Perilous Question: Reform or Revolution? Britain on the Brink, 1832

  Subsequently a statue of Grey was erected in Newcastle upon Tyne at the top of Grey Street; the dedication referred to ‘an arduous and protracted struggle safely and triumphantly achieved in the year 1832’.* A hundred years after the Bill, a further plaque was added with the words: ‘After a century of civil peace, the people renew their gratitude to the author of the Great Reform Bill. 1932.’ In principle, however, Lord Grey had the retirement of his dreams – remembering those yearnings often expressed during the difficulties of the Bill – that is to say, with his wife, surrounded by children and grandchildren. Creevey, who visited him, commented on his ‘tranquillity and cheerfulness’; he said that Grey derived the same pleasure from winning half a crown at cribbage as he had from the Reform Bill.29

  Lord Althorp, although younger, enjoyed a similar retirement following the death of his father Earl Spencer in 1834, when he inherited the superior title and had to leave the Commons for the Lords. In his case prize bulls and other agricultural pursuits stood in place of the children he had forsworn after the early death of his beloved wife (whose portrait he asked to be hung round his neck when he was dying in 1845). Macaulay’s commentary on his political career, although apparently condescending, at the same time contained a great deal of the truth: he doubted whether anyone who had ever lived in England ‘with no eloquence, no brilliant talents . . . with nothing in short but plain commonsense and an excellent heart had ever possessed such influence’.30

  A very different fate awaited a large number of the prominent who had been involved in the two-year maelstrom of the Bill. No less than six of them would become Prime Minister: Wellington (again), Sir Robert Peel, Lord Melbourne, Lord Palmerston, Lord John Russell and the former Edward Stanley, now the Earl of Derby. The special circumstances of the maelstrom were demonstrated by the fact that Palmerston and Derby were both Tory Prime Ministers – leaders of a party becoming delineated as the Conservative Party, just as Whigs were transforming into Liberals.

  There was one catastrophe – as it seemed at the time – which followed shortly after the passing of the Reform Bill which proved in the end to have a purgative effect, much like the Bill itself. This was the Great Fire which consumed the Houses of Parliament in October 1834. To the Tories and those of conservative inclinations, of course, it came as what has been described as ‘a proper punishment for a craven legislature’ which had surrendered to the double pressure of the mob and the middle classes in passing the Reform Bill. To the Whigs, and liberals generally, the fire came as a welcome cleansing element to sweep away the corrupt old order, symbolized by the ancient, stuffy, notoriously inadequate buildings. Some disaster in the antique structures, so ill-suited to their purpose (again there was a comparison to the electoral system of the country), had long been predicted. Sir John Soane observed the inherent dangers in such ‘an extensive assemblage of combustible materials’ and the want of security from fire, with so much timber covered in plaster.31

  If Queen Adelaide, who had not forgiven the Whigs, believed with the Ultra Tories that the fire was divine retribution for the Reform Bill, King William, poking round the still smouldering ruins, appeared to be ‘gratified as if at a show’. From his attitude to the remains, he obviously thought that what had begun should be completed. Ever anxious to escape incarceration in Buckingham Palace, he suggested hopefully that Parliament itself might be transferred there and occupy the space in place of the Sovereign: the combined Parliament and palace would be ‘the finest thing in Europe’.32 Once again his hopes were to be disappointed.*

  Outwardly in the Whig world, it seemed that nothing had changed. And yet in reality nothing remained the same. There had been two confrontations of enormous moment during the last two years: between Lords and Commons, and subsequently between Crown and Ministers. In both cases, the reformers secured victory without the final bloodthirsty encounter which both sides dreaded; on the surface politics, not physical force, secured the passage of the Reform Bill. Yet in the Europe of the 1830s, Crown, Lords and Commons were all grimly aware that riots which presaged revolution could not be so easily ignored. And there had been plenty of riots in Britain, from the early days of Captain Swing in the high summer of 1830 onwards. This was where economic distress played its part: as long ago as 1818, Thomas Attwood had declared that the Jacobins might as well clamour to the winds as to a well-fed and fully employed population, but the poor and unemployed were a different matter.33 In the end we might reverse Wellington’s famous dictum that the beginning of Reform was the beginning of Revolution: it was the apparent start of Revolution which led to the beginning of Reform.

