Charivaris against Loyalists

The first mention of charivaris was at the beginning of the fourteenth century in France where it was a regular custom after weddings.[1] Its origins were defined by abbé Jean Bonnecaz,

Le charivari est un bruit confus, tumultueux et désagréable, d’une assemblée de gens qui crient d’une manière bouffonne, et font du tumulte avec des poêles, chaudrons, des cors et des tambours, pour faire quelque sorte de confusion à ceux qui se marient en secondes noces.[2]

In charivari, people from the local community gathered to ‘celebrate’ a marriage, usually one they regarded as questionable, gathering outside the window of the couple. They banged metal implements or used other items to create noise in order to keep the couple awake all night. Sometimes they wore disguises or masks. Later it became a form of protest or social disapproval against marriages, for example the marriage of widows before completing the socially acceptable period of mourning. In the early seventeenth century, the Council of Tours forbade charivari and threatened participants with excommunication. Nevertheless, the custom continued in rural areas. Shivaree, sometimes called ‘belling’ or ‘horning’, was practiced at least in Ontario and Quebec in Canada and in the American Midwest, New England, Middle Tennessee, Louisiana and rural northern Pennsylvania. [3]

French pioneers brought the charivari with them to the Valley of the St. Lawrence. Allan Greer states,

Le ton carnavalesque et railleur des rassemblements, leur cadre nocturne, le vacarme, les masques et les costumes des participants, les longues processions dans les rues et leur caractère résolument public, tout cela rappelle des pratiques françaises qui remontent au Moyen Âge.[4]

In Lower Canada, the first charivaris occurred in the towns. Certainly, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, their use was found in the increasingly densely populated villages. For Allan Greer, the later presence of the charivari in a rural setting can be explained by the need for a substantial crowd from within the community as required by custom. [5] Nevertheless, during the three decades before the Rebellions in 1837 and 1838, the charivari became one of the characteristics of village life in Lower Canada. Between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, the rituals of the charivari changed little and appeared to be a coherent and uniform form of local ritual. Contrary to others parts of the world where customs had changed dramatically, the charivaris of Lower Canada were used primarily where newly married couples were considered ill-matched and followed French ritual in making a din in front of the house of the couple during the night. The individuals who carried out the charivari were often disguised and the demonstration and the atmosphere generally festive. However, things could become hostile obliging the new couple to call upon a mediator in order to haggle over a price to obtain peace. Once an agreement occurred, the charivari ended and couple were then able to live in peace.

From the middle of 1837, there were concerted efforts to coerce individuals and officials into supporting the Patriotes. In the Richelieu valley, [6] French Canadians were expanding southwards towards the British-American settlements while in the Deux-Montagnes British settlers were thrusting into French Canadian areas of settlement. [7] Papineau’s demands for the boycott of British goods and attacks on the British American Land Company and the increasingly exaggerated language of the Patriote press were soon translated by habitants into racial overtones exacerbating existing animosities. As a result, the nature and role of the charivari in Lower Canada was transformed. Although charivaris were an expression of local grievances, they reflected the depth of feeling felt by many habitants about the actions of the colonial government. [8] Charivaris played an important role in the events of 1837. We do not know the full extent of the charivaris in the area round Montreal, in the Richelieu valley or in the comté de l’Acadie in the autumn of 1837 but Greer argues that there were ‘dozens’ and they proved very effective.[9] They left supporters of the Crown isolated and often besieged and allowed the rural Patriotes to give active support to the movement in the autumn of 1837. [10]

This enabled Patriotes to mobilised sympathetic political opinion into community action and there are clear parallels between this and the ‘Scotch Cattle’ activities in South Wales. [11] For example, on 7 July 1837, Paquin curé of St-Eustache was the victim of a charivari when he openly condemned the Patriote movement. [12] In other instances, like that of Rosalie Cherrier of St-Denis, it was sexual behaviour as well as support for the colonial regime that led to charivaris. It was, however, the magistrates and militia captains who had not given their support to the Patriotes who were the most targeted victims of charivaris and often resulted in them resigning their position or simply leaving their homes.[13] Officers in the militia had their flagpoles cut down and their houses were often ransacked. If they resigned their commission, the charivaris ended and the crowds moved on to other victims. Groups of men, normally disguised, came to the victim’s house and shouted Patriote slogans. John Oswald, a farmer from St-Eustache reported that crowds shouted their support for Papineau and the Patriotes in front of the houses of loyalists, before going to the homes of their victims.[14] The explicit use of violence formed a further aspect of charivaris at this time with the burning of houses and the firing of weapons though Greer argues that the use of physical as opposed to psychological violence should not be exaggerated.[15]

From early in the summer 1837, the Deux-Montagnes was distinguished by a large number of charivaris. Their use by the radical Patriotes seldom extended beyond intimidation and verbal violence. [16] However, there were two exceptions to this: the cases of Robert Hall and of Eustache Cheval. On the night of 28 June 1837, Robert Hall, a farmer in Ste- Scholastique was visited by four men menacingly under the command of John C. Hawley who admonished him for not joining the Patriotes in the parish and for not having signed a petition. In his deposition, Hall affirmed that

...la porte de sa maison a été enfoncée et que l’une de ses fenêtres a été fracassée en miettes avec des pierres...L’une de celles-ci pesant environ cinq livres est tombée tout près de l’un de ses jeunes enfants qui dormait dans une couchette sur le sol.

Some of his fences had been pulled down and destroyed. His corn field was left opened to animals, while his horses had their manes and tails shaved exposing Hall to ridicule when he travels with them.[17] Like Hall, Eustache Cheval had reported to the authorities on Patriote assemblies held in the Deux-Montagnes. In order to be avenged and to protect itself from the ‘seigneurial clique’, a group of men went to Cheval’s farm at the beginning of July 1837. Before they arrived, Cheval took measure to defend his house with his brother Joseph and four friends. In the middle of the night, they found the men near his cattle shed and drove them off. Later, a musket or pistol ball smashed a window in the house wounding one of his daughters. Cheval was convinced that they had tried to kill him.

Following these two incidents, the assistant of the Attorney-General of Lower Canada received complaints and began criminal prosecutions. He ordered the arrest of the four individuals denounced by Hall and offered £100 for information leading to the identification of those men who had attacked Cheval. [18] On 13 July 1837, Chief Constable Benjamin Delisle and Édouard-Louis-Antoine Duchesnay, the assistant to the sheriff accompanied by a sergeant and two constables left Montreal with arrest warrants. At St-Eustache, they found François Labelle[19] on his farm but his wife ran for help. A large crowd, armed with sticks and farm tools, confronted the constables who, fearing attack left but took Labelle with them. A group of Patriotes from St-Benoît arrived too late to free him. [20] The same day, two officials from Montreal arrived at Grand-Brûlé to put up posters about the ‘Cheval affair’. [21] In Louis Coursolles’ inn, the two men were verbally intimidated by Coursolles and Luc-Hyacinthe Masson and decided to leave.[22] Continuing tensions and the persistence of charivari in the Deux-Montagnes continued throughout the autumn until the battle of St-Eustache on 14 December 1837.

A wave of charivaris occurred in the Richelieu valley in September 1837.[23] The seigneur of St-Charles, Pierre-Dominique Debartzch, a Roman Catholic Polish immigrant was the victim of a terrifying charivari.[24] Originally a strong supporter of Papineau, he had done much to spread the Patriote programme along the Richelieu but, once he accepted a seat on the Legislative Council in 1832 he drew away from the more militant sections of Papineau’s party. He was bitterly resented by more militant Patriotes and was criticised by the British party as unprincipled and untrustworthy because he had raised Patriote expectations and then deserted them. Debartzch was among the most unpopular politicians in Lower Canada.[25] Those involved in the charivaris, called ‘Septembrists’ in the loyalist press, generally came from St-Denis and were supporters of Wolfred Nelson and acted in his name, though he does not seem to have been involved personally. [26] Although the main cause of these charivaris was Debartzch’s unpopularity, Le Populaire suggested that a speech Papineau gave at Ste-Hyacinthe during a speaking tour of Lower Canada was largely responsible for local Patriotes taking action. However, Papineau was highly cautious and suspicious of charivaris largely because he saw them as unjustifiably raising tensions and giving the authorities increased loyalist support

...il n’y a pas de bureaucrates ici; s’il y en avait, il faudrait les mettre entres deux bœufs.[27]

Debartzch, despite his unpopularity, was an important public figure whose engagements were, like Papineau’s, listed in the press. In September 1837, he returned to St-Charles with his family after the Legislative Council session in Quebec ended. He broke his journey at St-Ours for the baptism of one of his brother-in-law Roch de Saint-Ours’ children. After the reception, rioters arrived at Roch de Saint-Ours’ manor house and subjected those inside to a terrifying charivari. The following day, some of the Septembrists apologised to Roch de Saint-Ours for the fear caused to his family making it clear that Debartzch was their real target.[28] After staying a few days with the Saint-Ours, possibly to recover from the fright, Debartzch, his wife and four children continued their journey to St-Charles.[29] At St-Denis, which they had to pass through, his effigy had been hung at the end of a pole. Debartzch suspected that there might be a problem and enquired of a local farmer what was going on in the village. Informed of the preparations, he then decided to change his route to bypass the village. According to his testimony, he received no local support against popular justice and could not escape as the charivarists followed him to his home in St-Charles.[30] If one accepts the evidence of curé Blanchet, with one exception, the habitants of St-Charles did not take part in the charivaris against Debartzch.[31] Once the rebellion broke out, Debartzch and his family were held prisoner for several days before being freed when he agreed that he would not act against the Patriotes, a promise he immediately broke when he arrived in Montreal. The Patriotes were then free to occupy his manor house and, on 20 November, it was fortified but it was destroyed in Wetherall’s successful attack on the village five days later.

The area around Saint-Hyacinthe in the Richelieu valley was an important centre of Patriote support. On 13 September 1837, Sir John Colborne, commander-in-chief of British forces in Canada was en route to the Eastern Townships on a tour of inspection and had reached the village. By chance, on the same day, Louis-Joseph Papineau brought his sons Lactance and Amédée to the seminary of Saint-Hyacinthe for the beginning of their classes. Papineau’s arrival resulted in the leading citizens of the village announcing festivities in his honour and escorted Papineau to the seminary. [32] Roused by the excitement, some of the crowd diverted to the inn where Colborne was staying crying ‘Vive Papineau! À bas Colborne et Gosford!’ The same evening, a political charivari was organised against the general. [33] Colborne was not the first victim of a charivari but the event took on a greater significance because of his political position in the colony. The crowd of about forty people led by Thomas Bouthillier, Eusèbe Cartier and Arthur Delphos surrounded the inn chanting insults ‘A bas Colborne; c’est un traître au pays! À bas les anglais! Hourra pour Papineau! À bas les soldats!’ [34] Embarrassed, Papineau called the leaders of the crowd to the house of Mme Dessaulles, his sister and seigneur of the village and demanded that they end the charivari. The following day, Thomas Bouthillier, Pierre Boucher de La Bruère, Eusèbe Cartier and thirty others erected a maypole in Papineau’s honour topped by a cap of liberty in front of the village church. [35] This event sent out a clear message: in the eyes of the people it was Papineau not Colborne who represented legitimate authority.

