is a good deal to be said for this 
 combination of conspiracy and advertisement, on the one 
 condition, that those who engage in it are wholly indifferent 
 to their personal safety. " No one who attended the meet- 
 ing could do harm to any other by reporting what passed. 
 Were there men among them who came as spies to report 
 proceedings to the Tories to the Duke of Wellington and 
 to Earl Grey, as it is probable there were still nothing was 
 to be apprehended. If the proceedings were reported to 
 Earl Grey and his colleagues, they could take no step, legal 
 or illegal, against the parties, even were they disposed to 
 take any, which it is probable they were not. Were the 
 proceedings reported to the Duke of Wellington and the 
 King, they could use no means of personal annoyance. 
 They could only proceed by using personal violence, and 
 to this as yet they dared not resort. . . . Had they seized 
 and imprisoned the persons of respectable men on a charge 
 of a suspicion of high-treason, it would at once have caused 
 an insurrection, a stoppage of trade and of the circulation 
 of paper-money, and thus put an end to their power. . . . 
 The reports which were probably made to the Duke of 
 Wellington and Earl Grey must have increased their desire 
 to have the matter settled." 2 
 
 On the military side of the proposed rising Place is some- 
 what reticent. Just as in his old tradesman days he had 
 refused as a breeches-maker to take any share of responsi- 
 bility for the details of tailoring, so he probably now left all 
 
 1 2/,793 043, M4). ' 2 27,793 (M4, MS)-
 
 THE SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN 
 
 strictl}' military details to the professional officers in the 
 movement. Of these he says : " Numbers of military men 
 of all ranks and many naval men, all men of experience, 
 were ready to undertake to organise and conduct the opera- 
 tions of the people," l and added in a note written in his old 
 age : " When in the month of May an insurrection was ex- 
 pected, I had personal communication with no less than 
 thirteen officers, the lowest in rank of whom was a major, 
 all ready to serve the people against the Tories, should the 
 King appoint them to the office of Ministers." - His fellow- 
 conspirator, Joseph Parkes, was less cautious, and in a letter 
 to Mrs. Grote (June 1832) says: "I and two friends should 
 have made the revolution, whatever the cost. I had written 
 to General Johnstone, 3 and had got a cover to Colonel 
 Xapier, and would have had both in Birmingham, and a 
 Count Chopski, a Pole, by Monday; and I think we could 
 have prevented anarchy and set all right in two days." 4 
 Of these, Count " Chopski " was Count Czapski, a Polish 
 officer, who had been prominently put forward at the 
 great Birmingham meeting on May 7. The " cover to 
 Colonel Napier" introduces a rather complicated story. 
 The officer referred to was Colonel William (afterwards 
 Sir William) Napier, the historian of the Peninsular War. 
 His letters at the time show that he was quite con- 
 vinced that there would be a fight, and equally con- 
 vinced that, being a poor man with a large family, it was 
 not his duty to risk anything in it. ; ' I am not disposed 
 to be the leader of the enfants perdu*" he wrote, six 
 months before, to his wife. " I mean to go with the 
 great stream, and if I can float, it will do for me. No 
 dancing on breakers until I have a good safe lifeboat for 
 
 1 27,793(142). 2 27,790(244). 
 
 3 This is probably General William Augustus Johnson of the Ceylon 
 regiment, M.P. for Boston, 1820-26, and for Oldhain, 1837-47. 
 
 4 27,794(164).
 
 THE SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN 303 
 
 you and the babes." : The " cover " to him was a letter 
 from Torn Young, ex-purser of the Duke of Devonshire's 
 yacht, whom Lord Melbourne, then Home Secretary, kept 
 half as private secretary, half as a sort of spy on the 
 advanced men. 2 It is not unlikely that Place was thinking 
 of him when he made his calculation that the proceedings 
 of the deputies would be reported to the Government. Per- 
 haps, however, on this occasion Mr. Young did not intend, 
 until the cat had jumped, to decide whether he was acting 
 as an agent provocateur or as an independent patriot. 
 
 His letter was never delivered; but Young afterwards 
 (June 25, 1832) wrote to Napier, saying that "The display 
 of energy and a readiness to act on the part of the people, 
 when the Duke of Wellington was on the eve of coming 
 in, was greater far than I expected. . . . Are you aware 
 that, in the event of a fight, you were to be invited to 
 take the command of Birmingham ? " He then mentions 
 Parkes and Place, and asks Napier whether he would have 
 accepted the offer. Napier answered cautiously, ridiculing 
 the idea that he would have " co-operated in arms with a 
 Birmingham attorney and a London tailor against the 
 Duke of Wellington." 3 
 
 1 See "Life of General Sir W. Napier" (London, 1864, 2 vols.), vol i. 
 
 P- 373- 
 
 - " Young seldom comes to me but for some purpose connected with 
 the Home Office, and almost always when they are in a dilemma. He 
 is a cleverish sort of fellow, with a vulgar air of frankness which may 
 at times put people off their guard, but he is not at all the right sort 
 of man to be private secretary and spy for the Home Secretary. . . . 
 Any man who would natter Tom's vanity by leaving him to suppose he 
 was sucking his brains would assuredly suck Tom's." (Note by Place 
 in Letter Book, dated August 26, 1832.) For a description of Tom 
 Young see "Memoirs of Viscount Melbourne," by W. M. Torrens, 1878, 
 vol. i. p. 368. Place seems to have known Melbourne at first as a 
 customer. Torrens (I.e. p. 188) says that Place was forced on one 
 occasion to serve him with a writ '' instructing his solicitor at the 
 same time to see what that would do, but, d n it, nothing further." 
 
 3 The correspondence was published in the Freeman's Journal, 
 October 7 and 10, 1848. See also "Life of Sir W. Napier" (London, 
 1864, 2 vols.), vol. ii. pp. 274, 275.
 
 W-t THE SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN 
 
 As to the rest of the thirteen officers, any one who reads 
 the speech of Colonel Leslie Grove Jones at the Marylebone 
 meeting of May 14 will believe that he was one of them, 
 and Place implies that Colonel de Lacy Evans, soon to be 
 Radical member for Westminster, was another. The rank 
 and file would, of course, have been mainly drawn from the 
 Political Unions, of whom in the preceding autumn Lord 
 Grey had written, " Unarmed as a body, they possess arms 
 as individuals." After the meeting on May 10, a deputa- 
 tion waited on Attwood to offer him a guard of " 1500 men 
 armed with muskets, &c." The yeomanry in many places 
 had refused to serve under Tory officers, and some of them 
 had resigned without returning their weapons. The Times 
 of May 22 says that swords and pike-heads had been 
 manufactured in Sheffield. Where the ammunition was 
 collected, Colonel Jones may have known. 
 
 What was even more important was that Hobhouse, by 
 this time become Sir John Cam Hobhouse and Secretary 
 of War, and Lord Durham, who was Lord Privy Seal and 
 a member of the Cabinet, seem to have been concerned in 
 the military preparations. Parkes wrote to Grote on May 
 14, and, after saying that "soldiers are enrolling them- 
 selves in our Union," goes on, " I stopped with Lord 
 Durham till two this morning alone," 1 and Colonel Jones 
 told the huge Marylebone meeting on the same day that, 
 " at two o'clock this morning I asked the Secretary of War 
 whether any orders had been given for troops to march 
 upon London, and he said No." - Place gives an interest- 
 ing, though guarded, account of his conversations with 
 Hobhouse at this point, from which it incidentally appears 
 that Place himself believed that the instalment of Reform 
 offered by the Bill was not only an easier thing to secure 
 than immediate Universal Suffrage, but under all the 
 circumstances, a wiser thing to desire. "Hobhouse," he 
 
 1 27,794 (10). 2 27,793 (202).
 
 THE SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN 305 
 
 says, "up to this moment" (Nov. 15) "feared that the 
 Duke would form an administration, and that he might 
 succeed in establishing himself in power by means of the 
 army. . . . We had talked this matter over several times, 
 and as I never doubted the Duke would be at once beaten, 
 I stated my view of the whole case as often as we con- 
 versed, and showed what I believed would be the process, 
 step by step, always explaining what to me seemed certain, 
 namely, that the defeat of the Duke, when in power, might 
 be an instant destruction of the Government in Church and 
 State, and the formation of a purely representative govern- 
 ment for which the people were by no means so well 
 fitted as they ought to be, and it was most desirable they 
 should be, before any such change were made. This 
 revolution was therefore undesirable, not only on account 
 of the present mischief in every way in which there 
 could be mischief, but of the future trouble and peril 
 a premature revolution could not fail to produce. This 
 made it the more necessary that anything and everything 
 should be done that could be done to prevent the Duke's 
 accession to power." l 
 
 Not much in the way of an organised rising was in- 
 tended or desired in London. The part assigned to Place 
 and his friends was to prevent the seven thousand troops 
 near London being used to crush the movement in the 
 Midlands. " All that seemed necessary to be done was the 
 making such various demonstrations as would cause appre- 
 hension to the rulers, and, for the safety of the metropolis 
 and themselves, compel them to keep the soldiers where 
 they were." 2 
 
 Place, with his grimly practical sense of what a revolu- 
 tion meant, did not think that any elaborate preparations, 
 would be required for this purpose. " The vast multitude 
 of people who would be deprived of employment, and 
 1 27,794 (87). - 27,793 (MO-
 
 306 THE SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN 
 
 consequently of the means of living, would not, they 
 could not, even if they were so disposed, remain quiescent. 
 Neither would those concerned in trade, and especially the 
 small traders, when forced, as they would instantaneously 
 be, to discontinue their trading. The consequence of this 
 stoppage of trading in the face of a starving multitude of 
 unemployed people would lead to various, and probably 
 extensive, outrages, which all the troops collected in or 
 near London could not prevent. This was now pretty 
 generally understood, and the problem which remained 
 to be solved was how far the army under such circum- 
 stances could be depended upon by the Government." l 
 
 But Place knew how difficult it was to keep a London 
 crowd in hand, and opposed with all the arts of delay a 
 mass meeting on Hampstead Heath, on which the mem- 
 bers of the National Political Union had set their hearts. 
 " Had this meeting been called," he says, " more than 
 half a million of persons would have attended. People 
 would have come from considerable distances, trade in 
 London and its environs would have been suspended, and 
 as no arrangement could be made to engage the attention 
 of all present to the same subject at the same time, ample 
 scope would be given to the mischievously-disposed to hold 
 separate meetings on the ground, and propose and carry 
 their own resolutions. This was known to many of us as 
 a matter determined upon by several leaders of working- 
 men who did not concur in the plan and proceedings of the 
 National Political Union, and to these all the miscreants 
 and vagabonds in the metropolis would have clung." 2 
 
 Instead of the Hampstead gathering, a meeting of the 
 comparatively respectable parishes of Marylebone, St. Pan- 
 eras, and Paddington was arranged to be held in Regent's 
 Park on May 1 1 . At this meeting Colonel Jones was 
 apparently ordered to be as seditious as possible. If so, 
 
 1 27,793 (142). 2 27,793 (123, 124).
 
 THE SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN 307 
 
 the Colonel carried out his orders thoroughly. " He had 
 been," he said, " at the head of some of the most desperate 
 attacks during the late war, and he now declared that if a 
 necessity arose he would again lead on his countrymen to 
 glory in a cause which he should be more pleased with 
 than any in which he had ever before been engaged." l 
 
 Meanwhile an attempt was made to organise London by 
 the only existing local areas, the parishes. The first de- 
 liberate breach of the law by the National Political Union 
 was the sending of Major Revell, apparently one of the 
 " thirteen officers," as a formally appointed deputy to take 
 the chair at a meeting of the branch Union of Bethnal 
 Green. 2 Other parish meetings are described, for instance, 
 at St. Andrew's, Holborn, in the " inquest room," with the 
 senior churchwarden in the chair. 3 The Lord Mayor and 
 Sheriffs, when at the head of a crowd of 5000 men they 
 drove down to St. Stephen's with their petition on May 8, 
 probably thought that they were leading the whole metro- 
 politan movement. But the reports of the meetings of 
 Common Hall seem to show that Place's old friend 
 Alexander Galloway, who had not forgotten his two years' 
 imprisonment in the Corresponding Society days, was 
 directing the serious work in the City. Mr. Savage at the 
 Marylebone meeting allowed himself a significant reference 
 to the use which might be made of the new City police. 
 
 But London, though not for the moment the best centre 
 for an armed rising, was the centre of English credit, and 
 therefore the necessary point for that financial campaign 
 from which Place had always expected most success. On 
 Saturday, May 1 2, he wrote : " In the afternoon the de- 
 puties from Birmingham, other deputies, and several persons 
 who were not deputies, came to my house. They had been 
 in various parts of the metropolis, had conversed with 
 many people merchants, bankers, traders, and members of 
 1 27,793 (203). - 27,792 (256). 3 27,792 (255).
 
 308 THE SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN 
 
 Parliament. All whom they had seen, as well as them- 
 selves, were greatly excited at the no longer doubted intel- 
 ligence that the King had ordered the Duke of Wellington 
 to form an administration. They observed that such was 
 the dread of his probable conduct, and so strong the desire 
 to prevent him doing mischief, that already his protest on 
 the second reading of the Bill on the /th May was reprinted, 
 placarded, and distributed, with a caution to the people 
 against permitting him to govern them. It was generally 
 understood that the Duke would endeavour, and would 
 probably succeed, in forming an administration of desperate 
 men, and proceed at once to put down the people by force, 
 cost whatever it might. No one present, however, doubted 
 that the people would put down the Duke, and each was 
 ready to do his best for that purpose. It was quite certain 
 that the bulk of the people would rise en tiuisse at the call 
 of the Unions, and the deputies now in London and other 
 cities." 
 
 "It was now considered necessary that, as soon as it was 
 ascertained that the Duke had formed an administration, 
 all the deputies, excepting three sent by the three principal 
 places, should return home and put the people in open 
 opposition to the government of the Duke, while the lead- 
 ing reformers in London should themselves remain as quiet 
 as circumstances would permit, and promote two material 
 purposes : ( i ) keeping the people from openly meeting the 
 troops in battle, supposing the soldiers were willing to fight 
 them ; (2) to take care to have such demonstrations made 
 as would prevent the soldiers being sent from London, if 
 it should turn out, as seemed next to impossible, that the 
 mass of the people did not make these demonstrations 
 themselves." 
 
 " It was very clearly seen that if a much more open 
 and general run for gold upon the banks, the bankers, and 
 the Bank of England could be produced, the embarrass-
 
 THE SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN 309 
 
 merit of the Court and the Duke would be increased, and 
 that if a general panic could be produced, the Duke would 
 be at once defeated. To this purpose the attention of us 
 all was turned, and many propositions were made to 
 increase the demand for gold. Several suggestions were 
 made, several hints were adopted and agreed to be put in 
 train ; but some measure which would operate extensively, 
 and at once, was still desired, and this put us into a per- 
 plexity respecting the means of accomplishing this purpose. 
 Among the persons present were two bankers, and although 
 they were likely to be inconvenienced greatly, and perhaps 
 to be considerable losers, they entered very heartily into 
 the business. There was a general conviction that if the 
 Duke succeeded in forming an administration, that cir- 
 cumstance alone would produce a general panic, and almost 
 instantaneously close all the banks, put a stop to the circu- 
 lation of Bank of England notes, and compel the Bank to 
 close its doors ; and thus at once produce a revolution. The 
 question, therefore, among us was, Can we adopt means 
 to cause such a run upon the banks as may either intimi- 
 date the Duke, and induce him to give up the attempt to 
 form an administration and coerce the people, or prevent 
 him having the means of aggression if he persists in 
 his attempt ? It was thought we might succeed in one, 
 and if in the first, prevent the second, and consequently 
 the revolution, though much deplored, was no longer 
 feared. While the discussion was going on, some one 
 said, we ought to have a placard announcing the conse- 
 quences of permitting the Duke to form an administra- 
 tion and attempting to govern the country, to call upon 
 the people to take care of themselves by collecting all the 
 hard money they could, and keeping it, by drawing it from 
 Savings-Banks, from bankers, and from the Bank of Eng- 
 land. This was caught at, and Mr. Parkes set himself to 
 work to draw up a placard. Among the words he wrote
 
 310 THE SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN 
 
 were these, ' WE MUST STOP THE DUKE.' These words struck 
 me as containing nearly the whole that was necessary to be 
 said. I therefore took a large sheet of paper and wrote 
 
 thus 
 
 TO STOP THE 
 
 DUKE, 
 
 GO FOR 
 
 GOLD. 
 
 " I held up the paper, and all at once said, ' That will do ; 
 no more words are necessary.' Money was put upon the 
 table, and in less than four hours bill-stickers were at work 
 posting the bills. The printer undertook to work all night, 
 and to despatch at four o'clock on the next (Sunday) morn- 
 ing six bill-stickers, each attended by a trustworthy person 
 to help him, and see that all the bills were stuck in every 
 part of London. Other persons were engaged to distribute 
 them in public-houses and in shops, wherever the people 
 would engage to put them up, to send them to the environs 
 of London by the carriers' carts, and thus cause as general 
 as possible a display at once. 1 Parcels were sent oft' by the 
 evening coaches, and by the morning coaches of the next 
 day, to a great many places in England and Scotland, and 
 with some of these parcels a note was also sent, requesting 
 the people to reprint them as posting-bills and as hand- 
 bills." 2 
 
 On Monday (May 14) the Evening Standard accused 
 Grote of having originated these placards. He wrote to 
 the papers indignantly denying any approval of the move, 
 and privately to Place, prophesying that it would set all the 
 commercial interest against reform. A few hours after- 
 wards Place replied : " Saturday I was kept in town by 
 
 1 See Morning Post, May 15, 1832, "A large placard posted about the 
 town yesterday gave the following pithy advice, ' To stop the Duke, call 
 for gold.'" 
 
 2 27,793(146-148).
 
 THE SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN 311 
 
 people calling upon me, yesterday the same. This morn- 
 ing my library was thronged like a fair, so many, so much 
 loud talking, so much confused noise, that even my head 
 began to ache. So I took an opportunity and started off 
 to the Marylebone meeting to see how it was going on. I 
 took your note with me, thought on what you had written, 
 read it twice over as I went along, reasoned with myself as 
 for you and against you, and satisfied myself, because I 
 could not help it, that I could if I had time show good 
 and sufficient cause against every one of your statements. 
 I only fear lest the demonstration should not go far 
 enough." 
 
 So far the preparations had been carried on in daily ex- 
 pectation of the appointment of a Wellington administra- 
 tion. But expressions of anxiety appeared on Monday 
 (May 14) in the Tory papers, and on Tuesday the King 
 again sent for Lord Grey. Place first heard of the event 
 from Hobhouse, and at once wrote again to Grote : " Here 
 is the answer to your note of yesterday. Just at the time 
 when the Standard published your letter containing your 
 what ? oh ! arguments to prove that ' Go for Gold ' was 
 no go at all, in came a great man, who seeing the placard 
 on my table pointed to it and exclaimed, ' That is the 
 settler ; that has finished it.' x This he said without hesi- 
 tation before a gentleman whom he had never before seen. 
 When the gentleman was gone, he told me that the placard 
 and some other such matters had worked out the reforma- 
 tion. Earl Grey was gone to the King. 2 That fears of a 
 
 1 Note by Place in the Letter Book, " Sir John Hobhouse." 
 
 2 See John Francis, "History of the Bank of England," vol. ii. p. 67. 
 " For a week the Corporation sustained a run upon its specie, which 
 was reduced to ,4,919,000. In one day ,307,000 were paid. It soon 
 became very questionable whether the run for gold would not drain 
 every banker in the kingdom, and the writing on the wall spoke to 
 those having authority with a power far exceeding the most brilliant 
 oratory. Lord Lyndhurst found it impossible to form a ministry ; and
 
 J312 THE SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN 
 
 hitch of a very extraordinary character were entertained. 1 
 That if it or any other extraordinary matter occurred he 
 would call again in the evening. It is now 1 1 P.M., and as 
 he has not called I conclude that all is going on well." 
 
 In the Lords that evening Grey made a guarded state- 
 ment that he had " had a communication with his Majesty, 
 which has as yet led to no decided consequences," and 
 moved the adjournment of the House till Thursday (May 
 17). Baring, in the Commons, announced on behalf of 
 the Tories that "the communications with the Duke of 
 Wellington for the formation of a new ministry are entirely 
 at an end." 
 
 Wednesday (May 16) was given up to rejoicing, but in 
 the evening came rumours of another difficulty. On Thurs- 
 day morning the Times announced that the Queen had 
 within the last few hours told her friends '' not to despair. 
 The King will do without the Whigs," and in its leading 
 article declared that "Arthur, Duke of Wellington, had better 
 look to consequences. Oppressive and revolting laws must 
 be enforced by violence there is no other method. . . . 
 That is to be our prospect, is it ? If so, may the hand of 
 every free Englishman perish from his body, if he do not 
 
 Karl Grey was recalled." Francis also says (p. 68) that ,1,500,000 
 was paid in a few days. See also the evidence of Horsley Palmer, 
 Jones Lloyd, Richards, and Ward before the Select Committee on the 
 Charter of the Bank of England, 1831-32. 
 
 1 Note by Place in the Letter Book : " A project of the Queen's which 
 the King countenanced to depart, he and she clandestinely for Han- 
 over" Place expands this (27,794 /. 88) : "He [Hobhouse, the name 
 being here erased] very seriously assured me that some steps had been 
 taken with a view to the departure of the King and Queen, when their 
 intention became known and was consequently frustrated. It was not 
 likely such a plot could succeed, but if it had the whole Government 
 would have been dissolved in an instant, and a war with the powers on 
 the Continent would probably have been the consequence. England 
 and France must have made common cause, and they would have had 
 to fight against Austria, Prussia, and Russia, and great indeed would 
 have been the calamities of such a war."
 
 THE SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN 313 
 
 himself and his children and his country right upon the 
 head of the murderer." As a matter of fact, the King was 
 still unwilling to give a specific pledge to make Peers. But 
 he had written, through Sir Herbert Taylor, to each one of 
 the Tory Peers individually, suggesting that " All difficulties 
 in the arrangement in progress will be obviated by a de- 
 claration in the House to-night, from a sufficient number 
 of Peers, that in consequence of the present state of affairs 
 they have come to the resolution of dropping their further 
 opposition to the Reform Bill." l 
 
 Grey accepted office on the understanding that such a 
 declaration would be made. When the Houses reassembled 
 on Thursday, however, Wellington delivered a long and 
 angry speech without making any declaration of the kind. 
 Grey, therefore, would only say that nothing w T as settled, 
 and add, " Unless I can be assured of the ability of carrying 
 the Bill fully and efficiently through this House, I shall not 
 again return to office." 2 Writing that night, through Sir 
 H. Taylor to the King, Grey says : " As the Peers were 
 leaving the House, Lord Strangford said to somebody near 
 him, ' You see Sir H. Taylor's famous letter did no good.' " 3 
 
 1 "Annual Register," 1832, p. 187. 
 
 2 Hansard, May 17, 1832. 
 
 3 " Correspondence of Earl Grey with King William IV," vol. ii. p. 424. 
 In the "Correspondence of the Princess Lieven and Earl Grey" (London, 
 1890, 3 vols.), vol. ii. pp. 352, 353, Grey writes on May 18 : "When 
 I went to the House, I had, in consequence of communications which I 
 had had from St. James's in the morning, every reason to believe that 
 the Duke of Wellington and others would have declared that they 
 abandoned all further opposition to the Bill, . . . and in that case I 
 had the King's authority to declare that I continued in his service. 
 Instead of such a declaration, the Duke of Wellington, in giving what 
 he called an explanation of his conduct, made a most violent attack on 
 me, but said nothing on which I could rely with respect to his future 
 conduct. ... It was impossible for me, in the circumstances in which 
 I then stood, to make the declaration which I had contemplated, and I 
 could only say that nothing was yet definitely settled. And such is the 
 fact. The Cabinet meets at twelve to consider what step we should now
 
 3U THE SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN 
 
 The Council of the National Political Union met as usual 
 in the evening. Place and others knew what had happened 
 in the Lords, but in accordance with the policy of keeping 
 London in hand as long as possible, it was decided to go 
 on quietly with the routine business of the Union, lest any 
 mention of what had passed in the Lords should produce 
 a riot. 1 
 
 Next day, Friday (May 18), eleven days since the 
 division in the Lords, and nine days since the acceptance 
 of Grey's resignation, came the final crisis. The Morning 
 Chronicle announced, "We can only construe the debate 
 of last night into an open declaration of war by the 
 Tory Lords against the people of England. . . . The 
 situation of the country is truly alarming. Lord Grey 
 is only minister ad interim. The nation has, in fact, 
 been ten days without any Government. The people are 
 wrought up to the highest point of political excitement; 
 they are only restrained by the personal and moral in- 
 fluence of the men of intelligence and property who lead 
 them, and who, knowing that they may be able to pull 
 down and not to reconstruct, have hitherto restrained 
 any outbreak of popular power. But our accounts from 
 the country confirm us in the opinion that some explosion 
 will speedily take place unless instant means are adopted 
 we say instant means, because we think that the post of 
 this evening ought to take out tJuit decision which can alone 
 restore loyalty, peace, and order. We are otherwise on the 
 eve of the ' barricades.' " 
 
 Place received the Times and the Chronicle at 7 A.M. 2 
 " Several persons," he says, " came to me before eight 
 o'clock in the morning, each filled with apprehension, 
 
 take ; hut the matter must be settled to-day one way or the other. 
 These men are mad, and I wish they may not be found to have pushed 
 things to an extreme which may produce irreparable mischief." 
 1 27,794(260). 2 27,794(271).
 
 THE SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN 315 
 
 each having his own version of what had happened. 
 All, however, had come to the same conclusion resist- 
 ance to the Duke at any cost, and in every possible way. 
 Others came in, and at about half-past eight a gentleman 
 came with a message from Sir John Hobhouse. He said 
 there was to be a meeting 1 in Downing Street at noon, 
 and Sir John wished me to write a letter to him, telling 
 him all the facts I could, and giving him my opinion of 
 the state of feeling among the people, as far as I could, 
 and my view of prospective results. I therefore, as soon 
 as I could dismiss the persons who were with me, and 
 shut others out for a time, wrote as rapidly as I could 
 the following letter: 'May 1 8, 1832. 9 A.M. Dear Sir 
 John, The moment it was known that Earl Grey had 
 been sent for, the demand for gold ceased. No more 
 placards were posted, and all seemed to be going on 
 well at once. Proof positive this of the cool courage 
 and admirable discipline of the people. We cannot, how- 
 ever, go on thus beyond to-day. If doubt remain until 
 to-morrow, alarm will commence again, and panic will 
 follow. No effort to stop the Duke by going for gold 
 was made beyond a mere demonstration, and you saw 
 the consequences. What can be done in this way has 
 now been clearly ascertained, and if new efforts must be 
 made, they will not be made in vain. 
 
 "'Lists containing the names, addresses, &c., of all persons 
 in every part of the country likely to be useful have been 
 made, the name of every man who has at any public 
 meeting shown himself friendly to reform has been 
 registered. Addresses and proclamations to the people 
 have been sketched, and printed copies will, if need be, 
 be sent to every such person all over the kingdom. 
 Means have been devised to placard towns and villages, 
 to circulate hand-bills, and to assemble the people. So many 
 1 Of the Cabinet. See Lord Grey's letter, p. 313 (foot-note).
 
 316 THE SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN 
 
 men of known character, civil and m,ilit<iry, have entered 
 heartily into the scheme, that their names when published 
 will produce great effect in every desirable way. If the 
 Duke come into power now, we shall be unable longer to 
 " hold to the laws " ; break them we must, be the conse- 
 quences whatever they may ; and we know that all must 
 join with us to save their property, no matter what may 
 be their private opinions. Towns will be barricaded, new 
 municipal arrangements will be made by the inhabitants, 
 and the first town which is barricaded shuts up all the 
 banks. <: Go for Gold," it is said, will produce dreadful 
 evils. We know it will, but it will prevent other evils 
 being added to them. It will stop the Duke. Let the Duke 
 take office as Premier, and we shall have a commotion in 
 the nature of a civil war, with money at our command. If 
 we obtain the money, he cannot get it. If it be but once 
 dispersed, he cannot collect it. If we have money we shall 
 have the power to feed and lead the people, and in less 
 than five days we shall have the soldiers with us. . . .'" l 
 
 It is safe to assert that no such letter was ever before 
 written by the organiser of a rising to a War Minister, for 
 the purpose of its being laid before the Executive Govern- 
 ment. But Place may have felt, with the instinct born of 
 long experience in the management of men, that since 
 everything now turned on the decision of Ministers, the 
 greatest value of the plot was that it could be used to 
 influence their minds, and may have calculated that if 
 Ministers did again resign on that day, it was not likely 
 that their last act would be to order his arrest. 
 
 " At twelve o'clock Mr. Hume came. He said it was ap- 
 prehended the Duke would be put into office to do as he 
 pleased, or as he could. That when the House of Commons 
 adjourned on the preceding evening an arrangement was 
 made for a meeting at the Treasury on the next morning 
 1 27,794 (278, 279).
 
 THE SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN 317 
 
 (this day) at one o'clock, if nothing was done before ten 
 o'clock in the morning, when Mr. Edward Ellice (Secretary 
 to the Treasury) was to send notices. He had received a 
 notice, and was now going to the meeting. I read the 
 draft of the letter to Sir John Hobhouse, and we talked over 
 arrangements of several kinds. He was, he said, disposed 
 to whatever might be found necessary, either within the 
 House or without it, and so were other members. Several 
 gentlemen, some of them deputies from the country, and 
 some military men, were with me." l 
 
 At the Cabinet it was decided still to insist on power to 
 create Peers. Grey and Brougham went over to St. James's 
 Palace to communicate that decision. In their absence the 
 Cabinet continued sitting, and sat, indeed, according to 
 Greville, " almost all day." 
 
 " At three o'clock Mr. Hume came again. There were 
 then about a dozen gentlemen present, including two mili- 
 tary men high in rank. Mr. Hume was greatly agitated. 
 He said all was going wrong, and that the people must 
 look to themselves, as he had no doubt that the House of 
 Commons would look to themselves and to the people, and 
 would do their duty to both. He told me apart that Sir 
 John Hobhouse had requested him to call upon me and 
 tell me what he had told us all. Sir John said he would 
 call himself, if it were possible, in the evening. 
 
 " I was confined to the house by the great number of 
 persons who called upon me. They came from various 
 parts of the metropolis, and were persons in various condi- 
 tions of life. What each related respecting the anxious 
 state of the public and their determination, was in unison, 
 and might therefore be fairly considered the opinion of the 
 people of London. . . . There were numerous meetings in 
 many parts of London, and it was determined that in the 
 event of the Duke's appointment being avowed in the 
 1 27,794 (280, 281).
 
 318 THE SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN 
 
 Houses of Parliament, as it was expected it would be, that 
 all the deputies and others who were up in London on the 
 business of reform should go home by the speediest con- 
 veyances, call public meetings, appoint deputies to form a 
 congress to meet at some proper place, to push the demand 
 in every possible way, and to use every other means to 
 embarrass and defeat the Duke. 
 
