Turncoats and traitors, rogues and renegades: reviewing labour’s lost leaders in reform-era Yorkshire

ABSTRACTThe annals of working-class agitational endeavours in the early nineteenth century contain more than a sprinkling of rogues who ran off with money, and renegades who abjured their earlier beliefs. They also include a few turncoats and traitors who turned their backs on their former colleagues and went over to the ‘other side’. This article explores the public careers of two reform-era renegades from the West Riding woollen textile district: John Tester and George Beaumont. Both were prominent local figures who turned coat in the pivotal year of 1834. An examination of the context and nature of their treachery attests to the importance but also the fragility of local leadership. The article argues that the special place that popular leaders held in their communities went beyond notions of fame and celebrity; but that this bond, once broken, was not easily repaired. Examining the villains as well as the heroes of labour history enables us to appreciate the local energies and tensions that underpinned popular movements and to put into context the resilience of leaders who lasted the course.KEYWORDS: Local leadershiptrade unionismpopular radicalismcelebrity Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.Notes1 For discussion of ‘the paper pantheon’ of heroes created by the Chartists and the importance of memory in political and social movements, see M. Roberts, ‘Romantic memory? Forgetting, remembering and feeling in the Chartist pantheon of heroes, c.1790–1840’, paper presented at Institute of History Research, Parliament, Politics and People online seminar, 19 January 2021, https://thehistoryofparliament.files.wordpress.com/2021/01/matthew-roberts-ppp-19-jan-2021-romanticmemory-chartist-pantheon-of-heroes-c.1790e280931840.pdf, accessed 20 March 2022.2 Northern Star [NS], 27 April 1839, 4; M. Chase, ‘Building identity, building circulation: engraved portraiture and the Northern Star’ in J. Allen and O. Ashton (eds), Papers for the People: A study of the Chartist press (London, 2005), 3–24; and S. Morgan, Celebrities, Heroes and Champions: Popular politicians in the Age of Reform, 1810–67 (Manchester, 2021), 147.3 For example, ‘John Bates, The Queensbury Veteran Reformer’, article in Halifax Courier [HC], 7 March 1895, 4; and B. Wilson, The Struggles of an Old Chartist (Halifax, 1887).4 T. Scriven, Popular Virtue: Continuity and change in radical moral politics, 1820–70 (Manchester, 2017); M. Roberts, Chartism, Commemoration and the Cult of the Radical Hero (Abingdon, 2019); and Morgan, op. cit.5 K. Navickas, Protest and the Politics of Space and Place, 1789–1848 (Manchester, 2016); R. Poole, ‘Review article: radicalism and protest’ (review no. 800), https://reviews.history.ac.uk/review/800, accessed 28 August 2022.6 N. Bend, ‘The Home Office and Public Disturbance c.1800–1832’ (Ph.D., Hertfordshire, 2018); N. Pye, The Home Office and the Chartists 1838–48: Protest and repression in the West Riding of Yorkshire (Pontypool, 2013).7 M. Chase, Chartism: A new history (Manchester, 2007); M. Chase and F. Bensimon, ‘Labour history’s biographical turn’, History Workshop Journal, 92 (2021), 192–207, here 198.8 It comprises six main centres – Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield, Halifax, Dewsbury and Keighley – and the out-townships and villages that surround them.9 Chase, Chartism, op cit., 22–29; J.A. Hargreaves, ‘“Hats Off”: methodism and popular protest in the West Riding of Yorkshire in the Chartist era: a case study of Benjamin Rushton (1785–1853) of Halifax’, Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Association, 57 (2010), 161–77; J. Halstead, ‘The Huddersfield Short Time Committee and its radical