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RichardB

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1814 .. Sheffield Mercantile and Manufacturing Union

The master cutlers were allowed, with impunity, to subscribe to the Sheffield Mercantile and Manufacturing Union, which fixed the rates of wages, and brought pressure to bear on recalcitrant employers, the numerous trade clubs of the operatives were not left unmolested.

In 1816 seven scissor-grinders were sentenced to three months' imprisonment for belonging to what they called the

"Misfortune Club"

which paid out-of-work benefits, and sought to maintain the customary rates.

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"Misfortune Club"

Sheffield Iris, December 17th 1816

The men's clubs ofted existed under the cloak of friendly societies.

In the overseers' return of sick clubs, made to Parliament in 1815, the following trade friendly societies are included, many of these, at any rate, being essentially Trade Unions :

Tailors with 360 members and £740

Braziers " 664 " £1768

Masons " 693 " £1852

Scissorsmiths " 550 " £1309

Filesmiths " 260 " £600

United Silversmiths " 240 " £299

Cutlers " 65 " £450

Grinders " 283 " £?

Sheffield Iris, 1851.

--------------

Why so few cutlers ? RAB

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An illustration of brotherly help in need occurs in the account of an appeal to the Pontefract Quarter Sessions by certain Sheffield cutlers against their conviction for combination :

"The appellants were in court, but hour after hour passed, and no counsel moved the case. The reason was a want of funds for the purpose. At last, whilst in court, a remittance from the clubs in Manchester, to the amount of £100, arrived, and then the counsel was fee'd, and the case, which, but for the arrival of the money from this town, must have dropped in that stage, was proceeded with".

Manchester Exchange Herald, circa 1818.

-----------

Wonder how they got on ?

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In 1820 a public meeting of the ratepayers of Sheffield protested against the

"evil of parish pay to supplement earnings"

and recommended employers to revert to the uniform price list which the men had gained in 1810.

----------

Proceedings at a public Meeting of the Inhabitants of the Township of Sheffield, held at the Town Hall, March 15th, 1820 (16 pp.).

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The Sheffield operatives have to be warned that, if they persist in demanding double the former wages for only three days a week work, the whole industry of the town will be ruined.

Sheffield Iris, April 2nd 1825

-------

Nice work; if you can get it ...

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A provincial newspaper remarked

"it is no longer a particular class of journeymen at some single point that have been induced to commence a strike for an advance of wages, but almost the whole body of mechanics in the kingdom are combined in the general resolution to impose terms on thir employers"

Sheffield Mercury October 8th 1825

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Trades which had not yet enjoyed permanent combinations began to organise in the expectation of raising their wages to the level of their more fortunate brethren.

The Sheffield shop assistants combined to petition for early closing.

------------

Sheffield Iris September 27th 1825.

[background information; not rattening as such...]

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Such is the rage for union societies reports the Sheffield Iris of July 12th 1825 that the sea apprentices in Sunderland have actually had regular meetings every day last week on the moor, and have resolved not to go on board their ships unless the owners will allow them tea and sugar.

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Flint Glass Makers' Magazine - October 1851

The years 1847-48 had witnessed many strikingly vindictive prosecutions of Trade Unionists.

Twenty-one stonemasons of London were indicted in 1848 for conspiracy, but, after repeated postponements, the prosecuting employer failed to proceed with the case.

The Sheffield razor-grinders stood in greater jeopardy. John Drury, and three other members of thier society, were tried and sentenced to the years transportation at the instance of the Sheffield Manufacturers' Protection Association on the random accusations of two dissolte convicts that they had incited them to destroy machinery. This monstrous perversion of justice aroused the greatest indignation. Public meetings were held by the National Association of United Trades. The indictment was quashed on a technical point, but, a new one was immediately preferred against the defendants.

The local feeling was, however, so great that thy were finally, after a years suspense, released on their own recognisances (July 12th 1849).

A Sheffield Trade Unionist declared that

"the tyranny of the employers had been so great in perverting the local administration of the law that the men laid their grievances before the Government. Sir George Grey ordered an inquiry ...

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Professor Beesly - The Sheffield Outrages and the Meeting at Exeter Hall (1867)

Richard Congreve - Mr Broadhead and the Anonymous Press (1867)

----------------

No, nor me ...

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The Sheffield Outrages and the Royal Commission produced a large crop of literature, most of which is of little value.

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Trades Union Congress at Sheffield, just before the General Election of 1874, claimed to represent over 1,100,000 "independent candidates".

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The Workers' Committee, an Outline of its Principles and Structures - J T Murphy (1918)

Compromise of Independence, an Examination of the Whitley Report - J T Murphy (1918)

both published by the Sheffield Workers' Committee.

------------------

Nope, nor me ...

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The Workers' Committee, an Outline of its Principles and Structures - J T Murphy (1918)

Compromise of Independence, an Examination of the Whitley Report - J T Murphy (1918)

both published by the Sheffield Workers' Committee.

------------------

Nope, nor me ...

You know you want to, really lol

The Workers' Committee, an Outline of its Principles and Structures - J T Murphy

Some interesting items in the "books to read" section at the end: Ibsen, Mill, Whitman!

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Guest zill

Thomas Fearnehough (aged 50 in 1867)

[Chairman] Have you been in the habit of absenting yourself from your work and your family for a week at a time, drinking ?

[Fearnehough] I have done so; I ought to tell the truth, I have, I believe.

[Chairman] Have you been in the habit of stopping out from your family and passing the night in debauchery ?

[Fearnehough] I believe I have been out once of twice, but I have not been in a house of that description.

{Chairman] Has it been drinking then ?

[Fearnehough] Yes.

---------------

18th June 1867

I am new to this site today! Is it possible to scan in the info from this day's (18 June 1867) paper in addition to the other items? Many thanks

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This article first appeared in the Transactions of the Hunter Archaeological Society, and is reproduced here by kind permission of the Society.

(Footnotes appear in their original position in the text)

THE ETHICS OF THE SHEFFIELD OUTRAGES.

By S. POLLARD.

WHEN the Commissioners of Enquiry rose in Sheffield on the 8th of July, 1867, they had not only succeeded in placing the responsibility for the outrages squarely on the shoulders of some of the trade unions, but had also, incidentally, with the help of their generous powers of legal indemnity and their inquisitorial skill, completed a work of social investigation of unusual depth. Yet most of the lessons were lost on contemporaries. The organs of public opinion in particular, blinded by prejudice or myopic by opportunism, diverted the conclusions drawn from the enquiry to erring channels from which they can be rescued only with difficulty even now.
It was axiomatic in 1867 that the agents of the trade union violence in Sheffield were criminals, fundamentally in conflict with the tenets of civilized society. Extenuating circumstances might be found by sympathetic minds, but all critics agreed that Broadhead and his associates had been guilty of violating not only the Criminal Law, but the basic laws of social conduct and morality as well. It is in those terms, and in those terms only, that the history of the Sheffield outrages was written.

This attitude extended, beyond official Conservative and Liberal opinion, to the organized Trade Union world itself. The unions were, in 1867, in the midst of a major crisis: with their funds threatened by the Hornby vs. Close decision, their legality uncertain, their actions restricted by unfavourable legal decisions, their status inferior under Master and Servant regulations and their very existence put in question before the Royal Commission, they were desperately trying to create a public impres­sion of rectitude, respectability and support for the liberal principle of freedom of the market, which was held, indeed, with unreserved fervour by the leaders of the Model Unions.