 " Birmingham was to take the lead, which it was pre- 
 pared to do. The town was to be barricaded at once, 
 and other towns were to follow the example. There was 
 a very complete arrangement for procuring information of 
 what was going on at Weedon Barracks, and there was a 
 probability that the soldiers in these barracks would refuse 
 to act against the people ; and it was concluded that in 
 such an event, few or none of the soldiers in other places 
 would obey orders when it was seen that the people were 
 able and willing to protect them. It was intended to seize 
 as many of the families of the Tory Lords as possible, to 
 carry them into the towns, and there to hold them as 
 hostages for the conduct of the Duke towards the re- 
 formers. . . . No proceedings beyond those of causing a 
 general demand for gold were to be taken in the first 
 instance. It was to be kept as quiet as possible. It was 
 quite certain that if the Bank closed its doors, and the 
 supply of the markets ceased, a general tumult would 
 immediately take place which no power the Government 
 possessed could put down, nor could it continue in exist- 
 ence many days. Meetings would be called, and the 
 necessary arrangements made to supply the metropolis 
 with food. The army as well as every other department 
 of military force would fall from the hands of the Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 " An old Guardsman, a general officer, told me that he 
 had seen his friend Lord Melbourne at the Home Office, 
 and had told him the Duke could do nothing with the
 
 THE SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN 319 
 
 army, since he dared not move any part of it away from 
 the metropolis, and that he could not use it with any 
 effect in London; and that if he really understood the 
 situation he would be placed in, he would never for a 
 moment think of carrying on the Government by force." : 
 
 " In this fearful state, this unparalleled situation, were 
 the King and people placed ; and the moment had arrived 
 when the decision of one man, and he one of the silliest, 
 was compelled to choose between a course which would, 
 at least for some years, give peace to the nation, though it 
 might, and probably would, tend to a gradual change of 
 the whole political institutions of the nation, and that 
 which even to him it must have become all but certain, 
 would at once put in jeopardy, if not indeed destroy, not 
 only those institutions, but the aristocracy with them. Yet 
 he could not think, as a wiser man would have thought 
 calmly. He was not one of those men to whom deep 
 thinking was familiar. Thinking at all on so large a sub- 
 ject must to him have been most painful, and he had those 
 about him eager enough to save him from any effort of 
 the kind by their ill-considered suggestions. Decide, how- 
 ever, he must. He dared not let the two Houses of Parlia- 
 ment assemble before his determination was taken, and a 
 circumstance to be related presently caused him to decide 
 in the right way. Truly were we in a lamentable situation 
 when so much for good or evil depended on such a man as 
 William the Fourth, King of England. 
 
 " The crisis was come ; both Houses of Parliament were 
 filled with members, and with as many strangers as could 
 obtain admission. An immense concourse of people was 
 assembled outside the Houses, and everybody waited the 
 expected announcements with the utmost anxiety. It was 
 fearfully apprehended that the Duke would be appointed ; 
 nil confidence in the patriotism of the King had subsided, 
 1 27,794 (281-283).
 
 320 THE SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN 
 
 and the worst consequences were anticipated. The deputies 
 from the towns in various parts of the kingdom had made 
 preparations for their departure, and the evening papers 
 had their forms standing ready to insert the announce- 
 ments in the Houses of Parliament in second editions, to 
 be forwarded by the mails and coaches to every part of the 
 United Kingdom. In a state of indescribable apprehension 
 and terror, Earl Grey in the Lords, and Lord Althorp in 
 the Commons, announced the exhilarating fact that Minis- 
 ters, having secured the means to pass the Reform Bills 
 without mutilation, would continue in office. 
 
 " At half-past five o'clock, while sitting with some gentle- 
 men waiting to receive the news that they might determine 
 on the course it would be advisable to take, Mr. Howard, a 
 gentleman who had gone to the House of Commons for 
 the purpose of hearing the communication expected to be 
 made, came in in breathless haste, and said he had just 
 heard Lord Althorp make the declaration of his con- 
 tinuance in office, with full powers to carry the Bills. 
 Mr. Howard was scarcely gone when, in a state of high 
 enthusiasm, Sir John Hobhouse came and confirmed the 
 information Mr. Howard had given us. 'An immense 
 load had,' he said, been removed from the minds of all, 
 and pleasant sensations would now take the place of the 
 all but too well grounded apprehensions of most extensive 
 evils, whatever good might ultimately be obtained, and 
 that the people might honestly gratify themselves with 
 their own manly, steady, courageous conduct, which had 
 compelled the unwilling decision in their favour. Sir John 
 stayed but a few minutes. Like every one else, he was 
 eager to spread the good news as far and as wide as he 
 was able. 
 
 "On the next morning I was informed that the King 
 determined to appoint Earl Grey in consequence of the 
 following circumstance : At about two o'clock a gentleman
 
 THE SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN ,'321 
 
 came to Earl Grey privately. He was commissioned by 
 the Bank directors to inform him that if nothing was 
 settled in time to be forwarded to the country by the 
 mails, they apprehended that the depositors in Savings- 
 Banks would generally give notice to withdraw their de- 
 posits, and convert the amount into cash. That this being 
 known, other persons would also demand gold for paper, 
 and that the run upon all the banks would, in a few days, 
 compel them to close their doors. That Earl Grey re- 
 quested this gentleman to proceed to the Duke of Welling- 
 ton and make the communication to him. He did so, and 
 the Duke having immediately made a similar communica- 
 tion to the King, Earl Grey was restored to office with the 
 power he desired. This information was given me by a 
 confidential person of a Cabinet Minister, with an injunc- 
 tion by him that I was not to use his name." l 
 
 On Sunday morning, May 20, Place sat down and 
 wrote his reflections on the "memorable eleven days." 
 " Here let us hope the turmoil will end. We were within 
 a moment of general rebellion, and had it been possible for 
 the Duke of Wellington to have formed an administration, 
 the King and the people would have been at issue. It 
 would have been soon decided, but the mischief to pro- 
 perty, especially to the great landowners and fund-holders, 
 and personally to immense numbers, would have been 
 terrible indeed. Yet upon the coolest calculation it would 
 have been by far less terrible than that which must have 
 resulted from a submission to the Duke of Wellington and 
 the army. 
 
 " I always doubted the courage of the people, as well as 
 the judgment to do, at the right time, the thing which 
 might be most requisite to produce the greatest amount of 
 good on any great emergency. There had, however, been 
 no means at any time of judging correctly on this subject, 
 1 27,794(286-288).
 
 THE SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN 
 
 the people never in any case having acted for themselves, 
 but always as the tools of some party for party purposes, 
 even when national good was the result of this use which 
 was made of them. This was indeed the first time they 
 ever combined of their own free-will for a really national 
 purpose, and this it is which marks the era as of more 
 importance than any former proceeding which makes its 
 prospective of still greater importance as the first of an 
 inevitable series, which from time to time will increase the 
 power of the people and lessen that of the Government, 
 until it has either totally destroyed it by a violent ebullition 
 or quietly absorbed it. 
 
 " Thanks to the King and his stultified advisers. Thanks 
 to the Duke of Wellington for his blind courage. Thanks 
 to the Tory Lords for their ignorance of the people, since it 
 is to these things we owe the demonstration and communi- 
 cation all over the country of the knowledge and power of 
 the people, and the assurance it has given to all that these 
 important particulars were about equally shared by them 
 in every part of Great Britain, the thorough conviction 
 they have now obtained of the moral power to control 
 the Government, and the confidence that conviction will 
 give to them when the reformed House of Commons at 
 no great distance of time shall, as it must, prove how 
 inadequate will be the Reform Bill to satisfy the expecta- 
 tions of the people. Even a year ago the people as a 
 body may be said to have been essentially loyal, desirous 
 to support the Government of the King, the Bishops, the 
 other Lords, and the Commons. . . . Much of this absurd 
 loyalty has now been destroyed, and can never again exist. 
 The demonstrations made by the King and Lords have 
 shaken those absurd notions, and compelled the people 
 to progress towards entertaining republican opinions to 
 an extent which no one had anticipated. 
 
 " So great a change in so short a period, which, from its
 
 THE SECOND REFORM CAMPAIGN 323 
 
 very nature, must be permanent, never was so generally 
 and so effectually manifested by any people. Kings and 
 Lords will of themselves, if permitted, in time go quietly 
 out of existence, and as it may be hoped, at least in this 
 country, representative government will be established 
 without tumults or any extensive convulsion. 
 
 " The only apprehension which can reasonably be enter- 
 tained of any considerable disturbance, is want of patience 
 of the people. If they be not too much in a hurry, repre- 
 sentative government will be produced exactly at the time 
 w r hen it can best be maintained, and that will be when the 
 people have been prepared to carry it on with the least 
 possible difficulty, and the consequent certainty of reaping 
 all its advantages. 
 
 " Had I taken notes of such matters as have come to 
 my knowledge during the last eighteen months, had I 
 noticed the many persons whom the agitation brought me 
 acquainted with, the multitude of things within and with- 
 out doors in which I have been engaged with other men, 
 the relation would have been at least somewhat curious 
 and extraordinary, but to have made notes would have 
 been unfair towards others. Much of what was said and 
 done was necessarily confidential, and notes might have 
 fallen into [other] hands in the event of ulterior proceed- 
 ings, and done great mischief. The anticipation of such a 
 probability determined me to make no memorandum, to 
 record no names, to write nothing which could be avoided 
 which might in any way, under any circumstances, be at 
 all likely to commit anybody, and to burn all notes and 
 letters which came to me which were likely to be in the 
 most trifling matter obnoxious, if seized, to the writers 
 that to Sir John Hobhouse on the i8th of May alone 
 excepted, and this would have been destroyed in the even- 
 ing but for Lord Grey's restoration to office." l 
 1 27,795 (27-30).
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 WOULD Lord Grey and his Cabinet.follow up their victory ? 
 Place at first thought that some of them might be induced 
 to try. On June 2, 1832, a fortnight after the collapse of 
 the opposition to the Reform Bill, Hobhouse called and 
 asked Place what he thought of "our prospects." Place 
 replied at length, and Hobhouse urged him to put his 
 reply in writing. Place begins his long letter by dwelling 
 on the present opportunity of carrying in peace changes 
 which, if delayed, might come through civil war, and then 
 advises that the Radical section of the Cabinet should put 
 forward an advanced policy, and if it were not accepted, 
 strengthen their position in the country by resigning. 1 If, 
 however, he had any real hope that Hobhouse and Durham ' 2 
 
 1 " What, then, should Ministers do ? The answer is short, and, as it 
 appears to me, clear. Such of them as may be well disposed to do their 
 duty to the people must, when the Bills are passed, resign. They who 
 are willing to take upon themselves the responsibility of proposing such 
 reforms in Church and State as must be proposed by somebody, such as 
 if not granted will be extorted, must resolve to have their own way, or 
 not to serve as Ministers. They among them who are able to appreciate 
 the age, and are disposed to march with its improvements, will refuse to 
 hold office unless the King submits himself in all matters of State policy 
 to their guidance." (Place to Hobhouse, June 2, 1832.) 
 
 * Place seems to have kept up communication with Lord Durham, at 
 any rate, for some days after the memorable 1 8th of May. There was a 
 rumour, for instance, even after Lord Grey's return to office, that the 
 Government would accept amendments in Committee of the Lords 
 abolishing some of the new Metropolitan seats. Place hastily got 
 together the materials for a long statistical speech, which was delivered 
 by Lord Durham on May 22. The speech was successful, and Lord 
 
 324
 
 THE REFORMED PARLIAMENT 325 
 
 would take his advice, it must soon have disappeared. They 
 had been willing to carry a moderate Bill by force, but they 
 were in no hurry to bring on a complete democracy. 
 
 Having failed- to induce Ministers to resign, Place 
 attempted the almost equally impossible task of forcing 
 an amendment of the Reform Bill through the weary and 
 demoralised House of Commons. The Bill, when reintro- 
 duced in December 1831, contained a new clause, excluding 
 from the register any one who had not paid his rates and 
 annual taxes by July 20 in each year. Place persuaded 
 Warburton in February to oppose this clause in Com- 
 mittee, but neither he nor Warburton could induce any 
 other member to take the point seriously. In an atmos- 
 phere so unreal as that of the House of Commons it 
 was easy for men to convince themselves that all their 
 constituents would hasten to avoid disfranchisement by 
 paying their rates as soon as possible. Place, however, 
 after July 20 went round the various parishes in West- 
 minster, and discovered that very few of the ratepayers 
 had actually qualified themselves. The state of things 
 which he discovered was startling. Burdett and Hob- 
 house refused to attempt to understand the question, but 
 Colonel Evans armed himself with Place's figures, and 
 brought about four debates on the subject in the last week 
 of the session. Meanwhile Place collected facts, inter- 
 viewed members, wrote letters and newspaper articles, and 
 organised petitions. He was so far successful that Lord 
 Althorp suggested that the strict terms of the Act could 
 be evaded by the registration authorities, and the officials 
 were glad to take the hint. For years afterwards Place 
 
 Durham declared, somewliat prematurely, that "the days of flowery 
 oratory were gone for ever," and that the future belonged to him " who 
 would take the trouble to collect facts, and had the capacity to draw 
 correct inferences." 27,795 1 Q- The speech itself was printed, and is 
 inserted 27,795 (124-134).
 
 326 THE REFORMED PARLIAMENT 
 
 complained that the effect had been to enable the over- 
 seers to put on or keep off almost any one they wished. 
 
 His tone was more hopeful when he was urging the 
 Radicals outside Parliament not to rest after their 
 victory. In July 1832 he wrote to Lawrence Pitkeithly, 
 the leader of the Huddersfield working-men : " We wanted 
 the Reform Bills l and a new Parliament under the Bills. 
 These we shall soon have, and then let whoever may be 
 Ministers, we must do our duty to ourselves manfully 
 and continually. We must have petitions in hundreds 
 for short Parliaments and voting by ballot as means of 
 procuring reforms in every possible way and to the 
 greatest possible extent. It is very difficult, and requires 
 much time to move a nation like this, even when it has 
 been demonstrated that very small exertions will produce 
 the greatest good. Even they who are disposed to move 
 are seldom agreed to work together. If some fundamental 
 pouits were selected, and all agreed to push for them, 
 success would be certain. The Reform Bills are in 
 themselves of little value, but as a commencement of the 
 breaking up of the old rotten system they are in- 
 valuable." 2 
 
 At the general election which followed the passage of 
 the Bills, Place advised that pledges should be required 
 from all Reform candidates. He wrote a tract on this 
 point, which was published by the National Political 
 Union, 3 in which he said : " Pledges may then be taken 
 
 1 i.e. the English, Scotch, and Irish Bills. 
 
 2 Place to Lawrence Pitkeithly, July 25, 1832. 
 
 3 "No. 15. National Political Union. On Pledges to be given by 
 Candidates." (By Francis Place.) "To the electors of the United 
 Kingdom " (London, July 1832). This action of the National Political 
 Union gave rise to much discussion among the Reformers. John Mill, 
 e.g. wrote two very interesting articles against Pledges in the Examiner 
 on ist July and i5th July 1832, 27,796 (48), and W. J. Fox defended 
 them in the Monthly Repository. The seven points on which Place 
 suggested the asking for pledges were : (i) Parliamentary Reform
 
 THE REFORMED PARLIAMENT 327 
 
 from all. Every elector should recollect that his repre- 
 sentative is elected for the unreasonably long period of 
 seven years, and that he may therefore set his con- 
 stituents at defiance for that period." In Westminster 
 Burdett and Hobhouse were requested to pledge them- 
 selves to the Ballot, the abolition of the House and Window 
 Taxes, the Newspaper Stamp Duty, and the repeal of the 
 Septennial Act. Both declared that "none but fools 
 demanded pledges, and none but knaves gave them." l 
 
 Place himself was asked to stand for Westminster, but 
 refused. When, however, Colonel Evans came forward 
 against Hobhouse, Place supported him. 2 Evans was 
 beaten, but defeated Hobhouse at a bye-election a few 
 months afterwards. 
 
 As soon as the general election was over Place wrote to 
 Joseph Parkes, suggesting that the Birmingham Political 
 Union should begin a popular agitation for the Ballot 
 and triennial Parliaments. Parkes replied : " Our glass 
 here is almost run out. till some circumstances turn it 
 again. The fact is, that we have all made such heavy 
 personal and pecuniary sacrifices that we fear that so 
 recently after the elections, we should not get up a 
 sufficient public meeting for Birmingham on the Ballot 
 and Septennial Act. We have the will, but the elections 
 have taken our last wind ; and indeed, a meeting costs 
 us a great deal of money. . . . Who the devil is to go 
 on with this public work and his private duty ? I can't ; 
 I am determined to lie fallow as much as I consistently 
 can ; it is impossible to keep up the devotion we have had 
 here for two years. I had rather go to the Swann River, or 
 
 (shorter Parliaments and ballot) ; (2) Law Reform ; (3) Financial 
 Reform ; (4) Trade Reform (Free Trade) ; (5) Church Reform ; (6) 
 Abolition of Slavery ; (7) Abolition of Taxes on Knowledge. 
 
 1 27,844 (24). 
 
 2 See "A Letter to the Electors of Westminster/' in which Place 
 defends himself, and refers to Hobhouse's Radical declarations in 1819.
 
 328 THE REFORMED PARLIAMENT 
 
 even Botany Bay, than go through the sacrifices and 
 labour of the last eighteen months. I have read no books, 
 I have not slept half enough, I have collected no money, 
 I have neglected my business. Numerous others have 
 done the same. Actually eight leading middlemen of 
 the Union have 'broke.' And as I do not choose so to 
 injure my utility or comfort, I don't mean, Mr. Place, to 
 give so much time to the political plough ; I will do my 
 duty nevertheless. We have buried the Tories, and if 
 the Whigs will not do right, the sexton must be called out 
 again. Good-night, old firebrand." 1 
 
 The first reformed Parliament met on January 29, 
 1833, and was at once occupied with an Irish Coercion 
 Bill. Under any circumstances Place would not have con- 
 cerned himself very seriously with an Irish question. He 
 had been long convinced that the task of governing 
 Ireland from England was an impossible one, and had 
 perhaps too little sympathy with those who were com- 
 pelled to attempt it. In his letter to Hobhouse of June 2, 
 1832, he wrote: "A word or two as to Ireland. There 
 nothing worth doing on a large scale can be done while 
 that country is kept in subjection to this. Stanley's 
 nostrums will only tend to make the bond of union among 
 the Irish the more firm. The Irish must be left to fight 
 it out among themselves before they can arrive at that 
 condition when regeneration can commence, or rather, 
 before any progress can be made towards actual civilisation. 
 I do not consider that to be a state of civilisation in which 
 property is not secure." 2 
 
 1 Joseph Parkes to Place, January 17, 1833. 
 
 2 Place to Hobhouse, June 2, 1832. 27,795 (228-235). See P Jace to 
 Ensor, May 27, 1835. 
 
 " It is now some fifteen years since you, Mill, and I dined with 
 Richard Taylor, and at his table discussed the matter more fully 
 than we had previously done, of a separation between England 
 and Ireland. Since that time some reading, much conversation, as
 
 THE REFORMED PARLIAMENT 329 
 
 But in the spring of 1833 the state of his personal affairs 
 might have prevented him from noticing much more 
 interesting political matter than the dispute between Lord 
 Stanley and Daniel O'Connell. 
 
 He had put a large part of his capital into house pro- 
 perty, and had left the investment of it to an incompetent 
 or dishonest solicitor. On February 25, 1833, after an 
 examination of his affairs, he found that out of an income 
 of a little more than ^iioo, some 650 was irrevocably 
 
 well with Irishmen of some importance as with Englishmen, and more 
 serious thinking, have confirmed me in my opinion that Ireland never 
 can be what it ought to be, what it would have been, if it had been, or 
 if it is to be, an independent country. I never hesitate in any place, or 
 before any company when Ireland is talked of, to assert that there is 
 but one way permanently to better its people, and that is by a separa- 
 tion, by making Ireland an independent nation, and leaving it to choose 
 a government for itself. The terms to be these : Ireland to take a 
 reasonable, and consequently a small portion of the public debt, and pay 
 the interest of it ; no customs to be paid on the importation of any- 
 thing, the produce or manufactures of either country ; and no more tax 
 to be laid on such produce and manufactures than is usually laid 
 thereon when manufactured or produced on the spot. 
 
 " I know all the objections which can be made to this project, and 
 some of them are very serious ; but as I am thoroughly persuaded that 
 they will not be removed by the continual dependence of Ireland on 
 England, either with or without an Irish Parliament, I am for putting 
 an end as soon as possible to the present state of things, that a better 
 state of things may commence. The most important of all the 
 objections is this, that if Ireland were separated from England there 
 would be a terrible civil war among the people. This is, I think, an 
 inevitable consequence, but it is one that will happen some day ; it is a 
 state the Irish people must pass through, and I am therefore for giving 
 them the earliest possible opportunity to fight it out, arid to settle down 
 under a regular government." 
 
 Place, like other Radicals of his time, believed in the ultimate 
 solution of most imperial problems by separation. In his diary 
 for 1830 he says that India should be "independent at as early 
 a period as possible, and that this would be advantageous to both 
 Great Britain and India." On January 18, 1838, during the Canadian 
 troubles, he sent Lovett Bentham's "Emancipate your Colonies" 
 (1793). On the other hand, on December 5, 1838, he wrote to Parkes, 
 " The plan of Lord Durham, Federal Colonies, was the only one 
 which could retain the Canadas in peace even for a short time."
 
 330 THE REFORMED PARLIAMENT 
 
 lost. Two days afterwards he sat down and wrote out a 
 calculation of his future expenses, ending with : " I am 
 strong, active, healthy, and a better man than most at 
 sixty-one years of age, capable of many things, and willing 
 to undertake some one or more things; and if oppor- 
 tunities should occur, I will embrace them. At present I 
 see nothing likely to be useful in this way, so I must wait. 
 If I would turn sycophant, be a tool and a rascal, I could 
 soon obtain employment under Government; this I will 
 not do." 1 
 
 The house at Charing Cross was now let to his eldest 
 son, who had taken on the business sixteen years before, 
 while Place with his wife and those of the family who 
 were still at home removed to a smaller house (No. 21) 
 in Brompton Square. This, together with the fact that 
 his wife was attacked by cholera and nearly died, kept 
 Place occupied for some months. 
 
 Even when he was again at leisure, there were several 
 causes tending to detach him from the daily business of 
 Parliamentary politics. He and his books were no longer 
 easy of access from the House of Commons; he soon 
 ceased to be an elector of Westminster ; and he intended 
 to take any useful paid post that might be offered to 
 him. 
 
 For a short time in 1834-35 ne was Secretary to the 
 Pure Spring Water Company, formed to supply London 
 with water from artesian wells. But it got into the hands 
 of City company promoters and Place resigned, having 
 received 100 for his services. The Company soon after- 
 wards broke up, as the necessary Bill was rejected in the 
 House of Commons. 
 
 Nevertheless, Place worked steadily from 1834 to 1836, 
 both in the reconstruction of English local government by 
 the New Poor Law (1834) and the Municipal Reform Bill 
 1 " Autobiography."
 
 THE REFORMED PARLIAMENT 331 
 
 (1835), and in the long struggle for the abolition of the 
 Newspaper Stamp. 
 
 The two Local Government Bills were the result not of 
 the official Whig tradition as represented in the Cabinet, 
 but of "philosophic radicalism" acting through Royal 
 Commissions. Edwin Chadwick, Secretary to the Poor- 
 Law Commission (1832-34), and Place's friend, Joseph 
 Parkes, Secretary to the Muncipal Corporations Com- 
 mission (1833-1835), were both personal disciples of 
 Jeremy Bentham, and the Bills themselves were the 
 embodiment of principles which the Benthamites had 
 discussed for twenty years. 
 
 With the Poor-Law Commissioners Place must have 
 been in touch at least as early as the spring of 1833, 
 for even in the midst of his own misfortunes he found 
 time to help them. 
 
 "Early in March 1833," he says, "Lord Althorp wrote 
 to the Commissioners of the Poor-Laws inquiry, and 
 requested them to inform him whether the adoption of 
 the Labour Rate Bill 1 (the renewal) as a temporary and 
 palliative measure would have the tendency to increase 
 the evil of the Poor-Laws. The answer of the Commis- 
 sioners seemed to me so very likely to do much service 
 if it were put into the proper hands, that I applied for 
 money to enable me to print 10,000 copies, and also for 
 the names of all persons who had either been examined 
 or corresponded with, or were likely to interfere in the 
 matter. The money and the names were furnished. I 
 wrote an appropriate head, printed and sent copies in 
 franks and by coach parcels free of expense to every 
 person indicated. The consequence was that all pro- 
 ceedings were at once dropped, and no more was heard 
 
 1 The labour rate was an arrangement by which pauper labourers 
 were forced upon unwilling employers in order to lower the money 
 rate. Cf. Report of 1834, p. 108.
 
 332 THE REFORMED PARLIAMENT 
 
 of the mischievous Bill, either within or without the 
 House." 1 
 
 He knew Chadwick personally, and a letter which he 
 wrote in July 1833 contains an accurate forecast of the 
 coming Report. 2 
 
 The Commissioners proposed that the administration of 
 the new Act should be superintended by a small body of 
 paid officials, and it occurred to Place that possibly he 
 himself might be appointed. 
 
 "I wish," he writes to Harriet Martineau, "the Lord 
 Chancellor would make me one of the Central Commis- 
 sioners under an Act of Parliament, the leading enactments 
 of which should be the recommendations of the present 
 Poor-Law Commissioners. I would go into the business 
 and help to carry it on with all my heart and soul, would 
 work carefully and promptly and efficiently in the great 
 and good work, would think nothing of obstacles, and be 
 utterly careless of the abuse which will be showered down 
 in all possible forms on the obnoxious Commissioners." 3 
 
 He preserved a letter from Anthony Fonblanque, the 
 editor of the Examiner, urging him to put himself 
 forward as a candidate, and his answer, in which he said 
 that " Lord Brougham knows that under such a Bill as 
 I have alluded to ... I should look much more to the 
 elevation of the common people than to the salary; that 
 
 1 Place to Parkes, May 11, 1835. 
 
 2 "The remedy, as far as a remedy can be applied, seems short and 
 clear. No assistance either in money, clothes, or food should be given 
 by the parish to any one, in any case whatever, out of the workhouse, 
 some cases of sickness alone excepted, and even then sparingly. The 
 workhouse should be for a district composed of one, two, or more 
 parishes where the inmates might be classed, and good instead of evil 
 produced. The adoption of this plan would for some time cause evil 
 to many, good to multitudes. There could then be no parish payment 
 to make up wages, nor many of the present contrivances to make the 
 people dissolute and reckless." (Place to Wade, July 9, 1833.) 
 
 3 Place to Harriet Martineau, March 4, 1834.
 
 THE REFORMED PARLIAMENT 333 
 
 I would diligently, honestly, and, I hope, judiciously execute 
 the trust for one-half of the salary named." But no man 
 in power " would willingly have it supposed that he would 
 have countenanced any proposal to make the Radical 
 Tailor a King's Commissioner." l 
 
 Place was, as he expected, passed over, and Brougham 
 could perhaps have found better reasons for his decision 
 than that which Place suggested. Chadwick's combination 
 of dogmatism and industry nearly wrecked the new system 
 as it was, and Chadwick and Place together would have 
 gone near to bring about a revolution. Above all, Place 
 was a known and unflinching partisan on just the point 
 where the Commissioners were sure to encounter the most 
 furious vituperation. The word Malthusian punctuates 
 Times' leaders and Chartist speeches on the new Poor- 
 Law from 1835 to 1849, and his opinions about the popu- 
 lation question were notorious. 
 
 The Act as finally passed, though it did not exactly 
 correspond to Place's sketch of 1833, or to the proposals 
 of the Commissioners, was yet logical and drastic enough. 
 Place for the moment abused the Government for having 
 weakened it, but in August 1834 wrote to Chadwick full of 
 hopes as to its result, and advising him to print a short 
 popular analysis for general distribution. From that time 
 forward he steadily defended the law with tongue and 
 pen, and kept up even among the extreme democrats a 
 tiny minority of audible opinion in its favour. The Chartist 
 Northern Liberator writes in 1837 (December 30) of him 
 as being " the very head and chief, the life and soul, of the 
 Poor-Law Amendment Bill." 
 
 Place speaks of the removal to Brompton as having 
 " increased my comfort and diminished my usefulness." 2 
 Certainly his correspondence in the summer of 1834 shows 
 
 1 Place to Anthony Fonblanque, March 4, 1834. 
 
 2 Loose sheet, dated April 1834.
 
 334 THE REFORMED PARLIAMENT 
 
 that absence from Westminster had brought him an un- 
 usual amount of leisure. On May 2 and 3, for instance, he 
 wrote to his friend Samuel Harrison an enormous letter 
 of something like seven thousand words, criticising from 
 the agnostic point of view William Hewitt's " Popular His- 
 tory of Priestcraft." 
 
 He did not believe that the next step towards a demo- 
 cratic franchise would willingly be taken by any govern- 
 ment then possible. But he was convinced that forces 
 stronger than the will of any government were in opera- 
 tion, and meanwhile he could watch the rise and fall of 
 ministries with philosophic calm. In July 1834 Lord Grey 
 resigned, and Lord Melbourne became Premier. Place 
 supposed that Brougham would now be the real leader of 
 the Whigs, and knew that in that case the Lords must 
 either fight or submit to continued humiliation. 
 
 " There must be a decisive quarrel with the Lords some 
 day, and the Lords will in the end be beaten. I think the 
 Chancellor is the man to carry on a series of useful sub- 
 ordinate quarrels, which may prepare the way for the 
 ultimate quarrel, and make it when it comes as little 
 mischievous and as short as possible. If, for instance, 
 the Chancellor begins with some measures likely to be 
 popular, e.g. newspaper stamps, which can and will be 
 usefully worked out of doors, and the Lords choose to 
 quarrel with it, and if they should make the quarrel 
 last for some time, the beating they will get will be of 
 importance in more ways than one. If the Lords should 
 swallow the pill without much carping at it, they will 
 have prepared their noble throats for a bolus, and that 
 may be the repeal of so much of the 2yth clause of the 
 Reform Act as relates to payments of rates and taxes 
 as a disqualifying clause. If stamps be removed and 
 good teaching follows, the machine will work more freely 
 with little friction, and therefore with very little chance
 
 THE REFORMED PARLIAMENT 335 
 
 of breaking any material part of it. Otherwise, it may 
 go, as the engineers say, ' smash at once.' These are the 
 general reasons why I wish Brougham to lead." l 
 
 Melbourne's sudden dismissal by the King on the 
 appointment of Wellington left him quite unmoved. In 
 December 1834 he wrote: "With respect to politics as 
 they now stand, I am quite at ease. Before Wellington 
 first took office, yet when a change was seen to be at 
 hand, Hobhouse, being then at the Duke of Bedford's 
 at Woburn, wrote to me for my opinion respecting 
 probable public proceedings. I, in reply, said there never 
 could be what was called a strong or, as to time, a long 
 administration until very great changes in the whole plan 
 and system of government had happened. Wellington's 
 administration cannot continue for two years, and whose 
 is to follow his ? And whose that ? &c. &c. In five years 
 boys now fifteen years of age will be men. In ten years 
 boys who are ten years old will be men, men of twenty, 
 thirty, and so on, and time will have quietly sent a large 
 number of old prejudiced aristocrats to the grave, and 
 substituted for them young, energetic fellows, brought up 
 very generally without reverence for authority, and imbued 
 with notions of representative government. I need not 
 point out to you the consequences." 2 
 
 Peel on his return from Italy, in December, took over 
 the premiership from Wellington, and at once dissolved 
 Parliament. The Whigs came back from the election 
 seriously weakened in numbers, and dependent for any 
 possible majority upon Irish and Radical support. A 
 rough note made by Place at the time states that 
 Warburton called, on February 9, 1835, ". . . and we 
 had a very long conversation respecting a plan he had 
 suggested some time before, and was diligently employed 
 
 1 Place to Parkes, July 17, 1834. 
 
 2 Place to J. Prout, December 21, 1834.
 
 336 THE REFORMED PARLIAMENT 
 
 in carrying into effect. It was to induce the reformers, 
 under himself, the Whigs under Lord John Russell, and 
 the Irish under Daniel O'Connell to concur in such 
 matters as were common to all these parties, and agree 
 to sink minor differences and work together for such 
 objects as the three should point out. There were two 
 circumstances on which it seemed essential they should 
 concur, the Speaker and the Address." l 
 
 A further note says : " 2otk February. The House met 
 last night, and contrary to my expectations elected Mr. 
 Abercrombie, Speaker. This is a good beginning." And 
 on February 25, he writes: "I was much pleased that 
 the amendment to the Address had been carried by a 
 majority of seven." 
 
