Joseph Sturge[1], philanthropist, was the son of Joseph Sturge (1763–1817), a farmer and grazier, and his wife, Mary Marshall (d. 1819) of Alcester, Warwickshire, was born at Elberton, Gloucestershire, on 2nd August 1793. He was the fourth of twelve children: six boys and six girls. He spent a year at Thornbury day school and three years at the Quaker boarding-school at Sidcot and at fourteen commenced farming with his father. Afterwards he farmed on his own account. The Sturges were members of the Society of Friends, and at the age of nineteen, when Joseph followed the family’s pacifist beliefs and refused to find a proxy or to serve in the militia, he watched his flock of sheep driven off to be sold to cover the delinquency. In 1814, he settled at Bewdley as a corn factor, but did not make money. In 1822, he moved to Birmingham, where he lived for the rest of his life. There, in partnership with his brother Charles Sturge (1801–1888), who was associated with him in many of his later philanthropic acts, he created one of the largest grain-importing businesses in Britain. With other family members he invested in railways and in the new docks at Gloucester. Leaving the conduct of the business to Charles, he devoted himself after 1831 to philanthropy and public life. On 29th April 1834, he married Eliza, only daughter of James Cropper, the philanthropist. She died in 1835. He married again on 14th October 1846; his second wife was Hannah, daughter of Barnard Dickinson of Coalbrookdale, Shropshire, with whom he had a son and four daughters.
From the 1820s, Sturge warmly espoused the anti-slavery cause in collaboration with his younger sister Sophia Sturge (1795-1845). He soon became dissatisfied with T. F. Buxton and the leaders of the movement, who favoured a policy of gradual emancipation. In 1831, he was one of the founders of the agency committee of the Anti-Slavery Society, whose programme was entire and immediate emancipation. Sturge and his friends engaged lecturers, who travelled through Britain and Ireland arousing popular interest. They were disappointed by the measure of emancipation passed by the government on 28th August 1833, granting compensation to slave owners and substituting a temporary system of unpaid apprenticeship for slavery. Between November 1836 and April 1837, Sturge visited the West Indies gathering evidence to demonstrate the flaws of the apprenticeship system. On his return he published The West Indies in 1837 (1838), the first edition of which rapidly sold, and gave evidence for seven days before a committee of the House of Commons. He travelled round Britain, hoping, as one of his friends explained, to bring ‘the battering ram of public opinion’ to bear on parliament and the West Indian planter interest. He was successful, and in 1838 the apprenticeship system was terminated.
Sturge and his friends subsequently sent large sums of money to Jamaica in support of schools, missionaries, and a scheme for settling former slaves in ‘free townships’. He founded the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society in 1839, and organised international anti-slavery conventions in 1840 and 1843. In 1841, he travelled through the United States with the poet J. G. Whittier, to observe the condition of the slaves there, and on his return published A Visit to the United States in 1841 (1842). Towards the end of his life, he bought an estate on the island of Montserrat to prove the economic viability of free labour if efficiently and humanely managed.
Meanwhile political agitation in England was rising. One of the first members of the Anti-Corn Law League, Sturge was reproached by the Free Trader for deserting repeal when, in 1842, he launched a campaign for ‘complete suffrage’, hoping to secure the co-operation of the league and the Chartist movement under his leadership. He was encouraged by the support he received from Edward Miall and middle-class nonconformists as well as from some of the Chartists, including A. G. O’Neill and Henry Vincent, but the league leaders refused to participate, and the movement faded away after it was opposed by William Lovett and Feargus O’Connor at a conference in Birmingham in December 1842. Sturge unsuccessfully contested parliamentary elections at Nottingham in 1842, Birmingham in 1844 and Leeds in 1847 on platforms that included ‘complete suffrage’.
For several years after the mid-1840s, Sturge was one of the leaders of a movement for ‘people diplomacy’, which attempted to create an international public opinion in favour of arbitration as a means of avoiding war. Together with Richard Cobden, Henry Richard, Elihu Burritt, and others, he organized peace congresses at Brussels, Paris, Frankfurt, London, Manchester, and Edinburgh. In 1850, he visited Schleswig-Holstein and Copenhagen with the object of inducing the governments of Schleswig-Holstein and Denmark to submit their dispute to arbitration. In January 1854, he was appointed one of the deputation from the Society of Friends to visit the tsar of Russia in an attempt to avert the Crimean War. Largely through Sturge’s support, the Morning Star was launched in 1856 as an organ for the advocacy of non-intervention and arbitration. In 1856, he visited Finland to arrange for distribution of funds from the Friends towards relieving the famine caused by the British fleet’s destruction of private property during the war. Sturge died suddenly after a heart attack at Edgbaston, near Birmingham, on 14th May 1859, as he was preparing to attend the annual meeting of the Peace Society, of which he was president. He was buried in the graveyard of the Bull Street meeting-house, Birmingham.