associations, c.1820–1876’ in J.A. Hargreaves and E.A. Hilary Haigh (eds), Slavery in Yorkshire: Richard Oastler and the campaign against child labour in the Industrial Revolution (Huddersfield, 2012), 91–144.10 J. Halstead, ‘Notable Co-operator – Thomas Hirst 1792–1833’, Huddersfield Local History Society Journal, 30 (2020), 61–67; Wilson, op. cit.; HC, 7 March 1895, 4.11 J.R. Sanders, ‘John Douthwaite and “John Powlett”: trades’ unionism and conflict in early 1830s Yorkshire’, Labour History Review, 87, 1 (2022), 1–38.12 On Firth (1796–1872) see Keighley News, 6 January 1872, 2; Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 10 February 1872, 5; Goodfellowship in Keighley: Eboracum lodge, Independent Order of Oddfellows, 1823–1923 (Keighley, 1923), 17, 53–54; J.T. Ward, ‘Some industrial reformers’, Bradford Textile Society Journal (1962–63), 121–36, here 132.13 Pollard died aged 24, Leeds Times [LT], 3 January 1835, 3; Woodhouse was 33, LT, 2 January 1836, 5.14 Leeds Mercury [LM], 4 August 1832, 5; Leeds Patriot [LP], 11 August 1832, 3.15 British Parliamentary Papers (BPP), Minutes of Evidence Taken before Select Committee on Combination Laws, 1825, IV, 135.16 NS, 5 January 1839, 8; Bradford Observer [BO], 27 September 1838, 3.17 Wilson, op. cit., 15.18 C. Godfrey, ‘The Chartist Prisoners, 1839–41’, International Review of Social History, 24 (1979), 189–236. On Ashton, see entry in J. Bellamy and J. Saville, Dictionary of Labour Biography, Vol 3 (London, 1978); on Bussey, see A.J. Peacock, Bradford Chartism, 1838–40 (York, 1969).19 J.R. Sanders, ‘Working-class movements in the West Riding textile district 1829 to 1839, with emphasis on local leadership and organisation’ (Ph.D., Manchester, 1984), 46–48; R.G. Hall, ‘A United People? Leaders and followers in a Chartist locality, 1838–1848’, Journal of Social History, 38, 1 (2004), 179–203, here 186–91.20 R.J. Morris, ‘The rise of James Kitson: Trades Union and Mechanics’ Institution, Leeds 1826–1851’, Publications of the Thoresby Society, 53 (1973), 179–200.21 Hall, op. cit., 192.22 NS, 10 November 1849, 1; Huddersfield Chronicle, 19 January 1878, 8.23 J. Halstead, ‘The Charter and something more! The politics of Joshua Hobson’ in J.A. Hargreaves (ed.), The Charter Our Right! Huddersfield Chartism re-considered (Huddersfield, 2018), 83–112.24 LT, 21 June 1834, 3.25 Peacock, op. cit., 28–34, 48–49; Chase, Chartism, op. cit., 132, 376.26 E.P. Thompson, Customs in Common: Studies in traditional popular culture (London, 1993).27 LT, 14 June 1834, 4.28 LM, 28 June 1834, 6. Taylor, once the star student of the new Leeds Mechanics’ Institute, in many ways suffered a worse fate: alcoholism and a premature death in the Leeds workhouse, LT, 8 June 1844, 1.29 I. Prothero, Artisans and Politics in Early Nineteenth Century London: John Gast and his times (London, 1979); R.G. Kirby and A.E. Musson, The Voice of the People, John Doherty 1798–1854: Trade unionist, radical and factory reformer (Manchester, 1975).30 British Library [BL], London: Place Papers [PP], Add. Mss., 28, 803, Tester to Place, 6 July 1825; Bradford and Wakefield Chronicle [BWC] 8 October 1825, 3. According to Edward Baines Jnr, Tester was ‘not a native’ of Bradford; and Leicester is later referred to as his place of settlement, LI, 14 June 1827, 3. Later accounts speak of his three young children traipsing around the country with him, LM, 5 July 1834, 6.31 Hull Advertiser, 28 October 1825, 2; LM, 19 July 1834, 6.32 LM, 12 July 1834, 6; 28 June 1834, 6; Leeds Intelligencer [LI], 29 June 1826, 2.33 BL: PP, Add. Mss., 28, 803, Tester to Place, 6 July and 10 July 1825; W. Scruton, ‘The Great Strike of 1825’, Bradford Antiquary, 1 (1888), 67–73, here 69; LM, 19 July 1834, 6; BL: PP, Add. Mss., 28, 803, Baines to Place, 15 June 1825; LM, 