Author: Stuart Butler

Chartism and Voting 1839-2024

(With thanks to Deborah Roberts for the memories above

from our tribute to the Chartist meeting at Selsley in 1839)

Getting the Right to Vote Wasn’t Easy

An Easy Guide to this History

 

In 1819, in Manchester, a perfectly legal peaceful meeting of over 60,000 women and men campaigning for the vote for working people was attacked by the military. Over 400 were wounded and 18 died: ‘The Peterloo Massacre’.

 

At that time, the aristocracy essentially controlled parliament: less than 10% of men had the vote. Then in 1832, middle class men gained the vote. This increased the electorate to about 20% of men. Working-class men and all women were still voteless. Many working-class people had campaigned hard for the vote and had helped the middle classes but were left excluded, disappointed and angry.

 

This disappointment helped lead to the movement known as Chartism. It was called that because it had a Charter (‘The People’s Charter’) with Six Points that would bring political rights to ordinary people.

 

The Six Points: 1. All adult males to have the vote rather than needing to own property to vote. 2. Ending the law that you had to own property to be an MP. 3. Make sure that industrial working-class towns and cities had the right number of MPs. 4. MPs to be paid so that it wouldn’t be a hobby of the rich and ordinary working-class people could afford to become MPs.5. Secret voting to stop bribery and intimidation by bosses and landlords etc. 6. Annual parliaments to ensure MPs and governments kept their promises.

 

The Chartists presented three petitions to parliament (1839, 1842, 1848) with millions of signatures in support: each one was rejected by a parliament setting its face against democracy. Indeed, Chartist leaders faced not only imprisonment but also transportation and execution. It needed courage to stand up for the right to vote and millions showed that courage. Let’s not let them down: this is our heritage!

 

Remember that! Please honour this memory by ensuring that you are registered to vote!

 

And also remember the mass-meeting of 5,000 people in support of the People’s Charter on Selsley Hill in 1839 (twenty years after ‘Peterloo’). Our local ancestors took a lot of risks on that day to show their support for the Six Points – so let’s remember that in Stroud and the Five Valleys and beyond by making sure we are registered to vote. They showed courage up there on Selsley Common. Let’s not let them down.

 

Now for a short quiz: 1. Which of the Six Points has not become law? 2. Can you find out when each of the other five became law? 3. When did all women over the age of 21 get the vote? 4. And men? 5. About what percentage of soldiers in the First World War did not have the vote? 6. When did people over the age of 18 get the vote? 7. What are your opinions on lowering the voting-age to 16?

 

Finally … Chartism was a movement of its time and focused on men … but not solely …

The following is from the hugely-popular Chartist newspaper, the Northern Star, from 1839:

‘Address of the Female Political Union of Newcastle-upon-Tyne

to their Fellow-countrywomen’
‘We have been told that the province of woman is her home, and that the field of politics should be left to men; this we deny … For years we have struggled to maintain our homes … greet our husbands after their fatiguing labours. Year after year have passed away, and even now our wishes have no prospect of being realised, our husbands are over wrought, our houses half furnished, our families ill-fed, and our children uneducated … We are a despised caste, our oppressors are not content with despising our feelings, but demand the control of our thoughts and wants!’

 

We remember the fallen at Remembrance-tide.

Let’s also remember the Chartists and register to vote at Election-tide.

 

If you want to find out more about Chartism nationally, you can visit https://radicalstroud.co.uk/the-5-ws-and-the-h-of-chartism/

 

If you want to find out more about the meeting on Selsley Common, you can visit https://radicalstroud.co.uk/we-put-on-our-best-blouses-aprons-and/

And also https://radicalstroud.co.uk/selsley-hill-august-2nd-2013-and-may/

 

A Repertoire of Opposition to Enclosure

A Repertoire of Opposition to Enclosure

The Northampton Mercury contained an ‘advertisement for a football match’ at the end of July 1765 to take place over two days, August 1st and 2nd: ‘This is to give notice to all Gentlemen, Gamesters and Well-Wishers to the cause now in Hand. That there will be a FOOT-BALL play in the Fields of Haddon … for a Prize of considerable value … All Gentlemen Players are desired to appear in any of the Public Houses in Haddon aforesaid each day between the hours of ten and twelve in the Forenoon, where they will be joyfully received and entertained.’

