Richard Oastler

Early years

After four years his failing sight forced him to give this up; in 1810 he became a commission agent, dealing in oils and dry-saltery: he also acted as a steward for the Dixons of Gledhow Hall near Leeds, He became involved in charity work in Leeds; sick visiting with Michael Thomas Sadler and organising charitable relief of the destitute. He later claimed that it was this struggle that had broken his health, leaving him liable to periodic breakdowns in health.

Political philosophy

To Oastler "Tory-Radical" was not a description of a political philosophy (and certainly not of his) but of a tactical alliance of the supporters of two different philosophies against the Whigs. He was a "Church and King" Tory but, as the Duke of Wellington noted, a strange one. He denied any element of Radicalism in his political philosophy, and regarded himself as an "ultra-Tory" rather than a Peelite "Conservative"; he thought Peel too readily accepted (and adopted) the Whig application of the modern doctrines of "political economy" to the country's problems. He held that God knew better than Malthus: nothing could supersede Biblical injunctions that the poor should not be oppressed and the distressed should be succoured. Market forces were not a "hidden hand" working for some greater good, nor was interference with them imprudent folly. On the contrary I believe that man is a fallen, selfish, ignorant being, and that every unregulated and unrestrained action of his is fraught with evil – that, if left without the restraining and regulating laws of God (which, by our Constitution, must be part and parcel of the laws of the land), instead of preferring such schemes, in the search of his own advantage, as would be advantageous to the society, his selfishness would lead him to injure all for his own benefit. I learn this from the Holy Bible. I have often witnessed it.

'I have had the honour of speaking to her majesty of the character of her subjects, particularly in these vast counties; I had the honour of telling her what I have said to you tonight, that I did not believe there was a finer material to rule over, I did not believe there was a body of men capable of more generous sentiments than the operative classes of the great kingdom that God in his providence had called her to govern. And I tell you it would have done your hearts good to hear the ardent and the fervent manner in which her majesty replied "I know it, I know it well, I fully believe what you say; I am sure they are as good a material as any sovereign was ever called upon to rule"'

and be greeted with - (Tremendous cheering)}} Working class radicals were initially dubious about allying themselves with an opponent of their constitutional aspirations, but eventually came to value Oastler more highly than many of their ostensible allies; a co-belligerent "above purchase and above suspicion" on bread-and-butter issues: the portrait of Oastler reproduced in this article was given away by the Chartist Northern Star in its series of prints of "Portraits of Patriots".

Factory Reform

"Yorkshire Slavery"

In 1830 Oastler, a committed abolitionist, was visiting John Wood of Horton Hall near Bradford, one of the largest worsted spinners in the country. Whilst an existing (virtually un-enforceable) Factory Act specified a minimum age and maximum hours of work for children in cotton mills, it did not apply to other textile industries (such as: silk, flax, woollen and worsted ). Wood, unhappy at the hours and conditions of work for children in Yorkshire worsted mills and his inability to persuade his competitors to ameliorate them, explained his concerns to Oastler and got him to promise to "remove from our factory system the cruelties which are practised in our mills". Oastler wrote the next day a letter to the Leeds Mercury the leading West Riding newspaper contrasting speeches made at Yorkshire anti-slavery meetings with the treatment of children in Yorkshire factories – "Yorkshire Slavery":

Thousands of our fellow-creatures and fellow-subjects, both male and female, the miserable inhabitants of a Yorkshire town, (Yorkshire now represented in Parliament by the giant of anti-slavery principles) are this very moment existing in a state of slavery, more horrid than are the victims of that hellish system 'colonial slavery' These innocent creatures drawl out, unpitied, their short but miserable existence, in a place famed for its profession of religious zeal, whose inhabitants are ever foremost in professing 'temperance' and 'reformation' and are striving to outrun their neighbours in missionary exertions, and would fain send the Bible to the farthest corner of the globe aye, in the very place where the anti-slavery fever rages most furiously, her apparent charity is not more admired on earth, than her real cruelty is abhorred in Heaven. The very streets which receive the droppings of an 'Anti-Slavery Society' are every morning wet by the tears of innocent victims at the accursed shrine of avarice, who are compelled (not by the cart-whip of the negro slave-driver) but by the dread of the equally appalling thong or strap of the over-looker, to hasten, half -dressed, but not half-fed, to those magazines of British infantile slavery the worsted mills in the town and neighbourhood of Bradford!!!

