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Book Review
| Owen R. Ashton and Paul A. Pickering, Friends of the People: Uneasy Radicals in the Age of the Chartists, Merlin Press, London, 2002. pp. 169. £14.95 paper.
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| Paul Pickering and Owen Ashton's Friends of the People fills a gap in Chartist historiography and provides a valuable opportunity to compare the backgrounds and contributions of six Chartist intellectuals in Britain — Peter Murray McDouall, The Reverend Henry Solly, William Sankey, The Reverend Benjamin Parsons, The Reverend James Schofield and Richard Bagnall Reed. Of these, only the career of William Sankey has been previously unknown. |
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The Chartist six are not predictable choices for biographical examination. In the words of Pickering and Ashton, 'they did not look like Chartists'. In other words, they were intellectuals or perhaps more accurately, 'gentlemen leaders'. They were not the 'horny hands of the soil'. Three were ministers of religion, one a doctor, one a 'leisured gentleman', and one a newspaper magnate. They were not of the people but 'friends of the people'. Nonetheless, they were men who wore the Chartist epithet proudly, and by so doing imperilled their social standing and reputation. |
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By adopting a biographical approach, Pickering and Ashton seek to ground their understanding of the politics of Chartism in 'the micropolitics of everyday life' and 'offer some tentative new conclusions about popular politics in the age of the Chartists'. The final chapter in the book is intended to be 'prosopographic', a rather convoluted way of saying that it seeks to arrive at general conclusions concerning the culture of popular reform politics in mid-nineteenth century Britain through the comparison of biographical detail. 'Prosopography' is also a term that suggests historians might be wearing white coats as they peer clinically into the past through a microscope in order to play forensic witness. As Pickering and Ashton write, 'by comparing and contrasting the sociological and ideological profiles of (the Chartist six) we attempt to define some of the features of an identikit friend of the people'. The six case studies were chosen in part because they might offer insights into the struggle in different regions in Britain (the Scottish Lowlands, Lancashire, London, the North East and the South West) and thereby illuminate the regional history of mid-Victorian Britain. And this is precisely what Pickering and Ashton have managed to achieve. |
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The Chartist six were not of the same generation, ('their ages when the People's Charter was published ranged from 7 to 48'). Four of the six were older than the norm when they embraced the Chartist cause, yet nearly all imbibed their politics through their family background. While their educational backgrounds varied considerably, as did the role played by their wives in bolstering (and campaigning for) their political beliefs, their lives reflected a degree of social mobility. Most if not all of the men suffered from financial stability and a more profound spiritual restlessness. All six rejected the established church yet equally they rejected atheism. Religious belief was connected intimately to political belief and political participation. When the Christian gentleman confronted the poverty of the working class, his faith informed a social conscience that demanded he respond with more than just prayer. If every human being was equal in the eyes of God, then they must also be equal in the eyes of the law. Class conciliation, not class struggle, was the proper response. (All of the Chartist Six opposed the Corn Laws and the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act, while several were involved closely with other reform movements such as the Anti-Corn Law League and the Complete Suffrage Union). Chartism, idealistic and romantic in its invocation of ancient liberties, was first and foremost a practical program of reform. |
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In a manner typical of nineteenth century political culture, poetry was a vehicle of expression for four of the Chartist six. Bad poetry it may have been but these were times when political belief and the struggle against injustice still gave rise to poetry. There are not too many of the politically inclined practicing poetry today. The closest our political leaders come to poetry is reading Machiavelli. |
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Pickering and Ashton conclude that in the breadth and philosophy of their political activity, the lives of the Chartist six demonstrate that middle class reform politics in the age of the Chartists was more radical than is often acknowledged. This conclusion may be less contentious than their last paragraph. Tony Blair, they claim, is another heir to the politics of popular liberalism in nineteenth century Britain. He represents a Durham seat 'where the sound of Richard Reed's anvil still lingers in the air', yet he is no more a worker than any of the Chartists studied in this book. Blair, write Pickering and Ashton, is 'heir to a nineteenth century tradition of popular politics — a Chartist one — he is a friend of the people'. |
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In their conclusion, Pickering and Ashton state that 'the value of biography rests in the light that it can shed on what is nowadays called the big picture'. That this is one 'value' of biography is true, but it is probably the value most obvious to the social and political historian. The other value, perhaps of even greater importance, is the insight biography provides into the human condition. |
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In the six chapters in Friends of the People, each of them meticulously researched and well written, there is ample demonstration of all the values of biographical history. |
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| Australian National University |
MARK McKENNA | |
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