On Monday 4th August 1765, the Northampton Mercury reported thus:

‘We hear from West Haddon in this County, that on Thursday and Friday last a great Number of People being assembled there in order to play a Foot-Ball Match, soon after meeting formed themselves into a Tumultuous Mob, and pulled up and burnt the Fences designed for the Inclosure of that Field, and did other considerable Damage; many of whom are since taken up by a Party of General Mordaunt’s Dragoons sent from this Town.’

 

Football matches are just one example

Of a whole repertoire of opposition

To the supporters of enclosure:

Grumbling, counter-petitioning,

Refusal to cooperate with surveyors,

Tearing down hedges and fences,

Writing formal letters of opposition,

Leaving threatening letters of opposition,

Refusal to sign enclosure bills,

Refusal to sign sundry legal documents,

Stealing boundary markers,

Removing indicators of field boundaries,

Writing local landscape poems,

Expressing anger in public,

Expressing feelings of violation,

Ensuring those feelings were shared communally

And transmitted through the generations:

Here is an example – a full generation

After enclosure had hit this particular village:

‘To the Gentlemen of Ashill, Norfolk,

This is to inform you that you have by this time brought us under the heaviest burden and into the hardest Yoke we ever knowed; it is too hard for us to bear … You do as you like, you rob the poor of their Commons right, plough the grass up that God send to grow, that a poor man may feed a Cow, Pig, Horse, nor Ass; lay muck and stones in the road to prevent the grass growing. If a poor man is out of work and wants a day or two’s work you will give him 6d. per week … There is 5 or 6 of you have gotten the whole of the land in this parish in your own hands and you would wish to be rich and starve all the other part of the parish…’

And here’s John Clare:

‘Inclosure came and trampled on the grave

Of labours rights and left the poor a slave

And memorys pride ere want to wealth did bow

is both the shadow and the substance now …’

And John Clare again:

‘That good old fame the farmers earnd of yore

That made as equals not as slaves the poor

That good old fame did in two sparks expire

A shooting coxcomb and. hunting Squire

And their old mansions that was dignified

With things far better than the pomp of pride …

Where master son and serving man and clown

Without distinction daily sat them down …

These have all vanished like a dream of good …’

And the folklore passed through the generations:

‘The law locks up the man or woman

Who steals the goose from off the common

But leaves the greater villain loose

Who steals the common off the goose.’

And when we look at the opposition to enclosure,

And the repertoire of dissent,

We must remember that not only

Are the textual records incomplete

(You have to keep secrets, don’t you?),

But that the repertoire of dissent’s

Oral opposition within an oral culture

Is, of course, impossible to recapture:

The hatred, bitterness, sense of violation,

Feelings of robbery, jobbery, misery and theft,

The loss of gleaning rights and rights of estover,

The loss of pasture and right to roam:

All, of course, the intangible history

Of all those villagers and commoners

’Condemned to the enormous condescension of posterity’.

In conclusion, john Clare again:

The Lament of Swordy Well:

In Swordy Well a piece of land

That fell upon the town

Who worked me till I couldn’t stand

&crush me now Im down

There was a time my bit of ground

Made freeman of the slave

The ass no pindard dare to pound

When I his supper gave

The gypseys camp was not afraid

I made his dwelling free

Till vile enclosure came & made

A parish slave of me

Alas dependence thou’rt a brute

Want only understands

His feelings wither branch & root

That falls in parish hands

Addendum

What of letter writing & formality,

Using the goose and common trope?

