‘Extreme measures’
William Benbow, Samuel Bamford’s companion at the Hampden Club meeting in Westminster, had kept a low profile during the month after the incident with the Prince Regent. By the beginning of March, however, he was busy organizing a major new event, in which he asked Bamford to join him. Bamford refused, considering it to be a foolhardy enterprise, ‘our first great absurdity’, which had little hope of success. The plan was for thousands of men to walk to London, carrying kit for the journey including blankets, from which the march and its participants took their names – respectively the Blanket March and the Blanketeers. In London they would present hundreds of signed copies of a petition to the Prince Regent. The maxim of the Hampden Club reformers, as Bamford recalled, was ‘Hold fast by the laws’; with the suspension of Habeas Corpus, it was more vital than ever that this display of mass agitation for parliamentary reform should be legal and peaceful. What worried Bamford, aside from what he saw as the futility and absurdity of this gesture, was the nature of its leaders. He observed that these men, including John Bagguley and his friends John Johnston (a tailor) and Samuel Drummond, ‘had recently come into notice as speakers’ and ‘being in favour of extreme measures, were much listened to and applauded’.1 All three were part of a new breed of labouring-class radical, products, one might say, of the Sunday School system.
Since passing the Gagging Acts, the government had had a list of reformers drawn up for monitoring purposes and possible action. The names of those from Lancashire, including Bagguley, Drummond, Johnston and John Knight, were provided by the spies and informants John Lloyd and William Chippindale. General Sir John Byng, military commander of the district, was abreast of the situation and would be ready to act.
It seems that the idea of a march to London was suggested by George Bradbury during a meeting at Stockport on 10 February 1817, before the Gagging Acts had been passed. The legal viability of the march depended on a little-known law from the reign of Charles II which stipulated that up to ten people could carry a petition, but eleven would be considered a ‘tumultuous assembly’.2 This appeared to restrict any march to ten individuals – but what if thousands were divided into small groups, each carrying a petition?
Bagguley, Drummond, Johnston and Benbow took this idea and ran with it. By Monday 3 March their plan was fully formed. The petition to the Prince Regent, written by Bagguley and Drummond on behalf of the undersigned inhabitants of Manchester, declared:
That your Petitioners before the last War, neither felt nor feared either difficulty or privations; but during its continuance, have frequently experienced both; and have repeatedly applied to your Royal Father, your Royal Highness, and the House of Commons for redress, which applications, we are sorry to say, have in our humble, but firm belief, not received that attention, which their importance merited, so that now, when the waste of war is over, our sufferings are become both more general and deeper than ever.
These ‘sufferings’ were attributed to the rapid increase in taxation and rents, which ‘leave a quantity very far short of being sufficient to keep your Petitioners in existence, and therefore their lives are now become a burden, and a plague to them’. The petitioners argued that if the House of Commons was truly representative of the people at large, then the war would not have been permitted to go on for so long, and the resulting increases in taxation would have been checked accordingly. The Corn Laws, the Law of Libel (‘which subjects the publishers of Truth itself, in some instances, to great pains and penalties, therefore preventing the publication of the most important Truths’) and the bill to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act (‘empowering Ministers to imprison without proof of guilt, whomsoever they please, and for an unknown length of time’) would not have been necessary.