 On April 8, 1835, Peel resigned, and Lord Melbourne 
 took office. But Place's satisfaction at the alliance between 
 the Whigs and the Radicals lasted very few weeks. The 
 Radicals in Parliament felt that they ought to avoid 
 anything which would embarrass the Government, and 
 Place found to his horror that no one, not even Joseph 
 Hume, was willing to continue that resolute assertion of 
 democratic principles in the House, without which the 
 development of democratic opinion in the country could 
 not proceed. 
 
 One result of the alliance was that the abolition of the 
 newspaper stamp seemed further off than ever. Since 1819, 
 when the 4d. stamp duty was extended to every periodical 
 costing less than 6d., 2 Place had fought against "Taxes 
 on Knowledge." As long as the Tories were hi power Lord 
 Liverpool, or even Canning, could consistently advocate 
 the restriction of political discussion. But the fact that 
 the Whigs had now held office since 1830, and that the 
 tax remained undiminished, was only to be explained by 
 
 1 Loose sheet in Letter Book, 1835. 
 * See p. 148, note.
 
 THE REFORMED PARLIAMENT 337 
 
 their rooted disbelief in every principle which they pro- 
 fessed to hold. 
 
 Year after year Place had brought the question forward. 1 
 Every year the Chancellor of the Exchequer declared 
 himself in favour of repeal in principle, and every year 
 the Government, for reasons which they dared not avow, 
 continued the tax. Meanwhile the Commissioners of 
 Stamps so used their power of prosecution as to set up 
 a peculiarly odious form of censorship. The Penny 
 Magazine, for instance, was allowed to circulate unstamped, 
 while the Poor Man's Guardian was prosecuted. Place 
 had suffered personally from the tax. Directly after the 
 general election of 1832, Roebuck and he revived an old 
 plan of starting a penny weekly paper, with the awe- 
 inspiring title of the Political and Moral Magazine. 
 Place was to be editor, and offered to give to the work 
 six or seven hours a day. 
 
 " If I became editor," he writes to Roebuck, " I should 
 
 1 In January 1831 lie had published one of the best and most forcible 
 of his pamphlets, "A letter to a Minister of State respecting Taxes on 
 Knowledge," of which many thousands had been since distributed. 
 On June 15, 1832, Bulwer in the Commons moved for a Committee on 
 the subject. He made a long speech from notes provided by Place, and 
 Lord Althorp congratulated him on the industry which he had shown 
 in his investigation of the subject, and opposed his motion "entirely on 
 a financial ground." This debate was printed by the National Political 
 Union, with notes by Place. In 1833 Althorp mentioned the matter 
 in the Commons, but did nothing. In 1834 Lord Brougham gave 
 evidence before the Committee on Libel Law in favour of complete 
 repeal, which Place reprinted, and circulated 10,000 copies. (Place to 
 Ebenezer Elliott, July 9, 1834. See Repeal of the Stamp Duty, 
 Roebuck's pamphlet for December 1835, p. 8.) He wrote articles on 
 the subject for any paper which would take them, and his letter-books 
 contain a long series of indignant appeals to friends and strangers. 
 The great London dailies were against the abolition of the stamp as 
 likely to injure their monopoly, and on January 19, 1833, tne Times 
 printed on its leader page an abusive little paragraph against Place 
 (and by implication Lord Althorp) for a supposed plot to destroy its 
 circulation. Grote used to call the repeal of the stamp Place's 
 hobby. (Place to Hume, January 3, 1837.) 
 
 Y
 
 338 THE REFORMED PARLIAMENT 
 
 make a business of it, and I foresee that it would occupy 
 me six hours a day at the least. To enable me to bestow 
 so much time upon it I must use the mornings for my own 
 affairs, and for such other persons and their affairs as I can- 
 not with justice abandon, to seeing such persons as I may 
 wish to see, or cannot refuse to see, and to taking exercise. 
 I must dine at three, and employ all the rest of the day on 
 the work, rigidly excluding everybody with the exception 
 of some half-a-dozen members of Parliament, whom, for 
 reasons obvious to you, I must admit at all times. ... If 
 I were willing to let the publication be of the ordinary 
 cast of vulgar politics, I might save half of the time, or 
 even more than half of the time, I have mentioned, but I 
 will not do these things. I think the publication may 
 be made a vehicle to promulgate the true principles of 
 politics, political economy and morals, with such practical 
 applications of these principles in so popular a way as to 
 command the attention and obtain the respect of men who 
 have cultivated understandings, and at the same time 
 please and instruct the working people to an extent which 
 for their own sakes may induce them to purchase it." 1 
 
 James Mill agreed with the project, and he, John Mill, 
 the Grotes, Charles Buller, W. J. Fox, Edwin Chadwick, 
 and others, were to write for it. The necessary funds were 
 provided, and there only remained the question of the 
 newspaper stamp. Warburton, the Vice-President of the 
 proposed company, tried to get Lord Althorp to promise 
 privately that if an assurance were given that no ' annoy- 
 ance of Ministers" were intended by the paper it should 
 not be prosecuted ; but Lord Althorp would give no 
 such promise, and on February 5, 1833, refused in answer 
 to a question in the House to pledge himself to a repeal 
 of the tax. The proposal, therefore, was abandoned. 
 " Ministers," wrote Place, " and men in power, with nearly 
 1 Place to Roebuck, December 27, 1832.
 
 THE REFORMED PARLIAMENT 339 
 
 the whole body of those who are rich, dread the conse- 
 quences of teaching the people more than they dread the 
 effect of then 1 ignorance." l 
 
 It may be feared that the life of the paper would in any 
 case have been short. The Political and Moral Magazine 
 might have been a treasure-house for the future historian, 
 it might have influenced those few working-men and 
 others who can be " induced to purchase papers for their 
 own sakes," that is to say, for the sake of their more serious 
 selves; but the general public would certainly have con- 
 tinued to read publications " of the ordinary cast of vulgar 
 politics." Yet because the Government had prevented 
 the experiment from being tried, the good that the paper 
 might have done grew yearly more important in Place's 
 mind. 
 
 A milder man, indeed, than Place might have lost 
 patience when, on May i, 1835, he received a letter from 
 Hume stating that it was his " wish not to do anything as 
 regards the tax upon newspapers until we know what is to 
 be done by the Ministers," and that meanwhile " any peti- 
 tions got up or stir made might not do good but harm if 
 Ministers really mean to repeal, of which we can have no 
 knowledge until they all return (from re-election)." 2 
 
 Place replied : " My dear Sir, Here comes probably the 
 last long political letter you will ever be called upon to read 
 of my writing. ... I do not in the least comprehend . . . 
 how you would come to the conclusion . . . that no one 
 should ' stir ' because ' we can have no knowledge, &c.' If 
 you had said we must stir because ' we can have no know- 
 ledge, &c.,' it would have been rational. I have lately 
 been congratulating myself that I no longer reside at 
 Charing Cross, and had nearly broken up my connection 
 
 1 MS. account of the " Society for the Diffusion of Political and Moral 
 Knowledge." 
 
 2 Hume to Place, April 24, 1835.
 
 340 THE REFORMED PARLIAMENT 
 
 with the dawdlers, and that with the exception of two or 
 three of my parliamentary friends I could now and then, 
 as I occasionally do, see others, and talk with them on any 
 subject, barring politics. If it were not that the people do 
 at times respond to a call made in the right way, I should 
 have given up all interference in public political matters, 
 hopeless of any good results. I shall now probably pursue 
 a course independently of parliamentary men as associated, 
 and I believe I can do more good without them than with 
 them. 
 
 " When did any Minister, either Whig or Tory, keep his 
 promise to you ? How often during more than twenty 
 years have you maintained and acted on the only sound 
 doctrine, that to accomplish any public purpose steady 
 perseverance was necessary at all times, and in all seasons, 
 in good report and in evil report ; and how much good you 
 have produced, how much evil you have prevented, no one 
 knows accurately, no, not even yourself." 
 
 He then reminds Hume of Lord Althorp's action in 
 1833: "We were cajoled, as men usually are who rely on 
 others and refrain from doing their duty to themselves. 
 Lord Althorp mentioned the subject in the House, but in 
 such a way as just to enable him to say, as he did say, as 
 any thorough-going Whig would have said, that he had 
 proposed the measure, but the House showed no particular 
 feeling on the subject, so he did not press it. There was 
 no particular feeling ; no, we had been stultified, and had 
 neglected the means necessary to produce a feeling. It 
 shall be no fault of name if any Minister ever has the 
 opportunity to repeat Lord Althorp's words. If Ministers 
 mean us honestly, they will encourage the people to show 
 themselves, and their desire for the repeal. If they 
 understood their own position, they would promote the 
 repeal promptly and vigorously. They would make it 
 matter of conscience, and not give the Tories a chance to-
 
 THE REFORMED PARLIAMENT 34.1 
 
 take the credit of doing it. I am persuaded that there is 
 as much chance of its being done by a Tory as by a 
 Whig administration, and I should greatly prefer a Tory 
 administration which would take off the duty, to a Whig 
 administration which would not take it oft'. Scarcely any 
 man in Parliament besides Lord Brougham appears to know 
 the actual value of the repeal. In a moral point of view it 
 is what Archimedes wanted to have in a physical point of 
 view, a place to stand upon, a fulcrum to move the world. 
 Do you recollect the fable of the wolves who wished the sheep 
 to send away the dogs ? If you do not, go and read it." l 
 
 Hume, though, like Bismarck's emperor, he required 
 winding up at intervals, still went steadily enough when 
 he was wound up, and took part in the deputation to 
 Spring Rice, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on May 8. 
 On this occasion " the Exchequer Chancellor told us," writes 
 Place, " as plainly as any courtier could do who did not use 
 the words, that we should never have the Stamp Duty 
 repealed as long as he had the power to prevent it." - 
 
 On March 30, 1835, the Report of the Municipal Corpora- 
 tions Commission was presented to Parliament. Place's 
 collection of manuscripts and materials on Municipal Cor- 
 porations has, unfortunately, been lost, but there is some 
 evidence that he helped his friend Joseph Parkes with the 
 preparation of the Report. Parkes, for instance, speaks of 
 having " inhabited " Place's library in Brompton Square 
 during May i834. 3 When the Report was presented the 
 
 1 Place to Hume, May 2, 1835. 
 
 2 Place to Hume, May 12, 1835. 
 
 3 Besides collecting books and papers on municipal corporations, 
 Place had occasionally concerned himself with the (juestion for some 
 years past. In 1830, for instance, he had drawn up for Hume a motion 
 for a return respecting city and borough corporations. In the letter in 
 which he forwarded a draft of the motion, he wrote of it as a " first 
 step" in the consideration of the subject, rendered necessary by the fact 
 that " no man has any knowledge of the municipal laws and customs of 
 nine out of ten corporations."
 
 342 THE REFORMED PARLIAMENT 
 
 Tories were still in office, but even the Whigs, when they 
 came in, showed no eagerness to act upon it. 
 
 In his angry letter to Hume of May 2., 1835, Place, after 
 dealing with the newspaper stamp question, proceeds : 
 " Then comes the Corporation Bill. Not a line of this Bill 
 has been penned, nor any plan been brought tinder con- 
 sideration. About a week hence it will begin to be taken 
 into consideration, and then come discussions, disputings, 
 writings, printings, revising, and then the matter must be 
 considered by another body. Then will commence the 
 drawing of a Bill to go through the same processes, and by 
 the end of July it may perchance be in Committee in the 
 House of Commons. That any Bill on this subject can 
 pass the House of Commons this session is out of all reason- 
 able expectation." 
 
 Against this passage Place writes a marginal note, dated 
 June 4, 1835 : "It was found that not to present a Bill as 
 early as could well be done was a risk Ministers could not 
 take, so one was drawn by some of the Commissioners and 
 the Secretary (Parkes), and it is to be presented to-morrow. 
 It is as good as they who drew it dared to make it. It will 
 be altered before presented." 
 
 On May 1 1 Place had written to Parkes saying : " There 
 is now a just complaint that no one interests himself as he 
 ought to do respecting municipal corporations," and enclos- 
 ing a statement of the " Principles upon which Municipal 
 Government ought to be founded." Parkes replied by pro- 
 posing that Place should edit a temporary shilling weekly 
 to appear during the remainder of the session, and to be 
 paid for, apparently, out of the party funds. 
 
 Place's statement of principles accordingly appeared on 
 June 5 (the day on which Lord John Russell introduced the 
 Bill) as part of the prospectus of the Municipal Corpora- 
 tion Reformer, a paper which was to be "a history of a 
 political measure second only in importance to the reforma-
 
 THE REFORMED PARLIAMENT 343 
 
 tion of Parliament." In the prospectus Place proposes 
 that each town should be governed by a single council of 
 thirteen to thirty-one members, elected annually by house- 
 hold suffrage and the ballot, for single member wards, 
 without property qualification or privileged aldermen. The 
 deliberations of these bodies were to be public, and detailed 
 administration was to be carried out by very small 
 responsible committees, who should be paid for their work, 
 membership of the council, as such, being unpaid. The 
 powers of the councils were to include the control of the 
 magistrates, police, and gaols, of paving, lighting, water, 
 markets, bridges, docks, harbours, sewers, &c., the making 
 of bye-laws, and the administration of all town property and 
 trusts for hospitals, schools, and charities. In his private 
 notes for June 1835 he writes that upwards of 60,000 
 copies of the prospectus of the Municipal Reformer have 
 been printed and distributed ; l and adds " a goodly mass of 
 republican notions these." On June 13 the Municipal 
 Corporation Reformer began to appear. Five numbers 
 only were published, the reason of this comparative failure 
 being, according to Place, that the " expected fierce opposi- 
 tion to the Bill " did not show itself, and that " people 
 relied on the House of Commons and gave themselves 
 little trouble about the proceedings." Perhaps the party 
 contributions to the expense of publishing may have been 
 checked by such incidents as Place's beginning the first 
 number with a detailed and damaging comparison in 
 parallel columns between his own proposals and the 
 Government Bill, and slipping into it a dig at his old 
 enemy, the ratepaying clauses of the Reform Bill. 
 
 On July 20 the Bill passed the House of Commons 
 almost unchanged. It soon, however, became clear that 
 
 1 See also an article by Place, entitled "The Peers and the People," 
 in Roebuck's Pamphlets for the People, August 29, 1835, where the 
 " principles" are reprinted, and the same statement is made.
 
 34-4 THE REFORMED PARLIAMENT 
 
 Lord Lyndhurst was organising a campaign against it 
 in the Lords. On August 2 Place writes: "Requested 
 to attend a meeting at the house of Mr. Parkes. The 
 Lords are expected to throw out the Corporation Bill. . . . 
 Wrote letter to Mr. Parkes, dated August 3. Copied by 
 Mr. Parkes, original sent to Lord Melbourne." l 
 
 In this letter he said: "You know that from the first 
 I did not expect that the Lords would pass the Municipal 
 Reform Bill. Now I conclude that every reasonable man 
 is of the same opinion. The Lords reason thus : ' We have 
 already lost more than one of the means we long possessed 
 of influencing the House of Commons. ... If we lose the 
 advantages which accrue to us from close corporations, 
 if we destroy the affinity between ourselves and these 
 boroughs, the people will be emboldened to proceed to 
 much greater lengths, and will gain power continually at 
 we lose it.' These are arguments which the silliest soul 
 that ever was a lord could understand, and they are acted 
 upon by a majority of the House of Lords.- ... It was 
 fear, not altogether ill-founded, which induced them to 
 agree to the Parliamentary Reform Bill. They see no 
 such pressing necessity now. They are not acted upon 
 by fear to the same extent, and they calculate upon the 
 imbecility of Ministers. It is this imbecility which I 
 too fear. If Ministers had obtained a character for 
 decision and sturdiness, the people would have shown 
 their determination to support them, and this would 
 have operated beneficially on the Lords. They are now 
 rapidly approaching what to them will appear a very 
 great difficulty, but which to more determined men 
 would appear to be no difficulty at all. Their course, if 
 
 1 Diary, August 1835. 
 
 2 Lord Lyndhurst, August 3, 1835, said in the House of Lords, " If 
 they (the Corporations) fell, the Church would come next, and the 
 hereditary peerage of the realm afterwards."
 
 THE REFORMED PARLIAMENT 345 
 
 they choose to take it, is very simple, and may be de- 
 scribed in very few words. They must demand of the 
 King that he should prorogue the Parliament for, say, five 
 days, and then hold a short session to pass the Bills. If 
 the King should refuse, the Ministers should at once 
 resign, and state in the two Houses the reason why. This 
 would convince the people that there was a body of 
 men deserving of public confidence, and to them they 
 would give it most heartily. . . . No Tory administration 
 could remain in office." l 
 
 The second reading in the Lords was carried, but Lord 
 Lyndhurst and the Tory majority transformed the Bill 
 beyond all recognition in Committee. Place, who was 
 confined to his room with sciatica, raged gloriously. 
 " The Lords," he wrote to Hume, August 30, " have 
 made a Bill which cannot be amended, a Bill which, how- 
 ever much it may be tinkered at, can never be made 
 acceptable to the nation, a Bill that will bring disgrace on 
 all who in the House of Commons may endeavour to make 
 it passable. . . . The preamble is quite enough. The 
 alterations made in the preamble are intentional insults, 
 and should be treated as such. . . . Collision with the 
 Lords cannot be avoided. They have placed you in 
 circumstances in which collision or disgrace, little short 
 of infamy, must be chosen." 
 
 " People," he wrote to Parkes on September 5, " silly, 
 puling people, aye, and those too who ought to know 
 better, are talking of ' revolutionary measures.' To oppose 
 Ministers is to promote violent, bloody revolution, plunder, 
 rape, and the devil knows what besides. . . . The drivellers, 
 and yet there is not a damned soul among them who does 
 not say the Lords must be reorganised. . . . Reorganise, 
 indeed ; pretty fellows these to be reorganises, they who 
 take a kick like dogs, wag their tails, and take another 
 1 Place to Parkes, August 3, 1835.
 
 346 THE REFORMED PARLIAMENT 
 
 kick. . . . Aye, aye, say you, but what if Billy [his Majesty 
 
 King William IV.] damned and ed his eyes as he 
 
 is apt to do, and refused to prorogue? What! why, a 
 little wholesome agitation like one of those thunder- 
 storms which purify the air, and do no harm to any one. 
 . . . Bloody revolution, indeed; no, no, there never can 
 be such a revolution as long as the people have confidence 
 hi the House of Commons. If we are ever to have a 
 bloody revolution, it must be from want of confidence in 
 the House of Commons." 
 
 Peel, in the Commons, refused to support the Lords' 
 amendments ; a compromise was arranged, and the Bill was 
 passed. 
 
 On September 30 Parkes wrote : " We have got on a stage, 
 and you, old postillion, well know it." "Yes," answered 
 Place on the same day, "and a good one; but recollect 
 that this was not the question, never was made the 
 question by me. The question was, Ought Ministers to 
 have put up with the kicking the Lords bestowed upon 
 them ? I say no ; the time was as critical as propitious for 
 them, and they ought to have turned upon their assailants. 
 The Lords will not be reformed, not they, but it is good 
 to make every one see that they must either be reformed 
 or abolished, that, whenever the time comes, the abolition, 
 cost what it may, may be perfect." 
 
 During the winter of 1835-36 Place worked for two 
 main objects: the reform of the Corporation of London, 
 which had been omitted in the Bill of 1835, an d 'the 
 abolition of the Newspaper Stamp. His diary for 
 December 1835 says, "Occupied in reading and com- 
 menting on Municipal Corporation Commissioners' inquiry 
 respecting London, with a view to obtaining further par- 
 ticulars, and framing a Bill for the City of London ; " and 
 for January 1836, "Continue reading, inquiring, and 
 writing in conjunction with Joseph Fletcher on London
 
 THE REFORMED PARLIAMENT 347 
 
 Corporation and the report of the Commissioners (the 
 proofs only)." 
 
 There is no sign that Place ever contemplated the 
 present unified government of the Metropolis, but side by 
 side with his work for the reform of the Vestries he had for 
 years past been preparing for an attack on the City. After 
 the passing of the Reform Bill in 1832 he refused to attend 
 the City banquet on the ground that " the whole of the 
 City government " was " a burlesque on the human under- 
 standing more contemptible than the most paltry farce 
 played in a booth at Bartholomew's Fair, and more mis- 
 chievous than any man living is prepared to believe." l 
 
 When his friend Alexander Galloway, engineer and 
 Common Councillor, protested against his refusal, and 
 ascribed it to his having listened to hearsay reports, Place 
 replied : " You know nothing about the information I 
 have, though you do know I endeavoured to procure 
 a good deal from you, and that you gave me very little. 
 You treat the Corporation property as if it were private 
 property. It is no such thing ; it is public property, only 
 applicable to public uses. I will say no more now. If 
 I can get aAvay from Charing Cross I will say what I 
 think should be said in print." 2 
 
 In November 1833, shortly after Parkes' appointment as 
 Secretary of the Municipal Corporation Commission, Place 
 wrote to him about " our corrupt, rotting, robbing, in- 
 famous Corporation of London " and the " Court of 
 Aldermen, old men no, old women, gossiping, guzzling, 
 drinking, cheating, old chandlers'-shop women, elected for 
 life." He then proceeded to propose his own plan of City 
 Government. He wanted a Common Council, consisting 
 of twenty-one members, elected by ballot for twenty-one 
 City wards. "But, says a member of the Common 
 Council more than one has said so to me what would 
 1 27,796 (55). 2 Place to A. Galloway, July 1 1, 1832.
 
 348 THE REFORMED PARLIAMENT 
 
 you do for Committees ? Why this, make committees 
 of threes make commissioners pay them reasonably, 
 but let it be known that they are paid, and how much they 
 are paid, and report the work they have done for the 
 money. . . . Give the Mayor 1000 a year at the utmost, 
 and call him lord if you like it no shows, no parade, no 
 feasts, no fooleries. Let there be, say, seven aldermen 
 at 400 a year each, or a smaller sum to pay them for 
 their magisterial duties." Never was work more com- 
 pletely wasted than Place's efforts to reform the City. 
 The mysterious engines of City influences were brought 
 to bear upon the Government ; the Bill which had been 
 promised for 1836 never appeared, and the proof report 
 was never even printed. 
 
 Meanwhile the question of the Newspaper Stamp was 
 becoming so urgent that not even Lord Melbourne's 
 Government could let it alone. Every month the un- 
 stamped newspapers increased their sale, and the Govern- 
 ment increased its severity. Between 1830 and 1836 
 there were 728 prosecutions for selling unstamped papers, 
 219 of which were in 1835, and a still larger proportion 
 in the first two months of I836. 1 Hetherington, the pro- 
 prietor of the Poor Man's Guardian, was hiding to avoid 
 arrest; and Cleave, the editor of the unstamped Cleaves 
 Gazette, was in prison until he could pay .600 penalties, 
 as well as heavy costs. 2 
 
 In January 1836 Place revived a scheme of the year 
 before for agitation by correspondence against the stamp. 
 A ground-floor room in Leicester Square was taken, and 
 there Place's friend, Dr. Black, 3 and a few working-men 
 volunteers used to spend their evenings addressing 
 
 1 Hume's speech at the deputation to Lord Melbourne, February n, 
 1836. 2 Ibid. 
 
 3 Dr James Roberts Black of Kentucky, a cadaverous American, 
 who had come to London in 1834. He cherished a vague project of
 
 THE REFORMED PARLIAMENT 349 
 
 circulars, answering letters, and organising petitions. 
 " There were no paid clerks, no messengers, no adver- 
 tising in newspapers, no public meetings, yet a corre- 
 spondence was opened with very nearly 3000 respectable 
 persons who were distributed all over the country." l 
 
 Roebuck was meanwhile evading the law by publish- 
 ing a weekly undated pamphlet, written by himself, Place, 
 and others, which at one time had a sale of io,ooo. 2 On 
 February 1 1 a deputation saw Lord Melbourne at the 
 Treasury, and Dr. Birkbeck, Hume, Place, and others 
 made long speeches against the tax. Place's great fear 
 was that the Government, with the Whig instinct for 
 slipshod compromise, would lower the stamp instead of 
 abolishing it. 
 
 On March 1 5 Spring Rice, on behalf of the Government, 
 brought forward exactly the scheme which Place had 
 feared. He proposed to deal with stamp duties of all 
 kinds by a long consolidating Act, a clause of which was 
 to lower the newspaper stamp from fourpence to a penny. 
 At the same time the law against unstamped publications 
 was to be made much more stringent, and was to apply 
 to pamphlets as well as newspapers. 
 
 Against these proposals Place for the next five months 
 kept up a dogged contest, writing and publishing three 
 pamphlets in March and April, supplying Wakley and 
 Duncombe with notes for their speeches, and trying in 
 vain to stir Hume into vigorous opposition. He was 
 convinced that the Bill would diminish rather than in- 
 
 establishing working-men's educational associations. He became 
 Place's constant disciple and follower. Place's grandchildren still 
 remember his visits, and the stern tones in which he used to be re- 
 proved for spitting into the fender. 
 
 1 27,819(26). 
 
 2 See the pamphlets in British Museum. They contain some of 
 Place's best journalistic work. For the figures as to the circulation, 
 see "James Mill : a Biography," by Alexander Bain, p. 398.
 
 35.) THK REFORMED PARLIAMENT 
 
 crease the opportunities of obtaining information open to 
 the working classes. The penny unstamped papers had 
 succeeded in spite of the law in acquiring a large circulation, 
 Spring Rice himself stated that one paper which had been 
 seized before publication was found to be printing forty 
 thousand copies a week. 1 The new law would put a stop 
 to all this, and while the rich men's sevenpenny paper 
 would be reduced to fourpence-halfpenny or tivepence, 
 the poor man's penny paper would be raised from one 
 penny to twopence-halfpenny. 2 But the Government, 
 though they dropped the stamp on pamphlets, kept to 
 the rest of their proposals, and their Bill was accepted as 
 a settlement of the question. It was not till 1855 that 
 the penny stamp was abolished, and only with the repeal 
 of the advertisement duty in 1853, and the paper duty in 
 1 86 1, that Taxes on Knowledge ceased, and a penny daily 
 press became possible in England. 
 
 In 1 836 nearly the whole Parliamentary session was spent 
 on an Irish Municipal Bill, which was thrown out by the 
 Lords and abandoned by the Ministry. Lord Melbourne 
 remained in office for five more years, and did not retire 
 until he had finally exhausted any political good- will Avhich 
 still attached to the name of Whig. His lordship's personal 
 comfort during those years was possibly increased by the 
 fact that Place, after 1836, definitely gave up his work 
 as parliamentary " postillion." " When Fox coalesced with 
 North," he wrote to Roebuck in October 1836, " it produced 
 much the same result as the coalition of Whigs and 
 Radicals is now producing. It made the people distrust 
 all public men, it put an end to their meetings and their 
 efforts to procure a reform of the House of Commons, 
 and this state continued for eight years, when the French 
 Revolution again roused them and brought them into 
 
 1 Hansard, June 20, 1836. 
 
 Letter to Hobhouse, August 10, 1836.
 
 THE REFORMED PARLIAMENT 351 
 
 action. . . . Had the House acted properly, had the 
 Reformers acted sensibly and boldly, no one can tell what 
 beneficial changes might have been effected, . . . and why 
 have not these things been done ? Why, but because 
 Ministers must be kept in their places ; the live lumber, 
 Lord John and Lord Melbourne, and Spring Rice and 
 John Hobhouse, and Glenelg, &c., must not be removed." l 
 
 He always believed that the Radicals in the House, if 
 they had shown anything like courage, would have crys- 
 tallised round themselves the growing popular discontent. 
 "Had he at that time (1835) taken the position he ought 
 to have taken," Place wrote of Hume in 1 840, " he would 
 soon have been joined by others ; but even if he had stood 
 alone for a time, scolded at by Lord John and Lord the 
 Devil and all his imps, ... he would long ere this have 
 become emphatically the people's man, instead of being as 
 he is now, next to nothing in their estimation." 2 
 
 Or again, "A. man in our House of Commons should 
 never compromise. He should always be ready to take 
 whatever he could get. but always under protest, always 
 as a move forwards towards the attainment of the large 
 reform he contemplated, and he should be careful to make 
 the public understand what he intended." 
 
 For a moment in 1836 Place even wished that he was 
 in the House. " Vanity apart," he wrote to Roebuck, " or 
 vanity indulged, I care not which, but I do believe that 
 were I in the House, you and I could, aye, and would, do 
 much of what ought to be done, though we should be both 
 bitterly hated despised we could not be but the hatred 
 even would not last beyond a session or two." 3 
 
 John Stuart Mill wrote to Place in February 1837, urging 
 him not to " hibernate." Place retorted by declaring, " I 
 
 1 Place to Roebuck, October 3, 1836. 
 
 2 Place to Roebuck, December 23, 1840. 
 
 3 Place to Roebuck, October 3, 1836.
 
 352 THE REFORMED PARLIAMENT 
 
 have no present inclination to waste my time with men 
 who are infirm of purpose,. ;and worry myself to no useful 
 purpose." Mill himself was still of an age and inclination 
 to hope for something even of Lord Melbourne; and in 
 writing to Fonblanque, said of this letter, " I shall keep 
 it as a rnemorial_of the spiritless, heartless, imbecility of 
 the English : Radicals." 1 
 
 1 See John Stuart Mill : " Notices of his Life and Works," reprinted 
 from the Examiner (London, 1873), P- *>
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 CHARTISM 
 
 DURING the Reform agitation Place had noticed that 
 many working-men in London and Lancashire opposed 
 the Bill on the ground that it would strengthen the 
 position of their employers, and that the interest of their 
 employers was necessarily opposed to their own. 1 They 
 believed that, under the conditions of modern industry, 
 the capitalist was enabled in the process of buying labour 
 and selling commodities to retain a huge proportion of the 
 value which labour produced. The clearness of this con- 
 ception varied, of course, from the definite economic creed 
 of those who had been the personal disciples of Owen or 
 Hodgskin, to the conviction which Bronterre O'Brien 
 inspired in the readers of the Poor Mans Guardian, 
 that somehow science was on their side, or the vague 
 feeling of the factory hands that others were growing 
 unjustly rich at their expense. 
 
 In the disappointment which followed the passing of 
 the Reform Bill this doctrine spread rapidly, and soon 
 came to form part of the content of the new word 
 " socialism." 2 To its influence were mainly due the two 
 
 1 See p. . 
 
 2 Perhaps the earliest recorded use of this term is in the Poor Man's 
 Guardian for August 24, 1833, where a letter appears signed "A 
 Socialist." At first it seems to have meant little more than " Owenite," 
 and the transition to a more general meaning may be seen in a remark 
 of Bronterre O'Brien in the Northern Star, June 23, 1838. "If I mis- 
 
 2 
 
 863
 
 354 CHARTISM 
 
 most dramatic events of English working-class history 
 the Grand National Trades Union of 1833-34, and the 
 Chartist movement of 1837-39. 
 
 John Doherty 1 had been preaching since 1829, that all 
 the trade unions should be combined in one national 
 federation, which could be used to secure to the workmen 
 the whole product of their labour. In 1833 hi s scheme 
 was adopted by almost all the existing working-class 
 organisations. Robert Owen and John Fielden 2 threw 
 themselves into the movement, which within a feAv months 
 enrolled half a million members, and Fielden suggested 
 that the campaign should be opened by a general strike 
 for an eight hours' day on March i, i834. 3 
 
 Lord Melbourne had been anxiously watching the trade 
 unions ever since he became Home Secretary, and in August 
 1833 h issued a solemn warning as to the "criminal 
 character and evil effects" of the new federation. On 
 November 4 Joseph Parkes wrote to Place, and offered 
 on behalf of the Government to print and circulate a 
 pamphlet if Place would write it, giving " a brief, plain 
 exposition of the doctrine of wages, an epitome of the 
 repealed and present law of combination, and advice to 
 the working classes." 4 Place answered, " If I were sure 
 that I should not be losing my time I would write such a 
 paper, but then I should be for doing the workmen the 
 justice which no one seems to like to have done, and would 
 
 take not, all the more intelligent Socialists are becoming Radicals, and 
 all the more intelligent Radicals are becoming Socialists. . . ." Place, 
 writing in 1841, says that the people are misled " by notions of equality 
 in respect to property, and by the doctrines promulgated by Robert 
 Owen, now known under the name of Socialism." 27,519 (5). 
 
