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The Social Democratic Federation and Popular Agitation amongst the Unemployed in Edwardian Manchester

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Alan J. Kidd
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The Social Democratic Federation is usually regarded by historians as of only marginal importance to the working-class movement of the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. To support this view reference is often made to its naive and mechanistic interpretations of Marxist theory, its small membership and sectarian nature, and the futility of its concentration upon political activity amongst the unemployed at the expense of support for the industrial action of trade unionists and the Parliamentary representation of labour. The stereotype of a narrow, doctrinaire sect with incompetent leadership contains more than a grain of truth, but like most stereotypes conveys only a partial verity. Too often it is used as an excuse for neglecting the SDF on the precept that it was irrelevant and “misguided” in its conception of the right path for the working-class movement. The comparative failure of the SDF, however, owed at least as much to the deeply engrained reformist and trade-unionist tradition amongst the English working class as it did to the inadequacies of the SDF itself.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , December 1984 , pp. 336 - 358
Copyright
Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1984

References

1 The title SDF is used throughout in preference to the dual usage of SDF and SDP. The Social Democratic Federation changed its name to Social Democratic Party in 1907.

2 Collins, H., “The Marxism of the Social Democratic Federation”, in: Essays in Labour History 1886–1923, ed. by Briggs, A. and Saville, J. (1971), pp. 47–69; W. Kendall, The Revolutionary Movement in Britain 1900–21 (1969), ch. 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 For membership see Watmough, P. A., “The Membership of the Social Democratic Federation 1885–1902”, in: Society for the Study of Labour History Bulletin, No 34 (1977), pp. 35–40.Google Scholar The view that it was elitist and sectarian is remarkably general, see for example Bauman, Z., Between Class and Elite (1972), pp. 183–84, 214–15, and Hobsbawm, E. J., “Hyndman and the SDF”, in Labouring Men (1964), p. 233.Google Scholar

4 Collins, , “The Marxism of the Social Democratic Federation”, loc. cit.; Pelling, H., The Origins of the Labour Party (1965), p. 57.Google Scholar

5 The history of the SDF is often compared with the contrasting fortunes of German social democracy during the same period. On the significance for the SDF of the reformist tradition in England see Hobsbawm, “Hyndman and the SDF”, loc. cit., and Kendall. The Revolutionary Movement in Britain, op. cit.

6 It is significant that the only major study of the SDF concentrates on its founder and leader Henry Hyndman: C. Tsuzuki, H. M. Hyndman and British Socialism (1961).

7 See especially Thompson, P., Socialists, Liberals and Labour (1967), ch. 6 (on London), S. Yeo, Religion and Voluntary Organisations in Crisis (1976), ch. 10 (on Reading), and the local studies of working-class politics in Lancashire and Manchester and Salford cited below.Google Scholar

8 The role of the SDF in the development of national labour policies for the unemployed is considered in Brown, K. D., Labour and Unemployment (1971).Google Scholar

9 Hyndman, H. M., Further Reminiscences (1912), pp. 252–53.Google Scholar

10 Tsuzuki, . Hyndman and British Socialism. op. cit.. pp. 50–51. See especially the Manifesto issued after the West End riots of 8 02 1886. and Hyndman's 1887 pamphlet. A Commune for London.Google Scholar

11 Collins, . “The Marxism of the Social Democratic Federation”, p. 64.Google Scholar

12 See Stedman Jones, G.. Outcast London (1971), pp. 343–45. on the lack of revolutionary potential amongst the unemployed.Google Scholar

13 For example, on the impact of the London riots of 1886 see Gilbert, B. B., The Evolution of National Insurance in Great Britain (1966), p. 38, Brown, Labour and Unemployment, op. cit.. pp. 59–62. and Stedman, Jones, Outcast London, p. 298.Google Scholar

14 Harris, J., Unemployment and Politics (1972), especially pp. 55–56 and 83–84.Google Scholar

15 Ibid. ch. 1.

16 Stedman, Jones, Outcast London, pp. 111–26.Google Scholar

17 For a survey of the urban labour market and the place within it of underemployment, see Treble, J. H., Urban Poverty in Britain 1830–1914 (1979), ch. 2. Periods of cyclical unemployment during this period are usually identified as 1885–86, 1892–95. 1902–05 and 1908–10.Google Scholar