The Richelieu valley was particularly tense during September 1837 largely because the colonial authorities had decided to withdraw the commissions of those magistrates it believed had been encouraging civil disobedience. [36] As a result a group of agitators undertook a series of charivaris against individuals associated with colonial government.[37] After Colborne and Debartzch, it was Léonard Godefroy de Tonnancour who was the next victim of the ‘Septembrists’. De Tonnancour was the deputy for Yamaska and the son of a well-established seigneurial family from Saint-Michel-de-Yamaska. He had been a long-time supporter of Papineau, but the growing militancy of some Patriotes in the middle of 1837 resulted in a change in his political views and he increasingly called for moderation. [38]

On 24 September, in the early evening, he came to St-Denis to visit his mother-in-law, the widow Benjamin Cherrier for a family meal.[39] There had already been several charivaris directed at Debartzch but Tonnancour’s arrival in the village further raised tensions. A group of men went to the Nelson’s distillery and probably led by Siméon Marchesseault decided to organise a charivari against him for having voted against Papineau. Tonnancour wanted to address the crowd but was dissuaded from doing so by his fellow guests. The crowd made a din for about an hour and burned Gosford, Debartzch, Saint-Ours and Sabrevois de Bleury in effigy. [40] Mme Saint-Jacques, also known under the name of Rosalie Cherrier, intervened removing the inscriptions placed on the effigies but this had the effect of starting the charivari again. [41] The same evening, a noisy crowd surrounded the house singing obscene songs and demanding her departure from the parish.[42] The crowd tried to enter Mme Saint-Jacques’ house with cries of ‘Vive les Patriotes!’ and she replied with: ‘Vives les bureaucrates, ils ne se sont jamais comportés en gredins comme vous.’

In these circumstances, the comité permanent du comté de Richelieu met. Its president, Wolfred Nelson, who had just returned from Lavaltrie, spoke of those militia officers who had not resigned their commissions in protest against the attitudes of the government. [43] The following day, the charivarists of St-Denis decided to regulate the case of Saint-Jacques but also to visit and put pressure on some of the militia officers at St-Antoine opposite St-Denis. During the night of 25 September, they visited Jacques Cartier, father of the Patriote George-Étienne Cartier ordering him to resign his commission by the following day. Firmin Perrin, a JP and doctor Allaire were also subject to charivaris the same evening.[44] Despite the threats, Saint-Jacques had no intention of leaving her home and in the course of the day procured a rifle and ball. In the evening, waiting for the charivarists, she retired with her family leaving the defence of the house to Mitchell alias W. Southwick, her young American lover. Her unconventional sexual behaviour may also have played a part in the charivari. Around 9 pm, a large and menacing crowd appeared before the house and an hour later apparently encouraged by one of Cherrier’s daughters, Mitchell opened fire on the crowd leaving two people seriously wounded. The enraged crowd then demolished the house but not before its occupants fled. [45]

Faced with the wave of charivaris, curé Blanchet tried to calm his flock. From the pulpit, he preached a sermon on the impropriety of charivaris and the consequences for those involved.[46] Rosalie Saint-Jacques, who had not left St-Denis, was finally arrested by Lacasse de Contrecoeur and taken to Montreal. These events were widely reported not just in Lower Canada but in the United States.[47] The ‘Saint-Jacques’ affair was important since it demonstrated ideological differences within the family clan of Papineau-Cherrier-Dessaulles. Côme-Séraphin Cherrier, her nephew and a Patriote lawyer did not intercede on her behalf and it was Sabrevois de Bleury, a loyalist, who defended Rosalie Cherrier and provided some comfort to her during her imprisonment and B.A.C. Gugy and P.E. Leclère arranged for her provisional release.[48] Some Loyalists even suggested that a medal should be made in recognition of her courage. The matter ended when a Grand Jury of the Criminal Court in Montreal rejected all accusations against her in early 1838.[49] Female domesticity and chastity were a necessary part of masculine civic virtue in the republican discourse of this period. Whether the intimidation of Rosalie Saint-Jacques was a political or a traditional charivari is unclear but it was aimed at a partisan opponent, a woman who dared to intrude into the public sphere as well as someone who lived unconventionally

The area around St-Blaise-sur-Richelieu played a minor part in events in 1837. However, between 27 and 29 October, a charivari took place at the home of Dudley Flowers, a lieutenant in the militia orchestrated by Cyrille-Octave Côté that led to Flowers resigning his commission and leaving with his family. [50] Further charivaris by Patriotes took place at the Protestant mission of Henriette Odin-Feller and at the homes of converts. [51] Unable to establish missions in Montreal or St-Jean where the Catholic Church exercised considerable control, Louisa Roussy, a Swiss missionary and Henriette Odin-Feller decided to establish a mission on newly settled lands where the clergy had less control and where the absence of services such as schooling or a doctor favoured establishing good relations with their neighbours. They quickly established a small Protestant community of twenty-five people, most descendents of Madame Lore, a Protestant of American origin who had converted to Catholicism on her marriage.

The arrival of Protestantism in the region was considered by some habitants as further attack on their traditions and the small Protestant community she established became a legitimate Patriote target. The Patriotes attacked those who had converted to the religion of the colonial power, for not having taken part in the radical reform movement and of disturbing the area by supporting a suspect religion. After a series of charivaris, Odin-Feller and the families who had converted left St-Blaise for Champlain in the United States. The 1837 rebellion marked an important stage in the development of Protestantism in St-Blaise. It appeared to English and Swiss evangelists of Lower Canada to have removed the influence of the clergy, the most significant obstacle to their conversion of the French Canadians. On her return two months later, Odin-Feller distributed food and medicine to local people, stopped further action against those who had burned the converts’ houses, and went to Napierville to speak on their behalf to Richard McGinnis, charged by the government with taking depositions and examining witnesses. She wrote

En général, l’esprit du peuple est tellement changé envers nous, qu’il n’est, je crois, aucune maison de la Grande Ligne dans laquelle je ne puis entrer maintenant.

St-Blaise was not involved in the fighting in November 1838 but there were several loyalist acts of reprisal against Patriotes especially the properties of Pierre Boursquet, Louis Dupuis, Ambroise Guay, Toussaint Martin, Jacques Métivier, Joseph Palin, Antoine Rocque, Cyprien Saint-Amant and Eustache Signouin.

---

[1] Le Goff, Jacques and Schmitt, Jean-Claude, (eds.), Le charivari, (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales), 1981, p. 141. It is possible that the blowing of car horns after weddings in France today is a hangover from the charivari of the past.

[2] Cit, Levasseur, Roger, (ed.), De la sociabilité, (Boréal), 1990, p. 59.

[3] Greer, Allan, The Patriots and the People: The Rebellion of 1837 in rural Lower Canada, (University of Toronto Press), 1993, pp. 69-86, 254-255, and Hardy, René, ‘Le charivari dans l’espace québécois’, in Courville, Serge and Séguin, Normand, (eds.), Espace et Culture/Space and Culture, (Presses de l’Université Laval), 1995, pp. 175-186, provide important discussion on this issue. Thompson, E. P., ‘Rough Music’ reprinted in his Customs in Common, (Merlin Press), 1991, pp. 467-538, an extended version of ‘Rough Music: Le Charivari anglais’, Annales: Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations, Vol. 27, (1972), is also valuable.

[4] Ibid, Greer, Allan, The Patriots and the People: The Rebellion of 1837 in rural Lower Canada, p. 73.

[5] Ibid, Greer, Allan, The Patriots and the People: The Rebellion of 1837 in rural Lower Canada, p. 72.

[6] Ibid, Laporte, Gilles, Patriotes et Loyaux, pp. 175-194.

[7] Ibid, Laporte, Gilles, Patriotes et Loyaux, pp. 257-290.

[8] Ibid, Greer, Allan, The Patriots and the People: The Rebellion of 1837 in rural Lower Canada, p. 71.

[9] Ibid, Greer, Allan, The Patriots and the People: The Rebellion of 1837 in rural Lower Canada, p. 219.

[10] Ibid, Levasseur, Roger, (ed.), De la sociabilité, pp. 62-66.

[11] Jones, David, ‘The Scotch Cattle and their Black Domain’, in Jones, David, Before Rebecca: Popular Protest in Wales 1793-1835, (Allen Lane), 1975, pp. 86-112.

[12] Ibid, Greer, Allan, The Patriots and the People: The Rebellion of 1837 in rural Lower Canada, p. 158.

[13] Ibid, Greer, Allan, The Patriots and the People: The Rebellion of 1837 in rural Lower Canada, p. 200.

[14] Ibid, Greer, Allan, The Patriots and the People: The Rebellion of 1837 in rural Lower Canada, p. 158.

[15] Ibid, Greer, Allan, The Patriots and the People: The Rebellion of 1837 in rural Lower Canada, p. 227.

[16] Bernard, Philippe, Amury Girod, Un Suisse chez les Patriotes du Bas-Canada, (Septentrion), p. 167.

[17] ANQM., no. 607, 15 July 1837.

[18] Ibid, Bernard, Philippe, Amury Girod, Un Suisse chez les Patriotes du Bas-Canada, p. 167.

[19] Messier, p. 254.

[20] ANQM, nos. 837-838-839, 14 July 1837.

[21] ANQM, no. 669, 14 July 1837.

[22] Ibid, Bernard, Philippe, Amury Girod, Un Suisse chez les Patriotes du Bas-Canada, p. 168.

[23] Ibid, Greer, Allan, The Patriots and the People: The Rebellion of 1837 in rural Lower Canada, p. 35.

[24] Ibid, Meunie, Pierre, L’insurrection à Saint-Charles et le Seigneur Debartzch is the most detailed account.

[25] Ibid, Greer, Allan, The Patriots and the People: The Rebellion of 1837 in rural Lower Canada, p. 257 and Choquette, Mgr C.-P., Histoire de la Ville de Saint-Hyacinthe, (Richer et fils), 1930, p. 131

[26] Le Populaire, 27 September; La Minerve, 12 October 1837.

[27] Le Populaire, 16 October 1837.

[28] Le Populaire, 27 September; La Minerve, 12 October 1837.

[29] La Minerve, 14 and 18 September 1837.

[30] La Minerve, 12 October 1837; Le Populaire, 16 October 1837.

[31] Le Populaire, 2 October 1837.

[32] La Minerve, 14 September 1837.

[33] La Minerve, 14 September 1837.

[34] Le Populaire, 13 and 29 September 1837; Chabot, Richard, Le Curé de campagne et la Contestation locale au Québec de 1791 aux, troubles de 1837-38: La querelle des écoles, l’affaire des fabriques et le problème des insurrections de 1837-38, (Hurtubise HMH), 1975, p. 212.

[35] Ibid, Chabot, Richard, Le Curé de campagne et la Contestation locale au Québec de 1791 aux, troubles de 1837-38, pp. 212-213.

[36] Lamonde, Yvan, Histoire sociale des idées au Québec (1760-1896): Vol. I, (Les Éditions Fides), 2000, p. 246; ibid, Greer, Allan, The Patriots and the People: The Rebellion of 1837 in rural Lower Canada, p. 51.

[37] Richard, J.-B., Les événements de 1837 à Saint-Denis-sur-Richelieu, (Société d’Histoire régionale de Saint-Hyacinthe), 1938, pp. 17-18.

[38] Bibaud, M., Histoire du Canada, sous la domination française, 3^rd ed., Montreal, 1878, pp. 454-456

[39] Le Populaire, 2 October 1837.

