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Radicalism and Reputation
The Career of Bronterre O'Brien
By Michael J. Turner Michigan State University Press
Copyright © 2017 Michael J. Turner
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-62895-285-8
CHAPTER 1
Rise of the "Schoolmaster"
James O'Brien was born in 1804 in Granard, county Longford, Ireland. His father, a failed wine and spirits dealer, died when he was young, but O'Brien had the good fortune to be noticed by the educator and reformer Richard Lovell Edgeworth, who offered him a place at the experimental school in Edgeworthstown. Here, the focus was on developing the ability to reason. O'Brien thrived in this environment and in 1822 proceeded to Trinity College, Dublin, where he won several prizes for his academic accomplishments. He began training for a legal career, and in 1830 moved to London to complete his qualifications. Gripped at this time by popular agitation for parliamentary reform, London was the place where the talented and ambitious O'Brien devoted himself to politics rather than the legal profession (although for a time he kept rooms at the Inns of Court and was listed as "an Attorney's assistant"). He mixed with prominent reformers, notably Henry Hunt, William Cobbett, and Henry Hetherington. He also met political exiles from the continent. He joined several radical associations, addressed meetings, and wrote for the reform press. O'Brien quickly attracted attention as a forthright champion of the workers' demand for political, social, and economic rights. From early 1831 he used "Bronterre" as a nom de plume, and this would become the name by which he was generally known. In Gaelic, brón means "sorrow" or "mourning" and tír means "land" or "country." The French form of the latter is terre. David Stack has suggested that O'Brien's adoption of the name "sorrow of the land" was both "a powerful affirmation of his self-perception as a spokesman for the poor and dispossessed" and a signifier of the "amalgamation of Irish and French radicalism" upon which his politics were based. Certainly his Irish background and his fascination with the French Revolution would be of central importance as his career progressed.
O'Brien wrote initially for the Political Letters and Pamphlets, published by William Carpenter, a pioneer of the radical unstamped press whose interests included religious inquiry, cooperation, and the rights of labor. As his reputation began to grow O'Brien edited a radical weekly in Birmingham in 1831–32. Then he returned to London, where he was installed as editor of one of the most influential of all unstamped radical publications, Hetherington's Poor Man's Guardian. He played a prominent role in the campaign against "taxes on knowledge" and restrictions on the press, and the tone of stubborn defiance in his writing helped to expand his readership and influence. (The agitation for press freedoms was blessed with some success in 1836, when stamp duty was reduced from 4d. to 1d. per copy, but the penalties for producing or possessing unstamped papers became more stringent.) O'Brien denounced government policies, attacked the middle class, and defended trade unions. He discussed class antagonism, Owenism, the poor laws, and factory conditions, and pushed for the ballot and an extension of the suffrage. His writing for the Poor Man's Guardian was bold and uncompromising, and O'Brien developed an analytical approach that he hoped — in league with other writers — would give the case for radical reform a convincing intellectual basis. He appealed to the minds as well as the hearts of his readers and in time would be dubbed "schoolmaster," the title given to him by Feargus O'Connor, who was the closest thing that Chartism would have to a national leader.
O'Brien's attempts to set up his own newspapers were not blessed with much success. He appears not to have had sound business sense, and the number of readers who were willing to persevere with his often lengthy and complex essays proved not to be as large as he expected. He could be difficult and quarrelsome, too, which did not endear him to fellow radical leaders and journalists who might otherwise have given help and advice. The newspaper taxes also meant that he could not easily lower his price per issue in an effort to boost sales, and at times he had to exclude material in order for his publications not to come under the relevant legislation. For much of his career O'Brien was in debt. Still, he had remarkable reserves of resilience and optimism. When Hetherington ceased publication of the Poor Man's Guardian at the end of 1835, O'Brien devoted himself to book projects (mainly concerning the French Revolution), wrote a series of "Bronterre's Letters" that appeared in several publications during 1836, and planned for the launch of his own paper. Bronterre's National Reformer only lasted for three months in 1837, however, before it folded. He was briefly involved with the London Mercury and then edited a new collective concern, the Operative, in 1838–39. As the Chartist movement gathered momentum, O'Brien was the most respected contributor to its main organ, O'Connor's Northern Star. He yearned for his own paper nonetheless. With William Carpenter he secured backers for the Southern Star, which commenced publication in January 1840, but within months he was in prison. A plan of late 1841, to establish a Chartist newspaper for Scotland with O'Brien as editor, fell through. From July 1842 he was the editor and part owner of the British Statesman, another short-lived venture. It ceased publication in January 1843, "beaten down," according to one source, by O'Brien's enemies within the Chartist movement, which was a change from the earlier allegation that his newspaper difficulties were caused by official persecution (as when the Stamp Office refused his sureties in 1840 and he was unable to organize regular printing and distribution for the Southern Star). O'Brien continually tried to make his papers pay. None of them did, despite such initiatives as the inclusion of illustrations and portraits. Many Chartist periodicals developed this "graphic dimension" in an effort to attract subscribers, especially the Northern Star. O'Brien himself featured in a series of portraits in the Northern Star in 1838–39. Then he used the same ploy with his own papers, though without much effect.
