Regency Happenings: Felling Mining Disasters, 1812, 1813, 1821, and 1847

Posted on September 20, 2013 by Regina Jeffers

The Felling Colliery (also known as Brandling Main) in Britain, suffered four disasters: 1812, 1813, 1821 and 1847. By far the worst of the four was the 1812 disaster, which claimed 92 lives on 25 May 1812. The loss of life in 1812 disaster was one of the motivators for the development of the miners’ safety lamp.

Colliery Description
Felling, Tyne and Wear is now part of Gateshead, but at the time of the disasters was a separate manor in what used to be County Durham.. Mining of the upper seams had continued throughout the 18th century. Following borings starting in 1758, the main pit was opened in 1779. The first seam to be worked was the High Main, which ceased production in 1811. Shortly before the High Main was exhausted, the pit was deepened to reach the Low Main, which came into production in May 1811, just a year before the disaster. The Low Main lies 94 fathoms (560 ft; 172 m) below the surface and is 3 feet (0.91 m) thick. Subsequently two other seams, the Bensham (or Maudlin) and the Hutton were won.

To ensure adequate ventilation two shafts were dug, John Pit and William Pit. John Pit was the main access shaft and was the down-cast shaft where fresh air was drawn into the pit. A steam engine was provided for winding gear, and in 1812 there was a standby horse-whim for when the steam engine was out of use.

William Pit was the up-cast or furnace pit and had a fire burning at its base. The rising hot air drew air though the mine from the down-cast pit. Above each of the two pits were pulleys, those over John Pit were 6 feet (1.8 m) in diameter. The pulleys for the horse-whim were mounted on a crane and kept out of the way, being swung over the pit mouth when required. This arrangement proved fortuitous in the aftermath of the disaster.

From the base of the pits a number of headings were first driven. Between the headings were driven stentings. An excavated area was called a board, broken up by walls. To ensure the air circulated throughout the mine some boards were blocked off with stoppings either of brick or timber. Openings in some of the stoppings allowed the movement of men and materiel. When not being used the openings were closed by traps.

In an era before the invention of the safety lamp, the only practical source of light was a candle. Where explosive gas was suspected, a Spedding mill was used. A steel cylinder was revolved at high speed against a flint and the resulting shower of sparks gave some light. Although safer than candles, the Wallsend colliery explosion of 1785 had shown that mills could cause explosions.

1812 Disaster
At 11:30 on Monday, 25 May 1812 the first explosion occurred. For half a mile around the earth shook and the noise was heard up to four miles away. Large clouds of dust and small coals were thrown up from both William Pit and John Pit. As well as the small particles, the coal baskets and pieces of wood were blown out of the pits and landed nearby. The dust fell like a shower for up to a mile and a half downwind. The pit-heads or shaft-frames carrying the pulleys at both pits were blown off, set on fire and the pulleys broken. At William Pit the up-cast fed to a horizontal flue on the surface which led to a stack. Coal dust was distributed three inches thick within this flue which then burnt to a “light cinder.”

The pulleys for the horse-whim at John Pit were mounted in a crane kept swung away from the shaft. As a result they were undamaged and could be swung over the shaft. Men on the surface applied themselves in place of the horses and brought 33 survivors and two corpses out of the colliery. Three of the survivors subsequently died. 87 men and boys were left below ground.

45 minutes after the initial explosion, at 12:15, a rescue team descended the shaft. Because of the firedamp they used Spedding mills to light their way. It was noted that the sparks fell “like dark drops of blood” due to the foul air. Having attempted two directions and being forced back by difficulty breathing they retreated to the pit bottom. The party ascended, but while two were still below and two were in the shaft a second explosion occurred. Haswell and H. Anderson were the two left below and they hung onto a pit prop whilst the blast lifted them and turned them.

The rescue team all agreed that there was no possibility of the men left below ground being alive. Two explosions, blackdamp (locally called choak-damp [sic]), fire and the lethal afterdamp made any rescue attempt impossible. The suggestion was made that the pit be stopped up to extinguish the fire. However local recollections of three men who had survived for 40 days in a pit near Byker led to shouts of “Murder” and obstruction.

Closure
On the following day, Tuesday, a crowd gathered around John Pit and accusations of cowardice were thrown around. Eventually the leaders of the crowd were won around. The owners offered “no expense should be spared” in executing and scheme of rescue but they refused to offer a reward since “they would be accessary to no man’s death by persuation or a bribe.” William pit was closed over with planks.

On the Wednesday Mr Straker and William Haswell (the viewer and the overman) desended John Pit. The sparks from the Spedding mill were extinguished by the blackdamp and Haswell began staggering within 7 yards (6.4 m) due to the effects of the gas. Straker helped him to the shaft where it was still difficult to breathe even in the current of air. Two further men descended but could not move more than a few yards from the base of the shaft and their clothes had the smell of stinkdamp upon them. Smoke was seen ascending from John Pit, a sure sign of the fire below and so the base of John Pit was sealed with clay and planks laid over the mouth. Two days later William Pit was further sealed with clay.

Reopening and Recovery
The pit was cautiously reopened on 4 July. The issuing gas was collected in bladders and tested. At first it exploded when released near a candle flame but by the 8 July it was diluted enough not to do so. The pits were then opened fully on the seventh and allowed to vent. In the morning of the eighth, Straker, Anderson, Haswell and six others descended William shaft and found the air cool and wholesome.

Work on recovering the victims and securing the mine then started. All work was performed using Spedding mills for light. As the workers moved through the mine all the various stoppings and traps had to be repaired to force the air current to fully ventilate it.

The parish priest for Jarrow and Heworth was the Reverend John Hodgson (1779-1845). As well giving comfort to the bereaved, he was instrumental in persuading them to accept a common, speedy burial. The bodies had lain for seven weeks in the pit while the fires were extinguished and were badly decayed. Dr. Ramsay gave his opinion that if the bodies were returned to their homes for a normal wake and burial “putrid fever” might spread throughout the neighbourhood.

Between 8 July and 19 September the business of recovering the dead and repairing the mine continued. Hodgson details the decayed and putrid state of some of the corpses. The recovery teams placed the bodies in coffins in the mine, there was a fear that the bodies might fall apart.

Identification was a problem. Mothers and widows failed to identify most of the bodies “they were too much mangled and scorched to retain any of their features.” Most were identified by clothes, tobacco-boxes, shoes and other items.

Finally on Sunday 20 September, 117 days after the explosion, the pit was inspected by candle light. The furnace below William Pit was relighted and the whole mine brought back into production. One body has never been found.

Analysis
The cause of the first explosion is not known for certain. The most probable cause was firedamp, there being no evidence of large amounts of coal dust in the air, the other significant risk.
After the first explosion the trap doors used for ventilation and the internal wall in the vicinity of the underground crane were observed to be in a good state by the men who escaped. Indeed, even the lamp at the crane was still burning. When the mine was reopened the area was found to damaged: “the stoppings and trap-doors were blown down, the roof fallen and as great marks of destruction as in any other part of the mine.” The area was near John Pit, the down-cast shaft where fresh air was entering the mine at its greatest velocity. Hodgson realised that this was significant and supposed that “the atmospheric current … intercepted the progress of the first explosion, and prevented it from igniting the fire damp here.”

