The Sans Culottes of Belfast

The United Irishmen and the Men of No Property

by John Gray

The first evidence of discontent amongst working men in Ulster surfaced in April 1792 in a number of areas of Antrim and Down. This agitation clearly stemmed from increasing hardship in a declining [linen] trade. As 150 weavers meeting in Ballycare on April 28 noted, "for these thirty years there has been no rise made on the linen weaving business; since which time the necessaries of life are raised beyond the power of our purchase."

They compared their position with, "the provision made every day to enable the rich to increase their share, and the farmers to pay their excessive rents" while there was "no remembrance of the poor weaver". These linen weavers maintained their "inherent right to - complain when distressed, and to lay down the burden when not enabled to bear the pressure", and proposed to exercise it by resolving, "that we will not for the future, work any more linen webs, unless one shilling be added to the price of each web".

While this was the first evident action of its kind, it gave little inkling of the bitterness that was to develop elsewhere, and rather reads as a panegyric on the benevolent and paternalistic relationship between weavers and merchants. The men's demands were promptly conceded and the merchants "were immediately chaired, carried by twelve stout weavers, followed by a numerous crowd, and preceded by an excellent band of music playing God Save the King". The sole misfortune of the day was that the chairman of the meeting, one James Campbell, "strained his voice that day so much accompanying the music, that his organs have since refused to give sound". 1

A similar victory was won by the linen weavers of Carnmoney at the beginning of June when they publicly thanked employers in Templepatrick and Carnmoney "for their liberal and generous sentiments respecting the lowness of linen weavers' wages, and for confirming the sincerity of these sentiments, by allowing one penny per yard to all good workmen of their weavers". Despite their own success, the Carnmoney weavers had a sense of wider solidarity, resolving that, "should manufacturers in general not concur in these liberal sentiments, to relieve the weaver and support the staple manufacture of this kingdom, we pledge ourselves to each other, and to linen weavers in general". 2

Star vs. News-Letter

Linen merchants may well have conceded quickly, not so much for fear of the combination of their weavers, but in order to meet competition for good workers from the cotton industry, and it was here that a much more serious dispute was to develop. On 9 June the Northern Star warned its readers that, "a very bold and daring spirit of combination has broken out amongst the cotton weavers of this town, and has been communicated to the bricklayers, carpenters, etc." It was a development bound to cause difficulty for the Star, the self-proclaimed voice of advanced opinion.

If weavers did not themselves subscribe to the paper, and the Star admitted that "the great body of the working people do not read the newspapers", they were, nonetheless, part of the radical movement's desired constituency, and yet the paper, as with the Volunteers and the United Irish organization itself, was the child of merchants and manufacturers.

Initially the Star sought to chart a middle way; it wanted "every workman [to] have a full and adequate reward for his labor"; master artisans in the various trades were urged to "take such measures as to bring the question in a proper manner before the public", although they were urged "not individually [to] yield to demands made in a tumultuous and illegal manner". Ideally then matters were to be settled "by contract not by violence".

There was no such equivocation in the response of the more conservative Belfast News-Letter. Henry Joy, the editor, had supported the French Revolution and had by no means turned his back on "moderate" reforms, but when it came to action by organized artisans he knew exactly where he stood, and in his issue of June 5 simply published the full text of the draconian anti-combination laws, "to check as far [as is] in our power, the spirit of combination among tradesmen and artificers, and to remind both masters and journeymen of their reciprocal duties as established by law".

He hoped that this would have "due effect, by convincing those who are, or may be led into unlawful combinations, that it will not only injure themselves and [their] families most essentially, but be as a means of damping the spirit of enterprise which now prevails."

Low Wages

Two issues later Joy waxed eloquent on the low wage foundation essential not merely for the progress of Belfast, but for the Irish industrial advance in the face of English competition. Yes, he noted "the extraordinary progress we have made, and are making in the cotton branches", and in other spheres, but he asked:

How is Ireland, yet in a state of infancy comparatively with England, to have any rational hope of meeting the other in a foreign, or in any other market, if she does not take advantage of her less advanced stage of society, and of her consequently low price of labor? Don't we to the latter circumstances greatly owe the present state of our linen trade? It is pretty certain that in throwing aside the only advantage in our favor (the low price of labor) we forfeit our best chance of success. 3

It was the first coherent expression of an argument that was to gather force through the succeeding stages of Belfast's industrial development, and one which remains potent to the present day.

