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Monday 27 April 2015

1852: a faltering administration

In the first half of 1852, La Trobe became more confident as his government gradually established its authority. The Legislative Council, which ended its first session in January, was not summoned again until June. [1] The Government concentrated on recruiting police and building up the goldfield administration appointing W. H. Wright, formerly in charge of Mount Alexander, as Chief Commissioner in May and by June La Trobe considered both to be operating effectively. [2] Wright warned La Trobe of the defects of the 1851 license system and opposed the compulsory license hunts that enraged the diggers; however, his flexibility kept the situation under control. The number of licenses issued increased from nearly 8,000 in January to 20,000 by April and nearly 25,000 the following month with two-thirds of miners paying.[3] This was reflected in the decline in the number of articles in the Argus in 1852 in which gold licenses were mentioned. [4]

For the moment, although the intensity had gone out of the license issue, it was not what the Government did in these months but what it did not do that caused problems. No attempt was made, for example to build a road to Castlemaine and Bendigo despite the increase in gold revenue and the availability of labour. The Colonial Office in London recognised that it could not interfere in Victoria. Communications were too slow and only the local executive could make effective decisions. However, the Colonial Office did three things to aid La Trobe. It immediately sent four companies of the 59th Regiment [5] followed soon after by a volunteer force of London police while the Admiralty agreed to send a man-of-war. It also unlocked the constitutional impasse between executive and legislature by quickly agreeing to transfer control of the goldfields and gold revenue to the Legislative Council. Finally, whatever it thought privately, La Trobe was praised for his handling of the crisis. [6]

By the middle of 1852, as the first waves of gold-seekers from overseas arrived, all needing accommodation, food and transport, the government was fully aware that the discovery of gold had created more intractable problems than it had solved. [7] These concerns were matched by others who were troubled by the possible lasting effects. It seemed that the gold rushes threatened to destroy social stability; indeed to some this was a world turned upside-down. For them the lower orders were unable to enjoy the fruits of their fortune sensibly and their futile attempts to copy the behaviour and dress of higher classes was a constant source of humour in the early days of the gold rushes as, for example when several thousand fortunate diggers descended on Melbourne over Christmas and New Year. [8] In fact, most miners did not squander their new-found wealth. Many young miners married because they could now afford to do so; some used their wealth to improve conditions for their families while others paid the fares of relatives and friends from Britain; farms were bought and businesses established. Many simply saved their money: deposits in savings banks rose from £29,000 in January 1852 to over £102,000 by June. If anything this increased rather than diminished the alarm of the established social order. Serle concluded that, ‘In social relations, though not in politics, a ‘French Revolution’ had indeed occurred’. [9]

The administration of Victoria reached its nadir in the second half of 1852. Its government was distrusted, the Executive Council mocked and the Legislative Council ignored. The colonists complained of deadlock over pastoral leases, lack of public works, of trespassing miners and indecision on the question of transportation. Immigrants were scandalised by mismanagement of the goldfields and by the cost of everything. La Trobe invariably dithered. This was exacerbated by the volatile membership of the Executive Council with three resignations by mid-1852 and little reliable support from the official and non-official members of the Legislative Council with 31 different representatives filling the 10 nominee positions between 1851 and 1853. La Trobe’s problems were further complicated by his inability to control the legislature, only surviving a motion of no-confidence in November 1852 by two votes (15 votes to 13).[10]

The Colonial Office instructions giving the Legislative Council control of the goldfields and their revenue arrived in early September 1852. [11] The government, however, interpreted tentative suggestions about the licensing system as clear directives that La Trobe, always unwilling to deviate from instructions, now saw as permanent. Within a week, the government prepared and introduced a bill imposing an export duty of 2/6d an ounce in addition to the existing fee.[12] The timing was good and the levy fell on successful miners (and then only indirectly) rather than everyone who worked on the diggings. The price of gold had risen sharply in August and this might limit digger opposition. The bill passed its second reading comfortably. No member wanted to abolish the license system and only a few representatives spoke against extra taxation on the miners. Notwithstanding, the Government adjourned the Council for six weeks and when it reconvened the bill was rejected by one vote with two government nominees voting against the bill. [13] This first review of the license system ended with no change and almost no consideration of its fundamental principles. Had the Government proceeded in September it is likely that the bill would have passed, but widespread opposition developed among urban radicals and diggers during the six week adjournment. Melbourne merchants came out against the proposal and had established links with the digger organisation at Castlemaine in order to prepare a concerted campaign. The Melbourne Chamber of Commerce, led by William Westgarth unanimously passed a hostile resolution based on the laissez-faire principle that no obstacle to trade was acceptable and that it was unjust to tax the diggers more heavily. [14]