Hodgson then proceeds to assume that the “choak-damp”, perhaps here thinking of afterdamp rather than blackdamp, pressing upwards from the seat of the explosion forced a pocket of firedamp to where the coal was burning and set off the second explosion. However two paragraphs down he observes that the dust in the barrow-ways was burnt to a cinder. That coal dust raised by an initial explosion could be the cause of a further explosion was only starting to be understood in this period.

Aftermath
The tragedy inspired Hodgson to raise public concern about the hazards of mining. Public interest was fed by a short (16 page) pamphlet written by him and published prior to the second disaster in late 1813. Hodgson wrote for an interested public, not for practical miners, and as such explains mining terms and procedures. His description and analysis of the two explosions was historically significant as one of the first to attempt a scientific analysis of such events.

On the 1 October 1812 the Sunderland Society was set up consisting of clergymen, doctors, owners and mine managers.  One of the doctors was W.R. Clanny (1776 – 1850) who had already produced a first, impractial, safety lamp. Also present was George Stephenson who at that time was enginewright for the collieries at Killingworth. The society aimed for:

greater publicity for accidents and their causes
the scientific study of ventilation
the development of safety lamps.

Stephenson designed a safety lamp, known as the Geordie lamp, with air fed through narrow tubes, down which a flame could not move. It also led Sir Humphry Davy to devise another safety lamp, the Davy lamp, in which the flame was surrounded by iron gauze. The gauze had to have small spaces so that a flame could not pass through, but could admit methane, which then burned harmlessly inside the lamp. The height of the luminous cone above the flame gave a measure of the methane concentration in the atmosphere.

1813 Disaster
On 24 December 1813 at 01:30 the colliery again exploded, this time with the loss of 9 men and 13 boys along with 12 horses. All the dead were in the headways by William Pit (the upcast pit). Those in the boards away from William Pit were saved. The (Newcastle Courant 1813) reported the supposition that “the hydrogen [sic] took fire at the crane lamp, in the south headways.”

The southern boards were crossed by several fissures (dykes) from which periodic discharges of gas came through apertures called blowers. The blowers could make “the coals on the floor dance round their orifices, like gravel in a strong spring.” The discharges were deal with by the strong current of air, strong enough to extinguish candles.

None of the mine was found to be damaged by fire so after retrieval of the bodies and inspection of the mine it was reopened. On the 30 December workmen found fire in part of the waste and as a result the mouths of the shafts were stopped up for a while.

1847 Disaster
On Tuesday 22 June 1847, shortly after 21:00, another explosion occurred at Felling Colliery. Six miners were killed, four outright and two died of their injuries over the following two days. The surgeon employed by the mine owners tried, unsuccessfully, to treat the injured. Two of the dead were killed immediately by a fall of rock from the roof, the other two by afterdamp. As well as the human cost, eighteen horses were killed either by the explosion or by the afterdamp.

One of the survivors, Peter Gibbon, saw from his safety lamp that the air quality had changed. He commented to the man he was working with, George Chapman, “Do ye mind what a current of air there was!” Chapman had not noticed anything, but being at that time in charge of the pit he went off to investigate. Chapman was subsequently rescued, but died the following day. After an hour Gibbon tried to escape but broke his lamp and in the darkness was blocked by a roof fall. He was eventually rescued. That, although significant damage was done, some of the men neither heard nor felt and shock was commented upon in newspaper reports.

The viewer, Mr Foster, stated to the Newcastle Guardian that Davy lamps were employed throughout the colliery and that all the men were given written instructions in their use. The old areas of the colliery released a lot of foul air, but there was “not a better ventilated colliery on the Tyne.” Foster reported that 60,000 cubic feet (1,700 m3) per minute was drawn down the shaft, a fact confirmed at the coroner’s inquest by Mr Foster, the viewer.

The colliery overman, John Greener, told the coroner that he had gone down the pit after the explosion and “found the separation stoppings blown down, and the stables on fire.” He penetrated up to 600 yards (550 m) from the shaft before being overcome by foul air and forced to retreat and go home.

On the Thursday evening, two days later a coroner’s inquest was opened and adjourned until a full inspection could take place. The inquest reopened on the following Wednesday. The principal witness was the viewer, Mr Thomas Forster. He confirmed much that had earlier been reported; the pit was well ventilated and Davy lamps were in use.

The seat of the explosion was found by Mr Foster to be an underground engine used to haul coals to the pit base. The engineman had added fresh coal to the fire and closed the damper before going off shift at 16:00. The damper should have remained slightly open to allow burnt gas from the fire to escape up the chimney. It was supposed that the damper had been closed fully and partial combustion had occurred effectively generating town gas (“acting as a retort”). The gas eventually escaped and the resultant explosion caused major damage to the boiler and flue.

Four viewers from other pits all corroborated Foster’s conclusions. The engineman, George Hope, said that he put on around 3½ pecks of small coals and “left the damper open about an inch and three-quarters I always leave my fire this way.” The coroner’s jury returned a verdict of “Accidental Death.” The jury recommended that a pin was placed in the damper so stop it closing to less than four inches (100 mm).

The Memorial to 1812
A memorial to the 91 victims was placed in St Mary’s Churchyard where most of the coffins were placed in a common grave. The monument has a square base with a square pyramid above. On each of the four faces is a brass plaque:

In Memory of the 91 Persons Killed in Felling Colliery 25 May 1812

PHILLIP ALLAN……. AGED 17.
JACOB ALLAN……………14.
ANDREW ALLAN…………..11.
JOS: ANDERSON………….23.
THO: BAINBRIDGE………..53.
MATT: BAINBRIDGE……….19.
THO: BAINBRIDGE………..17.
GEO: BAINBRIDGE………..10.
THOMAS BEARS…………..48.
GEORGE BELL……………14.
EDWARD BELL……………12.
JOHN BOUTLAND………….46.
WILL: BOUTLAND…………19.
MATT: BROWN……………28.
JOHN BURNITT…………..21.
JAMES COMBY……………28.
JAMES CRAIGS…………..13.
THOMAS CRAGGS………….36.
THOMAS CRAGGS…………..9.
CHRIS: CULLY…………. 20.
GEORGE CULLY…………..14.
WILLIAM DIXON………….35.
WILLIAM DIXON………….10.
JOHN A.DOBSON………….13.
ROBERT DOBSON………….13.
PAUL FLETCHER………….22.
WILL GALLEY……………22.
GREG GALLEY……………10.
MICH GARDINER………….45.
WILL GARDINER………….10.
ROBERT GORDON………….40.
JOSEPH GORDON………….10.
THOMAS GORDON…………..8.
ISAAC GREENER………….65.
ISAAC GREENER………….24.
JOHN GREENER…………..21.
RALPH HALL…………….18.
ROBERT HALL……………15.
RA HARRISON……………39.
ROB HARRISON…………..14.
JOHN HARRISON………….12.
ROB HASWELL……………42.
JOHN HASWELL…………..22.
EDW HASWELL……………20.
BEN HASWELL……………18.
WILL HUNTER……………35.
JOHN HUNTER……………21.
MICH HUNTER……………18.
ROB HUTCHINSON…………11.
WILL JACQUES…………..23.
JOHN JACQUES…………..14.
JAMES KAY……………..18.
GEORGE KAY…………….16.
JOHN KNOX……………..11.
GEO LAWTON…………….14.
ROB C LECK…………….16.
CHRIS MASON……………34.
GEO MITCHESON………….18.
JOHN PEARSON…………..64.
JOHN PEARSON…………..38.
GEO PEARSON……………26.
EDW PEARSON……………14.
ROB PEARSON……………10.
MATT PRINGLE…………..18.
JOS PRINGLE……………16.
GEORGE REAY…………….9.
EDW RICHARDSON…………39.
WILL RICHARDSON………..19.
THO RICHARDSON…………17.
THOMAS RIDLEY………….13.
GEORGE RIDLEY………….11.
THOMAS ROBSON………….18.
GEORGE ROBSON………….15.
WILL SANDERSON…………43.
MATT SANDERSON…………33.
JOHN SURTEES…………..12.
JOHN THOMPSON………….36.
BENJ THOMPSON………….17.
JERE TURNBULL………….43.
JOHN TURNBULL………….27.
NICK URWIN…………….58.
JOHN WILKINSON…………35.
JOHN WILSON……………52.
JOHN WILSON……………30.
JOS WILSON…………….23.
CHAR WILSON……………20.
JOSEPH WOOD……………39.
JOHN WOOD……………..27.
JOSEPH YOUNG…………..30.
THOMAS YOUNG…………..34.

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Regency Celebrity: William Waldegrave, 1st Baron Radstock

Posted on September 19, 2013 by Regina Jeffers

220px-Admiral_William_Waldegrave,_1st_Baron_Radstock_(1753-1825)_by_James_Northcote William Waldegrave, 1st Baron Radstock GCB (9 July 1753 – 20 August 1825) was the Governor of Newfoundland and an Admiral in the Royal Navy.

Waldegrave was the second son of John Waldegrave, 3rd Earl Waldegrave and Elizabeth (née Gower). Joining the navy at age 13 in 1766, Waldegrave rose rapidly through the ranks, receiving his own command, the Zephyr in 1775, and being promoted to Vice-Admiral in 1795. He was the third in command on the British side at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent in February 1797, and was offered a baronetcy for the role he played in the battle. Waldegrave declined the offer (on the grounds that as a son of an earl, he already held a higher station), and was appointed the Governor of Newfoundland, Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, on 16 May 1797.

During Waldegrave’s time as Governor, he was chiefly concerned with military matters, as a French squadron had burned Bay Bulls just a year prior, and Newfoundland was still quite exposed. Another key problem was desertion, as soldiers deserting to Newfoundland were generally sheltered by the island’s inhabitants. A naval mutiny occurred shortly after Waldegrave’s appointment and had to be stopped; Waldegrave also took steps to ensure that soldiers garrisoned in St. John’s did not try anything similar. In military matters, he was often at odds with his commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Skinner.

Waldegrave made several attempts to restrict the power of the merchants on Newfoundland, and also to bring law and order to the island. Although his efforts against the merchants were largely ineffective, Waldegrave was successful in having a chief justice appointed who would reside year round. Waldegrave also undertook various humanitarian projects, especially to help the poor. He established a “Committee for the Relief of the Poor,” and contributed generously to the fund. Between 1797 and 1798, nearly 300 people received assistance from this fund.

Waldegrave finished his term as governor in 1800 and was created an Irish peer as Baron Radstock. In 1802, upon his retirement Waldegrave was promoted to full admiral. In 1815 he was appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath.

Waldegrave was married in 1785 to Cornelia Jacoba van Lennep. They had three sons and six daughters:
**V-Adm. Granville George Waldegrave, 2nd Baron Radstock (1786–1857), married Esther Paget and had issue
**Hon. Emily Susanna Laura Waldegrave (5 November 1787 – 12 April 1870), married Nicholas Westby
**Maria Waldegrave (26 December 1788 – 1791)
**Hon. Isabella Elizabeth Waldegrave (18 August 1792 – 21 October 1866)
**Hon. Harriet Ann Frances Waldegrave (20 October 1793 – 26 July 1880), unmarried
**Capt. Hon. William Waldegrave (7 June 1796 – 29 December 1838), married Amelia Allport
**Hon. Caroline Waldegrave (4 October 1798 – 7 January 1878), married Rev. Carew Anthony St John-Mildmay and had issue
**Hon. Augustus Waldegrave (4 February 1803 – November 1825), killed in a hunting accident near Mexico City
**Elizabeth Frances (24 November 1799 – August 1800)

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Regency Celebrity: Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth

Posted on September 17, 2013 by Regina Jeffers

245px-John_Singleton_Copley_-_Henry_Addington,_First_Viscount_SidmouthHenry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth, PC (30 May 1757 – 15 February 1844) was a British statesman, and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1804.
Henry Addington was the son of Anthony Addington, Pitt’s physician, and Mary Addington, the daughter of the Rev. Haviland John Hiley, headmaster of Reading School. As a consequence of his father’s position, Addington was a childhood friend of William Pitt the Younger. Addington studied at Winchester and Brasenose College, Oxford, and then studied law at Lincoln’s Inn.

Political Career
He was elected to the House of Commons in 1784 as Member of Parliament (MP) for Devizes, and became Speaker of the House of Commons in 1789. In March 1801, William Pitt the Younger resigned from office, ostensibly over the refusal of King George III to remove some of the existing political restrictions on Roman Catholics in Ireland (Catholic Emancipation), but poor health, failure in war, economic collapse, alarming levels of social unrest due to famine, and irreconcilable divisions within the Cabinet also played a role. Both Pitt and the King insisted that Addington take over as Prime Minister, despite his own objections, and his failed attempts to reconcile the King and Pitt.

Prime Minister
Addington’s period as Prime Minister was most notable for his reforms that doubled the efficiency of the Income tax and for the negotiation of the Treaty of Amiens, in 1802. While the terms of the Treaty were the bare minimum that the British government could accept, Napoleon Bonaparte would not have agreed to any terms more favorable to the British, and the British government had reached a state of financial collapse, owing to war expenditure, the loss of Continental markets for British goods, and two successive failed harvests that had led to widespread famine and social unrest, rendering peace a necessity.

By early 1803 the United Kingdom’s financial and diplomatic positions had recovered sufficiently to allow Addington to declare war on France, when it became clear the French would not allow a settlement for the defenses of Malta that would have been secure enough to fend off a French invasion that appeared imminent. Addington’s management of the war was characterized by the cultivating of better relations with Russia, Austria, and Prussia, that later culminated in the Third Coalition shortly after he left office. Addington also strengthened British defenses against a French invasion through the building of Martello towers on the south coast and the raising of more than 600,000 men at arms.