But what then of the Star? What if its idealized social contract between employers and artisans was not possible? Then, no less than Henry Joy at the News-Letter, it knew where it stood. It advocated "the circulating of handbills containing a digest of the existing laws against combination" 4 and was confident that "our present Chief Magistrate, and indeed all our Magistrates, have ever evinced a readiness to step forward, and they well know they will be supported". Here the Star preferred the support of the Volunteer movement, even then being re-activated as the effective militia movement of the radical cause. And yet the revival of the Volunteers was for the moment being safe-guarded by an insistence on their willingness to serve in the enforcement of existing laws. The Star pointed out that only two months earlier, the Belfast Volunteers had used their cannon to help evict a tenant in Upper Massarene, twenty miles distant 5, and that, accordingly, "the citizen soldiers of this town - will surely be ready at a moment, to preserve order at home."

Arbitration

For the moment, however, hopes were pinned on the possibility of a fair resolution of the potential conflict at a Town Meeting. Much off the discussion at this meeting was devoted to just such a balanced proposal: "that a committee (of nine) to be composed of three journeymen [that is workmen], three masters and three disinterested inhabitants be formed, for the purpose of fixing on proper standard prices for each trade".

The proposed arbitration scheme recognized that workmen could have grievances which might not be fairly settled by the unfettered workings of the free market, and it also gave a right of representation to the workmen. The proposal appears to have had considerable support as "several of the trades (both employers and employed) approved of the plan", but those who opposed it could not be persuaded to change their minds and "being objected to by some others, it was dropped".

If the model scheme could not proceed, agreement on the alternative was not required, for the status quo of the combination laws was already in place. It was a point soon emphasized by the chairman of the meeting, the Sovereign of the town, James Banks, who ordered that "extracts from the several Acts of Parliament, relating to combination" be read out, and "expressed his firm determination to execute the laws". He also relied on the potential of the additional force already offered by the Northern Star, "not in the least doubting but he should receive the support of the inhabitants, particularly the Volunteers." 6

Despite the inconclusive outcome of the Town Meeting, efforts at compromise continued and in some areas succeeded, thus on June 14 a strike or lockout involving carpenters was successfully concluded. The Journeymen Carpenters of Belfast gave "sincere thanks" to fourteen employers "for complying with their request, in advancing the wages to two shillings per day." 7

Similar efforts were made in the cotton trade, and on 16 June the weavers sought to push matters to a conclusion on the basis of the arbitration scheme proposed at the Town Meeting. They announced that "the weavers' propositions in the weighty branches were agreed to by the manufacturers", this in the hope of finalizing a deal in the finer muslin trade. Here, however, the position was evidently more difficult. The weavers' objective had been to achieve "the prices that have been paid by Mr. Orr (during his first three years in the Kingdom)". Orr as a newcomer had apparently been prepared to pay above the then prevailing rate. According to the weavers, the manufacturers had agreed to do so provided that a majority of their number approved, and the weavers now announced that eight of the ten firms originally involved and an additional four firms 8 had agreed with this course of action. And yet, even by the weavers' own account, matters were not quite so simple as they had requested their committee "to treat with, and if possible, to adjust the remaining differences". 9

Within two days hopes of an overall settlement were dashed when it became clear that all of the original ten firms and one other were still in dispute with the weavers, including the weavers' own model employer, Mr. Orr. The employers stated that, "they had adopted Mr. Orr's prices for the future", but alleged that, "some weavers on Saturday last carried home a number of webs to Mr. Orr unwrought", and accordingly they declared, "our intention to support Mr. Orr, or any other manufacturer, in the prosecution of weavers guilty of such unlawful practices; and until the present disturbances cease, we are determined not to give out any warps or winging". 10 Had some weavers engaged in precipitate action while negotiation still offered some promise? No matter, the weavers were now reduced to protesting that the employers "have retracted from their written obligations", and faced a lockout.

True the employers were not quite united. Nicholas Grimshaw of Whitehouse, surprisingly not included in any of the earlier listings of firms, despite the size of his enterprise, proceeded to reach a separate agreement with the weavers.

Cotton Weavers' Action

While gains within the linen trade, albeit from rates below those available in the cotton trade, appear to have been the general pattern, we may assume that the majority of cotton weavers in Belfast and neighborhood were our of work from June 18 onwards. Threats of wider disturbances soon followed. On June 21 "information was received by the Sovereign of this town [Belfast], that a large body of the working weavers had assembled in a field, about two miles from the town, and that they mediated an attack on some of the cotton manufactories, whose owners have not complied with their demands as to wages".