The violence and restrictionism of the Sheffield societies could not have been uncovered at a less propitious time for them. The “Junta" of the Model Unions, the L.W.M.A. of George Potter, and the United Kingdom alliance of Organized Trades (led by the non-compromised Sheffield unions), though scarcely on speaking terms with each other, were unanimous in condemning the Sheffield outrages. The Times and the Beehive agreed for once in deploring the indemnity given to Broadhead, Crookes and the rest. [1]

This purely criminal judgment, supported by Left and Right, has persisted into our own day.[2] Explanations were not lacking to show why

Notes

[1] Beehive, 29th June, 1867; Times, 21st June, 1867

[2] The judgment of the "Junta" will be erased from the textbooks only with difficulty; see, e.g, S. and B. Webb, History of Trade Unionism, 1920, pp. 260-9; G, Howell, . Labour Legislation, Labour Movement, Labour Leaders, 1912, pp. 159-160; G. D. H. Cole, Short History of the British Working Class Movement, 1927, Vol.2, p. 97.

the Sheffield grinding and other cutlery trades should have deviated from the orderly progress of British trade unionism. The lethal nature of their occupations was stressed, particularly grinding, which made men, in the words of Canon Sale, the Vicar of Sheffield, prefer a "short life and a merry one"; and the intermittent work and high wages, which allowed the indulgence in the second half of that maxim. The widespread practice of 'rattening"-the removal or destruction of the tools of defaulting union members would prepare the minds of men to more violent means of enforcing union rules.

These occupational influences were exerted within the tissues of an urban society with scarcely a trace of civic sense, expanding amid the struggles of small masters, uncontrolled building speculators and unruly apprentices brought in from the "wild" villages of Derbyshire. The large manufacturers, the repositories of the civic virtues of the mid-century, were intimidated by the strong trade societies of their own men, and their position was undermined by struggling little masters without capital. It seemed natural that a soil so richly prepared and sown should bring forth the crop of crimes against persons and property uncovered by the Com­mission. [3]

This simple view, however, failed to account for all the facts. Even in 1867 it was believed with less conviction the closer Sheffield was approached.

The Sheffield Independent itself, the old-established organ of the Radical small masters and artisans of the town, continued to feel uneasy within its definitions, though it was unable to free itself from the meshes of the ruling philosophy, [4] while learned treatises on the psychology of William Broadhead were equally unsatisfactory. The problem was social and not individual, but it could not be solved within the framework of Victorian middle-class morality and at the current level of social investiga­tion.

Since then we have become more resigned to the view that moral codes differ, like the social systems which give rise to them. Anthropologists, unhindered by prejudices against the societies they study, have made it clear that difference does not necessarily imply inferiority.

On another front of social science, the importance of the group as determining the standard of behaviour, frequently with little reference to the outside world, has become clear for all types of societies. It is within these two assumptions that the attempt has been made to obtain a juster view of the Sheffield outrages.

Notes

[3]
Beehive,

loc. cit.; P. H. Rathbone,
Moral
of
the Sheffield Outrages,
in the Report of the "National Association for the Promotion of the Social Sciences", 1867, p. 692, and a longer report in: the
Sheffield Independent, 26th
September, 1367.

[4 ] The chagrin felt by its editor at the credit given to his rival, W, C. Leng, of the Conservative Sheffield Telegraph over the confessions is not sufficient to explain his ` misgivings which were evident long before the opening of the Enquiry.

One of the
post factum
assumptions made to support the crime theory of Sheffield Unionism was a tradition of violence and lawlessness in Hallam­shire which found its natural culmination in the trade outrages.
From the well-known remark by Charles Wesley that the mobs of Cardiff, Moorfields and Walsall were as lambs compared with Sheffield mobs in the 18th century, over the riots in the last years of the Napoleonic Wars to the intercepted Chartist rising in January, 1840, there appeared to be a continuous chain of violence in Sheffield for which, not unnaturally, the men in the cutlery trades must take a large share of the blame.
Lack of space forbids a closer study of the evidence for this view, but even a cursory examination will reveal its inadequacy. The major trade disputes in the 1790's and in 1810-14 were resolved peacefully and in an orderly manner, and the Luddite outbreaks of 1811-17 passed Sheffield by altogether. On the other hand, Sheffield artisans played a leading part in the "Society for Constitutional Information" and other Radical groups in 1790-2, and again flocked to the banner of the "Political Protestants" in 1819-23, making. common cause in both cases with the small masters typical of the local trades from whom, indeed, they were divided by no great gulf.
The isolated outbreaks of 1791 and 1812, in no way connected with the cutlery trades, cannot invalidate the general picture of a politically mature and well-organized class of working men, taking a respected place in a ' remarkably homogeneous society, similar in structure to that of Birmingham
[5]
with its well-known reputation of lawful moderation.
In the years of Chartist agitation support for the principles of the Charter was as general among the Sheffield trades as among the Birmingham artisans and small masters. In Sheffield, too, Chartism was largely averse to the more violent forms of agitation, to the chagrin of the National Convention and the satisfaction of the local Magistrates,
[6]
and remained
Notes
[5]
Such experienced observers as T. A. Ward and Robert Leader thought Sheffield more orderly than most towns: T. A. Ward,
Peeps into the Past,
1909, pp. 163, 242, 245­
;
R. E. Leader,
Sheffield in the Eighteenth Century,
1901, pp, 43-4, 52
;
cf. also A. McPhee,
Growth
of
the Cutlery Trades to
1814
(typescript), pp. 53-6; A, Aspinall,
Early Trade Unions,
1949, p. 4; J
.
L. and B. Hammond,
The Skilled Labourer, 1760-1832,
1919, pp. 309, 357; R. F. Wearmouth,
Methodism and the Working Class Movement,
1937, pp. 35-41:
Beehive,
15th June, 1867; F. O. Darvall,
Popular Disturbances in Regency England,
1934, pp. 121, 160.
[6]
Sheffield Independent, 4th
May,
1839,
and letter from H. Parker to Normanby (H.0./ 51, 29.5.1839): "to the credit of the working classes the itinerants were not attended by more than
2
or 300 persons including the Party from Rotherham and bogs . .. the Magistrates, my Lord, have every reason to hope that the tranquility and good order which now Prevails will not be further interrupted . . . the working- classes of Sheffield and neighbourhood are better circumstanced in respect of wages than any corresponding town in the Kingdom . . . ' Cf. also his letter of 7.12.1839.The common assumption that distress was lighter because masters preferred to spread the work rather than discharge their men is borne out strikingly by the statistics printed for the Queen's Distress Fund, 1843 (H.O. 40/59) :

peaceful despite the restrictive provocations of the local Authorities, egged on by an impatient Home Office.[7]

The abortive armed rising of 11th-12th January, 1840, was led by recent immigrants, largely Irish, and by agents provocateurs, after all the local leaders had been arrested or had emigrated.[8]

The trade union secretaries themselves, including William Broadhead, were opposed to the adherence of unions as such to Chartism. After the fiasco of 1841-2, when Chartism fell increasingly under the spell of Feargus O’Connor, a man of essentially agricultural background, the union members were easily diverted by their officials from adhering to the National Charter Association, [9] though their unflagging support for manhood suffrage and the other principles of the Charter continued.

