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Early May 1842: Publication of the Report of the Royal Commission the Employment of Children in Mines attracted much public attention, more by what it said about women in the mines than what it said about children. Children's Employment Commission. First report of the commissioners. Mines 1842the First Report of Commissioners for Enquiring into the Employment and Conditions of Children in Mines and Manufactories 1842 (On the employment of women and children in coal mines) (380) xv 1.
page 32 Evidence of John Cawthra, collier, Messrs Wilson's Pit:
Evidence of John Simpkin, collier, Drighlington:
Evidence of Matthew Fountain, under-ground steward at Darton Colliery, belonging to Thomas Wilson, Esq.:
Evidence of Michael Thomas Sadler, Esq., surgeon, Barnsley:
Evidence of Rev. Oliver Levey Collins, Incumbent of Ossett:
Evidence of John Thornley, Esq, one of her Majesty's justices of the peace for the County of York:
p.33 Conclusion of W.R. Wood, Esq, subcommissioner for the Bradford and Leeds district:
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An artist's drawings illustrated the report. The pictures
were
reproduced in the
national newspapers - Standing out at a time when pictures in
newspapers
were
few, and bare breasted females even fewer.
The first sketch represents Ann Ambler and Will Dyson being drawn up cross-lapped upon the clutch iron...
"We have but one girl working with us, by name Ann Ambler, who goes down with us on the clutch harness; she wears her breeches when she goes down, and while at work, and comes up the pit cross-lapped with us in the clutch harness; when she is down she hurries with us in the same way as we do, without shoes or stockings." |
Friday 6.5.1842 Times editorial "In the present and some future articles we propose introducing to the notice of the public some of the results of a commission appointed in October 1840" This first report had one column which was about the conditions under which children worked in the mines.
Saturday 7.5.1842
Times Parliamentary Intelligence report on the presentation of
petitions,
in the
House
of Lords, by the Bishop of Norwich, relating to the
"employment of young
children
in collieries". The first of these was from eight hundred
females at
Oldham:
Saturday 14.5.1842
Times
editorial
continued. This time with the picture of the
bare breasted
female and an explanation of the
effect of the
chain
and belt.
Tuesday 17.5.1842:
Times editorial continued: On
parents and
apprenticeship and then on the treatment of women:
In point of morality we have dropped enough to show what must
be its
effects. In
some pits it is stated that gross indecency is the law - in
most it seems
the common
consequence of this employment.
In the Bradford and Halifax collieries, where the girls are
employed, the
men work
absolutely without clothes, and women are continually
described as wearing
nothing but a very ragged pair of drawers or trousers. This
need not be
pursued;
but it will not be thought unnatural that witness upon witness
should
concur in
saying that this employment sinks women and men into the most
utter
grossness
and debauchery.
[The Time here produced excerpts from the evidence relating to
debauchery
and
working whilst pregnant]
... In many districts the practice of employing females in the
mines has
never
existed. In several mines... it has lately been stopped, and
the better
part, nay, the
mass, or the colliers have now learned that a respectable
wife, and a
comfortable
and tidy home, though supported at the expense of more
continuous work for
themselves, are better worth having than the fourteen
shillings or fifteen
shillings a
week which they used to gain from the labours of an oppressed
and perhaps
corrupted drudge.
Other proprietors profess a wish to follow the example, but
dare not offend
the men.
This, at least, is the most pardonable motive which is
suggested. We trust
the
legislature will before long save them the responsibility, to
which they
seem so
unequal, of having any choice in the matter."
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Wednesday 7.6.1842 Ashley introduced a bill intended to ban women and children from working in mines.
