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0521576539 - Defining the Victorian Nation: Class, Race, Gender and the British Reform
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Catherine Hall, Keith McClelland and Jane Rendall
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Defining the Victorian Nation
Class, Race, Gender and the British Reform Act of 1867
Defining the Victorian Nation offers a fresh perspective on one of the most
significant pieces of legislation in nineteenth-century Britain. Catherine
Hall, Keith McClelland and Jane Rendall demonstrate that the Second
Reform Act of 1867 was marked not only by extensive controversy
about the extension of the vote, but also by new concepts of masculinity
and the masculine voter, the beginnings of the movement for women’s
suffrage, and a parallel debate about the meanings and forms of national
belonging. The chapters in this book draw on recent developments in
cultural, social and gender history, broadening the study of nineteenthcentury British political history and integrating questions of nation and
empire. Fascinating illustrations illuminate the argument, and a detailed
chronology, biographical notes and selected bibliography offer further
support to the student reader. Students and scholars in history, women’s
studies, cultural studies and postcolonial studies will find this book
invaluable.
            is Professor of Modern British Social and Cultural
History at University College London. She is the author of White, Male
and Middle Class: Explorations in Feminism and History (1992) and (with
Leonore Davidoff) Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle
Class 1780–1850 (1987).
      c         is Senior Lecturer in Social History at Middlesex
University, London. He co-edited E. P. Thompson: Critical Perspectives
(1990) and is the co-editor of the journal Gender & History.
         is Senior Lecturer and co-director of the Centre for
Eighteenth-Century Studies at the University of York. Her publications
include The Origins of Modern Feminism: Women in Britain, France, and
the United States, 1780–1860 (1985), Equal or Different: Women’s Politics
1800–1914 (1987) and Women in an Industrializing Society: England
1780–1880 (1990).
Frontispiece (overleaf ) ‘A Leap in the Dark’. Punch, 3 August 1867. As
the Second Reform Bill goes through its final stages, Disraeli carries
Britannia towards an unknown future.
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0521576539 - Defining the Victorian Nation: Class, Race, Gender and the British Reform
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Catherine Hall, Keith McClelland and Jane Rendall
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© Cambridge University Press
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0521576539 - Defining the Victorian Nation: Class, Race, Gender and the British Reform
Act of 1867
Catherine Hall, Keith McClelland and Jane Rendall
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Defining the Victorian nation
Class, Race, Gender and the British Reform
Act of 1867
Catherine Hall, Keith McClelland and Jane Rendall
© Cambridge University Press
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Cambridge University Press
0521576539 - Defining the Victorian Nation: Class, Race, Gender and the British Reform
Act of 1867
Catherine Hall, Keith McClelland and Jane Rendall
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         
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RP, United Kingdom
   
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK http://www.cup.cam.ac.uk
40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA http://www.cup.org
10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia
© Catherine Hall, Keith McClelland and Jane Rendall 2000
This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions
of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may
take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2000
Typeset in Plantin 10/12 pt in QuarkXPress™ []
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0 521 57218 5 hardback
ISBN 0 521 57653 9 paperback
Transferred to digital printing 2003
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0521576539 - Defining the Victorian Nation: Class, Race, Gender and the British Reform
Act of 1867
Catherine Hall, Keith McClelland and Jane Rendall
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Contents
List of illustrations
Preface
Chronology
List of abbreviations
1 Introduction
            ,                  
        
page vi
viii
x
xiii
1
Historians and the Reform Act of 1867
New approaches to political history
Citizenship and the nation
1
20
57
2 ‘England’s greatness, the working man’
 
71
From Chartism to the Reform League
Arguments for reform
Social change and politics
77
89
102
3 The citizenship of women and the Reform Act of 1867
        
The background to the women’s suffrage movment, 1790–1865
Women and the Reform Act of 1867
Defining women’s citizenship
Conclusion
119
121
130
160
176
4 The nation within and without
           
