and a Sunday School teacher, an honest character, held in very high respect, and an orator of some talent.
Early in 1837[1] this group began to agitate the currency theory in and out of Parliament. As the distress in the town grew, so did the activity of the old Unionists, in their capacity of the Birmingham Reform Association. In April 1837 they decided to enlist working-class support for their movement and to call upon the ancient glories of 1830–32. On the 18th they passed a resolution, restoring the name Birmingham Political Union.[2] The formal revival took place on May 23, and a few days later the Union, which already numbered over 5000 members, published its first address to the public, asking for support in its endeavours to find a remedy for the existing distress.[3]
This, as it later appeared, was a fatal step. The revival of the Union was more than the revival of a name: it was the resurrection of a programme whose realisation was compatible with the Currency Scheme only in the sanguine minds of the followers of Attwood, and even they were not unanimous in their optimism. On June 19 a great meeting of the Union decided upon a programme of Parliamentary Reform which included Household Suffrage, Vote by Ballot, Triennial Parliaments, Payment of Members of Parliament, and the abolition of the Property Qualification.[4] The Attwoodites had thus added to their dubious measure of Currency Reform, which was scarcely calculated to awaken the enthusiasm of the working classes or of any other class except that of debtors who would like to avoid payment, a political reform in which they were only secondarily interested. To carry one measure of doubtful value, they proposed to agitate for five others which, though much more desirable in themselves, were calculated to arouse the very strongest resistance. Supposing that their influence in Birmingham was due to the manifest advantages of Currency Reform, they continued to keep that measure as the first plank of their platform. It is doubtful whether the working classes of Birmingham were really concerned about currency at all, but they were concerned about the vote.[5] The position of the
- ↑ Additional MSS. 27,819, p. 75.
- ↑ Ibid. 27,819, pp. 79-84.
- ↑ Ibid. 27,819, p. 94.
- ↑ Ibid. 27,819, p. 99.
- ↑ This is demonstrated in my opinion by the ease with which O'Connor was able to undermine the influence of the Attwood group in December 1838. Place was hostile to the Currency Scheme, and ridiculed the Attwoodites mercilessly. He charges them with intending to smuggle the Currency Scheme into the Chartist programme without obtaining the assent of the Chartists or even of the working men of Birmingham (ibid. pp. 134-8).