 1 See p. 265. 
 
 2 John Fielden (1784-1849), the Radical M.P. for Oldham, and 
 supporter of the Ten Hours Bill. 
 
 3 For the whole movement, see Webb, " History of Trade Unionism/' 
 chapter iii. 
 
 4 Parkes to Place, November 4, 1833.
 
 CHARTISM fJ55 
 
 not assist to promulgate." l A month later Place wrote 
 to Parkes complaining that the factory commissioner 
 Tumell had treated the subject in "The Companion to 
 the Newspaper " purely from the master's point of view.' 2 
 and Parkes in replying again urged him to write. 3 
 
 Meanwhile the " Grand National Trades Union " was 
 growing daily, and the Government, Place was told, were 
 considering a Bill to double the penalties in the Combina- 
 tion Law of 1825. Place wrote instantly to Tom Young, 4 
 urging Lord Melbourne to give up this " worse than absurd 
 proposal," stating that he was '' even now carrying on a 
 correspondence with some members of the committee at 
 Manchester, to whom I speak as plainly as possible," and 
 promising to write " one or more addresses to the workmen 
 when their present foolish project has failed, as it soon will 
 fail, and when they, in consequence of its failure, will bo 
 disposed to attend to what may he written to them." 5 
 His prophecy seemed likely to be fulfilled almost at once. 
 The funds of the " Grand National " were wasted in a series 
 of sectional strikes which the executive were powerless to 
 prevent, and the great eight hours' strike ordered for March i 
 Avas hardly attempted. The movement was already mori- 
 bund when, on March 1 7, six agricultural labourers from a 
 little village near Dorchester were sentenced to the out- 
 rageous punishment of seven years' transportation for 
 " administering illegal oaths " while forming a branch of 
 the Grand National. Immediately the whole agitation 
 revived, and a middle-class member of the Manchester 
 Executive wrote to Place " (7 ira, Ministers have furnished 
 
 1 Place to Parkes, November 8, 1833. 
 
 2 Place to Parkes, December 7, 1833. 
 
 3 Parkes said that he had sent Place's letter to Miss Harriet Martineau, 
 \vlio, as well as Place and Tufnell, seems to have been approached by 
 the Home Office. 
 
 4 See p. 303. 
 
 6 Place to T. Young, January 8, 1834.
 
 JJ56 CHARTISM 
 
 the stimulus. Wo were very near the condition you 
 predicted we should be in. We are now upon our legs 
 again." l Things looked so formidable that Place deter- 
 mined to write at once. He accordingly produced early in 
 April two essays, one the examination of a chairman's 
 speech at the Birmingham meeting held to protest against 
 the Dorchester sentences, and the other entitled "Trades 
 Unions (i.e. Federations of Trades) condemned, Trades 
 Clubs justified." These essays, with two others, " Trade 
 Clubs, Strikes, Wages," and "Trades Unions and Trade 
 Clubs of various kinds compared," were too impartial, 
 and perhaps too long, for the purposes of the Government. 
 Parkes did not publish them, and they still remain in 
 manuscript. 2 
 
 On April 21 the London working-men made a huge 
 procession to the Home Office on behalf of the Dorchester 
 labourers, which is the only incident of trade unionism 
 before 1867 that has penetrated into the history books. 
 Place was in constant communication with members of 
 the London committee, explaining the law relating to 
 petitions, and trying to prevent them from breaking it. 
 On the morning of the demonstration he wrote to Parkes, 
 urging the Government to let the processionists alone. 
 " There will be an immense assemblage of people, but 
 of they be let alone and no displays of a provocating 
 nature be made against them, all will go off quietly." 3 
 " The people," he said a few days before the procession, 
 " would go through the job they had set themselves, and 
 when completely fatigued, as they would be by four or 
 five o'clock in the afternoon, they would go home." * At 
 the same time, he gave his own opinion of the conduct 
 
 1 See Place to Parkes, April 21, 1834. 
 
 2 They make up the volume 27,834. 
 
 3 Place to Parkes, April 21, 1834. 
 * Loose MS., dated April 1834.
 
 CHARTISM 357 
 
 of the Ministers. " Had the sentence," he wrote, " been 
 passed on the Dorchester labourers and then remitted, 
 had a proclamation been issued [as he had urged immedi- 
 ately after the sentence] declaring the law, and the deter- 
 mination to enforce it, been made, an end would have 
 been put to all the Unions. But the fact is, and it is 
 useless to conceal it, our Ministers have no energy in 
 any case except against the common people." l The 
 Government did let the procession alone, and on the 
 next day Lord Melbourne consented to receive a small 
 deputation on behalf of the trades. Tom Young after- 
 wards reported that the Cabinet decided to carry out 
 the sentence, "lest it should be inferred that they had 
 remitted it through fear ; " and when Brougham, four years 
 later, was accused by Place of this " narrow-minded coward- 
 ice," he admitted that the charge was true. 2 
 
 The law was not changed, but Place had the greatest 
 difficulty in keeping the Government from active adminis- 
 trative interference on the side of the masters in the strikes 
 which occurred in and near London. " The men." he says 
 "working at the gasworks in Westminster struck for an 
 increase of wages, and the chairmen or secretaries of the 
 several companies went to Lord Melbourne, the Home 
 Secretary, and made complaints which the Secretary with 
 singular folly was disposed to entertain ; but a gentleman 
 from his office came to me, and I advised him seriously to 
 send away all complainants in such cases with a recom- 
 mendation to exert themselves in their own concerns. I 
 convinced him that if the Home Secretary was silly enough 
 to interpose in such matters, his time would be wholly 
 occupied with the complaints of, and deputations from. 
 
 1 Place to Parkcs, April 21, 1834. 
 
 2 Note in loose MS., dated April 1834. The sentence was remitted 
 in 1836, and the men brought back in 1838. .^ee Webb, "History of 
 Trade Unionism," p. 133.
 
 .'358 CHARTISM 
 
 masters and men." l This last argument was likely to 
 tippeal strongly to a man of Lord Melbourne's tempera- 
 ment, and at the same time, as far as his lordship had 
 any principle, he probably did believe in Ifiiwer faire. 
 The gas directors Avcro therefore sent away empty. The 
 master coopers were at first more fortunate; their men 
 had struck against a new scale of piece-work by which 
 wages were seriously reduced, and Sir James Graham, 
 the First Lord of the Admiralty, "ordered the journeymen 
 who were employed by Government at the Victualling 
 Office, Deptforcl, to make casks for the masters, and per- 
 mitted the masters to circulate a notice that the trade 
 might be supplied with casks from his Majesty's Victualling 
 Office." 2 
 
 Place set up Hume to question the Government. A 
 long debate ensued on March 13, 1834, in which Sir 
 James Graham expressed his opinion that the repeal of 
 the Combination Laws in 1824 had been "questionable 
 in theory, and in point of practical prudence extremely 
 doubtful," but promised to discontinue his interference. 
 On November 14 the London Block Coopers, with an 
 unusual impulse of gratitude, wrote to Place, stating their 
 intention of calling the next Sunday morning to present 
 him with a " Model of a Brewhouse Butt " as a " mark of 
 respect for . . . the assistance you gave them during their 
 late strike." 3 
 
 By that time the " Grand National " was broken up, the 
 " rights of industry men " were defeated, and trade 
 unionism had received a set back, the effects of which 
 were felt for the next ten years. Place enforced his view 
 of the moral upon the sore and beaten Manchester Com- 
 mittee with a plainness of speech which in spite of his 
 
 1 Loose MS., dated April 24. 
 
 2 Ibid. 
 
 3 Family autograph book.
 
 CHARTISM 359 
 
 evident sincerity and good-will must have been very hard 
 to bear. " You will recollect," he writes to James Turner 
 of Manchester on October 19, 1834, "that when the 
 scheme was first set on foot to reduce the hours of 
 working from twelve to eight, retaining the twelve hours' 
 pay, I told you that the scheme would fail, and I told you 
 why it would fail, and nothing be done. You know how 
 it did fail, and nothing was done. Here again I shall be 
 told that if the working people had held together the 
 scheme would have been carried into effect. Aye, to be 
 sure it would ; but this was not at all likely, not at all 
 possible. The working people never did agree on any one 
 subject, and no man in his senses can expect that even 
 a twentieth part of them are at all likely to concur in 
 anything which requires time for its accomplishment. 
 The working people could, if they chose, establish a purely 
 representative government on the ist of March next, and 
 it is just as likely they will do so as it was that they would 
 demand eight hours' work and twelve hours' pay on the 
 i st of March last." 
 
 Trade unionism as a means of securing social equality 
 was now discredited, but the causes which had produced 
 the " Grand National " were still active, and any pro- 
 posal which offered a chance of successful revolution was 
 certain of working-class support. Such a proposal was 
 drafted in the year 1838 by Place himself, under the 
 name of the " People's Charter," and issued by the 
 Working - Men's Association, the leading members of 
 which were Place's own disciples. In 1835 and 1836 
 Place and his friend, Dr. J. K. Black, had induced 
 William Lovett and a few other members of the defunct 
 National Union of the Working Classes to help in the 
 agitation against the newspaper stamp. 1 In 1836 the 
 stamp had been reduced to a penny by a settlement 
 1 See p. 348.
 
 360 CHARTISM 
 
 which it seemed to be impossible to upset for some time 
 to come, and Black, whose main idea had always been the 
 formation of mutual instruction classes, induced Lovett 
 to start the "Working-Men's Association for benefiting 
 politically, morally, and socially the useful classes." Place 
 suggested that the new association should hold conversa- 
 tion meetings on the lines of those which the more 
 thoughtful members of the London Corresponding Society 
 had held forty years earlier. His idea was accepted, and 
 the meetings were held from half-past ten till one o'clock 
 at Lovett's coffee-house in Gray's Inn Road every Sunday 
 morning for the first six months of 1837. Of the dis- 
 cussions at these meetings Place always spoke with warm 
 admiration. After the first he wrote to Colonel Perronet 
 Thompson, " You should have been with us this morning. 
 It was remarked by Chapman, and I assent to it, that he 
 never in his life heard so much sense and so little non- 
 sense among so many people in the same time." l 
 
 The subject discussed on that day was "Will Free 
 Trade reduce wages ? " The slips of paper on which Place 
 made the notes for his own speech, and took down the 
 points of his opponents, are still preserved. 2 They contain 
 a singularly compact summary of the three main forms of 
 
 1 Place to Thompson, January 8, 1837. 
 
 2 The notes are as follows : 
 
 " (Place.) No wages if no capital ; certain number of capitalists ; 
 ditto labourers. Increase of labourers ; none of capital ; wages fall. 
 Increase of cap(ital) ; none of lab(ourers) ; wages rise. Increase of 
 both ; wages remain. Inevitable in periods of, say, ten years. Master 
 cannot reduce wages unless pop(ulation), &c. Cannot prevent increase 
 of pop(ulation). Masters strike ; men strike ; undersell one another. 
 Unions, is. general unions of all trades, cannot do any good. Trade 
 societies may ; can only impede, not prevent, fall of wages ; always 
 weak when trade bad, and vice versa. Produce dividend : (i) Kent, 
 (2) Wages, (3) Profit; cannot be otherwise ; no capital, no wages. No 
 w;iges, no produce. 
 
 " (Owen.) We can support all Europe. Lose our time in discussing 
 these subjects. Question, is there knowledge enough among the
 
 CHARTISM 361 
 
 economic analysis which during the nineteenth century 
 have been presented as political creeds. Place gives the 
 " classical " political economy of mid-century Liberalism, 
 Robert Owen the voluntary communism of Proudhon and 
 Bakounin, and Lovett the " iron law " on which Marx and 
 Lassalle based their social democracy. 
 
 The six or seven leading members of the Working-Men's 
 Association formed an able and fairly homogeneous group. 
 Most of them had left the bench, and were living as news- 
 dealers, journalists, small shopkeepers, or paid officials. 
 Eight or nine years of agitation had made them good 
 speakers and organisers. In those years the freshness had 
 worn off their socialist faith, and some of them were near 
 the time when they would be even unduly dominated by 
 the " political economists " whom they had begun by 
 hating. 1 They genuinely liked and respected Place, and 
 years afterwards Lovett wrote of the " clear-headed and 
 warm-hearted old gentleman," 2 who helped and taught 
 them. 
 
 Among these men Place found not only a new oppor- 
 tunity of influence, but consolation for the weariness and 
 disgust which had made him abandon Parliamentary 
 politics. The good of the working-men had always been 
 the first object of his life, but since his return to politics in 
 1 807, his method of action had brought him into perpetual 
 conflict with the impatience and resentment of working- 
 class feeling. He had toiled as the schoolmaster toils for 
 his pupils, without much hope of gratitude, or even of 
 
 working people to put an end to all our institutions? Until equality 
 none done. Equality more easy than any other change. 
 
 " (Lovett.) People would contend for a better state if they had more 
 political power ; . . . Corn Laws ; agricultural labourers would come 
 in competition with manufactures and reduce wages. Reduction 
 would be spem, abroad. Living on potatoes, would still be fed upon 
 potatoes." [27,319 (259-263)]. 
 
 1 See p. 273. 
 
 2 " The Life and Struggles of William Lovett" (London, 1876), p. 164.
 
 CHARTISM 
 
 understanding. Now, however, a changed note shows 
 itself in his correspondence with Lovett, Vincent, Cleave, 
 and the rest. He is as far as ever from sharing their 
 socialist ideas. But it is as men fighting against his own 
 enemies, and discouraged by his own disappointments, that 
 he thinks of them, and not as the impersonal objects of 
 his work. Just at the time when John Stuart Mill wrote of 
 him as an example of "spiritless and heartless imbecility," l 
 Place was sending a letter of comfort to William Lovett. 
 It is a strange sort of comfort, and illustrates well that 
 close-lipped stoicism which the " greatest happiness prin- 
 ciple " Avas apt to develop among its sterner adherents. 
 
 "January 12, 1837. There is a tone of melancholy in your note 
 which I have sometimes observed in your manner. I have the greatest 
 possible regard for you, and you can hardly sufficiently appreciate the 
 pleasure I should receive at observing that you were happy. I conclude 
 that your disposition towards despondency arises from two causes (i) 
 your health not being robust ; (2) that you dwell too much on the mis- 
 fortunes and miseries of your fellow-men. 
 
 " Now, I have seen as many changes as most men, and have [known] 
 the extremes of poverty, but I never have been melancholy, never 
 despaired, never was really unhappy during twelve consecutive hours, 
 and I will tell you why. When I was very young I was persuaded to 
 believe that 'this was the best of all possible worlds.' I found it a very 
 bad one. I did my best to mend it, as we are both now doing. What, 
 then, is the real difference between us ? This you look on the dark 
 side of the picture, I on the bright one. Your anticipations of the 
 future are gloomy, mine are the reverse. You lament the past, and 
 suH'er the recollections it produces to distress you. I take the past and 
 comparing it with the present see an immense change for the better. I 
 see that this and many other countries cannot be used as they were wont 
 to be used in former times, that they are much further removed from 
 the state of mere animals than they were, and that the sum of happiness 
 is much greater than it was ; and hence I infer that it will continue to 
 increase. The process will be slow, very slow, and probably one of 
 iluctuation, but ever advancing. This it is which consoles me. This 
 it was and is that determined me and determines me to be cheerful, 
 and not to permit myself to be depressed, and to annoy myself with 
 matters which 1 can neither prevent nor mitigate. 
 
 " I never go out, however, without seeing poverty and ignorance, and 
 
 : See p. 352.
 
 CHARTISM 363 
 
 am constantly obliged to shake off tlie uneasy feelings these produce, 
 Jest I should become a misanthrope. You and I and all such men are 
 apt to value mankind too highly, but riot equally so. 1 n proportion as 
 this notion prevails will be our uneasiness. Look at mankind, calmly, 
 rationally, as they are ; see the naked savages ; see the ferocious Malays, 
 the murderous Ladrones, and ask yourself what is man as Nature made 
 him I Is he so far above a wild beast as that we should be unhappy 
 on his account? Look from these through all gradations and see what 
 he really is, see what a creature of prejudice, bad passions, and ignor- 
 ance he is. See what a mass of meanness and roguery prevails among 
 all, even among those who are the most cultivated. Look at those 
 who are not compelled to work with their own hands for their 
 maintenance, and see the vile, degrading notions and practices of 
 this class. Look to those who are able to maintain themselves with- 
 out any kind of employment ; look to the rich, the titled, the proud, 
 conceited aristocracy ; look at any and all of them as classes, and 
 nowhere will you find mankind such as you and I would wish to see 
 them. Oh no : it is a picture which in its details is so detestable, so 
 utterly repugnant to my notions, that had I not been convinced that 
 'this is the best of all possible worlds,' bad as it is, I would have left it 
 many years ago. I settled the question with myself thus, and I advise 
 you to follow my example, since it will make you happier, and enable 
 you to increase the happiness of others. I resolved that nothing I saw, 
 nothing I read, nothing I heard, should make me unhappy. 1 should 
 have added nothing I suffered that I would be cheerful. I saw that 
 to better the condition of others to any considerable extent was a long 
 uphill piece of work, that my best efforts would produce very little 
 effect. But I saw very distinctly that I could do nothing better, noth- 
 ing indeed half so good. This made me go on steadily, and kept me as 
 steadily to my resolve not to be unhappy, let whatever might come. 
 
 "Now, Lovett, if every one could be persuaded to think thus, and to 
 act thus, the really unhappy would be but few ; and this after all is the 
 great lesson to inculcate. Every one who learned it would have his 
 energy and his means to do good greatly increased. Yours truly, 
 
 "FRANCIS PLACE.'' 
 
 As Place's gospel of cheerfulness ends on a note of 
 patient despair, so Lovett's answering apology for his 
 melancholy is really an assertion of optimism. Lovett had 
 at that time in his socialism what Place could not rind in 
 his Malthnsian economics, a universal remedy for all suffer- 
 ing and all wrong. 
 
 'January 16, 1837. DEAR SIR, lam fully sensible of your kind- 
 ness towards me, and if more powerful circumstances did not control my 
 desire to avoid looking on the dark side of the picture, I might profit
 
 364 CHARTISM 
 
 by your kind advice and resolve to be free from cares and apprehensions. 
 But you know, sir, that our feelings depend on our internal structure, 
 influenced by the external world ; and that our philosophy is not always 
 master of the one, nor possesses an absolute command over the other. 
 A highly favourable organisation may have done much for you in this 
 respect ; especially as you had your difficulties to encounter in the 
 midst of youth and vigour, and now, contemplating the difficulties you 
 have braved, in the enjoyment of the rewards of your labour, having no 
 apprehension for the future, possessing your own comfortable home, and 
 surrounded with your friends, you think the course you have pursued 
 may be followed with advantage by others. Youth and vigour of body 
 give us great power to cope with difficulties, and when success attends 
 our exertions a corresponding state of mind gives us still greater energy 
 to master them. But when youth, and strength, and flow of spirits 
 have been wasted in unrequited toil and poverty, and when after years 
 ot great physical and mental exertions, after a life of sobriety and 
 industry, you find yourself losing your physical energies (so necessary 
 for those who have to depend on their labour), and getting more and 
 more involved in difficulties inextricable, and having the cares of a 
 family in whose welfare is your highest hope, you need not be surprised 
 if my tone and manner correspond with my situation. Perhaps the 
 scenes I have had to encounter in my journey may have increased my 
 sympathies for my fellow-men ; and while I believe with you that this 
 is the best world of which I have any hope, yet when I feel conscious 
 of how much could be done to make it a comparative paradise of happi- 
 ness, instead of the hell of toil, of poverty, and crime we find it, I can- 
 not help lamenting that the wise and intelligent few do not carry their 
 views of reformation beyond making comfortable slaves of the many to 
 pamper and support the few. 
 
 "True it is that Nature, by casting the savage in the midst of the 
 forest to contend with wolves and tigers for a subsistence has rendered 
 him scarcely superior to the animals of his prey ; yet when we take 
 into account that she has also bestowed faculties on him which have 
 gradually raised him up to subdue all existence to his purposes, and 
 built up that empire of mind which has turned the waste of oaks 
 and acorns into a blooming garden (and still but in the infancy of its 
 culture) ; and when we see that in proportion to the development of 
 intellect, so are the feelings of sympathy, affection, and friendship, and 
 are the passions of love heightened by a thousand enjoyments, who does 
 not sigh for the extension of knowledge unalloyed by the withering 
 blasts of toiling poverty ? You have drawn a faithful picture of the 
 evils attendant on the different classes we find in this country. These 
 evils, I think, may be fairly traced to the circumstances and constitu- 
 tion of society, and not to the organisation of man. What other feel- 
 ings can you expect than those of slavish and cringing servility, blended 
 with a lust for mere animal enjoyments, from those who are taught to 
 believe themselves born to toil, and to obtain which they must bend cap
 
 CHARTISM 365 
 
 in hand to a being who, not a whit better than themselves, must bend 
 again to the class above him. What can l>e expected from those whose 
 sole occupation and attention are engrossed from youth to age in buying 
 and selling, cheating and swindling, their fellow-men, in order to amass 
 wealth which their habits and feelings preclude them from enjoying? 
 Strong indeed must be the mental energy and moral feeling of the few 
 who brave the contagious influences of such pursuits and escape with 
 the philosophy of enjoyment. From your fellow-citizen, 
 
 "WILLIAM LOVETT." 
 
 But a few months after the formation of the Working- 
 Men's Association the leaders found themselves too busy 
 to write long letters on the causes of human happiness, 
 or to spend their Sunday mornings in academic dis- 
 cussions. The Association had from the beginning pro- 
 fessed political as well as educational objects, and in 
 February 1837 its political programme was defined at a 
 meeting in the Crown and Anchor Tavern. This consisted 
 of the famous " six points " universal l suffrage, the ballot, 
 payment of members, annual parliaments, equal electoral 
 districts, and abolition of the property qualification for 
 Parliament which together had formed Major Cartwright's 
 plan of Radical reform as early as 1776, and had been ever 
 since closely connected with the word Radicalism. 
 
 The Radicals in Parliament approached the new body, 
 and on May 31, 1837, a private meeting was held between 
 thirteen members of Parliament and about sixty members 
 of the Association. Eleven members signed the six points, 
 and a committee was appointed to draft a comprehensive 
 Bill, to be called " The People's Charter." 2 " None of the 
 members of Parliament," says Place, "gave himself any 
 further concern respecting the Bill they agreed to draw." 3 
 
 1 i.e. manhood. 
 
 - 27,819(57-220). 
 
 3 The working-men on the committee were Henry Hetherington, 
 John Cleave, James Watson, Richard Moore, William Lovett, Henry 
 Vincent. See the list of the founders of the National Union of the 
 Working Classes, p. 272.
 
 366 CHARTISM 
 
 This action of the Association coincided with a sudden 
 revival of working-class interest in politics throughout the 
 country. The comparative prosperity which had pre- 
 vailed since 1832 was succeeded by a depression of trade 
 in 1836-37, and " Working - Men's Associations" with 
 vaguely revolutionary objects appeared spontaneously in 
 many provincial towns. 1 In August, Henry Vincent and 
 John Cleave, their two best speakers, went on a lecturing 
 tour in the north of England, and founded branches. 
 Early in October, Lovett, their best Avriter, published a 
 singularly eloquent and pathetic Address to the Working 
 Classes.- Place made Hume give him three hundred 
 "franks," and by these and other means, sent copies of 
 the Address from one end of the country to the other. 
 
 In the early autumn there was a general election 
 on the occasion of the Queen's accession, at which the 
 Radical party in Parliament was almost annihilated ; and 
 in November, Lord John Russell made that declaration of 
 contentment with the Reform Bill of 1832, Avhich earned 
 him the nickname of " Finality Jack," and completed the 
 alienation of the Reformers from the Whigs. In the 
 same month Feargus O'Connor, already well known as the 
 most effective mob orator of his time, began to publish 
 the Northern Star at Leeds, and to join advocacy of the 
 " live points of Radicalism " to furious abuse of the Xew 
 Poor-Law. In December, Attwood and the " currency 
 men " of Birmingham revived the Birmingham Political 
 Union 3 on the basis of universal suffrage. By the spring 
 of 1838 a formidable popular movement had already 
 
 1 Place says that the Working-Men's Association had at one time 
 150 branches. See Place to Hume, December 19, 1839 (in "Auto- 
 biography" 1 . 
 
 ' 2 27,819 (22 1-224). See the Address, preserved also in the volume of 
 Addresses of the London Working- Men's Association, Brit. MHS. 8138, 
 a (i) ; cf. also Lovett's " Life and Struggles" (London, 1876), pp. 94-97. 
 
 3 See p. 251, note.
 
 CHARTISM 367 
 
 developed itself in the manufacturing districts, and great 
 open-air meetings^were held, at which the New Poor- Law 
 and the Factory system were denounced, and universal 
 suffrage was demanded as a means of immediate social 
 revolution. 
 
 On May 8, 1838, the People's Charter, from which the 
 movement was to take its name, at last appeared in 
 pamphlet form. Place writing at the time gives the history 
 of its production. The committee appointed to draft a 
 Bill the year before had, as has been mentioned, neglected 
 to do so. Early in March 1838, however, Lovett asked 
 help from Place, who " undertook the task upon condition 
 that the points and as much of the detail as the Association 
 could easily put together should be prepared, so that in 
 drawing the Bill I might be well aware of their notions. 
 This was done, and I drew the skeleton of a Bill under 
 appropriate heads, and sent it to Mr. Lovett for Mr. 
 Roebuck to complete, as he had again said he would. 
 But his sad state of health did not permit him to keep 
 his promise, and I therefore made the Charter, Lovett 
 assisting me as he could. The Working-Men's Association 
 approved of it, and it was printed. Copies were sent to 
 every Working-Men's Association in Great Britain, to 
 many other Associations and to many persons, with re- 
 quests that they would suggest such amendments as they 
 might think advisable. . . . Certain propositions in some 
 few details were examined, adopted, and incorporated by 
 desire of the Association by Lovett and me. This amend- 
 ment has made the Charter more simple. Alterations 
 were also made in the Address, Avhich serves -as an intro- 
 duction ; and although that Address is not such an one as I 
 should have drawn, the publication is a very respectable 
 one." 1 
 
 1 Place to Erskine Perry, October 4, 1838 ; cf. also 27,820 (96-98). 
 For a copy of the Charter, see 27,820 (370-373). There were two
 
 368 CHARTISM 
 
 On September 13, 1838, Place wrote to Hume rejoicing 
 in the movement, and (with an obvious desire to improve 
 the occasion) ascribing its success to the inaction of the 
 Radicals in Parliament. " The Tories, under the name of 
 Conservatives in the House of Commons and the Tories 
 in the same House under the name of Whigs, assisted by 
 the misnamed Liberals, had, so they all believed, succeeded 
 in quieting the people, i.e. in stultifying them, and had 
 put them into a state of apathy, which at length the 
 Liberals began to lament when they found that the 
 apathy was such as had not and could not be paralleled 
 except at the time of the infamous coalition of Fox and 
 North. . . . Then, however, there was no public ; now there 
 is a growing public even among the working people and 
 those nearest to them in condition, and the consequence is 
 just that which all well-judging men might, as some did, 
 anticipate. The most active and well-informed among 
 the people, seeing themselves utterly abandoned by those 
 who had promised at the hustings to be their friends, 
 began to stir for themselves, at first with very small 
 numbers, for a reform of Parliament on the broadest 
 possible plan. And their numbers increased with wonder- 
 ful celerity, and at length they have produced an agitation 
 not at all contemplated or even believed to be possible by 
 those whose condition in life was above them, and have in 
 a very short time been the cause of immense numbers 
 of people in various places coming into active service. 
 This is a new feature in society produced by the in- 
 creased intelligence of the working people. This is the 
 first time that the desire for reform has been moved by 
 them (the working people) and carried upwards. Until 
 now it has always proceeded downwards, and expired when 
 abandoned, as it always has been, by their gentlemen 
 
 editions of the Charter, that sent round to the Associations hi May 
 1838, and the amended version published in September 1838.
 
 CHARTISM 369 
 
 leaders. It will not again expire, but will go on continu 
 ally, sometimes with more, sometimes with less, rapidity, 
 but on it will go." l 
 
 On September 17 the Working-Men's Association held 
 an open-air meeting in Palace Yard to inaugurate the 
 movement in London. They asked Place and Roebuck to 
 be two of their delegates. Place declined on the ground 
 that such posts should be taken by younger men, who 
 " have no objection to be out at night," but suggested that 
 Roebuck ought to accept, and promised for himself that 
 "if any circumstance of pressing moment to the people 
 generally should arise and make it every man's duty to 
 come out, I would not stay at home, but would put aside 
 every consideration, come among them, and do my duty to 
 the best of my ability." 2 
 
 Place's correspondence at the time shows that he 
 thought Chartism had little chance of immediate success 
 unless some accident, as had happened in 1832, should^ 
 bring politics into a revolutionary position. But he was 
 sure that a well-managed agitation for the Charter would 
 create a strong democratic party, led by the new class of 
 educated working-men, and able to put pressure upon 
 Parliament. 
 
 For instance, in the letter quoted above he wrote : " We 
 have now, then, obtained to a considerable extent what we 
 never before had, namely, a very large proportion of the 
 working people going on with others for the common and 
 intelligibly declared purpose set forth in the Charter. . . . 
 They, however, persuade themselves that they shall obtain 
 the Act in a short time. Disappointment will vex and 
 perplex them, and numbers will fly off and determine to 
 adopt violent proceedings. This feeling will not last long, 
 It will give way to rational feelings again, and then the 
 
 1 Place to Hume, September 13, 1838. 
 
 2 Place to Falconer, September 2, 1838. 
 
 2 A
 
 370 CHARTISM 
 
 matter will fluctuate, no one can say how long, nor what 
 incidents of a decisive nature will occur, nor how any 
 portion of the whole matter will finally terminate. Good 
 will result, and that too in many ways, but in none more 
 certainly than in preventing the Government from doing 
 many mischievous things." 
 
 The kind of agitation for which Place hoped was that 
 which was soon to be illustrated by the Anti-Corn-Law 
 League, an agitation rigidly confined to one proposal, and 
 including every one who could be persuaded by patient 
 and good-natured propaganda to approve of it. Before 
 consenting to draft the Charter, he had made the leaders 
 of the Working-Men's Association promise that they would 
 prevent speeches against the New Poor -Law or for 
 Socialism from being delivered on their platforms. 1 He 
 declared at the time that they were determined " to cease 
 using opprobrious terms and epithets, and to receive every 
 one as a friend who will take the Charter as his guide, and 
 to work on steadily with every such person for the accom- 
 plishment of their purpose." 2 "Such Associations," he 
 afterwards wrote, " can only succeed by long-continued, 
 steady, patient, liberal conduct, accepting and using every 
 kind of assistance which may at any time, and in every 
 way, be available, making no absurd pretensions to any- 
 thing, and especially not to superior wisdom and honesty, 
 but acting with becoming modesty, but with indomitable 
 perseverance." 3 
 
 An agitation on these lines would, he knew, have to 
 overcome the tendency of men engaged in manual labour 
 to confine their desires to their immediate material 
 interests. "Propose," he wrote in 1835, "to a working- 
 man any great measure affecting the whole body, and he 
 
 1 27,835 (i 60, &). 
 
 2 Place to Falconer, September 2, 1838. 
 
 3 27,819 (47).
 
