Radicals,Tories or Monomaniacs? The Birmingham Currency Reformers in the House of Commons, 1832–67*

Benjamin Disraeli described Thomas Attwood as a ‘provincial banker labouring under a financial monomania’. The leader of the Birmingham Political Union, Attwood's Warwickshire accent and support for a paper currency were widely derided at Westminster. However, the themes of Attwood's brief parliamentary career were shared by the other men who represented Birmingham in the early‐ and mid‐Victorian period. None of these MPs were good party men, and this article illuminates the nature of party labels in the period. Furthermore, it adds a new dimension to the historical understanding of debates on monetary policy and shows how local political identities and traditions interacted with broader party identities. With the exception of Richard Spooner, who was a strong tory on religious and political matters, the currency men are best described as popular radicals, who consistently championed radical political reform and were among the few parliamentary supporters of the ‘People's Charter’. They opposed the new poor law and endorsed factory regulation, a progressive income tax, and religious liberty. Although hostile to the corn laws they believed that free trade without currency reform would depress prices, wages and employment. George Frederick Muntz's death in 1857 and his replacement by John Bright marked a watershed and the end of the influence of the ‘Birmingham school’. Bright appropriated Birmingham's radical tradition as he used the town as a base for his campaign for parliamentary reform. He emphasized Birmingham's contribution to the passing of the 1832 Reform Act but ignored the currency reformers' views on other matters, which had often been at loggerheads with the ‘Manchester school’ and economic liberalism.     

‘With All My Oldest and Native Friends’. Joseph Parkes: Warwickshire Solicitor and Electoral Agent in the Age of Reform1

Joseph Parkes, Birmingham solicitor, electoral agent, whig party advisor and secretary to the Parliamentary Municipal Corporation Commission was a modern master of exposing corrupt and fraudulent electioneering and using it as a catalyst for the election of reform and Liberal politicians immediately following the 1832 Reform Act. Warwickshire's own political and legal history was the foundation for Parkes's understanding of how politics worked in Britain and what was wrong with it, and helped forge his vision for an effective reform in parliamentary and local government. This essay examines Joseph Parkes's understanding of national electoral politics, informed by his work in Warwickshire. As a local solicitor, Parkes gained the wisdom of controlling electoral registration, canvassing in a routine and orderly manner and establishing a network of professionals to secure that registrations turned into votes at elections. This experience would culminate in the formation of the Reform Club, a national organisation of whigs, Liberals and radicals, that would, eventually, become the base of the Liberal Party in modern British politics. In short, Joseph Parkes was a man who could not, and did not wish to, escape where he came from, at least in terms of his political education. His Warwickshire experiences and lessons learned, solidified a series of political reform goals that he pragmatically approached as a political advisor, operative and attorney, rather than an elected public servant, and marked the direction of politics for the rest of the century.     

Concerns at Home,Concerns Abroad: Irish and English Political Ephemera in Southern Ontario

Four unusual artifacts reflecting an unambiguous connection with a particular politician or political movement have recently been recovered from archaeological sites in Southern Ontario. These items reflect socio-political issues from the homelands of immigrant families. Politically charged items carry meaning for the user and also serve to forge bonds and create divisions within the community. Recently discovered artifacts relating to the Irish Repeal movement and the British Great Reform Act of 1832 provide examples.     

A Pocket Borough? Reformed Politics in Ripon, 1832–67

This article examines the political history of the parliamentary borough of Ripon between the Great Reform Act of 1832 and the Second Reform Act of 1867. It challenges the notion that Ripon remained a ‘pocket borough’ during this era; rather, the Reform Act rendered Ripon's politics much more open, vibrant and participatory than they had been during the ‘unreformed’ era. In demonstrating this, the article calls into question the alleged prevalence of ‘pocket boroughs’ in the reformed era.     

The Great Landowners in the House of Commons, 1833–85

This prosopographical article demonstrates that the traditional British landed interest suffered very little by the terms of the 1832 Reform Act. They maintained their customary dominance of the house of commons, although voting records show that they had lost some of their ability to push legislation through the House that spoke to their more parochial interests. By contrast, the 1867 Reform Act caused serious erosion of their legislative power in the Commons. The 1874 election, especially in Ireland, saw great landowners losing their county seats to tenant farmers. Democracy was coming to Britain; just not as soon as some would have it.     