The petitioners therefore called upon the Prince Regent to dismiss the ministers responsible and to appoint, in their stead, men who were genuinely committed to conciliatory measures for parliamentary reform, who would also economize in every department of national expenditure, reducing the burden of taxation. ‘Our lives’, the petitioners declared, ‘are in your hands – our happiness in a great measure depends on you if you procure the adoption of measures calculated to relieve us, you may then safely rely upon our support and gratitude – without this, we can neither support you nor ourselves.’ This petition was reprinted three thousand times and sold to participants at a penny a copy.3
The constitutional nature of the petition was crucial. It drew attention to the people’s grievances, it offered a means by which the grievances could be addressed, and it highlighted the role the Crown was expected to play in resolving the situation. The Prince Regent was put under notice: if he did not respond as the petitioners desired, then he could not be supported, with the implication that the people would then have the right to act as they saw fit. This petition, setting out the causes of popular discontent and the likely effects of any failure to address it, had its echoes in the speeches attributed to Johnston, Knight and Bagguley that were reported to the magistrates by spies and informants.4
Even though the right to petition the throne had been enshrined in the Bill of Rights, it could not be relied upon, especially given the failure of Major Cartwright’s efforts so far. Ignoring or rejecting the demands of the people must have consequences. A few weeks before the Blanketeers’ petition was printed, this was clearly set out by Thomas Wooler in Black Dwarf, a publication John Johnston, at least, is known to have read. ‘You have the right of petitioning, have you?’ Wooler poses. Yet ‘while you possess the right of petitioning, and they possess the right of neglecting your petitions, it is just the same thing as if you had no right at all’. Our ancestors, Wooler reminds his readers, exercised their right to petition the monarch, ‘but then they carried arms in their hands to support them’. The petition was only the first step, the second was the determination to enforce it. He offers some historical perspective to support his point: the circumstances that led to the Barons’ War (1215–17) straddling the reigns of King John and Henry III of England, and the Civil Wars and Glorious Revolution of the seventeenth century. ‘Would petitioning have ever obtained the constitution?’ he asks. ‘How then can petitioning be expected to preserve it. Was John petitioned to sign Magna Charta [sic]: Was Charles petitioned to lay down his head upon the block: – was James petitioned to abdicate his throne? Or was William petitioned to accept the Bill of Rights? No! No!’ He concludes that ‘the right of petitioning with our ancestors meant the right of laying their grievances before the highest authority, and demanding, or ENFORCING an attention to their wrongs.’5 For publishing this article, Wooler was arrested, not for the first nor the last time, for seditious libel.
John Bagguley and his companions had clearly taken such arguments to heart, in a step away from the peaceful petitioning advocated by Major Cartwright and the Hampden Club founders. As Bamford recalled, the new stance appealed to their growing audiences and body of followers. In fact, the relentless rejection of the people’s petitions lent increasing legitimacy to alternative forms of mass action.
By early 1817 Bagguley was regularly speaking to thousands of fellow working men at Bibby’s Rooms, the upper floor or garrets of an old spinning shed in New Islington, Manchester, accompanied by Samuel Drummond and John Johnston. As described by one attendee, John Livesey, a coach proprietor in Turner Street in Manchester, ‘a small part of the Room at one end is occupied by Looms… There was a Table by way of Hustings* and a Bench as a seat on which People got up to speak.’ The room itself was ‘near 50 Yards long and 9 Yards wide’ and, in Livesey’s words, invariably ‘very crowded’.6 During the period before the suspension of Habeas Corpus, Bagguley and his companions had been using language more radical in both tone and content, and this continued, according to the spies, even after that legal protection had been removed. It is impossible that Bagguley et al were unaware that they were being regularly watched and reported on; evidently, they either courted danger or had come to disregard it.
John Livesey was also present at a preparatory meeting, held on St Peter’s Field at midday on Monday 3 March, to make plans for the journey to London. Livesey’s testimony gives some sense of the manner in which these meetings were organized, as well as the rhetoric used. He says that Samuel Drummond, alongside Bagguley on the hustings, ‘appeared to be rather intoxicated and principally spoke against the Police’. It appears that Bradbury, who had suggested the march in the first place, ‘was drunk also’.7 (It is not clear whether Livesey means that they were literally ‘in liquor’ or, given the occasion, euphoric.) Bagguley rose to his feet and declaimed, ‘Gentlemen you have met here different times, and what you have resolved will have no effect, therefore I think it is high time to come to a determination. I now propose that you meet here at 9 o’clock on Monday morning this day week, in order to go to London with your Petitions… as many of you as are willing to undertake this journey.’ He requested the gathering to ‘signify the same by holding up your hands’, and the majority did so to loud cheers. To test their resolve, Bagguley proceeded to set out the difficulties facing the marchers. The spring weather was decidedly inclement. And what of their loved ones? ‘Can you leave your Wives and Children and tear yourselves from all Friends to go and claim those Rights your Ancestors got for you?’ He paused, looking around, and continued, ‘I say will you turn back when you go to Stockport or when you come to face those high and cold Hills in Derbyshire?’ This met with the universal response of, ‘No, No’, Bagguley then asked: ‘will you stick fast to your Leaders?’ Came the answer, ‘We will, We will.’