Tuesday 8.6.1842:
The Times
published
Ashley's speech introducing the Coal Mines Bills and the
debate on
it
23.6.1842:
Times reported the presentation of petitions to parliament:
Mostly from
working
men. Mostly on how Ashley's bill would improve households,
enable
education, etc
early July 1842: riding the sexual storm
When the Bill passed from the House of Commons to the House of
Lords,
efforts were
made to persuade Ashley to drop the provisions for
children
(male) and just proceed with those for women. The moral
outrage against sex
in the mines made the Bill unstoppable. But the moral outrage
could be
satiated if only men and boys worked in the mines. It was only
because
Ashley refused to support this that children under ten went to
school
instead of working in the pits. This great moral achievement
(in our eyes)
came in because one pig-headed man, refusing to compromise,
used a sex-scandal he had himself helped to stir up, to secure
the
interests of the mining children.
10.8.1842
1842 Coal
Mines
Act
became law. This was a seven page Act which began:
section one continued by prohibiting all female labour
in coal mines
section two prohibited the employment of boys under ten
in coal
mines
section three provided for inspection
section seven said the Act was not to effect people
employed above
ground
section eight said shaft lifts were not to be in the
care of people
under
fifteen years old
section ten was a general prohibition, not just about
mining:
the section prohibited paying them
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Plug RiotsSummer 1842 coal mine owners lowered wages and factory owners gave notice that they intended to do the same. General strikes under chartist leadership broke out in the Midlands, Lancashire, Glasgow, and South Wales. The strikers immobilized machinery to stop blacklegging: in Lancashire by removing ...plugs..., so earning the strike its nick name, the ...plug riots.... Weavers wrecked machines, farms and bakeries were pillaged and country houses set on fire. Wellington was put in charge of the army, troops sent to the disturbed areas and chartist ...ringleaders... arrested and imprisoned. All together 1,500 arrests were made and the trials lasted until March 1843.4.8.1842 A strike began in the neighbourhood of Stalybridge in resistance to a wage cut.
"'Another week' exclaimed a gentleman in Downing Street on the 5th of August 1842, 'and we shall be prorogued. You can surely keep the country quiet for another week.' Chartist address to the Potters and Colliers, on strike, at Hanley, 15th August, 1842 by Thomas Cooper, Methodist preacher (who went to prison for reading his poem and inciting the riots). Verse one: SLAVES, toil no more! Why delve, and moil, and pine, "Toil we no more renew, Until the Many cease their slavery to the Few!" means simply that the strike should go on until the then society collapsed and was replaced by a democratic one. Democracy and workers rights and women's rights all took energy from the struggle against the real slavery of black people by white in the African Slave Trade. See the celebrations of 1833 9.8.1842 Plug Plot marchers descend on Manchester. "Manchester insurrection:" "A million of hungry operative men [...] rose all up, came all out into the streets, and - stood there. What other could they do [Carlyle]" By the end August 1842, the stike had faded away, and something over 1,500 had been arrested on various charges. About 800 were dealt with by magistrates in summary jurisdiction. 710 appeared before the assizes in York, Lancaster, Stafford, Chester and Liverpool. Feargus O'Connor was not tried until March 1843. Jackson, T.A. 1945 p.135)
November 1842 Friedrich Engels came from Germany to
Manchester to
work in a cotton factory (Ermen and Engels) owned by
his father. He
lived, worked and studied in Manchester until September 1844
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) published Past and Present. This contrasted the human relations that, according to Carlyle, had existed between people in the past, with relations in the present which were reduced to money relations. He wrote (chapter 6) "...the present Editor ... thinks that 'enlightened egoism' ... is not the rule by which man's life can be led. That 'laissez-faire,' 'supply-and- demand,' 'cash-payment for the sole nexus,' and so forth, were not, are not, and will never be, a practicable law of union for a society of men. That poor and rich, that governed and governing, cannot long live together on any such law of union."
John Stuart Mill was, at this
time, a friend of
Carlyle. In Manchester, Friedrich Engels read Carlyle with
great
enthusiasm.