[40] Le Populaire, 2 October 1837.

[41] La Minerve, 12 October 1837.

[42] Ibid, Greer, Allan, The Patriots and the People: The Rebellion of 1837 in rural Lower Canada, p. 198.

[43] La Minerve, 12 October 1837; Le Populaire, 2 October 1837 ; Allaire, Jean-Baptiste, Histoire de la paroisse de Saint-Denis, (Imprimerie du Courier de Saint-Hyacinthe), 1905, p. 346

[44] Le Populaire, 2 October 1837.

[45] Le Populaire, 2 October 1837.

[46] Le Populaire, 2 October 1837.

[47] Courier Inquirier, 6 October 1837.

[48] Le Populaire, 16 October 1837.

[49] Le Populaire, 7 March 1838.

[50] Archives Nationales du Québec, fonds P224, no. 146.

[51] Balmer, Randall, and Randall, Catharine, ‘“Her Duty to Canada”: Henriette Feller and French Protestantism in Quebec’, Church History, Vol. 70, (2001), pp. 49-72, examines her role as a Protestant missionary. See also, Hardy, R., Contrôle social et mutation de la culture religieuse au Québec, 1830-1930, (Boréal), 1999, pp. 30-35.

Factory reform: extending the early legislation, 1850-1880

The Ten Hours Act, together with the repeal of the Corn Laws, came to be regarded as part of the symbolic ‘social settlement’ underpinning the apparent social harmony of the mid-Victorian period. The absence of factory acts became part of a collective memory of the ‘bad old days’, an unacceptable face of capitalism that no doubt helped to make its current face seem more benign. From the 1860s, the factory agitation could be recalled as part of the general progress of society. For employers, the improvements associated with the Acts became part of an image of the well-regulated factory as the site of that economic, social and moral progress that the Victorian middle-classes liked to represent as its mission in life. The factory inspectors saw themselves as agents of moral improvement among workers as much as their protectors from unscrupulous employers.

The Factory movement as such disappeared in the 1850s with great success to its credit. As yet the legislation applied only to textiles and Ashley, who in 1851 became the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, continued the battle in Parliament to extend legislation to unprotected trades. In many respects, however, 1850 remained the legislative high water mark.

The first phase occurred naturally, if somewhat illogically, on the hitherto excluded textile industries and their satellites such as bleaching and dyeing. This process had begun in 1845 when the 1844 Act was extended to calico printing. Next the great range of other child-employing industries where working conditions and arrangements were similar to those in cotton manufacture came under review. These included pottery, the metal trades, paper-making, chemicals, glassworks and printing. Finally the principle of comparability was applied to units of production, whatever their size.

In the 1850s, the colour green became extremely popular as it was seen as new and modern. New colouring agents made green greener than ever before. Unfortunately arsenic was an important part of the process and as a result was liberally released into the atmosphere. Green wallpaper was a killer and when one Limehouse family lost four children the green wallpaper in their bedroom was analysed and every square foot was found to contain a lethal dose. Manufacturers, however, persistently denied that there was a problem among them William Morris who used green pigments widely and never accepted that they were harmful. For those who worked with these green pigments, especially in the fashion trade, this could prove fatal. They developed sores, ilcers and skin loss and the death of Matilda Scheurer, aged 19, made headlines. There was no disagreement about what killed her, the issue was whether it justified restricting the use of arsenic in manufacture. A leading medical journal decided that it was not the business of the state to ‘hinder...young women from destroying themselves for a beggarly livelihood’.[1] Parliament agreed; foreigners might introduce legislation but that was not the British way! More importantly perhaps, arsenic was valuable for trade. In 1883, the National Health Society drew up a list of safeguards for the use of arsenic, but none of them became law. [2]

In 1862, Shaftesbury suggested the establishment of the Children’s Employment Commission to inquire into the conditions in the unregulated trades. By 1866, the Commission had published five reports that the Russell government was preparing to act on. The last report was published in 1867 and drew attention to the practice of employing women and children in gangs in some agricultural counties.[3] The minority Conservative government took up these plans and in 1867 produced two measures: the Factory Act Extension Act and the Hours of Labour Regulation Act that applied to premises including private houses with less than fifty workers. The former applied to premises with more than fifty employees in industries such as metalwork, printing, paper and glassworks, while the main effects of the latter were felt in clothing. Children under eight years were forbidden to work and older children were required to have ten hours’ schooling a week. Young people and women were also protected, and in all the measures affected 1.4 million people. The second measure was left to the local authorities instead of the factory inspectorate to enforce and they did it badly. The extension of the jurisdiction of the inspectorate to cover the handicrafts had to wait until 1878. By 1870, over 1,000 lives were still being lost in mining accidents each year. In 1872, the Coal Mines Regulation Act introduced the requirement for pit managers to have state certification of their training. Miners were also given the right to appoint inspectors from among themselves. The Mines Regulation Act, passed in 1881, empowered the Home Secretary to hold inquiries into the causes of mine accidents. It remained clear, however, that there were many aspects of mining that required further intervention and regulation.

By the late 1860s over a wide range of industries the abolition of infant labour, the reduction of the hours of children to six and a half, the principles of ‘protected classes’ of children, young persons and women in the mills and workshops, the 60 hour week all round, compulsory education over the age of eight and rudimentary forms of the modern working week and of factory safety and health codes had been achieved. The circle of exceptions was ever-widening but it remained and this meant continued gross abuse of infant, child, adolescent and female labour elsewhere.

The next decade saw the consolidation of early Victorian factory reform. The electoral consequences of the 1867 Reform Act were felt much more powerfully in the general election of 1874 than in 1868.[4] Factory hours were an issue, especially in Lancashire during the election. The result was a spate of legislation on factories and trade unions introduced by Disraeli’s Conservative administration (1874-1880): in 1874 and 1878 there were factory acts and in 1875 the Trade Union Act, Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act and the repeal of the remaining master and servant legislation. The 1874 Factory Act was the work of Richard Cross, Disraeli’s Home Secretary. It finally established the ten-hour day, the historic working-class goal, as far as the factories and workshops embraced in the 1867 legislation were concerned. It carried forward for the first time in a quarter of a century the frontier of regulation: the minimum age of half-time employment was raised from eight (which it had been since 1844) to ten; the minimum age for full-time employment was raised from thirteen (which it had been since 1833) to fourteen; and, women and young persons were specifically included in the body of ‘protected persons’, who were to receive the benefits of the ten-hour day. Men were deliberately excluded: they gained the ten-hour day not in their own right but through the accident of working side by side with the protected persons. The Factory Act 1878, followed from a Royal Commission established in 1876, and, though the more comprehensive act, it was essentially a consolidating Act pulling together all the provisions into one scheme.

The depression of the 1870s inclined some to argue that factory reform had gone too far and indeed was a major cause of the country‘s failure to keep up with her new industrial competitors. By that time, however, the principle of state intervention had been well established and could not be reversed. Children, young people and women at work were the responsibility of the state, secured by legal provisions enforceable through a bureaucratic machine. The effectiveness of the provision depended on the effectiveness of the inspectorate itself. The size of the inspectorate meant that it was always unlikely that there would be comprehensive coverage. In coal mining, only one inspector (H.S. Tremenheere) was appointed in 1842 and it was not until the Coal Mines Inspection Act 1850 that officials were empowered to make underground inspections. The number of inspectors was raised to four in 1850, six in 1852 and twelve in 1855. Even this gave each inspector an impossibly large area to administer and this was equally true of the factory inspectorate where a reorganisation in 1839 left each inspector some 1,500 mills to supervise with the assistance of four superintendents. The total establishment for the factory inspectorate was raised to about twenty in 1839, at which level it remained for some thirty years. The inspectors were also hampered by inadequate budgets: in the mid-1860s, the mines inspectorate had a budget of only £10,000 while that of the factory inspectorate was about a third more. [5]

The inspectorates were never intended as an industrial police force supervising industry’s every move. They were intended to create a moral climate of observance by the principle of inspection. Indeed, it was strongly believed that inspectors should not take from employers the ultimate responsibility for running decent industrial establishments. Almost inevitably the inspectors did not act in concert as a unified service; in fact the 1876 Royal Commission questioned whether any unified policy existed. It was therefore common for inspectors to have different prosecution rates and to concentrate on different sorts of offences. In matters of fencing and safety at work the inspectorate was often quite ineffectual in raising standards but in other areas there were much greater levels of success. Well over three-quarters of prosecutions were successful and at times the rate was over 90%. This was, in part, the result of prosecuting only in those cases that had a good chance of success.

The legislation of the 1870s represented the consummation of the early Victorian endeavour. ‘Protection’ was an unchallenged principle. Despite the changes in emphasis and disagreements within the factory debate, the combatants of 1833 soon found common ground in the notion of ‘freedom of contract’ as expressed by John Stuart Mill in his Principles of political economy. Mill started from the proposition that every individual was the best judge of his own interests and should be free to pursue them without interference from the state. However, he recognised that there were circumstances when this was unacceptable. The issue was one of defining where and why the overriding proposition justified state action. Mill accepted three circumstances in which state intervention was acceptable. First, children and ‘young persons’ could not be the best judges of their own interest: for them ‘freedom of contract’ was often ‘but another name for freedom of coercion’.[6] This is the essence of liberal paternalism. Secondly, in such an area as education, since good judgement itself might depend upon being subjected to it, compulsion was justifiable.[7] Finally, there were ‘matters in which the interference of law was required, not to overrule the judgement of individuals respecting their own interests, but to give effect to that judgement’. So, if some employers wished to establish a ten-hour day, they might be restrained from pursuing what they conceive to be in their own best interests because their rivals resisted the innovation. Here all would have to be coerced if ‘the judgement of individuals respecting their own interests’ were to be given effect. [8] This can be seen in Cross’s speech to the Commons in 1874 when he paid lip-service to the old Chadwick doctrine of the free agent

So far as adult males are concerned there could be no question that freedom of contract must be maintained and men must be left to take care of themselves.[9]

The legislation of 1874 and 1878 may have marked a ‘victorious’ climax to a phase but there were harbingers of a new era. In the early 1870s, several bills were introduced in the Commons proposing a nine-hour day for men as for protected persons; and the Royal Commission of 1876 entered at length into the consideration of both health and hygiene in factories. These were early indicators that the battle was to move on to new ground.

---

[1] Medical Times & Gazette, Vol. 2, (J. & A. Churchill), 1861, 30 November 1861, p. 558.

[2] Ibid, Whorton, James C., The Arsenic Century: How Victorian Britain was Poisoned at Home, Work and Play, pp. 294-323.

[3] These gangs worked long hours under so-called gang-masters who frequently exploited and abused their workers. By the Agricultural Gangs Act 1888 all gang-masters had to be licensed by JPs, no boy or girl under eight was to be employed, and a licensed gang-mistress was necessary when women and girls were included in the gang.

[4] Maehl, W. H., ‘Gladstone, the Liberals, and the election of 1874’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, Vol. 36, (1963), pp. 53-69.

[5] Crooks, Eddie, The factory inspectors: a legacy of the industrial revolution, (Tempus), 2005.

[6] Mill, J.S., Principles of Political Economy with Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy: With Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy, 2 Vols. (C.C. Little & J. Brown), 1848, Vol. 2, pp. 532-536.