[1] For a detailed discussion of the first session of the Legislative Council, see above Wright, Raymond, A Blended House, pp. 21-35.

[2] Blake, L. J., ‘William Henry Wright (1816-1877)’, ADB, Vol. 6, pp. 444-445.

[3] La Trobe to Grey, 8 July 1852, printed in Clark2, pp. 9-13.

[4] Between May and December 1851, discussion of gold licenses was contained in 271 articles. The number per month rose steadily from 19 in June to 54 in December. During 1852, this only occurred on 198 occasions with a low of 8 in August and 22 in April with an average of 16 per month across the year.

[5] This was announced in the House of Lords on 17 May 1852, ‘Emigration to Australia’, Hansard, House of Lords, Debates, 17 May 1852, Vol. 121, cc.672-674. Sydney Morning Herald, 4 September 1852, p. 8.

[6] Pakington’s despatch is printed in Argus, 8 September 1852, p. 2.

[7] Annear, Robyn, Nothing But Gold: The Diggers of 1852, (Text Publishing), 1999.

[8] Argus, 16 December 1851, commented that 500 diggers in one band was heading for Melbourne, ‘it is to be dreaded the revelry of our countrymen will become a Saturnalia. Low debauchery, profligacy and crime, instead of the innocent festive scene and social merriment.’

[9] Serle, p. 30.

[10] Sweetman, pp. 141-144. ‘Want of Confidence’, Argus, 20 November 1852, p. 4, outlined why there was no confidence in the Executive Council, Argus, 24 November 1852, pp. 4-5, prints the debate on the no-confidence motion.

[11] See, Pakington to La Trobe, 2 June 1852, ‘Argus, 8 September 1852, p. 4, prints Pakington’s letter and the Government Order dated 7 September 1852.

[12] The Bill for granting duties of Customs upon Gold exported from the Colony of Victoria is printed in Argus, 14 September 1852, p. 3.

[13] ‘The Export Duties upon Gold’, Argus, 3 November 1852, p. 4, provides an editorial critique of the legislation. Argus, 17 November 1852, criticised the passage of the further stage of the bill. Geelong Advertiser, 26 November 1852.

[14] Cooper, J. B., Victorian Commerce 1834-1934: In which is Incorporated the Story of the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce, (Robertson & Mullens), 1934, and ‘Reports of the Conditions and Progress of the Colony of Victoria since the Discovery of the Goldfields’, in Westgarth, William, Victoria: Late Australia Felix, Or Port Phillip District of New South Wales, (Oliver & Boyd), 1853, pp. 80-85. The petition, written on 4 October, is printed in Argus, 6 November 1852, p. 5.

Sunday 26 April 2015

The Dignity of Chartism

Stephen Roberts (ed.)
The Dignity of Chartism: Essays by Dorothy Thompson
(Verso), 2015
xxx, 206pp, £14.99 paper, ISBN 978-1-78188-849-6
The historian Dorothy Thompson, who died aged 87 in 2011, was best known for her writing on the social and cultural aspects of the nineteenth-century Chartist movement. The documents she edited in The Early Chartists (1971) brought to life the intense and dangerous interior world of working-class meetings, conventions and newspapers, while The Chartists (1984) revealed greatly neglected areas such as middle-class involvement, women’s role, the part played by Irish radicals and schemes for land settlements. Her collection Outsiders: Class, Gender and Nation (1993) demonstrated a mix of exacting scholarship and conceptual clarity.