[See below]
28.2.1843 Ashley's spoke to Parliament about "the diffusion of moral and religious education among the working classes" (education): Hansard 28.2.1843: "late events have, I fear, proved that the moral condition of our people is unhealthy and even perilous - all are pretty nearly agreed that something further must be attempted for their welfare; ...-our duty is to examine the moral state of the country; to say whether it be safe, honourable, happy, and becoming the dignity of a Christian kingdom; and, if it be not so, to address ourselves to the cure... The present time...finds us in a state of mind equally distant...from the...opinion... that education is the...immediate... panacea for all our disorders [and] the other that it will either do nothing at all, or even exasperate the mischief. That it will do everything is absurd; that it will do nothing is more so;...every true statesman, of every age and nation has considered a moral, steady, obedient and united people indispensable to external greatness or internal peace." "our lot is cast in a time when our numbers, already vast, are hourly increasing at an almost geometrical ratio...our institutions receive, every day, a more liberal complexion, while the democratic principle, by the mere force of circumstances is fostered and developed..." "if we look forward to the next ten years, there will be an increase of at least 2,500,000 in the population; and should nothing be done to supply our want, we shall then have in addition to our present arrears, a fearful multitude of untutored savages." October and November 1843 Engels wrote Outline of a Critique of Political Economy. This was a socialist criticism of English political economy.
The Claims of Labour. An Essay on the Duties of the Employers to the Employed, published anonymously, argued for a new order of society based on benevolence of employers towards the employed. The argument was very similar to Lord Ashley's. January 1844 Engels wrote a favourable review of Carlyle's Past and Present. February 1844 Karl Marx published Engels' Critique of Political Economy and his review of Carlyle's Past and Present in a (one issue) journal that he published in Paris. By the early months of 1844 Engels was working on a book about the conditions of the English working class. 28.8.1844 to 6.9.1844: Engels, returning to Germany from England, called on Marx in Paris and spent 10 days with him. From this time they became close collaborators. 19.11.1844: Letter from Engels (in Barmen) to Marx (in Paris) "I am buried up to my neck in English newspapers and books from which I am compiling my book on the condition of the English proletarians. I expect to be done by the middle or end of January, as I finished the most difficult job, the arrangement of the material, about one or two weeks ago"
John Stuart Mill's review of The Claims of Labour in the Edinburgh Review argued that a new moral order based on benevolence would undermine the independence and self-determination of working class people Summer 1845 Engels: The Condition of the Working Class in England. In one of, several, references to Carlyle, he wrote
"the bourgeois reason ... cannot comprehend that he holds any other relation to the operatives than that of purchase and sale... Even the relation between himself and his wife is, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, mere "cash payment". Money determines the worth of the man..." Autumn 1845: John Stuart Mill began writing his Principles of Political Economy. J.S. Mill said that most of his writings, after 1840, were "joint productions" with Mrs Harriet Taylor. October 1845 Beginning of the Great Famine in Ireland. Potato blight destroyed three-quarters of the crop.
Beginning of 1846: Marx and Engels, in Brussels, formed a Communist Correspondence Committee - that is a (very small) network of theorists in different countries who would write to one another about politics. This played a part in the activities of the (also very small) Communist League that commissioned Marx to write its "Communist Manifesto" [See below] 26.6.1846 Repeal of the English Corn Law. These had kept the price of bread artificially high, to protect English farmers. The Corn Law had been supported by Tories and landowners and opposed by liberal political economists ("free traders") and industrialists. - See Anti-Corn Law League Winter 1846/1847: J.S.Mill laid aside his work on the Principles of Political Economy to campaign for land reform in Ireland.
June 1847 10 Hours Act passed restricting women and young persons to 63 hours a week. Early June 1847: The first "congress" of the small "League" Marx associated with held in London. Unable to travel to London, Marx was represented by Engels and W. Wolff. The congress decided to reorganize the "League of the Just" and become the "League of Communists". It also decided to prepare a "Communist Creed" for the next congress. 23/24.11.1847 Letter from Engels (in Paris) to Marx (in Brussels) speaks about his (Engels) draft of the "Communist Manifesto". (Principles of Communism) 29.11.1847 to 8.12.1847: Second Congress of the Communist League held in London with Marx and Engels in attendance. Although attempting to be international, this was mainly a group of German speaking people who did not find it safe to live in Germany given their politics. Marx was one of these exiles. The English (Chartist) paper, the Northern Star, published the following account of a speech he made at the Congress:
"Dr Marx, the delegate from Brussels, then came forward, and was greeted with every demonstration of welcome, and delivered an energetic oration in the German language." In this he called on the Democrats of Britain to help to establish "a congress of working men to establish liberty all over the world". He said that the Democrats of Belgium, whom he represented, felt that the Chartists of England were the real Democrats and that the moment they carried the six points of their Charter, the real road to liberty would be opened to the whole world. "Effect this grand object, then, you working men of England and you will be hailed as the saviour of the whole human race", said the speaker.