179
Jamaica
Ireland
The parliamentary debates
192
204
221
Appendices
Bibliography
Index
234
262
290
v
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Illustrations
Plates
frontispiece: ‘A Leap in the Dark’. Punch, 3 August 1867. As the
Second Reform Bill goes through its final stages, Disraeli carries
Britannia towards an unknown future.
1 ‘The mob pulling down the railings in Park Lane’.
page 72
Illustrated London News, 4 August 1866 (University of
London Library).
2 ‘Scene of destruction near the Marble Arch’. Illustrated London 73
News, 4 August 1866 (University of London Library).
3 ‘The broken railings at Hyde Park Corner’. Illustrated London
74
News, 4 August 1866 (University of London Library).
4 ‘Manhood Suffrage’. Punch, 15 December 1866. For critics of
75
reform like Robert Lowe, the inevitable outcome of allowing
respectable working men to vote would be that the
‘unrespectable’ would also exert their influence.
5 ‘The Ladies’ Advocate’. Punch, 1 June 1867. On 20 May
137
1867, Mill’s amendment to the Reform Bill, substituting
‘person’ for ‘man’, had been defeated in the House of
Commons.
6 ‘Revised – and Corrected’. Punch, 26 September 1868. In
148
September 1868, appeals by ratepaying women, single or
widowed, to be included on the electoral register were heard
throughout Britain. Most were defeated. The reference is to
Hamlet’s words to Ophelia in Hamlet, Act III, Scene i, ‘Get thee
to a nunnery.’
7 ‘Miss Mill Joins the Ladies’. Judy, 2 November 1868. Mill’s
150
defeat at Westminster in the general election is here associated
with his campaigns for women’s suffrage and the bringing of
Governor Eyre to justice. Mill is shown out by the Conservative
W. H. Smith, who defeated him at Westminster, while R. W.
Grosvenor, the Whig–Liberal who was elected, studies his wine.
Reproduced courtesy of the British Library.
vi
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List of illustrations
vii
8 ‘Don Jacob Rideth His Hobby, to —?’ Manchester Central
Library, 1869. This undated caricature of Jacob Bright, which
alludes to the chivalry of Don Quixote, may refer to Bright’s
success in introducing women’s suffrage into municipal
elections in May 1869. In the background his brother, John
Bright, an opponent of women’s suffrage, salutes him.
9 ‘The town of Morant, Morant Bay, Jamaica’. Illustrated London
News, 25 November 1865 (University of London Library).
10 ‘Coaling a Royal Mail steam-packet at Kingston, Jamaica’.
Illustrated London News, 25 November 1865 (University of
London Library).
11 ‘The Jamaica Question’. Punch, 23 December 1865. The
planter’s ironic question here is counterpoised to the racist
description of the slouching black worker.
12 ‘Attack on the prison van at Manchester, and rescue of the
Fenian leaders’. Illustrated London News, 28 September 1867
(University of London Library).
13 ‘Fenian prisoners at Manchester conveyed through Mosley
Street on their way to the Bellevue Prison’. Illustrated London
News, 28 September 1867 (University of London Library).
14 ‘The Fenian Guy Fawkes’. Punch, 28 December 1867. Here
the Irishman, characterised by stereotypical features and
surrounded by the children of ‘excessive breeding’, is posed as
a threat to parliamentary government but also as likely to blow
himself up.
Figures
1 The electorate of the United Kingdom, 1866
2 Percentage of adult males over twenty-one enfranchised,
1861 and 1871
3 The electorate of the United Kingdom, 1866–8
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193
194
195
205
206
207
page 3
6
245
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Preface
The idea of doing this book together arose originally from conversations
we were having about our individual projects, each of which was concerned with aspects of the politics of 1867. We should say that each of the
individual essays builds upon foundations laid in much earlier and
shorter versions of the arguments: Catherine Hall, ‘Rethinking Imperial
