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Liberty and Fraternities in the English Revolution: The Politics of London Artisans' Protests, 1635–1659

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 February 2009

Norah Carlin
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A series of artisan revolts in the London corporations between 1635 and 1659 found both radical ideas of individual liberty and the guild ethos of fraternity relevant to their aims. The apparent paradox of democratic demands combined with calls for stricter economic regulation can be explained only by examining the participants' concrete grievances and specific demands. The protesters were neither rising industrial capitalists nor a new wage-earning class, but small masters attempting to restrain competition, the use of cheap labour, and the enlargement of enterprises. Their concerns had something in common with those of the Levellers, but the movements diverged in significant ways.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , August 1994 , pp. 223 - 254
Copyright
Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1994

References

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41 William Meade Williams Transcripts (Founders' Company), LGL MS 6353, p. 102. The Founders' Company archives, like those of the Girdlers' Company, were unfortunately lost in the Blitz of 1940, but the Williams transcripts on this incident seem very full.

42 Ibid., pp. 107–108, 131.

41 To the High Court of Parliament: The Humble Representation of the Commonaltie of the Weavers Company (London, n.d.).

44 Atkins and Overall, Account of the Clockmakers, p. 62.

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49 Saddlers' Company Minutes, LGL MS 5383, ff. 257–258; Prideaux, Memorials of the Goldsmiths, II, pp. 24–25: the committee set up to hear the protesters' case included Aldermen Viner, Noel, Wollaston and Allein, and Colonel Barkstead, Lieutenant of the Tower, who can all be usefully followed from the index of Brenner's Merchants and Revolution.

50 Unwin, Guilds and Companies, pp. 335–343; idem. Industrial Organization, pp. 204–210; James, Social Problems and Policy, pp. 193–223; Archer, Pursuit of Stability, pp. 106–113, 119–120. In some companies (e.g. the Saddlers), members of the livery were chronically reluctant to serve as Wardens of the Yeomanry because of the expense of holding the dinner expected of them, and almost every year the Assistants had difficulty in collecting the fines due in lieu of the dinner or for being allowed not to hold the office. The yeomanry organization was thus not always a political issue.

51 Blagden, Stationers' Company, pp. 130–151.

52 The early Stuart charters of a large number of companies were produced for inspection by the nineteenth-century enquiries into local government in London, and may be compared in the Second Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the Municipal Corporations of England and Wales (London, 1837); City of London Livery Companies Commission: Report and Appendix (London, 1884), vols II, III.

53 Welch, Charles, History of the Worshipful Company of Pewterers of the City of London (London, 1902), I, 38–49Google Scholar, 82, 84, 90; Prideaux, Memorials of the Goldsmiths, I, 126–127 and passim.

54 Archer, Pursuit of Stability, pp. 124–130; Kellett, “Breakdown of Corporation Control”, pp. 383–385.

55 CLRO Repertories, vol. 50, ff. 92–93.

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58 Ibid., pp. 179–181, 188–192, 244–250.

59 Ibid., pp. 259–261.

60 To the High Court of Parliament, p. 4; Case of the Commonalty of the Corporation of Weavers, p. 7; James, Social Problems and Policy, p. 219: James was therefore mistaken about the novelty of the 1653 yeomanry.

61 Clode, Charles Mathew, Memorials of the Guild of Merchant Taylors, II (London, 1875), pp. 24–28Google Scholar; James, Social Problems and Policy, pp. 205–207.

62 James, Social Problems and Policy, pp. 204, 200–205.

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11 Ibid., p. 340; Plummer, London Weavers' Company, pp. 55–57; for the origins of these conflicts in the sixteenth century, see Archer, Pursuit of Stability, p. 134.

72 To the High Court of Parliament, pp. 2–7; Case of the Commonalty of the Weavers, pp. 3–5; To the Right Honourable the betrusted Commons of England Assembled in Parliament. The Humble Petition of the Commonalty of Weavers of London: being many thousands (London, n.d.).

73 Atkins and Overall, Account of the Clockmakers, pp. 61, 62. Although Atkins and Overall suggest (pp. 4–5) that the number of non-Englishmen in the Company can be calculated by observation of “foreign” names, one of the dissidents' leaders had the un-English surname Fromanteel (the spelling engraved on his products in the Guildhall museum). The English-born may have been acceptable whatever their parents' origin.

74 Clode, Memorials of the Merchant Taylors, II, pp. 24–25.

75 Prideaux, Memorials of the Goldsmiths, II, p. 46.

76 Weavers' Ordinance and Memorandum Book, LGL MS 4647, pp. 298, 311.

77 Ibid., p. 159; Plummer, London Weavers' Company, pp. 60–62.

78 Case of the Commonalty of the Weavers, pp. 4–5.

79 Weavers' Ordinance and Memorandum Book, LGL MS 4647, pp. 157–159, 294–312, 340–360.

80 Ibid., p. 161; Plummer, London Weavers' Company, pp. 17–18.

81 Weavers' Ordinance and Memorandum Book, LGL MS 4647, p. 301.

82 Ibid., pp. 217, 352.

83 Girtin, Golden Ram, p. 114; Ramsay, G. D., “Industrial Discontent in Early Elizabethan London: Clothworkers and Merchants Adventurers in Conflict,” London Journal, I (1975), pp. 227–239CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Archer, Pursuit of Stability, pp. 103–106.