  The deft manipulation of popular outrage by unionists and Radicals, men like Attwood, Parkes and Francis Place – men who were in favour of Reform, even if for the time being it had to be limited – should never be underestimated in its contribution to the successful outcome of the Bill. Francis Place was certainly quite clear in his own mind about the part that popular fury – managed popular fury – had played. He gave his own verdict: ‘But for these demonstrations, a Revolution would have occurred . . . we were within a moment of general rebellion.’ This was the first time, he said, that the people ever combined of their own free will for a really national purpose. This was the fiercely held emotion of the time: a genuine dread of revolution which Sydney Smith recalled afterwards as a ‘hand-shaking, bowel-disturbing passion of fear’.34

  With the benefit of hindsight it is possible to wonder, of course, what kind of revolution would actually have taken place. Menacing comparisons to the 1640s and 1688, to say nothing of the frequent invocations of the French Revolution of 1789 (and 1830) – how valid would they have turned out to be if Wellington had returned to government? But in 1832, it was the passionate perceptions of the time – the real fears, not the calmer, dispassionate views of the future – which were crucially important and swayed the behaviour of all those involved.

  When Lord Grey thanked Attwood for his help on 19 May 1832, he may initially have seen himself as playing a diplomatic role; but he was also speaking the truth. ‘The People’ to whom Grey had referred so often in his own speeches, as did other Whigs, were beginning to emerge as a concept quite different from ‘The Mob’. Attwood’s own frequent emphasis on the need to avoid violence stood him in good stead since, like Grey, it made it impossible plausibly to denounce him as a revolutionary, one who yearned for those barricades. As it was, Macaulay was able to comment with truth that the changes produced by violence were often followed by reaction, whereas ‘the victories of reason, once gained, are gained for eternity’.35

  At the time of the Royal Assent, on 7 June, Sir John Hobhouse summed it up: ‘Thus ends this great national exploit. The deed is done.’ He added, with a sense of incredulity which reflected the tension of the whole long-drawn-out drama: ‘It is difficult to believe that it is done.’36 It was indeed a great national exploit. If the deed was not done for ever, it was at the very least a great beginning.

  * It remains at Howick to this day.

  * It was no doubt to tease his friend the poet that Dr Thomas Arnold nicknamed three roads near Dove Cottage in the Lake District where Wordsworth had lived, ‘Old Corruption’, ‘Bit by Bit Reform’ and ‘Radical Reform’. ‘Old Corruption’ is now known locally to walkers as ‘the coffin path’.

  * Site of the present National Gallery in what is now Trafalgar Square.

  * Still to be seen, and acting as a convenient local trysting-place for various activities, as well as – suitably enough – a focus for placards and protests. Sadly, the modern Metro sign reads ‘MONUMENT’, not ‘GREY’S MONUMENT’.

  * At the time of writing, the two fine things still remain separate.

  REFERENCES

  Prologue: A new King, a new people

  1.Arbuthnot, II, pp. 385–6

  2.Gore, Creevey, p. 301

  3.Haydon, p. 626

  4.Broughton, p. 207

  5.Wellesley, p. 16

  6.Fraser, Marie Antoinette, p. 1
33

  7.Greville, II, p. 345

  8.Haydon, p. 561

  9.Fonblanque, II, p. 95

  10.Arbuthnot, II, p. 352; Robinson, p. 220; Edgeworth, p. 463

  11.Times History, p. 267

  12.Arbuthnot, I, p. xv

  13.Croker, II, p. 70

  14.Somerset, William IV, p. 104

  15.Wakefield, England, I, p. 123; Hopkirk, p. 830

  16.Aspinall, Diaries, p. xvi

  17.Arbuthnot, II, p. 354; Aspinall, Diaries, p. xvi; Grey Correspondence, II, p. 464

  18.Ziegler, William IV, p. 144

  19.Somerset, William IV, p. 120; Trevelyan, Grey, p. 73

  20.Queen Adelaide’s Diary, p. 167, 16 December 1831; Hopkirk, p. 58

  21.Edgeworth, p. 504; Greville, II, p. 333

  22.Watkins, p. 486

  23.Dino, I, p. 3

  24.Greville, II, p. 3; Hopkirk, p. 103

  25.cit. Armitage, ‘Patriot’, p. 415, note 78

  26.Queen Adelaide’s Diary, p. 53, 16 July 1830

  27.Kelly, Holland House, p. 158

  28.Trevelyan, Macaulay, I, p. 159, note 1

  29.Mitchell, Whig World, p. 130

  30.H. of. C., VII, pp. 237–41; G.E.C., III, pp. 501–2

  31.Innes, ‘“Reform”’, p. 71

  32.Evans, p. 52; Robinson, p. 232

  33.BL Add. MS 51751 fol. 32; Times History, p. 269

  34.Wallas, p. 243

  Chapter One: The clamour

  1.Briggs, ‘Background’, p. 317

  2.Rutland MSS; Hansard, House of Lords 27 February 1812

  3.Greville, II, p. 370

  4.Foot, pp. 60 et seq.; Hansard, House of Commons 15 March 1832

  5.Stirling, p. 193

  6.Hilton, pp. 416–17; Wakefield, Swing, p. 7; Hamburger, p. 71; Hobsbawm and Rudé, pp. 16 et seq.