[7] Ibid, Mill, J.S., Principles of Political Economy, pp. 528-532.

[8] Ibid, Mill, J.S., Principles of Political Economy, p. 552-554.

[9] Hansard, HC Deb, 6 May 1874, Vol. 218, cc1740-1803, at 1793-1794.

Paramilitary Loyalism

The formation of the national societies and the MCA and QCA with their branch associations provided a broadly constitutionalist approach to loyalism. As extra-parliamentary organisations, they sought to influence government, criticise policy when necessary and lobby on behalf of their own interests. Although this may have been a legitimate means of challenging the growing hegemony of the Parti Patriote and the wider Patriote movement, its impact of colonial policy in the mid-1830s was limited since it was grounded in the need for some form of conciliation with the Patriote movement as a means of heading off more extreme republican demands. It was the growing physical rather than ideological threat from radical Patriotes that resulted in the formation of loyalist paramilitary groups from late 1835.

British Rifle Corps

The British Rifle Corps (BRC) only existed between 12 December 1835 and 20 January 1836, but was extremely active. During its 39 days, it held 13 activities and 7 meetings.[1] The formation of the BRC is often associated with the MCA because it was formed immediately after its decision to form committees of vigilance in Montreal. [2] However, Filteau argued that Adam Thom[3] was behind the formation of the BRC and its reorganisation as the British Legion which he did not distinguish from the Doric Club. [4]

On 12 December 1835, a meeting was called at the Jones Long Room as the result of an anonymous message in the Montreal Gazette. Around 400 people attended and decided that it was necessary to establish a paramilitary group to protect the interests of the British population. Three days later, a committee was instructed to obtain arms and munitions. It also decided to inform Gosford of their intentions and seek his approval: a letter to that effect was sent on 22 December. The signatories of the letter were individuals active in the MCA: Dr Thomas Arnoldi, son of the founder of the German Society and Francis Hunter, member of the central committee of the MCA, both future members of the Doric Club; Robert Weir, member of the MCA, Aaron P. Hart, lawyer and Robert McKay. [5]

On 28 December, through Walcott his civil secretary, Gosford responded to the letter refusing to ratify the formation of the BRC. He argued that the interests of the British inhabitants of the colony were not threatened and that, even if they were, those interests would be best protected by British regular troops. For Gosford, the formation of a paramilitary organisation was an affront to public order in a time of peace.[6] The BRC received the response on 31 December and sent a further letter to Gosford in which they clarified their intentions and sought to refute his argument that the colony was peaceful. Above all, the second letter sought to show that British interests were under threat. It denounced the activities of Papineau especially his seditious language and the revolutionary ideas being spread by the French Canadian deputies in the Assembly designed to spread a spirit of hatred for the British. Both the violence that accompanied the 1834 elections and the incendiary letter by Clément Sabrevois de Bleury, a militia captain who called for greater commitment by his men in training for military action were used to justify the BRC’s position. [7]

On 7 January, the group met again with their numbers swelled to 600 people who marched to the Place-d’Armes.[8] However, on 15 January, Gosford with the support of the Executive Council ordered the dissolution of the BRC and declared it illegal and unconstitutional. As a result, the BRC held a dissolution meeting on 20 January. Although the group dissolved, several of its members were outraged at being treated as traitors and send a new letter to Gosford to express their opposition. [9] This group formed the Montreal British Legion, a non-military organisation. Some of the younger members of the BRC joined the Doric Club, a more radical and paramilitary organisation.

The Doric Club

Adam Thom increasingly believed that it was necessary to establish a social club and paramilitary organisation to counter the threat from ‘French domination’. His articles in the Montreal Herald were aimed at the members of the short-lived BRC, banned by Gosford in January 1836. It was from among its younger and more militant and radical members that the Doric Club evolved. [10] It became ‘the armed and secret wing of the Constitutionalists and was organised and led by John Shay, a young anglophone from Montreal’. [11] Gosford estimated that it had as many of 2,000 members.

On 16 March 1836, the young loyalists published their manifesto. The group was largely tolerated by Colborne despite Gosford’s opposition. The manifesto made clear its members’ opposition to the policy of tolerating and conciliating the French Canadians

If we are deserted by the British government and the British people, rather than submit to the degradation of being subject of a French-Canadian republic, we are determined by our own right arms to work out our deliverance...we are ready...to pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

The manifesto was only signed by one person: Dr Thomas Walter Jones, a descendent of one of the earliest British settlers in Montreal and a noble French Canadian family. This has led some historians to argue that the loyalist organisations were now involved in conflict at national level and that they opposed French Canadian domination over British subjects. Gérard Filteau argues that the formation of the Doric Club was part of a British conspiracy led by British officials who channelled loyalist fears and, as a result, deliberately raised levels of tension between the British and French Canadians.[12] The growing conflict between loyalists and supporters of the Parti Patriote came to a head in the street fighting in Montreal on 6 November 1837 between members of the Doric Club and supporters of the Fils de la Liberté.

---

[1] Ibid, Muzzo, Johanne, Les mouvements réformiste et constitutionnel à Montréal, 1834-1837, p. 95.

[2] Ibid, Muzzo, Johanne, Les mouvements réformiste et constitutionnel à Montréal, 1834-1837, p. 102.

[3] ‘Adam Thom’, DCB, Vol. 12, pp. 874-877.

[4] Filteau, Gerard, Histoire des patriotes, 3 Vols. Montreal, 1939-1941, p. 171.

[5] Christie, Robert, History of the late province of Lower Canada, 1791-1841, 6 Vols. Québec, 1848-1855, Vol 4, pp. 147-148.

[6] Ibid, Christie, Robert, History of the late province of Lower Canada, 1791-1841, Vol. 4, pp. 143-144.

[7] Ibid, pp. 143-147.

[8] Ibid, Muzzo, Johanne, Les mouvements réformiste et constitutionnel à Montréal, 1834-1837, p. 98.

[9] Ibid, Christie, Robert, History of the late province of Lower Canada, 1791-1841, Vol. 4, pp. 144-145.

[10] Senior, Elinor Kyte, Les habits rouges et les Patriotes, (Vlb éditeur), 1997, p. 32.

[11] Ibid, Senior, Elinor Kyte, Les habits rouges et les Patriotes, p. 32

[12] Filteau, Gérard, Histoire des Patriotes, (Les éditions Univer), 1980, pp. 292-293.

Factory reform in the 1840s: revised version

The ten-hour movement had been out-manoeuvred by the Whigs and its campaign against the 1833 Act proved ineffective. In October 1833, Oastler formed the Factory Reformation Society to continue the campaign but in November Robert Owen and John Fielden announced a Society for Promoting National Regeneration with the impractical but popular demand for an 8-hour day with 12 hours pay. Oastler rejected ‘Regenerationist’ invitations and it failed during the general Owenite collapse of 1834 carrying with it much of the Short Time agitation. From 1834, the Factory Movement had a chequered history.  Oastler and his supporters became increasingly involved in anti-Poor Law campaigns and there were growing local differences. Lancashire reformers, experienced in evasions of previous legislation, demanded that mill engines should be stopped at set times to make enforcement certain, a policy Oastler supported but ‘dare not ask for’. Some of the parliamentary spokesmen, such as Hindley and Brotherton, were prepared to compromise on the Ten Hours demand and adopted a gradualist approach by arguing for 11 hours. In Scotland, committees in Aberdeen, Arbroath, Edinburgh and Paisley tended to rely on the support of professional men and Presbyterian ministers while the Glasgow committee was under working-class control until 1837. Yorkshire was less prone to division and controversy within the organisation but even here there were differences.[1]

The redefining of the factory question is part of the shaping of the Victorian state and the accommodation of interests within it. If the 1830s saw the elaboration of Benthamite responses to reform and vigorous resistance to them at both popular and ruling-class levels, the 1840s saw modifications to this project through its incorporation into a broader consensus that shaped the agenda of the ‘condition of England’ question. The writing of the new public agenda owed something to expert knowledge and the role of the factory inspectorate. Initially the inspectors had been inclined to defer to the expertise of leading employers but the pressure of public agitation pushed them into taking a more independent line. In 1840, Leonard Horner, a leading inspector, presented the benefits of factory regulation in terms of moral order and economic efficiency appealing to the longer-term rational interests of employers and workers. The issue was not the introduction of new legislation, but fulfilling the intention of existing law by taking action to remedy defects in the 1833 Act. The key issue was enforcement.

During the 1830s, Oastler and the Ten Hour had projected a vision in which the regulation of the factory and the protection of labour was the key to remedying social distress. In the 1840s, the factory question can be seen through the language of negotiation within a growing consensus in favour of further regulation. Two particular emphases worked to incorporate social criticism about the distress, moral degeneration and Chartist threat and the awareness of working-class conditions, into a liberal vision of a rationalised factory system. First, the development of state regulation increasingly resulted in distinctions being made between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ factories and of the need to improve the ‘bad’. Secondly, the agenda of the ‘condition of England’ extended into mines, child and female labour generally, the weavers, out-work and sweating and urban conditions. As a result, the factory lost its centrality as a focus of social concern. Public opinion saw social problems as separate and the evils of the factory was by no means the worst form of social distress.

The pace of the campaign of the 1840s varied considerably. Ashley Cooper failed to inject ‘ten hours’ into unsuccessful bills in 1838, 1839 and 1841. [2] By 1840, the Inspectors were also in favour of further reform and hopes rose with the return of the Conservatives under Sir Robert Peel in 1841. The issue of social reform was, in Peel’s mind, linked to successful economic conditions. These would enable economic growth, create new jobs and so stimulate consumption. Peel was sceptical of the value of direct government intervention in solving social problems. Free market answers were more effective. He recognised that government could not abdicate all responsibility in the ‘social question’ but, like many contemporaries, believed that its role should be severely limited and definitely cost-effective. Peel remained steady in his opposition to the Ten Hour movement right up to the passage of the 1847 Factory Act. He accepted the argument of political economists that wages would fall under a ten-hour day and the cost of production would increase with consequences for rising prices.  This was not a doctrinaire approach but one grounded in a genuine concern for the welfare of workers.  In 1841, this concern was mistaken by a West Riding short-time deputation as an acceptance of the ten hour principle. This led to widespread and misleading publicity, raising then shattering workers’ hopes and intensifying their hostility to the government during 1842.

Peel was, however, prepared to accept intervention to control working conditions when convinced that the moral case was overwhelming.  He opposed Ashley over ten-hour legislation because he believed that the moral case was weaker than the economic one. However, he was prepared to accept the moral arguments implicit in the Mines Act 1842. Working conditions in collieries were dangerous and children and women played an important part in mining coal. In 1840, a Royal Commission was established to investigate the working conditions of children in coalmines and manufactories. Its findings were horrific with children as young as five or six working as ‘trappers’ (operating doors to enable air-coursing). There were also many comments about the poor health of the mining community. Artists were employed to go underground and make sketches of workers.