The apparent paradox is explained by the fact, itself of the utmost importance for the thesis of this paper, that large numbers of the Sheffield unionists possessed a vote and were likely, in the course of their working lives, to reach more than once the position of little masters, so that, at times, even union committees were composed largely of masters. [10]

To the majority of Sheffield artisans, therefore, suffrage for working men seemed as self­-evident, a natural consequence of previous reforms, as some of the forms which Chartism took seemed unfortunate. They followed to the number of 20,000 the coffin of Samuel Holberry, one of the leaders of the armed rising who had died in prison; they thronged Paradise Square in 1848 in support of the European Revolutions and of resurrected British Chartism, 1,600 electors signed a requisition calling on the sitting members for the Borough to resign, and a Chartist candidate for the next election was adopted.

At least five Town Councillors were in active sympathy with the objects of the Charter in 1848, and a motion for the provisions of the Charter was introduced annually into the Council Chamber, and passed at least once by the majority. [11]

Throughout the 'fifties such well-known Chartists as Ernest Jones, G. J. Harney, Thomas Cooper; Henry Vincent and J. J. Bezer could always be sure of a large and sympathetic audience when their lecture tours took them to Sheffield.

Notes

[7] Cf. H.O. 40/51,esp. letters from magistrates 14.5.1339, 20.7.1839, 24.7.1839, 26.7.1839, 14.8.1839, 14.9.1839, and Raynor's evidence 16.8.1839. Also local Press for the summer of 1839.

[8] Sheffield Iris, 1st October, 1839; Sheffield Mercury, 5th October 1839; Sheffield Independent, lst March, 11th March, 1864, passim; R. F. Wearmouth, op. cit., pp. 44; 139, 146, and his Working Class Movements, 1948, pp. 118, 202-3,

[9]

Sheffield Independent,
5th June, 1841; letter in
Sheffield
Iris, 22nd June, 1841; report of the Rev. Verity's Lecture in the
Independent,
15th July, 1862; Frank H. Hill,
Trades' Societies and Strikes
(Nat. Assn. Prom. Social Sciences), 1860, p. 541.

[10] Sheffield Independent, 2nd March, 1844:

[11] In 1851, J. M. Furness, Record of Municipal Affairs 1893, 8th October, 1851. The Petition sent up to Parliament asked for Manhood Suffrage, Voting by Ballot, Triennial Parliaments, No Property Qualification for Members, and Equal Electoral Districts. Cf. also T. A. Ward, pp. 203, 234; Life and Letters of A. J. Roebuck, p. 220; Chapters in the Political History of Sheffield, 1832-1849, 1884, pp. 47, 61; la Sheffield Annual Register, 10th April, 10th May, 30th May, 6th June 1848, 6th, 13th, 16th, 30th April, 1849; Sheffield Iris, 16th, 23rd, 30th March, 13th, 20th April, 1848.

The picture emerges of an artisan class which was responsible and experienced in its political actions and generally averse to violence. In trade matters it was well organized and ably led, with a tradition reaching back beyond the period of the Combination Acts. And yet these apparently moderate and mature workmen committed a series of appalling trade outrages in the same period.[12] The difference cannot be accidental and demands an explanation.

A more balanced view of the Sheffield workman will also have to question the common assertion that the background of the Derbyshire villages, the population reservoir of Sheffield, could account for the violence shown in trade matters. A series of articles on Sheffield published in the Beehive in June-July, 1867, for example, accounted for the "barbarism", the "dogged spirit, impassive activity and even violence" of the apprentices and serving girls by their origin in the "lone hamlets" of Derbyshire, the "most Saxon county of England".

The large immigration into Sheffield from the surrounding villages is too well attested by contemporaries to need statistical proof. Allowing for the usual margins of error, the available returns, however, show an immigration smaller in volume and spread far wider than Derbyshire than contemporary accounts would lead us to believe.

According to the Census of 1861, of a total population of 185,172 in the Borough of Sheffield, 75.5% were born in the County of York. The birthplaces of the rest of the population may be summarized as follows

(figures for 1851 in brackets)

Derbyshire........................................................5.6% (6.2%)

Nottinghamshire and lincs.................................5.9% (4.2)

Warks. Staffs. & Lancs.......................................3.7% (2.8)

London, Scotland & Ireland................................4.9% (4.8)

Other Areas.........................................................4.4% (3.0)

The immigrants from Derbyshire, of whom nearly half were women, were less numerous than the more recent immigrants from the iron working counties, and were too few to have had a decisive influence on the character of the Sheffield trades, even if the unknown number of immigrants from similar Yorkshire villages be added. It should also be remembered that the large immigration from the Peak mining area into Lancashire in the 1830's[13] is not known to have been accompanied by a marked deterioration in the manners or morals of the reception areas.

Notes

[12] For the summaries see Sheffield Independent, 2nd July, 1867, and F. Engels, Condition of the Working Classes in 1844, 1892 ed., p. 220; the outrages of 1859-61 were listed in detail by the Commission of Enquiry in its Report.

[13] A. Redford, Labour Migration in England, 1926, p. 55

The theory ascribing to the Sheffield workman a peculiar propensity to violence[14] must be accepted with a great deal of reserve. His trade societies were clearly no model unions; but it would be equally, wrong to compare him with starving handicraftsmen displaced by machinery, or with the underpaid tailors, cobblers and joiners who fought on the barricades in the revolutions of the mid-century.

Economic conditions in the Sheffield trades in the mid-nineteenth century were highly favourable to a close union control of industrial activities and to the development of a narrow group morality. The factors responsible for the extraordinary hold which the typical Sheffield union had over its members have often been described and need only be summarized here.

The absence of external competition particularly in the middle third of the century, made athe position of a well-organized Sheffield union almost impregnable. Wages could not be undercut, or compared, elsewhere.Blacklegs could not be brought in in disputes, nor could capital be sent out, for the skill needed was real and could only be trained in Sheffield, even if the raw material used, high quality steel, could have been produced elsewhere. Sheffield men never travelled in search of jobs-their union secretary was usually the only employment agency available.

Capital played a relatively minor part in the Sheffield productions, and skill and experience were all-important. There was thus a continuous threat to the established manufacturers from below, by men who set up as "little masters", particularly in depression periods, and offered to under­cut the large firms by driving themselves and their underpaid men, or by genuine ability and initiative. At the same time the small masters were recognized as inimical to Sheffield's standards of quality, morality and wages; and the unions frequently combined with the large manufacturers against them. The journeymen could thus play off the two types of masters against each other. In the peculiar working conditions of the town, where men rented their own "side" (work-bench) or "trough" (grinding power) and supplied many of their own tools, it had also become customary for them to do work for outside firms, even if employed mainly by the owner of the "wheel"; while outside workers, hiring troughs or sides from steam engine proprietors who were not manufacturers, found it natural to accept work from a number of different masters at the same time. Few men had to depend on a single master.

While there were few large firms or powerful employers, the union secretaries could nevertheless count on such force of group psychology and

Notes

[14] Letter by “From the Mountain” in the Independent, 14th December 1861: “there is a scratch on our civilization in Sheffield, and we find savagery underneath”.

solidarity as arises from working together in numbers under one roof. In Sheffield, as elsewhere, the taunts of his fellow-worker were the strongest force for drawing the workman into his trade society.

It was well known in Sheffield, and repeatedly brought before the public, that some trades had suffered wage reductions of 50% and more almost immediately after the break-up of their union, mainly at the hands of the small masters, who were typical sweating employers. Unions would, therefore, be re-established at the earliest opportunity, even if the higher wage obtained was reduced by high union contributions. Large employers were often grateful to the societies for equalizing wage rates and preventing a cost advantage of their competitors in an industry paying obscure and complicated wages. As ratepayers, they were grateful to the unions for keeping their unemployed off the parish. Politically, they frequently saw eye to eye with the trades' secretaries. Thus support for the unions some­times came from the most unexpected quarters.