After a fortnight's delay, the Mercury published the letter. This triggered correspondence; it became clear that other readers of the Mercury were also perturbed at conditions for children not only in the worsted industry, but also in other unregulated textile trades carried out in the West Riding. Oastler took up the cause of factory regulation. However, the millowners organised to resist any attempt to regulate their mills.

Halifax resolutions – breach with the ''Mercury''

In 1831, John Cam Hobhouse put forward a Bill to extend the Factory Act to other textile industries; Yorkshire millowners opposing the Bill met at Halifax and passed anti-Bill resolutions which the Mercury printed with an editorial endorsing the resolutions and opposing Hobhouse's Bill. "But it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his days."" "A prayer out of a poor man's mouth reacheth to the ears of God, and his reproach cometh speedily." "He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his maker.""

From this time forward, Oastler used the Intelligencer as the chief outlet for his letters. The Leeds Patriot, a Radical newspaper, commented favourably on the letter and gave Oastler its support on the issue.

'Fixby Hall Compact' – common cause with the Radicals

Short Time Committees (predominantly (but not exclusively) organisations of millhands in which Radicals and trades unionists were prominent) had sprung up in the West Riding textile towns (and also in Lancashire) to secure Parliamentary legislation regulating the hours of work in textile mills (for children explicitly, and with the further aim that regulation would be by means which meant that adults worked the same hours). After Hobhouse's Bill was lost when a General Election was precipitated by defeat of the Reform Bill, a deputation from the Huddersfield 'Short Time Committee' called on Oastler at Fixby and agreed with him (the 'Fixby Hall Compact'of 19 June 1831) to combine their efforts on the issue despite fundamental differences on other political issues.

'The Factory King'

Hobhouse reintroduced his Bill, but a combination of the pressure of parliamentary (Reform Bill) business and determined opposition by millowner MPs and MPs lobbied by millowners meant that although an Act was passed, it had lost virtually every significant provision in the original Bill. At a monster demonstration by West Riding textile workers at York (Easter 1832) he said "We will have our Act, whatever Parliament will vote"; the Leeds Mercury seized upon this as showing even less respect than the King for the judgement of Parliament, and mockingly dubbed him 'King Richard' and hence 'the Factory King', a title Oastler was happy to accept. More significantly, Oastler urged his listeners that at future elections they should work for the return of candidates supporting a ten-hour bill, whatever their other political views. Sadler's bill failed to complete its passage through the Commons before Parliament was dissolved Thornhill (Oastler's employer) had had no objection to Oastler campaigning for factory reform, but intervened when told that at Huddersfield (where no Tory was standing in the 1832 election) Oastler was working for the return of a Radical.

Althorp's Act (1833)- the ten-hour movement outflanked

Sadler failed to be elected to Parliament, and Parliament decided that a Factory Commission should make a thorough investigation of the matter to provide a sound basis for any further factory legislation. The Short Time movement saw no need for further investigation and Lord Ashley – now the champion of factory reform in the Commons – introduced another Ten-Hour Bill without waiting for the Commission's report. The short time committees of the textile districts organised mass demonstrations for a Ten-Hour Act, the rhetoric becoming more heated ("Tt is a question of blood against gold. Infants' blood has been sold for nought, but if we are despised now., it shall be a question of blood in another sense" Oastler told a vast demonstration at Wibsey Low Moor at the start of July) as the aim was no longer seen to be convincing the public of the need for factory reform, but rather deterring the government from using the Commission to avoid any meaningful reform. They attempted to organise a boycott of the Commission and to ensure that wherever the Commissioners went in the textile districts they were met with large demonstrations for a Ten-Hour Bill, and against the Commissioners. Oastler was the 'centre of communication' for the organisation, and prominent in the agitation against the Commission. When the Commission's report came out, it recommended an eight-hour day for children under thirteen, with a declared aim of allowing mills to operate sixteen hours a day by a 'relay system' employing two sets of children. This addressed the issue of child labour on which the short time movement had been able to gain public sympathy without giving any restriction on adult hours of work. Despite winning a number of Parliamentary votes, Ashley was unable to secure a majority for key clauses in his Bill, and withdrew it, leaving the way open for Lord Althorp to pilot through a Factory Act in line with the Commission recommendations.