A case study:

A letter sent to the Marquess of Anglesey:

‘Where is now the degree of virtue which can withstand interest? …

Should a poor man take one of Your sheep from the common, his life would be forfeited by law. But should You take the common from a hundred poor mens sheep, the law gives no redress. The poor man is liable to be hung from taking from You what would supply You with a meal & You would do nothing illegal by depriving him of his subsistence; nor is Your family supplied for a day by a subtraction which distresses his for life! … Yet the causers of crimes are more guilty than the perpetrators. What must be the inference of the poor? when they see those who should be their patterns defy morality for gain, especially when, if wealth could give contentment, they had enough wherewith to be satisfied.  And when the laws are not accessible to the injured poor and Government gives them no redress.’

The Marquis replied thus:

‘Excepting as the mere fact of the Inclosure, the forming of which no one has a right to contest, All your statements are without foundation & as your language is studiously Offensive I must decline any further communication with you.’

 

‘The law locks up the man or woman

Who steals the goose from off the common

But leaves the greater villain loose

Who steals the common off the goose.

  The law demands that we atone

When we take things we do not own

         But leaves the lords and ladies fine

        Who take things that are yours and mine.’

For anyone for whom John Clare is a new discovery:

https://radicalstroud.co.uk/john-clare-150th-anniversary-of-his/

and

https://radicalstroud.co.uk/john-clare-day-july-13/

 

A People’s History

 

A People’s Local History

I thought it would be a great thing to try and stimulate a collective writing of a People’s History: a textual tapestry of life, work and landscape around Stroud, the Five Valleys and the county in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries (and then eventually the 21st.)

 

How?

 

If you are interested in contributing, all I ask is that you might use your imagination and whatever historical knowledge you might have (might be family history) to write a few sentences or so about jobs, or work, or landscape, or industry, or farming, or the home and email me. You can, of course, write more if you wish.

 

We will then meld everything together into a sort of textual tapestry: a collective work: a People’s History.

 

Deadline for contributions: May 31st.

 

Here are 3 links that might help: First look at the inspiration for this idea at https://radicalstroud.co.uk/workshop-of-the-world/

 

Then a bit of relevant local history at https://radicalstroud.co.uk/an-a-to-z-of-the-jobs-of-those-transported-from-gloucestershire/

 

Then if you wanted to look at a quick guide for some ideas for writing: https://radicalstroud.co.uk/creative-writing-guide/

 

 

You can find my email address at https://radicalstroud.co.uk/about-us/

 

Give Thanks to the Book of Trespass

Give Thanks to the Book of Trespass

When you’re walking footloose and fancy-free

Along some seemingly ancient footpath,

Checking your progress on the OS map,

Senses working XTC overtime,

(Apophenia! You’re part of it all! Just look at the view!)

It’s hard to remember that this feeling

Is legal in only eight per cent

Of William Blake’s green and pleasant land.

We have been enclosed by enclosure.

That’s why our footpaths are so circumscribed:

These are not footpaths to high sky freedom,

But meanders into false consciousness

And beguiling illusions of liberty:

Pilgrims’ Progress to Herbert Marcuse’s

Conception of Repressive Tolerance,

And Robert Frost’s poem, ‘The Road Not Taken’.

We look ahead and become accustomed

To the hedges, fences, walls and barbed wire.

It all seems so normal and timeless.

We forget John Clare when near a hedgerow.

And we forget the western cowboy plains,

The industrialised warfare of the western front,

And the colonial subjugation

Symbolised by the silhouette

Of barbed wire stretching into the distance.

It was called No Man’s Land in the First World War.

That land between the lines of barbed wire.

For King and Country.

Well, eight per cent of it.

‘If you want the old battalion,

I know where they are, I know where they are, I know where they are,

If you want to find the old battalion, I know where they are,

They’re hanging on the old barbed wire,

I’ve seen ’em, I’ve seen ’em, hanging on the old barbed wire.