There was a tradition of co-operation among the "organized trades" which went back to 1838 and probably much beyond. [15]

A union involved in a dispute could usually count on the support of the other trades in the town. In some cases related trades, e.g., the saw grinders, saw smiths and saw handle makers, had formed a more permanent "alliance" for common action in disputes.

It will have become clear that the Sheffield trades were in a most favourable position for collective bargaining when they were "in union", and their masters in an unusually weak one. An equilibrium was maintained because the market could, as a rule, absorb the increases in cost in the absence of high quality competition, while slow technical improve­ments, particularly in steel production and the early forging stages, prevented the long-term cost curve from rising too steeply.

These unions, clothed with such prestige, must be visualized in the peculiar setting of Sheffield, which in the 1860 was still essentially a large village, or rather, a series of villages. Numerically small, closely-knit trades lived in almost closed communities in the hilly streets of Sheffield and the surrounding villages, knowing each other intimately and meeting very

frequently, in some cases weekly, in one room. They were self-perpetuating; -no apprenticeship was possible outside their circle. Their social activities were wide and varied and were generally centred on the tavern kept by the secretary or another prominent member or ex-member of the trade.

It was no wonder that they felt emboldened to prescribe conditions of admittance to the trade as well as wages and working conditions. In some trades, particularly where masters were wont to apply to the secretary when

Notes

[15] The Webbs, in their History of Trade Unionism, erroneously describe the Liverpool "Trades Guardian Association" of 1848 as the first Trades Council, p. 243 (1920 ed).

they were in need of men, the societies developed (or continued) a tradition of responsibility for the trade as a whole. They would call drunkards to task, they would reprimand laggards and fine members for rowdy behaviour, and persistent offenders might even be expelled. The unions were among the foremost in denouncing the manufacture of spurious goods, or infringe­ment of Sheffield trade marks; they placed or refused apprentices; at times they took up corporate attitudes to political questions of national or local import. It seemed equally natural to enforce their rules by sanctions, even when these began to conflict with the laws of the land. In such cases, the men carrying out the punishment were not considered to be and did not feel themselves to be criminals. No society has ever confused its murderers with its hangmen. As long as some elementary rules of equality of treatment between individuals could be shown to exist, the penalties inflicted on behalf of the "trade" were considered just by its members even if they conflicted directly with the outside code and the criminal statutes, and had therefore to be undertaken secretly and haphazardly and be denied in public.

Much of the foregoing also applies, on a smaller scale, to the grinding "wheels" and workshops themselves. A rough and ready justice of his fellow-workers induced the grinder, the forger and the cutler to pay his share of the drinks consumed, to take no more than his quota of the well-­paid work, to abstain from "borrowing" the other men's tools and stones, and to pay his "natty" money. [16]

These characteristics of corporate responsibility were present to an exceptional degree in the saw grinders' society, the chief culprit before the Outrages Commission. The saw grinders were the last to have come down from the lonely water wheels in the open country, where they had been a, "law unto themselves", to the steam wheels of the town. Under the early , secretaryship of their intelligent leader, William Broadhead, they had established an exceptionally high rate of wages in the 'forties, and for a time the small union of under 200 members held well together and suffered little from non-unionists.

In the depression of 1857, when wages were severely reduced in most trades, the society came to the fatal decision to keep up their high wages by rigidly excluding all newcomers except replacements for vacant positions, and "buying up" the surplus labour by paying them a relief "scale" approaching the saw grinders' wage, out of the contributions of the men in work.

Notes

[16] Compare John Wilson's prize essay on the "Habits of Artisans", Independent, 5th December, 1865; letter by "Leo" in Sheffield Telegraph, 3rd November, 1866; Beehive, Fourth Article on Sheffie1d„6th July, 1867; Wm. Dronfield's evidence to the Commission of Enquiry, A.15341-3.

Only the unique background of Sheffield unionism can account for the state of mind of the leaders of this society, who actually set out not only to control their market, but also deliberately to keep a number of skilled men unemployed for an indefinite term, on the unproved assumption of a highly inelastic demand for their labour.

The number of men "bought up" was not negligible: in 1867 it was stated that, in a society of 190 adult members, an average of 50-80 had been on the "box" for the past 10 years, costing the society about £40 per week. [17] The burden was borne in the knowledge that the wages of saw makers and saw handle makers had dropped to one-half or one-third in the same period.

The saw grinders' society was in a perilous condition from the moment the policy was adopted, and their peril could have been brought to an end only by a great expansion in the market, sufficient to absorb all their idle men at high wages, and this did not take place. The idle men themselves formed a continuous threat, because of the danger that they might be enticed away from the society into the labour market at any moment. They had to be humoured, well paid, and occasionally employed-they made ideal ratteners and roughs.

All this involved an increasing burden of contributions, which at times reached 4/6 in the £ of earnings, on a shrinking number of members in work, who were leaving in a steady trickle to join the “jobbing grinders’ “ union. With contributions as percentages of earnings and relief scales complicated by allowances for odd earnings below the level of "box" payments, the finances of the society were bound to become chaotic, and the audit a mockery. A number of difficult subsidiary regulations became necessary: members were not allowed to own their tools and employers were forced to engage new workers exclusively from the list of employables kept by the secretary.

The high wages tended to attract outsiders (such as Linley, the victim of one of the outrages, and his shoal of apprentices), who had ultimately to be absorbed and kept on the "box" further straining the finances of the society. In view of the high commitments, any arrears in contributions became dangerous to its very existence, while its collapse would have led to an inrush of the unemployed into the market and a more spectacular drop in wages than any Sheffield had seen so far.

The delicate balance of these arrangements, involving the livelihood of every member of the trade, could easily have been upset by the selfish actions of a few members who might hope to enjoy temporary advantages of high wages without high payments. In safeguarding the prosperity of his flock, Broadhead, the secretary, was driven to introduce a system of punishment and terror which grew from simple strikes and "rattenings" to beatings, threatening letters, explosions and murder.

Notes

[17] P. E. Leader, p. 39; Sheffield Independent, 24th June, 27th September, 1567; Sheffield Telegraph , 25th October, 1866, 10th June, 1567 (letter); Evidence to Commission, Broadhead, A.12512-21, R. T. Eadon, A.879-98, John Hague, A.4806-10.

His dilemma explains why the series of outrages, particularly in 1859-61 and the final explosion in 1866 which brought on the Enquiry, were mainly directed not against masters, but against recalcitrant members. It also explains why men who might grumble at high "natty" and who were driven to leave and join a society in some sense in rivalry with the old one, yet supported the actions taken, even the violence, in principle and in the terms in which they were defended.

There was a moral dilemma in defying the tenets of the hostile outside world by supporting violent means for an end approved by the narrow group. It was solved uneasily by the demand for legal sanctions for the rules of trade unions.

It was noted that the appearance and background of the unionists implicated in the outrages generally failed to show the criminal character which the statements of the Press and the politicians might have led one to believe.

"Broadhead", read the otherwise hostile Beehive report, "has no resemblance to the common idea of an assassin or a conspirator, but is a jolly, corpulent, good-looking man, apparently satisfied with life, and with whom the world has dealt kindly." To others he appeared "stout, ruddy, active, self-confident, and respectable-looking", "a jolly, good-looking man, more like a well-to-do farmer than an artisan brought up to a dangerous and unwholesome trade". At the end of his damning confessions he could still exclaim: "In my private life . . . I have maintained as spotless a character as any man", a judgment concurred in even by the magistrates who refused to continue his licence as a publican. It is significant that Charles Reade, whose novel "Put Yourself In His Place" was typical of middle-class hostility, endowed the character of Grotait (Broadhead) with some not unattractive and humane qualities.