The Sovereign "immediately repaired to the spot where the weavers were -when after expostulating with them, he expressed his determination to effect the law with vigor, in case it should be necessary". This had the desired effect, "their behavior to him was very respectful, and they shortly after marched quietly to their respective homes". The Sovereign's success may have owed something to the evident willingness of the Volunteers to assist him. Before setting out to talk to the weavers he had ensured that the Volunteers were holding themselves "in readiness, in case of necessity". That night and on the following night, the Volunteers provided a "strong guard" in Belfast, and it was intended to maintain this "until the men return to their employments". 11

Along with its sympathetic account of the work of the Sovereign and the Volunteers, the Northern Star offered a variety of moral messages. The first was that, quite apart from owing, "our independence as a nation" to the Volunteers, they now, evidently, provided "the only constitutional preservation of peace and good order" and served as "the steady protector of property". Faced by the combination of weavers and their threat to property, the Star now viewed it as "a disgrace to the town of Belfast, that the number of its Volunteers does not amount to above three hundred". Whatever the other causes, this relative weakness certainly reflected the absence of the weaving classes from the ranks of the "citizen army".

Lisburn

The second moral related to popular disturbances. These might be all very well for France which was so admired from afar, but in Belfast "all good men and citizens will endeavor to keep themselves out of mobs", and, more specifically, weavers were advised of "the dangers of such meetings" with the Star instead "recommend[ing] in their place - honesty and orderly industry, which never fails of meeting suitable reward."

This patronizing advice was soon scorned. On June 28 disturbances broke out when "some muslin weavers, resident of Lisburn" arrived in Belfast "to take out warps from their employers here". They aroused the rage of the Belfast weavers, "displeased that they would work at the usual prices", that is rather than the new higher prices being demanded. The Star suggests that the Lisburn weavers normally worked for the Belfast employers, but it is quite as probable that this was not the case and that they were encouraged to come and to take on the work of the locked out Belfast weavers and that they were "blacklegs".

Certainly the resistance to the Lisburn men was furious. On their arrival in Belfast, "they were driven into a public house, where they were taken under the protection of the Magistrates and Volunteers". The following day a detachment from the Belfast Volunteers escorted the Lisburn weavers back home but that was far from the end of the matter for "in that town, a furious mob (mostly from Belfast) attacked the party in a most outrageous manner." The detachment of 13 volunteers had the advantage of arms and were able to quell this disturbance when "one or two were pricked with the bayonet".

Hostility between the Belfast weavers and the Volunteers now developed. The Belfast Volunteers had successfully escorted their charges to Lisburn, and all they had to do was return to Belfast. It was not as simple a mission as it seemed for "about six o'clock in the evening, accounts were received that a very large body of weavers intended to way-lay the party on their return." The alarm was just being sent round the Belfast Volunteer companies when trouble started independently in Belfast itself. Possibly the investigators aimed to distract the Belfast Volunteers from their initial mission, namely to provide their initial mission, namely to provide reinforcements for their colleagues on the road from Lisburn. The trouble in Belfast was, however, of a confused nature and more probably had a momentum of its own. As the Northern Star described it, at about seven o'clock "an affray took place between two parties armed with poles, grapes & c. at the foot of North Street. A large crowd soon assembled, and on the interference of the neighboring inhabitants to quell it, they were likely to be roughly handles." We need not doubt that weavers were at the heart of this affair because, as we shall see, at least one of them was to pay the price of his involvement.

The drum of the First Volunteer Company which was at the time beating "to exercise" quickly its tune to "to arms", and the Volunteers soon suppressed this trouble, also "taking up the ringleaders - and lodging them in the barracks".

Meanwhile members of the Belfast Volunteer Company set out to escort their colleagues back in along the road from Lisburn. Later in the evening members of the First Company set out to patrol the town and still the trouble was not over "one of the patrols was (about ten o'clock) attacked in Brown's Square and the neighborhood, with collies of stones, brickbats & c., from the houses and bye-lanes - several members were hurt but none seriously". Only when stronger patrols accompanied by the Sovereign were sent out did the trouble cease.

Attacks on Workers

The Northern Star concluded, "the lenity with which these disturbances of the peace have hitherto been treated, not having produced the desired effect, we would submit it to the magistrates whether they ought longer to stay PUTTING THE LAW IN FORCE". 12 As prisoners were available from the disturbances on June 28, the magistrates were in a position to take up the Star's invitation, and on July 4, "James Reilly, a cotton weaver of this town, was taken and committed by the Sovereign to the county jail - having been convicted."