I’ve seen ’em, I’ve seen ’em, hanging on the old barbed wire.’

 

Written after reading The Book of Trespass by Nick Hayes – inspiring! Totally recommended.

 

Not Burke and Hare but Burke and Marx and Bathurst

Horatio, the Humble Wayfarer, musing to self:

‘On the assumption that when Cirencester Park was formed, the path connecting Bisley and Cirencester was closed by the Bathurst Estate, then I suppose we can define that as an example of enclosure.

But we now see another example of a form of enclosure with the charging of admission to Cirencester Park.

So, I suppose what we see here is a sort of

Enclosure of Enclosure.

But how, in God’s name, can you enclose

What has already been enclosed?’

 

 

Horatio, the Humble Wayfarer at the gates:

‘Enclosure of Enclosure

What is this?

Meta-enclosure?

Post-modernist self-referential enclosure?

A seemingly logical impossibility?

A contradiction?

A paradox?

An existential, epistemological, ontological impossibility?

Alice through the Looking Glass?’

 

Humble Gatekeeper:

‘No, mate. Not Alice. But Bathurst through the Looking Glass.

£4 please. Or a tenner if you’re a local and want a permit.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’

 

Horatio, the Humble Wayfarer:

‘What. You mean … The end of the Edmund Burke vision of the Tory paternalistic hierarchical society?

No more:

‘The rich man at his castle,

The poor man at his gate,

God made them high and lowly

And ordered their estate.’

Instead, you refer to dialectical materialism and Marxism?

And, by implication, a conflict of class?’

 

Humble Gatekeeper:

‘That’s right, mate.

Four quid please.

And I give you this ditty:

The rich are in their castle,

Admiring their estate,

No more frees on entry,

The poor pay at the gate.’

 

 

Walking the Wall

Walking the Wall from Walbridge to Brimscombe

In the early years of the twentieth century,

A jingoistic electoral cry appeared:

‘We want eight and we won’t wait!’

(The eight being dreadnoughts or battleships),

Well, we waited at Walbridge for a bit

And almost numbered eight before setting forth,

Not as battleships but as messengers of peace,

In an act of global solidarity:

‘Walking the Wall for Palestine’,

With a cold-wind call for Palestinian rights

And a snow-swept local contribution

To the demand for an end to Israel’s war on Gaza.

Our walk conjoined our local landscapes

With echoes of those of Palestine:

We stood beneath the railway viaduct,

Imagining the Separation Wall,

Eight metres high in places,

750 kilometres in length,

Cutting its way deep into the West Bank,

Preventing access to land,

Preventing freedom of movement:

The dystopia of concrete panels,

Electric fences, razor wire, watch towers …

The Apartheid Wall …

The Separation Barrier …

The Security Fence …

We then climbed up through a ghost orchard,

And through the palimpsests of allotments,

Hearing how the right to cultivate

In Palestine is oft times stolen

Through sleight of legal hand,

Legerdemain or worse

(Dissonance in the landscape);

Thence to Rodborough Fort,

Contrasting the memories of camping

For spacious recreation in the field over the wall,

With the imagining of overcrowding

In the refugee camps near Bethlehem …

Dissonance in the landscape …

We then stopped at the so-called Lonely Tree:

Conjoining the status of Rodborough Common

As a Site of Scientific Interest,

With the Israeli practice

Of defining some landscapes as nature reserves,

With consequent eviction of inhabitants

(Dissonance in the landscape) …

And as we stood high in the biting wind,

We caught Theresa’s words in the gusts:

‘Imagine every hilltop with a military or fenced community that starts off as one or two caravans … illegal settlement under international law … Israel provides military protection, settler-only roads, water and electricity …Flags fly from these houses. Palestinians nearby have lost the use of land, face harassment and interference in their daily lives. For example, theft of sheep and goats, worrying with dogs, destruction of wells, chopping down of olive groves etc.’