Samuel Crookes had "nothing of the ruffian or villain in his appearance. His countenance is rather refined . . and his profile . . . would suggest that his character was that of a conscientious, intellectual, and rather thoughtful man ... his aspect is grave and rather mild ... and his manner earnest and straightforward". A fellow-workman described him as "as quiet a fellow as you ever saw; to look at him you would not think that he could kill a fly ... you'd almost take him to be a religious man". George Peace, another saw grinder, implicated, was a "stout, ruddy, grey-haired man, of respectable middle-class appearance." [18]

Notes

[18] Beehive, 22nd June, 1867; Sheffield Independent, 17th March, 1879, 21st June, 22nd June, 24th June, 23rd August, 1867; Sheffield Telegraph, 25th June, 1867 (letter).

In contrast with their victims, the guilty men had been generally liked and respected within the society of Sheffield artisans. Broadhead himself had been an honoured member of the Trade Union world, the treasurer not only of the Sheffield Trades Council, but also of the nation-wide United Kingdom Alliance of Organized Trades. Crookes had no difficulty in staying with his employer after the pressure of the Telegraph for his dismissal had been neutralized.

Signs of rueful contrition were strikingly absent among the chief offenders. In Hallam, a man driven by doubts, confused by authority, harrowed by suspicion of his friends and subjected to unbearable pressure in prison, the Commissioners found not only the key to the string of confessions, but also gratifying admission of guilt.

The other men, despite the intense moral pressure of the Court, which invited repentance and reform, refused to yield on questions of principle, even though many deplored the degree of violence used; it was beyond the power of the Commission to make them appear as ordinary criminals. The editorial opinions of some of the London papers, including the Times, that Broad­head delighted in violence, and that of the Sheffield Telegraph, which professed to believe to the end that the outrages were committed by the "lambs" for mercenary motives alone, fail to stand up to the evidence.

The victims of the outrages, in the ten years investigated by the Commission, were almost exclusively working-men who had fallen out with their society. In many cases they had offered to join the society of their trade and had, for various reasons, been refused. A strongly developed sense of freedom or individuality could not, therefore, alone explain their refusal to conform. The causes of disputes with individuals were commonly, arrears in the payment of contributions, and the more serious "offence" of employing a larger number of apprentices than the society had sanctioned.

The case of Linley, the victim of the Acorn Street outrage, who was shot in 1861 and died some months later from the after-effects of the assault, may furnish an illustration. His murder was probably the most cold-blooded of the outrages instigated by the saw grinders' secretary. The details of his case have been preserved in an article "A Talk with a Sheffield Grinder" by a roving journalist, James Greenwood, undoubtedly the wisest comment on the discoveries of the Commission made at the time. It was published in the national and local Press in September, 1867.

Linley, it appears, had been brought up as a scissor grinder, but had entered the trade of saw grinding when he found that more money could be made in it, taking on 7-8 apprentices at one time and under-cutting the union's price lists with his almost inevitably inferior and cheaper wares. It need hardly be stressed that his apprentices, turned out upon the labour market at the end of their indentured period to make room for new ones, were badly trained by a poorly qualified master, who had had no time, even he had had the intention, of producing good craftsmen.

What mattered even more to the saw grinders was the large influx of labour into a delicately controlled market: Linley's discharged apprentices had to be put straight on the "box", to become a source of annoyance to the union and a permanent and growing liability on the funds. It is understandable that a payment of a few pounds could not compensate the society for the damage done - and proposed to be continued - by Linley.

Linley was further described as the type of man who had to be "ducked" by his apprentices on Mondays to induce him to pay them their weekly pittances, and who liked to be seen at public houses in working hours, jingling money in his pocket while other men were unemployed - thrown out of work by his apprentices. [19]

Nearly all the saw grinders appearing before the Commission on charges of complicity in outrages had, in fact, been Linley's apprentices. A glaring light is thrown on Linley's character and the feelings he inspired in those near to him by the fact - hidden by the Commission - that Hallam and Crookes, his murderers, who had followed him nightly for six weeks with a loaded gun before the opportunity of shooting him presented itself, had been his own apprentices.

Fearnehaugh's case in 1866 was felt to be similar to Linley's. In a letter to the Press which caused much adverse comment at the time, Broadhead wrote: "I must be explicit in condemning the conduct of such as the Fearnehaugh's and their class: next to the perpetrators themselves, I abhor their conduct. They cause these outrages to take place by what I conceive to be their disreputable proceedings." [20] In view of the fact of his own guilt, Broadhead must have felt on very firm ground in this condem­nation to risk suspicion of his own complicity by his sentiments.

Among Sheffield craftsmen, not only were the agents of violence not considered criminal, but their victims were held in opprobrium as convicted offenders. "The great mass
",
wrote "Carbrook" sadly to the editor of the
Sheffield Telegraph,
"-the lower stratum of the working classes - does not deprecate the application of force to refractory non-unionists. . . The doctrine that the `end justifies the means' is firmly believed in by many unionists, especially by those who have had the benefits of union forced upon them; they consider it, (rattening) an innocuous demand for `natty money', not an offence against good government, but as being offended against by it.

Notes
[19 ]

See also the Sheffield Anarchist Group's
Owd
Smeetom,
1896, p, 14, and the
Sheffield Independent,
22nd June, 1867.
[20]
Independent
,
12th October, 1866, and Broadhead's subsequent explanation to a special meeting of the Organized Trades„ also the speech by G, Austin, ibid., 18th October, 1866

In the "ladder" of violence, from strikes to rattenings, to destruction of tools, to men beaten up, men stabbed or shot, and to canisters of gun­powder,
[22]
there is every reason to believe that the stronger measures were applied, even by Broadhead, only with extreme reluctance, after many warnings, and after others had failed.

A rough correspondence between the penalty and the assumed wrong done to the society was evident. Even in the outrages on persons, such as the shootings and gunpowder attacks, there was clearly no intention of going beyond what was considered "necessary", such as frightening the offender, preventing him from working for a time or disabling him for life, while the explosions of gunpowder, which received the greatest amount of publicity in the Press, usually occurred at factories where they were intended merely to alarm the owner. [23]

It was the constant text of the Sheffield Independent, in its campaign against rattening, that the habit of taking the law into their own hands, as the Sheffield men did in cases of ordinary rattenings, was likely to lead to the committing of more violent deeds in graver cases, and thus formed one of the roots of the outrages. Yet the same paper had this to say of the practice: "It is a branch of unwritten union law, and ... it has been the system to enforce obedience by that sort of distraint. . . . Outsiders may represent these things as something horrible and marvellous, but to those who know the usages of the Sheffield trades, there will not appear to be anything more wonderful about them than in the executions put in force every week by the bailiffs of the County Court, excepting that the law of the land sanctions one and forbids the other." [24]

It would appear that, for those who knew the circumstances, the immoral intent of rattening was as difficult to establish as a clear dividing line between the more or less innocuous means used to enforce the union regulations. Any simple judgment on the Sheffield union leaders was, there­fore, bound to leave out important aspects of the truth.

Even at the height of the public outcry against the outrages, when the demand for the prohibition of trade unionism as a whole was heard so frequently in the rest of the country, no one in Sheffield seriously advocated the outlawing of trade unions. The societies and their traditions had gained a measure of public support which survived the damning disclosures of Broadhead.

