Many histories have been written of the governing class that ruled England with such absolute power during the last century of the old régime. Those histories have shown how that class conducted war, how it governed its colonies, how it behaved to the continental Powers, how it managed the first critical chapters of our relations with India, how it treated Ireland, how it developed the Parliamentary system, how it saved Europe from Napoleon. One history has only been sketched in outline: it is the history of the way in which this class governed England. The writers of this book have here attempted to describe the life of the poor during this period. It is their object to show what was in fact happening to the working classes under a government in which they had no share. They found, on searching through the material for such a study, that the subject was too large for a single book; they have accordingly confined themselves in this volume to the treatment of the village poor, leaving the town worker for separate treatment. It is necessary to mention this, for it helps to explain certain omissions that may strike the reader. The growth and direction of economic opinion, for example, are an important part of any examination of this question, but the writers have been obliged to reserve the consideration of that subject for their later volume, to which it seems more appropriate. The writers have also found it necessary to leave entirely on one side for the present the movement for Parliamentary Reform which was alive throughout this period, and very active, of course, during its later stages.

Two subjects are discussed fully in this volume, they believe, for the first time. One is the actual method and procedure of Parliamentary Enclosure; the other the labourers’ rising of 1830. More than one important book has been written on enclosures during the last few years, but nowhere can the student find a full analysis of the procedure and stages by which the old village was destroyed. The rising of 1830 has only been mentioned incidentally in general histories: it has nowhere been treated as a definite demand for better conditions, and its course, scope, significance, and punishment have received little attention. The writers of this book have treated it fully, using for that purpose the Home Office Papers lately made accessible to students in the Record Office. They wish to express their gratitude to Mr. Hubert Hall for his help and guidance in this part of their work.

The obligations of the writers to the important books published in recent years on eighteenth-century local government are manifest, and they are acknowledged in the text, but the writers desire to mention specially their great debt to Mr. Hobson’s Industrial System, a work that seems to them to throw a new and most illuminating light on the economic significance of the history of the early years of the last century.

Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Ponsonby and Miss M. K. Bradby have done the writers the great service of reading the entire book and suggesting many important improvements. Mr. and Mrs. C. R. Buxton, Mr. A. Clutton Brock, Professor L. T. Hobhouse, and Mr. H. W. Massingham have given them valuable help and advice on various parts of the work.

Hampstead, August 1911

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE
I. The Concentration of Power,[1]
Comparison between English and French Aristocracy—Control of English Aristocracy over (1) Parliament; (2) Local Government—The Justices—Family Settlements—Feudal Dues.
II. The Village before Enclosure,[26]
The Common-field System—Classes in the Village—Motives for Enclosure—Agricultural Considerations—Moral Considerations—Extent of Parliamentary Enclosure.
III. Enclosure (I),[43]
Procedure in Parliament—Composition of Private Bill Committees—Proportion of Consents required—Helplessness of Small Men—Indifference of Parliament to Local Opinion—Appointment and Powers of Enclosure Commissioners—Story of Sedgmoor.
IV. Enclosure (II),[71]
Standing Orders—General Enclosure Bills—Consolidating Act of 1801—Popular Feeling against Enclosure—Proposals for Amending Procedure—Arthur Young’s Protest—Story of Otmoor.
V.The Village after Enclosure,[97]
Effects of Enclosure on (1) Small Farmers; (2) Cottagers; (3) Squatters—Expenses—Loss of Common Rights—Village Officials—Changed Outlook of Labourer.
VI. The Labourer in 1795,[106]
Loss of Auxiliary Resources—Fuel—Gleaning—Rise in Prices—Effect of Settlement Laws—Food Riots of 1795.
VII. The Remedies of 1795,[123]
The Remedies proposed but not adopted: (1) Change of Diet—Cheap Cereals—Soup; (2) Minimum Wage—Demand from Norfolk Labourers—Whitbread’s Bills, 1795 and 1800; (3) Poor Law Reform—Pitt’s Poor Law Bill—-Amendments of Settlement Laws; (4) Allotments—Success of Experiments—Hostility of Farmers—The Remedy adopted: Speenhamland System of supplementing Wages from Rates—Account of Speenhamland Meeting—Scale of Relief drawn up.
VIII. After Speenhamland,[166]
Prosperity of Agriculture during French War—Labourers not benefited—Heavy Taxation—Agricultural Depression at Peace—Labourers’ Rising in 1816—Poor Law Legislation of 1818, 1819 to relieve Ratepayers, compared with Whitbread’s Scheme in 1807—Salaried Overseers—Parish Carts—Drop in Scale of Relief for Labourers after Waterloo—New Auxiliary Resources—Poaching—Game Laws—Distress and Crime—Criminal Justice—Transportation.
IX. The Isolation of the Poor,[207]
Attitude of Governing Class towards the Poor—An Ideal Poor Woman—Gulf between Farmers and Labourers due to Large Farms—Bailiffs—Lawyers and the Poor—The Church and the Poor—Gloom of the Village.
X. The Village in 1830,[225]
Poor Law Commission Report of 1834—Effects of Speenhamland System: Degradation of Labourer; Demoralisation of Middle Classes—Possible Success of Alternative Policies—Minimum Wage—Cobbett’s Position.
XI. The Last Labourers’ Revolt (I),[240]
Rising in Kent—Threshing Machines—Sussex Rising: Brede—Spread of Rising Westwards—Description of Outbreak in Hampshire, Wiltshire, Berkshire—Alarm of Upper Classes—Melbourne’s Circular—Repressive Measures—Archbishop’s Prayer.
XII. The Last Labourers’ Revolt (II),[272]
Special Commissions—Temper of Judges—Treatment of Prisoners—Trials at Winchester, Salisbury, Dorchester, Reading, Abingdon, Aylesbury—Cases of Arson—Position of Whig Government—Trials of Carlile and Cobbett—Proposals for helping Labourers—Lord King—Lord Suffield—Collapse of Proposals.
XIII. Conclusion,[325]
Index,[405]

CHAPTER I
THE CONCENTRATION OF POWER

‘Là l’aristocratie a pris pour elle les charges publiques les plus lourdes afin qu’on lui permît de gouverner; ici elle a retenu jusqu’à la fin l’immunité d’impôt pour se consoler d’avoir perdu le gouvernement.’

De Tocqueville has set out in this antithesis the main argument that runs through his analysis of the institutions of ancient France. In England the aristocracy had power and no privileges: in France the aristocracy had privileges and no power. The one condition produced, as he read history, the blending of classes, a strong and vigorous public spirit, the calm of liberty and order: the other a society lacking vitality and leadership, classes estranged and isolated, a concentration of power and responsibility that impoverished private effort and initiative without creating public energy or public wealth.