The Star did not limit itself to this brief account of the conviction, but rather took the opportunity to quote the entire section of the Combination Act under which Reilly had been found guilty. After their unsuccessful flirtation, they had lapsed into citation of the draconian anti-combination legislation as a means of instilling fear, an identical position to that adopted at the outset by Henry Joy at the more conservative Belfast News-Letter.

And well might the citation have instilled fear. The convicted person was to be sent "to jail, there to be kept without bail or mainprize for six months", and before he got there he was, as the Star emphasized, "to be three times publicly whipped." 13

While we cannot trace the carrying out of Reilly's punishment, one of his colleagues was to suffer at the end of August - as the Star described it: "Hamil, who was convicted last assizes, of assaulting Stewart Banks, Esq. of this town, a magistrate of the county, when using his exertions to quell a riot, was yesterday publicly whipped from the Linen Hall to the Exchange, agreeably to the sentence which had been pronounced upon him". 14

Ten days after the conviction of Reilly on July 14, the annual review of the Volunteers took place combined with a celebration of the French Revolution. There was no dissent in passing an address for forwarding in passing an address for forwarding to the National Assembly of France which recalled how the revolution had "sanctifies" the day with its "declaration of human rights". There were, however, distinctions between the participants in the Belfast event. The "Grand procession" to the White Linen Hall was both "military and civil". There were 790 Volunteers from Belfast and further afield, but also distinct civilian groups, notably "one hundred and eighty of the most respectable inhabitants of Carnmoney and Templepatrick". 15 The question remains: was this in some way a separate manifestation, and one reflecting the strong handloom weaver constituency in those areas, a constituency which doubted the "national" pretensions of a force which first took the field against working man, and, as it transpired, was never to do so again.

Agitation Continues

The arrests of June and July did not end the agitation. When Hamil was whipped through the streets at the end of August, the Volunteers were once again called out, "an attempt to impede the execution of the law, and to rescue the prisoner, having been apprehended". The attempt was not made but nor were the Volunteers required. The authorities were now on their guard against providing the Volunteers with further opportunities for martial demonstration and provided the military escort themselves. 16

...By autumn the agitation in the Cotton industry appears to have died down. It seems unlikely that the men made significant gains, if any. Any yet artisan organization evidently survived, and continued to surface from time to time, as for example in the Ards district of Counnty Down. Thus on October 3 we fine a notice from "a meeting of a committee appointed by the [linen] weavers of Newtownards, Comber, Bangor and Donaghadee" and itself suggesting wide ranging organization. The committee resolved, "that we will not work - under the following prices", and gave a list of yarn weights and prices. They further made clear their resistance to skill dilution being determined to take "no apprentices but according to law". 17

By November Belfast was threatened once more by disturbances, this time as a result of rapidly rising prices and feared food shortages. The Northern Star described events on the 20th of the month thus:

A number of the working people assembled to investigate the cause; they proceeded in a large party to the quay, and examined every vessel which they supposed might be carrying grain out of the kingdom; after they had examined the vessels in the harbor, without finding any meal on board, they went to several stores, alleging that the rise in the market might have been occasioned by large purchases of merchants, for the purpose of exportation and threatened that they would take whatever they might find.

...In the same month the Northern Star asked rhetorically: "Where will it commence first?"; and went on to note, "such questions are in the mouths of everyone". The continental powers had attacked France and been repulsed, King Louis had been arrested, and, in Belfast radical political reformers, and the poor, each presumed that their cause might progress in like style. The Star's reassurance to government that, "there is no occasion for a revolution in this land" looked increasingly empty. 18

Yet the November disturbance over food shortages was to prove a harbinger of a political and economic crisis which was almost overwhelm the United Irishmen, and to hide the power of artisan combination from view. In December 1792 the government commenced a legal offensive against the United Irishmen, including prosecution of the Northern Star. 19 In January King Louis was executed, in February England declared war on France, in March the Volunteers were suppressed, and Belfast found itself with a hard handed military garrison.

...Just as resolute government repression punctured the reformist balloon of the United Irishmen, economic crisis led to the virtual disappearance from public view of artisan combinations which had come to the fore so powerfully in 1792. Fear of hunger and unemployment, rather than hopes of advances in wages or the potential of strikes, were to be the overriding artisan concern for much of the rest of the decade.

