England 1812-32: How Close Was It to Revolution?

The plan to assassinate the Cabinet hatched by Arthur Thistlewood may also have been partly the work of the Government spy, George Edwards. Arthur Thistlewood, was a disgruntled ex-army Officer and failed farmer who had a personal grudge against the Home Secretary Lord Sidmouth whom he believed owed him money. Indeed, he had been jailed for 12 months after challenging Sidmouth to a duel. He had also been arrested but later released for his part in the Spa Field Riot. In 1820, he conspired to murder the Prime Minister Lord Liverpool and his Cabinet at a dinner being given by Lord Harrowby, the President of the Council. Pre-warned by the spy Edwards, who was in on the plot, the Government pre-empted the attempt by arresting the conspirators on 23 February, 1820. Some of them resisted and Thistlewood himself killed a policeman, running him through with a sword. Thistlewood and three other conspirators were hanged for treason.

With Thistlewood and his co-conspirators dead or sentenced to transportation for life, with Hunt and Carlile in jail, and many of the seditious texts closed down and their publishers under arrest, the ” heroic age of popular radical discontent,” would appear to have come to an end.

While popular discontent in the country was real and often revolutionary in the levels of anger it expressed, the radical leadership was not. It never sought social upheaval but wanted instead greater social cohesion and stability. This they believed they could achieve by acquiring for the people greater access to the levers of power through the ballot box. They were never, therefore revolutionary but fundamentally and steadfastly reformist. The alliance that was sought by moderate reformists, such as Francis Place, with the middle-classes only came to fruition with their joint opposition to the Corn Laws in the 1840’s. There were stilll outbreaks of unrest with serious rioting in the cities of Leeds, Sheffield, and Bristol in the 1830’s. This period also saw the growth of the Chartist Movement that was to culminate in the mass-meeting at Kennington in 1848. Where surrounded by troops and confronted with cannon the crowd was persuaded to disperse peacefully.

That the working class were to be rewarded for their support of radical causes with continued political disenfranchisement and later in 1834, with that “Engine of Degradation” the Poor Law merely reflect the conservative values that were truly being espoused by the radical reformist movement throughout. For example, though Francis Place successfully lobbied for the repeal of the Combination Acts banning trade unions in 1824, he had earlier referred to the Spa Fields rioters as a ” contemptible set of miscreants and fools.” His attitude to what he perceived as the mob changed little over the years, and reflected a general view.

Without doubt there was serious unrest throughout Britain in the post-Napoleonic years. How revolutionary it ever was is difficult to ascertain but the fear of revolution was real enough as is shown in the behaviour of successive Governments which suspended Habeas Corpus, silenced the press, banned trade associations, hanged resisters, and generally oppressed the people. If the revolution remained still-born what we can perceive during this period is the growth of working-class consciousness and the emergence of incipient trade unionism. One thing was for certain, in 1800, England had been governed by deference and consent, by 1820 the English people were held down by force.