Bagguley paused again, pleased and encouraged by the response. So, he went on, ‘you must bring each of you a Blanket, you must consider it will take each of you 6 days to go, and your Number will be too great for any accommodation on the Road. Therefore you must expect to be down on the ground at Nights.’ He stressed that they must keep within their designated teams of ten to stay within the law. He then moved on to the issue of loss of earnings for those on the march: ‘Now, are you willing for those that can earn 10 shillings per week to give five shillings of that money to his Wife and family while he is away (Cries from all sides Yes, Yes).’ Above all, Bagguley emphasized, ‘conduct yourselves peaceably and show an example to the Police Fiends… We do nothing to be afraid of. We come out in the open air. We have nothing to say, but so that every one may hear.’ He ended his speech triumphantly, ‘’Tis Liberty we will have.’8
When the meeting resumed after an adjournment, a Mr Pilkington objected to the plans that had been agreed earlier, pointing out the obvious difficulties arising from the weather conditions, while doubting that sustenance and shelter for thousands of men could be guaranteed over the entire 150-mile journey. But he was shouted down with cries of ‘off with him!’ Livesey believed the speaker made himself unpopular by presenting the undertaking in ‘too black a character’.9 William Benbow then stood up and said that ‘if every man came forward to the Public meeting on Monday next, with the same true English Heart as he had, he was bold enough to say, they would be free in another month, for he was determined to be free or lose his life in the attempt’. This was followed by three loud hurrahs.10
Bagguley spoke next, to cries of ‘Baguley [sic] for ever’!11 He declared that he was a reformer, a republican and leveller,† and that he would ‘never give it up till we have establish’d a Republican Government’.12 At this declaration the other speakers, fearing accusations of sedition, attempted to check him. In response, Bagguley ‘turn’d the Oration’, saying that he wanted his rights and his liberty ‘and on these grounds he called himself a Republican & Leveller’.13
Bagguley went on to describe spies – some of which were present in the room – ‘in the blackest terms’. He then turned his fire on the corruption ‘of those infernal diabolical fiends of Hell’, meaning the government, including Lord Castlereagh, whom he termed the ‘Murderer’, a reference to the brutal quelling of the Irish rising of 1798. He exhorted the gathering to be firm, and echoed Benbow’s phrase, ‘I am determined to be free or die in the attempt.’ However, should the leaders be arrested during the march, he asked those present to ‘come forward and rescue us’. This was greeted with more loud cheers: ‘we will, we will!’14
By 6 March the resolution to keep the peace seems to have weakened. Johnston, Bagguley and another of their comrades, Joseph Mitchell from Liverpool, were once again holding a programme of meetings at Bibby’s Rooms to garner support. John Livesey was in the audience. Johnston stood up and commenced his address: ‘Gentlemen if you set off from Manchester in the way proposed you will not get 3 Miles without an attempt to stop you.’ Surrounded by the police and perhaps soldiers, the marchers would be easy prey, – ‘if’, that is, ‘you have nothing but your open hands [long and significant pause] you may rest assured it will be the Case so look for nothing else.’ The implication, in Livesey’s recollection at least, was that the marchers should come armed.15
John Bagguley, the star speaker, then rose to his feet: ‘Gentlemen I think it necessary to say something to our observers, Police Hirelings who are come here to pick up any thing they can – I would not have them to tell no lies – there were two of them kept an eye on me & my Friend to day & seem’d to pursue us.’ Bagguley proceeded to describe how he and his companion outran the ‘hirelings’ because ‘our Legs was longer than theirs!’16 Laughter followed. Bagguley then underlined the need for the march to be conducted in an orderly fashion, and for the marchers to organize themselves in groups of ten: ‘I wish you to be ruled by Constitutional Laws or I will not go a yard with you.’ He appealed to the men to ‘bear each others Burden as well as you can by Keeping one regular mode of Conduct & be like the Egyptians in the Wilderness and their noble Leader: I mean Moses – who was determined to hazard all hardship that might befall them.’ (This analogy of the Old Testament prophet leading the Israelites out of slavery was typical of the biblical references with which Bagguley and Drummond scattered their speeches.) Would they turn back if there was a ‘Hail Storm or Rain’? Once again there came cries of ‘no We will not!’ Bagguley assured them, ‘I will go with you & stick while a drop of Blood will circulate in these Veins.’ As he said this he stretched out one arm theatrically, to wild cheering and applause.17 Bagguley reminded the thousands gathered that the scriptures state ‘do not kill – Remember this and also do not steal.’ Finally, ‘When you have got your liberty be not so ready to applaud for you must keep Equality in your minds and consider yourselves equal to any one – The King is but a Man and you are Men.’18