The 1833 Factory Act was unsatisfactory not merely to the Ten-Hour movement but to all interested parties. Members of the government had openly described Althorp's Act as 'an evil forced upon the Government'. Mill-owners (whether reconciled to the principle of state intervention or not) objected that the textile districts did not have the significant pool of unemployed children needed for a 'relay system': it was therefore virtually impossible to attempt to comply with the Act. Furthermore, mill-owner magistrates, who had been barred from hearing cases brought under the previous Factory Acts, were allowed to hear cases under the 1833 Act, which they saw no point in enforcing: only if non-compliance came to the attention of a Factory Inspector (given powers to act as a magistrate by the Act) was there any prospect of a successful prosecution

Blackburn speech of 1836

Oastler's agitation for a Ten-Hour Act having failed, he was temporarily swept aside in favour of a Society for Promoting National Regeneration, the brainchild of John Doherty and Robert Owen, which aimed to secure an eight-hour day by concerted strike action The Standard therefore did not report that Oastler had talked of teaching children to sabotage mill machinery,; "If after this your magistrates should refuse to listen to your complaints under the factory act and again refer you to me, bring with you your children and tell them to ask their grandmothers for a few of their old knitting needles which I will instruct them how to apply to the spindles in a way which will teach these law-defying mill owner magistrates to have respect even to 'Oastler's law* as they have wrongly designated the factory law."

This caused widespread outrage and the rupture of relationships with Ashley and Wood and was no longer actively involved in the textile trade or West Riding affairs. The Fleet Papers record a donation by Wood of £100 to the Oastler Liberty Fund which seems to have been originally given to the 'Oastler Testimonial Fund in 1838. 'I know that he still remembers me: I guess why he no longer seeks my company. ... my old friend Wood is ashamed of me.' said Oastler in 1840 }} the Leeds Intelligencer ceased to publish his letters : John Fielden however stood by him . Oastler's health broke down at the end of 1836; a meeting at Manchester in January 1837 was told he was unable to address it as 'his exertions on behalf of the factory slave had brought him to the edge of the grave'

'The fiend-begotten ...new Poor Law'

The Poor Law Amendment Act

Alarmed at the cost of poor relief in the southern agricultural districts of England (where in many areas it had become a semi-permanent top-up of labourers' wages – the 'allowance system', 'Roundsman system', or 'Speenhamland system' ) Parliament had set up a Royal Commission into the operation of the Poor Laws. Its report had recommended sweeping changes:

• Out-relief should cease – relief should be given only in workhouses, and upon such terms that only the truly indigent would accept it.
• Different classes of paupers (men, women, boys, girls; able-bodied, infirm) should be segregated "the separation of man and wife was necessary, in order to ensure the proper regulation of workhouses"
• There should be a central board with powers to specify standards of pauper treatment and to enforce those standards; this could not be done directly by Parliament because of the legislative workload that would ensue. The ensuing Poor Law Amendment Act set up a three-man Poor Law Commission, an 'at arms' length' quango to which Parliament delegated the power to make appropriate regulations, without making any provision for effective oversight of the Commission's doings. Local poor-rates payers still elected their local Board of Poor Law Guardians and still paid for local poor law provisions, but those provisions could be specified to the Board of Guardians by the Poor Law Commission; where they were the views of the local rate-payers were irrelevant. The Act was passed by large majorities, despite Oastler personally lobbying Tory leaders (including the Duke of Wellington) to oppose it. Oastler's objections were that the Act pursued aims dictated by political economy by un-Christian treatment of the poor (and particularly of the married poor: "whom God hath joined together let no man part asunder"), and to ensure this was done with consistent heartlessness was setting up an unconstitutional body. Oastler told the Duke "if that Bill passes, the man who can produce the greatest confusion in the country will be the greatest patriot, and I will try to be that man". The chairman of the Commission was Sir Thomas Frankland Lewis, an exact contemporary of Thornhill at Eton