Principles of Political Economy - With Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy, by John Stuart Mill, published. This included an essay, first drafted by Harriet Taylor, called On the Probable Futurity of the Labouring Classes. 24.1.1848 Resolution of Central Committee of the Communist League, sent to Brussels, for Marx, on 26.1.1848:
"The Central Committee hereby directs the District Committee of Brussels to notify Citizen Marx that if the Manifesto of the Communist party, which he consented, at the last Congress, to draw up, does not reach London before Tuesday, February 1, further measures will be taken against him. In case Citizen Marx does not write the Manifesto, the Central Committee requests the immediate return of the documents which were turned over to him by the congress. In the name and at the instruction of the Central Committee, (Signed) Schapper, Bauer, Moll" February 1848 Révolution de Février: February revolution in France Late February 1848: The Manifesto of the Communist Party , written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, published in German, in London. The first English translation of The Communist Manifesto was made by a Miss Helen Macfarlane and pubished in 1850 in a Chartist periodical called Red Republican, edited by George Julian Harney
23.6.1848 to 26.6.1848 Les journées de Juin: The June Days Uprising staged by the workers of France in response to plans to close the National Workshops. 20.12.1848 Election of Louis Napoleon as President of France announced.
"Enfranchisement of Women", by Harriet Taylor, published in The Westminster Review l851 (See Taylor, H. 1851). Harriet Taylor married J.S. Mill in April 1851. She died in 1858. J.S. Mill's The Subjection of Women was published in 1869. 1.12.1851/2.12.1851 Coup d'etat of Louis Napoleon.
2.12.1852 Second French Empire
1859 Molestation of Workmen Act allowed peaceful picketing which was not to count as molestation under the 1825 Combination Act.
The Reform Union formed. It had a broader base than the Reform League, but similar aims. 28.9.1864 First International Working Men's Association established by Marx in London. (Dissolved 1876)
6.7.1865 Parliament dissolved: July 1865 General Election. J.S.Mill elected for Westminster. MP for Westminster 1865 to 1868. October 1865 Death of Palmerston. Earl Russell Prime Minister. October 1865 Manchester National Society for Women's Suffrage formed. Honorary secretary, Elizabeth Wolstenhome, afterwards Mrs Elizabeth Wolstenhome Elmy. This was the first society formed in Britain to secure the vote for women.
The London Working Men's Association was formed in 1866 to press for working class MPs. Hornby v. Close case. Trade Unions found that the 1855 Friendly Societies Act did not protect their funds. The judges ruled that trades unions were outside its scope because they were still "illegal", although not "criminal", organisations. (See 1871) 27.4.1866 In debate on the Liberal Reform Bill, Disraeli said: I have always been of the opinion that, if there is to be universal suffrage, women have as much right to vote as men; and, more than that, a woman having property ought now to have a vote, in a country in which she may hold manorial courts, and sometimes acts as churchwarden. (Pankhurst, S.1931 p.33) Following Disraeli's speech, Emily Davies and others drafted a petition that since Parliament had made the holding of property the basis of enfranchisement, women property holders should be entitled to vote. They secured J.S.Mill's approval, collected 1,499 signatures for it, and Mill presented it to parliament. (Pankhurst, S.1931 p.33-34) June 1866 Whig Government resigned over inability to carry franchise reform. Earl of Derby Prime Minister of a Conservative minority government.