李端棻、张之洞与百日维新

李端棻、张之洞两人具有特殊关系,两人在百日维新中都具有重要的政治地位和作用。然而,由于政治目的和政治品质的不同,两人在百日维新中所起的作用迥异。     

Reappraising Walter Bagehot's Liberalism: Discussion,Public Opinion,and the Meaning of Parliamentary Government

Summary

This article offers a novel and comprehensive account of Walter Bagehot's political thought. It ties together an interpretation of Bagehot's liberal commitment to norms of discussion and deliberation, with an analysis of Bagehot's extensive arguments about the institutions of representative government. We show how Bagehot's opposition to American-style presidentialism, to parliamentary democracy, and to proportional representation were profoundly shaped by his conceptions of government by discussion, and the rule of public opinion. Bagehot's criticisms of English parliamentarianism, both of its pre-1832 and post-1832 varieties were also motivated by those principles, as was his own proposal for parliamentary reform. By examining the whole range of Bagehot's writings on representative government (not merely his preference for parliamentarianism over presidentialism) and by connecting his institutional recommendations to his liberal principles, we are also able to better clarify Bagehot's position in Victorian political thought. The article concludes with a discussion of the debate leading up to the Second Reform Act, in which we elucidate Bagehot's disagreements with other prominent exponents of liberalism including John Stuart Mill, the “university liberals,” and Robert Lowe.     

Was All Irish Politics Local? The Portarlington Election of 1832 and the Structure of Politics in 19th‐Century Ireland

Historians have often characterised 19th‐century Irish elections as insular, inward‐looking affairs. This article, however, offers a reconsideration of the role played by national and imperial events in Irish elections through a close analysis of the Portarlington contest of 1832. While acknowledging the importance of local concerns in the campaign, it argues that the Portarlington election cannot be understood in exclusively parochial terms. Candidates, voters, and opinion‐makers all situated the contest in national and imperial, as well as provincial, contexts, and they behaved as if larger political issues might affect the ultimate outcome of the campaign. An examination of the election suggests that the dichotomy between the local and the national, while analytically useful, can also be misleading: the Portarlington contest exhibited a complex interplay between local, national, and imperial affairs. This article concludes, consequently, that national and imperial issues were integrated into the structure of Irish politics after the Reform Act of 1832.     

A Great Electioneer and His Motives Reconsidered: The 4th Duke of Newcastle

The 4th duke of Newcastle (1785–1851) is recognized as one of the most prominent peers with electoral influence in early-19th-century Britain. This essay considers the way in which he deployed that influence and the purposes to which it was turned. The essay explains why Newcastle became a leading symbol of the campaign for parliamentary reform and details the nature of his opposition to the bill which eventually became the ‘Great’ Reform Act of 1832. In some respects, Newcastle was an atypical electioneer, because he was less overtly concerned with the desire for office, patronage, or income. On the other hand, the methods by which that influence was deployed, and the anti-reform purposes to which it was turned, meant that he was inevitably numbered among the reactionary forces opposing political change in this period.     

Political Geography and its Problems

Political geography has no separate standing in the Soviet Union as a research or teaching discipline. An advocate of political geography calls for acceptance of this subject as a full-fledged member of the geographical sciences by outlining some of the problems with which such a discipline might deal in the Soviet Union. It would be concerned with the historical evolution and current changes in the political map of the world and the factors that give rise to both quantitative changes (in territory and boundaries) and qualitative changes (in political systems). Wars, diplomatic actions, dynastic alliances and territorial purchases are listed as some of the factors that result in boundary changes of national states. Revolutions and national liberation movements account for changes in political systems. Heavy emphasis is given to the study of internal political developments that may ultimately result in changes on the political map of the world. Political events throughout the world are analyzed in the light of Marxist-Leninist ideology, and political and social processes in the capitalist and socialist (communist) parts of the world are sharply differentiated.     

国民党引入军队政工制度原因考

俄共十月革命后建立的”以党领军”的统军制度,为孙中山重新考量”以主义集合”军队提供了鲜活的参照物。受俄共政治工作的启发,孙中山1921—1922年特别注重对官兵进行政治教育。1922年6月,陈炯明的背叛说明,孙中山的政治工作观念存在致命缺陷。在苏俄的引导下,孙中山决心由党建军,1923年8月,以蒋介石为首的考察团赴俄。此次考察对国民党创建黄埔军校、改党建军,影响巨大。苏俄红军的政工制度成为国民党进行政治工作的模本,党代表制与政治部制是政工制度的两大组成部分。     

Carl J. Friedrich's Legacy: Understanding Constitutionalism as a Political System

Carl J. Friedrich (1901–1984) defined constitutionalism as something more than can be expressed by the dominant behavioralist paradigm of modern political science and the typical academic focus on law and courts. A leading but now neglected post-WWII authority on constitutionalism, Friedrich argued that it should be understood as an institutionally-based, interactive system for deliberating the meaning and legal application of the norms of a political community. His approach shares much with the contemporary “historical institutionalist” call to situate law and courts within a broader, more normative, and more interactive conception of constitutionalism. Accordingly, a reconsideration of Friedrich's work may help current efforts to better articulate the full richness and complexity of constitutionalism as a distinctive way of ordering political life.     

REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:
The Origins of the English Gentry. By Peter Coss.
Henry IV. The Establishment of the Regime, 1399–1406. Edited by Gwilym Dodd and Douglas Biggs.
Restoration Scotland, 1660–1690. Royalist Politics, Religion and Ideas. By Clare Jackson.
The Restoration. England in the 1660s. By N. H. Keeble.
John Locke. Selected Correspondence. Edited by Mark Goldie
The Duke of Portland. Politics and Party in the Age of George III. By David Wilkinson.
Rethinking the Age of Reform. Britain 1780–1850. Edited by Arthur Burns and Joanna Innes.
Political Tactics. By Jeremy Bentham. Edited by Michael James, Cyprian Blamires and Catherine Pease-Watkin.
The Irish Act of Union, 1800. Bicentennial Essays. Edited by Michael Brown, Patrick M. Geoghegan and James Kelly.
Electoral Reform at Work. Local Politics and National Parties, 1832–1841. By Philip Salmon.
English Public Opinion and the American Civil War. By Duncan Andrew Campbell.
The Diaries of Edward Henry Stanley 15th Earl of Derby (1826–93) between 1878 and 1893. A Selection. Edited by John Vincent.
MacDonald's Party. Labour Identities and Crisis, 1922 1931. By David Howell.
Television Policies of the Labour Party 1951–2001. By Des Freedman.
The Conservatives in Crisis. Edited by Mark Garnett and Philip Lynch.     

民主的悖论——英国议会选举制度改革

英国1832年前的议会选举制度是贵族控制的,具体体现在选区、选举权、选举活动和议员结构等方面。1832—1918年的英国选举制度改革客观上促进了英国的民主发展,但这不是英国决策者的意图。对于英国统治精英来说,改革的宗旨是为了保持贵族的统治和避免真正的民主。英国的议会选举制度改革在民主问题上形成了一个悖论:反民主的举措却促进了民主的发展。     

THOMAS WATSON,PEASANT-POET: THE READING,WRITING AND RELIGION OF A CUMBRIAN DRY-STONE WALLER

Abstract

This article describes and elucidates the making of Manchester Chartism, with special reference to the Reform Crisis of 1830–32 and its role in highlighting and confirming divisions within and between groups of radicals. For all the importance of personalities, ideas, organisations and national as well as local reform issues, the history of Chartism in Manchester was shaped above all by the town's political configuration. Political and class identities became stronger in 1830–32. This, and subsequent differences of opinion on key questions, ensured that no inclusive reform alliance was possible in Manchester. After examining the Reform Crisis of 1830–32, tracing the separation of middle-class from working-class activists and exploring the internal schisms within plebeian and respectable middle-class campaigns, this article shows how the polarisation of the early 1830s continued into the Chartist period. Problems of contact, communication and sympathy between the different groups were never overcome, and Manchester Chartism would itself experience fragmentation and resistance, just as earlier popular mobilisations in the town had been divided and opposed.     

REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article: Richard II and the Revolution of 1399. By Michael Bennett. Cheshire and the Tudor State 1480–1560. By Tim Thornton. Political Culture in the Reign of Elizabeth I. Queen and Commonwealth 1558–1585. By A. N. McLaren. Conscience and Allegiance in Seventeenth‐Century England. The Political Significance of Oaths and Engagements. By David Martin Jones. Political Thought in Seventeenth‐Century Ireland. Kingdom or Colony. Edited by Jane Ohlmeyer. Ambition and Failure in Stuart England. The Career of John, First Viscount Scudamore. By Ian Atherton. The Making of the Eighteenth‐Century Irish Constitution. Government, Parliament and the Revenue, 1692–1714. By Charles Ivar McGrath. Professors of the Law. Barristers and English Legal Culture in the Eighteenth Century. By David Lemmings. The Irish Political System 1740–1765. The Golden Age of the Undertakers. By Eoin Magennis. Reform in Great Britain and Germany 1750–1850. Edited by T. C. W. Blanning and Peter Wende. The Age of Unease, Government and Reform in Britain 1782–1832. By Michael J. Turner. The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke. General Editor: Paul Langford. Volume VII: India: The Hastings Trial 1789–1794. Edited by P. J. Marshall The Quarrel of Macaulay and Croker. Politics and History in the Age of Reform. By William Thomas. The Reform Act 1832 on CD‐ROM. William Smith O'Brien and the Young Ireland Rebellion of 1848. By Robert Sloan. Gladstone Centenary Essays. Edited by David Bebbington and Roger Swift. The March of the Women. A Revisionist Analysis of the Campaign for Women's Suffrage, 1866–1914. By Martin Pugh. Labour's First Century. Edited by Duncan Tanner, Pat Thane and Nick Tiratsoo. The Labour Party in Wales, 1900–2000. Edited by Duncan Tanner, Chris Williams and Deian Hopkin. Augmenting Democracy. Political Movements and Constitutional Reform During the Rise of Labour, 1900–1924. By Andrew Chadwick. The Neville Chamberlain Diary Letters. Volume 1: The Making of a Politician, 1915–1920. Edited by Robert Self. The Neville Chamberlain Diary Letters. Volume 2: The Reform Years, 1921–1927. Edited by Robert Self.     

REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:
England's Empty Throne. Usurpation and the Language of Legitimation 1399–1422. By Paul Strohm.
The Wars of the Roses. Politics and the Constitution in England, c. 1437–1509. By Christine Carpenter.
King James VI and I and the Reunion of Christendom. By W. B. Patterson.
Dismembering the Body Politic. Partisan Politics in England's Towns 1650–1730. By Paul Halliday.
Gentleman Radical. A Life of John Home Tooke 1736–1812. By Christina and David Bewley.
A War of Ideas. British Attitudes to the Wars against Revolutionary France, 1792–1802. By Emma Vincent Macleod.
Poisoning the Minds of the Lower Orders. By Don Herzog.
Re-Reading the Constitution. New Narratives in the Political History of England's Long Nineteenth Century. Edited by James Vernon.
Reform and Respectability. The Making of a Middle-Class Liberalism in Early Nineteenth-Century Manchester , By Michael Turner.
Political Unions, Popular Politics and the Great Reform Act of 1832. By Nancy D. LoPatin.
The Journal of John Wodehouse First Earl of Kimberley for 1862–1902. Edited by Angus Hawkins and John Powell.
Liberal by Principle. The Politics of John Wodehouse 1st Earl of Kimberley, 1843–1902. Edited by John Powell.
The Women's Suffrage Movement. New Feminist Perspectives. Edited by Maroula Joannou and June Purvis.
Suffrage and Power. The Women's Movement 1918–1928. By Cheryl Law.
The Politics of the British Constitution. By Michael Foley.     

To Eliminate Colour Prejudice: The WCTU and Decolonisation in Australia

From the mid‐1930s to the mid‐1960s the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in Australia played a key role in the articulation and development of human rights for Aborigines. They provided practical and political support and scaffolding while developing an important ideological base, and they formed alliances across class, gender, race, religious, and political lines to achieve their goal of racial equality. Their activism coincided with the period associated with decolonisation. It has been argued that, in Australia, the end of empire coalesced with the rise of the labour movement in the 1940s. However, this article argues that as a means of understanding WCTU involvement in defending and shaping an Aboriginal rights agenda, the rise of labour is an important but partial explanation. It downplays the role of gender and religion in formulating an ideological position while masking its political implications. Here, I explore the politics of WCTU reform, particularly connections between gender, religion, and race, and trace the Union's defence of Aboriginal human rights in post war Australia.     

Lord Falmouth and the Parallel Political Worlds of Ultra‐Toryism, 1826–32

The parallel political worlds of ultra‐toryism were those of Westminster and the provinces. Hoping to defend the protestant constitution from what they regarded as ruinous attacks, between 1826 and 1832 many ultra‐tories were unrelenting parliamentary opponents of constitutional change. However, far less is understood about their simultaneous involvement in the political world away from Westminster, apart from analysis of the duke of Newcastle's electoral activities and several county studies. This article examines the 1st earl of Falmouth's dogged ideological defence of the protestant constitution, as well as exposing his political pragmatism in Cornwall, thereby highlighting the lengths to which some ultras were prepared to go in pursuing their beliefs. Falmouth also exemplifies those ultras who, from March 1827 when Lord Liverpool resigned, became far more prominent in the struggle against ‘Revolution by due course of law’, beginning with their opposition to Canning becoming prime minister. Furthermore, a study of Falmouth's career between 1826 and 1832 at Westminster and in Cornwall, also highlights several of the ideological tensions within ultra‐toryism at this time.     

Reframing the “Irish Question”: the role of the Irish co-operative movement in the formation of Irish nationalism, 1900–22

This article examines the role of the Irish co-operative movement in the early twentieth century and argues that it played a crucial role in shaping a popular understanding of the “Irish Question”. This mass-membership movement impacted upon the development of the Irish state and population. By taking this rural, social movement as a lens to analyse Irish society in the early twentieth century, social and economic issues re-emerge as central components to a contemporary understanding of Ireland's increasingly contested position within the Union. As the expectation of some kind of political resolution to demands for political independence grew during the First World War, radical nationalism absorbed a social and economic discourse that originated within the co-operative movement in its critique of the British state as it operated in Ireland. Irish co-operation represented a sophisticated form of political economy that provided an influential ideological platform for Irish nationalists as they anticipated some form of political independence.