 CHARTISM 371 
 
 immediately asks himself the question, What am I to get by 
 it, meaning, what at the instant am I to have in my hand, 
 or in my pocket, which I should like to have ? To this he 
 replies nothing. There he sticks ; he does nothing; he has 
 not the heart to do anything even for his own advantage if 
 that advantage be remote, and he has no desire to stir him- 
 self for the advantage of other persons." l But he hoped 
 that this tendency would be cured at least in part by the 
 spread of education, and that if so, "some three or four 
 material things made as simple as possible, and worked at 
 separately, may all be going on at the same time." 2 
 
 Lovett and his friends accepted Place's ideal of agitation, 
 and with occasional lapses tried thenceforth to act on it. 
 But the Chartist movement in its main development 
 belonged to a type of agitation diametrically opposed to 
 that which Place desired. The conception which fired the 
 northern factory hands and pitmen, or the Welsh iron- 
 miners in 1838 and 1839, and again in 1848, was that of a 
 class solidarity depending primarily upon an identity of 
 material interest, and overcoming individual selfishness and 
 inertia by discipline and enthusiasm a " class- war," to use 
 a modern phrase, which should deliberately antagonise all 
 outside the ranks of the " comrades." 
 
 The Working-Men's Association gave Chartism its name 
 and programme, but never had any considerable voice in 
 its direction. It seemed at first as if the movement would 
 be in the hands of Attwood and his " currency " friends in 
 Birmingham. They drew up the form of petition to the 
 Government, which was to be presented by a Convention 
 of delegates from all England in the spring of 1839, and 
 which contained such phrases as : " The good of a party 
 has been advanced to the sacrifice of the good of the nation ; 
 the few have governed for the interests of the few ; while 
 
 1 Place to William Longson, weaver, Stockport, May 25, 1835. 
 
 2 Ibid.
 
 372 CHARTISM 
 
 the interest of the many has been neglected or insolently 
 and tyrannously trampled upon." . . . "We tell your 
 honourable House that the capital of the master must no 
 longer be deprived of its due profit ; that the labour of the 
 workmen must no longer be deprived of its due reward; 
 that the laws which make food dear and those which, 
 by making money scarce, make labour cheap, must be 
 abolished. ..." 
 
 At a succession of meetings in the autumn of 1838 the 
 currency men convinced their Socialist audiences of their 
 sincerity by describing the misery of the working classes 
 and denouncing the Government, to whose wickedness that 
 misery was due. They contributed the funds and business 
 ability, without which a big campaign could not be 
 organised, and might well have brought about that alliance 
 between Socialism and proposals of currency change which 
 has become a standing fact in the United States. 1 That 
 they failed was mainly due to the influence of Feargus 
 O'Connor. He never attempted to understand Attwood's 
 " rag-botheration," 2 and took what economics he had in 
 the earlier years of the movement ready made from the 
 Marxism of Bronterre O'Brien. His idea from the begin- 
 ning was the formation of what he used to call an " Old 
 Guard" of stalwart Chartists, who should all read the 
 Northern Star, and all take him as their unquestioned 
 leader. Both O'Connor and the Birmingham men natu- 
 
 1 Place pointed out a danger in this form of agitation which showed 
 itself in Mr. Bryan's campaign of 1896. "The whole of the agitation 
 was made, what the people of Birmingham themselves afterwards called 
 it, 'A Bread and Cheese Question,' probably the worst foundation 
 possible, since a change for the better, however small, would be sure to 
 detach a large proportion of their members from them and cause the 
 whole of them to distrust their leaders, who had taken great pains to 
 make them believe that the distress must not only continue, but must 
 go on increasing until Mr. Attwood's scheme of currency was put into 
 practice." 27,819 (87). 
 
 2 See Northern Star, July 20, 1 830.
 
 CHARTISM 373 
 
 rally opposed the purely political tactics of the London 
 Working-Men's Association. O'Connor denied that they 
 were working-men at all. He appealed against them to 
 the " unshorn chins, blistered hands, and fustian jackets," x 
 and in London set up a Democratic Association in opposi- 
 tion to them. Attwood afterwards said that the " pamphlet 
 called the ' Charter ' . . . proceeded from a little clique or 
 junta of men who had little more influence over the work- 
 men of London than over those of Constantinople." 2 
 
 When the Convention met, on February 4, 1839, 
 O'Connor and his party dominated it from the first. 
 Attwood's currency scheme was contemptuously rejected, 
 in spite of the fact that missionaries of the Convention 
 were collecting signatures to a petition, in the wording of 
 which the whole of that scheme was implied. Lovett was 
 made Secretary of the Convention, but the majority of the 
 sixty delegates seem to have been suspicious of him and 
 his Association. " Dr." Taylor, the ablest man among the 
 extreme revolutionists, wrote in the Northern Star: "I 
 came to London very much prejudiced against Lovett and 
 all who belonged to the Working-Men's Association, look- 
 ing upon them as no better than the tools of Place, Grote, 
 Hume, Brougham, and the other leaders of the Malthusian 
 party." 3 
 
 The Convention sat from February till May 1839, in 
 Bolt Court, Fleet Street, imitating the House of Commons 
 for five weary days every week, quarrelling among them- 
 selves, and passing resolutions about the state of the 
 People, Ireland, the Poor-Law, the Factory System, and 
 the Rural Police. 4 The movement was now past the point 
 
 1 Northern Star, February 24, 1838. 
 
 2 27,819(241). 3 27,821 (144). 
 
 4 " There was little for the Convention to do, besides some matters 
 of detail of small moment, so they made business for themselves . . . 
 made speeches to one another . . ." Place to Hoare, December 19, 
 1839 (in "Autobiography").
 
 374 CHARTISM 
 
 at which Place could hope to do much by giving advice. 
 "It is impossible," he wrote on March 6, 1839, "to produce 
 any effect by reasoning with masses of men when they 
 are once intent upon any project, be it whatever it may. 
 Circumstances alone can operate upon them." l 
 
 On March 1 1 Lovett wrote to Place (who had been ill 
 with influenza): "We are beginning to understand each 
 other better than we did ; the unfounded calumnies made 
 against us in the North are being dissipated, and the blood 
 and thunder heroes are being done up." 2 
 
 Place replied : " Upon the whole, the proceedings have 
 been better than I expected. I know well enough how 
 inexperienced men must act, and I have observed nothing, 
 except now and then in language, which I have not seen 
 over and over again in each of our Houses of Parliament. 
 At first the deputies, as you know I expected they would, 
 talked as if the whole power of the people was lodged in 
 their hands, and could be used by them at will. . . . They 
 are learning a practical lesson of wisdom, and will return 
 home wiser and better men than they came ; but they will 
 not generally have pleased those who sent them. They 
 will have seen some part of the great difficulty of moving 
 a whole people, and will each of them have learnt patience 
 and forbearance. I hope they will learn perseverance. 
 They who sent them will not have had the same advan- 
 tages, and will have learnt nothing ; will be disappointed, 
 and will show their displeasure. It will then become each 
 of the deputies in his particular district to bear with the 
 people, and not to give up the cause either for chagrin or 
 despair. Before the time comes for the deputies to dis- 
 perse, they will be thoroughly convinced that with a few 
 exceptions the people instead of being excited will become 
 torpid. They, the deputies, will also be convinced how 
 
 1 Place to Robert Wallace, M.P., March 6, 1839. 
 
 2 Lovett to Place, March 1 1 , 1 839.
 
 CHARTISM 375 
 
 greatly they miscalculated their own power and influence, 
 and it will behove them, each one as far as his circum- 
 stances will permit him, to cheer up the people, and 
 encourage them steadily to pursue their object. Upon the 
 whole much good will be done, good far overbalancing all 
 the trouble and expense which will be occasioned." l 
 
 Place had never been in the North of England, and could 
 not understand that the Chartist movement had there 
 developed into something very different from the spas- 
 modic revolutionary demonstrations of the London work- 
 ing-men. The manufacturing villages of Lancashire and 
 Yorkshire and South Wales were really in that state of 
 determined unanimity which their delegates described. 
 Pikes were being forged, regular drilling was going on, 
 and nothing but military force could prevent a rising. 
 This fact was gradually brought home to the southern 
 delegates in London, and when on May 13 the Convention 
 moved to Birmingham, Lovett and other "moral force" 
 members had been converted to an intention to use 
 " physical force " if possible. 
 
 The rising in the North was prevented by the extra- 
 ordinary skill with which Sir Charles Napier used his little 
 army of occupation. 2 Ineffectual rioting occurred at 
 Birmingham and elsewhere, and a small body of troops 
 were attacked at Newport. Then the Government hit 
 back, and during the winter of 1839-40 hardly a single 
 Chartist leader escaped imprisonment. As soon as the 
 mischief was done Place set to work to prevent the sen- 
 tences of death being carried out, to provide for the 
 families of those who were imprisoned, and to organise a 
 protest against the dangerous extension of the law of libel 
 under which Lovett and others had been convicted. 3 
 
 1 Place to Lovett, March 13, 1839. 
 
 2 See " Life and Opinions of Sir C. J. Napier," by Sir W. F. D. 
 Napier, vol. ii. 
 
 3 " I also am engaged, have for these three months been intensely
 
 376 CHARTISM 
 
 Chartism as a means of revolution had failed as com- 
 pletely as Trade Unionism, and the Chartists did not take 
 their beating well. The conception of "solidarity," of a 
 new heaven and a new earth to be achieved by a band of 
 brothers leagued against a world of tyrants and slaves, is 
 the greatest of all revolutionary forces. Perhaps without 
 some measure of it very few men can be induced to fight 
 for their ideas. But it is apt to make those who come 
 under its influence cruel and intolerant in success, and to 
 leave a peculiar kind of nagging bitterness after failure. 
 Chartism in 1840 was little but an organisation for 
 breaking up public meetings. "In London," says Place, 
 "the interruption is made and sustained by from about 
 1 20 to 200 men, many of them youths. They go from 
 place to place where Anti-Corn-Law lectures are given; 
 they there make a disgraceful broil, which is reported in 
 the Northern Star as 'a glorious victory.' These 150 
 men call themselves the people, and their impudence 
 and tyranny is without example. . . ." " I have a 
 letter before me from the editor of the Glasgow 
 Argus, in which he says: 'Nothing is doing here in 
 public. The Chartists have put down public speaking. 
 Nothing could now be done but by tickets of admission.' " l 
 "They think," Place says again, "they can effect their 
 purpose by taking pains to make enemies, when they 
 should be seeking to make friends." 2 For one moment. 
 
 engaged in every way a man can be engaged in the affairs of others, in 
 doing all I possibly can, first, for William Lovett . . . secondly, in 
 other cases of quite as much importance though not of so much public 
 consequence, and in these cases I have written quires of paper, and 
 been at many places distant from home . . . and I assure you that 
 though I never go out except to take exercise, without which I cannot 
 keep up my health, and though I see no company, waste no time at or 
 after meals, and keep writing on at this time of the year, till eleven 
 o'clock at night, I have wholly neglected matters relating to myself." 
 Place to Samuel Hoare, December 19, 1839 (in "Autobiography"). 
 
 1 Place to Roebuck, December 23, 1840. 
 
 2 Place to Colonel Thompson, January 2, 1841.
 
 CHARTISM 377 
 
 indeed, he seemed even to fear that, in any rapid advance 
 towards democracy, it might be such a turbulent minority 
 rather than the steady mass of the people who would 
 come to the front. On March i, 1841, the Metropolitan 
 Anti-Corn-Law Association held a meeting at the Crown 
 and Anchor Tavern. Next day Place writes to John 
 Collins, the Birmingham " moral force " Chartist, who had 
 been imprisoned with Lovett : " I have seen many up- 
 roarious meetings, . . . but I never saw anything which 
 would bear even a distant comparison with what I saw 
 last night. I was very much vexed at, and very much 
 ashamed of, the people before me. There I sat thinking 
 of the terrible evils of the French Revolution in its earlier 
 periods, and sure I am that if the men who composed by 
 far the greater portion of the audience were not restrained 
 by ' their fellow-subjects,' the policemen and the soldiers, 
 all the horrors of the worst scenes in the French Revo- 
 lution, all its monstrous cruelties and enormous evils of 
 every kind, would be outdone by the men whose heads 
 would readily conceive and whose hands would speedily 
 commit them." l 
 
 But though he had ceased to hope anything from the 
 existing Chartist organisations, Place still kept up a corre- 
 spondence with individual Chartists, striving to make them 
 recognise facts and learn patience. " Men are like children," 
 he wrote, " and if you want them to learn a lesson, you must 
 repeat it very many times," 2 and very many times did he 
 explain his conception of democratic tactics to any man 
 who would listen. The Chartists, he declared, " never can 
 have, and consequently never will have, any effective power 
 until the desire for the Charter shall become the strong 
 and fully, and repeatedly, expressed wish over and over 
 again, of a decided majority of the whole of the people. 
 
 1 Place to John Collins, March 2, 1841. 
 
 - Place to J. G. Symons, September 19, 1840.
 
 378 CHARTISM 
 
 Until they shall become convinced of this, and act upon 
 the conviction with good faith and good manners, they 
 will never even approximate towards a conclusion." l All 
 through, he was conscious that he was hi reality more 
 Chartist than the Chartists themselves. They had taken 
 up the " six points " as a new idea four or five years before, 
 and were not unlikely to take up some other new idea with 
 equal eagerness. Place, " rascally Whig," as they were apt 
 to call him, had worked for the " six points " during half a 
 century. " They would not believe that he who could write 
 this paper was a Chartist and something beyond it, before 
 any beyond a very few of them probably were in existence; 
 that it is within a few months of fifty years since he 
 became persuaded that no government could be really 
 good, nor no people in a sound and wholesome condition, 
 while there was any privileged class or person in the 
 nation." 2 
 
 There is a trace of patient irony in his letters to the 
 Chartist " stalwarts," who, one by one, deserted the mono- 
 tonous agitation for a distant democracy, and took up 
 some scheme in which they could feel an inventor's 
 delight. Just as Feargus O'Connor himself was to cap- 
 ture the whole Chartist organisation some years later 
 for his joint-stock land scheme, so Lovett came out of 
 prison, hi 1840, "almost crazy" with the belief that the 
 Chartists ought to apply all their funds to building great 
 schools, where the children would receive a thorough 
 literary, technical, and sociological education. " I am 
 certain," wrote Place, "you will never have even one 
 school. You will never raise .3000 for such a purpose, 
 and .3000 would not pay for such a school as you have 
 described. I hope to see the time when ^20,000,000 will 
 
 1 Place to Colonel Thompson, January 2, 1841 (intended for publica- 
 tion ; cf. postscript). 
 
 2 Place to Colonel Thompson, January 2, 1841.
 
 CHARTISM 379 
 
 be voted to pay for the building of schools schools 
 for all, and not schools for Churchmen, or Chartists, 
 only and when a compulsory rate will be levied on all, 
 in each school district, by a committee of the district, to 
 pay the expenses of carrying on the schools, in which 
 the teaching shall be really good and apart from all 
 religion, and especially from all sectarianism, whether 
 religious or political." l John Collins, of Birmingham, 
 set up after his release a " Chartist Church," where, accord- 
 ing to Colonel Thompson's enthusiastic description, " On 
 Sunday they say they preach Bible politics, and on week 
 days any other kind of politics they like. The simple 
 fact is, they preach what they like throughout." 2 Henry 
 Vincent, when released from his eighteen months' im- 
 prisonment, found that emotional exhortations to good 
 living suited his eloquence and his audiences better than 
 well-worn demonstrations of the Six Points. " In North- 
 ampton," he wTote, " I publicly administered the teetotal 
 pledge. I have proposed the formation of public libraries 
 and lecture-rooms. Every appeal to the intellect and 
 virtue of the masses is most cordially responded to." 3 
 
 All these things Place answers kindly enough, never 
 forgetting that his correspondents are men who have 
 suffered imprisonment in his own cause. He only permits 
 himself to say in writing to Collins, " Pray, in whatever 
 you and your colleagues may do, or say, or write, think 
 less of your own feelings and more of your under- 
 standings." 4 But he lost patience when Vincent, whose 
 printing business was going badly, and who was heavily 
 in debt, became dazzled with the idea of an easy candida- 
 ture for Parliament at Banbury. "You will," wrote 
 
 1 Place to Lovett, March 30, 1841. 
 
 ' L Colonel T. P. Thompson to Place, April 13, 1841. 
 
 3 Vincent to Place, March 23, 1841. 
 
 4 Place to Collins, January 30, 1842.
 
 380 CHARTISM 
 
 Vincent, " perhaps be surprised to hear that I have been 
 called upon to contest Banbury at the ensuing election, 
 with every prospect of success. My lectures to the middle 
 and working classes there have produced this state of 
 feeling. Several of the most influential tradespeople 
 are at the head of the move. The constituency is small, 
 and should there be three candidates, my return is certain. 
 The legal and other incidental expenses will not much 
 exceed 100. Subscriptions are being raised in Banbury. 
 Will you be kind enough to see Mr. Leader and other 
 friends, and solicit a little pecuniary aid for me a little 
 from those who are favourable to Chartism would treat 
 the House of Commons to a working-man. I shall 
 proceed to Banbury in about a week. This is no childish 
 affair. My friends there are in earnest. ... I have already 
 more promises than the Tories polled at the last election. 
 Pray help me all you can hi the undercurrent. You can 
 do much." 1 
 
 Placed answered the next day : " I must know a good deal 
 more of the circumstances which have captivated you before 
 I can do as you desire. Banbury has not 300 registered 
 voters, and unless you had a requisition signed by a 
 majority of them in their own handwriting, you could not 
 be elected; and even if you had their signatures, your 
 return would be precarious. . . . You talk like but too 
 many others, as if honesty and patriotism were the rule 
 among the electors, while the fact is that they who are 
 honest go for nothing. They balance one another, and the 
 election is really made by the rascals who ought to be 
 transported for seven years, the lawyers and election- 
 jobbers- for fourteen years, and the candidates who pay 
 them for twenty-one years. . . . Your letter is matter of 
 feeling showing great excitation, whereas it ought to have 
 been one of business, statement of facts, calculations, &c. 
 1 Vincent to Place, June 3, 1841.
 
 CHARTISM 381 
 
 As it is, it will do more harm than good for me to show it. 
 [Then] comes a most material question. How are you to 
 live supposing you were to be elected? How are you to 
 pay the unavoidable expenses of being a member, no light 
 matter you may be assured ? And when you had sat for a 
 session, and Parliament was again dissolved and you were 
 ousted from Banbury, what would you do ? ... To save 
 time I will give you my advice now instead of doing it, as 
 I must otherwise do, in a week or a month hence. It is 
 this, leave off running about the country, your wife with 
 you, learning nothing which can ever be of any use to 
 either of you, but much which is likely to tell in the con- 
 trary direction. 1 Go to your own business and become a 
 man of business for the next ten years. You may perhaps 
 at the end of that time be in a condition to do some public 
 service. You will be quite in time for enacting the Charter, 
 or for doing any other great national good. ... If you 
 don't like what I have written, put the letter away, and 
 presently when things have changed with you read it again. 
 I speak plainly with you because you must believe that I 
 really mean you well, and because you cannot disguise 
 the fact to yourself that I know something about the 
 matter on which I have written." 2 
 
 The Banbury election took place on June 30, 1841, and 
 Henry Vincent received 5 1 votes. 
 
 The last literary work which Place did was a history of 
 
 1 " Long ago William Lovett came to me with Vincent, in conse- 
 quence of a letter I wrote to him (Vincent), at his own request, on a 
 speech he made, and on which he prided himself, in which I showed 
 him that every one of his historical statements, twelve in number, was 
 erroneous and directly contrary to the facts. Both he and Lovett re- 
 quested I would put him upon a course of reading, and as he then 
 said he was going to stick close to business, I gave him advice, under- 
 took to supply him with books and to hold conversations with him 
 as he went on reading. But he could neither work nor read." (Place 
 to Gaskell, March i, 1840.) 
 
 - Place to Vincent, June 4, 1841.
 
 382 CHARTISM 
 
 Chartism, written in the years 1840-43, and left unfinished. 
 In this and in the letters written at the time he tried to 
 reconcile himself to what he believed to be the conditions 
 of working-class progress. He was convinced that rapid 
 and easy advance could only be brought about by patient, 
 tolerant, disillusioned men, and yet he could see no reason 
 to suppose that any but a very few working-men, and 
 those at long intervals, would be patient, or tolerant, or 
 disillusioned. 
 
 " A great mass of our unskilled and but little skilled 
 labourers (among whom are the handloom weavers), and 
 a very considerable number of our skilled labourers, are in 
 poverty, if not in actual misery ; a large portion of them 
 have been in a state of poverty and great privation all 
 their lives. They are neither ignorant of their condition 
 nor reconciled to it. They live amongst others who are 
 better off than themselves, with whom they compare 
 themselves ; and they cannot understand why there should 
 be so great a difference, why others who work no more or 
 fewer hours than themselves at employments not requiring 
 more actual exertion, and in many cases occupying fewer 
 hours in the day, should be better paid than they are, and 
 they come to the conclusion that the difference is solely 
 caused by oppression oppression of bad laws and avari- 
 cious employers. To escape from this state is with them 
 of paramount importance. Among a vast multitude of 
 these people not a day, scarcely an hour, can be said to 
 pass without some circumstance, some matter exciting 
 reflection, occurring to remind them of their condition, 
 which (notwithstanding they have been poor and distressed 
 from their infancy, and however much they may at times 
 be cheerful) they scarcely ever cease, and never for a long 
 period cease, to feel and to acknowledge to themselves 
 with deep sensations of anguish their deplorable condition. 
 To men thus circumstanced, any, the most absurd, scheme
 
 CHARTISM 383 
 
 which promises relief is eagerly seized and earnestly ad- 
 hered to until long after it has failed, and is even then 
 reluctantly given up, and its failure is always accounted 
 for by something being supposed to have happened which 
 prevented the good the scheme held out from being accom- 
 plished ; and thus they remain as they were, having learnt 
 nothing, ready to be again deluded by some other scheme, 
 until they hopelessly abandon every effort either to serve 
 themselves or others." l 
 
 " It should be remembered that every attempt to reform 
 any old institution has necessarily been made by enthusi- 
 astic but not well-informed men, who saw but a small 
 portion of the impediments which made their present 
 success impossible. Such men are always, and necessarily, 
 ignorant of the best means of progressing towards the 
 accomplishment of their purpose at a distant time, and 
 can seldom be persuaded that the time for their accom- 
 plishment is distant. Few, indeed, such men would inter- 
 fere at all unless they imagined the change they desired 
 was at hand. They may be considered as pioneers who, 
 by their labours and then* sacrifices, smooth the way for 
 those who are to follow them. Never without such 
 persons to move forward, and never but through their 
 errors and misfortunes, would mankind have emerged 
 from barbarism, and gone on as they have done, slow and 
 painful as their progress has been." 2 
 
 But in other moods he could hope that the few who had 
 learnt the sad wisdom of political experience might still 
 prove the stronger, and that the working classes might in 
 the end progress, not by successive shortsighted enthu- 
 siasms, but by cool and steady perseverance. " As the best 
 men," he wrote elsewhere, " in the working class proceed in 
 their attainment of knowledge they will cease to enforce 
 1 27,819(8,9). 2 27,820(5).
 
 384 CHARTISM 
 
 their mistaken notions, and this will be called abandoning 
 their caste by those who remain unenlightened ; and these 
 men, and such other men as have power over multitudes 
 of other men, and have sinister objects to accomplish, will 
 misinterpret to the many the actions and opinions of those 
 who may have become more enlightened, and will repre- 
 sent them as enemies of the people whom they would be 
 the best qualified and best disposed to serve. The people 
 will continue to be misled, and will look upon their best 
 friends as their worst enemies, and the more the^e, their 
 friends, may attempt to justify themselves and to defend 
 themselves against absurd and false imputations, the 
 firmer will be the conviction of the misled, ill-judging 
 multitude that they are enemies to be shunned. Progress 
 in the capability of thinking more justly will, however, 
 increase. Various circumstances will occur tending to 
 this result. Some of the leaders who have impugned their 
 fellows will be convinced that they have decided absurdly, 
 and these will, from time to time, fall into the ranks of 
 those who have been rejected by the people will have 
 become a very considerable number, and will slowly but 
 surely recover their influence. In the meantime many of 
 the incorrigible leaders and large numbers of those of 
 their followers who are unteachable will be wearied out 
 with continued and rapidly recurring disappointments, and 
 will draw off, to be replaced by better men ; and notwith- 
 standing the times of inactivity and despair which will 
 occasionally occur, the progress of actual improvement in 
 right thinking will go on with increased velocity." l 
 1 27,819 (7, 8).
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 LAST YEARS 
 
 IN March 1839 Place wrote from Brompton Square, 
 " Having removed from my well-known residence and, 
 being quietly settled here, I arn gradually dropping out 
 of notice, and men and things are dropping out of my 
 notice." 1 He hoped that he would now be able to devote 
 the rest of his life to the serious historical work for which 
 he had so long been preparing. Writing of this year he 
 says, " I had, so I thought, too much neglected other 
 matters, purposes for which I had long been collecting 
 materials, and had at length seriously determined to set to 
 work, arrange my books and papers, and put my matter 
 together for a Narrative History of the Working People 
 and their employers, their education, manners, morals, 
 pastimes, and their improvement since the Revolution of 
 i688." 2 
 
 Between 1836 and 1839, while working under constant 
 interruption, he had written his long " History of the 
 Reform Agitation." 3 Near the beginning of it he says 
 that he is almost deterred from continuing, " lest I should 
 waste my time by failing to be, as I earnestly desire to 
 be, useful to mankind." 4 Most of the many thousand 
 hours which the work must have taken him were indeed 
 wasted. By far the greater part of the History consists of 
 
 1 Place to Wallace, March 6, 1839. 
 
 2 Corn-Law Doings, in " Autobiography." 
 
 3 27,789-27,797. 4 27,789 (233). 
 
 3S5 B
 
 386 LAST YEARS 
 
 laborious precis of speeches delivered each day during the 
 agitation. These are much too long for the ordinary 
 student, and the specialist will prefer the full reports hi 
 Hansard or the Times. Only at wide intervals there come 
 a few pages of vigorous narrative or an interesting personal 
 observation. As a writer of memoirs, Place was indeed 
 dull on principle. In 1819 he had said, "I hate the 
 collector and retailer of anecdotes of his friends or of those 
 he acts with, and I hold him to be a rascal who keeps any 
 account of his immediate and private intercourse with 
 other men," l and the History of Reform is most valuable 
 where he breaks through his own rule. The " History of 
 the Movements of the Working Classes and Others " 
 (which forms a continuation of the Reform narrative) is 
 better, and perhaps the proposed History of the Working 
 People would have been better still. 
 
 But Place, as long as his strength lasted, never enjoyed 
 complete leisure for literary work. Again and again he 
 had to give way to that force which requires men to 
 do that which they have been proved able to do, rather 
 than that which they desire. The letter, for instance, in 
 which he declared that he was " dropping out of notice " 
 was written in answer to one from Robert Wallace, asking 
 him to influence the working-men on the side of Penny 
 Postage. Place's letter contains a very long and detailed 
 scheme for capturing the London Press, followed by an 
 implied threat that if, as seemed probable, the Government 
 brought in Twopenny Postage, he would get up an agitation 
 against it as a " Whig trick." " A man," he says, " must 
 have been, or must be as I was, a poor journeyman to know 
 the value of twopence to a respectable working-man. . . . 
 Without this sort of intercourse no man can . . . compre- 
 hend the wide difference between a penny and twopence, 
 
 1 Place to Hobhouse, April 29, 1819. 
 8 27,819-27,822.
 
 LAST YEARS 387 
 
 how unwilling careful people are of spending twopence, 
 how careless they are of spending a penny." He ends by 
 promising " to do my best in every way." l 
 
 Place always wondered why the Whig Government, 
 which had so long refused cheap newspapers, granted 
 cheap postage so easily. He could only ascribe it to the 
 skill with which the vague fear of Chartism was brought 
 to bear on the members of Parliament. " If we had not 
 obtained the Act last session," he wrote in 1 840, " we should 
 never have obtained it at all. The many months which 
 would have passed before we could again have brought it 
 before the two Houses would have enabled the members 
 to shake off their absurd fear, to become ashamed of them- 
 selves for having been at all alarmed, and then they would 
 have rejected the Bill with contempt." 
 
 " The way in which the effect was produced and the Act 
 obtained is known to very few, most of whom are members 
 of the House of Commons. The agitation was carried on 
 in a quiet, unostentatious way, which appeared to the gene- 
 rality as no movement at all ; but it was a very great and 
 extensive movement, and it was continually being made 
 manifest to our lords and masters every hour and in every 
 possible form." 2 In the tactics, as opposed to the strategy 
 
 1 If Place is right, "Warburtoii (see p. 278) deserves more credit than 
 he has received for the introduction of the Penny Post. He was Chair- 
 man of the Select Committee, and drew up their Report in 1839. 
 Place says, " To him we are all indebted for the penny postage, 
 since without his excellent report, a work of intense study and great 
 judgment, the penny postage would never have been obtained." (Place 
 to Thompson, March 10, 1840.) Place in 1838 committed himself to 
 a curiously sanguine prophecy as to the effect of postal reform. "If 
 general post letters were charged only one penny, the postage in all 
 cases being paid at the receiving houses, and when the delivery was 
 accelerated by the railways, we should become a wiser and a better 
 people, and by far a more intelligent people, than any which have ever 
 existed, or even (been) contemplated as likely to exist." (Place to 
 Parkes, January 18, 1838.) 
 
 2 (Place to Wheatley, February 21, 1840.) Place says, "I may 
 claim the merit of ... suggesting the plan for working it out, and by
 
 388 LAST YEARS 
 
 of politics, Place always held that every effort should be 
 concentrated on influencing the minds of those who have 
 to give the operative vote. 
 
 As soon as the prosecutions of 1 839-40 had removed the 
 original Chartist leaders, Hume wrote to Place, " I want 
 to know your opinion of the chance of the Chartists now 
 acting more moderately if we were to put ourselves at their 
 head to demand the leading points of the Charter quietly, 
 but by the strongest demonstration of numbers ; whether, 
 in fact, the working-men would now join us in our demand 
 for all, but in the understanding that we will be ready to 
 take any part of our demand." l Place replied, " There is 
 at present no possibility of doing good to the working 
 people or to anybody else by any proposal for reform in 
 Parliament. The working people are not in a condition to 
 join in any scheme of the sort, neither will they be so for 
 some time to come." 2 And again to Warburton, who 
 made the same proposal, " My advice is wait, have patience, 
 watch events." 3 Meanwhile he tried to coach the middle- 
 class Radicals in the rather difficult art of acting with the 
 working-men of that day. He describes, for instance, in a 
 letter to Peter Taylor an incident at the Radical Club. 4 
 
 assisting the very clever men who were labouring with the full know- 
 ledge of all its advantages to effect their invaluable purpose. My 
 efforts in the details were, however, of small value when compared 
 with those of several others." (Ibid.) He alludes to a dinner given by 
 Warburton to Rowland Hill, Joseph Parkes, W. A. Ashurst, and him- 
 self, who formed themselves into a committee, and determined to 
 prevent the compromise of a twopenny post. At the same time he was 
 helping the cheap circulation of knowledge by working with Warburton 
 to oppose Serjeant Talfourd's Bill extending copyright to sixty years 
 after an author's death. (See Place to Warburton, May 5, 1839, and 
 January 18, 1840.) 
 
 1 Hume to Place, February 9, 1 840. 
 
 2 Place to Hume, February 10, 1840. 
 
 3 Place to Warburton, April 7, 1840. 
 
 * The Radical Club was a monthly dinner club, to which Robert 
 Owen, Mazzini, and others belonged.
 