Resistance to the New Poor Law

A meeting of Fixby rate-payers agreed to take no part in the election of a Poor Law Guardian; Thornhill instructed his tenants (through Oastler) that they should. Oastler passed on the instruction, but wrote back to Thornhill defending opposition to the appointment of guardians, concluding his letter "But it is no use my writing about these matters -you cannot understand me. My living is in your hands – my conscience is my own." at a by-election in Huddersfield, but was defeated by 50 votes by the Whig candidate.

Oastler was a leading light in a series of intimidatory pickets of meetings of the Huddersfield Guardians. Violence at the third of these (in June) went beyond anything Oastler intended or would countenance (when the guardians refused to receive a deputation, demonstrators stormed the workhouse building and dispersed the meeting; when the meeting reconvened at a local hotel stones were thrown through the windows) but the crowd ignored Oastler's appeals to disperse, and Oastler had to personally shield the parish officers. The (Tory) Huddersfield magistrates threatened to read the Riot Act.{{efn| Which in the short term would have been an empty gesture with a real risk of making matters worse; there were no military immediately available to assist the civil power, since – accepting Oastler's assurances about the conduct of the demonstration- the magistrates had not asked for military assistance. A fresh election was held in July (Parliament automatically being dissolved on the death of King William IV); Oastler stood again at Huddersfield, and was again defeated by 22 votes by a different Whig opponent. When Oastler fell behind in the poll, a mob attacked the hustings and polling had to be suspended: the Riot Act was read and the cavalry called out to restore order. At the subsequent West Riding hustings at Wakefield, Oastler and a contingent from Huddersfield were prominent in the fighting between Whig and anti-Whig forces in which two people died.

At the start of May 1838, Oastler suffered another collapse. Whilst he was recovering, Thornhill dismissed him.) and an orator. Lord Howick had dismissed petitions against the New Poor Law on the grounds that they came largely from areas where the new law was not yet in operation; the true views of the agricultural labourers in the areas where it had been applied was approbation as shown by agrarian unrest being much less than in 1830. Oastler responded in a speech in Halifax in July; telling his audience that there was little point in petitioning: the agricultural labourers had petitioned and government had laughed at them; they were now arming secretly. That could only lead to assassinations; better by far to arm openly, as was their right; the government and the poor law administrators would then treat them more civilly: "I would recommend you, every one, before next Saturday night, to have a brace of horse pistols, a good sword and a musket, and to hang them up on your mantelpieces (not by any means to use them). They will petition for you" As with the Blackburn speech, this alarmed and alienated moderate support.

The Anti-Poor Law agitation was however rapidly overtaken and supplanted as the great working-class Radical cause by the more sweeping Chartist movement, (whose constitutional program Oastler did not support); when that collapsed in 1839 (with the failure of the National Petition and a Government crackdown with many leaders arrested and charged with seditious speeches and involvement in unlawful assemblies), so did organised resistance to the New Poor Law. Many of Oastler's associates were involved in Chartism, and Oastler did not disown them: he played a prominent part in raising funds for the defence of J R Stephens; his last public campaigning for 5 years.