Loss of Office
Addington was driven from office in May 1804 by an alliance of Pitt, Charles James Fox and William Wyndham Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville, who decided that they wanted Cabinet offices for themselves. Addington’s greatest failing was his inability to manage a parliamentary majority, by cultivating the loyal support of MPs beyond his own circle and the friends of the King. This combined with his mediocre speaking ability, left him vulnerable to Pitt’s mastery of Parliamentary management and his unparalleled oratory skills. Pitt’s Parliamentary assault against Addington in March 1804 led to the slimming of his Parliamentary majority to the point where defeat in the House of Commons was imminent.

Addington remained an important political figure, however, and the next year he was created Viscount Sidmouth. He served in Pitt’s final Cabinet as Lord President of the Council to 1806, and in the Ministry of All the Talents as Lord Privy Seal and again Lord President to 1807.

Home Secretary
He returned to government again as Lord President in March, 1812, and, in June of the same year, became Home Secretary. As Home Secretary, Sidmouth countered revolutionary opposition, being responsible for the temporary suspension of habeas corpus in 1817 and the passage of the Six Acts in 1819. His tenure also saw the Peterloo Massacre of 1819. Sidmouth left office in 1822, succeeded as Home Secretary by Sir Robert Peel, but remained in the Cabinet as Minister without Portfolio for the next two years, fruitlessly opposing British recognition of the South American republics. He remained active in the House of Lords for the next few years, making his final speech in opposition to Catholic Emancipation in 1829 and casting his final vote against the Reform Act 1832.

Foundling Hospital
As Prime Minister, in 1802, Addington accepted an honorary position as vice president for life on the Court of Governors of London’s Foundling Hospital for abandoned babies.

Residences and Land

Addington maintained homes at Up Ottery, Devon and Bulmershe Court, in what is now the Reading suburb of Woodley, but moved to the White Lodge in Richmond Park when he became Prime Minister. However he maintained links with Woodley and the Reading area, as commander of the Woodley Yeomanry Cavalry and High Steward of Reading. He also donated to the town of Reading the four acres (16,000 m²) of land that is today the Royal Berkshire Hospital, and his name is commemorated in the town’s Sidmouth Street and Addington Road as well as in Sidmouth street in Devizes.

Death
Henry Addington died in London on 15 February 1844 at the age of 86, and was buried in the churchyard at St Mary the Virgin Mortlake, Greater London.

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Regency Era Happenings: The Panic of 1825

Posted on September 16, 2013 by Regina Jeffers

18 August 1825 – On this date, Scottish adventurer Gregor MacGregor issues a £300,000 loan with 2.5% interest through the London bank of Thomas Jenkins & Company for the fictitious Central American republic of Poyais. His actions lead to the Panic of 1825, the first modern stock market crash, starting in the Bank of England and precipitating the closure of six London banks and sixty country ones in England.

The Panic of 1825 was a stock market crash that started in the Bank of England arising in part out of speculative investments in Latin America, including the imaginary country of Poyais. The crisis was felt most acutely in England where it precipitated the closing of six London banks and sixty country banks in England, but was also manifest in the markets of Europe, Latin America, and the United States. An infusion of gold reserves from the Banque de France saved the Bank of England from complete collapse.

The panic has been referred to as the first modern economic crisis not attributable to an external event, such as a war, and thus the start of modern economic cycles. The period of the Napoleonic Wars had been exceptionally profitable for all sectors of the British financial system, and the expansionist monetary actions taken during transition from wartime to peacetime economy initiated a surge of prosperity and speculative ventures. The stock market boom became a bubble and banks caught up in the euphoria made risky loans.

Bank Improvements
Seventy banks failed. The current view puts much of the fault of the crash on the banks for not collecting quality information, performing inadequate surveillance, and not doing simple due diligence on ventures. The usual list of causes of the crisis are:

**Latin American debt issues
**Ease of issuance of banknotes from country banks led to unscrupulous partners investing in high risk, high return ventures
**Bank of England’s actions of rapidly increasing the money supply, then rapidly tightening it, initiating bank runs and finally refusing to act as lender of last resort until too late.

At the time, the Bank of England was not a central bank but a public, for-profit bank with three loyalties: its shareholders, the British government, and its correspondent commercial bankers. The Bank of England raised the lending rate to protect its investors, instead of lowering it to protect the public. The self-interest of the Bank of England thereby caused additional failures. Although banker Henry Thornton described in 1802 the proper lender of last resort actions to be taken by a central bank in such a crisis, it was not until 1866 with the Overend Gurney crisis of 1866 that the Bank of England would take actions to prevent widespread panic withdrawals.

Inaction by the Bank of England led to a systemic stoppage of the banking system, and was followed by widespread bankruptcies, recession and unemployment.

In Fiction
An historical novel by Stanley J. Weyman, Ovington’s Bank, is centered on the Panic of 1825.

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Regency Celebrity: 2nd Earl Charles Grey, Prime Minister and Governmental Reformer

Posted on September 13, 2013 by Regina Jeffers

245px-Charlesgrey2 Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, KG, PC (13 March 1764 – 17 July 1845), known as Viscount Howick between 1806 and 1807, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 22 November 1830 to 16 July 1834. A member of the Whig Party, he backed significant reform of the British government and was among the primary architects of the Reform Act 1832. His administration also saw the abolition of slavery in the British Empire. In addition to his political achievements, he has come to be associated with Earl Grey tea.

Early Life
Descended from a long-established Northumbrian family seated at Howick Hall, Grey was the second but eldest surviving son of General Sir Charles Grey KB (1729–1807) and his wife, Elizabeth (1743/4–1822), daughter of George Grey of Southwick, co. Durham. He had four brothers and two sisters. He was educated at Richmond School, followed by Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, acquiring a facility in Latin and in English composition and declamation that enabled him to become one of the foremost parliamentary orators of his generation.

Grey was elected to Parliament for the Northumberland constituency on 14 September 1786, aged just 22. He became a part of the Whig circle of Charles James Fox, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and the Prince of Wales, and soon became one of the major leaders of the Whig party. He was the youngest manager on the committee for prosecuting Warren Hastings. The Whig historian T. B. Macaulay wrote in 1841:

“At an age when most of those who distinguish themselves in life are still contending for prizes and fellowships at college, he had won for himself a conspicuous place in Parliament. No advantage of fortune or connection was wanting that could set off to the height his splendid talents and his unblemished honour. At twenty-three he had been thought worthy to be ranked with the veteran statesmen who appeared as the delegates of the British Commons, at the bar of the British nobility. All who stood at that bar, save him alone, are gone, culprit, advocates, accusers. To the generation which is now in the vigour of life, he is the sole representative of a great age which has passed away. But those who, within the last ten years, have listened with delight, till the morning sun shone on the tapestries of the House of Lords, to the lofty and animated eloquence of Charles Earl Grey, are able to form some estimate of the powers of a race of men among whom he was not the foremost.”

Grey was also noted for advocating Parliamentary reform and Catholic emancipation. His affair with the Duchess of Devonshire, herself an active political campaigner, did him little harm, although it nearly caused her to be divorced by her husband.