The volume is divided into five parts. 'Interpreting Chartism' includes six essays that consider various aspects of the historiography of the movement. ‘Chartism as an Historical Subject’, a succinct discussion, originally published in 1970 a decade before ‘the linguistic turn’, examines the nature and importance of Chartism and, linked with her essay on historiography published in Outsiders: Class, Gender and Nation makes an excellent introduction to the subject. This is followed by a characteristically combative review of ‘The Languages of Class’ through a critical analysis of Gareth Stedman Jones’ work. The remaining four essays in this section extend what is, I think, the most innovative section of The Chartists—‘Who were the Chartists?’ ‘Who were ‘The People’ in 1842?’, first published in 1996, examines the use of language as a major historical ‘source’ against the backdrop of the climatic events of 1842. ‘Women Chartists’ is an excellent summary of her findings on what was, until she resurrected them, a neglected dimension of radicalism. The other two essays are reviews of Gregory Claeys’ six volume collection of Chartist tracts and David Vincent’s book on working-class autobiographies.
The second section, in many respects the heart of the book, consists of two essays originally written in the 1950s. There is a short essay on ‘Chartism in the Industrial Areas’, still a valuable synopsis. It is, however, the study of Halifax as a Chartist Centre, from which the book gained its title, which is the jewel of the collection. Originally written with her husband Edward Thompson as part of Asa Briggs’ Chartist Studies and unpublished until now, it is a detailed study of how Chartism developed in one community. At over 30,000 words in the original that is available on the Internet, the essay, which was never completely finished, has been sympathetically edited to make it a more manageable length. Although it reflects the historiography as it stood in the 1950s, it remains a model for how the local study of Chartism should be written and its publication is important.
The third section examines the leaders of the people. There is a short essay on O’Connor, for Thompson the most important of Chartist leaders originally written in 1952 when he remained under a Gammage-Lovett-Hovell dominated cloud and two decades before his resurrection to his rightful position at the heart of the movement as an innovative, combative, if erratic, radical leader. This is followed by a chapter that combines two reviews on George Julian Harney ‘a radical to the end of his days’, something evident in David Goodway’s recently published collection of Harney’s journalism. Miles Taylor’s book on Ernest Jones is subjected to a review originally published in 2003 while books on Joseph Sturge and John Fielden, two middle-class supporters of the movement, were subjected to not uncritical review in 1987.
The three essays in the next section ‘Repercussions’ consider Chartism from the perspective of 1848 and beyond. ‘The Chartists in 1848’ published in 2005, and one of the final things Dorothy Thompson wrote on the movement, places greater emphasis on the role played by Irish radicals as a stimulus to continued Chartist activity after Kennington Common. There is a valuable review of John Saville’s 1848: The British State and the Chartist Movement that has much to say about her view of the significance of 1848 and her criticism of Saville’s notion of the ‘radical triangle’ of Paris, Dublin and London. ‘The Post-Chartist Decades’ combines reviews originally published in 1994 and 1995 of Margot Finn’s After Chartism and Miles Taylor’s The Decline of British Radicalism and considers the question of what happened to Chartists after Chartism ceased to be a mass political movement—‘Poor people’s movements do not have the resources to sustain a permanent organization: they gain their effect in particular short-term ways…’
The collection ends with a section appropriately entitled ‘Looking Back’, an essay in which Dorothy Thompson reflected in 2003 on how Marxist ideas shaped her thinking both as a political activist and as an historian. This essay exemplifies much about how Dorothy Thompson approached the writing of history and particularly the humanity and elegance of her writing. It is a fitting way to end this invaluable collection. There is also a valuable and succinct bibliography and an excellent index.
The Dignity of Chartism collects together Dorothy Thompson’s essays and reviews, previously published in many different places, into a single volume making her writing on Chartism easily available. Stephen Roberts, one of Dorothy’s doctoral students, has done a great service for historians of nineteenth century radicalism in bringing this material together which he does with considerable aplomb in his introductory essay, a combination of personal reminiscences and historiographical analysis, and in the sureness of his editing. This is volume that all historians of Chartism should read and provides further evidence, if any was needed, that Dorothy Thompson was the most important historian of Chartism in the past half century.