Imprisonment for debt

The prosecution of Chartist leaders did not include Oastler because, as Lord John Russell told the House of Commons, the Anti-Poor Law agitation "was of a nature very difficult to meet by any execution of the laws of the country; for it was not applied to any purposes for the overturning of the institutions or the laws of the country or any particular political purpose; but pretended solely to an exclusive regard for the interests of the poorer classes, and whatever could be done for their benefit." Nonetheless, Oastler was to spend over three years in prison.

Previous difficulties with Thornhill

By Oastler's own account, there had been past disagreements between him and Thornhill. Fixby was entailed, and would not be inherited by Thornhill's children (including his only son) by his first wife but by his daughter by a second marriage. Thornhill therefore wished to maximise the profits from Fixby and use them to build up his unentailed properties (worth roughly £22,000 a year) which his son could inherit. Oastler, however, administered Fixby less in accordance with Thornhill's wishes than with the former practice of Thornhill's father: he would not employ labourers at less than a living wage, nor let farms at rents too high to allow the tenant's prosperity; callers at Fixby on estate business were offered a drink, and their horses were stabled. In 1834, accusations/advice by third parties led Thornhill to dismiss his sub-agent at Calverley for dishonesty. Oastler thought this unjustified (and was aggrieved that his views had not been sought); he therefore prepared to offer his resignation. In doing so he drew up accounts which showed that the expenses he had considered necessary to maintain the good name of Fixby and of Thornhill exceeded his salary; Oastler was indebted to the estate by over £2,700. Thornhill had not at the time seen this as implying any dishonesty and had refused Oastler's resignation and increased his salary (but advised greater economy in future, and secured a promissory note from Oastler for the £2,700). By July 1837, despite Oastler's election campaigns and his anti-Poor Law activities, the debt was under £1750.

From dismissal to prison

Oastler had previously told other anti-Poor Law campaigners that Frankland Lewis was urging Thornhill to sack him, and his dismissal was described in various sympathetic papers as "the rewards of independent resistance of Whig tyranny". Placards advertising a procession to pay tribute to Oastler as he left Fixby (August 1838) offended Thornhill; he wrote a letter for publication saying that Oastler had been sacked, not because of his anti-Poor Law activities, but "because he converted my money to his own use, and paid so little attention to my concerns and his duty that the persons employed under him have cheated me" Thornhill's letter was written at Cowes (17 August 1838) and hence without the knowledge of his legal adviser, who (once shown it) persuaded Thornhill to instead send to the papers a letter (also dated as from Cowes, 17 August) saying that Oastler had been sacked because he owed Thornhill money and was devoting his efforts to politics, rather than repaying the debt. Through the incompetence of Oastler's successor as steward of Fixby both letters were published in (different) Yorkshire papers. "He found he had gone too far, and having by his first letter dug a pit for his reputation, he writes another by way of putting a tombstone on it" said Oastler, but his promissory note put him at Thornhill's mercy.

Fleet Papers

Oastler's imprisonment brought reconciliation with former allies who had broken with him, and visits and gifts not only from his supporters from every class but also from political opponents who thought Thornhill's conduct oppressive. Various intercessions on his behalf with Thornhill were fruitless; to a resolution passed by a Leeds meeting Thornhill replied "that I have no enmity towards Mr Oastler, but that after the treatment I have received from him, I cannot in justice to myself, or my family, set him at liberty, without security for his debt to me." In prison Oastler wrote (weekly) his "Fleet Papers", ostensibly letters addressed to Thornhill reviewing current political affairs, published and sold for 2d per issue . This was the only means by which he could earn money, and the only way he could continue to resist the advances of 'political economy': "I can only now aid by my pen; but I will strive to do the duty of an Englishman, and, "whether they will hear or they will forbear," I will warn the people of the danger to which the Liberal schemes of the self-styled Free-trading Philosophers must eventually lead them.". Mixed with current politics were explanations of past events in his life and accounts of visits and gifts by sympathisers and well-wishers, and of life in the Fleet. A contrast with Thornhill's lifestyle was always lurking, and sometimes made.