Notes

[22] G. J. Holyoake in Sheffield Independent, 1st February, 1861

[23] The Hereford Street outrage in 1866 which created a public outcry sufficient to bring the Commission of Enquiry into being, merely produced a small hole in the wall, and the total damage, including inconvenience, loss of wages, etc., came to less than £30. Letter in Sheffield Daily Independent, 30th November, 1934.

[24] 18th May, 1867; also see the leader for 27th October, 1866.

On the contrary, it was the unions which were on the attack It was part of their guild-like outlook to feel themselves responsible for their “trade" as a whole. In addition, it was part of their trade union outlook to view the maintenance of sufficient wages, of employment and of decent working conditions as much a benefit for their members as the less controversial matters of a rising general standard of living, technical progress and peace. The latter objects were secured, or supported by, the State, since at the time they were the common aim of all classes. It may give an indication of the mental isolation of Sheffield unionists that they believed they could make the State responsible also for the former objects. [25]

825].

The approach of the Sheffield trades took the form of demanding the sanction of the courts for the rules of the Unions. In particular, refusal to pay contributions and offences against the apprenticeship regulations were to be punished as forms of breach of contract. Throughout the middle decades of the century, and during and after the period of the Commission of Enquiry, Sheffield unionists never tired of urging this kind of legislation. It was the demand of the Sheffield Organized Trades to Palmerston in 1862; it was the cri de coeur of Broadhead before the Commissioners. [26]

The demand was taken up again by the United Saw and Jobbing Grinders' Society, a successor of Broadhead's union and formed the basis of a questionnaire sent to the candidates at the election of 1868, when it deter­mined the “Trades Delegates” allegiance.

It was expressed most forcefully in the defiant resolution drawn up by Isaac Ironside, the unorthodox town councillor, and passed at a mass meeting in Sheffield on the 30th September, 1867:

“. . . that this meeting, having considered the acts and doings

of the unconstitutional Commission of Enquiry which recently held its sittings in Sheffield . . . desires to express its firm conviction that the present movement against trades' unions is a conspiracy (hear, hear) of the governing and employing classes to crush the liberties of the working men and their means of defence (cheers) and to reduce them to the conditions of serfs; and- that this meeting ... resolves that all trades' outrages, strikes and rattenings, are the inevitable consequences of the one-sided and unjust laws; and so long as the working-classes are treated as outlaws, it is not only their right but their bounden duty to make and to enforce such laws and regulations as will enable them to maintain their wives and families in comfort by their labour."'

In the words of Prof. Beesly, it was the "sense of wrong legally inflicted which made unionists outstep the limits of legality".

[25] This unusual insistence of the Sheffield unionist that the law should be on his side is also seen in the frequency with which he went to court against his employer in cases of breaches of agreement, insufficient notice of dismissal, etc. The Sheffield workman was less of an employee, and his master less of an employer, than almost any other artisan in the country. . . .

[26] A.12203, 12970, 13241, also Dronfield (printer), A.15372, Samuel Stacey (edge tool grinder), A.16681-6; Bagshaw (fork grinder), reported in the Independent, 29th . November, 1866; resolution of spring knife cutlers ibid., 26th September, 1867; A. Jackson (Amal. Soc. Engineers) in letter to the SheffieId Telegraph, 31st October, 1866; H.O/O.S.7360/1

[27] Their meeting was allegedly packed by the Broadhead faction, cf. Sheffield Independent, 11th, 18th July, 6th, 12th November, 11th December, 1868, 2nd January, 1569:­

In the absence of legal sanctions the unions applied their own. Even the staid Beehive was forced to admit that "the rattenings were nothing more or less than secret distresses, or levies upon the goods of defaulting members, and the outrages were the means that the saw grinders, grinders and one or two other trades took to punish and deter those who broke the regulations regarding limitations, prices, etc., etc. . . . Broadhead & Co. only clung to and applied to their objects the means secretly that society uses openly to deter and to punish." [28]

The attitude was rationalized by Ironside in a letter to Thomas Hughes, dated 20th October, 1865:

"All those who get their living by a trade are bound to obey the laws of the union of that trade. After entering a trade it is not a ­voluntary act of theirs to become members of that trade union. The rebel states want to secede-to be expelled from the Union, but the United States thrashed them into obedience. So will trade unions, It is their duty to thrash all into submission who get their living by the trade, and who will not obey the laws of the union without thrashing. -

. . . Never in the history of the world have any men allowed a smaller number of men to do as they liked ... there is either an eye to convey determined indignation or a hand to strike down the offender . . ."

Such language would have been almost meaningless outside Sheffield, and was as abhorrent to Thomas Hughes as to Prof. Beesly" [29] and the leaders of the London Amalgamated Societies. They would have rejected an approach which did not pay due respect to individual choice of action, the free play of the market, and the law.

Of these, only the first point was felt to need further consideration in Sheffield. It could not be denied that the trade union claimed to exercise some real control over the actions of craftsmen outside its bounds or hostile to it, and the case for the legal enforcement of rules on men who had never subscribed to them was weaker than that against the men who had contracted out of their obligations for selfish and often temporary ends.

[28] 29th June and 6th July, 1567.

[29]
E, S. Beesly, The Sheffield Outrages,

1867; R. Congreve
,
Mr. Broadhead and the Anonymous Press,
1867
; Morning Star,
17th July, 1867
.

Firstly it was argued that men were not justified in refusing to pay for benefits which they received; comparison with the rates levied by local governments and with Acts of Parliament lay close to hand.

"Is it not a fact", asked "Both Sides" in a letter to the Indepen­dent, "that we all have to surrender our individual independence and obey the laws of the land, often contrary to our ideas of right or wrong?

. . . If We do not obey, we are rattened - instead of our goods being stolen, they are taken away and sold, and our bodies confined. . . If the 1aw on this point is just, is it not equally a moral obligation on the part of individual members of a trade to subscribe to laws made by themselves for the general good? I assert it is and the objectors are . . . (often) men who are careless and indifferent both for their own welfare and that of others - who are ready to sacrifice the interest of the community to which they belong for present gain. . . ."

Henry Cutts, the respected secretary of the filesmiths, had written to the editor in the same vein in 1862:

"No state of society that I ever heard of could exist together without regulations; and more or less of coercion made use of to enforce them; and trades' unions (need them) in particular ... (it is said) if a member will not pay nor comply, shut him out from the benefits of the society; in our case, Sir, that is not possible, for if you deprive him of any relief when out of work, or deprive him of funeral gift in case of the death of any of his family, you cannot deprive him of the benefit of the protection of his labour ... therefore, I say honestly that I would use a certain amount of force to make him comply in a reasonable manner." [30]

The Sheffield Independent, a paper showing much sympathy for trade unionism, summed up the argument in an editorial on the 8th June, 1867:

"The workmen of each trade thoroughly believe that they have a right to enclose for their own use their particular field of industry . . . and so to limit the supply of labour as to maintain wages at a higher rate than the average of the less carefully guarded trades. Having done this they hold that every man working at a trade enjoys more of less the benefit of their expenditure and exertions, and that he does them a wrong if, while he profits by them, he does not bear his share of the cost they incur. When arguments are addressed to them founded on the principle of the right of every man to use his industry and skill freely according to his own judgment, they quote the regulations of the bar and the legal profession.

