Foreword

The League and the Charter

A novel

 

BookRix GmbH & Co KG

81675 Munich

 

John Catling

 

This is a historical novel. It is a fictional account of life in England in the nineteenth century, but is nevertheless based on fact. It does not claim to be an accurate representation of the historical facts of the time. All characters and events other than those clearly in the public or historical domain are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is entirely coincidental.

 

Special thanks to Karin, Jennifer and Rüdi for all their helpful suggestions.

 

All rights reserved 2015 John Catling

The little push: 1839

“And, ladies and gentlemen, friends and comrades, I tell you once again: this is a knife and fork question, a bread and cheese question. Yes, it's about a People's Charter, a charter to reform Parliament, to give every man in the country a vote, to give a chance for working men to represent you in Parliament, to have annual elections, all those things; but ultimately, it is about the living conditions of the working classes of this country and what we can do to make those conditions better for every person living here.”

 

The end of this speech is drowned by a wave of applause, hats are thrown in the air, men and women stamp the wooden floor to create a cacophony of sound. Joseph Maggs is surprised by the number of women present in the hall, come to listen to this presentation of the People's Charter. But as he looks around, it is difficult to judge who these women are, for the Salford Assembly Hall is lit only by candles and nearly all of them are on the stage to give light there. The rest of the auditorium lies in near-darkness, and outside it's after dusk on a rainy autumn evening. The Doric columns down the sides of the hall in the manner of an arcade, the double panelled doors at the rear, and the inscriptions on two plaques recalling the building of the hall and the names of the benefactors, all these can hardly be distinguished, but they do not diminish the cheers and applause for the speakers on the platform, who now turn to search for their coats and gather up their papers and documents and come down the steps at the side to join their supporters and families in the body of the hall.

 

Joseph Maggs is uncertain whether to join this jubilation. He is not greatly interested in this bread and cheese question. His father is a partner in a cotton mill, and Joseph takes it for granted that working people sometimes eat bread and cheese and some of them can consider themselves lucky to have jobs in his father's mill. At twenty, his life is already beginning to take the shape of the life of a privileged member of society. Indeed, only yesterday came the letter inviting him to take up residence at Downing College, Cambridge, in the autumn term of the university year which would start in October eighteen thirty-nine, just three weeks from now. “It's quite a new college” his father, Peter Maggs, tells him, “so you may have to find your way in student life, but you're good at these different kinds of football they play now, you'll do well. At the moment, it's not certain whether you are allowed to pick up the ball and run with it, and what shape the ball can take, but all that's not important. More important is that we are going to have a future lawyer in our family, I never had that chance in my younger days.”

 

In fact, however, young Joseph Maggs is not even thinking about the bread and cheese question, nor indeed about his future life at Cambridge University. He is probably not even aware that he is thinking of something else. He is thinking of the person sitting next to him in the Salford Assembly Hall – a young woman. He had seen her a few weeks ago at the open-air meeting on Kersal Moor, where she stood with another lady, clearly her mother, and where the crowd was addressed by persons from what are called radical associations, urging the reform of Parliament and the constitution. Then, as now, Joseph was not listening to the speakers. He was looking at this red-haired girl and her mother, the girl about his own age, her mother about twenty years older, a tall woman with still a tinge of red in her greying hair. From her movements, the mother gave an impression of knowing what she wanted and how to get it. And now, by chance, this same red-haired girl is sitting next to him. Does she really belong to a radical association or is her mother – no, more likely her father – in some way involved with the organization of this meeting? And how is he going to find the strength to speak to her? He turns towards her – even in spite of himself – but at that moment she turns to her mother with some remark he cannot hear, for there is still so much noise in the hall and people are getting up to leave, scraping chairs on the floor, seeking coats and umbrellas. Joseph hardly notices these things. What he does notice are the freckles on the neck and cheek of this red-haired girl, and his olfactory senses tell him that she must be wearing some kind of perfume – or could that be emanating from her mother? Joseph has not yet learned that this is the moment to advance, to use the confusion among the people leaving the hall to speak to the red-haired girl. At twenty, a young man of the nineteenth century still has a lot to learn about human relations and human behaviour.

 

However, rescue is at hand in the form of Mrs Gladys Williams. Mrs Williams would have told you, if you had asked her, that she wears simple clothes: wool, cotton or linen, no silk, and she has always sewn her own dresses and taught her daughters to do the same. To have a dressmaker come to the house, to follow the fashions of the rich, is not for her, and even Joseph can see these simple styles do not match the fine dresses worn by his mother, with the bell-shaped skirts and off-the shoulder dresses that can be seen at Brighton or Bath, and even here in Salford or neighbouring Manchester. Mrs Williams's hair is trim but simply cut: does she visit a hairdresser regularly, like Mrs Maggs, Joseph's mother? Her red-haired daughter Ellen wears her hair parted in the middle, with ringlets at the sides, and this evening she is wearing a small linen cap, because her mother told her that it might be cold at the meeting, and the evenings have been rather cool recently.