But we walked on to Winstone’s Ice Cream Factory:

No checkpoints for us or checking of papers,

As we reflected on the difficulties

Palestinians often face

When trying to run cafes and restaurants,

When trying to maintain family ownership

Through the generations and such length of time,

Unlike the ice cream parlour here at Winstone’s,

With its easy and lauded continuity …

Once more, a dissonance in the landscape.

We then made an aqueous descent

To the River Frome and the canal,

Running water everywhere around us,

While we listened to a discourse

Analysing and describing

The punitive inequality

Evidenced in the supply of water and

Its storage, distribution and usage …

I stood on the canal bridge and pondered …

So much of our discussion and peregrination

Had revolved around those fundamental

Half-mythologised four elements:

Fire air, earth and water …

And how on our walk we had enjoyed

The elemental magic of Rodborough Common’s skyscape:

As opposed to elemental appropriation

In far-off but now-conjoined Palestine.

It was a walk with echoes and dissonance:

A topography of limned discordance.

Saddened but wiser, I walked to the Long Table

For a communal bite to eat

And a sharing of thoughts and emotions.

I walked back to Stroud along the towpath,

Flag sodden, but still flying a message of hope.

 

This is by necessity a linear account. This account misses out so much as it pursues the linear path of our progress– the conversation about the hearts etched outside the subscription rooms … the woman who met us in the fields with such delight … the sharing of hearts and minds … the warmth of commonality and solidarity … the sense of purpose … I could go on and on … a memorable morning.

March 2nd 2024: Walbridge to the Long Table, Brimscombe.

 

Cirencester

‘For 326 years the public have enjoyed free access to Cirencester Park – one of the largest open green spaces in Gloucestershire.
On March 15th, that freedom will end.
The Bathurst Estate is introducing a paywall for access, with outsiders charged £4 to go for a walk.
Join Right to Roam for a peaceful jamboree on the weekend the charges are introduced, as we contest the paywalling of the park and celebrate hundreds of years of community heritage.
We’ll hear from locals, historians and Right to Roam campaigners and resurrect some of the park’s great customs in a ‘Fayre For All’.
(We won’t be paying)
Won’t we be trespassing?
Technically, yes. But really we’re just doing what we’ve always done: going for a peaceful wander in the park.
If you’re worried: peaceful trespass is a ‘civil’ offence and the chances of anything coming of it are low, especially when it’s conducted en masse.
What to Bring
Bring appropriate footwear for a soggy spring wander, warm clothes, something for lunch – and perhaps something to share!
You may wish to bring a ground sheet or blanket to sit on at various points.
Dogs
We ask you to leave doggo at home for this one.
Even when it was freely open the park only allowed dogs in certain areas and we’re not here to contest dog management policies! Our furry friends can also add complication when we’re here to make a wider point.
Children
Sure, this is intended to be a peaceful, family-friendly event. If they’re happy with a bit of walking and a few hours out in spring weather!’

Creative Writing Guide

A GUIDE TO WRITING YOUR OWN

If you fancy it, here’s a practical easy guide to creative writing.

(If any readers are into the intellectual side

of all this slipping through wormholes of time stuff,

and fancy some prompts about psychogeography,

Radical walking and the imagination –

an A to Z of Psychogeography

follows the creative writing guide.)

 

A guide to creative writing: An A – Z Writing Guide

A is for ALLITERATION and ANECDOTES

and ASSONANCE and ATMOSPHERE

B is for BATHOS and BLANK VERSE and BACKSTORY

C is for CHARACTERS and CLIFFHANGER and COUNTER-HERITAGE

D is for DIALOGUE and DRAMA

E is for EFFECT and ELLIPSIS

F is for FIRST PERSON and FORESHADOWING

and FACT and FICTION and FREE VERSE

G is for GENRE (which will you choose?)