On the evening of the 8 March, two days prior to the great event, another meeting was held at Bibby’s Rooms, with the local spinner from Houldsworth mill, Elijah Dixon, in the chair.19 Around two thousand people were recorded as being present, all gathered, as on the previous occasions, after a long day’s labour. Bagguley, the popular hero, spoke again, offering a few last pieces of advice for the marchers. Given the weather, he advised that they should come in their warmest clothes. If anyone had two pairs of shoes, he might consider lending one pair to a fellow marcher who had none, or ‘if any one hath 2 Coats he will let his Friends have one’. This is a poignant indication of the poverty of many of the participants. Bagguley reminded them that they were to gather in groups of ten, each of which would carry a petition signed by twenty neighbours: ‘you must wrap it up in a piece of Brown Paper and tie it round your right arm with a bow of white tape and come with your things on your back with your 10th man being the chosen man with the Petition on his right arm.’ Finally, ‘You must shew great Fortitude and I exhort you to be steady & quiet.’20
A man from the crowd then advanced towards the front of the room, saying he was from Middleton and that many of his neighbours and fellow townsfolk would be joining the march on Monday. He then said in a hostile manner, ‘England expects every Man to do his Duty.’‡ Immediately the chairman stood up and told the gathering, ‘I do not know what the man means by saying England expects every man to do his Duty – it appears to me that there is some fighting meaning in this.’ The crowd shouted in response, ‘No, No. No!’21
The spies and informants standing among the crowd, of course, relayed everything to local magistrates, including the Reverend Charles Ethelston. Anxious at what they reported, Manchester’s stipendiary magistrate, William Evans, wrote by express to warn Lord Sidmouth of ‘a very serious & general Rising of disaffected Persons’ either on Sunday evening or, more likely, Monday morning. Evans believed that ‘there is sufficient Material to support a judicial charge against several of the Persons, with whose names your Lordship is already familiar, of high treason, with conspiring to levy War, not the least of the very high Misdemeanours, to promote sedition.’ Evans and his fellow magistrates requested that someone be sent from London, of Lord Sidmouth’s choosing, to direct proceedings, ‘as they consider the importance of the occasion to be much greater than they are individually competent to provide for’. The magistrates were to meet at the Manchester barracks at 7 p.m. on Sunday, with all the depositions, including Livesey’s, outlining the arrangements for the proposed gathering on St Peter’s Field and the march to London. At the direction of his fellow magistrates, William Evans had also written to General Byng, requesting his personal attendance along with ‘the assistance of [as] large a Military Force as can be conveniently supplied, & applications are also made for the assistance of the Cheshire Yeomanry’. Evans concludes his message to Lord Sidmouth by naming the ‘Persons’ he had earlier referred to as Benbow, Mitchell, Johnston and Knight.22
According to Samuel Bamford, the night before the march, some ‘friends’ in Middleton asked him to attend a meeting and give his opinion on the planned march to London. He offered many reasons why he considered the march to be extremely ill-advised, not least the fact that, with only blankets to protect them, the cold and wet ‘would kill a number of you, who perhaps have not had any thing like a belly full of meat these many weeks… you would be frozen still directly’.23 There was also the risk of infiltration by enemies of reform, ‘who may be hired to bring the cause into disgrace and you to destruction’.24 Once the marchers were denounced as robbers and rebels, the military would inevitably be sent in ‘to cut them down or take them prisoners’. Above all, Bamford repeated his belief that the individuals leading this march could not be depended upon: ‘their blind zeal over-ran every reasonable consideration’.25 Years later, Samuel Bamford declared proudly that no one from his home town had attended the march, a statement that calls into question the story of the unnamed individual at Bibby’s Rooms who claimed to be one of many Middleton men keen to join it and ‘do his duty’.
It is clear that Bamford’s opinion was sought on the eve of the march because he was considered a leader among the Middleton reformers, but the purpose is less clear. The discussion may have been an honest one, but it might also have been a contrivance designed to trap him into making compromising statements – or even a final attempt to persuade him to join the marchers, with the inevitable consequence of arrest and imprisonment. But, despite the provocation, Bamford remained resolutely aloof from the entire enterprise. Given his reputation as a leading local radical, however, it remained to be seen whether this would save him from any repercussions.
* Hustings: the temporary platform from which a speaker addressed a crowd, and, more specifically, where the nomination of candidates for Parliament was made and where the candidate addressed the electorate. See OED.
† At the time of the Civil War, the Levellers had demanded social reform, religious freedom and the abolition of the monarchy.
‡ This alludes to Lord Nelson’s famous signal to his men before the battle of Trafalgar.