These appeared in the Commissioners’ Report published in 1842. They were graphic and immediate and public opinion was shocked.[3] Shaftesbury drafted a bill that became law at the end of 1842. It made the employment of women underground illegal; said boys under 10 could no longer work underground; and, allowed parish apprentices between 10 and 18 could continue to work in mines. There were no clauses relating to hours of work and inspection could only take place on the basis of checking the ‘condition of the workers’. Many women were annoyed that they could no longer earn much needed money.[4] Further legislation in 1850 addressed the frequency of accidents in mines. The Coal Mines Inspection Act introduced the appointment of inspectors of coal mines, setting out their powers and duties, and placed them under the supervision of the Home Office. The Coal Mines Regulation Act of 1860 improved safety rules and raised the age limit for boys from 10 to 12. [5]

There was an obvious difference between Ashley’s proposals and the government’s own initiatives in social legislation. For Ashley, it was a crusade; the government was far more concerned with the promotion of social and political order. Peel’s good intentions were insufficient to dampen class and sectarian antagonisms that intensified during the industrial distress and disturbances of 1841 and 1842. The ‘Plug Plots’ of mid-1842[6] speeded government action and in March 1843 Graham introduced a Factory Bill that would restrict children aged 8-13 to 6½ hours’ work with three hours’ daily education in improved schools largely controlled by the Church of England.  Peel and Graham agreed on the importance of improving educational provision for the working population and making the educational clauses of the 1833 Factory Act effective. The Home Secretary, Sir James Graham believed in the importance of education as a means of social control and emphasised the moral content of schooling. [7] He was convinced that the riots in 1842 were the result of declining religious attendance. It was necessary, he told Parliament to

...rescue the rising generation in the manufacturing districts from the state of practical infidelity... [only if] the education of the rising youth should be the peculiar care of the Government could the moral tone of the nation be elevated. [8]

For the state to sponsor religious training in factory schools meant, to some degree favouring the Church of England. Graham anticipated opposition and took exceptional care in drafting the educational clauses of the proposed bill. He consulted two of his factory inspectors: Leonard Horner, who he believed had some influence with the Nonconformists, and Robert Saunders, who had the confidence of the Bishop of London.[9] He also drew on the educational expertise of James Kay-Shuttleworth.

Graham’s proposal for state assistance in the education of factory children was motivated by the need to raise the ‘moral feeling’ of the people as a counter to radical agitation but Nonconformists and Roman Catholics believed it favoured the Church of England unfairly. Fear and prejudice came together in the massive campaign by nonconformist pressure groups coordinated by the United Conference, stressing the virtues of ‘voluntaryism‘ and professing concerns about the ‘Romanising’ effects of the Oxford Movement. Within two months, it had organised a petition to Parliament containing over two million signatures. In June 1843, the education clauses were withdrawn but the government remained committed to proceeding with the remainder of the bill.[10] However, it was not until the following February that Graham submitted a truncated bill. The Factory Act 1844 actually effected considerable improvements: children (8-13) became ‘half-timers’, working 6½ hours; dangerous machinery was to be fenced in; women shared the young persons’ 12 hour restriction; and, it was permissible for a factory to operate for fifteen hours in a day.

Oastler mounted a major campaign but he was unable to graft a ‘10 hour clause’ on to the revised factory bill. Ashley moved a ten hour amendment that carried with 95 Conservatives supporting it.  Peel refused to accept ten hours or compromise with eleven hours and the bill was only passed by threatening resignation unless his wayward supporters rescinded their earlier vote. [11] The debate on the ten hour amendment developed over the next two months and forced the government into a series of difficult manoeuvres. Initially, Peel and Graham argued against Ashley on economic grounds. Peel was prepared to pass laws preventing exploitation of children and women but he argued adult males were free agents and the law should not interfere with market forces. Even so, he doubted whether employers would pay a twelve hour rate for ten hours work. Graham warned the Commons that the reduction of two hours’ work might damage British industry by reducing productivity, thus lowering profits and ultimately wages. Not all members of the House were convinced by this argument. Secondly, there was an important political motivation in supporting Ashley. The agricultural interest, upset of Peel’s liberalised tariff policy and angered by the activities of the Anti-Corn Law League saw an easy opportunity for revenge against manufacturers. This mixture of motives accounts for the surprising victory on 18 March 1844 in committee of Ashley’s amendment by 179 to 170. However, four days later, when the specific clause of the Ten Hours’ Bill was presented, the vote went against Ashley.

Ashley returned to factory reform the following year. The Royal Commission on the employment of children had investigated abuses not only in mines and collieries but in numerous other unregulated industries. Ashley was determined to extend government regulation over these exempted industries and concentrated on calico printing. Since it was a textile industry, he thought that the restrictions on work contained in the 1844 Factory Act could be extended with relative ease. His proposal to limit the hours of children and women in calico printing was introduced to the Commons in February 1845 and initially attracted some support from the government. The result on this occasion was a compromise. The government agreed with those parts of Ashley’s bill that provided education for children under thirteen, prohibited the employment of children under eight and prohibited night work for children and women. However, it did not agree with restrictions on the hours of children between eight and thirteen years old arguing that the employment of children in calico printing was more necessary than in other industries. With Ashley’s acceptance of the government’s position, an effective compromise was reached and the measure passed into law.

There was, however, considerable disappointment in the textile towns and this provoked compromises and local negotiations. A series of conferences sought to maintain unity by reviving the Ten Hours Bill in Parliament, and after a wide winter campaign Ashley Cooper moved for leave to introduce it in January 1846. However, the debate over industrial conditions was now overshadowed by the nation-wide controversy over the Corn Laws. Ashley felt morally obliged to resign his seat and Fielden took his place as parliamentary leader but lost his seat in May. As another campaign was mounted in the autumn a gathering industrial recession weakened the case for opposition. Final Whig attempts to compromise on 11 hours were defeated and Fielden triumphed in May 1847 with the Ten Hours Act receiving the royal assent in June.[12]

Northern rejoicing was still premature. From 1848, there were reports of evasions in Lancashire and of masters’ campaigns to repeal the Act. Several employers resorted to the relay system that meant that hours of work could not be enforced: the 15 hours per day clause in the 1844 Act had not been repealed and the 1847 legislation did not limit the number of hours machines could operate. As a result, employers quickly recognised that they could abide by the letter of the new law and still keep their mills working for 15 hours by the use of a relay system. Working children, women and young persons were subjected to interrupted shifts (two hours on, one hour off, for example) so the adult workers could be kept at their machines for fourteen or more hours a day. Attempts by the factory inspectors to prosecute employers invariably failed in the magistrates courts. Gradually, a new campaign emerged to protect the Act but it was increasingly obvious that the Factory Movement was divided: Ashley Cooper and a ‘liberal’ group were prepared to accept some compromise while Oastler was not. A test case on the illegality of the relay system in the Court of Exchequer (Ryder v Mills) was heard in early 1850 and the employers’ liberal interpretation of the law upheld.[13]

The Factory Act 1850 finally legislated for what was called a ‘normal day’. The term derived from the custom that developed in the eighteenth century limiting the hours of work of craftsmen in most trades to those that could be worked, with breaks between 6 am and 6 pm. The Act required that young persons and women should only work between these two customary times, starting and ending one hour later in winter, with one and a half hours for meals and ending at 2pm on Saturdays with half an hour for breakfast. This meant they would work 10½ hours a day Monday to Friday and 7½ hours on Saturdays increasing their working week from 58 to 60 hours. Although textile workers now worked a shorter working week than most manual labourers, their anger over what they saw as the betrayal of the ten-hour principle was intense. Attempts to include children in the ‘normal day’ failed and, as a result, men might work up to 15 hours, aided by relays of children beyond the hours allowed for women and young persons. Children only received their fixed day in the 1853 Factory Act. This legislation effectively limited the running of textile factories to twelve hours each day with 1½ hours set aside for meals. Disraeli only restored the ‘10 hours’ in 1874. In the meantime, however, similar legislation had been extended to a wide range of workers.

After campaigns lasting twenty years and the passage of factory legislation in 1833, 1844, 1847 and 1850, the regulation of factory labour amounted to this.[14] First, three ‘protected’ classes of workers had been established: children between the ages of 8 and 13; young persons between the ages of 14 and 18; and women. Adult males over 18 were unregulated. Secondly, children could not enter factories until they were 8 years old and their work was restricted to 6½ hours a day. However, those hours could be worked any time between 5.30 am and 8.30 pm and nothing prevented them being used in relays throughout that time. Thirdly, women and young persons were classed together and their hours were restricted to 10½ hours daily (exclusive of meals) between 6 am and 6 pm five days a week with an 8 hour day on Saturdays. Finally, the legislation was supervised by regional Inspectors and their assistants who made quarterly reports to the Home Office.

Factory reform had some bearing on the making of mid-Victorian industrial paternalism. The consensual rhetoric of factory reform could, however, have different meanings in particular contexts. For workers, they were important as a symbol of ‘industrial legality’, especially where trade unions were relatively weak. The construction of women and children as protected categories reinforced notions of the adult male ‘breadwinner’ as an independent free labourer. Much of the debate concerned the drawing of boundaries; between morality and the market, dependent and free agents, the state and the rights of property, the household, the factory and the school. Factory reform reflected a recognition that the free market existed within a moral and legal framework.

---

[1] See, Ward, J.T., ‘The Factory Reform Movement in Scotland’, Scottish Historical Review, Vol. 41, (2), (1962), pp. 100-123.

[2] For Ashley’s role in the 1840s, see, ibid, Finlayson, Geoffrey, The Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury 1801-1885, pp. 173-270.

[3] Those who favoured reform also used literature as propaganda. In 1839-1840 Mrs Frances Trollope published her The Life and Adventure of Michael Armstrong, the Factory Boy in twelve shilling parts; see, Chaloner, W.H., ‘Mrs Trollope and the Early Factory System’, Victorian Studies, Vol. 4, (2), (1960), pp. 159-166.

[4] John, Angela V., ‘Colliery legislation and its consequences: 1842 and the women miners of Lancashire’, Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, Vol. 61, (1978), pp. 78-114.

[5] On the Mines Act 1843, see, ibid, Finlayson, Geoffrey, The Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury 1801-1885, pp. 182-189 and Heesom, Alan, ‘The Coal Mines Act of 1842, social reform, and social control’, Historical Journal, Vol. 24, (1981), pp. 69-88. See also, MacDonagh, Oliver, ‘Coal Mines Regulation: the first decade, 1842-52’, in Robson, R., (ed.), Ideas and Institutions of Victorian Britain: Essays in honour of George Kitson Clark, (Barnes and Noble), 1967, pp. 58-86.

[6] Jenkins, Mick, The General Strike of 1842, (Lawrence & Wishart), 1980 surveys the wave of strikes with a particular emphasis on Lancashire.

[7] Ward, J.T., Sir James Graham, (Macmillan), 1967 and Erickson, A.B., The public career of Sir James Graham, (Blackwell), 1952 are complementary biographical studies. Donajgrodzki, A.P., ‘Sir James Graham at the home office’, Historical Journal, vol. 20 (1977), pp. 97-120 is a useful article.

[8] Hansard, HC Deb, 24 March 1843, Vol. 67 cc1411-77.

[9] For the broader context of the government’s relationship with the Bishop of London, see, Welch, P.J., ‘Blomfield and Peel: A Study in Cooperation between Church and State, 1841-46’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Vol. 12, (1961), pp. 71-84.

[10] Ward, J.T. and Treble, James H., ‘Religion and education in 1843: reaction to the ‘Factory Education Bill’’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Vol. 20, (1969), pp. 79-110.

[11] Stewart, R., ‘The Ten Hours and Sugar Crises of 1844: Government and the House of Commons in the Age of Reform’, Historical Journal, Vol. 12, (1969), pp. 35-57.