and GUERRILLA MEMORIALISATION

H is for HONESTY and HEART (and soul) and HERITAGE

I is for IMAGERY and IDIOM and IAMBIC PENTAMETRE

and IMAGINATION

J is for JUSTICE and the JUST word

K is for KINDNESS and KINESIS

L is for LUCID and LUDIC and LIMINALITY

M is for METAPHOR and MOOD and MEMORIALISATION

and MYTHOPOEIC and METRE

N is for NARRATIVE and NOTEBOOK (necessary)

O is for ONOMATAPOEIA

P is for PERSONA and PLOT and PACE and PUNCTUATION

and PARENTHESIS and PEN and PENCIL

and PAPER and POETRY and PROSE

Q is for QUEST (for the right word) and QUESTIONS

R is for RULE OF THREE and RHETORICAL QUESTIONS

and RESEARCH and READING and RHYME and RHYTHM

S is for SIMILE and SIBILANCE and STRUCTURE

and STANZA and SETTING and SENSES and SENTENCES (varied)

and SYNTHESIA

T is for TRIPLES and THIRD PERSON

U is for UNDERSTATED

V is for VARIED SENTENCE STRUCTURE and VOICE

and VERSE and VARIED VOCABULARY

W is for WANDERING and WRITING and WORMHOLES

X is for X-ROADS (liminal wormholes through time)

Y is for YEARNING (for the past and for the right word)

Z is for ZEN and the ART of STATIONERY MAINTENANCE

An A-Z Psychogeographical Guide

A is for Ambulatory Art; the Arcades Project; Alienation; Ambience/Ambiance; Aleatory Walking; Ackroyd (Peter); the Association of Autonomous Astronauts; Autism and Walking; Ambling.

B is for Beach (Beneath the Pavements!!); Benjamin (Walter); Baudelaire; Bohemian; Barthes (Roland); Baudrillard Jean) and Bucolic.

C is for Commodity Fetishism; Crowds; Chtcheglov (Ivan); Coverley (Miles); Cartography (Re-imagined); Critique of Everyday Life; Commodification; Cultural Terrorism; Choreographed Walking; Cadogan (Garnette); Cyberflanerie; Crowds; constitutional.

D is for Derivee; Detournement; Debord (Guy); Defoe (Daniel); de Certeau (Michel); Disabled Walking; Dementia and Walking; Dreamtime Walking.

E is for Edgelands; Existentialism; Experimental Exeats; Egressions; Ecophilia.

F is for Flaneur; Flanerie; Flaneuse; Five Valleys; Fete (see Potlatch); Foucault (Michel) and Feminist Psychogeography; Field Walking.

G is for Geography.

H is for Hessel (Franz); Huizinga (Johan), Homo Ludens; Harvey (David); Hawksmoor (Nicholas); Home (Stewart); hollow-ways; hike.

I is for International Situationniste (the S.I. journal); Infraordinary; Interpellation; Indolence.

J is for Journals; Journeys; Jorn (Asger); jogging.

K is for Kaleidoscope; Kafkaesque.

L is for Ludic; Lefebevre (Henri); Lettrist International; Literary Communism; Ley Lines; the Loiterers’ Resistance Movement; Languid.

M is for Marxist-Materialists; Mythogeographers (discovering political and/or multiple meanings in landscapes; Maps (mmm …); Manifestos; May ’68; the Materialist Psychogeographical Affiliation; the Museum of Walking; Multicultural Inclusive Psychogeography ; Memory Retrieval through walking (dementia sufferers); POPS (Privately Owned Public Spaces).

N is for Noctivigant; Noctambulist; the Neoist Alliance; Navigation; Navigators (inland); Navvies.

O is for Occultist Walking (invoking de Quincey, and William Blake for a harder political edge.); Oldfield Ford (Laura); Ocularcentrism.

P is for Psychogeography; Potlatch (the S.I. journal) and Potlatch (devoid ‘of all Productive logic in which everyone may Participate’ – A Fete*); Performance (Poetic and subversive Potential of ordinary life revealed); Pranks and Property Defacement; Praxis; Papadimitriou (Nick); Postmodern Flaneur; Psychogeography and the Deriviste;

Q is for de Quincey (Thomas); Queues (bus stop).

