I am back with Alexander Somerville, radical, journalist and by his own admission at one time a police spy.
All of which makes him a fascinating chap to write about and one who fully embodies my idea that history is messy.
Now I have written about his visit to Chorlton in 1847 and explored his stand against using the military to suprpress the popular agitation for the Reform Bill in 1832.*
And later I guess I will cruise along the Spanish coast relating his time fighting for the British Auxiliary Legion during the Spanish Civil War of 1835-38**
But today I want to go back to his time with the Anti Corn Law League which had been set up in 1836 to campaign for the repeal of the Corn Laws which had been introduced in 1815 as a means of protecting British agriculture, but which was judged by many as responsible for keeping bread prices high and preventing the unfettered reign of Free Trade.
So Alexander took on the job of taking the message into the countryside and arguing the case amongst the farming interests. And it was while he was engaged in this task that he gave us a wonderful description of the headquarters of the Anti Corn Law League here in Manchester. Match this with two pictures from digital collection of Manchester Libraries and we can almost be in the offices sometime at the height of the campaign.
We are on the corner of Market Street and Cross Street in Newell’s Buildings. My picture dates from 1867 but judging from the directories was much the same building that Somerville knew.
In 1851 it was occupied by a couple of painters, two engravers, a Music school, share broker, the Manchester Library and the Financial and Parliamentary Reform Offices as well as the National Reform Association.
But just a few years earlier it was completely taken over by what Somerville descibed as “at that extraordinary body the Anti-Corn-Law League.”
And so “having a day in Manchester I determined to get a peep. Accordingly at ten o'clock I was in Market Street, a principal thoroughfare in Manchester. A wide open stairway, with shops on each side of its entrance, rises from the level of the pavement, and lands on the first floor of a very extensive house called 'Newall's Buildings'. The house consists of four floors, all of which are occupied by the League, save the basement. We must, therefore, ascend the stair, which is wide enough to admit four or five persons walking abreast.
On reaching a spacious landing, or lobby, we turn to the left, and, entering by a door, see a counter somewhere between forty and fifty feet in length, behind which several men and boys are busily employed, some registering letters in books, some keeping accounts, some folding and addressing newspapers, others going out with messages and parcels. This is the general office, and the number of persons here employed is, at the present time, ten. Beyond this is the Council Room, which, for the present, we shall leave behind and go up stairs to the second floor.
Here we have a large room, probably forty feet by thirty, with a table in the centre running lengthwise, with seats around for a number of persons, who meet in the evenings, and who are called the 'Manchester Committee'.
During the day this room is occupied by those who keep the account of cards issued and returned to and from all parts of the kingdom. A professional accountant is retained for this department, and a committee of members of council give him directions and inspect his books. These books are said to be very ingeniously arranged, so as to shew at a glance the value of the cards sent out, their value being represented by certain alphabetical letters and numbers, the names and residences of the parties to whom sent, the amounts of deficiencies of those returned and so on.
Passing from this room we come to another, from which all the correspondence is issued. From this office letters to the amount of several thousands a-day go forth to all parts of the kingdom. While here, I saw letters addressed to all the foreign ambassadors, and all the mayors and provosts of corporate towns of the United Kingdom, inviting them to the great banquet which is to be given in the last week of this month ... In this office copies of all the parliamentary registries of the kingdom are kept, so that any elector's name and residence is at once found, and, if necessary, such elector is communicated with by letter or parcel of tracts, irrespective of the committees in his own district.
Passing from this apartment, we see two or three small rooms, in which various committees of members of the council meet. Some of these committees are permanent, some temporary. Of those which are permanent I may name that for receiving all applications for lecturers and deputations to public meetings. ...
In another large room on this floor is the packing department. Here several men are at work making up bales of tracts, each weighing upwards of a hundred weight, and despatching them to all parts of the kingdom for distribution among the electors. From sixty to seventy of these bales are sent off in a week, that is, from three to three and a-half tons of arguments against the Corn Laws!
Leaving this and going to the floor above, we find a great number of printers, presses, folders, stitchers, and others connected with printing, at work. But in addition to the printing and issuing of tracts here, the League has several other printers at work in this and other towns of the Kingdom. Altogether they have twelve master-printers employed, one of whom, in Manchester, pays upwards of £100 a week in wages for League work alone.”***
So there you have it a vivid description of a campaign and its headquarters in the centre of our city.