In 1806, Grey, by then Lord Howick owing to his father’s elevation to the peerage as Earl Grey, became a part of the Ministry of All Talents (a coalition of Foxite Whigs, Grenvillites, and Addingtonites) as First Lord of the Admiralty. Following Fox’s death later that year, Howick took over both as Foreign Secretary and as leader of the Whigs.

In Charon’s Boat (1807), James Gillray caricatured the fall from power of the Whig administration, with Howick taking the role of Charon rowing the boat.

The government fell from power the next year, and, after a brief period as a Member of Parliament for Appleby from May to July 1807, Howick went to the Lords, succeeding his father as Earl Grey. He continued in opposition for the next 23 years.

Great Reform Act
In 1830, when the Duke of Wellington resigned on the question of Parliamentary reform, the Whigs finally returned to power, with Grey as Prime Minister. His Ministry was a notable one, seeing passage of the Reform Act 1832, which finally saw the reform of the House of Commons, and the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire in 1833. As the years had passed, however, Grey had become more conservative, and he was cautious about initiating more far-reaching reforms, particularly since he knew that the King was at best only a reluctant supporter of reform. Unlike most politicians, he seems to have genuinely preferred a private life; colleagues remarked caustically that he threatened to resign at every setback. In 1834 Grey retired from public life, leaving Lord Melbourne as his successor.

Grey returned to Howick, but kept a close eye on the policies of the new cabinet under Melbourne, whom he, and especially his family, regarded as a mere understudy until he began to act in ways of which they disapproved. Grey became more critical as the decade went on, being particularly inclined to see the hand of Daniel O’Connell behind the scenes and blaming Melbourne for subservience to the radicals with whom he identified the Irish patriot. He made no allowances for Melbourne’s need to keep the radicals on his side to preserve his shrinking majority in the Commons, and in particular he resented any slight on his own great achievement, the Reform Act, which he saw as a final solution of the question for the foreseeable future. He continually stressed its conservative nature. As he declared in his last great public speech, at the Grey Festival organized in his honour at Edinburgh in September 1834, its purpose was to strengthen and preserve the established constitution, to make it more acceptable to the people at large, and especially the middle classes, who had been the principal beneficiaries of the Reform Act, and to establish the principle that future changes would be gradual, “according to the increased intelligence of the people, and the necessities of the times.” It was the speech of a conservative statesman.

Retirement
Grey spent his last years in contented, if sometimes fretful, retirement at Howick, with his books, his family, and his dogs. He became physically feeble in his last years and died quietly in his bed on 17 July 1845, forty-four years to the day since going to live at Howick. He was buried in the church there on the 26th in the presence of his family, close friends, and the labourers on his estate.

Commemoration
Earl Grey tea, a blend which uses bergamot oil to flavour the beverage, is named after Grey. He is commemorated by Grey’s Monument in the centre of Newcastle upon Tyne, which consists of a statue of Lord Grey standing atop a 41 m (135 ft) high column. The monument was once struck by lightning and Earl Grey’s head was seen lying in the gutter in Grey Street. The monument lends its name to Monument Metro station on the Tyne and Wear Metro located directly underneath. Grey Street in Newcastle upon Tyne and Grey College, Durham are also named after Grey.

Personal Life
Grey married Mary Elizabeth Ponsonby (1776 – 1861), only daughter of William Ponsonby, 1st Baron Ponsonby and Hon. Louisa Molesworth in 1794. The marriage was a fruitful one; between 1796 and 1819 the couple had ten sons and six daughters:
[a dau.] Grey (stillborn, 1796)
Lady Louisa Elizabeth Grey (7 April 1797 – 26 November 1841); married John Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham
Lady Elizabeth Grey (10 July 1798 – 8 November 1880); married John Crocker Bulteel (d. 10 September 1843). Their daughter, Louisa Emily Charlotte Bulteel, is one of the great-great-great-grandmothers of Diana, Princess of Wales
Lady Caroline Grey (30 August 1799 – 28 April 1875); married Capt. The Hon. George Barrington
Lady Georgiana Grey (17 February 1801 – 1900); never married
Henry George Grey, 3rd Earl Grey (28 December 1802 – 9 October 1894), eldest son, who became a politician like his father
General Sir Charles Grey (15 March 1804 – 31 March 1870), father of Albert Grey, 4th Earl Grey
Admiral Sir Frederick William Grey (23 August 1805 – 2 May 1878)
Lady Mary Grey ( 2 May 1807 – 6 July 1884); married Charles Wood, 1st Viscount Halifax
Hon. William Grey (13 May 1808 – 11 Feb 1815)
Admiral The Hon. George Grey (16 May 1809 – 3 October 1891)
Hon. Thomas Grey (29 Dec 1810 – 8 Jul 1826)
Rev. Hon. John Grey ( 2 March 1812 – 11 November 1895)
Rev. Hon. Sir Francis Richard Grey (31 March 1813 – 22 March 1890) married Lady Elizabeth Howard (1816–1891), daughter of George Howard, 6th Earl of Carlisle and Georgiana Cavendish (daughter of Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire).
Hon. Henry Cavendish Grey (16 October 1814 – 5 September 1880)
Hon. William George Grey (15 February 1819 – 19 December 1865)

Mary was frequently pregnant and during his absences in London or elsewhere Grey had a series of affairs with other women. The first, most notorious, and most significant, which antedated his engagement to his future wife, was with Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, whom he met at Devonshire House – the centre of Whig society in London in the 1780s and 1790s – shortly after his arrival in the capital as a young recruit to the House of Commons.

Impetuous and headstrong, Grey pursued Georgiana with persistence until she gave in to his attentions. She became pregnant by Grey in 1791, but she refused to leave her husband the duke, and live with Grey, when the duke threatened that if she did so she would never see their children again. She went abroad with Elizabeth Foster, and on 20 February 1792 at Aix-en-Provence, gave birth to a daughter who was given the name Eliza Courtney. After their return to England in September 1793 the child was taken to Fallodon and brought up by Grey’s parents as though she were his sister. This affair was a significant step in the process by which he became a member of the Whig party, led by Charles James Fox.

Lord Grey’s Ministry, November 1830 – July 1834
Lord Grey — First Lord of the Treasury and Leader of the House of Lords
Lord Brougham — Lord Chancellor
Lord Lansdowne — Lord President of the Council
Lord Durham — Lord Privy Seal
Lord Melbourne — Secretary of State for the Home Department
Lord Palmerston — Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
Lord Goderich — Secretary of State for War and the Colonies
Sir James Graham — First Lord of the Admiralty
Lord Althorp — Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons
Charles Grant — President of the Board of Control
Lord Holland — Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
The Duke of Richmond — Postmaster-General
Lord Carlisle — Minister without Portfolio
Changes
June, 1831 — Lord John Russell, the Paymaster of the Forces, and Edward Smith-Stanley, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, join the Cabinet.
April, 1833 — Lord Goderich, now Lord Ripon, succeeds Lord Durham as Lord Privy Seal. Edward Smith-Stanley succeeds Ripon as Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. His successor as Chief Secretary for Ireland is not in the Cabinet. Edward Ellice, the Secretary at War, joins the Cabinet.
June, 1834 — Thomas Spring Rice succeeds Stanley as Colonial Secretary. Lord Carlisle succeeds Ripon as Lord Privy Seal. Lord Auckland succeeds Graham as First Lord of the Admiralty. The Duke of Richmond leaves the Cabinet. His successor as Postmaster-General is not in the Cabinet. Charles Poulett Thomson, the President of the Board of Trade, and James Abercrombie, the Master of the Mint, join the Cabinet.

