Corn Law Home Page Family History Social and Political 28 March 2007
Impact on William Nichols
Due to fierce competition from cheap imported foreign corn in the early 19th century, wealthy and influential gentlemen farmers had lobbied the ruling parliamentary party, the Tories, to prohibit their import by the imposition of Corn Laws in 1815. With this monopoly in place, British corn rose to prohibitive prices, making it impossible for the poor to buy bread.
The Corn Laws were seen by ordinary people as a symbol of the dominant ruling aristocracy's feudal power over them, and of the suppliers' unashamed self interest, at the cost of their staple food. Protests by Lancashire mill-workers at the imposition of such severe measures soon grew. (Note the repeal of these laws, however, had a major negative effect, at least in the short term, on farm workers - see William Nichols {Graham Tall})
The
‘Declaration of the Sheffield Mechanics' Anti-Bread-Tax Society.’
From: http://www.judandk.force9.co.uk/SouthCLR.htm
“Convinced that the mechanics are the only body of men in this country sufficiently independent to oppose, with any chance of success, the host of corruptionists who are feeding on our labour, and, at the same time, limiting the market for our productions; trusting also that we shall speedily be joined by every wise and good mechanic in the empire, and Supported by the yet undebased portion of the middle class of our countrymen, if any such there be, - We, the Sheffield Mechanics' Anti-Bread-Tax Society, declare, that, in a fully-peopled country, it is an act of national suicide to restrict the exchange of manufactured goods for corn, because, where there is a law which restricts the necessaries and comforts of life, profits and wages, being no where worth more than the necessaries and comforts which they will purchase, are demonstrably measured by the restriction; - That the present Cornlaw, while it enables a few thousand landed annuitants to convert the general loss into a temporary but ultimately fatal gain to themselves, is destructive of everything which is valuable to us as men; and that, while that law, and the will and power to alter it for the worse, continue as they are, no reduction of taxation, how extensive so ever, can be other than a mere transfer of a certain amount of the public money from the government to the landlords. We therefore further declare, That, as we cannot escape from the consequences of the Cornlaw, (except by causing it to be repealed, or by emigrating with our heart-broken wives and children) we will, by all the legal means in our power, oppose the horrible anti-profit law, alias Cornlaw; and never remit in our exertions until the monopoly of the first necessary of life be utterly destroyed. The case of our oppressors, as stated by themselves, furnishes unanswerable reasons why we ought no longer to maintain them in their present character of palaced paupers. They say they cannot live without alms. If the assertion be true, why do they not go to the workhouse for their pay as other paupers do? If it be not true, why are they not sent to the tread-mill for obtaining money under false pretences? These questions suggest two others. We, however, insist not yet on compensation for the past.”
JOHN CARR, Secretary. Pp. 55, 56
The main poem in the “Corn Law Rhymes” is “The Ranter” which is 16 pages long & is of a good standard. The Ranter character, Miles Gordon, was based on Mr Blytheman, a Primitive Methodist preacher. Miles Gordon is a poor labourer & a fiery preacher who protests about a society which supports “Alms for the rich! - a bread-tax for the poor!” He denounces the complacency of the church: millions are starving because of the Bread Tax, but the church inhumanely supports the Corn Law. There is room however for some optimism:-
Poor bread-tax’d slaves, have
ye no hope on earth?
Yes, God from evil still educes good;
Sublime events are rushing to their birth;
Lo, tyrants by their victims are withstood!
And Freedom’s seed still grows, though steep’d in blood!
Ebenezer Elliott (1781
- 1849) Corn Law Rhymer & Poet of the Poor
In September 1838, mill owners and local politicians joined protesters in the formation of an Anti-Corn Law League, at the York Hotel in King Street, Manchester, with George Wilson as its chairman. Support grew so fast that a temporary wooden hall was built in St Peters Street to hold protest meetings - it became known as the Free Trade Hall. Later a stone building replaced this original wooden one. Two major figures emerged as leaders of the Anti-Corn Law movement, Richard Cobden, a Bolton calico manufacturer, and John Bright, a Rochdale mill -owner and a Quaker. Cobden and Bright, both persuasive orators with powerful local backing, (including Archibald Prentice, radical editor of the Manchester Times newspaper), succeeded in getting elected to parliament, (Cobden - MP for Stockport in 1841) where they constantly lobbied and harassed the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel (born in Bury). Peel, under severe pressure from the League and its growing band of ever more powerful supporters, repealed the Corn Laws in 1846, thereby splitting the Tory party, and effectively ending his own political career in the process. Manchester would, henceforth be associated with the principle of Free Trade. The Free Trade Hall, the third and now a fine permanent stone building, was built later as a monument to honour the Manchester movement.
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