 LAST YEARS 389 
 
 " The two great, conspicuous, and constantly pervading 
 faults of the working people are impatience and intoler- 
 ance. You saw both in Mitchell. At our April dinner, 
 when I was in the chair, I humoured Mitchell and Huggett. 
 They wished the Club to present a petition to the House 
 of Commons in favour of Vincent, and they wished the 
 petition to be such a one as they would have caused to be 
 drawn, which none of the members would have signed. 
 Now these men, like other working-men, have been too 
 ill educated, and have seen too little of the Avays of men 
 in associations for business to become either patient or 
 tolerant. The proposal for a petition was to them the 
 whole universe, and excluded anything else. They could 
 not imagine that any other man's notion could deserve 
 attention. Their notion was to them all-important, and 
 hence the petulance, impatience, and intolerance manifested 
 by both. Mitchell spoke thirteen times, Huggett nine 
 times. . . . There was an appearance of difficulty, which I 
 could only get over by allowing them to exhaust them- 
 selves, and then to permit me to draw the petition. They 
 were impatient, intolerant, and vehemently suspicious of 
 our sincerity; and the time was consumed in allowing 
 them to talk down their own misconceptions and absurd 
 apprehensions. It was not time lost ; the petition effected 
 more than was expected, and they, poor fellows, were entitled 
 to the indulgence." l 
 
 In 1841 a union between Chartists and Reformers 
 seemed more possible. On January 21 a great meeting 
 was held at Leeds to inaugurate the " New Move," 2 and 
 
 1 Place to Peter A. Taylor, July 14, 1840. 
 
 - Hamer Stansfield of Leeds wrote to Place on January 13, 1841 : 
 " I cannot help thinking that you have now in your hands the power 
 of doing more good to your country by a single act than any other man 
 in it, of grasping the fruits of your long labours by merely reaching 
 out your hands to take possession. I allude to the opportunity you 
 have at present of bringing about a union between the Charti.-ts and
 
 390 LAST YEARS 
 
 the Northern Star advised the Chartists to swamp it. 
 Place wrote to those Chartists whom he knew imploring 
 them to behave reasonably, and was roundly abused for 
 doing so. 1 
 
 In London the difficulty between the London Chartists 
 and the Radicals had become in large part one of words. 
 The Chartists had made the term Universal Suffrage 
 hateful to the middle-class politicians, while the working- 
 men believed that Household Suffrage covered a hypo- 
 critical design for their betrayal. 2 Place inclined to some 
 new term like " General " Suffrage. " Universal Suffrage," 
 he wrote, " General Suffrage, Registration, or Capacity for 
 Reading Suffrage, any Suffrage with Ballot and Short 
 Parliaments which would give the mass of the people 
 the power to elect the members of the House of 
 Commons, is Democracy, and would put an end to every 
 privileged class and person. The Established Church, 
 the House of Peers, and the office of King would all be 
 abolished." 3 But he was convinced that no great change 
 in the suffrage was immediately possible. In discussing 
 a proposed Reform society, he said, " The accomplishment 
 of the ends which the society must propose are far oft'. . . . 
 Every one who may expect general results in a short time 
 
 our agitation. Last year you thought the attempt premature, and you 
 were right, but circumstances have somewhat changed since then.'' 
 Place began his reply, " If I had any such power as you suppose, it 
 would have been exerted ere this, for it has long been my custom not to 
 wait until called upon, but quietly and as effectually as possible to 
 interfere whenever I see an opening to be useful." 
 
 1 See Northern Star, May 22, 1841, where he is accused of a "deep 
 conspiracy" against Feargus O'Connor ; and November 19, 1742, where 
 "Franky Place" is accused of giving money to the Working-Men's 
 Association (which he was then trying to revive). 
 
 - " It was no more possible for them [the London Chartists] to agree 
 to the words "Household Suffrage," than it is for your friends to agree 
 to the words "Universal Suffrage." (Place to Hume, February 10, 
 
 1841.) 
 
 3 Place to Hume, February u, 1841.
 
 LAST YEARS 391 
 
 will be disappointed." l In 1 842 a new society was actually 
 formed, under the name of " The Metropolitan Parlia- 
 mentary Reform Association," having as its avowed object 
 the attainment of the Charter, without the use of the name. 
 It lived exactly twelve months. The Chartist movement 
 ran its own course till 1 848, and that agreement between 
 the enfranchised and the disfranchised, on which further 
 extension of the suffrage depended, did not come till 1 867. 
 Place himself from 1840 onwards thought that Parlia- 
 mentary Reform was less immediately practicable than 
 the repeal of the Corn Laws. In that year, at the age 
 of sixty-nine, he came for the first time under the in- 
 fluence of a greater and more persistent organiser than 
 himself. Richard Cobden had founded the Anti-Corn- 
 Law League in the winter of 1838-39, and in January 
 1 840 sent a deputation to London to revive the moribund 
 Anti-Corn-Law Association, which had been founded in 
 1836. Warburton sent the deputation to Place with a 
 complimentary letter, saying that he "had been mainly 
 instrumental in obtaining the Act for the Penny Postage, 
 and, could set the same machinery at work for the repeal 
 of the Corn Laws." - Place at first refused to interfere " in 
 any public matter which would require my attendance 
 away from my own house," but at last C. P. Villiers 
 (who had been with him on the Postage committee), 
 Warburton, and others, persuaded him to consent. He 
 became chairman of the business committee of the 
 Association, and, as usual, had to do a great part of the 
 drudgery of organisation. 3 The letters which he received 
 
 1 Place to Hume, February, 11, 1841. 
 
 - Letter quoted by Place to Thompson, March 10, 1840. 
 
 3 A report signed by Place in 1841 produced the last of those 
 witticisms about Place's name and trade which began in 1818. The 
 Morning Herald of April i, 1841, writes: "This report is signed by 
 that ancient artificer of 'unmentionables,' who used to give gratuitous 
 instruction to nursling demagogues and aspiring whiglings among the
 
 392 LAST YEARS 
 
 from Cobden bear an amusing likeness to those which he 
 had been sending all his life to other people. On February 
 27, 1 840, for instance, Cobden wrote : " My dear Sir, I 
 think every possible effort should be made to get your 
 proceedings into the London papers. The country is now 
 just ripe to take the cue from the metropolis. Every 
 movement upon the Corn Law will vibrate through the 
 length and breadth of the land. A good stirring appeal, 
 short and pithy, from the Metropolitan Association, call- 
 ing upon the nation to unite and co-operate against the 
 bread tax, would be responded to, and such an address 
 is necessary to put the Association on its proper footing 
 with the country, and to give it claims upon the com- 
 munity for support. The address ought to appear 
 immediately in the London papers, and it should re- 
 commend petitions to be forwarded immediately for the 
 abolition of all taxes upon the first necessaries of life. 
 The Sun and Chronicle are the two most important 
 papers for the country. The Advertiser is not so much 
 seen out of London. The object to be kept in view by 
 your Association, in my humble opinion, ought to be to 
 influence the country at large more than the metropolis. 
 London is generally well represented as far as the Corn 
 question is concerned. But we must change the Parlia- 
 mentary representation of a great many other boroughs 
 before we can carry our point with the House of Commons. 
 I hope you will bear in mind always the great power you 
 have at command over the country through the London 
 Press. We in Manchester are looked upon with some 
 jealousy by the agriculturists (I mean the population 
 of rural towns, as well as farmers and labourers), but 
 they will follow the metropolis as their natural leader." 
 
 rising hopes of the legislature in their diurnal progresses to and from 
 the House of Commons. The genius of the old Charing Cross Cabinet 
 [truly the genius loci] still presides, it seems, in all its ' pristine pride of 
 place.' "
 
 LAST YEARS 393 
 
 To this Place returned a long answer, in which, after 
 stating that he was working on Corn-Law business from 
 7 A.M. till midnight, he goes on : 
 
 " The people here differ very widely from you at Man- 
 chester. You, some of you, at Manchester resolve that 
 something shall be done, and then you, some of you, set 
 to work and see it done, give your money and your time, 
 and need none but mere servants to carry out the details. 
 Our men of property and influence never act in this way. 
 They themselves must be operated upon, and that, too, with 
 care and circumspection, to induce them even to give us 
 their mites, and to permit us to put their names on the 
 list of our general committee. Of the committee of 
 eleven appointed at the meeting which you attended, and 
 half-a-dozen whom we put on the next day, we have met 
 no more in committee than three, four, or five, until 
 yesterday, when we met to discuss our constitution, when 
 seven attended. Our subscription does not amount to 
 quite ;ioo. 
 
 " London differs very widely from Manchester, and, in- 
 deed, from every other place on the face of the earth. It 
 has no local or particular interest as a town, not even as 
 to politics. Its several boroughs in this respect are like 
 so many very populous places at a distance from one 
 another, and the inhabitants of any one of them know 
 nothing, or next to nothing, of the proceedings in any 
 other, and not much indeed of those of their own. 
 London in my time, and that is half a century, has never 
 moved. A few of the people in different parts have 
 moved, and these, whenever they come together, make a 
 considerable number still, a very small number indeed 
 when compared with the whole number and when these 
 are judiciously managed, i.e. when they are brought to 
 act together, not only make a great noise, which is heard
 
 394 LAST YEARS 
 
 far and wide, but which has also considerable influence in 
 many places. But, isolated as men are here, living as they 
 do at considerable distances, many seven miles apart, and 
 but seldom meeting together, except in small groups, to 
 talk either absolute nonsense on miserable party politics, 
 or to transact business exclusive of everything else, they 
 will tell you they have no time to give to the Association 
 to help to repeal the Corn Laws, while the simple fact is 
 that, with the exception of the men of business (and even 
 they lose much time), four-fifths of the whole do nothing 
 but lose their time. With a very remarkable working 
 population also, each trade divided from every other, and 
 some of the most numerous even from themselves, and 
 who, notwithstanding an occasional display of very small 
 comparative numbers, are a quiescent, inactive race as far 
 as public matters are concerned. The leaders those 
 among them who do pay attention to public matters are 
 one and all at enmity with every other class of society. 
 True it is, as they allege, they have been cajoled and then 
 abandoned by the middle class as- often as they have acted 
 with them, but their opinions are pushed to extremes, and 
 are mischievous prejudices. They call the middle class 
 ' shopocrats,' ' usurers ' (all profit being usury), ' money- 
 mongers,' ' tyrants and oppressors of the working people,' 
 and they link the middle class with the aristocracy 
 under the dignified appellation of ' murderers of society,' 
 ' murderers of the people/ With such a population so 
 circumstanced, the well-informed, honest, zealous men few 
 in number, there is no way of making those who give a 
 tone to any such project as ours but by such preparatory 
 measures as I have described, and by unweariedly working 
 them out." * 
 
 In September 1840 Cobden wrote to Place a long and 
 cheery letter, describing all the plans of the League, and 
 1 Place to Cobden, March 4, 1 840.
 
 LAST YEARS 
 
 asking news of London. Place's reply is gloomy enough. 
 The London public was able to absorb unlimited lectures 
 and circulars without the least trace of an effect. The 
 Association "had not 10 in hand, and did not know 
 how to raise 10 more;" a special summons had been 
 issued for a meeting of the general committee, and one 
 only had attended. Yet if the League would send 
 250 to London something might be done. Cobden 
 replies : 
 
 " I am sorry to receive your last long letter, which is 
 certainly very much like a dying speech and confession. 
 Is there no hope of sufficient help to keep the thing 
 nominally alive? As to Manchester attempting to sus- 
 tain an unreal show of opinion against the bread tax in 
 London, I think you will agree with me that it would be 
 impossible, and even useless, if it were not so." l 
 
 In 1841 Place's health began to give way. He went in 
 November to a meeting of the council of the Anti-Corn- 
 Law League in Manchester, caught cold on the journey 
 back, and suffered very severely from bronchitis during 
 the winter. From that time, although he attended com- 
 mittees when he could, his old powers of endurance were 
 gone. He still, however, continued his narrative of the 
 Chartist movement, and began to write regularly as 
 English correspondent of the Delhi Gazette, which was 
 owned and edited b}- one of his sons in India, In 1844 
 even that came to an end. He was attacked with a sort 
 of paralytic stroke followed by serious brain symptoms. 
 For a year he could neither read nor write, and his 
 recovery was very gradual and incomplete. When he was 
 able to get about again he continued to attend the weekly 
 meetings of the Anti-Corn-Law Committee until the repeal 
 of the law in 1846. In that year he could again for a 
 moment speak of himself as " choke full of public matters " 
 1 CoMen to Place, Octolier 5, 1840.
 
 396 LAST YEARS 
 
 when writing to Cobden and urging him not to take office 
 under Lord John Russell. Cobden replied : 
 
 "July i, 1846. MY DEAR PLACE, Probably the best 
 answer I can give to your wise and friendly counsels is to 
 tell you briefly what I am going to do. I have obtained 
 leave of absence from Parliament for the rest of the session. 
 I am about to address a letter to my constituents, inform- 
 ing them that I must claim a year's exemption from public 
 life, and shall go abroad to secure it. Thus you see I shall 
 be out of all the danger you have so kindly foreseen. Let 
 me now congratulate you, who have worked so long for the 
 triumph of principles which themselves paved the way for 
 the success of us, the reformers of comparatively yesterday, 
 upon the passing of the repeal measure. I do not forget 
 the merits of those who have gone before me, who broke 
 down the great impediments in our path, and left us only 
 to macadamize the road to victory. It has often been a 
 matter of regret that I have not been able to see you lately, 
 but I have often spoken of you, and inquired after your 
 health. Long may it be preserved. You have lived 
 through by far the most eventful seventy years in the 
 world's history. Nay, the fifty years during which you 
 have been an observer of public events have been more 
 fertile in great and enduring incidents than any five cen- 
 turies I could select. Bless yourself that you live in times 
 when reform bills, steamboats, railroads, penny postage, 
 and free trade, to say nothing of the ratification of civil and 
 religious liberties, have been possible facts." 
 
 Place did not die till 1854, and before he died had much 
 to bear. His second marriage in 1830 turned out fairly well 
 for twelve years. But young Chatterley, the stepson, was 
 a source of constant anxiety and trouble, and Place's home 
 life was embittered by quarrels with his wife about him and 
 about money matters. The remainder of his property was 
 still further diminished, and he was obliged to sell his prints
 
 LAST YEARS 397 
 
 and many of his books. Yet he was still capable of a 
 resolute assertion of his old philosophy. There is an entry 
 in his diary for 1826, " I have limited my desires so as to 
 bring all that is necessary, and more than is necessary, 
 within my reach ; and have, I think, brought myself to 
 this state, that no possible event can make me uncomfort- 
 able for twenty-four hours, bodily pain alone excepted." 
 To this in 1850 he added, in the changed writing and 
 confused phrases of his extreme old age, " I have since 
 had more to prove the supposition correct since the above 
 was written, and most especially during the last five years, 
 than all that occurred in all my former long life had been 
 compressed in the same time, even after its amount had 
 been doubled. Yet thanks to former reasonings, I have 
 neither lost my cheerfulness, nor even been unhappy 
 during twenty-four consecutive hours." * 
 
 Twelve months after this was written a separation was 
 arranged with his wife, and Place went to live with his 
 married daughter in Hammersmith. His grand-daughter 
 still remembers his arrival, and the waggon which brought 
 the remainder of his library to be stacked in a dry stable. 
 He was now very feeble, but comfortable and happy. 
 Shortly after his attack in 1844 he had chosen a method 
 of occupying himself mechanically and yet usefully. " Com- 
 pelled," he says, "to give up reading, and to be very 
 cautious as to the time I employ in writing, my life would 
 have become very monotonous and irksome had I not 
 discovered a resource in what had at times filled up spaces 
 and given me occupation when I was compelled to sit and 
 hear the tales and complaints of various persons. This 
 occupation consisted of cutting from newspapers notices on 
 various subjects, and especially of such as related to the work- 
 ing people. I had put away a great quantity of newspapers 
 and cuttings from newspapers. These I now overhauled, 
 1 Diary, November 24, 1826. Note added February 22, 1850.
 
 398 LAST YEARS 
 
 us I did other largo quantities which were sent to me. 
 From these I cut out whatever I thought might be useful 
 at some future time, in relation lo the working-classes most 
 especially. I now arranged these papers, pasted them into 
 books, and put them in form for binding." l Some of these 
 " guard-books " are in the British Museum, others have been 
 scattered or destroyed. On this task he spent two cheerful 
 and industrious years at his daughter's house. Joseph 
 Parkes used to come and talk to him, with Samuel Harri- 
 son, the most faithful of his political disciples, who ten 
 years before had offered to copy letters for him, " well paid 
 for my trouble in this way by the privilege of reading what 
 you write." 2 In 1853 his two clever and hardworking un- 
 married daughters took a little house with him in Foxley 
 Terrace, Earl's Court. Here on January i, 1854, he was 
 found to have died suddenly and painlessly in the night. 
 
 His death, as has been already said, attracted little atten- 
 tion. The newspapers during the few weeks preceding the 
 Crimean War were filled with other matter. Joseph 
 Hume, however, himself very old and soon to die, spoke 
 in his praise at a meeting of the Parliamentary Reform 
 Association, declaring him to have been "the most dis- 
 interested reformer he ever knew, valuable in council, 
 fertile in resource, performing great labours ; but he never 
 thought of himself. Honours and advantages he might 
 often have commanded, but he preferred assiduous and 
 private services, which he rendered of his own zeal, and 
 defrayed out of his own wealth." 3 
 
 J "Autobiography." * 27,810(225). 
 
 * The Beasoner, March 26, 1854.
 
 INDEX 
 
 ABERCROMBIK, Mr., made Speaker, 
 
 336 
 
 Ackland, Lord, 216 
 Acts to repeal Combination Laws 
 
 (1824), 216 
 
 Second ditto (1825), 238 
 Acts, the Six, 123, 148 
 
 " Address to the Working Classes," 
 by Lovett, 366 
 
 Agitation, Place's ideal of an, 
 369 seq. 
 
 Allen, William, trustee of Lancas- 
 trian school, 94, 109 
 
 Place's condolence with, 194 
 Althorp, Lord : 
 
 (1830) represents Ministers 
 opposed to ballot, 253 
 
 (1831) hints at modifications 
 
 of Reform Bill, 276 
 
 a friend of Warburton, 278 
 
 (1832) declares bill about to 
 pass, 320 
 
 (1832) suggests the avoiding 
 of registration part of new Act, 
 
 325 
 
 ( J 833) makes an inquiry from 
 Poor-Law Commissioners, 331 
 
 (1833) commends Bulwer's 
 speech on Stamp Duty, 337 
 
 refuses to pledge himself to 
 
 its repeal, 338 
 Place's criticism of this, 340 
 
 Allison, Mr., one of Place's em- 
 ployers, 7, 16 
 
 " American Correspondence Society 
 and Caucuses," 360 
 
 " Analysis of the Human Mind," 
 by James Mill, 91 
 
 Anatomy Bill, 288 71. 
 
 Anti- Corn -Law Association, the 
 Metropolitan, meeting of, 377 
 
 becoming moribund, 391, 392 
 
 - League, 370, 391-395 
 
 Apprentices, Statute of, 95, 159 
 
 Apprenticeship, Place's, 4 
 
 Argyle Street meetings of "Metro- 
 politan Trades Union," 271 
 
 Army, proposed increase of, 255 
 
 position of in 1832, 294, 305, 
 
 308 
 
 prophesied desertion of, 316 
 
 Attwood, Thomas : 
 
 his proposal to pay no taxes, 
 
 251 
 
 foundation of his Birmingham 
 
 Political Union, 251 
 
 influence in Chartist move- 
 ment, 366, 371 scq. 
 
 Austin, Charles, 86 
 
 " Authentic Narrative of the 
 Westminster Election in 1819," 
 MS. by Place, 132 n., ct seq. 
 
 BALLOT, agitation for vote by, 253, 
 259. 327 
 
 Place's view of vote by, 390 
 
 see also Six Points 
 
 Banbury election in 1841, 379 teq. 
 
 Bank of England, run on, 311 n. 
 
 directors communicate with 
 
 Earl Grey, 321 
 
 Barton, Mr. A., a Welsh judge, 202 
 
 Beauclerk, A. H., Major, 244, 261, 
 280 
 
 Beaumont, A. H., editor of Nor- 
 thern Liberator : article on Place, 
 170, 178 
 
 399
 
 400 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Belgrave, Lord : his approval of 
 
 massacre at Peterloo, 144 
 Bell, Dr. Andrew, author of pam- 
 phlet on Madras System, 93 
 Benbow, William : 
 
 prosecuted, 291 
 
 Rotundanist, 273, 285 
 
 Benefit Society, Breeches-Makers', 
 
 strike of, 6 seq. 
 
 Benett, Mr., of Warminster, 165 
 Bennet, the Hon. Grey, M.P., 178 
 Bentham, Jeremy : 
 
 See generally, Chaps, iii. v. vi. 
 
 assisted the Gorgon, 204 
 
 described by Place, 81, 92 
 
 his opinion of Place, 80 
 
 his reception of King's speech 
 
 (1830), 247 
 
 his death, 92 
 
 his will, 85 
 
 various of his works, 83, 84, 104 
 
 Bethnal Green Branch Political 
 
 Union, 307 
 Bible, use of, in Lancastrian school?, 
 
 105 
 
 Bickersteth, Mr., assisted the Gor- 
 gon, 204 
 
 Bingham, editor of works by Ben- 
 tham, 83 
 
 Binns, John, arrested at Birming- 
 ham, 26 
 
 Benjamin, his brother, 27 
 
 Birkbeck, Dr., 113 
 
 speech against newspaper tax, 
 
 349 
 
 Institute, 82 
 
 rise of, 113 
 
 Birmingham : 
 
 (1796) Place's visit to de- 
 fend delegates of Corresponding 
 Society, 26 
 
 (1824) deputies excluded from 
 
 Committee on Combination Laws, 
 
 231 
 
 (1830) Political Union formed, 
 
 251 
 
 its action in Reform agitation, 
 
 299. 307, 3i8 
 
 (1837-8), its action in Chartist 
 
 agitation, 366 seq. 
 
 Black, editor of Morning Chronicle, 
 
 274 
 Black, Dr. J. R., American, 348 and 
 
 359 
 
 Black Dirarf, the, 84 
 
 Blanqui's reference to Place, 158 
 
 "Bloody Black Jack" (Sir John 
 Silvester), 200 
 
 Bolton Chronicle on condition of 
 weavers, 181 
 
 " Book of Fallacies," Bentham's, 83 
 
 Books read by Place in youth, 17, 
 28,32 
 
 Borough Road, school at, 93, 101 
 
 Bosville, Col. : his intercourse with 
 Place, 33 
 
 Bowring, editor of Edinburgh Re- 
 view, 84, 85, 87 
 
 Bowyer, a journeyman bookseller, 
 
 275 
 Brand, Mr., a Whig, and Reform, 
 
 143 
 
 " Bread and Cheese Question," a 
 dangerous method, 372 
 
 Breeches-Makers' Benefit Society's 
 strike, 6 
 
 Union reorganised, 19 
 
 Bribery (supposed) of Place by 
 Government, 54 
 
 Bristol Riots in 1831, 285, 294 
 
 Bristow, Mr., one of Place's em- 
 ployers, 7 
 
 "British and Foreign School So- 
 ciety," 95 
 
 Brompton Square, house in, 196, 
 330 
 
 Brooks, Henry, elector of West- 
 minster, 45, 47, 116, 130, 180 
 
 Brougham, Lord : 
 a disciple of Bentham, 86 
 
 his influence in education, 94, 
 
 96, no, in 
 
 (1816) proposed candidature 
 
 of, at Westminster, 117-119 
 
 (1817) action against Reform, 
 
 122-125 
 
 (1818) article on State of Par- 
 ties, 132 
 
 (1820) influence for Queen 
 Caroline, 152
 
 INDEX 
 
 401 
 
 Brougham, Lord : 
 
 (1824) action on Combination 
 
 Laws, 216 n. 
 (1830) influence in Keform Bill, 
 
 248, 276 
 (1832) inquiry about Rotun- 
 
 danists, 274 n. 
 (1834) evidence on Libel Law, 
 
 337 
 (1834) admission concerning 
 
 Dorchester case, 357 
 (1835) the real leader of the 
 
 Whigs, 334 
 (1835) on Newspaper Stamps, 
 
 341 
 
 Sketch of, in European Maga- 
 zine, 187 
 
 his Educational Committee, 97, 
 
 i5 
 
 Brunei's tunnel, Place's visit to, 89 n. 
 Brussels, revolution in, 1830, 247 
 Bulwer, speech on Newspaper Tax, 
 
 337 
 
 Burdett, Sir Francis : 
 
 history previous to 1807, 43 
 
 (1807) election at Westmin- 
 ster, 47 
 
 (1810) committed by House of 
 
 Commons, 49 seq. 
 
 (1810) estrangement from 
 
 Place, 54 seq. , 119 
 
 (1810) procession for, on re- 
 
 lease from Tower, 55 seq. 
 (1817) presents petition to 
 House, 1 20 
 (1817) out of favour with Re- 
 
 formers, 125 
 
 elections at Westminster in 
 1818, 1820, 129 seq., 149, 152, 
 1 80 
 
 (1819) resolution in favour of 
 
 Reform, 140 
 
 (1819) did not defend Hob- 
 house's pamphlet, 148 
 (1820) fined and imprisoned for 
 letter to electors, 149 
 
 (1825) connection with Repeal 
 
 of Combination Laws, 217, 236 
 
 (1831) connection with Reform 
 
 Bill, 257 
 
 Burdett, Sir Francis : 
 
 (1831) made president of the 
 
 National Political Union, 280, 282, 
 
 288 
 (1831) views on Metropolitan 
 
 Boroughs, 292 
 
 (1832) refusal to take up ques- 
 
 tion of voters having paid taxes, 
 
 325 
 (1832) refusal to make pledges, 
 
 327 
 
 his brother, 51 
 
 Business, Place's establishment of 
 
 his own, 33 
 
 profits from, in 1816, 38 
 
 handed over to his son, 38 
 
 CAMPBELL, Thomas, the poet : cor- 
 respondence with Place, 193 
 Canadian troubles, 329 
 Canning, George : 
 
 (1819) on Westminster elec- 
 tion, 140 
 
 (1822) leader in the Commons, 
 184 
 
 (1825) speeches concerning 
 
 Combination Laws, 236 seq. 
 
 Capital, Place's loss of, 329 
 
 " Captain Swing," 254 
 
 Carlile, Richard : 
 
 imprisoned for article on Re- 
 form, 255 and n., 147 
 
 Article referring to Place, 80, 
 
 176 
 
 Article referring to "A Trifling 
 
 Mistake," 149 
 
 Cartwright, Major : 
 
 his "Plan of Reform" (1776) 
 
 and other pamphlets, 21, 62, 365 
 
 his intercourse with Place, 62 
 founding the Hampden Club, 
 
 62, 115 
 
 (1816 and 1819), proposed can- 
 didature for Westminster, 1 1 8, 137 
 
 (1817) collecting petitions, 120 
 
 (1819) action after "Peterloo," 
 
 142 
 
 Place's review of his life, 87 
 
 Castlereagh administration, 121 seq. 
 
 2 e
 
 402 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Catholic Emancipation, the Duke's 
 
 action on, 241 
 Cato Street Plot, 149 
 "Caucus," references to, 134 n., 
 
 260 
 Census in England, 167 
 
 in Ireland, 167 n. 
 
 Chadd, Elizabeth, Place's marriage 
 
 to, 5 
 
 See Wife, his first 
 
 Chad wick, Edwin, secretary to 
 Poor-Law Commission, 331 
 
 "Characters for Charity's Sake," 
 187 
 
 Charing Cross : 
 
 (No. 29), 33 
 
 - (No. 16), 34 
 
 house left by Place, 330 
 Improvement Bill, 181 
 
 Charter, the People's, 359, 365, 367 
 Chartism, Place's history of, 382 
 
 his final views on the move- 
 ment, 377 
 
 Chartist Church, 379 
 leaders imprisoned in 1839, 375 
 
 schools planned, 378 
 Chatterley, Mrs., Place's marriage to, 
 
 196 
 
 Place's step-son, 397 
 
 Cholera, the, 287, 291, 330 
 " Chrestomathia," 84, 103 
 Chrestomathic school, the, 104, in 
 Clarke, Mrs., selling commissions, 48 
 Cleave, John : 
 
 Botundanist, 272, 283 
 
 afterwards Chartist, 362, 365, 
 
 366 
 
 Cleaves Gazette, 348 
 Cobbett, William : 
 (1806) his letter to electors of 
 
 Westminster, 41 
 
 (1816) his movement for re- 
 form, 116 seq. 
 
 (1818) quarrel with Burdett, 
 
 129 
 
 (1818) nominated for West- 
 minster while in America, 133 
 
 proposal on National Debt, 1 58 
 
 (1830) prosecuted for sedition, 
 
 255 
 
 Cobbett, William : 
 (1832) preaching "no-rent," 
 
 293 
 
 Cobden, Richard, 391-396 
 Cochrane, Lord : 
 
 (1807) elected for Westmin- 
 ster, 47 
 
 (1810) barricading Burdett's 
 
 house, 51 
 
 (1812-1814) twice returned 
 
 unopposed, 56 
 
 (1814) imprisoned, 56 
 
 (1816) illness of father, 118 
 
 (1817) read Brougham's letter 
 
 in House, 125 
 
 ( 1 8 1 8 ) took command of Chilian 
 
 fleet, 128 
 
 Colchester, Lord: his correspond- 
 ence quoted, 140, 152 
 Collins, John, Chartist, 377; his 
 
 church, 379 
 
 Combination Laws, the Acts to re- 
 peal them, 216 
 
 Committee to inquire into 
 
 Action of Repeal, 224 seq. 
 
 proposed bill to reintroduce 
 
 the, 355 
 
 Committee of the House of Commons 
 on Action of Repeal of Combina- 
 tion Laws (1825), 224 seq. 
 
 Artisans' Emigration and 
 
 Machinery Exportation (1824), 
 209 seq. 
 
 Drunkenness (1834), 173 
 
 Education in London (1816), 
 97, 105 
 
 Libel Law (1834), 337 
 
 - Mendicity in London (1815), 
 164 
 
 Companion to the Newspaper, an 
 article on Trades Unionism in, 
 
 355 
 
 Compositors on the Times prose- 
 cuted, 200, 201 
 
 " Condition of the People Question," 
 241 seq. 
 
 Constables under the sheriffs, 49, 
 52 
 
 "Constitutional Information" So 
 ciety, 21
 
 INDEX 
 
 403 
 
 Convention of Chartist delegates, 
 
 373 <? 
 
 " Co-operative Knowledge, British 
 Association for the spread of," 
 
 358 
 "Co-operative Trading Association, 
 
 the London," 358 
 Coopers, strike of, 358 
 
 their present to Place, 358 
 Copley, the Attorney-General, and 
 
 the Combination Laws, 207, 229 
 Corn Law, new, proposed in 1814, 
 
 159 
 
 defence of by landowner, 165 
 Corresponding Society, the London, 
 
 20-28 
 
 Corruption at Westminster elec- 
 tions, 42, 131, 138 
 
 Cotton factory, Place's views on, 174 
 
 Cotton-spinners at Glasgow, their 
 strike, 221 
 
 Cotton-weavers at Glasgow, Place 
 writes to, 219 
 
 at Bolton, 181 
 
 Courier, the, ministerial paper, 277, 
 
 278 
 
 Coutts, Miss Sophia, 43 
 Covent Garden Theatre, riots at, 48 
 Creditor and debtor, the law of, 186 
 Cumberland, inquest involving the 
 
 Duke of, 54 
 
 "Currency" men, 366, 371 seq. 
 Currency, division in Cabinet on 
 
 question of (1819), 140 
 Curriers, laws concerning, 186 
 "Cutter club," a, 4 
 "Cutting and Flaying Acts," 186, 
 
 191 
 Czapski, Count, 302 
 
 DEAN and Chapter of Westminster, 
 
 their influence, 40 
 Delhi Gazette, Place writes for the, 
 
 395 
 
 Denman, Lord : 
 support of Queen Caroline, 
 
 152 
 
 on repeal of Combination Laws, 
 
 235 
 
 "Deontology," Benthaiu's, 84 n. 
 