In Popular Culture
Charles Grey is portrayed by Dominic Cooper in the 2008 film The Duchess, directed by Saul Dibb and starring Ralph Fiennes and Keira Knightley. The film is based on Amanda Foreman’s biography of Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire.
He is also a secondary character in Emma Donoghue’s 2004 book Life Mask.

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Regency Celebrity: 1st Baron William Wyndhan Grenville, Prime Minister

Posted on September 12, 2013 by Regina Jeffers

245px-1st_Baron_Grenville William Wyndham Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville PC, PC (Ire) (25 October 1759 – 12 January 1834) was a British Whig statesman. He served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1806 to 1807 as head of the Ministry of All the Talents.

Background
Grenville was the son of Whig Prime Minister George Grenville. His mother Elizabeth was daughter of the Tory statesman Sir William Wyndham Bart. He had two elder brothers Thomas and George – he was thus uncle to the 1st Duke of Buckingham and Chandos.

He was also related to the Pitt family by marriage; William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham had married his father’s sister Hester, and thus the younger Grenville was the first cousin of William Pitt the Younger.

Grenville was educated at Eton, Christ Church, Oxford, and Lincoln’s Inn.

Political Career
Grenville entered the House of Commons in 1782. He soon became a close ally of the Prime Minister, his cousin William Pitt the Younger, and served in the government as Paymaster of the Forces from 1784 to 1789. In 1789, he served briefly as Speaker of the House of Commons before he entered the cabinet as Home Secretary.

He became Leader of the House of Lords when he was raised to the peerage the next year as Baron Grenville, of Wotton under Bernewood in the County of Buckingham. The next year, in 1791, he succeeded the Duke of Leeds as Foreign Secretary.

Grenville’s decade as Foreign Secretary was a dramatic one, seeing the Wars of the French Revolution. During the war, Grenville was the leader of the party that focused on the fighting on the continent as the key to victory, opposing the faction of Henry Dundas, which favoured war at sea and in the colonies. Grenville left office with Pitt in 1801 over the issue of Catholic Emancipation.

In his years out of office, Grenville became close to the opposition Whig leader Charles James Fox, and when Pitt returned to office in 1804, Grenville did not take part. Following Pitt’s death in 1806, Grenville became the head of the “Ministry of All the Talents,” a coalition between Grenville’s supporters, the Foxite Whigs, and the supporters of former Prime Minister Lord Sidmouth, with Grenville as First Lord of the Treasury and Fox as Foreign Secretary as joint leaders.

Grenville’s cousin William Windham served as Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, and his younger brother, Thomas Grenville, served briefly as First Lord of the Admiralty. The Ministry ultimately accomplished little, failing either to make peace with France or to accomplish Catholic emancipation (the later attempt resulting in the ministry’s dismissal in March, 1807). It did have one significant achievement, however, in the abolition of the slave trade in 1807.

In the years after the fall of the ministry, Grenville continued in opposition, maintaining his alliance with Lord Grey and the Whigs, criticising the Peninsular War and, with Grey, refusing to join Lord Liverpool’s government in 1812. In the post-war years, Grenville gradually moved back closer to the Tories, but never again returned to the cabinet. His political career was ended by a stroke in 1823. Grenville also served as Chancellor of the University of Oxford from 1810 until his death in 1834.

exterior_350x250_4054 Dropmore House
Dropmore House was built in the 1790s for Lord Grenville. The architects were Samuel Wyatt and Charles Tatham. Grenville knew the spot from rambles during his time at Eton College, and prized its distant views of his old school and of Windsor Castle. On his first day in occupation, he planted two cedar trees. At least another 2,500 trees were planted. By the time Grenville died, his pinetum contained the biggest collection of conifer species in Britain. Part of the post-millennium restoration is to use what survives as the basis for a collection of some 200 species.

Personal Life
Lord Grenville married the Honourable Anne, daughter of Thomas Pitt, 1st Baron Camelford, in 1792. The marriage was childless. He died in January 1834, aged 74, when the barony became extinct. Lady Grenville died in June 1863.

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“London, 1802” by William Wordsworth, a Call to Overthrow the Political Order of the Regency

Posted on September 11, 2013 by Regina Jeffers

“London, 1802” is a sonnet by the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth. In the poem Wordsworth castigates the English people as stagnant and selfish, and eulogizes seventeenth-century poet John Milton.

Composed in 1802, “London, 1802” was published for the first time in Poems, in Two Volumes (1807).

Structure and Synopsis
Wordsworth begins the poem by wishing that Milton were still alive, for “England hath need of thee.” This is because England has stagnated, its people selfish and unhappy, its splendor and power lost. But Milton could change all that. Milton could “raise us up, return to us again; / And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.”

In the six subsequent lines (the sestet) following the first eight lines (the octave), Wordsworth explains why Milton could improve the English condition. Milton’s soul, he explains, was as bright and noble as a star and “dwelt apart” from the crowd, not feeling the urge to conform to norms. Milton’s voice resembled “the sea,” “pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free.” Furthermore, Milton never disdained the ordinary nature of life, but instead “travel[ed] on life’s common way,” remaining happy, pure (cheerful godliness), and humble (taking the “lowliest duties” on himself).

“London, 1802” reveals both Wordsworth’s moralism and his growing conservatism. Wordsworth frequently sought to “communicate natural morality to his readers” through his poetry. In this sonnet, he urges morality and selflessness to his readers, criticizing the English for being stagnant and selfish, for lacking “manners, virtue, [and] freedom.” But he also refers to “inward happiness” as a natural English right, or “dower,” and asks Milton to bestow “power” as well as virtue on the English. These are among Wordsworth’s “few explicitly nationalistic verses–shades, perhaps, of the conservatism that took hold in his old age.”

While it is common, and perhaps correct, to equate nationalism with conservatism in the modern era, it is hard to suggest that nationalism functioned that way in the Romantic context. The kind of nationalism Wordsworth proposed in the poem had something of a revolutionary nature to it. Wordsworth himself implies in a footnote to the poem that it could be read in such a manner, “written immediately after my return from France to London, when I could not but be struck, as here described, with the vanity and parade of our own country…as contrasted with the quiet, and I may say the desolation, that the revolution had produced in France.” The moralism and nationalism of the poem occur simultaneously with and perhaps are the occasion for a call to overthrow the current social and political order, as had recently been done in France. Whether or not Wordsworth wanted the poem to be interpreted in such a way can and is called into question later in his note.Themes include morality, humanity, nature/the natural environment. then tells Milton that his “soul was like a Star,” because he was different even from his contemporaries in terms of the virtues listed above. The speaker tells Milton that his voice was like the sea and the sky, a part of nature and therefore natural: “majestic, free.” The speaker also compliments Milton’s ability to embody “cheerful godliness” even while doing the “lowliest duties.” As stated above the speaker on several instances refers to Milton as a celestial being.