`We only wish', said one of the witnesses to the Examiners, `we had the same sort of protection for our labour that you gentlemen have' . . . the unions seek to raise wages by limiting the supply of labour and by prescribing conditions under which men shall work, (and) they believe they have a right to do this by means which they would not justify in any other case . . "

It was also stressed, secondly, that the individual standing out from his society damaged directly the interests of its members by contributing to the lowering of their standards and wages. A sense of equity was invoked to the defence of the interests of the majority harmed by the actions of the rest.

"It appears to be a favourite sentiment", wrote "Fair Trade" caustically to the editor of one local paper, "that one man has a perfect right to inflict any amount of injury upon 500 or 1,000 men in union, but those workmen have no right to injure that unit, no, not even in' self-defence. [31]

It will be noticed that in no case has the attempt been made to isolate the views of the officials from those of the membership as a whole. Despite the strong objections of some individual members to all forms of violence, and despite the tone of the evidence given to the Commissioners, it was taken for granted that in the trades in which outrages occurred the bulk of the membership approved of them. This seemed obvious when many rattenings were, in fact, determined on and carried out by a group of ordinary members, commonly fellow-workers at the same "wheel". The union was held to be "the authorized expression of public feeling in the trade." [32]

Even the saw grinders' society did not shrink from associating itself with the violence committed by Broadhead, by retaining him and Samuel Crookes in its ranks, and by passing a resolution on the 13th August 1867, which could only be interpreted as condoning the outrages on the grounds that they were committed for the sake of the union. It was only the strongest pressure exerted by the London trade unions and by the Sheffield Organized Trades which forced the saw grinders to rescind the offending sentences and to condemn rattening in forthright terms on 17th September, 1867. They did not, however, expel Broadhead, who continued to command the personal sympathies of most of the members. [33]

[30] 15th October, 1866, and 8th April, 1862, and an article in the Daily News,quoted on 24th June, 1867.

[31

] Ibid., 8th October, 1367; also letter by Jackson, 27th October, 1867 and reprint from the
Beehive
on 5th November, 1566.

[32] P. H. Rathbone, p. 693. Also see the editorial of the Times, 20th June, 1867.

[33]

Cf, the reports of the meetings before Broadhead's departure to the U.S.A. in
Sheffield
Independent
,
30th October, 5th November, 1569.

Among saw makers, Skidmore and Smith, the officials implicated in the Fearnehaugh outrage, were suspended from office, but a strong minority wanted to reinstate them, and also to extend to Thomas Smith, the ex­-secretary, who had been unable to find employment because of his complicity, his relief "scale" for longer than the customary limit of 12 weeks. At no time did the society raise the question of expelling the two officials. The scissor forgers' secretary, Joseph Thompson, who had admitted before the Commission that he had paid for rattenings out of funds embezzled from the union, was strongly urged by the members to stay in his office, but he insisted on resignation. Thereupon the society passed a resolution to the effect that he had not embezzled the money, but used it for trade purposes. [34]

It could not be denied that there was considerable sympathy for the implicated unionists in the town of Sheffield also outside their own societies. It was stated that not even among the saw grinders was there as much sympathy for Broadhead as among the file grinders. It had been clear to the editor of the Sheffield Telegraph that his sustained campaign against the union outrages, which opened in October, 1860, was likely to create ill-will against him and lead to a loss of sales in Sheffield, but even after the Enquiry had fully borne out the truth of his assertions, public opinion obstinately refused to swing round.

"Truth compels us to say", he wrote in an editorial on 19th July, 1867, "that outside the immediate circle of roughs proper there are hundreds, and we fear, we very much fear, thousands who extenuate and palliate the dark deeds disclosed, and who secretly, if not openly, sympathize with Broadhead". In grinding hulls and elsewhere it was said that the murderers did "nothing wrong" and that the- "trade must be upholden" (30th July).

"There is scarce a newsagent, or a keeper of a public house, who does not know of men who openly justify Broadhead, and who launch into the bitterest imprecations not against Hallam merely, but against those who have been conspicuous in the work of bringing the Commission to Sheffield" (17th July).

Among the unionists in Sheffield it was recalled that the sittings of the Commission had been preceded and followed by a sustained Press campaign, which had created a picture of terrorism, assassination and barbarism in Sheffield widely out of proportion with the three major outrages brought to light in the past ten years. The very different treatment accorded to Governor Eyre and his alleged outrages was well noted.

The bias in the reports and evaluation of the evidence could not be denied. After all, said Prof. Beesly, "a trade union murder was neither better nor worse than any other murder"-a remark for which he nearly lost his chair at University College, London. It was remarked that the Commission had, on pressure from the Sheffield masters [35]been given powers and incentives for self-incrimination unprecedented in the history of British criminal law, and that this "system of terrorism and moral torture", as a correspondent to'the Pall Mall Gazette termed it, [36] aroused little protest among the lawyers, because it was directed against the working classes only.

[34] Sheffield Independent, 7th June, 1567; Beehive, 16th November, 1867; Sheffield Telegraph, 4th August, 1867 (letter).

[35] The idea of awarding indemnities for self-incrimination at the Sheffield Enquiry was broached by E. Laycock, Mayor of Sheffield, to Walpole (letter 12.10.1866, H.O./O„S. 7921/1) was supported by Roebuck, the local member, and forced through Parliament by Walpole and Roebuck.

[36] Quoted in the Sheffield Telegraph, 12th July, 1867.

The prevention of the crimes seemed of less importance to some of the promoters of the enquiry than the discredit thrown on trade unionism. [37]

"The fact was", asserted the Earl of Kimberley, "it was attempted to make use of the Sheffield outrages for the purpose of enquiring into trade unions under unfavourable circumstances, and he regarded it as extremely unfortunate that the most important question affecting the working classes should be approached in a manner eminently unfair."

Goschen also objected to the coursewhich might:

"bias the minds of the Commissioners, by bringing before them prominently and from the very first, certain deplorable acts of a criminal nature . . . and thereby more or less prejudice the examination into the broad question of the effect of these organizations on the trade of the country". "The workmen would have a right to complain", added W. E. Forster, “that their case was prejudiced by being joined together with a special case of violence in Sheffield” [38].

As the emphasis shifted from the archaic unions of Sheffield to the legislation prepared in London, some of the working-class leaders in Sheffield untrammelled by the political Liberalism which affected judgment of the London leaders, could see farther than they and began toh ave an inkling of the bias in the code of social morality under which they were being judged.

The near-Marxist flavour of Ironside's resolution of 30th September 1867, quoted above, should not be allowed to hide the real character of Sheffield unionism. The long tradition of working-class Radicalism formed one of the roots of modern Socialism and as such had much in common with the later movement.

In its Sheffield form it was, however, essentially backward looking. The application of large-scale capital was little known in the Sheffield trades, business organization was backward, advances in technique rare and gradual. Although the market had widened to world­ wide dimensions there was still no significant outside competition in the

supply of cutlery wares, and the industry could be visualized as a Sheffield monopoly, which might be shared out within the town by consent.

[37

] See, e.g.,. speeches by Walpole at the First Reading (8.2.1867), by Roebuck and Hadfield at the Second Reading 8.2.1867) of the Bill establishing the Royal Commission (Hansard, Ser. 3, CLXXV);
Edinburgh
Review
, October 1867, pp. 438-42; Apple­garth's account of the obstacles to the hearing of Sheffield unionists in London (
Sheffield Independent
, 23rd October, 1868). Legal qualms were expressed, inter alia, by Ayrton (H.o.C. 25.2.1867) and Lords Cranworth, Houghton, Granville, De Grey and Ripon and Lichfield (H.o.L. 7.3. and 21,3.1867) on the unusual methods used to obtain confessions.