O'Brien's political goals in the late 1830s were made plain in the mission statements he issued with his newspapers. In the first number of Bronterre's National Reformer he explained its purpose:
To promote a radical reformation in government, law, property, religion, and MORALS. THE REFORMATION TO BE IN FAVOUR OF THE GREAT MASS OF THE COMMUNITY — TO BE effected in the shortest possible time, consistently with inflicting the least avoidable injury on existing interests — to be operated without bloodshed or violence of any kind, by the sole force of a new public opinion — and to be (if possible) conducted and consummated by the constituted authorities of the realm, in obedience to, and protected by, the moral and (if necessary) the physical force of the great majority of the community, in whose interests the reformation will be.
The Operative continued in this vein, though O'Brien had to share control with others (there was a management committee of twelve: three trade union secretaries, two printers, two smiths, two tobacconists, a compositor, a joiner, and a currier). Established "by the working classes, to defend the rights of labour from the aggressions of capital," the Operative was funded by shareholders. The plan was to issue four thousand shares, at five shillings each. Manhood suffrage and vote by ballot were chief among the paper's objectives, along with a list of related aims:
A fair day's wages for a fair day's work. The total abolition of the Corn Laws. The annihilation of all Church Rates. An improved system of taxation — that the rich may be assessed according to their wealth, and the poor in proportion to their poverty. Cheap and honest government. An equal administration of the laws — justice for the employed as well as employers.
O'Brien championed these goals throughout his career, and as the "schoolmaster" of Chartism he did his utmost to explain and justify them in an intelligible way.
O'Brien's first piece for the Northern Star was published in January 1838 to great fanfare and congratulation: "We have much pleasure in announcing to our readers that we have at length succeeded in adding the valuable services of the glorious BRONTERRE to that phalanx of talent already attached to the Northern Star." O'Brien enjoyed the adulation, though he also wished for independence and expected before long to do well in his own right as an owner-editor. Dorothy Thompson contends that Chartism would not have been a viable movement without a national organ like the Northern Star, and that O'Brien's papers were inadequate. Though this is true, O'Brien's efforts ought not to be dismissed too readily, not least because his involvement with the Northern Star helped it to become a success. In addition, he made an important contribution to the broader development of a politicized popular press shaped by working-class consciousness and a break from established literary fashions and opinions. Here was an alternative culture, a will to construct new sites of literary and intellectual power. O'Brien's role in the development of Chartist communication and language went beyond the written word. Indeed, Chartist communication was multifaceted. Verbal, visual, symbolic, and ritualistic forms were all used to get the message across, and O'Brien's appearances on the public platform were not without impact.
At the end of the 1830s it was primarily the Northern Star that gave O'Brien the exposure he wanted. He was a celebrity. The paper's circulation increased and he gained access to a much wider readership than he would otherwise have had, which (albeit temporarily) added to his status and reputation. He had already made his name as a writer before he joined the Northern Star, and the paper did make frequent reference to his pre-Chartist activity, but in this period success for the Northern Star was also good for O'Brien and it was in his personal interest to maximize the paper's influence.
When he launched the Southern Star he was not intending to diminish the Northern Star but to complement it. A speaking tour in the South of England led O'Brien to think that a new Chartist paper ought to target the region, and O'Connor publicly approved (although it is not impossible that the title of O'Brien's paper was "indicative of rivalry with O'Connor").