Analysis
“London, 1802” is a sonnet with a rhyme scheme of abbaabbacddece. The poem is written in the second person and addresses the late poet John Milton, who lived from 1608–1674 and is most famous for having written Paradise Lost.

The poem has two main purposes, one of which is to pay homage to Milton by saying that he can save the entirety of England with his nobility and virtue. The other purpose of the poem is to draw attention to what Wordsworth feels are the problems with English society.

According to Wordsworth, England was once a great place of happiness, religion, chivalry, art, and literature, but at the present moment those virtues have been lost. Wordsworth can only describe modern England as a swampland, where people are selfish and must be taught about things like “manners, virtue, freedom, power.”

Notice that Wordsworth compliments Milton by comparing him to things found in nature, such as the stars, the sea, and “the heavens.” For Wordsworth, being likened to nature is the highest compliment possible.

London, 1802
MILTON! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
O raise us up, return to us again,
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power!
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart;
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou travel on life’s common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

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“England in 1819” by Percy Bysshe Shelley, a Political Sonnet Following the Peterloo Massacre

Posted on September 10, 2013 by Regina Jeffers

“England in 1819” is a political sonnet by the English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and reflects his liberal ideals. Composed in 1819, it was not published until 1839 in the four-volume The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (London: Edward Moxon) edited by Mary Shelley. Like all sonnets, “England in 1819” has fourteen lines and is written in iambic pentameter; however, its rhyming scheme (a-b-a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, c-c-d-d) differs from that of the traditional English sonnet (a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g).

The sonnet describes a very forlorn reality. The poem passionately attacks England’s, as the poet sees it, decadent, oppressive ruling class. King George III is referred to by “old, mad, blind, despised, and dying.” The “leech-like” nobility (“princes”) metaphorically suck the blood from the people, who are, in the sonnet, oppressed, hungry, and hopeless, their fields untilled. Meanwhile, the army is corrupt and dangerous to liberty, the laws are harsh and useless, religion has lost its morality, and Parliament (the “Senate”) is a relic. In addition, the civil rights of the Catholic minority are non existent “Time’s worst statute unrepealed.” In a startling burst of optimism, the last two lines express the hope that a “glorious Phantom” may spring forth from this decay and “illumine our tempestuous day.”

This poem was written as a response to the brutal Peterloo Massacre in August 1819.

Summary
The state of England in 1819 is described. The king is “old, mad, blind, despised, and dying”. The princes are “the dregs of their dull race”, and flow through public scorn like mud, unable to see, feel for, or know their people, clinging like leeches to their country until they “drop, blind in blood, without a blow.” The English populace are “starved and stabbed” in untilled fields; the army is corrupted by “liberticide and prey”; the laws “tempt and slay”; religion is Christless and Godless, “a book sealed”; and the English Senate is like “Time’s worst statute unrepealed.” Each of these things is like a grave from which “a glorious Phantom” may burst to illuminate “our tempestuous day.”

Form
“England in 1819” is a sonnet, a fourteen-line poem metered in iambic pentameter. Like many of Shelley’s sonnets, it does not fit the rhyming patterns one might expect from a nineteenth-century sonnet; instead, the traditional Petrarchan division between the first eight lines and the final six lines is disregarded, so that certain rhymes appear in both sections: ABABABCDCDCCDD. In fact, the rhyme scheme of this sonnet turns an accepted Petrarchan form upside-down, as does the thematic structure, at least to a certain extent: the first six lines deal with England’s rulers, the king and the princes, and the final eight deal with everyone else. The sonnet’s structure is out of joint, just as the sonnet proclaims England to be.

Analysis
Although an idealistic poet, Shelley was concerned with the real world: He denounced and attacked oppression, tyranny, and the abuse of political power as a passionate advocate for liberty. The result of his political commitment was a series of critical political poems condemning the arrogance of power, including “Ozymandias” and “England in 1819.”

Like William Wordsworth’s “London, 1802,” “England in 1819” lists the flaws in England’s social fabric:The furious, violent metaphors Shelley employs throughout (nobles as leeches in muddy water, the army as a two-edged sword, religion as a sealed book, Parliament as an unjust law) leave no doubt about his feelings on the state of his nation. Then, surprisingly, the final couplet concludes with a note of passionate Shelleyean optimism: from these “graves” a “glorious Phantom” may “burst to illumine our tempestuous day.” What this Phantom might be is not specified in the poem, but it hints simultaneously at the Spirit of the “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty” and at the possibility of liberty won through revolution, as it was won in France.

ENGLAND IN 1819
An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,–
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn, mud from a muddy spring,–
Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,
But leech-like to their fainting country cling,
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow,–
A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field,–
An army which liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield,–
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless, a book sealed,–
A Senate—Time’s worst statute unrepealed,–
Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst to illumine our tempestuous day.

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Regency Celebrity: Edmund Cartwright, English Clergyman and Inventor of the Power Loom

Posted on September 9, 2013 by Regina Jeffers
A loom from the 1890s with a dobby head. Illustration from the Textile Mercury.

A loom from the 1890s with a dobby head. Illustration from the Textile Mercury.

Edward (Edmund) Cartwright (24 April 1743 – 30 October 1823) was an English clergyman and inventor of the power loom.

Life and Work
He was the brother of Major John Cartwright, a political reformer and radical, and George Cartwright, explorer of Labrador.

Cartwright was taught at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wakefield, and University College, Oxford, and became a clergyman of the Church of England. Cartwright began his career as a clergyman, becoming, in 1779, rector of Goadby Marwood, Leicestershire; in 1783 he was a prebendary in Lincoln (Lincolnshire) cathedral.

Power Loom
He addressed the problem of mechanical weaving. Mechanical spinning and the factory system were already in place. He designed his first power loom in 1784 and patented it in 1785, but it proved to be valueless. In 1789, he patented another loom which served as the model for later inventors to work upon. For a mechanically driven loom to become a commercial success, either one person would have to attend one machine, or each machine must have a greater productive capacity than one manually controlled. An old man named Zach Dijkhoff assisted him in his work with creating this contraption.

478px-Edmund_Cartwright_2 He added parts to his loom, namely a positive let-off motion, warp and weft stop motions, and sizing the warp while the loom was in action. He commenced to manufacture fabrics in Doncaster using these looms, and discovered many of their shortcomings. He attempted to remedy these by: introducing a crank and eccentric wheels to actuate its batten differentially; by improving its dicking mechanism; by a device for stopping the loom when a shuttle failed to enter a shuttle box; by preventing a shuttle from rebounding when in a box; and by stretching the cloth with temples that acted automatically. His mill was repossessed by creditors in 1793.