R is for Rural (reading and writing the rural – individually/collectively); Romantic (literary tradition); Rhythmanalysis; Reverie; Richardson (Tina); Rimbaud; Relational (cf solitary) Walking and Recollection.

S is for Signifier; Signified; Semiotics; Situations; Spectacles; Situationist International; Society Of The Spectacle; Stroud; Site Specific (art/performance); Solnit (Rebecca); Subversion; Spatial Interruption (cf Temporal Interruption); Sinclair (Ian); Savage Messiah; Social Critique ; Schizocartography; Smith (Phil); the Situational Derive; Situational Walking Arts; Sensory Mapping; Soundscape and Smell Walks.

T is for Time; Temporality Interruption (cf Spatial Interruption);

Three Sided Football.

U is for Urban (reading and writing the city/town – individually/collectively); Unitary Urbanism; Utopianism.

V is for van Ratingen (Witold Jerzy) (see * Potlatch above); Virtual Psychogeography.

W is for Watkins (Alfred); Walking as ‘A Pedestrian Speech Act’ (de Certeau); Wrights and Sites and the Walking Artists Network and Walking Women and Walking While Black.

X is for Cross Roads and X marks the spot of whatever you wish to bury or find.

Y is for Yearning/Nostalgic walking.

Z is for Zen-Fullness; The Art of Zen and Shank’s Pony Maintenance.

 

 

An A to Z of the Jobs of those transported from Gloucestershire

An A to Z of People at Work in Gloucestershire

in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries:

The professions and jobs and sometimes status

Of those who were transported

When I look out of my window I descry

The following on their way to Van Diemen’s Land

and to New South Wales:

An accountant, an apothecary, an ash-carrier,

an attorney-at-law, and an awl-blade maker;

Followed by

A baker, a baker’s boy, a barber, a bargeman,

A basket-maker, a billy-spinner, a blacking-maker,

A blacksmith, a boatman, a boiler-maker, a brass-founder,

A brazier, a bricklayer, a brick-maker, a brush-maker,

A brush maker’s apprentice, a burler, and a butcher;

Next in line:

A cabinet-maker, a calf-dealer, a carpenter,

A carpet-weaver, a carrier, a carver, a chair-maker,

A chimney sweep, a clerk, a clock- and watch-maker,

A clock-cleaner, a cloth dresser, a cloth-factory man,

A clothier, a clothing-mill boy, a cloth-mill worker,

A cloth-rower, a cloth-worker, a coach-horse tender,

A coach-painter, a coach-plater, a coach-smith,

A coal miner, a collar-maker, a collier,

A colt-breaker, a comb-maker, a confectioner,

A cooper, a cordwainer, a cork-cutter,

A cotton-spinner, and a cutler;

Then this queue:

A dealer, a dealer in marine stores, a deserter,

 A donkey-driver, a draper, a dress-maker,

A drummer in the militia;

Succeeded by this procession:

An earthenware dealer, an East India Company member,

An edge-toolmaker, an engine-maker, an errand boy;

Then this column:

A farmer, a Fenceler (Royal Marines), a field blacksmith,

A file-cutter, a fireman, a fish- and bacon-carrier,

A fish- and orange-carrier, a fish-carrier, a fisherman,

A fishmonger, a flock-dresser, a fly-man,

A framework-knitter;

In the rear of those:

A gardener, a Gentleman, a gig-mill worker,

A glazier, a glover, a grocer, a groom, a gunsmith, a gypsy;

Then a sinuous line:

A hairdresser, a handle-setter, a harness-maker,

A hatter, a haulier, a hawker, a hawker of hardware,

A haggler, A horse-dealer, A horse-doctor,

A horse-keeper, A hurdle-maker;

Then in quick two step:

A japanner and a joiner;