[12] Ibid, Weaver, A., John Fielden and the Politics of Popular Radicalism 1832-1847, pp. 249-281.

[13] Ibid, Finlayson, Geoffrey, The Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury 1801-1885, pp. 295-296.

[14] Ibid, Ward, J.T., The Factory Movement 1830-1850, pp. 505-506.

The Ten Hour Movement and the 1833 Factory Act: revised version

The emergence of the short-time or Ten Hour movement after 1830 has its origins in the late-eighteenth century when concerns about the deteriorating conditions in child employment initially developed.[1] Early legislative efforts, however, depended largely on benevolent individuals. Sir Robert Peel senior was behind both the 1802 and 1819 Acts but he received considerable popular support from Lancashire cotton spinners, in liaison with at least three distinguishable groups.[2] First, the old labour aristocracies such as the east Midland framework-knitters, Yorkshire woollen croppers and the ubiquitous handloom weavers saw the factories with their technological innovations as threats to their social status and their incomes. Secondly, some early pioneers of social medicine drew attention to the insidious effects of factory labour on health.[3] Finally, Northern clergymen of the old High Church tradition and those tinged with new Evangelical enthusiasm played important roles in successive factory campaigns. In 1836, Oastler, who believed in the notion of a ‘Christian commonweal’ wrote in a letter of the Archbishop of York that

...his only object was to establish the principles of Christianity, the principles of the Church of England in these densely people districts....the Factory question was indeed....a Soul-question -- it was Souls against pounds, shillings and pence....[4]

In 1815, Peel, supported by Robert Owen, the progressive owner of the New Lanark Mill on the River Clyde, attempted unsuccessfully to bring in legislation to ban children under the age of ten from any employment. He continued to campaign inside and outside Parliament and a parliamentary inquiry into child labour in factories resulted in the Cotton Mills Act of 1819. The Act required that no child under the age of nine was to be employed in cotton mills, with a maximum day of 16 hours for all those under 16. But once again the means of enforcing such legislation remained a serious problem and there were only two convictions while it operated.  A further burst of agitation in the 1820s by the cotton spinners led only to John Cam Hobhouse obtaining minor changes to existing legislation in 1825 and 1831 but these too were limited in scope and implementation. [5] Lancashire cotton operatives who were strong supporters of factory legislation became disillusioned with the lack of enforcement of existing law and demoralised by the collapse of strikes against wage reductions. It is, however, clear that the Factory Movement began in Lancashire rather than with the better known Yorkshire agitation begin by Richard Oastler in 1830 and that it was the militant Cotton Spinner’s Union that first created the rudiments of a popular organisation and gained support from the radical press.

The early industrial reformers had little or no organisation. The campaign between 1825 and 1829 had achieved little but it was at this stage that Richard Oastler, a Tory land steward from Huddersfield, burst upon the scene when he sent his celebrated letter to the Leeds Mercury on ‘Yorkshire Slavery’.[6] For Oastler, emotionally bound by the established inter-connected web of customs, loyalties, ties, memories and services, liberalism spoke of men as ‘free agents’ while in practice they were ‘wage-slaves’ created when ‘Money’ and ‘Machinery’ drove a wedge between the nation’s old landed and labouring interests. Most of the founders of the Ten Hour Movement were Tories and Anglicans from northern industrial towns, committed to reviving the aristocratic idea that, if necessary, might be promoted through state intervention against both the decayed aristocratic betrayal of the paternal system and the new entrepreneurial ethos. They were as deeply hostile to parliamentary reform and workers’ organisations as they were to Dissenters, orthodox political economy and the newly rich manufacturers. Many of those who financed the movement, like Michael Sadler, were themselves well-established factory owners and members of the Tory urban elite facing a challenge locally from Dissenting entrepreneurs. [7]

It is possible to identify four principal pressure groups that favoured factory reform. There were the mill operatives themselves and their supporters, of whom Richard Oastler was the most prominent. Their demands for a 10-hour working day was used in the debate over child labour both as a way of exposing the hardship of the children and as a way of seeking a limitation on the working day of adults. In the laissez-faire atmosphere of the period, any direct attempt to achieve state regulation of the hours of adult males was doomed to failure. But because juveniles aged 10-13 were an essential part of the workforce it was hoped that restrictions on their hours would percolate through to the rest. The reformers did not oppose child labour as such but were merely against unregulated labour. They judged legislation not by its direct effect on child labour but by its indirect effect on the position of adult workers. Secondly, there were the Tory humanitarians among whom Lord Ashley was most active. They were concerned about the moral and religious deprivation of young workers and the ineffectiveness of existing protective legislation. Others such as William Wordsworth, Robert Southey and William Cobbett looked back to a pre-industrial ‘golden age’ and blamed the industrial revolution for alienating workers from the land and forcing children to play a major role in the workforce.[8] A fourth body of reformers came to the fore in the debates over amendments to the factory legislation that occurred in the 1840s. They included active supporters of laissez-faire principles, such as Thomas Babington Macaulay, but who argued for regulation on economic and moral grounds. Child labour, they suggested, damaged the health of youngsters who were then later in life not able to achieve their potential productivity. Restricting child labour was a rational means of promoting investment in the country‘s future workforce.

The early Ten Hour movement had a number of strands, loosely held together by a rhetoric that combined evangelical religion, the threat posed by unregulated economic change, populist radical ideas of fair employment and labour as property and patriarchal values. [9] Such rhetoric embodied notions of a ‘moral economy’ in opposition to the aggressive economic liberalism of the manufacturer’s lobby. [10] Oastler spoke of the ‘monstrous’ nature of the factory system and the ‘terrors’ of child labour. He denounced political economy as ‘earthly, selfish and devilish’ and pointed to the abnormality of ‘the tears of innocent victims (wetting) the very streets which receive the droppings of an Anti-Slavery Society’. These attributes cut across the political spectrum from traditionalist Tories to Whigs, to a patrician radicalism. Radical artisans and factory workers shared many of these views. It was saturated in romantic imagery, of the ‘golden age’ of domestic production and of seeing their labour in terms of ‘freedom’, ‘tyranny’ and ‘slavery’.

Paternalism was not confined to Oastler and the Ten Hour movement and many manufacturers accepted their civic duty to engage actively in schooling, management of housing, charity and moral surveillance. Paternalistic controls over the labour force were justified in a language of mutual obligations and the mission of enlightened manufacturers as improvers of the poor. It was their competitive effectiveness and accumulation of capital that enabled employers to fulfil this moral mission and, in this sense, there was no contradiction between the economic ethics of political economy and the moral imperatives of industrial paternalism. Textile manufacturers found themselves in a vulnerable and isolated position when the factory issue exploded in the early 1830s and were divided over their response to it. ‘Evils’ were recognised, but in terms far removed from the language of wage-slavery. In the cotton districts, opponents pointed to the diminished rate of profit and increase in the cost of production if the hours of workers were reduced. Others emphasised the threat from foreign competition and the absolute rights of property.

During the winter of 1830-1831, there was a furious controversy in the Yorkshire press and rival views became polarised. Oastler acted as the pivot and central organiser. He possessed considerable oratorical skills and journalistic gifts; he controlled the central funds and he imparted a crusading verve to the movement. The question of child exploitation was a ‘moral’ one and he became head of a network of ‘short-time committees’ that demanded the ten-hour day. A substantial number of pamphlets, petitions and tracts were issued and ‘missionaries’ were despatched throughout the textile areas of England and Scotland to highlight the horrors of child labour in the mills. Thousands of workers were willing to ignore the hostility of the Factory Movement’s leaders to their political aspirations during the agitation for parliamentary reform 1830-1832, put aside their opposition to the Church of England and turned a blind eye to the darker side of paternalism with its insistence on a harsh penal code, savage game laws and low wages and living conditions for the rural labourer and support the Movement.[11]

In the event, Oastler and his movement had little success with the Whig government and Peel and the Conservative opposition kept the agitation at arm’s length. When Michael Sadler moved a Ten Hour Bill in March 1832 he was obliged to accept the appointment of a Select Committee to take evidence from the operatives. Meanwhile the factory masters organised a vigorous lobby to resist further legislation, arguing that shorter working hours could result only in a victory for foreign competition, leading to lower wages and unemployment. The dissolution of Parliament in 1832 led to Sadler’s defeat at Leeds in December and to his replacement, at the suggestion of the Reverend George Bull[12], by the young Evangelical Anthony Ashley Cooper as parliamentary spokesman for the Ten Hour campaign. The publication of Select Committee report in January 1833 brought the stark realities of conditions and led Anthony Ashley Cooper to introduce a factory bill. Criticisms, largely justified, that the Select Committee report was one-sided as it had only heard the workers’ views resulted, in April 1833, in the government setting up a Royal Commission to investigate the employment of children in factories.  The Whigs had effectively taken reform out of the hands of the Ten Hour Movement and it became a government sponsored issue.

Why did the Whigs take control of factory reform? Extra-parliamentary agitation occurred not only in the context of conflict between capital and labour but of other economic and social rivalries.  Social, ideological, religious and political rivalry between industrialists and neighbouring agriculturalists was exploited by operatives who turned for protection  from millowners to county JPs. The result was an Anglican Tory-Radical alliance on the factory question, grounded in notions of paternalism rather than the tenets of political economy and less inhibited in its support of the industrial poor than Whig Radicals. This alliance was weakened by the reform agitation of 1831-1832 but remained important till the late 1830s and the onset of Chartism.  Parallel to this Tory paternalist approach was one supported by some Whig radicals and a group of philanthropic millowners in which nonconformist belief was a unifying force. The agitation in Yorkshire had already convinced the Whigs that a factory act was inevitable. Determining the composition of the Royal Commission ensured that the range of options available to them would be wider and less unpalatable to manufacturers than a Ten Hours bill. The Royal Commission Report was placed in the hands of Edwin Chadwick.[13]  The report, produced in forty-five days, looked at factory  conditions far less emotionally than the Select Committee.  Its conclusions were not based on humanitarian grounds, the position adopted by the Ten Hour Movement, but on the question of economic efficiency. Chadwick argued that human suffering and degradation led to less efficient production and that a good working environment would lead to health, happiness and an efficient workforce. Its recommendations were firmly placed on the question of children’s employment and it was consequently criticised for failing to deal with the issue of adult labour.

The Factory Act 1833 that implemented its recommendations restricted children aged 9-14 (by stages) to 8 hours actual labour in all textile mills (except lace-manufacture), with 2 hours at school; young persons under 18 to 12 hours; and, four Factory Inspectors were appointed to enforce the legislation. Previous Acts had been restricted to the cotton industry, but the 1833 Act also applied to the older woollen producing communities in and around Yorkshire which had been ignored in previous legislation. However, the silk industry was given special consideration after vigorous lobbying from manufacturers who argued that the industry would perish without the employment of very young children. Silk manufacture used a large amount of workers who were below age 16 and they accounted for almost 80% of the workforce in some workships and mills. The 1833 Act was confined to children’s work and applied only to textile mills but it did establish a small four-man inspectorate responsible to the Home Office to enforce the legislation. Inspection was essential for making effective enforcement possible and providing a continuous stream of information about the conditions of workers in a range of industries. Despite the rhetoric of Oastler that magistrates, who heard the overwhemlong majority of cases, obstructed conviction under the legislation, there is significant evidence that they were not unsympathetic to prosecutions and were prepared to convict.[14] Despite the intense criticism of the 1833 Act and the problems encountered in enforcement, it would be unfair to underestimate the Whig achievement in the area of factory reform. The debates in 1832 and 1833 led to the issue being publicly aired as never before.[15] The extra-parliamentary movement may have been frustrated by what had been achieved and the 1833 Act may have not been based on any real principles, but it did mark an important stage in the emergence of effective factory legislation and underpinned the developments of the 1840s.