In 1792 Dr Cartwright obtained his last patent for weaving machinery; this provided is loom with multiple shuttle boxes for weaving checks and cross stripes. But all his efforts were unavailing; it became apparent that no mechanism, however perfect, could succeed so long as warps continued to be sized while a loom was stationary. His plans for sizing them while a loom was in operation, and before being placed in a loom, failed. These were resolved in 1803, by William Radcliffe, and his assistant Thomas Johnson, by their inventions of the beam warper, and his dressing sizing machine.

In 1790 Robert Grimshaw, of Gorton Manchester, erected a weaving factory at Knott Mill, which he was to fill with 500 of Cartwright’s power looms, but with only 30 in place, the factory was burnt down probably as an act of arson inspired by the fears of hand loom weavers. The prospect of success was not sufficiently promising to induce its re-erection.

In 1809 Cartwright obtained a grant of £10,000 from Parliament for his invention. In May 1821 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Wool Combing Machine
He also patented a wool combing machine in 1789 and a cordelier (machine for making rope) in 1792. He also designed a steam engine that used alcohol instead of water.

Family
He died in Hastings, Sussex and was buried at Battle.

His daughter Elizabeth (1780–1837) married the Reverend John Penrose and wrote books under the pseudonym of Mrs Markham.

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Regency Celebrity: John Cartwright, Parliamentary Reformer

Posted on September 6, 2013 by Regina Jeffers

Cartwrightjohn John Cartwright (17 September 1740 – 23 September 1824) was an English naval officer, Nottinghamshire militia major and prominent campaigner for parliamentary reform. He subsequently became known as the Father of Reform. His younger brother Edmund Cartwright became famous as the inventor of the steam power loom.

Early Life and Naval Career
He was born at Marnham in Nottinghamshire, being the elder brother of Edmund Cartwright, inventor of the power loom and the younger brother of George Cartwright, trader and explorer of Labrador. He was educated at Newark-on-Trent grammar school and Heath Academy in Yorkshire, and at the age of eighteen entered the Royal Navy.

He was present, in his first year of service, at the capture of Cherbourg, and served in the following year in the Battle of Quiberon Bay between Sir Edward Hawke and Admiral Hubert de Brienne. Engaged afterwards under Sir Hugh Palliser and Admiral John Byron on the Newfoundland station, he was appointed to act as chief magistrate of the settlement. He served in the post for five years (1765–1770).

From 1763 to 14 May 1766, Cartwright was commander of HM Cutter Sherborne. His brother George, when at loose ends, went with him on a cruise out of Plymouth to chase smugglers in Sherborne.

Ill-health necessitated Cartwright’s retirement from active service for a time in 1771.

When the disputes with the American colonies began, he believed that the colonists had right on their side, warmly supported their cause and, at the outbreak of the ensuing American War of Independence, refused an appointment as first lieutenant to the Duke of Cumberland. Thus he gave up a path to certain promotion, since he did not wish to fight against the cause which he felt to be just. In 1774 he published his first plea on behalf of the colonists, entitled “American Independence the Glory and Interest of Great Britain.”

Nottinghamshire Militia and Reform
In 1775, when the Nottinghamshire Militia was first raised, he was appointed major, and in this capacity he served for seventeen years. He was at last illegally superseded, because of his political opinions.

In 1776 appeared his first work on reform in parliament, which, with the exception of Earl Stanhope’s pamphlets (1774), appears to have been the earliest publication on the subject. It was entitled, Take your Choice, a second edition appearing under the new title of The Legislative Rights of the Commonalty Vindicated, and advocated annual Parliaments, the secret ballot and manhood suffrage.

The task of his life was thenceforth chiefly the attainment of universal suffrage and annual parliaments. In 1778 he conceived the project of a political association, which took shape in 1780 as the Society for Constitutional Information, including among its members some of the most distinguished men of the day. From this society sprang the more famous London Corresponding Society. Major Cartwright worked unweariedly for the promotion of reform. He was one of the witnesses on the trial of his friends, John Horne Tooke, John Thelwall and Thomas Hardy, in 1794.

He left his large estate in Lincolnshire in 1803 or 1805 to move to Enfield, Middlesex, where he made friends with other leading Radicals including Sir Francis Burdett, 5th Baronet, William Cobbett and Francis Place.

In 1812, he initiated the Hampden Clubs, named after John Hampden, an English Civil War Parliamentary leader, aiming to bring together middle class moderates and lower class radicals in the reform cause. To promote the idea, he toured northwest England later in 1812, in 1813 (getting arrested in Huddersfield) and in 1815. He recruited John Knight who founded the first Hampden Club in Lancashire. In 1818, Knight, John Saxton and James Wroe formed the reformist and popularist newspaper the Manchester Observer. In 1819, the same team formed the Patriotic Union Society, which invited Henry “Orator” Hunt and Major Cartwright to speak at a reformist public rally in Manchester, but the elderly Cartwright was unable to attend what became the Peterloo Massacre. Later in 1819, Cartwright was arrested for speaking at a parliamentary reform meeting in Birmingham, indicted for conspiracy and was condemned to pay a fine of £100.

Cartwright then wrote The English Constitution, which outlined his ideas including government by the people and legal equality which he considered could only be achieved by universal suffrage, the secret ballot and equal electoral districts. He became the main patron of the Radical publisher Thomas Jonathan Wooler, best known for his satirical journal The Black Dwarf, who actively supported Cartwright’s campaigning.

Cartwright had sent a copy of The English Constitution to former President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson wrote to Cartwright in July:

“Your age of eighty-four, and mine of eighty-one years, ensure us a speedy meeting. We may then commune at leisure, and more fully, on the good and evil, which in the course of our long lives, we have both witnessed; and in the mean time, I pray you to accept assurances of my high veneration and esteem for your person and character.”

He died in London on 23 September 1824 and was buried at St Mary’s Church Finchley. He had married in 1780 but had no children. In 1831, a monument from a design by Macdowell was erected to him in Burton Crescent, WC1H, London, where he had lived. Burton Crescent was later renamed Cartwright Gardens in his honour.
The Life and Correspondence of Major Cartwright, edited by his niece F. D. Cartwright, was published in 1826. This and other correspondence is currently being transcribed onto the internet by Brussels-based political analyst Gary Cartwright.

Industry
In 1788, Major Cartwight sold his heavily mortgaged estates at Marnham, buying others at Brothertoft, Lincolnshire. The same year with 18 others, he erected a large mill at East Retford, called the Revolution Mill in celebration of the centenary of the Glorious Revolution. He hoped to weave cloth using the weaving patents of his brother Edmund Cartwright. He also began the mechanical spinning of wool, or rather worsted. This business did not prove to be a success. The mill stood idle within a few years and was advertised to sale in 1798 and 1805.

Legacy
Captain George Vancouver named Cartwright Sound, on the west coast of Graham Island in the Queen Charlotte Islands of British Columbia, Canada, in his honour in relation to his Royal Navy service under Admiral Howe.

Inscription from the Cartwright Gardens statue.

Inscription from the Cartwright Gardens statue.

John Cartwright House built in 1976 on the Mansford Estate in Bethnal Green was named in his honour. The estate was built by Tower Hamlets Council and a number of the blocks were named after social and political reformers. The Estate transferred to Tower Hamlets Community Housing, a local Housing Association in January 2006.

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