Sturge’s range of interests as a philanthropist and reformer was very wide: anti-slavery, peace, free trade, suffrage extension, infant schools and Sunday schools, reformatories, spelling reform, teetotalism, hydropathy, and public parks. He was one of the street commissioners of Birmingham during the 1820s, and from 1838 to 1840, he was an alderman of the newly created Birmingham town council. The mainspring of his actions was a sense of Christian duty derived from his Quakerism. He was also influenced by his association with radical nonconformists who shared his antipathy for the aristocratic Anglican elite that dominated British political life. He has been seen as one of the many wealthy Quakers who attempted to alleviate the problems of the age by their philanthropy. He has also been described as one of the best examples of a group of reformers who called themselves ‘moral radicals’ and strove to impart a religiously based idealism to the emergent Liberal Party of the mid-nineteenth century.
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[1] Sources: A. Tyrrell Joseph Sturge and the ‘moral radical party’ in early Victorian Britain, 1987, H. Richard Memoirs of Joseph Sturge, 1864, Birmingham Journal (1830–59), The Friend, volumes 1–18 (1843–60), British Emancipator (1838–40), British and Foreign Anti-Slavery reporter (1840–60), Herald of Peace (1819–59), Nonconformist (1841–59), J. Sturge and T. Harvey The West Indies in 1837, 1838, J. Sturge A visit to the United States in 1841, 1842, and J. Sturge and T. Harvey Report of a visit to Finland, in the autumn of 1856, 1856. Archives: British Library: correspondence, Add. MSS 43722–43723, 43845, 50131; Bodleian Library: correspondence, journal relating to involvement with the Anti-Slavery Society, British Library: correspondence with Richard Cobden, Add. MS 43656; Sturge MSS; Huntingdon Library: letters to Thomas Clarkson, University of London: Brougham correspondence; and, West Sussex Record Office: correspondence with Richard Cobden.
Monday 3 September 2007
Sunday 2 September 2007
Chartist Lives: Joseph Rayner Stephens
Stephens[1], a social reformer, was born on 8th March 1805 in Edinburgh. He was the sixth child of John Stephens (1772–1841) and Rebecca Eliza Rayner (d. 1852), of Wethersfield, Essex. His father, a native of St Dennis in Cornwall, was a prominent Methodist minister, who served as president of the Wesleyan conference in 1827. Three of Joseph Rayner’s brothers also rose to prominence: John as a newspaper editor, Edward as a banker, and George Stephens as a professor of Scandinavian studies. Stephens was educated at Woodhouse Grove Methodist School, near Leeds (c.1813–1815), and later at Leeds and Manchester grammar schools. In 1823, he began to teach at a school in Cottingham, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Soon he became a local preacher in the Beverley circuit and in 1825 offered himself for the ministry. The following year he was ordained and appointed to a mission station in Stockholm, under the auspices of the Wesleyan Missionary Society. He found his assignment to be a difficult one. Restrictions on non-Lutheran missionary enterprises prevented him from evangelizing on a wide scale. Samuel Owen, an English shipbuilder, provided initial support for Stephens’s efforts, and he soon came to the attention of Benjamin Bloomfield, the British envoy to Stockholm, who invited him to serve as an unofficial domestic chaplain at the embassy. He also developed a close friendship with the son of the French ambassador, Count Charles de Montalembert. The probationary period of Stephens’s ministry was concluded and he was received into full connexion when he returned from Sweden in 1829.
Stephens served briefly in Cheltenham and Newcastle upon Tyne before being appointed to the Ashton under Lyne circuit in 1832. Dissenters’ grievances and the cause of disestablishment attracted many advocates in the Ashton area, particularly following the earl of Stamford’s refusal to grant land in the centre of town for a new Congregational chapel. Stephens became a strong proponent of church disestablishment and served as a secretary of the Church Separation Society. These activities brought him into conflict with the Wesleyan hierarchy, and he resigned from the connexion under charges in 1834. In the wake of his departure from the local Wesleyan circuit many others seceded. In November 1834, Stephens consented to become minister to a group of separatists in Ashton. Also, at this time, he was making plans to be married to Elizabeth Henwood (d. 1852), the niece of a noted Wesleyan layman, James Henwood. The marriage took place on 28th January 1835 in Hull.