---

[1] Kydd, Samuel, The History of the Factory Movement: From the Year 1802, to the Enactment of the Ten Hours’ Bill in 1847, 2 Vols. (Simpkin, Marshall, and Co.), 1857, Edler Von Plener, Ernst, The English Factory Legislation, from 1802 Till the Present Time, (Chapman and Hall), 1873, reprinted, (BiblioBazaar, LLC), 2008, Cooke-Taylor, R.W., The Factory System and the Factory Acts, (Methuen), 1894 and Hutchins, B.L., Hutchins, Elizabeth L. and Harrison, Amy, A history of factory legislation, (P. S. King & Son), 1911 provide contemporary comment on the development of legislation.

[2] Innes, Joanna, ‘Origins of the factory acts: the Health and Morals of Apprentices Act 1802’, in Landau, Norma, (ed.), Law, crime and English society, 1660-1830, (Cambridge University Press), 2002, pp. 230-255 and Thomas, M.W., The early factory legislation: a study in legislative and administrative evolution, (Thames Bank Publishing Co.), 1948.

[3] See, for example, the comments in Ure, Andrew, The Philosophy of Manufactures: or, An exposition of the scientific, moral and commercial economy of the factory system of Great Britain, (Charles Knight), 1835, pp. 374-403.

[4] Cit, ibid, Driver, C., Tory Radical: A Life of Richard Oastler, p. 306.

[5] On Hobhouse, see, Zegger, Robert E., John Cam Hobhouse: a political life, 1819-1852, (University of Missouri Press), 1973.

[6] Creighton, Colin, ‘Richard Oastler, factory legislation and the working-class family’, Journal of Historical Sociology, Vol. 5, (1992), pp. 292-320; Ward, J.T., ‘Richard Oastler on politics and factory reform, 1832-1833’, Northern History, Vol. 24, (1988), pp. 124-145.

[7] Sadler’s death in 1835 removed an important advocate of reform. See, Sadler, Michael T., Protest Against the Secret Proceedings of the Factory Commission, in Leeds, 1833, Reply to the Two Letters of John Elliot Drinkwater, Esquire, and Alfred Power, Esquire, Factory Commissioners, (F.E. Bingley), 1833 and Factory statistics: the official table appended to the report of the committee on the ten-hour factory bill vindicated in a series of letters addressed to J.E. Drinkwater, (Hatchards), 1836; Drinkwater, J.E., Bethune, John Elliot and Power, Alfred, Replies to Mr. M.T. Sadler’s Protest Against the Factory Commission, (Baines and Newsome), 1833.

[8] On this issue, see, Stevenson, Warren, The myth of the golden age in English Romantic poetry, (Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Universität Salzburg), 1981.

[9] For what follows see Gray, Robert, ‘The languages of factory reform in Britain c.1830-1860’ in ibid, Joyce, Patrick, (ed.), The historical meanings of work, pp. 143-179.

[10] Lyon, Eileen Groth, Christian Radicalism in Britain from the Fall of the Bastille to the Disintegration of Chartism, (Ashgate), 1999, pp. 125-150 examines the Christian radicalism of the Factory movement.

[11] For a short summary of the issues see Ward, J.T., ‘The Factory Movement’ in Ward, J.T., (ed.), Popular Movements 1830-1850, (Macmillan), 1970, pp. 78-94.

[12] Gill, J.C., The ten hours parson: Christian social action in the eighteen-thirties, (SPCK), 1959.

[13] Ibid, Finer, S.E., The Life and Times of Sir Edwin Chadwick, pp. 50-68 and ibid, Brundage, A., England’s ‘Prussian Minister’: Edwin Chadwick and the Politics of Government Growth 1832-1854, pp. 22-24

[14] Peacock, A. E., ‘The successful prosecution of the Factory Acts, 1833-55’, Economic History Review, 2^nd ser., Vol. 37, (1984), pp. 197-210.

[15] Wing, Charles, Evils of the Factory System Demonstrated by Parliamentary Evidence, (Saunders and Otley), 1837, Part II prints important contemporary comment.

Constitutional Associations

Although several localities received municipal charters before Confederation, only Montreal and Quebec were large urban communities. In 1830, Montreal had 27,000 people and Quebec 22,000 increasing respectively to 140,000 and 62,000 in 1880.

Quebec was established initially as a military centre. Its Upper Town where the administrative, military and religious functions of the province were located was fortified. Commerce and trade and the poorer houses were in the Lower Town. Between 1791 and 1840, Quebec was the capital of Lower Canada and contained the governor’s resident at the Château Saint-Louis and was the seat of the Legislative Assembly and both Councils. Between 1840 and 1867, the capital of the United Canada moved between Montreal, Kingston, Toronto, Ottawa and Quebec. Since 1867, Quebec has been the province’s capital. The military importance of the city was enhanced after 1831 with the construction of the Citadel, a military complex with a garrison of 1,000 men guarding the river. This role declined after Confederation and the British garrison finally left the city in 1871. Quebec was also a religious centre and until 1840 was the seat of the only Catholic diocese in British America. Both the community of Ursulines and the Jesuits provided higher education until the opening of the Université Laval in 1852. In the first half of the nineteenth century, Quebec was the leading port in Lower Canada, a reflection of its position at the hub of the timber industry and as the centre of immigration from Great Britain. However, its economic position suffered from the limited nature of its agricultural hinterland and poor land communications and by 1850 Montreal assumed economic dominance in the province.

Montreal was situated, by contrast, in a better commercial position with rich agrarian resources and good road, water and later railway links. It dominated the food trade with Upper Canada and the United States and was an important manufacturing and communication centre. Unlike Quebec that remained militarily import, the fortification at Montreal were demolished after 1804. Despite this until 1850, urban growth and most economic activity was still largely confined to the area known as the Old Town between McGill Street in the west, Berri Street in the east and St-Antoine in the north. The Church was a strong presence in the city: the Petit Séminaire and the Collège de Montréal were situated on the flanks of the mountain as were the Hôtel-Dieu des Soeurs-Grises and the imposing Basilique Notre-Dame that dominated the city after 1829. The business quarter with its banks, private clubs and up-market housing was on the north-west of the rue Saint-Laurent. In the nineteenth century, Montreal became the most important city in British North America especially as the centre of communications between Canada and the Atlantic.

Montreal

The Constitutional Association of Montreal (MCA) was founded on 23 January 1835 at a popular assembly of 254 people held in the Jones Long Room.[1] The idea of founding a central association bringing together the loyalist forces in Montreal had originally been raised at a previous assembly held on 20 November 1834 at Tattersall rue Saint-Jacques. [2] The MCA was an umbrella organisation that included the Saint Patrick’s Society, Saint George’s Society, Saint Andrew’s Society and the German Society.

Feeling itself directly threatened by the intrigues of the French Canadian majority in the Legislative Assembly since the elections of 1834, the British population established associations to counterbalance the better organised, reformist forces. Through them, the British also sought to register their protest about the Ninety-Two Resolutions and oppose the irregularities of the recent general election. The assembly held in Montreal on 23 January 1835, issued the same declaration as the Constitutional Association of Quebec (QCA), founded on 22 November 1834, stating what it saw as the causes of the political and constitutional problems in Lower Canada. More precisely, the assembly denounced the way in which the colonial policy in Great Britain was managed. According to MCA, colonial policy produced by the Colonial Office lacked coherence because of the frequent changes of ministers since 1827. There was a denunciation of seigneurial tenure and persistence of French laws that the MCA claimed harmed investment. The loyalist assembly also criticised the absence of Registry offices encouraging fraud and discouraging foreign investments. The Legislative Assembly was sharply criticised especially its attitude to voting the civil list and opposition to immigration, according to British an important source of economic development. The loyalists were also damning about the ways militia officers of militia and magistrates were appointed. Finally, it expressed savage opposition to the election of the Legislative Council proposed in the Ninety-Two Resolutions. [3]

A central committee of 147 elected members was charged with producing the statutes and rules of the new association and establishing an executive committee that was achieved by 28 January 1835. The executive committee included John Molson Jr.[4] (Vice-president of the Saint-George’s Society), Peter McGill[5] (President of the Saint Andrew’s Society), William Walker[6] and George Moffat[7] (President of the Saint George’s Society), who was also elected as president of the MCA. Most members of the central committee were substantial merchants and were linked to the Banque de Montreal. A number were members of the Legislative Council or had been defeated in the Assembly elections at the end of 1834. The various national societies in Montreal affiliated to the MCA on 28 January 1835. [8]

There were important links between the associations in Quebec and Montreal and this was formalised in the delegated assistants from each association liaising with each other. However, it was increasing evident that there were differences between the two cities in particular the call for union with Upper Canada by the Loyalists in Quebec while Montreal’s position favoured only the annexation of Montreal and Vaudreuil to the upper province. There were also differences in approach between a moderate Quebec and a more radical Montreal that created ‘branch associations in a surprisingly short time at the beginning of 1835 in the aftermath of the loyalists’ electoral rout. Constitutional associations, which generally affiliated to either the Quebec or Montreal Constitutional Associations, were established in Leeds, Inverness, Ireland, Upper Ireland and Halifax (Mégantic), on 26 December 1834); in Durham and Kingsey (Drummond), on 31 January 1835; in Richmond and in Lennoxville (Sherbrooke) also on 31 January 1835; in Trois-Rivières; Chambly (Chambly); Laprairie (Laprairie); William-Henry; Kildare (Berthier); St.Andrews (Deux-Montagnes) and in Ormstown and Hemmingford (Beauharnois); Frelighburg (Missisquoi); Granby (Shefford); Potton (Stanstead) and elsewhere. Locality but especially ideological attitudes determined whether these associations linked to Quebec or Montreal. The associations at Missisquoi, Kildare, St.Andrews and Potton affiliated to the QCA because of local fears that if Montreal was annexed to Upper Canada they would be assimilated by the French Canadian majority. It was, however, the opposite logic that led the frontier comté de Beauharnois to change its affiliation from the QCA to the MCA.