Histories: The Reform Act of 1867’, New Left Review 208 (1994), 3–29;
Keith McClelland, ‘Rational and Respectable Men: Gender, the Working
Class, and Citizenship in Britain, 1850–1867’, in Laura Frader and
Sonya O. Rose (eds.), Gender and Class in Modern Europe (Ithaca, N.Y.,
and London: Cornell University Press, 1996), pp. 280–93; Jane Rendall,
‘Citizenship, Culture and Civilization: The Languages of British
Suffragists, 1866–1874’, in Caroline Daley and Melanie Nolan (eds.),
Suffrage and Beyond: International Feminist Perspectives (New York
University Press, 1994), pp. 127–50.
In this volume we have chosen to preserve the individuality of each
project while engaging in the collective work which is here represented in
the introductory essay. But our early essays have been extended and
transformed through the many discussions we have had over the past few
years. Their final form owes a great deal to those talks. We would like to
record here how enjoyable these meetings have been. We started talking
about the issues here because we were friends and we are delighted to say
that friendship has been strengthened by the work. Keith McClelland and
Jane Rendall would also like to thank Catherine Hall for the hospitality
which so aided our collaboration.
In the course of the work we have talked to many audiences, of very
different kinds, in many places. We would particularly like to thank the
students we have taught in various universities for how much they have
taught us, not least those at Essex, Middlesex and York. We also have individual thanks to record: Catherine Hall would particularly like to thank
Gail Lewis; Keith McClelland has learned a great deal from Bill
Greenslade, Sonya Rose, Laura Frader, Eleni Varikas, John Hope Mason
and, not least, Chris Robinson; Jane Rendall thanks Heloise Brown,
viii
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Preface
ix
Joanna de Groot, Angela John, Simon Morgan, Helen Plant, Ted Royle
and Allen Warren for all kinds of scholarly and friendly assistance, Adam
Middleton for constant and unfailing encouragement, and the British
Academy for its financial support for research for this book.
Jane Rendall must also thank the Mistress of Girton College
Cambridge for the use of the Parkes and Davies Papers. We are also grateful to the British Library and the University of London Library for permission to use material in their possession; to the staff of the J. B. Morrell
Library, University of York, and the Local Studies Unit, Manchester
Central Library; and to the National Trust for the cover illustration.
Thomas Woolner’s sculpture of ‘Civilization’ stands in Wallington,
Northumberland, a National Trust property. We are especially grateful to
Pamela Wallhead of the National Trust, Wallington, for her assistance
and to Paul Barlow for information on the sculpture.
Woolner’s ‘Civilization’ (also known as ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ and
‘Mother and Child’) was completed in November 1866. It was commissioned by Pauline Trevelyan and Sir Walter Calverley Trevelyan for
Wallington.1 Thomas Woolner wrote of his work that ‘The idea of the
group was to embody the civilization of England.’ The figure of the
mother teaching her boy to say the Lord’s Prayer is contrasted with scenes
of cannibalism and murder from ancient British life, in a contrast
identified as that between primitive habits and the ideals of a modern life.
The pedestal displays a mother feeding her child with raw flesh on the
point of his father’s sword. Woolner wrote of his choice to depict ‘civilization’ as a woman teaching, ‘because the position of women in society
always marks the degree to which the civilization of the nation has
reached’.2 This study of a defining moment in the political history of
Britain is here illustrated through the imagination of an artist who draws
upon gendered concepts of the modern and of the primitive to portray
English civilisation.
           