 

Mrs Williams has two daughters older than the red-haired and freckled Ellen, who has been sitting beside her for two hours listening but not very attentively to the speeches from the rostrum, and has possibly been vaguely aware of the young man sitting next to her daughter. Mrs Williams is known somewhat frivolously in her circle of friends as “Emma” because of her skills in matchmaking. Her technique is what is referred to in these circles as “a little push.” The little push is not really physical, there is little movement involved. It involves giving encouragement by word of mouth or action at the right moment, to give the young person concerned a kind of incentive towards a step towards making the acquaintance of someone new, or from that point a whole register of steps up to where the snowball begins to roll of its own accord towards – yes, matrimony. That is how Mrs Williams has engineered – yes, a good word in this nineteenth century of steam power and railways – two successful marriages for daughters Cecilia and Pamela and has intervened similarly elsewhere. And somehow Mrs Williams knows of the embarrassments and hesitations of young men and how to overcome them. And so now Mrs Williams shifts the weight of her middle-aged body slightly so that her new bell-shaped skirt effectively blocks the exit of Ellen and Ellen blocks the exit of the young man to her right. Mrs Williams turns to Joseph.

 

“Oh, I'm so sorry, I can't remember whether I'd brought my umbrella to this meeting. Ellen, has it fallen on the floor in front of your seat? Perhaps this young gentleman has taken our umbrella by mistake?”

 

As if I would take this lady's umbrella by mistake, thinks Joseph. “Perhaps you didn't bring an umbrella, it was hardly raining when I left home.” Joseph would like to say something more, but suddenly his mind is a blank and he realises that what he has just said touches on impertinence. That will not help him much to get nearer to those freckles.

 

“Well, we must get along, Ellen, your father will be waiting for us outside.” Mrs Williams turns to Joseph. “Well, and what did you think of the meeting? Is it a cause for which you would be prepared to struggle, or fight – or even die? I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name.”

 

I didn't throw it, Joseph thinks, but now's the chance. He takes it. “Joseph Maggs, at your service, and at your daughter Ellen's service.”

 

“Our name is Williams, and this, as you have correctly surmised, is my daughter Ellen.”

 

By this time they have reached the entrance doors of the hall, and there stands a man, waiting for them, who can only be the husband of Mrs Williams and father of Ellen. Mr John Williams comes forward to greet his wife and daughter, and is introduced by his wife to Joseph. John Williams is in his early fifties, the thinning grey hair, the wrinkled facial skin and the scars on his hands reveal the hard life of a working man, and his fustian jacket and tight trousers show that he comes from a working-class family, with a similar background to that of his wife. However, in his demeanour to this young newcomer he shows himself to be a man of liberal ideas and tolerance towards the more affluent classes in this town of the industrial revolution. For it is clear that Joseph is not dressed like most of the others frequenting the Salford Assembly Hall. His smart charcoal grey woollen suit and his speech mark him as a representative of the new class growing up with the new industries: mill-owners, bankers, entrepreneurs, railway speculators – in a word, capitalists. Joseph, well aware of the distrust and even hatred sometimes shown by working people towards the sons of the well-to-do – the landowners and the mill-owners – takes at once to Mr John Williams, finds him sympathetic and listens carefully as he begins to speak.

 

“Well, it's Mr Joseph Maggs, is it? And what did you think of the address given by your namesake, Joseph Stevens? Were you here when I spoke? Was it enough to convince you that this country, to survive into the next century, must introduce votes for every man and adopt the principles of the People's Charter?”

 

“Well, I'm sure I don't know very much about the Charter, Mr Williams, but I know that many of the employers here in Salford and those in Manchester are concerned about the living conditions of the working people. I was present by chance at the meeting on Kensal Moor a few weeks ago, I stood near your wife and your daughter. My own father is very critical of the landowning and agricultural classes, he holds them responsible for a lot of the poverty we see here in Salford and Manchester. From what little I know of these matters I can only say that we cannot go back to the social structures of the eighteenth century.” Even if, from her appearance, I rather like this man's daughter, Joseph thinks, I nevertheless have to support the views of my own family. Perhaps Mr Williams is some kind of trade union organizer, he'll be telling me about all those radical thinkers soon. Have they written anything about Manchester? Did Mr Williams address the meeting before I arrived? Out of the corner of his eye Joseph sees Ellen whispering to her mother, but do his eyes linger too long on those freckles? Mrs Williams comes over to him as Ellen walks to the exit with her father.

 

“Mr Maggs, or may I call you Joseph, we are having some friends round to supper next Sunday evening after chapel. A very light meal with tea or lemonade. Our Methodist service finishes around seven thirty, so that if you call around eight o'clock you would be very welcome to discuss some of these matters with my husband and his friends at greater length – and with Ellen, for Ellen wants to be a teacher or governess and has to be more aware of matters which for too long have been reserved for men. Will we have the pleasure of seeing you then?

 

“I should be delighted, Mrs Williams.”

The Chartists: 1839

Joseph walks back to his parents' home through the wet streets of Salford and Manchester. Is he still thinking about Ellen, or is he planning some strategy for Sunday evening? Methodists are serious people, he believes, will they want to talk about the Bible and its lessons for the present day? Joseph has been brought up in the Church of England, but he is not very diligent in his church attendance, nor are his parents. There seems to be a certain rivalry between the different Christian denominations in Manchester, but he's never really given this a thought. Is religion more important to the Methodists than it seems to be to those who belong to the Church of England?