The second general assembly was held in the Theatre Royal on 26 March 1835. To counter the influence of the reformers in London, the meeting decided that an agent of the MCA would be sent there to promote and defend the interests of the constitutionalists. William Walker, who had been defeated in the 1834 election, was nominated as the MCA agent in London. [9] He was accompanied by Alexander Gillespie of the North American Colonial Association and by John Neilson of the QCA. They left for London in April 1835 and met Lord Glenelg, the Colonial Secretary and Lord Melbourne, the Whig Prime Minister.[10] Learning on 11 August that the Royal Commission on events in Lower Canada would consider their representation, the executive committee asked Walker to return to Montreal.[11]

In the months that followed, the MCA organised ward committees and intervened in the loyalist assemblies in the town, for example in the meetings held in the Western quarter on 15 September 1835 and in the faubourgs of Saint-Laurent and Saint-Louis on 12 October. Each time, its representatives floated the idea of establishment of Registry offices and called for an end to the seigneurial system, for extending the voting rights of joint owners and for improving navigation on the St. Lawrence. On 24 November 1835, at the start of the work of the Royal Commission, the MCA submitted a copy of the resolutions Walker had already presented to the king and Parliament and an impressive petition.  On 7 December, the General Assembly elected a new central committee reflecting the need to coordinate all the constitutional forces of the colony and this led directly to the creation of a Select General Committee in May and November 1836. [12] In January 1836, the MCA circulated a document that blamed economic under-development in Lower Canada on the French presence and proposed the union of all the provinces of British North America as a solution. But by 27 February, it had reconsidered its position and simply proposed the annexation of the Île de Montreal and the comté of Vaudreuil by Upper Canada. On 23 March, the MCA launched a new manifesto that called for a change to the size of the districts in order to increase British representation. It proposed that the quorum with the Legislative Assembly should be lowered in order to reduce the ability of deputies to disrupt the institution and that the personal wealth of potential deputies should be raised. Finally, it attacked the ways in which French Canadians sought to promote their own interests at the expense of the British.[13]

The political cohesion of the loyalist movement in Lower Canada reached its height in early 1836 when it was announced that a large congress of constitutional associations would be held in Montreal on 23 June. In Quebec (21 January 1836), Montreal (16 January 1836), Sherbrooke (12 December 1835), Leeds (25 March 1836) and Kildare (23 December 1835) delegates were designated and converged in Montreal as the Select General Committee of the Petitionners on 23 June 1836. The work and conclusions of this congress are not well known but it appears that a decision was made to hold a second congress later from 10 to 17 November largely because of disagreements between the delegations from Quebec (T.A. Young) and Montreal (William Griffin). The movement was affected these tensions. There was a marked deceleration of loyalist activities until the spring of 1837 when heightened levels of activity by the Patriote movement forced loyalists to put side their ideological and regional quarrels and demonstrate more forcefully their attachment with the Crown.

Quebec

While the MCA was controlled by radical merchants who were hostile to the reform movement, the QCA founded officially on 22 November 1834, was dominated by individuals largely from the liberal professions who were moderate reformers and previously supporters of Papineau: John Neilson[14], Andrew Stuart[15] and Robert H. Gairdner. The business community was not absent and the most important merchants in the capital were among the QCA’s supporters: William Price, Thomas Aylwin, J. Charlton, James Bell Forsyth, Allan Gilmour, James Hastings Kerr, Henry Lemesurier, William King McCord and T. A. Young.

The origins of the QCA can be found in a meeting held on 16 April 1833 to take ‘into consideration the expediency of preparing an address to His Majesty upon the state of the Province’. [16] It was, however, the passage of the Ninety-Two Resolutions at the beginning of the following year and particularly the election campaign in October 1834 that rallied the support of loyalist forces in the capital and led to important campaign meetings in favour of loyalist candidates: Andrew Stuart (Haute-Ville), Pemberton (Basse-ville) and John Neilson (Dorchester). In the event the loyalists were left with no representatives after the Patriote landslide and this led to an increased focus on why the loyalists had done so badly in the election. It was directly out of the problem of loyalist representation in the Assembly and the need to put pressure on the governor and the colonial administration that the QCA was formed.

The meeting on 22 November was preceded by a series of banquets that provided a post mortem of the elections and reinforced the lessons that needed to be learned from them.

Let us then take a lesson from the enemy...the silence of the Constitutionalists has been mistaken for acquiescence in the measures pursued by the Resolutionists...We rejoice, under these circumstances in being able to announce that a Loyal and Constitutional Association is now on foot...The plan of the Association, as far as we are informed, is to form, principal or parent, Associations in two cities and the most populous towns of the Province, which Branch Committees in the several counties, and to maintain a general correspondence and cooperation for their mutual support and defence.[17]

Chaired by Andrew Stuart, the foundation meeting of the QCA was held at the Albion Hotel on 22 November 1834. An executive committee of 14 people was established and £400 raised in less than three hours to support the new association. John Molson and Sydney Bellingham, who had come from organising a similar meeting in Montreal on 20 November, helped in the formation of the QCA.[18] The executive committee was formed by 26 November and the QCA held its first assembly on 29 November. However, it was the mass meetings of 400 people on the 11 and 12 December that agreed the statutes of the association and a sub-committee was established to found branch associations across Lower Canada.[19]

During the winter of 1835, the QCA circulated a vast petition putting forward its claims and John Neilson and William Walker (MCA) carried it to London when they left on 13 May to express their opposition to the Ninety-Two Resolutions. [20] This occurred at the same time as the creation of the Gosford Commission and when Neilson returned from London he was involved in establishing an active lobby to the Commission. It was not until 9 January 1836, after intense discussion at several meetings of the executive committee that the QCA finally adopted the Report on the Present State of Public Affairs, a clear statement of the ideological position of the association.[21] It opposed the deliberations of the Parti Patriote in the Assembly especially their demands for control over the Civil List and reaffirmed their commitment to the imperial state.

The QCA was then involved in the choosing of delegates for the congress of all Constitutionalists in the province that was finally held in Montreal between 10 and 17 November 1836. Important differences emerged between the QCA and MCA during these discussions: the MCA proposed the annexing of Montreal and Vaudreuil to Upper Canada while the QCA favoured union of the two provinces. At the end of 1836, perhaps because of these disagreements, Andrew Stuart was replaced as president by John Neilson with William Price and Henry Lemesurier as vice-presidents and T.A. Young as secretary.

In the deteriorating climate of 1837, the QCA organised a series of meetings culminating with one held on 31 July attended by between 4,500 and 5,000 people.[22] The seven resolutions it passed denounced the political manoeuvring of the Patriotes and reaffirmed support for the Crown. But with the approach of open conflict, it was the creation of a volunteer corps that concerned the QCA and on 1 September the Victoria Club, a parallel organisation to Montreal’s Doric Club, was established. On 29 November, the Victoria Club was reorganised into a regiment of the Royal Quebec Volunteers, though it was not actively involved in the suppression of the rebellion.[23]

1837 and after

After the publication of Russell’s Ten Resolutions, the Patriotes held a series of public assemblies intended to show the widespread support for the movement and the extent to which Papineau could count on the masses to oppose the policies of the colonial government. Loyalists responded by also holding a number of assemblies answering Patriote demands by loyal addresses and showing their determination to match the Patriote mobilisation. The assemblies organised by the constitutional associations attracted large anglophone audiences but in French-dominated areas they tended to be more spontaneous. Usually organised by the local seigneur, a member of the elite or loyalist Justice of the Peace, these ‘demonstrations of loyalty’ intensified during the autumn into areas that traditionally supported the Parti Patriote but which now favoured submission and collaboration. Preceded by numerous meetings in faubourgs and villages, the large assembly held on the Esplanade in Quebec on 31 July 1837 was attended by over 5,000 delegates who heard various speeches and signed a loyalist petition. On 23 October 1837, at the same time as the Patriote assembly at St-Charles, a meeting of between 4,000 and 7,000 constitutionalists was held chaired by Peter McGill, president of the MCA since Moffat’s departure at the end of 1836. Effective channels of communication had already been established with Gosford and these increased during the conflict during November and December. Gosford even agreed that the MCA should be given the right to form groups of volunteers.

Loyalist assemblies became less numerous in the autumn of 1837 apart from the assembly at Tattershall but there was a rapid increase with many assemblies held between November 1837 and January 1838. Organised by JPs or magistrates, they testified to the renewal of loyalism and support for the actions taken by the Crown to deal with the rebellion in the Montreal district in November 1837. The repression and military occupation of part of the colony stimulated loyalist enthusiasm, perhaps more apparent than real and reflected the desire of a population to avoid the reprisals suffered by those living in the comtés de Richelieu and Deux-Montagnes. The constitutional associations played a less obstructive role in this period largely because many of their members were serving in the volunteer regiments established during the rebellion.

On 30 December 1837, the MCA presented its annual report to its General Assembly. The report proposed establishing contact with sympathetic MPs in the British Parliament with the aim of promoting the idea of the union of the Canadas. It also stated that since the conflict is racial, the only way of resolving this was an end to the policy of conciliation that had been adopted by the Colonial Office and by the Gosford Commission. It concluded by registering its thanks to Colborne and his regular troops for dealing with the rebellion. George Moffat met Durham in London before he left for the colony and also influential members of the MCA presented their ideas to Durham during his inquiry into the rebellion. The constitutional associations played a role in the development of the Durham Report and in its resultant project of union and most of the voluntary regiments were mobilised during the second rebellion of November 1838. The constitutional associations held an annual assembly in December 1838 but after 1839, the union against Patriote radicalism that had given the loyalist movement its cohesion and vitality dissolved. The Château clique fought a rearguard action to maintain their privileges and some supporters of the constitutional cause, especially their leader John Neilson, repudiated the project of Union and joined ex-Patriotes such as Denis-Benjamin Viger and Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine.

---

[1] Ibid, Muzzo, Johanne, Les mouvements réformiste et constitutionnel à Montréal, 1834-1837, p. 79.

[2] Ibid, p. 69.

[3] Ibid, Christie, Robert, History of the late province of Lower Canada, 1791-1841, Vol. 4, pp. 32-41 contains the MCA declaration.

[4] ‘John Molson’, DCB, Vol. 8, pp. 630-634.

[5] ‘Peter McGill’, DCB, Vol. 8, pp. 540-544.

[6] ‘William Walker’, DCB, Vol. 7, pp. 893-894.

[7] ‘George Moffat’, DCB, Vol. 8, pp. 553-556.

[8] Ibid, Muzzo, Johanne, Les mouvements réformiste et constitutionnel à Montréal, 1834-1837, p. 82.

[9] Ibid, Christie, Robert, History of the late province of Lower Canada, 1791-1841, Vol. 4, pp. 244.

[10] Ibid, Muzzo, Johanne, Les mouvements réformiste et constitutionnel à Montréal, 1834-1837, p. 84.

[11] Ibid, Christie, Robert, History of the late province of Lower Canada, 1791-1841, Vol. 4, p. 245.

[12] Ibid, Christie, Robert, History of the late province of Lower Canada, 1791-1841, Vol. 4, pp. 245-246.

[13] Ibid, Christie, Robert, History of the late province of Lower Canada, 1791-1841, Vol. 4, pp. 284-289.

[14] ‘John Neilson’, DCB, Vol. 7, pp. 644-649.

[15] ‘Andrew Stuart’, DCB, Vol. 7, pp. 835-837.

[16] Quebec Gazette, 17 April 1833.

[17] Quebec Mercury, 20 November 1834.

[18] Quebec Gazette, 26 November 1834; ibid, Christie, Robert, History of the late province of Lower Canada, 1791-1841, Vol. 4, p. 23.

[19] Ibid, Christie, Robert, History of the late province of Lower Canada, 1791-1841, Vol. 4, pp. 24-25.

[20] Quebec Gazette, 13 March 1835.

[21] Quebec Gazette, 11 January 1836.

[22] Ibid, Bernard, Jean-Paul, Assemblées publiques, résolutions et déclarations de 1837-1838, pp. 167-170.

[23] Quebec Gazette, 5 September, 22 November, 16 December 1837.