Both
the writer and recipient of this letter are reasonably well-known to students
of British politics in the 1830s and 1840s and best known to those interested
in Radical and Chartist politics of the period. I give relevant References at
the end.
The
recipient John Fielden (1784-1849) was a wealthy millowner in Yorkshire whose
Radical politics was partly inspired by his religion – his background was as a
Quaker and his destinations Methodist and Unitarian - and partly by his experience
of being sent to work in his father’s mill at the age of ten. The mills which
he and his brothers inherited eventually employed about 2500 workers. From his
childhood experience he knew at first-hand what it was like to work on the
shop-floor of a cotton-spinning mill and in adult life campaigned persistently - and with eventual success in 1847 - to limit to ten the number of hours
which could be worked daily by women and children. The Reform Act of 1832 had made
possible his election to Parliament as one of the two MPs for Oldham; the other
Radical elected was William Cobbett author of Rural Rides and editor and
publishers of The Political Register. Cobbett died in June 1835 and in the
subsequent by-election his son John Cobbett failed to secure enough votes to
replace him, partly because his Anglicanism was unpopular in non-conformist
Oldham. Fielden lost his Oldham seat in the election of 1847 and died in 1849.
The writer of the letter James Whittle, born in Ireland, abandoned political activism in the early 1840s for a managerial career with Guiness Brewery. He died in the Isle of Man in 1874. Before 1840 his Radical activism aligned him closely with both William Cobbett and John Fielden - someone who he consistently admired - and sometime after this letter was written Whittle became editor of The Champion, later The Champion and Weekly Herald, a contribution to which is the subject of the letter transcribed below. He was a prominent figure in organising the Chartist National Convention of the Labouring Classes early in 1839. It was responsible for gathering over a million signatures for a Petition to Parliament with six demands of which the first was for universal manhood suffrage for those aged 21 and over; the petition was presented to Parliament by Thomas Atwood MP but the House of Commons declined to debate it.
Transcription
Addressed
to: John Fielden Esq. M.P.
Todmorden Halifax
Datelined:
Westport [Ireland] 15 Decr 1836
Postmarked
WESTPORT 18 DE 1836 not pre-paid but allowed FREE frank privilege 19 DE 1836
Dear
Sir
I
enclose you a squib for the Champion which I will thank you, if you have a
frank to spare[that is, the free frank postal privilege which MPs enjoyed],
to forward for the next publication. It is greatly to be regretted that you
have not one of the champions beside you in parliament. If King Dan [Daniel
O’Connell, Irish nationalist MP] had had either sense or honest intentions,
he might have returned half a dozen such men as the Cobbetts and Eagle [William
Eagle and Francis King Eagle, unsuccessful Radical candidates in 1830s General
Elections] for Irish counties and boroughs instead of the straws and
rubbish that he draws along in his wake. I hope if the expected opportunity
come that the Oldham men will correct their former blunder with respect to John
Cobbett. I send the squib open that you may look it over if you please. It is a
character of a reformed parliament.
I
am, dear Sir, Yours truly James
Whittle
References
Wikipedia:
John Fielden
Lowell
L. Blaisdell “James Whittle, Chartist Editor” in The Journal of Rutgers
University Libraries, volume 41, number 2, 1979, pages 104-117
Wikipedia: Chartism
Manchester's John Rylands Library houses business papers of the Fielden brothers and political correspondence of John Fielden MP:
https://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/rylands/special-collections/a-to-z/detail/?mms_id=992983876613601631