  7.Hilton, p. 424

  8.Bagehot, ‘Althorp’; Cannon, pp. 29–30

  9.Brock, p. 630

  10.Pearson, p. 234

  11.Hansard, House of Commons 4 March 1831

  12.New, pp. 87–90

  13.Clive, pp. 182–3; Torrington Diaries, p. 251; Hunt, p. 5

  14.Hunt, p. 24; pp. 17–18; Dent, p. 430

  15.Hansard, House of Lords 4 October 1831

  16.Brock, p. 28; p. 22

  17.Macintyre, p. 35; History of Parliament Online

  18.Newbold, p. 47; Smith, Grey, p. 136

  19.Creevey, II, p. 302

  20.Foreman, p. 203

  21.Holland Diaries, p. 121

  22.Greville, I, p. 82; Briggs, ‘Background’, p. 299; Aspinall, Diaries, p. 48

  23.Smith, Grey, p. 135; p. 237; p. 252; Hansard, House of Lords 2 November 1830

  24.Greville, I, p. 258; Tocqueville, p. 43; Haydon, p. 570

  25.The Times, 12 April 1832

  26.Holyoake, p. 213; Longford, p. 267

  27.Wallas, p. 295

  28.Hilton, p. 411; Foot, p. 68

  29.Gill, I, p. 203, note 1

  30.Ellitson, p. 7

  31.Briggs, ‘Attwood’, pp. 190 et seq.

  32.Haydon, p. 119; Holyoake, p. 42

  33.Buckley, pp. 57 et seq.

  34.Moss, p. 185

  35.Moss, p. 166; Croker, II, p. 100

  36.The Times, 14 October 1830; Hobsbawm and Rudé, p. 106

  37.Hobsbawm and Rudé, p. 103

  Chapter Two: I will pronounce the word

  1.Butler, p. 194, note 3; Grant, pp. 1–2; Shenton, pp. 5 et seq.

  2.Lytton, p. 346

  3.Grant, pp. 14 et seq.

  4.Huxley, p. 82

  5.The Times, 6 April 1832; Aspinall, ‘Reporting’, p. 232

  6.Hague, pp. 27–8

  7.Trevelyan, Grey, p. 303

  8.Hawkins, p. 4; p. 32; p. 61

  9.Howell-Thomas, p. 144

  10.Rubinstein, I, p. 319

  11.Lytton, p. 340

  12.Stanhope, p. 185

  13.Grant, p. 11; Russell, Collections, p. 160

  14.Holland Diaries, p. 64; Haydon, p. 615

  15.Russell, Collections, p. 157; Cecil, p. 294

  16.Russell, Collections, p. 135

  17.Stewart, p. 246

  18.Byron, Don Juan, Canto XI

  19.The Times, 2 November 1830; Smith, Reform, p. 23

  20.Wallas, p. 148; p. 178

  21.Wallas, pp. 246 et seq.

  22.Tocqueville, p. 42

  23.Trevelyan, Grey, p. 234, note 2

  24.Hansard, House of Lords 2 November 1830

  25.Cecil, p. 257; Smith, Grey, p. 16

  26.Hansard, House of Lords 2 November 1830

  27.Grey Correspondence, I, pp. 126–7

  28.Hansard, House of Lords 2 November 1830

  29.Butler, Preface to 1st edn

  30.Longford, p. 228

  31.Hamburger, p. 17

  32.Arbuthnot, II, pp. 398–9

  33.Lieven, II, p. 115

  34.Wallas, p. 248, note 3; Granville, p. 67

  35.G.E.C., X, p. 845, note c; Aspinall, Diaries, p. 224

  36.Hansard, House of Lords 8 November 1830

  37.Hansard, House of Commons 8 November 1832

  38.Arbuthnot, II, p. 401

  39.Brock, p. 125

  40.Stewart, p. 190; O’Gorman, Eighteenth Century, p. 360; Croker, II, p. 75; Hawkins, p. 71

  41.Aspinall, Diaries, p. 1

  42.Robinson, p. 278

  43.The Times, 22 November 1830

  Chapter Three: Believing in the Whigs

  1.Ziegler, Dino, p. 192; Rubinstein, p. 28

  2.Dolby, Cyclopaedia, p. 215; Russell, Collections, p. 138

  3.Stewart, p. 34; Howell-Thomas, pp. 54 et seq.

  4.Greville, II, p. 248; Clive, p. 192

  5.Aspinall, Diaries, p. li; Trevelyan, Grey, p. 302, note 1; Haydon, p. 648

  6.Mitchell, Whig World, p. 17; Brock, p. 131

  7.Mitchell, Whig World, p. 77; p. 80

  8.Kelly, Holland House, p. 105

  9.G.E.C., VI, p. 54, note b

  10.Clive, pp. 210–12

  11.Gash, Politics, pp. 393 et seq.