17 September 1825, 3; LI, 11 August 1825, 2.34 LM, 28 June 1834, 6.35 M. Chase, Early Trade Unionism (London, 2012 edn), 104; J. Smith, ‘The Strike of 1825’ in D.G. Wright and J.A. Jowitt (eds), Victorian Bradford: Essays in honour of Jack Reynolds (Bradford, 1981), 63–79.36 Scruton, op. cit., 69.37 See Trades’ Newspaper [TN], LM, LI, BWC, August–December 1825.38 Scruton, op. cit., 73; Smith, ‘The Strike of 1825’, op. cit., 76.39 BWC, 15 October 1825, 2; LM, 12 November 1825, 3, for the lack of any ‘outrages’.40 LM, 20 August 1825, 3; Bradford Courier [BC], 22 September 1825, 3; BWC, 8 October 1825, 3.41 J. Tester, History of the Commencement, Progress, and Termination of the Bradford Contest … etc (Bradford 1826).42 BL: PP, Add. Mss.,28, 803, Farrar to Place, 13 March 1826. Tester later alleged that his departure came after a stone thrown through his rear window left his face bloodied, LM, 28 June 1834 6; LI, 29 June 1826, 3.43 LI, 14 June 1827, 3 (although TN, 17 June 1827, 390 declared this story ‘wholly false’); Leicester Herald [LH], 8 August 1827, 2.44 BC, 1, 8 November 1827; LI, 20 December 1827, 3.45 LH, 27 February 1828, 2; LM, 5 July 1834, 6.46 LM, 5 July 1834, 6; 19 July 1834, 6.47 LM, 7 June 1834, 8; 12 July 1834, 6.48 LM, 12 July 1834, 6; 19 July 1834, 6. Tester and his critics differ in their accounts of the date of the abscondment.49 The letters appeared in instalments in the editions of 7 June, page 8, and 14 June, 28 June, 5 July and 12 July 1834 (all page 6). Tester penned a further letter, responding to critics, which appeared in LM, 16 August 1834, 6. It ended ‘to be continued’, but never was.50 LM, 9 August 1834, 6; LT, 9 August 1834, 3.51 Sanders, ‘John Douthwaite’, op. cit., 30–32.52 LM, 7 June 1834, 8.53 LM, 19 July 1834; LT, 19 July 1834, 1.54 LT, 14 June 1834, 6; 19 July 1834, 1.55 Sanders, ‘John Douthwaite’, op. cit., 23–33.56 BL: PP, Add. Mss., 28, 803, Tester to Place, 27 August 1825; Smith, ‘The Strike of 1825’, op. cit., 74.57 LM, 28 June 1834, 6; LM, 7 June 1834, 6. Tester may have been referring to Harriet Martineau’s Illustrations of Political Economy, a series of fictionalised works published in 1832–33. (I am grateful to a reviewer for this suggestion.)58 Hall, op. cit., 194–95.59 LM, 28 June 1834, 6.60 Hereford Journal, 30 April 1834, 1; LM, 14 June 1834, 6.61 Tester talked of considering emigration, LM, 5 July 1834, 6; and a ‘John Tester’ spoke at Wandsworth and Kensington Working Men’s Association meetings, The Operative, 27 January 1839, 6; 24 February 1839, 12; 10 March 1839, 9. However, there is no evidence that it is ‘our’ man.62 BO, 9 February 1870, 4; Scruton, op. cit., 69.63 For example, he spoke at Sheffield, Salford, Hull and Newcastle, and later sought to raise money at a series of meetings in London. A. Lilti, The Invention of Celebrity 1750–1850 (Cambridge, 2017), 5, identifies this link with a wide audience as a feature of celebrity.64 LI, 17 November 1825, 3; TN 9 October 1825, 199; LI, 3 November 1825, 4.65 LH, 27 February 1828, 2; LT, 9 August 1834, 3; BO 9 February 1870, 4; Scruton, op. cit., 69.66 See Lilti, op. cit., 4–6.67 Thomas Barlow, LT, 14 June 1834, 4.68 LI, 9 September 1830, 3.69 For example, Halstead, ‘The Huddersfield Short Time Committee’, op. cit.; A.J. Brooke, ‘Labour disputes and Trade Unions in the Industrial Revolution’ in E.A. Hilary Haigh (ed.), Huddersfield, A Most Handsome Town: Aspects of the history and culture of a West Riding town (Huddersfield, 1992), 221–40.70 LI, 9 September 1830, 3; Navickas, op. cit., 106.71 Halifax Commercial Chronicle [HCC], 11 July 1829, 3; LT, 14 June 1851, 5.72 LP, 22 January 1831, 3; The National Archives, Home Office papers (subsequently TNA: HO) 52/25, Beaumont and Threappleton to Walker, 13 April 1834.73 A.J. Brooke, The