 Deputation by night to Lord Grey, 
 278 
 
 Derby, Lord, 144 
 
 Despard, Colonel : 
 
 in Corresponding Society, 27 
 
 - friendship with Place, 33 
 
 Doherty, John, 265 seq., 354 
 
 Dorchester labourers, their sen- 
 tence for combination, 355 
 
 Drummond, Henry, as Reform can- 
 didate, 263 
 
 Drunkenness, Committee on, 1834, 
 
 173 
 
 Drury Lane, report on the educa- 
 tional condition of, 97 
 Dublin working - men accused of 
 
 crimes, 231 
 
 Dumont, economist, 83, 86 
 Dunlop, master cottoner, 221 
 Durham, Lord, as George Larnbton, 
 
 134 
 
 on Reform Bill, 292 
 
 concerned in military prepara- 
 tions, 304 
 
 in communication with Place, 
 
 324 
 
 plan of federal colonies, 329 n. 
 Dutch officers at Yarmouth, 95 
 " Dykes " and the " Loyal Britons," 
 24 
 
 EARL'S Court, Place's house in, 398 
 Edinburgh Convention of London 
 
 Corresponding Society, the arrests 
 
 at, 20 
 
 High School, 99, 100 
 
 Revieiv, Place's attempts to 
 
 write for, 87, 88 
 
 Review, article by Brougham 
 
 on State of Parties, 132 
 
 Review's article referring to 
 
 "Caucus," 134 
 
 Review's article by M'Culloch 
 
 on Combination Laws, 208 
 " Egypt, History of," Place's review, 
 
 87 
 
 Eight hours' day, proposed strike 
 for an, 354
 
 404 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Eldon, Lord, on Act to Repeal 
 
 Combination Laws, 239 
 Elections, General : 
 
 1806, 44 
 
 - 1807, 44 
 
 - 1818, 128 
 
 1820, 149 
 
 - 1830, 241, 243 
 
 1832 (Reformed Parliament), 
 326 
 
 - 1835, 335 
 1837, 366 
 
 1841, 379 seq. 
 
 Elliot, Mr., Tory candidate for West- 
 minster (1807), 47 
 Ellis, James, leather-breeches maker, 
 
 9 
 
 " Emancipate your Colonies," 329 n. 
 Emigration of Artisans, Committee 
 
 on, 209 
 
 Employer, Place as an, 199 
 En son, George, on Population, 166 
 
 teq. 
 
 Epigrams on Place, 137, 391 
 Erskine, Lord : 
 his pamphlet defending the 
 
 Whigs, 139 
 
 Place's reply to, 139 
 
 - Hobhouse's "A Trifling Mis- 
 take of," 148 
 
 Place's early view of, 40 
 
 "Essay on Wages," M'Culloch's, 
 187 
 
 quoted by Place, 161 
 
 Este, Mr., of Covent Garden Theatre, 
 48 
 
 European Magazine, sketches in, 187 
 
 "Evans" in United Englishmen 
 conspiracy, 27 
 
 Evans, Colonel de Lacy : 
 
 concerned in military prepara- 
 tions, 304 
 
 elected for Westminster, 327 
 
 took up question of voters hav- 
 ing paid rates and taxes, 335 
 
 Evening Standard, the, accuses Grote 
 of originating the gold placards, 
 310 
 
 Examiner, has article by James Mill 
 on Pledges, 326 
 
 Exportation of Machinery, Com- 
 mittee on, 209 
 
 FATHER, Place's, 3 
 Federal Colonies, plan of, 329 
 Federation of Trades Unions, 354 teq, 
 Fielden, John, and Trades Unions, 
 
 354 
 Finality Jack," 366 
 
 Finance Accounts, Public, 160 
 
 Committees for Supply, 186 
 
 Fitzwilliam, Lord, dismissed from 
 Lieutenancy, 147 
 
 Fletcher, Joseph, and London Cor- 
 porations, 346 
 
 Fonblanque, Anthony, editor of 
 Examiner, 332 
 
 Forbes, Sir William, and his wife, 71 
 
 Ford, Mr., a magistrate, 27 
 
 Ford Abbey, 68 
 
 Place's visit to, 73 seq. 
 
 Forster, Joseph, in Lancastrian Asso- 
 ciation, 94 scq. 
 
 Foskett, George, Rotundanist, 271, 
 272 
 
 Fox, Charles James, and West- 
 minster, 40, 41 
 
 Fox, Joseph, and Lancastrian Asso- 
 ciation, 94, 106-111, 183 
 
 Fox, William J. : 
 
 (1831) denounces Lords in Re- 
 
 form meeting, 282 
 
 (1832) defends pledges, 326 
 
 "Fragment on Government," Ben- 
 
 tham's, 65 
 
 Framework knitters, History of, 207 
 France, Place's master, 3 
 Free Trade : 
 
 debate on, by Place, Owen, and 
 
 others, 360 
 
 Whig disbelief in, 185 
 
 Frend, Mr. William, of the Temple, 29 
 "Friends of the People, Society 
 
 of," 21 
 
 " GAGGING " Acts.'the, 122, 123 
 Galloway, Alexander A. : 
 in Reform campaign, 307
 
 INDEX 
 
 405 
 
 Galloway, Alexander A. : 
 
 correspondence with Place on 
 
 London Corporation, 347 
 " Gamaliel Smith," 84 
 Gast, J., Trade Unionist, 189 
 
 and n. 
 Gasworks, strike at Westminster, 
 
 357 
 
 George IV. : 
 divorce proceedings, 150 seq. 
 
 death of, 241 
 
 Place's view of, 242 
 
 Glasgow men and Combination 
 
 Laws, 218-221, 231 
 and Chartism : letter from 
 
 editor of Argus, 376 
 Gloucester coffee-house, constables 
 
 sworn in at, 52 
 "Go for Gold," 277, 308 seq., 315 
 
 seq., 318 
 
 Godwin, William : 
 his " Political Justice," 29 
 
 his "Population," 157 
 
 - his view of "Wealth of Na- 
 tions," 157 
 
 Place's intercourse with, 57-60 
 
 Gorgon, the, edited by Wade, 204 
 seq. 
 
 Government ask Place to write 
 pamphlets : 
 
 on rick-burning, 253 
 
 advice to working-classes, 354 
 
 Graham, G. J., Utilitarian, 86 
 
 Sir James. 358 
 
 Gray, Mr., schoolmaster, of Edin- 
 burgh, 99 
 
 Grey, Lord : 
 
 See Chaps, ix. x. xi. generally 
 (1819) denunciation of West- 
 minster Reformers, 134 
 
 (1830) gives notice of motion 
 
 for Reform, 248 
 
 takes office, 252 
 
 (1831) deputation by night to, 
 
 278 
 
 (1832) first resignation, 295 
 
 sent for by the King, 310 
 
 second resignation, 334 
 
 Grosvenor, Lord, Place's interview 
 
 with, 112 
 
 Grote, George: 
 
 connection with Bentham, 83, 
 
 86 
 
 (1831) suggested as candidate 
 
 for Westminster, 263 
 
 connection with Reform Bill, 
 
 276, 279, 310 seq. 
 
 Grote, Mrs., correspondence with 
 Place, 91, 92, 279 
 
 HABEAS Corpus Act, suspension of : 
 
 (1795). 25 
 
 (1796), 28 
 
 (l8l7), 122 
 
 Hackney coaches, Place's work on 
 the laws regulating them, 186, 
 191 
 
 Hammersmith, Place retires to, 397 
 Hammond, Mr. Elton, and God- 
 win, 58 
 
 Hampden Club, the, 62, 115 
 Hampstead Heath, Mass Meeting 
 
 proposed on, 306 
 
 " Handloom Weavers and Factory 
 Workers," pamphlet by Place, 
 
 173 
 Hardy, Thomas, arrest and trial of, 
 
 20-23 
 Harris, Mr., of Covent Garden 
 
 Theatre, 48 
 Harrison, Samuel, disciple of Place 
 
 398 
 Harrowby, Lord, and the Reform 
 
 Bill, 292 
 Hawes, B., M.P. : his intercourse 
 
 with Place, 177 n. 
 Henson, Gravener, 207 seq. 
 Hetherington, Henry, 271, 272 n., 
 
 348, 365 
 
 Hibbert, Julian, Rotundanist, 272 
 Higher Schools, Lancastrian, 78, 
 
 103 
 Hobhouse, Sir John Cam : 
 
 and Bentham's works, 83 
 (1819) election at Westminster, 
 
 132-140 
 
 (1819) pamphlet, "A Trifling 
 
 Mistake," and committal to New- 
 gate, 148
 
 406 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Hobhouse, Sir John Cam : 
 
 (1820) re-election, 149 
 
 Parliamentary work (1820- 
 1830) 153 
 
 with Charing Cross Improve- 
 ment Bill, 181 
 
 sketch of, in European Maga- 
 zine, 187 
 
 (1^25) action on Combination 
 
 Laws, 236 
 (1830) receives news of Great 
 
 Revolution, 243 
 
 action on Reform Bill, 257, 
 
 3", 315 
 
 concerned in military prepara- 
 tions, 304 
 
 - (1832) work in Reformed 
 Parliament, 324, 335 
 
 declares against Pledges, 327 
 
 Hodgskin, Thomas, account of, and 
 
 his Political Economy, 267 seq. 
 proposed Mechanics' Institute, 
 
 112 
 
 made Lecturer in it, 268 
 
 Holcroft, Thomas, friend of Place, 
 
 59,92 
 
 Holgate, G. J., 176 
 Holland, Lord, Place's criticism of, 
 
 250 
 
 Hone and his Register, 124, 125 
 Horse Guards to clear Piccadilly, 
 
 5 
 House and Window Taxes, pledge 
 
 to abolition of, 327 
 Howard, Mr., announces passing of 
 
 Reform Bill, 320 
 Howitt, William, on Priestcraft : 
 
 Place criticises, 334 
 Huddersfield working-men : Place 
 
 writes to, 326 
 Hume, Joseph : 
 
 (1813) introduction to Place, 
 
 183 seq. 
 
 on Lancastrian Association, 
 107, no 
 
 - (1822) questions on finance 
 accounts 
 
 (1824-1826) work on Com- 
 bination Laws, 206 and whole of 
 chap. viii. 
 
 Hume, Joseph : 
 
 (1830) election at Middlesex, 
 
 243 
 
 - (1834) question on coopers' 
 strike, 358 
 
 (1835) work on Newspaper 
 
 Stamp Duty, 339, 349 
 
 (1840) connected with Char- 
 tism, 388 
 
 (1854) last words on Place, 
 398 
 
 Hummums in Covent Garden, 
 
 public breakfast at, 131 
 Hunt, Henry, "Orator": 
 
 Reference to Memoirs, 5 1 
 
 (1810) foments quarrel between 
 
 Place and Bnrdett, 55, 56 
 
 (1815-1816) work with Cobbett, 
 
 118 seq. 
 
 - (1818-1820) work in West- 
 minster elections, 129, 133, 137, 
 
 139 
 
 (1819) at " Peterloo," 140 
 
 committal and triumphal re- 
 turn to London, 146 
 
 (1830) elected at Preston, 265 
 
 (1831) work for Reform Bill in 
 Manchester, 299 
 
 Place's impressions of, 119 seq. 
 
 Huskisson (1822) in Government, 184 
 
 connection with Combination 
 
 Laws, 207 and whole of chap, 
 viii. 
 
 Hutcheson, master-cottoner of Glas- 
 gow, 221 
 
 ILLNESSES of Place, 345, 374, 395 
 
 " Improvement of the Working 
 Classes," pamphlet by Place, 163 
 
 " India, History of," by James 
 Mill, 67, 78 
 
 India, Place's views on, 329 : writes 
 for Delhi Gazette, 395 
 
 41 Inquiry Concerning Political Jus- 
 tice," Godwin's, 29 
 
 Ireland, resolution of Chartists 
 about, 373 
 
 Irish Coercion Bill, 328 
 i Municipal Bill, 350
 
 INDEX 
 
 407 
 
 JEFFREY, editor of Edinburgh Re- 
 view, 88 
 
 Johnson, General, M.P., 302 
 Jones, John Gale : 
 (1796) arrested at Birmingham, 
 
 26 
 
 (1810) called to Bar of House, 
 
 49 
 
 in procession for Burdett, 56 
 
 Jones, Col. Leslie Grove : 
 
 action on Reform Bill, 292, 304 
 
 biographical note, 255 
 
 speech in Regent's Park, 306 
 
 KEMBLE. John, and "O.P." riots, 48 
 Kent, Duke of, and Lancastrian 
 
 Association, 107 seq. 
 introduces Place and Hume, 
 
 " King Lud," note on, 207 
 Kinnaird, Douglas, candidate for 
 Westminster, 129 seq. 
 
 " LABOUR Defended against the 
 Claims of Capital," by Hodgskin, 
 268 
 
 " Labour Rate Bill," 331 and n. 
 
 "Labour Rewarded,'' by William 
 Thompson, 268 
 
 " Labour Value," Ricardo's theory 
 of, 267 
 
 Lamb, George, elected for West- 
 minster, 135 seq. 
 
 sent to Place by Lord Mel- 
 bourne, 253 
 
 Lamb, Lady Caroline, 136, 138 
 
 Lambton, George, 134 n. See Lord 
 Durham 
 
 Lancashire, remarks of Place con- 
 cerning, 145 
 
 and the Reform Bill, 265 
 
 drilling of Chartists in, 375 
 
 Lancaster, Joseph, 93 seq. 
 scandals about, 107 
 
 charges against Place, 107 
 
 Lancastrian Association, the Royal, 
 generally Chap. iv. 
 
 Lancastrian Association, the Royal : 
 Place resigns from it, 56, 109 
 
 Higher Schools, 98, 103 
 
 Land Nationalisation, Place's article 
 
 against, 173 
 | Land Nationaliser, Spence.the, 6 1 seq. 
 
 Lansdowne, Lord, canvassed for 
 Reform Bill, 216 
 
 Place's opinion of, 250 
 
 Lascelles, Lord, chairman of Com- 
 mittee on Mendicity, 164 
 
 Lauderdale, Lord, opposes Reform 
 Bill, 216 
 
 "Letter to the Electors of West- 
 minster, A," by Place, 327. See 
 also "Report to Electors of West- 
 minster " 
 
 " Letter to a minister . . . respecting 
 Taxes on Knowledge," by Place, 
 
 337 
 
 Letters from Place to be shown to 
 Ministers : 
 
 (1831) to Hobhouse on Reform 
 
 Bill, 276 
 
 (1832) to Col. Jone, for Lord 
 Durham, 292 
 
 (1835), to Parkes, for Lord 
 
 Melbourne, on Municipal Reform 
 Bill, 344 
 
 " Letters to the Electors of West- 
 minster," 1806, by Cobbett, 42 
 
 "Libel, the Law of," pamphlet by 
 Place, 187 
 
 Libel Law, Committee on, 337 
 
 Liberal, use of this term, 368 
 
 the National Liberal Federa- 
 tion, 260 
 
 " Liberty Candidates," 138, 149 
 
 Licensed Appraisers' Western So- 
 ciety, their action in Reform agi- 
 tation, 297 
 
 Lichfield, Bishop of, mobbed, 296 
 
 Lincoln's Inn Fields, Rotundanist 
 meeting in, 282 
 
 Linen-drapers' assistants, organisa- 
 tion of, by Place, 186 
 
 Liquor traffic : free trade is advo- 
 cated by Place, 175 
 
 Liverpool, Lord : was canvassed for 
 Combination Laws. 216 n.
 
 408 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Liverpool, Lord: his government, 50, 
 140 
 
 London Corresponding Society, 20-28 
 
 Reform of the Corporation of, 
 
 346 teq. 
 
 Place's proposal for its cor- 
 poration, 347 
 
 Place's summary on political 
 
 work in, 393 
 
 Longson, William, weaver of Stock- 
 port, letter to, 371 
 
 Lord Mayor's petition on Reform 
 Bill, 307 
 
 Lords, Reform Bill thrown out in 
 the (i 83 1), 264 
 
 oppose Municipal Reform Bill, 
 
 344 seq. 
 
 Lovett, William : 
 
 a letter from Place to him, and 
 answer, quoted in full, 362-365 
 
 as Chartist, 359, and whole of 
 
 chap. xiii. 
 
 as Rotundanist, 269 seq. , 282, 
 
 290 
 
 imprisoned, 375 
 
 "Loyal Britons," 24 
 
 Lyndhurst, Lord, against Reform 
 Bill, 295 
 
 could not form a Ministry, 
 
 311 n. 
 
 against Municipal Corporations 
 
 Bill, 344 
 
 M'CULLOCH, J. R., his rise as eco- 
 nomist, 157 
 
 lectured at Royal Institution, 
 1 80 
 
 action on Combination Laws, 
 
 207, 208 
 
 on "Peterloo," 144 seq. 
 
 M'Dougal, Peter, of Glasgow, 219 
 
 M'Intosh, Sir James, 59, 216 n. 
 
 " Madras System," 93 
 
 Malthus, his doctrine, 164 seq. 
 
 Manchester and Reform agitation, 
 265, 290, 299 
 
 and Chartist agitation, 355 
 
 and Anti-Corn-Law League, 
 
 393-395 
 
 Manchester, four working-men pro- 
 secuted for open-air meeting, 290 
 Martineau, Harriet, Place's letters 
 
 to, 332 
 
 approached by Government to 
 
 write pamphlet, 355 
 
 Marylebone parish meeting in Re- 
 form agitation, 304, 306, 311 
 
 Maxwell, Sir Murray, candidate for 
 Westminster, 130 
 
 "Mayre the potter," 180 
 
 " Mechanics' Institute " (Birkbeck), 
 112, 268 
 
 Meeting of Radical members and 
 working-men to draft the Charter, 
 
 365 
 Meetings in London after "Peterloo," 
 
 142, 144 .-"/ 
 interrupted by Chartists, 76 
 
 seq. 
 
 Melbourne, Lord : 
 against Reform Bill, 293 
 
 in office (i 833-34), 334, 336, 350, 
 
 355. 357 
 biography of, 177/1. 
 
 his factotum Young, 303 
 Mendicity, Committee on, 164 
 Merle, Mr., editor of the Courier, 
 
 284 
 Middlesex, Burdett member for, 43 
 
 Hume elected for, 243 
 
 Mill, James : 
 
 Clara, James, jun., and Wil- 
 
 helmina, 70 seq. 
 
 death of, 92 
 
 life at Ford Abbey, 73 seq. 
 
 Mrs. James, 72 seq. 
 
 reprints of his " Government " 
 
 and "Ballot," 187 
 
 See generally Chaps, iii. v. vi. 
 
 Mill, John Stuart : 
 articles against pledges, 326 
 
 early life, 70 seq. 
 
 enters Indian Office, 86 
 
 his letter to Place (1837), 351 
 
 mental development criticised 
 by Place, 91 
 
 work on Bentham's books, 83 
 
 Millard, William, Rotundanist, 272 
 Millbank prison, 105
 
 INDEX 
 
 409 
 
 Mob dispersed on Lord Mayor's Day, 
 
 (1830), 248 
 Monthly Repository, article by W. J. 
 
 Fox in, 326 
 Moore, Peter, 208 seq. 
 Richard, and People's Charter, 
 
 365 
 
 Morning Chronicle, the : 
 
 articles from Place on Sinking 
 
 Fund, 1 60 
 
 connection with Whigs, 143 
 
 had articles by Hodgskin, 
 1831, 274 
 
 on Combination Laws, 204 
 
 on Westminster election, 1819, 
 
 136 seq. 
 
 said to be influential in the 
 
 country, 392 
 
 Morning Herald hints at compro- 
 mise with Lords, 278 
 
 Morning Post, 1832 : account of "Go 
 for Gold," 310 
 
 " Municipal Corporation Reform," 
 the, 342 seq. 
 
 Corporation Commission, Re- 
 port of, 341 
 
 Government, Place's proposals 
 
 for, 343 
 
 Reform Bill, 330 seq., 342 seq. ; 
 
 passed, 346 
 
 NAPIER, Sir William, 302, 303 
 
 Sir Charles, 375 
 
 " Narrative History of the Working 
 
 Classes," planned by Place, 385 
 National Debt, Cobbett's proposal 
 
 for, 158 
 
 Sinking Fund for, 159 
 
 "National Society for Education of 
 
 Poor in Church Principles," 94 
 " National Union of the Working 
 
 Classes," 266 n., 269, 291 
 " Natural Religion," by Bentham, 83 
 "New Move," the, 339 
 "New View of Society," a, by 
 
 Owen, 63 
 
 "Newcastle Fox Club," 134 
 Newspaper cuttings made in Place's 
 
 old age, 398 
 
 Newspaper Stamp Duties, 148, 191, 
 
 255, 288, 327, 336-342, 348-350 
 
 close of agitation, 360 
 
 "No-rent" campaign, 293 
 Northern Liberator references to 
 
 Place, 170, 177, 333 
 Northern Star of Leeds, and Chartist 
 
 agitation, 353, 366, 372, 373, 390 
 Northumberland, Duke of, and 
 
 Westminster elections, 41 seq. 
 " Not Paul, but Jesus," by Bentham, 
 
 84 
 Nottingham, disturbances at, 294, 
 
 208 
 
 O'BRIEN, Bronterre, 353, 372 
 
 " Observations on Mr. Hoskisson's 
 Speech," pamphlet by Place, 228 
 
 O'Connell, Daniel, 329, 336 
 
 O'Connor, Feargus, Chartist, 336, 
 371 seq. 
 - Roger, 51, 55 
 
 "Offences on the Sea," Bill con- 
 cerning, 180 
 
 Onslow, Sergeant, 159 
 
 " O.P." riots, 48 
 
 O'Quigley and French Government, 
 27 
 
 Owen, Robert, 63 seq. 
 in debate on Free Trade, 361 
 
 influence on Rotundanists, 266 
 
 influence on Chartism, 354 
 
 PADDINGTON parish meeting on 
 Reform Bill, 306 
 
 Paine, Thomas : 
 
 his " Age of Reason " pub- 
 lished by Place and another, 28 
 his "Rights of Man" pub- 
 
 lished, 6 1 
 Palmerston, Lord, and Reform Bill, 
 
 286 
 
 " Panopticons," Bentham's, 104 
 Parkes, Joseph, of Birmingham : 
 his work in Reform Bill agita- 
 tion, 276, 298, 299, 302, 303, 309 
 
 (1832) desired by Place to begin 
 
 fresh agitation, 327
 
 410 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Parkes, Joseph, of Birmingham : 
 (1833-1835) work on Poor- 
 
 Law Commission, 331 seq., 341 
 
 teg. 
 
 (1834) wrote to Place for 
 Government, 354 
 
 visited Place in his old age, 
 
 398 
 
 Parliament, first, of William IV. 
 (1830), 247 
 
 of 1831, 263 
 
 first Reformed, 328 
 
 of 1835, 335 
 
 Queen Victoria's first (1837), 
 
 366 
 
 " Parliamentary Candidates' So- 
 ciety," 260 seq. 
 
 Parliamentary Reform Association, 
 the Metropolitan (to gain Char- 
 ter), 391 
 
 speech of Hume to, on Place's 
 
 death, 398 
 
 "Parliaments, History of," Place's 
 review of, 87 
 
 Place's materials for his own 
 
 work on, 127 
 
 Triennial, 259, 327 
 
 Partnerships, petition concerning, 
 proposed, 288 
 
 Paull, James, candidate for West- 
 minster, 44 teq. 
 
 Peel, Mr. Robert : 
 
 (1822) took office, 184 
 
 (1825) action on Combination 
 
 Laws, 229, 236 
 
 (1832) refused office, 295 
 
 (1834) Premier, 335 
 - (1835) resigned, 336 
 
 (1835) action on Municipal 
 
 Corporation Bill, 346 
 Peers, fifty to be created, 295 
 " Peers, the, and the People," 
 
 pamphlet by Place, 343 
 " Peers or Revolution," popular 
 
 cry, 276 
 
 Penny Postage, 386 seq. 
 " People's Charter, the, 359, 365 
 
 in pamphlet form, 367 
 
 Percy, Lord, elected at West- 
 minster (1806), 41 
 
 Percy, Mr., secretary of Western 
 Committee, 130 
 
 Perry, Erskine, in Parliamentary 
 Candidates' Society, 261 
 
 work in Reform agitation, 279, 
 
 280, 283, 287 
 
 Perry, Thomas (father of above), 
 editor of Morning Chronicle, 143 
 
 Personal appearance of Place, 16 
 
 Perth, the Academy at, 100 
 
 Pestalozzi, 97 n. 
 
 "Peterloo," 141 teq. 
 
 Petition from Birmingham Char- 
 tists, 371 teq. 
 
 " Philip Beauchamp," 83 
 
 " Pigs' Meat," a tract by Spence, 61 
 
 Pitkeithly, Lawrence, 326 
 
 Pillans, Mr., of Edinburgh, 100 
 
 Pitt and Grenville Acts, 25 
 
 Place, Annie (daughter), 99 
 
 Simon (father), 3 
 
 "Tom" (son), 71 
 
 " Plan of Parliamentary Reform," 
 by Bentham, 84 
 
 "Pledges to be given by Candi- 
 dates," pamphlet by Place, 326 
 
 Philadelphian Chapel in Finsbury, 
 Rotundanist meetings at, 274 
 
 Police, the new, 248 n. 
 
 Political and Moral Magazine, 337, 
 
 338 
 Political economy, defence of, by 
 
 Place to working-men, 161 
 denounced by Rotundanists, 
 
 276 
 Political Register, Cobbett's, 41, 116, 
 
 124, 293, 297 
 
 Political Union of Birmingham, 251 
 "Political Union, the National," 
 
 formation of, 279, 288 
 
 petition to Lords, 291 
 
 part in Reform Bill agitation, 
 
 294, 298, 314 
 mass meeting organised 
 
 306 teq. 
 
 issued tract on pledges, 326 
 
 by, 
 
 Poor Law, Commission on, 331 teq. 
 
 Act passed, 333 
 
 the New, abused by Chartists, 
 
 366, 370, 373
 
 INDEX 
 
 411 
 
 Poor Man's Guardian, the, political 
 
 economy of first number, 269 
 prosecuted for Stamp Duty, 
 
 337, 348 
 as Rotundanist organ, 285 
 
 article denouncing Reform 
 in, 290 
 
 under O'Brien, 353 
 
 "Population, Of," by Godwin, 157 
 " Illustrations and Proofs of 
 
 the Principle of," by Place, 157, 
 
 165, 169 
 " Inquiry Concerning,' 5 by En- 
 
 sor, 1 66 
 
 Potteries Bill, 180 
 Powell, James, of Westminster, 45,48 
 Powell, Thomas, Rotundanist, 272 
 " Powell," of Morning Chronicle, 275 
 Prentice, Archibald, 81 
 Press prosecutions, 191 
 Preston, election at, in 1830, 265 
 "Priestcraft, Popular History of," 
 
 334 
 Prisoners, political, in Coldbath 
 
 Fields, 43 
 Procession, Burdett's triumphal, 55 
 
 seq. 
 
 for Dorchester labourers, 356 
 of petitioners for Reform Bill, 
 
 275. 2 77 
 
 "Pure Spring Water Co.," Place 
 secretary of the, 330 
 
 QUEEN ADELAIDE, 297 
 
 her project of flight, 312 
 
 Queen Caroline: her divorce, 150 seq. 
 
 Victoria's accession, 366 
 Queen's Square, Bentham's house in, 
 
 65 
 
 to be used as school, 99, m 
 
 RADICAL Club, the, 388 seq. 
 "Radical Reform, Plan of," by 
 
 Cartwright, 21 
 "Radicalism, the Five Points of," 
 
 366 
 
 " Rag-botheration," 372 
 "Rag-fair breeches," 8 
 
 Rate-collectors as election inspec- 
 tors, 138, 150 
 
 Rates and taxes to have been paid 
 by voters, 325 
 
 "Rationale of Judicious Evidence," 
 by Bentham, 80, 83 
 
 Red Lion Square, Rotundanists in, 
 271 
 
 "Reform Agitation, History of," 
 by Place, 385 
 
 Regent unpopular, 121 
 
 Regent's proclamation against sedi- 
 tious meetings, 140, 142 
 
 Regent Park meeting of parishes on 
 Reform Bill, 306 
 
 Register, Cobbett's. See Political 
 Register 
 
 Register, Extraordinary (Hone's), 124 
 
 "Reply to Lord Erskine," Place's, 
 
 139 
 " Restorer of Society to its Natural 
 
 State," by Spencer, 61 
 Revell, Major, and National Political 
 
 Union, 307 
 Ricardo, D. : 
 his influence used for James 
 
 Mill, 78 
 
 - pressing for rendering of 
 Finance Accounts, 160 
 
 - influence of his economics, 
 
 168, 267 
 
 Richards, Dr., Vicar in Westmin- 
 ster, 181 
 
 Richmond, the Duke of, and Reform 
 Bill, 286, 295 
 
 Richter, John, "tool of Place," 56 
 
 Ridley, Sir M. W., and Combination 
 Laws, 235 
 
 Rioters, Special Commission to try, 
 
 254 
 Roebuck : 
 
 his work for Reform Bill, 283 
 
 publishing pamphlets, <xc., 
 
 337. 349 
 
 work for Charter, 367-369 
 
 Rogers, Samuel, and Lancastrian 
 
 Society, 94 
 Rom illy. Sir Samuel : 
 elected for Westminster (1818),
 
 412 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Romilly, Sir Samuel : 
 
 his suicide, 132 
 
 his account of Place, 77 
 Rosslyn, Lord, and Combination 
 
 Laws, 216, 239 
 Rotunda, in Blackfriars Bridge Road, 
 
 meetings at, 272 
 " Rotundanists, the," 272 seq. 
 Rural police, resolutions of Chartists 
 
 concerning, 373 
 Russell, Lord John : 
 
 (1818) nominated for West- 
 minster, 133 
 
 as Whig leader, 143, 152, 336 
 
 - action on Reform Bill, 256, 
 257, 366 
 
 brought in Municipal Corpora- 
 tion Bill, 342 
 
 Cobden to take office under, 
 
 396 
 
 ST. ANDREW'S, Holborn, parish 
 meeting on Reform Bill, 307 
 
 St. Bride's Church, mob at, 296 
 
 St. James's Palace, the crime in, 54 
 
 St. Pancras' parish meeting on Re- 
 form Bill, 306 
 
 St. Peter's Fields, Manchester 
 ("Peterloo"), 140 
 
 Santos, Mr. Dios, among Rotun- 
 danists, 373 
 
 Savage, Mr. : 
 
 in " O.P." riots, 48 
 
 at Marylebone Reform meeting, 
 307 
 
 "Savage Parliament, the," 147, 148 
 Say, J. B., French economist, 158, 
 
 237 
 
 Scarlett, the Attorney-General, 191 
 Scavengership offered to Place. 15 
 "Schools for All," James Mill's 
 
 essay, 99 n. 
 Schools, National, Place's ideal of, 
 
 378 seq. 
 
 " Scot and Lot " Boroughs, 39, 265 
 Scotsman, the, on "Peterloo," 144 
 on Combination Laws, 204, 
 
 207 
 Scot, Mr., in "O.P." riots, 48 
 
 " Scots Greys " at Birmingham, 299 
 Seamen of the North, petition from, 
 
 242 
 "Second Reply to Lord Erskine " 
 
 by Place, 143 n. 
 Sellis, Joseph, and the Duke of, 
 
 Cumberland, 54 
 Septennial Act, pledge demanded 
 
 for the repeal of, 327 
 Sheffield cutlers' present to Place, 
 
 240 
 
 delegates excluded from Com- 
 bination Laws Committee, 231 
 Shepherd's Market, May fair, 138 
 Sheridan, R. B., 40, 41, 47 
 Shields, shipwrights of, 235 
 
 South, seamen of, 186 
 
 Shipbuilders and Combination Laws, 
 
 the, 221, 230 
 
 Shippon, a shipwright, 235 
 Shipwrights' Union, 222 
 
 from Shields, 235 
 
 " Short Defence of the Whigs, A," 
 by Lord Erskine, 139 
 
 Sidmouth, Lord, 62 
 
 his circular to Lord - Lieu- 
 tenants, 140 
 
 Silvester, Sir John, 204 
 
 Sinking Fund, the, 159 seq. 
 