  12.Wallas, p. 252; p. 261

  13.Croker, I, p. 253; Gash, Politics, p. 393

  14.Stewart, p. 249; Lee, p. 55

  15.Lee, pp. 92 et seq.; p. 146; Creevey, I, p. 223; Edgeworth, p. 515; Greville, II, p. 91

  16.Lytton, pp. 323–4; Aspinall, Diaries, p. 25

  17.Times History, pp. 276–7; Martineau, pp. 49–50

  18.Brown, p. 103

  19.Russell, Collections, p. 167; Ziegler, Dino, p. 206

  20.Brown, p. 140

  21.Cecil, p. 32

  22.Holland Diaries, p. 77

  23.Grey Correspondence, I, p. 34

  24.Hobsbawm and Rudé, p. 155

  25.Melbourne’s Papers, p. 121

  26.Aspinall, Diaries, p. 30

  27.Foot, p. 143

  28.Althorp Letters, p. 87

  29.Campbell, I, p. 483; Cockburn, I, p. 322; Spencer, Spencer Family, p. 199

  30.Stewart, p. 258

  31.Aspinall, Diaries, pp. 175–6

  32.Russell Correspondence, I, p. 312

  33.Lytton, p. 15

  34.Howell-Thomas, p. 11

  35.Grant, p. 281

  36.Charmley, p. 234; Cecil, p. 290

  37.Holland Diaries, p. 96; Butler, p. 147

  38.Buckley, p. 67

  39.Fonblanque, II, p. 69

  40.Buckley, p. 69; Smith, Reform, p. 45

  Chapter Four: The gentlemen of England

  1.Trevelyan, Grey, pp. 275–6

  2.Cannon, p. 218; PRO 30/22/1B-C465342

  3.Grey Correspondence, I, p. 46

  4.Grey Correspondence, I, p. 51

  5.Grey Correspondence, I, pp. 54–5

  6.Grey Correspondence, I, p. 139

  7.Trevelyan, Grey, p. 275, note 1

  8.Lieven, II, p. 151

  9.Strong, p. 3

  10.Hopkirk, p. 94

  11.Queen Adelaide’s Diary, p. 86, 22 November 1830

  12.Queen Adelaide’s Di
ary, p. 112, 9 March 1831

  13.G.E.C., VIII, p. 114, note G

  14.Greville, II, p. 92

  15.Ward, pp. 101–2

  16.Strong, p. 383

  17.Aspinall, Politics, p. 4; pp. 25 et seq.; Croker, II, pp. 17 et seq.; BBC History

  18.O’Gorman, Eighteenth Century, p. 362

  19.Hamburger, pp. 8–10

  20.Butler, p. 240

  21.DNB 2004, Gordon Phillips, ‘Barnes, Thomas’

  22.Times History, p. 272

  23.Trevelyan, Grey, p. 256

  24.Hansard, House of Lords 3 February 1831

  25.Huxley, p. 95; p. 97

  26.Rutland MSS

  27.Hansard, House of Commons 1 March 1831

  28.Gash, Peel, p. 10

  29.O’Gorman, Eighteenth Century, p. 364

  30.DNB 2004, John Wolffe, ‘Inglis, Sir Robert Harry’

  31.Dent, II, p. 405; Aspinall, Diaries, p. 13; Robinson, p. 296

  32.H. of C., VII, p. 314; Lyttelton, pp. 106 et seq.

  33.Hansard, House of Commons 2 March 1831

  34.Pearson, p. 201; Clive, p. 160; Aspinall, Diaries, p. 100

  35.Creevey, p. 221

  36.Campbell, I, p. 308

  37.Hansard, House of Commons 2 March 1831

  Chapter Five: Russell’s Purge

  1.Hansard, House of Commons 3 March 1831

  2.Hurd, p. 148

  3.Le Marchant, pp. 350–1

  4.Trevelyan, Grey, p. 284; Lieven, II, p. 179

  5.Wallas, pp. 25 et seq.

  6.The Times, 2 March 1831

  7.Douglas-Fairhurst, p. 73

  8.Aspinall, Diaries, p. 14

  9.Hawkins, p. 81

  10.Grant, p. 97; Brock, p. 157; pp. 220–1

  11.DNB 2004, Kenneth Baker, ‘Doyle, John [H.B.]’

  12.Grant, p. 90; Trevelyan, Grey, p. 283

  13.H. of C., VII, p. 716

  14.Creevey, II, p. 223

  15.Creevey, II, p. 224

  16.Newey, pp. 238–53; W.T. Moncrieffe, Reform; or, John Bull

  17.The Times, 7 March 1831

  18.Brock, p. 165

  19.Macintyre, p. 23

  20.Russell, Collections, p. 162

  21.Somerville, p. 152

  22.Grey Correspondence, I, p. 154

  23.ibid.

  24.Grey Correspondence, I, p. 176

  25.Grey Correspondence, I, p. 179