Within popular radicalism there was an ongoing debate about tactics. Insurgency and bloodshed were expected and even recommended by some, but the majority of leaders and activists preferred constitutional methods. During the 1830s O'Brien characterized violence and illegality as foolish. The state had the means to put down any uprising, he reasoned, and it would be better to try other options — those offered by the existing electoral system, for instance, including exclusive dealing. Pressure could also be exerted by mobilizing large numbers for meetings, processions, and demonstrations. These activities could win respect for the cause, gather new adherents, and demonstrate unity, strength, and discipline in radical politics. People could abstain from commodities like alcohol, tea, coffee, and tobacco, all of which were taxed. The government would lose revenue, and participants in this form of protest would save money and improve their own health. They might go further, and simply refuse to pay direct taxes until their grievances were addressed. An older idea — the "run on gold" — still had support too: people could simultaneously withdraw all their savings, plunging the banks into crisis. Britain's credit and debt arrangements would not stand, piling greater difficulties upon the government.
Another suggestion was to organize the workers in their capacity as producers, but not everyone agreed with O'Brien on this. While he pointed to the connections between political and economic power, some leaders thought of the two as separate and argued that economic problems could only be solved through economic means and that political action was unnecessary. This disagreement affected discussion of trade unionism, cooperation, and proposals involving labor exchanges and a general strike (or "national holiday"). O'Brien did not reject nonpolitical methods. He favored almost anything that might serve to boost the workers' boldness, influence, vision, and self-consciousness. But he maintained that the supreme goal was the vote. Before the advent of the People's Charter, O'Brien had pulled together different strands of protest and activism in his articles for the Poor Man's Guardian. As he put it in November 1833:
Let us deal with no middleman who refuses to vote or petition for Universal Suffrage. Let us deal with no villain who is opposed to Trades' Unions, or in any other way hostile to our rights and privileges. Let us resist every attempt of the shopocrats to cut down the workman's wages, and uphold every effort of the men to obtain equitable advances. Let us support one another in all struggles against the mercenary combinations of slave drivers, and encourage exclusive dealing with the people's friends in all lines of business. Let us as far as possible promote mutual exchanges of labour for labour, on the cooperative principle, so as to intercept the profits of trade in addition to the wages of labour. ... But meanwhile, neglect no opportunity of seeking Universal Suffrage, which is the grand panacea for all our evils.
In O'Brien's view, manhood suffrage was the only way to make advances and to protect any gains that were made
All this was shaped by O'Brien's negative opinion of the Reform Act of 1832. It had been passed in response to popular pressure, but to many radicals it was a disappointment. Among its main provisions was the uniform £10 borough franchise. Although this seemed like a progressive measure, in practice it excluded large numbers of urban workers. The size of the British parliamentary electorate rose from about five hundred thousand to about eight hundred thousand, a large increase, but as a proportion of the total population the electorate was small: only one in five adult males could vote in England and Wales, one in eight in Scotland, and one in twenty in Ireland.
O'Brien complained that the 1832 Reform Act delivered the nation over to "Mammon" and facilitated exclusion, plunder, and tyranny. It "united all property against all poverty." He regarded the Reform Act as a trick, designed to deny workers the vote and keep them in subjection to political parties drawn from the landed aristocracy and wealthy middle-class employers. The key to everything was a democratic suffrage, and the lesson of 1832 was that workers should carry on campaigning, assisted by a cheap press that could educate and guide: "We have our battle still to gain." O'Brien wrote that the Reform Act could only be accepted as an installment, "part payment" of what was due, and that liberty of the press would help to secure further installments: "The emancipation of the press in this country will be tantamount to a quiet, orderly, constitutional, irresistible revolution." In his musings about the best way to generate a large, disciplined, united popular movement, O'Brien initially advised that use must be made of the talent and strength in the trade unions. He reached out to them in the belief that no effective mass campaign was possible without them. He subsequently called upon them to join in the campaign for the Charter. The alliance between Chartism and the trades proved to be stronger in some places than in others. In London and Glasgow it was an important and enduring feature of early Victorian popular politics. But all too often O'Brien was left complaining that trade union leaders did not appreciate the interconnectedness of economic and political power. They preferred not to commit themselves and their members to explicitly political agitation.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Radicalism and Reputation by Michael J. Turner. Copyright © 2017 Michael J. Turner. Excerpted by permission of Michigan State University Press.
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