Followed by this quintet:

Labourer, lace-factory worker, lawyer, leather-dresser, lemon-carrier;

And then a longer row:

A marine, a mason, a merchant, a merchant seaman,

A metal-smith, a militia-man, a milliner, a miller, a millman,

A millman and cloth rower, a millwright, a mole catcher,

A miner, a mortar-boy, a moulder in foundry, a musician;

Then a trio:

A nailer, a nail-maker, a navigator;

Then a singular

Oyster- and cider-seller;

Followed by this chain:

A painter, a paper-maker, a pargeter, a pensioner,

A pedlar, a pig-dealer, a pipe-maker, a plane-maker,

A plasterer, a plumber and glazier, a porter, a post-boy,

A potter, and a prostitute;

And a then this string:

A rag-gatherer, a razor-grinder, a recruit for the army,

A ribbon-weaver, a rifle corps member, a rope-maker,

A rope-spinner, and a rowling-slitter;

And then this motley:

A sack-weaver, a saddler, a sail-maker, a sailor,

A sawyer, a scamp and bone picker, a scribbler, a seaman,

A servant, a shearer, a shearman, a shepherd, a shoe-binder, a shoe-maker, A shop-keeper, a silk-weaver, a slater and plasterer, a smith,

A smelter, a soap-boiler, a soldier, a spinner, a sprig-maker,

A stable boy, a stenciller, a stocking-maker, a stocking weaver,

A stock-worker, a stone-cutter, a stone mason,

A straw- and hay-dealer, a straw- bonnet maker, a surgeon, a sweep;

Then this cavalcade:

A tailor, a tailoress, a tailor’s apprentice, a tanner,

A tea-dealer’s clerk and traveller, a thatcher; a tile-maker,

A tinker, a tin-man, a tramp(er), a traveller, a traveller with an ass,

A traveller with fruit etc., a traveller with hardware,

A turner and filer, a twine-spinner;

Coming up the rear:

An upholsterer;

A volunteer for the army;

And finally:

A washerwoman, a waterman, a weaver,

A wheelwright, a whitesmith, a wire-drawer,

A wood-dealer, a wood-sawyer, a woolsorter.

This is, of course, not the number of people transported,

But a list of the professions and jobs

and sometimes status of those transported.

But it is a window on a lost world.

 

Workshop of the World

Workshop of the World

Raphael Samuel

Edited by John Merrick

Verso 2024

An extract to stimulate similar writing

about Stroud and the Five Valleys

through a cooperative collective endeavour

with people proffering a couple of sentences or more

about trades and jobs and sights to be seen

through the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries.

 

‘The orthodox account of the industrial revolution concentrates on the rise of steam power and machinery, and the spread of the factory system … But if one looks at the economy as a whole rather than at its most novel and striking features, a less orderly canvas might be drawn – one bearing more resemblance to a Breugel or even a Hieronymus Bosch than to the geometrical regularities of a modern abstract. The industrial landscape would be seen to be full of diggings and pits, as well as tall factory chimneys. Smithies would sprout in the shadows of the furnaces, sweatshops in those of the looms. Agricultural labourers might take up the foreground, armed with sickle or scythe, while behind them troops of women and children would be bent double over the ripening crops in the field, pulling charlock, hoeing nettles, or cleaning the furrows of stones. In the middle distance there might be navvies digging sewers and paviours laying flags. On the building sites there would be a bustle of man-powered activity, with housepainters on ladders, and slaters nailing roofs. Carters would be loading and unloading horses, market women carrying baskets of produce on their heads; dockers balancing weights. The factories would be hot and steamy, with men stripped to the singlet, and juvenile runners in bare feet. At the lead works women would be carrying pots of poisonous metal on their heads, in the bleachers’ shed they would be stitching yards of chlorine cloth, at a shoddy mill sorting rags. Instead of calling his picture ‘machinery’ the artist might prefer to name it ‘toil’.’