Stephens’s encounters with Charles Hindley, the Liberal-radical cotton manufacturer, coupled with a fresh look at industrial circumstances upon his return from missionary service, led to a radicalization of his political views. He joined Richard Oastler in the campaign to improve factory conditions and, by the beginning of 1836, emerged as one of the prominent leaders of the movement. He also became one of the most vocal critics of the new poor law. He travelled extensively and drew large audiences as he inveighed against the predicament of the poor; reportedly, he was a gifted and powerful orator. In explaining his motivation Stephens said he always sought to ‘apply the rule of God’s commandments to various institutions of the social system’ in order ‘to bring the operations of the manufacturers, the commerce and legislation of this professedly Christian land to the standard of God’s Holy Word’[2]. Stephens became associated with the Chartist movement though he rejected being labelled as a Chartist. Yet he owned twenty shares (each worth £1) in the Chartist Northern Star and figured prominently in public meetings to promote the various radical causes of the day. His weekly sermons were published as The Political Pulpit (1839) and he frequently contributed to other radical publications including the Christian Advocate, edited by his brother John. In the 1837 general election, he made an unsuccessful bid to enter parliament for Ashton.
Stephens’s reputation for violent speeches and sermons eventually led to his arrest on 27th December 1838. The indictment contained a list of charges: intending to disturb the public peace on 14th November 1838, making a seditious speech at Hyde, and two counts of riot and one of being present at an unlawful assembly. The case was finally tried at the Chester assizes on 15th August 1839. Stephens represented himself at the trial and, lacking legal experience, provided only a weak defence. After a very brief deliberation and verdict from the jury, he was sentenced by Mr Justice Pattison to eighteen months’ imprisonment at Knutsford house of correction, followed by a five-year period in which he had to find sureties for good behaviour. In the event, confinement in Chester Castle was substituted for Knutsford.
By his own reckoning, Stephens’s itinerant activities in Scandinavia had inured him to hardship, and he found prison ‘as little irksome and unpleasant as possible’. But while incarceration did not seem to alter his commitment to the poor, it clearly changed his perspective on how his convictions should be expressed, and his language and activities were much more restrained after his release in 1840. He committed himself to the cause of factory reform but rejected Chartism: the revolutionary zeal with which he pursued his goals in the 1830s was absent. While he resumed preaching, he seemed to exhibit a preference for written expression and became involved with a number of literary ventures: Stephens’s Monthly Magazine (1840), the People’s Magazine (1841), the Ashton Chronicle (1848–9), and The Champion (1850–51).
Perhaps the clearest sign of his change in outlook was his election as a poor-law guardian in 1848. Even though he remained adamantly opposed to the new poor law he was willing to work from within the system to champion individual cases of distress. Following the death of his first wife in 1852, he married Susanna (1838/9–1920), daughter of Samuel Shaw of Derby, on 19th May 1857. In his later years, he became involved in educational enterprises, trade unionism, and agitation on behalf of the unemployed. His activities were in time restricted by severe gout. He died at his home in Stalybridge, Lancashire, on 18th February 1879 of a kidney ailment coupled with persistent vomiting and exhaustion, and was buried on 1st March at St John’s Church, Dukinfield, Cheshire. He was survived by his second wife and several children.
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[1] Sources: M. S. Edwards Purge this realm: a life of Joseph Rayner Stephens, 1994, G. J. Holyoake Life of Joseph Rayner Stephens, 1881, P. B. Templeton A report of the trial of the Rev. J. R. Stephens, at the Chester assizes, on Monday, August 15, 1839, 1839, E. G. Lyon Politicians in the pulpit, 1999, G. D. H. Cole Chartist portraits, 1941), T. Gallandhartley (ed.) Hall’s circuits and ministers, 1912, J. Macdonell and J. E. P. Wallis (eds.) Reports of state trials, [new series.], 8 volumes, (1846–1921), volume. 3 and J. R. Stephens The political pulpit: a collection of sermons, 1839. Archives: British Library: Place MSS, Add. MS 27820, fols. 150–51, 218v–219, 257, 266–7, 281–5, 300–02, 349, 359–61, 401–2; 27821, fols. 13, 225–6
[2] J. R. Stephens The Political Preacher, 6th January 1839, pages 13–14
Stephens served briefly in Cheltenham and Newcastle upon Tyne before being appointed to the Ashton under Lyne circuit in 1832. Dissenters’ grievances and the cause of disestablishment attracted many advocates in the Ashton area, particularly following the earl of Stamford’s refusal to grant land in the centre of town for a new Congregational chapel. Stephens became a strong proponent of church disestablishment and served as a secretary of the Church Separation Society. These activities brought him into conflict with the Wesleyan hierarchy, and he resigned from the connexion under charges in 1834. In the wake of his departure from the local Wesleyan circuit many others seceded. In November 1834, Stephens consented to become minister to a group of separatists in Ashton. Also, at this time, he was making plans to be married to Elizabeth Henwood (d. 1852), the niece of a noted Wesleyan layman, James Henwood. The marriage took place on 28th January 1835 in Hull.