Artisan Radicalism

The economic crisis was no transient phenomenon; even General Lake, then engaged in the "dragooning" of Ulster and hardly a noted philanthropist, wrote to Dublin Castle in March 1797 pleading for cash to pay his troops, but also urging "the necessity of some expedient being hit upon to supply the manufacturers of this part of the country with cash to pay their laborers" and warning of the risk that "many thousands will be out of work". 20 Little wonder that the breakneck growth of Belfast in the 1780s was replaced by what was at best stagnation in the 1790s. 21

And yet those briefly public combinations of 1792 almost certainly remained available as powerful artisan networks in the following years, and with this advantage, that they were already illegal prior to the onset of government repression. Certainly their role falls largely outside the surviving historical record, but that in turn depends largely on papers seized and information received by government.

As Mrs. McTier was to remark in 1794, "freedom of speech is here [i.e. in Belfast] only among the lower - orders of people", 22 and as Jemmy Hope, who has left us the only extensive weaver testament, was later to argue, "the leaders, civil and military, chosen from the middle ranks, were exposed to greater risk from traitors, than laborers or tradesmen." 23 Greater risk too of leaving an archival trail for historians. Thus it is that United Irish use of the arenas such as the freemasons, or of reading societies, receive disproportionate attention as compared with trades unions.

This is not to argue that these early and eighteenth century combinations had the capacity to provide a would be revolutionary vanguard more appropriate to the early twentieth century. The social relations of small town Belfast and its hinterland in the 1790s, with many interlocking gradations between varieties weavers, artisan, and merchant could hardly sustain such a burden. The total nature of the political and economic crisis from 1793 onwards, in any case, tended to push radical merchants and artisans in the same revolutionary direction. Certainly the class composition of the later United Irishmen moved in a more popular direction, but cotton and linen merchants remained well represented to the last. 24

The Sans Culottes of Belfast

The United Irishmen and the Men of No Property

Published by Belfast Trades Union Council and the United Irishmen Commemoration Society 1998.

Cost - £2.50

Order from: Socialist Party 36 Victoria Sq., Belfast BT1 4DQ or P.O. Box 3434, Dublin 8.

Footnotes

1. Northern Star, May 5, 1792.
2. Ibid., June 16, 1792. Account of a meeting held on June 7. The notice issued by the linen weavers was signed by John Mulholland.
3. Belfast News-Letter, June 15, 1792.
4. Northern Star, June 9, 1792.
5. Northern Star, April 14, 1792.
6. Northern Star, June 13, 1792.
7. Northern Star, June 16, 1792.
8. The ten firms were James Agnew, Barber and Duncan, Moorwood Bell and Co., Gemmill Smith and Co., John Howe and Co., Hugh Merrie and Com, William and John Orr, Sterling Whitla and Co., James Wallace, and John Wightman. Unfortunately the two which opposed the deal are not identified. The four additional firms, all of which were said to have supported the deal were Charles Clark, William McCoy, Anthony Richardson, and Richard Wolfenden.
9. The committee consisted of Daniel Dignan, Arthur Halfpenny, and Arthur Kenney, Northern Star, June 20, 1792.
10. Northern Star, June 20, 1792.
11. Northern Star, June 23, 1792.
12. Northern Star, June 30, 1792.
13. Northern Star, July 4, 1792.
14. Northern Star, August 29, 1792.
15. Henry Joy and William Bruce, Belfast Politics (Belfast, 1794), p. 55.
16. Northern Star, September 1, 1792.
17. Northern Star, October 17, 1792.
18. Northern Star, November 28, 1792.
19. John Gray, "A tale of two newspapers", in John Gray and Wesley McCann (eds.) An Uncommon Boatman (Belfast, 1966), p. 178.
20. General Lake, Thomas Pelham, March 6, 1797. Public Record Office Northern Ireland T-755, Pelham transcripts, vol. iv, pp. 139-42.
21. George Benn, A History of the Town of Belfast, vol. 11 (London, 1880), p. 82. "In 1800 it did not contain more than 22,000 inhabitants". This compared with the 18,230 of 1791.
22. D.A. Chart (ed.), The Drennen Letters (Belfast, 1931), p. 213 (Mrs. McTier to William Drennan, August 3, 1794).
23. R.R. Madden (ed.), The Autobiography of James (Jemmy) Hope (Belfast, 1998), p. 20. The original edition of Hope's memoir is in R.R. Madden, Lives of the United Irishmen, 3rd series, vol. i.
24. Curtin, pp. 140-3.a.