Pictures; Peterloo, 1819, m01563, Newall’s Buildings, by James Mudd, 1867, m74665 and the interior, 1860, m56387 Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council
* http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Alexander%20Somerville
** Somerville, Alexander, History of the British Legion, and War in Spain,1839
*** Somerville, Alexander, The Whistler at the Plough, 1852, pp. 79-82
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| That earlier campaign in St Peter's Fields, 1819 |
Now I have written about his visit to Chorlton in 1847 and explored his stand against using the military to suprpress the popular agitation for the Reform Bill in 1832.*
And later I guess I will cruise along the Spanish coast relating his time fighting for the British Auxiliary Legion during the Spanish Civil War of 1835-38**
But today I want to go back to his time with the Anti Corn Law League which had been set up in 1836 to campaign for the repeal of the Corn Laws which had been introduced in 1815 as a means of protecting British agriculture, but which was judged by many as responsible for keeping bread prices high and preventing the unfettered reign of Free Trade.
So Alexander took on the job of taking the message into the countryside and arguing the case amongst the farming interests. And it was while he was engaged in this task that he gave us a wonderful description of the headquarters of the Anti Corn Law League here in Manchester. Match this with two pictures from digital collection of Manchester Libraries and we can almost be in the offices sometime at the height of the campaign.
In 1851 it was occupied by a couple of painters, two engravers, a Music school, share broker, the Manchester Library and the Financial and Parliamentary Reform Offices as well as the National Reform Association.
But just a few years earlier it was completely taken over by what Somerville descibed as “at that extraordinary body the Anti-Corn-Law League.”
And so “having a day in Manchester I determined to get a peep. Accordingly at ten o'clock I was in Market Street, a principal thoroughfare in Manchester. A wide open stairway, with shops on each side of its entrance, rises from the level of the pavement, and lands on the first floor of a very extensive house called 'Newall's Buildings'. The house consists of four floors, all of which are occupied by the League, save the basement. We must, therefore, ascend the stair, which is wide enough to admit four or five persons walking abreast.
On reaching a spacious landing, or lobby, we turn to the left, and, entering by a door, see a counter somewhere between forty and fifty feet in length, behind which several men and boys are busily employed, some registering letters in books, some keeping accounts, some folding and addressing newspapers, others going out with messages and parcels. This is the general office, and the number of persons here employed is, at the present time, ten. Beyond this is the Council Room, which, for the present, we shall leave behind and go up stairs to the second floor.
During the day this room is occupied by those who keep the account of cards issued and returned to and from all parts of the kingdom. A professional accountant is retained for this department, and a committee of members of council give him directions and inspect his books. These books are said to be very ingeniously arranged, so as to shew at a glance the value of the cards sent out, their value being represented by certain alphabetical letters and numbers, the names and residences of the parties to whom sent, the amounts of deficiencies of those returned and so on.
Passing from this room we come to another, from which all the correspondence is issued. From this office letters to the amount of several thousands a-day go forth to all parts of the kingdom. While here, I saw letters addressed to all the foreign ambassadors, and all the mayors and provosts of corporate towns of the United Kingdom, inviting them to the great banquet which is to be given in the last week of this month ... In this office copies of all the parliamentary registries of the kingdom are kept, so that any elector's name and residence is at once found, and, if necessary, such elector is communicated with by letter or parcel of tracts, irrespective of the committees in his own district.
Passing from this apartment, we see two or three small rooms, in which various committees of members of the council meet. Some of these committees are permanent, some temporary. Of those which are permanent I may name that for receiving all applications for lecturers and deputations to public meetings. ...
In another large room on this floor is the packing department. Here several men are at work making up bales of tracts, each weighing upwards of a hundred weight, and despatching them to all parts of the kingdom for distribution among the electors. From sixty to seventy of these bales are sent off in a week, that is, from three to three and a-half tons of arguments against the Corn Laws!
Leaving this and going to the floor above, we find a great number of printers, presses, folders, stitchers, and others connected with printing, at work. But in addition to the printing and issuing of tracts here, the League has several other printers at work in this and other towns of the Kingdom. Altogether they have twelve master-printers employed, one of whom, in Manchester, pays upwards of £100 a week in wages for League work alone.”***
So there you have it a vivid description of a campaign and its headquarters in the centre of our city.
Pictures; Peterloo, 1819, m01563, Newall’s Buildings, by James Mudd, 1867, m74665 and the interior, 1860, m56387 Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council
* http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Alexander%20Somerville
** Somerville, Alexander, History of the British Legion, and War in Spain,1839
*** Somerville, Alexander, The Whistler at the Plough, 1852, pp. 79-82
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