Handloom Fancy Weavers c.1820–1914 (Honley, 1993); LT, 9 December 1837, 3. This letter from ‘G.B. Almondbury’, a ‘poor illiterate handloom fancy weaver’, has all the hallmarks of his correspondence. The 1841 and 1851 censuses confirm this family structure; his wife Ann is listed as a fancy weaver in the 1851 census.74 LI, 9 September 1830, 3; HCC, 13 March 1830, 3; LI, 29 December 1831, 3.75 Halifax and Huddersfield Express [HHE], 1 October 1831, 3.76 LM, 3 February 1827, 3.77 BPP, Report of the Select Committee on Manufactures, Commerce and Shipping, 1833, VI, 599, testimony of William Stocks; and LM, 21 November 1829, 4. For the full story of this campaign, see J.R. Sanders, ‘The voice of the “shoeless, shirtless and shameless”: community radicalism in the West Riding, 1829 to 1839’, Northern History, 58, 2 (2021), 259–81, here 267–69.78 LP, 13 March 1830, 3; LM, 17 April 1830, 3; 21 August 1830, 3; 11 September 1830, 3; 23 October 1830, 3.79 James Mann, William Ashton, Frank Mirfield and Abram Hanson all addressed Almondbury meetings; LT, 14 June 1851, 5.80 HHE, 18 May 1833, 3; 24 April 1834, 3.81 Halstead, ‘The Huddersfield Short Time Committee’, op. cit., 93, 126; LI, 29 December 1831, 3; HHE, 30 April 1831, 4.82 Sanders, ‘John Douthwaite’, op. cit., 8–14; LP, 14 April 1832, 2.83 TNA: HO 52/25, Walker to Melbourne, 15 April 1834.84 TNA: HO 52/25, Beaumont and Threappleton to Walker, 13 April 1834.85 The magistrates were Joseph Armitage, Joseph Walker and William Walker Battye, all leading figures in the town’s ruling elite.86 Voice of the West-Riding [VWR], 21 December 1833, 227; TNA: HO 52/25, Deposition of George Beaumont, 2 January 1834.87 TNA: HO 52/25, Walker and Battye to Melbourne, 15 February 1834. This may be a reference to the Grand National Consolidated Trades’ Union meeting being held in London, 13–19 February 1834.88 TNA: HO 52/23, Walker to Melbourne, 31 January 1833.89 TNA: HO 52/25, Walker to Melbourne, 21 April 1834.90 TNA: HO 52/25, Kaye to Melbourne, 27 April 1834.91 TNA: HO 52/24, Armitage to Melbourne, 2 January 1834.92 For the allegations about Threappleton, see VWR, 1 February 1834, 278; 8 February 1834, 288. For initial suspicions about Beaumont, see VWR, 23 November 1833, 198.93 VWR, 29 March 1834, 341.94 VWR, 5 April 1834, 348.95 ibid.96 VWR, 12 April 1834, 356.97 VWR, 5 April 1834, 348; TNA: HO 52/25, Beaumont to Melbourne, 21 April 1834. Lord Howick referred to their case in a parliamentary debate on the Leeds petition on behalf of the ‘Dorchester Unionists’, LM, 26 April 1834, 6.98 TNA: HO 52/25, Walker to Melbourne, 15 April, 21 April 1834.99 TNA: HO 52/25, Beaumont to Walker, 13 April; Walker to Melbourne 21 April 1834.100 TNA: HO 52/25, Beaumont to Melbourne, 21 April 1834.101 TNA: HO 52/25, Walker to Melbourne, 15 April 1834.102 On the ‘professionalisation’ of radicalism see P. Pickering, ‘Chartism and the “Trade of Agitation” in early Victorian Britain’, History, 76, 247 (1991), 221–37.103 LT, 22 September 1838, 5; 6 October 1838, 5.104 LT, 24 November 1838, 4.105 LM, 16 February 1839, 7; LT, 23 February 1839, 6; 2 January 1841, 3; 31 January 1846, 8; 20 June 1846, 8.106 LP, 4 June 1831, 4; LT, 12 January 1839, 6; 22 May 1841, 6; 9 February 1839, 6; 2 January 1841, 3.107 LT, 2 January 1841, 3; 26 March 1842, 8; 9 April 1842, 4; 30 April 1842, 8; 18 June 1842, 8; 4 March 1848, 3.108 LT, 14 June 1851, 5; 29 April 1848, 5.109 LM, 8 May 1830, 3; LP, 23 July 1831, 3; 29 October 1831, 3; VWR, 23 November 1833, 198; 14 December 1833, 222.110 John Smith, LT, 16 April 1842, 3; John West, LT, 24 February 1844, 4; and 9 March 1844, 4.111 LT, 14 June 1851, 5; 24 April 1841, 3.112 LT, 24 April 1841, 3; 30 January 1841, 7. This letter sits just below one from Peter Bussey, another ‘lost leader’, writing from New