Stephens’s encounters with Charles Hindley, the Liberal-radical cotton manufacturer, coupled with a fresh look at industrial circumstances upon his return from missionary service, led to a radicalization of his political views. He joined Richard Oastler in the campaign to improve factory conditions and, by the beginning of 1836, emerged as one of the prominent leaders of the movement. He also became one of the most vocal critics of the new poor law. He travelled extensively and drew large audiences as he inveighed against the predicament of the poor; reportedly, he was a gifted and powerful orator. In explaining his motivation Stephens said he always sought to ‘apply the rule of God’s commandments to various institutions of the social system’ in order ‘to bring the operations of the manufacturers, the commerce and legislation of this professedly Christian land to the standard of God’s Holy Word’[2]. Stephens became associated with the Chartist movement though he rejected being labelled as a Chartist. Yet he owned twenty shares (each worth £1) in the Chartist Northern Star and figured prominently in public meetings to promote the various radical causes of the day. His weekly sermons were published as The Political Pulpit (1839) and he frequently contributed to other radical publications including the Christian Advocate, edited by his brother John. In the 1837 general election, he made an unsuccessful bid to enter parliament for Ashton.
Stephens’s reputation for violent speeches and sermons eventually led to his arrest on 27th December 1838. The indictment contained a list of charges: intending to disturb the public peace on 14th November 1838, making a seditious speech at Hyde, and two counts of riot and one of being present at an unlawful assembly. The case was finally tried at the Chester assizes on 15th August 1839. Stephens represented himself at the trial and, lacking legal experience, provided only a weak defence. After a very brief deliberation and verdict from the jury, he was sentenced by Mr Justice Pattison to eighteen months’ imprisonment at Knutsford house of correction, followed by a five-year period in which he had to find sureties for good behaviour. In the event, confinement in Chester Castle was substituted for Knutsford.
By his own reckoning, Stephens’s itinerant activities in Scandinavia had inured him to hardship, and he found prison ‘as little irksome and unpleasant as possible’. But while incarceration did not seem to alter his commitment to the poor, it clearly changed his perspective on how his convictions should be expressed, and his language and activities were much more restrained after his release in 1840. He committed himself to the cause of factory reform but rejected Chartism: the revolutionary zeal with which he pursued his goals in the 1830s was absent. While he resumed preaching, he seemed to exhibit a preference for written expression and became involved with a number of literary ventures: Stephens’s Monthly Magazine (1840), the People’s Magazine (1841), the Ashton Chronicle (1848–9), and The Champion (1850–51).
Perhaps the clearest sign of his change in outlook was his election as a poor-law guardian in 1848. Even though he remained adamantly opposed to the new poor law he was willing to work from within the system to champion individual cases of distress. Following the death of his first wife in 1852, he married Susanna (1838/9–1920), daughter of Samuel Shaw of Derby, on 19th May 1857. In his later years, he became involved in educational enterprises, trade unionism, and agitation on behalf of the unemployed. His activities were in time restricted by severe gout. He died at his home in Stalybridge, Lancashire, on 18th February 1879 of a kidney ailment coupled with persistent vomiting and exhaustion, and was buried on 1st March at St John’s Church, Dukinfield, Cheshire. He was survived by his second wife and several children.
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[1] Sources: M. S. Edwards Purge this realm: a life of Joseph Rayner Stephens, 1994, G. J. Holyoake Life of Joseph Rayner Stephens, 1881, P. B. Templeton A report of the trial of the Rev. J. R. Stephens, at the Chester assizes, on Monday, August 15, 1839, 1839, E. G. Lyon Politicians in the pulpit, 1999, G. D. H. Cole Chartist portraits, 1941), T. Gallandhartley (ed.) Hall’s circuits and ministers, 1912, J. Macdonell and J. E. P. Wallis (eds.) Reports of state trials, [new series.], 8 volumes, (1846–1921), volume. 3 and J. R. Stephens The political pulpit: a collection of sermons, 1839. Archives: British Library: Place MSS, Add. MS 27820, fols. 150–51, 218v–219, 257, 266–7, 281–5, 300–02, 349, 359–61, 401–2; 27821, fols. 13, 225–6
[2] J. R. Stephens The Political Preacher, 6th January 1839, pages 13–14
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