 
        
March 1999
1
2
See Raleigh Trevelyan, ‘Thomas Woolner: Pre-Raphaelite Sculptor. The Beginnings of
Success’, Apollo 107 (1978), 200–5; Paul Barlow, ‘Grotesque Obscenities: Thomas
Woolner’s Civilization and Its Discontents’, in Colin Trodd, Barlow and David Amigoni
(eds.), Victorian Culture and the Idea of the Grotesque (Aldershot: Ashgate Press, 1999), pp.
97–118.
MS, ‘Mr Woolners [sic] description of his sculpture at Wallington’, Wallington,
Northumberland.
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Chronology
1865 February
May
July
October
November
December
1866 January
February
March
May
June
Inaugural meeting of the Reform League
Surrender of last Confederate Army; end of
US Civil War
General election; John Stuart Mill is elected
for Westminster
Death of Lord Palmerston; Lord John Russell
forms administration with W. E. Gladstone as
leader of the House of Commons
Black rebellion at Morant Bay, Jamaica;
martial law is declared by Governor Edward
John Eyre, who represses the rebellion
brutally
The news of Morant Bay reaches Britain;
the government is pressed to establish an
inquiry
Kensington Society discusses ‘Is the extension
of the parliamentary suffrage to women
desirable and if so under what conditions?’
Formation of Jamaica Committee
Royal Commission on Jamaica meets
New Parliament meets; Lord Russell becomes
prime minister; Habeas Corpus Act
suspended in Ireland
Jamaica Act makes the island a crown colony
Reform Bill introduced by William Gladstone
Redistribution Bill introduced
John Stuart Mill presents women’s suffrage
petition to House of Commons
The Reform Bills are defeated following revolt
of the ‘Cave of Adullam’; Russell resigns
Report of the Royal Commission on Jamaica
x
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Chronology
July
August
September
October
1867 February
March
April
May
June
July
© Cambridge University Press
xi
Lord Derby forms Conservative administration with Benjamin Disraeli as leader of the
House of Commons
Reform demonstration in Hyde Park; attack
on the railings
Parliamentary debate on the findings of the
Royal Commission
Parliament prorogued; extensive public
agitation in most major cities of England and
Scotland over reform
Eyre returns to England
Eyre burnt in effigy at Clerkenwell Green
Formation of the Provisional Committee,
‘Extension of the Suffrage to Women Society’
Failure of a Fenian rising in Ireland and
attempt to seize arms at Chester Castle
Conservative Reform Bill presented to House
of Commons
British North America Act establishes
Dominion of Canada
Attempt to prosecute Governor Eyre
Women’s suffrage petition with 3,559 signatures presented to Commons by H. A. Bruce
Manchester women’s suffrage petition with
3,161 signatures presented by John Stuart Mill
Reform League demonstration in Hyde Park
in the face of government ban; Home
Secretary Spencer Walpole resigns;
Hodgkinson’s amendment to the Reform Bill
abolishing the distinction between personal
payment of rates and compounding (paying
the rates together with the rent to landlord)
accepted by Disraeli
John Stuart Mill’s amendment to delete ‘man’
and substitute ‘person’ is defeated
Murphy riot in Birmingham
Dissolution of first London women’s suffrage
committee
Third reading of the Reform Bill
London National Society for Women’s
Suffrage formed
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xii
Chronology
August
September
November
December
The Reform Act receives royal assent
Thomas Carlyle’s ‘Shooting Niagara’
published
Rescue of Fenian prisoners in Manchester;
prison guard killed
Execution of ‘Manchester Martyrs’
By-election in Manchester; Lily Maxwell votes
Second attempt to engineer rescue of Fenian
prisoners from Clerkenwell; twelve killed in
explosion
1868 June
Reform Bills for Scotland and Ireland carried
Murphy Riots
Further attempts to prosecute Governor Eyre
February
Resignation of Lord Derby; Benjamin Disraeli
forms his first administration
May–September Concerted action to request overseers to place
qualified women on the franchise; campaigns
in registration courts
November
Dismissal of women’s cases in Court of
Common Pleas
Liberal victory in general election; thirteen
women vote in Manchester
December
Resignation of Disraeli; formation of
Gladstone’s first ministry
1869 April
Introduction of second Married Women’s
Property Bill by Russell Gurney; fails in Lords
May
Women ratepayers to vote on same terms as
men, Municipal Corporations (Franchise) Act
July
Disestablishment of Irish church
1870 May
August
Jacob Bright’s Women’s Suffrage Bill passes
second reading by thirty-three votes (4 May)
Gladstone’s first speech on women’s suffrage
in opposition
Bill defeated (12 May) on going into committee by 126 votes
Amended Married Women’s Property Bill
passed
Western Australia granted representative
government
xii
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Abbreviations
ASE
CC
CW
EWR
FAC
FCD
MCL
ME
MNSWS
MT
NCA
NRL
NRU
PP
PPG
Amalgamated Society of Engineers
Cowen Collection, Tyne and Wear County Record Office,
Newcastle upon Tyne
Mill, John Stuart, Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, gen. ed.
J. M. Robson, 33 vols., University of Toronto Press, 1962–91
Englishwoman’s Review
Foreign Affairs Committee
Davies Papers, Girton College, Cambridge
Manchester Central Library
Manchester Examiner and Times
Manchester National Society for Women’s Suffrage
Mill–Taylor Papers, British Library of Political and
Economic Science, London School of Economics
National Charter Association
Northern Reform League
Northern Reform Union
Parliamentary Papers
Parkes Papers, Girton College, Cambridge
xiii
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