York.113 LT, 9 March 1839, 6; 24 April 1841, 3.114 LT, 14 June 1851, 5; HC, 25 May 1850, 5.115 LT, 18 June 1842, 8 (‘Rumoured Cricketing’); 3 January 1846, 8 (‘Change-Ringing Extraordinary’). The latter report is accounted for by Beaumont’s membership of ‘the Society of Change Ringers, of Almondbury’ (LT, 14 June 1851, 5).116 Pye, op. cit.117 LT, 1 November 1834, 4.118 Leicester Journal, 10 September 1841, 3. He was sentenced to a month in jail.119 LM, 7 June 1834, 6; LT, 14 June 1834, 4.120 E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (Harmondsworth, 1968 edn), 715–34.121 LI, 15 February 1834, 2; LM, 6 March 1830, 4; LP, 21 August 1830, 2; 13 November 1830, 3; LM, 2 March 1839, 7.122 LI, 15 February 1834, 2; LT, 15 July 1837, 5; 9 September 1837, 8.123 LM, 13 August 1825, 4 and LI, 29 June 1826, 3 (Tester); LP, 6 June 1829, 2 (Beaumont, and Mann’s recollections of 1817).124 M. Chase, ‘Chartism in Huddersfield and its vicinity: the cultural dimension’ in Hargreaves (ed.), The Charter Our Right!, op. cit., 69–70.125 Morgan, op. cit., 147–48; Scriven, op. cit., 59–61.126 Co-operative Union Library, Manchester, Owen Correspondence, No. 1184, Holliday to Owen, 24 November 1839; LT, 24 April 1841, 3.127 For example, Mark 6:4: ‘And Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honour, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.”’128 Halstead, ‘The Huddersfield Short Time Committee’, op. cit., 108; HCC, 15 May 1830, 4.129 Halstead, ‘The Huddersfield Short Time Committee’, op. cit., 96.130 This quality was attributed to Benjamin Rushton, ‘the beloved old veteran in the people’s cause’, NS, 8 August 1846, 8.131 For Hanson (an actual thespian), see Boot and Shoemaker, 8 February 1879, quoted in D. Thompson, The Chartists: Popular politics in the Industrial Revolution (Aldershot, 1986), 182–83. For Hirst, see Halstead, ‘Notable Co-operator’, op. cit., 61–67. For Rushton, see Hargreaves, ‘“Hats Off”’, op. cit.132 On the tradition of the gentleman leader, see J. Belchem and J. Epstein, ‘The nineteenth-century gentleman leader revisited’, Social History, 22, 2 (1997), 174–93.133 Sanders, ‘Working-class movements’, op. cit., 419–26; Chase, Chartism, op. cit., 150, 208–09.134 Lilti, op. cit., 4–5. ‘Reputation’ is based on the collective judgement made by community members about one of their own. ‘Celebrity’ involves stimulating curiosity and engagement with a wider audience and transcending an original sphere of activity.135 The last throes of this world are portrayed vividly in Gary Imlach’s My Father and Other Working Class Football Heroes (London, 2006). On rugby league, see T. Collins, Rugby League in Twentieth Century Britain: A social and cultural history (London, 2006).136 LM, 12 July 1834, 6.137 For a graphic example of the impact of a rugby player crossing a community divide in Hull, see Paul Cooke’s autobiography (co-written with Adrian Durham) Judas? The story of Paul Cooke (Worthing, 2016).138 M. Roberts, Political Movements in Urban Britain, 1832–1914 (Basingstoke, 2007), 10; D. Fraser, ‘Politics and society in the nineteenth century’ in D. Fraser (ed.) A History of Modern Leeds (Manchester, 1980), 270.139 Roberts, ‘Romantic Memory?’ op. cit., 4.140 On infiltration, see ‘Police spies infiltrated UK leftwing group for decades’, Guardian, 15 October 2018, available at: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/oct/15/undercover-police-spies-infiltrated-uk-leftwing-groups-for-decades, accessed 20 March 2022. On the recruitment of adversaries, see ‘Why Boris Johnson’s Tories fell for a tiny sect of libertarian provocateurs’, Guardian, 1 August 2020, available at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/01/why-johnsons-tories-fell-for-a-tiny-sect-of-libertarian-provocateurs-rcp, accessed 20 March 2022).