February 1867 Parliament reassembled. Queen opened Parliament for first time after her long seclusion. Speech included attention being paid to the representation of the country. 11.2.1867 Disraeli made a speech saying he sought to lift reform above party politics. 25.2.1867 Disraeli suggested preliminary resolutions that would have increased representation of the labouring classes, but brought in checks and balances. Badly received. Withdrawal of the resolutions led to anti- democrat Ministers resigning from the cabinet. 18.3.1867 Disraeli brought in a Reform Bill with more liberal features than his resolutions. During the Easter recess reform meetings were held throughout the country House of Commons reconvened at beginning of May. 6.5.1867 Reform League public meeting in Hyde Park. Followed by Home Secretary Walpole's resignation. Hyde Park Railings Incident: The Government tried to prevent the Reform League demonstrating in Hyde Park, but the railings broke under the weight of demonstrators, who held their demonstration in Hyde Park after all. 20.5.1867 J.S.Mill's House of Commons speeches on: "The Admission of Women to the Electoral Franchise" and on representation for minorities. 15.7.1867 Reform Bill's third reading in the House of Common 15.8.1867 Reform Bill paused its final stage. The 1867 Representatives of the People Act 26.11.1867 In election for the City of Manchester, Lily Maxwell, a shopkeeper whose name was on the Parliamentary Register, successfully recorded her vote for Jacob Bright. (Pankhurst, S.1931 p.38)
Trades Union Congress founded February 1868 Benjamin Disraeli Prime Minister in a Conservative minority government. Spring 1868: Letters sent by Manchester Suffrage Committee to all Boards of Overseers, requesting them to put every qualified person on the list of voters, whether male or female. November 1868: Liberal General Election landslide: But J.S.Mill defeated in Westminster by W.H.Smith. December 1868 W.E. Gladstone Liberal Prime Minister.
Matthew Arnold's Culture and Anarchy described the working class (populace) as either wanting to become like the middle class or merely degraded and brutal. Girton College, Cambridge, admitted women The Labour Representation League (1869 to 1880) sought to get working class MPs elected and put pressure on other MPs to support working class issues.
"In early by-elections, the League's object was to secure the adoption of its candidates by the Liberal Party. Many Liberals, including John Stuart Mill, had expressed the desire to see working men in Parliament to put the working class point of view, and the League's ambitions did not go beyond this" (COLE,G.D.H.1926 p.113) J.S.Mill's The Subjection of Women published. (Written in 1861) Susan Brownell Anthony became one of the leaders of the National Woman Suffrage Association in the USA. 7.11.1869 Case in the Court of Common Pleas for accepting registered women in Manchester and Salford lost (Pankhurst, S.1931 pp 43-45)
1870 to 1871 Franco-Prussian war 1870 Married Woman's Property Act Forster's 1870 Elementary Education Act passed
18.3.1871 to 28.5.1871 Paris Commune 9.5.1871 to 13.5.1871: Marx repeatedly met a delegate of the Commune and sent instruction through him on 13.5.1871. Late May 1871: Marx completed his address on the Commune - The Civil War in France -- and on 30.5.1871 read it to the General Council; the address was adopted without discussion. At Engels' proposal, it was resolved to have it printed in 1,000 copies. 28.6.1871 - 29.7.1871: The address on the Commune, The Civil War In France, is published in Volksstaat, in Engels' German translation. 17.9.1871 to 22.9.1871: Conference of the International Workers' Association in London, with Marx playing a prominent part and moving all the resolutions of the General Council. 1871 Trade Union Legislation: 1871 Trades Union Act gave unions legal recognition and enabled them to protect their funds under the 1855 Friendly Societies Act. 1871 Criminal Law Amendment Act made picketing illegal again (see 1859) Jacob Bright again introduced the Women's Suffrage Bill (Pankhurst, S.1931 p.47) Monday? 19.8.1871 first statute Bank Holiday
In the 1874 election, the Labour Representation League gave support to candidates most favourable to the labour interest (whether Conservative or Liberal). 15 working class candidates stood in the election. TUC opposition to the Liberal government's 1871 Criminal Law Amendment Act was partly responsivle for the return of Disreali's second administration. February 1874 Conservative Election victory. Benjamin Disraeli Prime Minister. Two of the 15 working class candidates (supported by the Labour Representation League) were elected. Both were miners and both had Liberal support. As Jacob Bright lost his seat at the February 1874 election, the Women's Suffrage Bill was taken up by a Conservative member, W. Forsyth QC, MP, who added a clause excluding married women from the vote. (Pankhurst, S.1931 p.49)
Repeal of the 1871 Criminal Law Amendment Act 1875 Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act made peaceful picketing legal and changed the law so that `conspiracy` could not be applied to trade disputes unless the actions themselves were illegal. 1875 Employers and Workmen Act limited the penalty for breach of contract to payment of civil damages. COLE,G.D.H.1926 p.115 suggests that the "true 'Lib-Lab' era" began in 1875 as leaders of the trade union movement and the Liberal Party moved closer together.