 

When Joseph goes out somewhere, especially in the evening, he almost invariably tells either his mother or his father where he has been, and in this case he told them that he was going to a Chartist meeting. They didn't seem to object, nor were they over-enthusiastic about it – it appeared to them that he was going by himself. With a young man of twenty, Mrs Maggs tells her husband, it behoves one to be careful. There are so many distractions available to young men in this huge, bustling city of Manchester, and many people ready to propose all kinds of entertainment to a young man walking through the dark streets by himself. Joseph's friend Thomas Peers, who is also going up to Cambridge University this autumn, said to him recently “Joseph, it's time you got some experience with women – but you need some cash in your pocket to do this.” Thomas has told Joseph about some of his visits to town women, but Joseph wonders if some of these adventures are figments of Thomas's imagination. Thomas's parents seem more generous than Joseph's, Thomas always seems to have a couple of sovereigns in his pocket.

 

Peter Maggs has cautioned his son about the importance of proper conduct on several occasions. “It would be different if we were living in a quiet cathedral city somewhere in the south, Salisbury or Winchester, where life is much more peaceful. Here in Manchester, a young man has to watch his step. It's not really a question of our religion, though religion is basically the foundation of our moral conduct. I'm talking about hard drinking, going with whores, gambling and the like. Many non-conformists and others who are not in the Church of England make it a matter of their religion to preach against these human failings, for they see how alcohol, gambling and loose women can lead to poverty, illness and destitution. But for us, it's first and foremost a question of your own self and your behaviour to yourself.” Joseph thinks about this on the way home in the rain, past the hovels and the cellars where many of the mill-folk live. Is it really true what one of the speakers said at the meeting, about women who work in the mills from six in the morning until eight at night, unable to look after their children?

 

When he is at last at home – it's a walk of two miles – and his mother asks about the meeting and what was said there, he tells her about the Chartists and their meeting at the Salford Assembly Hall. He tells her about the Williams family and the invitation, but he only mentions Ellen in passing. He wants to keep Ellen for himself. And what about Doreen, the twenty-eight year old scullery-maid from Ireland? Has he told his father about how, on two occasions during the last month, she has crept down from the top floor where the servants live, to join him in his bed, “just for a bit of fun,” she told him the first time. Is there a difference between what he feels for Ellen's red hair and what he feels for Doreen's naked breasts?

 

Nevertheless, Joseph doesn't have Ellen to himself at the Williams's supper party on Sunday evening. There are other young men there, three of them in their mid-twenties, all with more experience of the world and young ladies than Joseph, and Joseph feels embarrassed and tongue-tied when he tries to start a conversation with her. The supper party takes place in what must be the dining room of the Williams's house, a large room where the twenty or so people present can sit comfortably while sandwiches and tea are served by two servants obviously borrowed for the occasion. Joseph looks around the rather gloomy candle-lit room, he can see no-one else that he knows apart from Ellen and her parents. Most people seem to have come directly from chapel. Joseph's plan was to ask his father about the radical associations and so have some information to start a conversation with Mr Williams and then try to transfer his attentions to Ellen. His father couldn't tell him much, only that he had heard that Friedrich Engels, a young radical from Germany, was staying in Manchester and that he is well-known to the German authorities as a young atheist who will bring instability and revolution worse than in France. When at last Joseph gets a chance to speak to Mr Williams, Mr Williams reels off a string of names of the leaders of Chartist and radical associations, political unions and trade unions. Ellen comes over to assist her father. Ellen is wearing a dress with a floral pattern, with a wide skirt that reaches to her ankles – her mother would never allow Ellen to show her ankles to the world, even to the respectable world now seated in the Williams's dining room. Ellen takes Joseph aside, interrupting her conversation with one of the other young men.

 

“You see, Joseph, there are so many different associations and organizations, all with different purposes and appealing to different groups of people. We've told you about the People's Charter, haven't we, and its six aims, the most important of which is that every man has the right to vote? The working people who support the Charter are now called Chartists. Many of them were at that meeting in Glasgow in May this year, when over one hundred thousand people heard Thomas Attwood denounce the present political system. Attwood is a leader of the Birmingham Political Union, one of these radical associations. Then there's Feargus O'Connor, an Irishman living in England, whose newspaper Northern Star circulates among working men, it's often read aloud because many of them can't read for themselves. Some say that O'Connor will one day be the leader of all the Chartists. These huge rallies like the one at Kersal Moor where we saw you, these spread the word, with hundreds of broadsheets and newspapers to support them. Workers in small shops, workers in all the metal trades, agricultural workers like those who tried to form a trade union in Dorset and were sent to Australia, and workers in mills and factories support the movement for a National Petition to create a new kind of England through this Charter. But there is still no national organization that speaks for them all, and behind very many

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 14.03.2015
ISBN: 978-3-7368-8340-6

Alle Rechte vorbehalten

Widmung:
Special thanks to Karin, Jennifer and Rüdi