84 Clode, Memorials of the Merchant Taylors, II, p. 25.

85 Prideaux, Memorials of the Goldsmiths, II, p. 29.

86 CLRO Repertories, vol. 50, f. 92; Common Council Journal, CLRO Jor. 41, ff. 173–187. Clothworkers' Company Minutes (1639–1649), f. 51; Williams Transcripts, LGL MS 6353, p. 120.

87 CLRO Jor. 41, ff. 59, 173–187.

88 CLRO City Extracts I (7), Jor. 41, f. 210.

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91 In the Pewterers' Company, relations with the tin patentees caused disputes and possibly factions; the members would have preferred free trade in their raw materials, whatever their view on industrial regulation. Pewterers' Company Minutes (1611–1643), LGL MS 7090/4, ff. 259–260, 286v–289, 290v, etc.

92 Unwin, Industrial Organization, pp. 142–145.

93 Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, pp. 347, 381–387, 608–613.

94 Ibid., pp. 494–557.

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97 Ibid., pp. 7–8; Prideaux, Memorials of the Goldsmiths, II, p. 20.

98 The chairman of the Committee for Corporations at the time of this enquiry into London corporation charters, Daniel Blagrave, appears as an opponent of the Protectorate oligarchy in his home town of Reading a few years later. Henderson, “Commonwealth Charters”, pp. 136–138.

99 Girtin, Golden Ram, p. 115.

100 Manning, Brian, 1649: The Crisis of the English Revolution (London, 1992), pp. 64–102Google Scholar; Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, pp. 494–557. There are, of course, historians who would deny that any of these ideas were radical in any meaningful sense, since they did not meet the “functional” criteria for radicalism suggested by Davis, J. C., “Radicalism in a Traditional Society: The Evaluation of Radical Thought in the English Commonwealth 1649–1660,” History of Political Thought, III (1982), pp. 192–213Google Scholar. I believe this is to misrepresent Davis's article, which does not invalidate all enquiry into historical connections or continuities, but simply ignores this dimension of the subject.

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102 Unwin, Industrial Organization, p. 203.

103 Dobb, Development of Capitalism, p. 134.

104 Unwin, Industrial Organization, pp. 199–200; Dobb, Development of Capitalism, pp. 137–138.

105 James, Social Problems and Policy, p. 223.

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108 James, Social Problems and Policy, pp. 211–212 (“Printers' Company” on p. 211 is clearly an error).

109 Blagden, Stationers' Company, pp. 130–152.

110 Rappaport, Worlds within Worlds, pp. 219–224, 238–250; Archer, Pursuit of Stability, p. 102. An extensive search of the Court of Aldermen's Repertories for the period 1640–1660, mainly but not exclusively concentrating on the companies which are known to have experienced constitutional conflicts, has produced no examples of journeymen's collective cases other than those mentioned in this article.

111 Plummer, London Weavers' Company, p. 17.

112 Minute books of the Carpenters', Cutlers', Clothworkers', Founders', Pewterers' and Saddlers' Companies, which I have consulted for various periods between 1600 and 1660, contain examples far too numerous to list. See also Champness, Worshipful Company of Turners, pp. 87, 130, 134–135.

113 Pewterers' Company Minutes, LGL MS 7090/5, f. 78.

114 Clockmakers' Company Minutes, LGL MS 2710/1, p. 39.

115 Prideaux, Memorials of the Goldsmiths, I, pp. 203, 229–232.

116 The work of the wives and daughters of incorporated artisans was never seen as a problem in any of these incidents, and the cheap labour of “boys” was condemned at least as frequently as that of “maids”. This is not to say that women enjoyed equality within the crafts, but their labour was not at this time a point of conflict.

117 CLRO Repertories, vol. 54, f. 310v.

118 Ibid., vol. 66, f. 331v.

119 Ibid., f. 64v.

120 Tim Harris, London Crowds in the Reign of Charles 11: Propaganda and Politics from the Restoration until the Exclusion Crisis, pp. 189–216.

121 Unwin, Industrial Organization, pp. 214–227.

122 Macpherson, Possessive Individualism, pp. 137–142.

123 CLRO Repertories, vol. 65, f. 68; Atkins and Overall, Account of the Clockmakers, p. 64.

124 Weavers' Ordinance and Memorandum Book, LGL MS 4647, p. 298.

125 Barker, Girdlers' Company, pp. 27–28.

126 Archer, Pursuit of Stability, p. 16.

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131 England's Discoverer, or the Levellers' Creed (London, 1649), p. 1; The Craftsmen's Craft, or the Wiles of the Discoverers (London, 1649).

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