Democratic Federation founded (At this time, a radical, not a socialist, political group. H.M. Hyndman's England for All published.
William Morris, wealthy society artist, joined the Democratic Federation. He lectured in Manchester on Art, Wealth and Riches and in Oxford on Art and Democracy. At about this time, he was reading Marx's Capital in French.
1884 Representatives of the People Act Fabian Society founded The Democratic Federation renamed the Social Democratic Federation. This was socialist. William Morris was a member of its executive. He contributed frquently to its new journal Justice, which he helped to fund and sold on the streets. He formed a Hammersnith Branch. December 1884 Morris resigned from the Social Democratic Federation and helped to found the Socialist League
William Morris edited and contributed to Commonwealth, a new journal for the Socialist League. During the year, some socialists were arrested after an open-air meeting. There were disturbances when they were brought before the police court. Morris was arrested during the disturbances, but discharged.
1886 Custody of Infants Act (Pankhurst, S.1931 p.31) Year of the Royal Bedroom and the Pall Mall Windows: There were eleven working class MPs (all Liberal) and one of them (Henry Broadhurst) was made an Under-Secretary of State by the Prime Minister (Gladstone). He stayed at Buckingham Palace, where his bedroom fire was poked by the Prince of Wales. In the same year a procession of the unemployed was jeered at in Pall Mall, and smashed windows in response. February 1886 W.E. Gladstone Prime Minister. Irish Home Rule Bill led to the defection of the Liberal unionists. Bill defeated. August 1886 Marquis of Salisbury Prime Minister. (Conservative with Liberal Unionist support)
Marx's Capital volume one published in English. 13.11.1887 "Bloody Sunday" Alfred Linnell died (on 20.11.1887) from injuries received when police tried to prevent a demonstration of the unemployed storming Trafalger Square. He was labelled the "First English Socialist Martyr". William Morris was one of the pall- bearers and speakers at his funeral. (see Morris How the Change Came)
Susan Brownell Anthony organised the International Council of Women Matchgirls' strike 7.1.1888 Robert George Gamage died
London Dock Strike Fabian Essays published. Essays by Bernard Shaw, Sidney Webb, Graham Wallas, Sidney Oliver, William Clarke, Annie Besant and Herbert Bland. First volume of Charles Booth's Life and Labour of the People of London published. Charles Booth (1840-1916), a statistician, began this work in 1885 with the intention of refuting Social Democratic Federation propaganda. Eventually, the work had seventeen volumes, and was completed in 1902. Second International founded in Paris.
William Morris began to publish News from Nowhere as instalments is Commonweal. During the year, he was ejected as the editor of Commonweal, but continued the instalments of News from Nowhere. Morris left the Socialist League and the Hammersmith Branch was renamed the Hammersmith Socialist Society
Free elementary education The right of a husband to use force against his wife was first denied by the courts in 1891. William Morris (1834-1869) published News from Nowhere as a book.
Sylvia Pankhurst (1882-1960) The Suffragette Movement (Re-published by Virago in 1977)
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