[38] Hansard, H.o.C. 8.2.1867, H.o.L, 21.3.1867.

The exceptional skill required in the Sheffield trades gave a living economic function to apprenticeship regulations. The necessary sub-division of trades allowed unusually close social contacts among the men of the same calling.

These were objective factors which resembled the conditions favour­ab1e to the development of craft guilds. In addition, the early struggles of the Sheffield unions had strongly inclined them in favour of continuing the regulations of the Cutlers' Company, which the masters had tried to weaken in 1791.

The trade disputes of 1810-14, out of which emerged many of the cutlery unions, had taken place in an economic climate favourable to the organized workers. In their first flush of strength the Sheffield societies thought of themselves as entering directly upon the heritage of the now defunct powers of the Cutlers' Company, repealed by the masters in 1814 in their struggles against unionism. [39]

The traditions of the Sheffield unions were thus linked in the closest possible manner with those of an obsolete guild. They explain the frequent attempts by the societies to form common organizations of masters and men, [40] their tendency to feel responsible for their trade in the wider sense, and their attempts to revive or continue the old regulations, including the limitation of apprentices, the restriction of apprentices to the sons of freemen, the prohibition of work for four weeks in the summer and for one month after Christmas, and the power to search for spurious wares (trade mark regulations had remained in force).

But with the assumed functions the unions had not received the sanctions of the Company: the powers of search, of levying fines and exacting payments, of exclusion and admission to the trade, which had been the natural concomitants of the duties of the old Company, were withheld from the unions. "Whereas the masters had fines, and powers of search and regulation enforced by law - constable, bailey and soldier - the men had that power taken away". [41] It was those powers which the unions were driven to exercise illegally (the first rattenings occurred about 1820) and never despaired of regaining by legal means. Even after the Commission of Enquiry had sat, Isaac Ironside moved in the Town Council on 14th August, 1867, to invest the unions with the old powers of the Cutlers' Company; such as enforcing indentured apprenticeship and limitation of apprentices, epitomizing their striving for the return to the past. When a Sheffield union punished an offender it did so, not as a union, but as a guild.

[39] McPhee, loc. cit.; Hill, pp. 522, 539; G. I. H. Lloyd, The Cutlery Trades, 1913, pp: 251, 268; evidence of Jackson to the Select Committee on the State of Trade, 1833.

[40] Hill, 'pp. 527, 535-6.

[41] Beehive, 22nd June, 1867.

The rationale of Sheffield unionism was reactionary. Its forms, as the Beehive recognized, were those of unions in a "very ancient meaning of the term". Endless confusion has been caused by making an enquiry into their practices a part of the grand inquest on British trade unionism in 1867.

There are few clear-cut outlines and much ill-defined border land, in all social science. An account of Sheffield unionism which described it as a hermetically-sealed world, uninfluenced by the outlook of the world around, would err as much on the one side as the traditional accounts, accepting the verdict of hostile partisans, have erred on the other.

Sheffield unionists were necessarily aware that the rattenings and outrages were condemned as criminal by their masters, by all the vocal classes in Sheffield, including the clergy, and by the outside world. Few men, especially among the untutored, imagine themselves superior to the moral judgment of the huge majority of their fellow-men. Though he might hold with Mallinson, secretary of the razor grinders, that "gentlemen don't understand about these things", the Sheffield trade unionist had an uneasy conscience.

This uneasiness must have been greater among the secretaries and other officials themselves, who came frequently into contact with outside union leaders, who took an active part in local and parliamentary elections and in the religious life of the town, and who edited the reports of meetings for the Press and wrote letters to the editors in defence of their unions. The alternation between the backward and traditional notions of the trade meeting on the one side, and the nineteenth century outlook of the fellow­secretaries the local dignitaries the ministers and the editors before whom the trade practices had to be hidden and denied, on the other, must have strained the integrity of the union secretaries to the limit. It is significant that Broadhead, who had recounted to the Commission of Enquiry his endless list of embezzlements, rattenings, outrages and murders with perfect equanimity, only broke down when reminded of the sanctimonious letters condemning the outrages which he had written to the Press.

In the circumstances, the question of right or wrong in the matter of outrages could not be as clearly settled in the minds of the more intelligent Sheffield artisans as such questions commonly are among men who are fortunate enough to be able to fall in with the ruling morality of their age. Nevertheless, in the social and economic context of the Sheffield of the last century, it appeared incumbent on the honest craftsman in the cutlery trades to defend himself and his fellow-workmen by means which appeared criminal to the rest of society.
If this premise is granted, the general emphasis on the guilt, the criminal tendency or the rough brutality of Sheffield trade unionism is misplaced. The
Sheffield Independent
was close to the truth, in its obituary of William Broadhead, with a judgment mellowed by the inter­vening twelve years; his crimes were due, not to malicious disposition, but to a grievously mistaken view of the interests of his trade and the duty he owed it"
[42]
An enquiry into the Sheffield outrages is not so much a study of crime, but a study of social relations.

[42]17th March, 1879.

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Worth a look!

http://www.thestar.co.uk/lifestyle/theatre/review_the_stirrings_university_drama_studio_1_3937317

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Professor Beesly - The Sheffield Outrages and the Meeting at Exeter Hall (1867)

Richard Congreve - Mr Broadhead and the Anonymous Press (1867)

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No, nor me ...

Here's a citation from JSTOR for the Beesly:

Report of the various proceedings taken by the London Trades' Council and the Conference of Amalgamated Trades, in reference to the Royal Commission on Trades' Unions, and other subjects in connection therewith.

Bristol Selected Pamphlets (1867)

Contributed by: University of Bristol Library

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/60249828

I have found mention of the other one:

Richard Congreve, 'Mr.Broadhead & the Anonymous Press'(London,1867);'The Newspaper Press',EdinburghReview, CII(Oct.1855),492, attributed to R.W. Greg in the Wellesley Index

..if these are any help.

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Does anyone know what a 'Glazier' was? I know it was used by grinders in rough polishing of blades, forks etc - but what actually was it? They often seem to have been destroyed during rattening escapades. According to a report on some rattening at Hudson & Clarks' wheel in the Independent in 1838 some glaziers had been broken, some were found floating in some water and they were powered by the wheel.

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Does anyone know what a 'Glazier' was? I know it was used by grinders in rough polishing of blades, forks etc - but what actually was it? They often seem to have been destroyed during rattening escapades. According to a report on some rattening at Hudson & Clarks' wheel in the Independent in 1838 some glaziers had been broken, some were found floating in some water and they were powered by the wheel.

The polish on cutlery was on a glazing wheel. This was a wooden wheel, the circumference was covered in leather, and a compound was applied.

Should you make a pilgrimage to this fair city and manage a visit to Shepherd Wheel, you'll see a row of grindstones where the blades were worked on, and behind the grinders a row of glazing wheels. Once the grinders had done their bit they would pass the blades back to the glaziers.

This photo was taken before the recent renovation. On the right is a row of grindstones and horsings where the grinders worked. In the centre is a larger diameter wooden wheel, minus its covering. This is a glazing wheel.

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558929_10151593206132247_1050543264_n.jpNewcastle Courant etc. Fri 31 march 1848, full details of hearing and sentencing of John Drury and three other men for incitement to rattening.

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A bit tough on the eyes ! lol

558929_10151593206132247_1050543264_n.jpNewcastle Courant etc. Fri 31 march 1848, full details of hearing and sentencing of John Drury and three other men for incitement to rattening.

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