Oastler ransomed

When Oastler was dismissed, an 'Oastler Testimonial Fund' had been inaugurated, intended to raise enough money to provide an adequate income for Oastler. This had not been successful, and on Oastler's imprisonment transformed itself into an 'Oastler Liberation Fund'; this initially also stalled well short of its target

After prison

Oastler, initially recuperating at a nephew's country house, was soon drawn into a series of public meetings agitating for a Ten-Hour Bill, in the aftermath of the Government asserting that millworkers no longer wished for a Ten-Hour Act and making the retention of a twelve-hour limit in the 1844 Factory Act a question of confidence. He was now only a support speaker, and his speeches kept to the less violent tone promised at his Huddersfield homecoming.

In July 1844, having been advised by his Liberation Committee that money was not forthcoming to support him in public life, he advertised himself in Leeds papers as "Umpire, Arbitrator, Agent for the Purchase or Sale of Estates, and for Obtaining or Opposing Private Bills in Parliament". He was a Leeds sharebroker in 1845, by 1846 he was working in a London stockbroking office; in 1849 he was made bankrupt. Thereafter, Oastler was discreetly supported by his friends; from 1851 he edited a periodical The Home but this was never a paying proposition and closed in 1855.

In the autumn of 1846 he was summoned from retirement, by the West Riding Short-Time Committee, to be the principal speaker at public meetings to demonstrate the millworkers' continuing support for a Ten-Hour Act; following this he undertook a similar speaking tour of textile areas in Scotland. The Ten Hours' Act was passed in 1847, but Oastler continued to be relied upon as a spokesman for the Short Time movement, pressing for full implementation of the Act and the outlawing of the 'false relay system'; he supported the unsuccessful opposition to the 1850 'Compromise Act', accusing Lord Ashley of "betraying the poor". He continued to argue for Protection, and against Free Trade and the "Manchester School", but his appearances at Short Time meetings were now to receive congratulatory addresses, to reminisce, and to pay tribute to former colleagues in the struggle. After an 'alarming illness' at the start of 1861, he recovered sufficiently to again visit Yorkshire to see old friends, but was taken ill en route near Harrogate (8 August 1861) and died there a fortnight later. He was buried in the family vault at Kirkstall, Leeds: he had asked for a simple and private funeral, but many of his old Short Time comrades attended and at their insistence the coffin was carried by twelve factory workers.

Memorials

At the nadir of Oastler's fortunes in 1840, the Leeds Intelligencer told its readers "Important religious, moral, and social consequences have been the fruits of his herculean labours, and it is probable that posterity will decree him a statue". After Oastler's death a national subscription was raised for a permanent memorial to Oastler. The Intelligencer, supporting this, noted that the Ten Hour Act had been so beneficial that it could not serve as that memorial. The ten-hour day was now accepted as normal and proper: consequently it was now passing from remembrance that "the agitation in favour of it was by no means well received, and the struggle that won it was a hard one".

The money to erect a statue was raised (somewhat delayed by the Cotton Famine) and the West Riding town in which the statue was to be erected was voted for by subscribers, Bradford being the overwhelming preference. The statue was unveiled in Forster Square, Bradford (in front of the railway station) on Whit Saturday 1869 by the former Lord Ashley, now Lord Shaftesbury. Church bells were rung and all places of business in Bradford were shut for the occasion. It was estimated that the preliminary procession had involved about 30,000; the crowds at the ceremony and along the procession route totalling over 100,000. The figures, sculpted by John Birnie Philip, were cast from three tons of bronze and cost £1,500. A public house (previously a chapel) in Park Street Market, Brighouse, and a school in the Armley district of Leeds, West Yorkshire, also bear his name.

Notes

References

References

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    The great mistake in the minds of those raised above the working class is, that they think the people want plunder and anarchy. I know they want no such thing – they want peace and rest – and their rights. They want to be able to go out in a morning, get a good day's work done, and come home with a fair remuneration..."Facts and Plain Words on Every-Day Subjects" a pamphlet by Oastler published at Leeds, 1833

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