 Six Acts, the, 123, 148 
 
 " Six Points " of the Charter, 365 
 
 Skene, Philip, and George, Rotun- 
 danists, 272 
 
 Skilled labourers, the poverty of 
 (quotation from Place), 382 
 
 Smith, William : 
 
 and his geological map, 101 
 
 Radical M.P., 143 
 
 of Glasgow, 219 
 
 Socialism, Place bars speeches on, 
 
 370 
 
 and currency, 372 
 
 "Socialist," word first used, 353 
 "Society for Promotion of Useful 
 
 Knowledge" refuse Place's help, 
 
 169 
 Spence, Thomas, Land Nationalise^ 
 
 6 1 seq. 
 " Spencean Philanthropists, Society 
 
 of," 62
 
 INDEX 
 
 413 
 
 Spring Rice, Mr., Chancellor of the 
 
 Exchequer, 341, 349 
 Stamp Duties. See Newspaper Stamp 
 
 Duties 
 Stamps, Commissioners of, use of 
 
 their power, 337 
 Stanley, Lord, 144 
 Stansfield, Hamer, letter to Place, 
 
 389 
 Star, the, and the Combination 
 
 Laws, 204 
 State Trials of Thomas Hardy and 
 
 others (1794), 23 
 
 " Statute of Apprentices," 95, 159 
 Steamboat passengers, tax proposed 
 
 on, 253 
 
 Stock Exchange, hoax on, 56 
 Strangford, Lord, and Reform Bill, 
 
 3i3 
 
 Stuart, Sir John, and Lady Jane, 
 James Mill writes account of, 
 70 n. 
 
 Suffrage, Universal, Place's view 
 on, 304 
 
 on Household, 390 
 
 Sun, the, read in the country, 392 
 " Surplus Value " theory, 267 
 Sussex, the Duke of, and Lancas- 
 trian Association, 108 
 
 "TABLE of the Springs of Action," 
 
 by Bentham, 83 
 Tailors, master : their desire to put 
 
 down the Union, 201, 202 
 Tavern, City of London, meeting at, 
 
 125 
 
 Tavern, the Crown and Anchor : 
 
 meeting of Westminster elec- 
 tors at, 43, 55, 129 
 
 meeting of National Political 
 
 Union at, 259, 277, 282 
 
 Tavistock, Lord, and " Peterloo," 
 
 147 
 Taxes, proposed refusal to pay, 251, 
 
 297 
 
 Taylor, Sir Herbert, 213 
 " Dr," revolutionist, wrote in 
 
 Northern Star, 1839, 373 
 Teetotal lectures by Vincent, 379 
 
 Ten Hours Bill, 354 
 
 Place opposed to, 173 
 
 Thelwall, John, trial of, 23 
 
 in Westminster elections, 138 
 Thistlewood, George, 142 
 
 conviction after Cato Street 
 
 Plot, 149 
 
 Thomas, Mr., an elector of West- 
 minster, 40 
 
 Mr., police-inspector, 248 n. 
 Thompson, Col. Perronet, 360, 379 
 Thompson, William, author of Labour 
 
 pamphlet, 268 
 
 "Three Days' Revolution," recep- 
 tion of news of, 243, 244 
 Tierney, Mr., M.P., 140, 147 
 Times, the compositors prosecuted, 
 200 
 
 attitude on Combination Laws, 
 
 204 
 
 connected with shipping 
 
 interest, 222 
 
 Tontine Sick Club, a, 19 
 Tooke, Eyton, 86 
 
 , Home, trial of, 23 
 
 Tooting, Lancaster's school in, 94 
 Torrens, Colonel, and Place, 178 
 
 seq. 
 Tower prepared for defence during 
 
 Burdett's imprisonment, 51 
 Trades club, Breeches-Makers', 6 
 Trades' Newspaper and Mechanics' 
 
 Weekly Journal, 162, 172 
 Trades Union, the Grand National, 
 
 265, 354, 355-358 
 
 the Metropolitan, 269 
 
 " Trades Unions condemned, Trades 
 Clubs justified," and kindred 
 pamphlets by Place, 356 
 Traveller, the : 
 
 article by Place on Land 
 
 Nationalisation, 173 
 
 articles on Sinking Fund, 160 
 
 articles on Whigs, 185 
 
 Treason and Sedition Bills, 25 
 "Trifling Mistake of Lord Erskine ' 
 
 148 
 Troops ordered to the Metropolis, 
 
 5i 
 Truck Act, Place's views on, 175
 
 414 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Tufnell, E. C., factory commissioner, 
 
 355 
 Turner, James, of Manchester, and 
 
 Grand National Trades Union, 359 
 ' ' Twopenny Trash," Cobbett's 
 
 paper, 1 1 6 
 Tyne and Wear, seamen of, 240 
 
 UTILITARIAN school, the. See 
 
 Chaps, iii. and vi. 
 " United Englishmen" and " United 
 
 Irishmen," 27 
 
 Universal Suffrage, Place on, 304 
 - agitation for, 367. See cdao 
 
 "Six Points" 
 " and Annual Parliaments 
 
 against Mr. Brougham and the 
 Whigs" : Place's article, 124 
 University for London proposed, 193 
 
 VESTRY Bill, 154, 155 
 
 Victualling Office men ordered to 
 
 make casks, 358 
 Villiers, C. P., 391 
 Vincent, Henry : 
 candidature for Banbury 
 
 (1841), 379 
 
 Chartist, 362, 365 
 
 lecturing tours, 396, 379 
 Vinegar Yard, Place's birth in, 2 
 Volunteers called out in Burdett 
 
 dispute, 51 
 
 Voters in Westminster, the kind of 
 (1807), and in London generally 
 39 
 
 WADE, editor of the Gorgon, 204 
 Wakefield, Edward, 66 
 
 member of National Political 
 
 Union, 288 
 
 See generally Chap. iv. 
 
 Wakley, T., M.P., editor of Lancet, 
 
 282, 284, 349 
 opposition to Anatomy Bill, 
 
 288 
 Walcheren expedition, 49 
 
 Wales, Chartist drilling in South, 
 
 375 
 
 Wall, Mr., in " O.P" riots, 48 
 
 Wallace, Robert, correspondent of 
 Place's, 386 
 
 Right Hon. Thomas, and com- 
 mittee on Combination Laws, 207, 
 228, 236 
 
 Warburton, Henry, M.P., 278, 325, 
 
 335. 338 
 
 work on Penny Postage, 387 
 
 seq. 
 
 connection with Chartism, 388 
 
 connection with Anti-Corn-Law 
 
 League, 391 
 Warden, Mr., Rotundanist, 271, 
 
 272 
 Wardle, Col. : his connection with 
 
 Burdett, 55, 119 
 Watson, James : 
 
 Chartist, 365 
 
 prosecuted, 291 
 Rotundanist, 272 
 
 " Waverers, the," 292, 294 
 "Wealth of Nations, the," God- 
 win's criticism of, 157 
 Weavers of Spitalfield, the, 239 
 Weedon Barracks, soldiers at, 318 
 Wellington, Duke of : 
 
 See Chaps, ix. x. xi. 
 
 took office in 1834, 335 
 Welsh, a shipwright, 235 
 
 iron-miners, 371 
 
 Westminster as a constituency, 
 
 Place's view of, 29 
 
 as an electoral district, 39 
 
 contest with House of Com- 
 
 mons (1810), 48 seq. 
 
 elections previous to 1807, 40- 
 
 43 
 election in 1807, 44 seq. 
 
 election in 1818, 129-132 
 
 election in 1819, 133-139 
 election in 1820, 149 seq. 
 
 "Electors, Report to, "Place's, 
 
 134 
 
 gas strike, 357 
 
 Review, 86 seq., 187 
 
 Westminster, the Duke of, and 
 
 education, 112
 
 INDEX 
 
 415 
 
 West London Lancastrian Associa- 
 tion, 96 scq. 
 
 Wharncliffe, Lord, and Reform Bill, 
 286-292 
 
 "Whig Club, the," 40 
 
 Whitbread, Mr., and Lancastrian 
 Association, 107 
 
 White, George, clerk in House of 
 Commons, 181, 207 scq. 
 
 White Conduit House, mass meet- 
 ing proposed at, 285 
 
 Wife, Place's first, 5, 1 6, 31, 35 
 
 her friendship with Mrs. Mill, 
 
 72 seq. 
 
 her death, 194 seq. 
 
 Place's second, 196 
 
 his separation from, 397 
 
 Wigg, Robert, Rotundanist, 272 
 Wilberforce's pronouncement on 
 
 " Peterloo," 147 
 Willett, Mr., in "O.P." riots, 48 
 William IV. : 
 Place's view of, 242, 297 
 
 visit in state to City post- 
 poned, 248 
 
 attacked on Constitution Hill, 
 
 296 
 
 position of, in Reform Bill 
 
 crisis, 289 seq., 319, 320 
 
 Williams, Mr. John, legal authority, 
 on Combination Laws, 235 
 
 Williams, Thomas, publisher of 
 "Age of Reason," with Place, 28 
 
 Windows not to be broken in illu- 
 minations, 260 
 
 Wolseley, Sir Charles, and West- 
 minster election (1819), 138 
 
 Wood, Alderman : 
 
 and Burdett dispute, 49, 50 
 
 and Combination Laws, 209 
 
 Wool Laws, Place works for Repeal 
 of, 1825-27, 186 
 
 Wooller, editor of Black Dwarf t 84, 
 138, 142 
 
 "Working Classes, History of the 
 Movements of," MS. by Place, 
 132 
 
 "Working-Men's Association," 359 
 seq. 
 
 branches, 366 
 
 meetings of, 360 
 
 - open-air meeting in Palace 
 Yard, 369 
 
 printed charter, 367 
 
 Wych Street, Place's life in, 16 
 
 YOEK, Duke of, denounced, 48 
 Yorkshire, Chartist drilling in, 
 
 375 
 
 Young, "Tom," Melbourne's facto- 
 tum, 276, 303, 355, 357 
 
 THE END 
 
 Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON 6* Co. 
 Edinburgh & London
 
 THE WOKKING OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 Bvr SIDNEY AND BEATRICE WEBB 
 
 THE HISTORY OF TRADE UNIONISM. 8vo, pp. 574, cloth, 
 with Coloured Map. First Edition published May 1894; 
 Second Edition, 1896. Price i8s. 
 
 This work, founded almost entirely upon material previously unpublished, 
 describes the growth and development of the Trade Union Movement in the 
 United Kingdom from 1700 down to 1890, including the political history of 
 the English working-class. The final chapter describes the Trade Union 
 world of to-day in all its varied features, including a realistic sketch of Trade 
 Union life by a Trade Union Secretary, and a classified census founded on 
 the authors' investigations into a thousand separate unions in all parts of 
 the country. A coloured map represents the percentage which the Trade 
 Unionists bear to the population of each county. A bibliography of Trade 
 Union literature is appended. 
 
 "To the politician ... an invaluable guide." Observer, 27th May 1894. 
 
 "A masterly piece of work." Times, 5th May 1894. 
 
 " This is one of those books, rari nantes in yurgite vasto of trash, which every 
 man and woman feeling a human interest in the problem of the age will do 
 well to possess for present study and future reference. . . . The authors have 
 offered the world a book which amounts practically to a history of something 
 far more important than Trade Unionism that is to say, of the attitude of 
 the State towards Labour in Great Britain at various stages, and of the effect 
 which each attitude produced. . . . The book is really, perhaps unconsciously, 
 a history of the progress of Economical Thought in Britain. ... To all County 
 Councillors and Members of Parliament who care to look before they leap we 
 woul'l fain say, 'Read this book aud inwardly digest it.'" National Observer, 
 2nd June 1894. 
 
 Uniform with the above, by the same Authors. 
 
 INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY. 8vo, Two Vols., pp. 900, cloth, 
 with Two Diagrams. Published January 1898. Price 255. 
 net. 
 
 The first part of this work contains an analysis of the working of Democracy 
 in the Trade Union world, including its remarkable experience of the 
 Referendum, the Initiative, and Representative Institutions. The second 
 part describes the Trade Union methods and regulations, including Factory 
 Legislation and every form of regulation of labour, in all the various trades 
 of the United Kingdom. The third part supplies a new analysis of the 
 working of industrial competition, and a full exposition of economic theory, 
 leading up to some novel proposals for dealing with the sweated trades. The 
 book contains facts and copious explanations upon every phase of the Labour 
 Question, with an elaborate Index. 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 LONDON, NEW YORK, AND BOMBAY
 
 a Classifteb Catalogue 
 
 OF WORKS IN 
 
 GENERAL LITERATURE 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. 
 
 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON, E.G. 
 
 91 AND 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK, AND 32 HORNBY ROAD, BOMBAY. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 BADMINTON LIBRARY (THE). - 10 
 
 MANUALS OF CATHOLIC PHIL- 
 
 BIOGRAPHY, PERSONAL ME- 
 
 OSOPHY - 
 
 - 16 
 
 MOIRS, &c. 7 
 
 MENTAL, MORAL, AND POLITICAL 
 
 CHILDREN'S BOOKS -' 26 
 
 PHILOSOPHY - 
 
 . 14 
 
 CLASSICAL LITERATURE TRANS- 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 AND CRITICAL 
 
 LATIONS, ETC. - 18 
 
 WORKS - 
 
 - 29 
 
 COOKERY, DOMESTIC MANAGE- 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 THEOLOGICAL 
 
 MENT, &c. 28 
 
 WORKS - 
 
 - 31 
 
 EVOLUTION, ANTHROPOLOGY, 
 
 POETRY AND THE 
 
 DRAMA - - 18 
 
 &c. - - 17 
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY AND ECO- 
 
 FICTION, HUMOUR, &c. - - 21 
 
 NOMICS - 
 
 - 16 
 
 FUR, FEATHER AND FIN SERIES 12 
 
 POPULAR SCIENCE - - 24 
 
 HISTORY, POLITICS, POLITY, 
 
 SILVER LIBRARY 
 
 (THE) - - 27 
 
 POLITICAL MEMOIRS, &c. - - 3 
 
 SPORT AND PASTIME - 10 
 
 LANGUAGE, HISTORY AND 
 
 TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE, THE 
 
 SCIENCE OF - - - - - 16 
 
 COLONIES, &c. 
 
 - 8 
 
 LONGMANS' SERIES OF BOOKS 
 
 VETERINARY MEDICINE, &c. - 10 
 
 FOR GIRLS - ... 2 6 
 
 WORKS OF REFERENCE- - - 25 
 
 INDEX OF AUTHORS AND EDITORS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Page 
 
 Page 
 
 , Page 
 
 Abbott (Evelyn) - 3, 18 
 
 Baden-Powell (B. H.) 3 
 
 Bosanquet (B.) - 14 
 
 Cochrane (A.) - - 19 
 
 (T. K.) - - : 4 
 
 Bagehot (W.) - 7, 16, 29 
 
 Boyd (Rev.A. K. H.)7,2g, 31 
 
 Coleridge (S. T.) - 20 
 
 (E. A.) - - 14 
 
 Bagwell (R.) - - 3 
 
 Brassey (Lady) - 8, 9 
 
 Comyn (L. N.) - 26 
 
 Acland (A. H. D.) - 3 
 
 Bain (Alexander) - 14 
 
 (Lord)' 3,8,11,16 
 
 Conington ( [ohn) 
 
 Acton (Eliza) - - 28 
 
 Baker (Sir S. W.) - 8, 10 
 
 Bray (C. and Mrs.) - 14 
 
 Conybeare(Rev.W.J.) 
 
 Adeane (J. H.) - - 7 
 
 Baldwin (C. S.) - 14 
 
 Bright (Rev. J. F.) - 3 
 
 & Howson (Dean) 27 
 
 jEschylus - - 1 8 
 
 Balfour (A. J.) - 11,31 
 
 Broadfoot (Major W.) 10 
 
 Corbett (Julian) - 3 
 
 Ainger (A. C.) - - n 
 
 Ball(J. T.) - - 3 
 
 Brogger (W. C.) - 8 
 
 Corder (Annie) - 19 
 
 Albemarle (Earl of) - n 
 
 Baring-Gould (Rev. 
 
 Brookings (W.) - 29 
 
 Coventry (A.) - - n 
 
 Allen (Grant) - - 24 
 
 S.) - - -27,29 
 
 Browning (H. Ellen) 9 
 
 Cox (Harding) - 10 
 
 Allingham (W.) - 18,29 
 
 Barnett (Rev. S. A. & 
 
 Buck (H. A.) - - ii 
 
 Crake (Rev. A. D.) - 26 
 
 (F.) 21 
 
 Mrs.) - - - 16 
 
 Buckle (H. T.)- - 3 
 
 Creiehton (Bishop)- 3,4 
 
 Andre (R.) - - 12 
 
 Baynes (T. S.) - - 29 
 
 Bull (T.) - - - 28 
 
 Crozier (J. B.) - - 14 
 
 Anstey (F.) - - 21 
 
 Beaconsfield (Earl of) 21 
 
 Burke (U. R.) - - 3 
 
 Crump (A.) - 21 
 
 Archer (W.) - - 8 
 
 Beaufort (Duke of) - 10, n 
 
 Burrows (Montagu) 4 
 
 Cuningham (G. C.) - 3 
 
 Aristophanes - - 18 
 
 Becker (Prof.) - 18 
 
 Butler (E. A.) - - 24 
 
 Cuizon (Hon. G. N.) 3 
 
 Aristotle - - 14, 18 
 
 Beesly (A. H.) - - 19 
 
 (Samuel) - - 29 
 
 Cutts (Rev. E. L.) - 4 
 
 Armstrong (G. F. 
 
 Bell (Mrs. Hugh) - 19 
 
 
 
 Savage) - 19 
 
 (Mrs. Arthur) - 7 
 
 Cameron of Lochiel 12 
 
 Dallinger (F. W.) - 4 
 
 (E- J- Savage) 7, 19, 29 
 
 Bent (J. Theodore) - 8 
 
 Cannan (E.) - - 17 
 
 Davidson (W. L.) - 14, 16 
 
 Arnold (Sir Edwin) - 8, 19 
 
 Besant (Sir Walter)- 3 
 
 (F. Laura) . 13 
 
 Davies (J. F.j - - 18 
 
 (Dr. T.) - - 3 ; Bickerdyke(J.) - ii 
 
 Chesney (Sir G.) - 3 
 
 Deland (Mrs ) - - 21, 26 
 
 Ashley (W. J.) - 16 1 Bicknell (A. C.) - 8 
 
 Chisholm (G. G.) - 25 
 
 Dent (C. T.) - n 
 
 Astor (J- J-) - 21 Bird ( R -) - - - 3 1 
 
 Cholmondelev-Pennell 
 
 Deploige - - - 17 
 
 Atelier duLys( Author Black (Clementina) . 21 
 
 (H.) - ii 
 
 De Salis (Mrs.) - 28, 29 
 
 of)- - - - 26 
 
 Blackwell (Elizabeth) 7 
 
 Cicero - - - 18 
 
 De Tocqueville(A.)- 3 
 
 Ayre (Rev. J.) - - 25 
 
 Bland (Mrs. Hubert) 20 
 
 Clarke (Rev. R. F.) - 16 
 
 Devas (C. S.) - - 16 
 
 Boase (Rev. C. W.)- 4 
 
 Clodd (Edward) - 17 
 
 Dickinson (G. L.) - 4 
 
 Bacon - - 7, 14 Boedder (Rev. B.) - 16 
 
 Clutterbuck (W. J.)- 9 
 
 Diderot - - - 21
 
 INDEX OF AUTHORS AND EDITORS continued. 
 
 Page 
 
 Pate 
 
 Page 
 
 Page 
 
 Dougall (L.) - - 21 
 
 Hudson (W. H.) - 24 
 
 Miss Molly (A uthor of) 26 
 
 Sophocles - - 18 
 
 Dowell (S.) - - 16 
 
 Hueffer (F. M.) - 7 
 
 Molesworth (Mrs.) - 26 
 
 Soulsby (Lucy H.) 26, 31 
 
 Doyle (A. Conan) - ai 
 
 Hume (David) 14 
 
 Montague (F. C.) - 6 
 
 Spedding (J.) - - 7. 4 
 
 Dreyfus (Irma) - 30 
 
 Hunt (Rev. W.) - 4 
 
 Montagu (Hon. John 
 
 Sprigge (S. Squire) - 8 
 
 Du Bois(W. E. B.)- 4 
 
 Hutchinson (Horace G.) ii 
 
 Scott) - - 12 
 
 Stanley (Bishop) - 24 
 
 Dufferin (Marquis of) n 
 Dunbar (Mary F.) - 20 
 
 Ingelow (J ean '9i *& 
 
 Moore (T.) - - 25 
 (Rev. Edward) - 14 
 
 Steel (A. G.) - - 10 
 (J. H.) - - 10 
 
 
 James (W.) - - 14 
 
 Morgan (C. Lloyd) - 17 
 
 Stephen (Leslie) - 9 
 
 Eardley-Wilmot (Capt. 
 
 ;efferies (Richard) - 30 
 
 Morris (W.) - ao, 22, 31 
 
 Stephens (H. Morse) 6 
 
 S.) - 8 
 
 ]lenery-Shee (R.) - 17 
 
 (Mowbray) - n 
 
 Stevens (R. W.) - 31 
 
 Ebrington (Viscount) 12 
 
 ] erome (Jerome K.) - 22 
 
 Mulhall (M. G.) - 17 
 
 Stevenson (R. L.) - 23, 26 
 
 Egbert (J- C.) - - 18 
 
 ' ohnson (J. & J. H.) 30 
 
 Munk(W.) - - 7 
 
 Stock (St. George) - 15 
 
 Eggleston (E.) - - 4 
 
 Jones (H. Bence) - 25 
 
 VT IV 
 
 'Stonehenge' - - 10 
 
 Ellis (J. H.) - - 12 
 (R. L.) - - 14 
 Evans (Sir John) - 30 
 
 (Owen G.) - 9 
 ordan (W. L.) - 16 
 '[owett (Dr. B.) - 17 
 ;!oyce(P. W.) - - 4 
 
 ISansen (r.) 9 
 Nesbit (E.) 20 
 Nettleship (R. L.) - 14 
 Newman (Cardinal) - 22 
 
 Storr (F.) 14 
 Stuart- Wortley (A. J .) 1 1 , 12 
 Stubbs (I. W.)- - 6 
 Sturdy (E. T.) - - 30 
 
 Farrar (Dean) - - 16, 21 
 
 Justinian 14 
 
 Ogle(W.)- - - 18 
 
 Suffolk & Berkshire 
 
 Fitzwygram (Sir F.) 10 
 
 
 Oliphant (Mrs.) - 22 
 
 (Earl of) - - ii 
 
 Folkard (H. C.) - 12 
 
 Kalisch (M. M.) - 32 
 
 Oliver (\V. D.) - 9 
 
 Sullivan (Sir E.) - n 
 
 Ford (H.) - - 12 
 
 Kant (I.) 14 
 
 Onslow (Earl of) - ii 
 
 (J.F.) - - 26 
 
 Fowler (Edith H.) - 21 
 
 Kaye (Sir J. W.) - 5 
 
 Orchard (T. N.) - 31 
 
 Sully (James) 15 
 
 Foxcroft (H. C.) - 7 
 
 Kerr (Rev. J.) - - n 
 
 Osbourne (L) 23 
 
 Sutherland (A. and G.) 6 
 
 Francis (Francis) - 12 
 
 Killick (Rev. A. H.) - 15 
 
 P-rL- /\/ \ T - 
 
 (Alex.) - - 15 
 
 Freeman (Edward A.) 4 
 
 Kitchin (Dr. G. W.) 4 
 
 arK i w .) 
 
 Suttner (B. von) - 23 
 
 Froude (James A.) 4, 7, 9, 21 
 Furneaux (W.) - 24 
 
 Knight (E. F.) - 5,9, u 
 Kostlin (J.) 7 
 
 Parr (Louisa) - - 26 
 Payne-Gallwey (Sir 
 R.) - - - ii, 13 
 
 Swinburne (A. J.) - 15 
 Symes (J. E.) - - 17 
 
 Gallon (W. F.) - 17 
 Gardiner (Samuel R.) 4 
 Gathorne-Hardy (Hon. 
 A. E.) - - 12 
 
 Ladd (G. T.) - - 15 
 Lang (Andrew) 5, 10, n, 13, 
 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 26, 30 
 Lascelles (Hon. G.) 
 
 Peek (Hedley) - - ii 
 Pembroke (Earl of) - n 
 Phillipps-Wolley(C.) 10,22 
 Pleydell-Bouverie (E. O.) 1 1 
 
 P-l /\\7 \ T-l 
 
 Tacitus - - - 18 
 Tavlor (Col. Meadows) 17 
 - (Una) - - 23 
 Tebbutt (C. G.) - ii 
 
 Gerard (Dorothea) - 26 
 Gibbons (J. S.) - ii, 12 
 Gibson (Hon. H.) - 13 
 
 IO, II, 12 
 
 Laughton (J. K.) - 8 
 Laurie (S. S.) - - 5 
 
 ole (vv.) - - - 13 
 Pollock (W. H.) - ii 
 Poole ( W . H . and Mrs.) 29 
 
 Thompson (N. G.) - 13 
 Thornhill (W. J.) - 18 
 Todd (A.) ... 6 
 
 (C. H.) - - 14 
 (Hon. W.) - 32 
 Gilkes (A. H.) - - 21 
 Gill (H. J.) - - 22 
 Gleig (Rev. G. R.) - 8 
 Goethe - - - 19 
 
 Layard (Nina F.) - 19 
 Leaf (Walter) - - 31 
 Lear (H.L.Sidney)- 29 
 Lecky (W. E. H.) - 5, 19 
 Lees (J. A.) - - 9 
 Lejeune (Baron) - 7 
 
 Poore (G. V.) 31 
 Potter (J.) - - 16 
 Praeger (S. Rosamond) 26 
 Prevost (C.) - - n 
 Pritchett (R. T.) - ii 
 Proctor (R. A.) 13, 24, 28, 31 
 
 Toynbee (A.) - - 17 
 Trevelyan (Sir G. O.) 7 
 (C. P.) - - 17 
 Trollope (Anthony) - 23 
 Tupper (J. L.) - - 20 
 Tyndall (J.) 9 
 
 Graham (P. A.) - 13, 21 
 
 Lester (L. V.) - - 7 
 
 Quill (A. W.) - - 18 
 
 Tyrrell (R. Y.) - - 18 
 
 (G. F.) - - 16 
 
 Levett-Yeats (S.) - 22 
 
 Quillinan iMrs.) - 9 
 
 
 Granby (Marquis of) 12 
 
 Lewes (G. H.) - - 15 
 
 Quintana (A.) - - 22 
 
 Upton (F. K. and 
 
 Grant (Sir A.) - - 14 
 Graves (R. P.) - - 7 
 Green (T. Hill) - 14 
 Greville (C. C. F.) - 4 
 
 Lillie (A.)- 13 
 Lindley(J.) - - 25 
 Lodge (H. C.) - 4 
 Loftie (Rev. W. J.) - 4 
 
 Raine (Rev. James) - 4 
 Ransome (Cyril) - 3 
 Rawlinson (Rev. 
 
 Bertha) - - 26 
 
 Vaughan (Cardinal) - 17 
 Verney (Frances P. 
 
 Grey (Maria) - 26 
 Grose (T. H.) 14 
 Grove (F. C.) - - n 
 (Mrs. Lilly) - n 
 
 Longman (C. J.) 10, 13, 30 
 (F. W.) - - 13 
 (G. H.) - - ii, 12 
 Lowell (A. L.) - - 5 
 
 Canon) - - 8 
 Rhoades (J.) - - 18 
 Rhoscomyl (O.) - 23 
 Ribblesdale (Lord) - 13 
 
 R* U / A \ T Q 
 
 and Margaret M.) 8 
 Vincent (]. E.)- - 17 
 Virgil 18 
 Vivekananda (Swami) 38 
 
 Gurdon (Lady Camilla) 21 
 Gurney (Rev". A.) - 19 
 Gwilt (J.) - - - 30 
 
 Haggard (H. Rider) 21, 22 
 Hake(O.)- - - ii 
 
 Lubbock (Sir John) - 17 
 Lucan - - - 18 
 Lutoslawski (W.) - 15 
 Lyall (Edna) - - 22 
 Lyttelton (Hon. R. H.) 10 
 (Hon. A.) - - ii 
 
 icn (A.) 10 
 Richardson (C.) - 12 
 Richman (I. B.) - 6 
 Rickaby (Rev. John) 16 
 (Rev. Joseph) - 16 
 Ridley (Annie E.) - 7 
 
 Vivian (Herbert) - 9 
 
 Wakeman (H. O.) - 6 
 Walford (L. B.) - 23 
 Walker (jane H.) - 29 
 Wallas (Graham) - 8 
 
 Halliwell-Phillipps(J.) 8 
 Hamlin (A. D. F.) - 30 
 Hammond (Mrs. J. H.) 4 
 
 Lytton (Earl of) - 19 
 MacArthur (Miss E. A.) 17 
 
 Riley (J. VV.) - - 20 
 Roget (Peter M.) - 16, 25 
 Rolfsen (N ) - 8 
 
 Walpole (Spencer) - 6 
 Walrond (Col. H.) - 10 
 Walsingham(Lord)- ii 
 
 Hampton (Lady Laura) 30 
 Harding (S. B.) - 4 
 
 Macaulay (Lord) 5, 6, 20 
 MacColl (Canon) 6 
 
 Romanes (G. J.) 
 
 Walter (J.) - - 8 
 Watson (A. E. T.) 
 
 Harte (Bret) - - 22 
 
 Macdonald (George) 20, 32 
 
 8 i5> *7 ao, 32 
 
 10,11,12, 23 
 
 HartingtJ. E.)- - 12 
 Hartwig (G.) - - 24 
 
 Macfarren (Sir G. A.) 30 
 Mackail (J. W.) - 18 
 
 Ronalds (A.) - - 13 
 Roosevelt (T ) - - 
 
 Waylen (H. S. H.) - 30 
 Webb (Mr. and Mrs. 
 
 Hassall (A.) - - 6 
 Haweis (Rev. H. R.) 7, 30 
 
 Mackinnon (J.) - 6 
 Macleod (H. D.) - 16 
 
 Rossetti (Maria Fran- 
 
 Sidney) - - 17 
 (T. E.) - - 19 
 
 Heath (D. D.) - 14 
 
 Macpherson (Rev. H. A.)i2 
 
 cesca) - 31 
 (W M ) - 20 
 
 Weber (A.) - - 15 
 
 Heathcote (J. M. and 
 C. G.) - - ii 
 
 Madden (D. H.) - 13 
 Maher (Rev. M.) - 16 
 
 Russell (Bertrand) - 17 
 
 Weir (Capt. R.) - II 
 Wevman (Stanley) - 23 
 
 Helmholtz (Hermann 
 
 Malleson (Col. G. B.) 5 
 
 (Alys) - - 17 
 
 Whately(Archbishop) 14, 15 
 
 von) - - - 24 
 
 Mandello(J-) - - 17 
 
 Saintsbury (G.) - 12 
 
 (E. Jane) - - 16 
 
 Henderson (Lieut- 
 
 Marbot (Baron de) - 8 
 
 Sandars (T. C.) - 14 
 
 Whishaw (F. J.) - 23 
 
 Col. G. F.) - 7 
 
 Marshman (I. C.) - 7 
 
 Schreiner (S. C. Cron- 
 
 White (W. Hale) - 20 
 
 Henry (W.) - - n 
 
 Martineau (Dr. James) 32 
 
 wright) - - 10 
 
 Whitelaw (R.) - - 18 
 
 Herbert (Col. Kenney) 12 
 
 Maskelyne (J. N.) - 13 
 
 Seebohm (F.) - - 6, 8 
 
 Wilcocks (J. C.) - 13 
 
 Hewins (W. A. S.) - 17 
 
 Maunder (S.) 25 
 
 Selous (F. C.) - - 10 
 
 Willich (C. M.) - as 
 
 Hill (Sylvia M.) - 21 
 
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