18 See my essay “Outcast Manchester”, in: City. Class and Culture: Social Policy and Cultural Production in Victorian Manchester, ed. by Kidd, A. J. and Roberts, K. W. (forthcoming, 1985).Google Scholar

19 This has been clear for some time, but see especially Hill, J., “Social Democracy and the Labour Movement: The Social Democratic Federation in Lancashire”, in: North West Labour History Society Bulletin, No 8 (1982), p. 44; Watmough, “The Membership of the Social Democratic Federation”, loc. cit.Google Scholar

20 Justice, 6 March 1886.

21 For the origins and general history of the SDF in Manchester and Salford see Goldberg, G. C., “The Socialist and Political Labour Movement in Manchester and Salford 1884–1914” (M.A. thesis, Manchester University, 1975);Google Scholar see also Hill, J., “Working Class Politics in Lancashire, 1885–1906” (Ph.D. thesis, Keele University, 1971).Google Scholar

22 For the riots and SDF policy formation see Tsuzuki, , Hyndman and British Socialism, pp. 72f., 76f.; Pelling, The Origins of the Labour Party, op. cit., pp. 41–45; Stedman Jones, Outcast London, pp. 290–96.Google Scholar

23 See Morris, D., “The Origins of the British Socialist Party”, in: North West Labour History Society Bulletin, No 8, pp. 29–43Google Scholar, and N. Reid, “Manchester and Salford ILP: A more controversial aspect of the pre-1914 period”, ibid., No 5 (1979), pp. 25–31.

24 This is the view of Reid, , “Manchester and Salford ILP”, pp. 26–27.Google Scholar

25 Only the South Salford SDF was affiliated to the LRC.

26 This found expression in articles in Labour Leader and ultimately in the so-called Green Manifesto of 1910, see Reid, , “Manchester and Salford ILP”, p. 28.Google Scholar

27 Justice, 30 October 1908. This branch may, however, have benefited from a local agreement with the ILP whereby a territorial demarcation left activity in South Salford to the SDF in return for a free hand for the ILP in West Salford. See Reid, , “Manchester and Salford ILP”, p. 27.Google Scholar

28 Justice, 16 March 1901; see also Woolerton, A., The Labour Movement in Manchester and Salford (1907).Google Scholar

29 Justice, , 26 12 1903.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30 Ibid., 12 May 1906.

31 See for example ibid., 3 October 1908, letter from Will Hughes.

32 Walter Long (1854–1924), Conservative MP, 1880–1921, President of the Local Government Board 1900–05 and 1915–16.

33 Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and the Relief of Distress, Appendix, Vol. VIII [Cd 5066] (1910), q. 78466.

34 See my “Outcast Manchester”. loc. cit.. for the “sleeping-out” crisis.

35 Manchester Evening News (hereafter MEN), 26 February 1904.

36 Ibid., 7 October, Council views as communicated to his board by the Chairman of the Chorlton guardians. Francis Chandler.

37 Report of the Departmental Committee on Vagrancy [Cd 2891] (1906), q. 7883. Peacock was Chief Constable from 1898 until his death in 1926. He was formerly Chief Constable of Oldham borough police. His period of authority in Manchester coincided with the establishment of an increasingly independent administrative role for the Manchester police. Peacock was latterly regarded as the doyen of provincial Chief Constables and was knighted in 1919.

38 Royal Commission on the Poor Laws, Appendix, Vol. XIX [Cd 4795] (1909), Appendix I.

39 MEN. 1 March 1904. Shann (1846–1923) was a “self-made man”. Born in Ancoats, he became a successful textile merchant and was a Conservative councillor from 1897, being elected Lord Mayor in 1903. He served for two terms and was knighted upon the King's visit to Manchester in 1905.

40 Manchester Guardian, 15 October 1904. Poor Law guardians were officially prohibited from giving outdoor relief to the unemployed except in return for a labour test, see Harris, , Unemployment and Politics, op. cit., pp. 147–50, and my “Outcast Manchester” for local Poor Law policy.Google Scholar

41 MEN, 14 October 1904.

42 Proceedings of the Salford City Council 1903–04, p. 609.

43 Proceedings of Manchester City Council 1904–05, I, pp. 112–13.

44 MEN, 29 October 1904.

45 Brown, , Labour and Unemployment, p. 37.Google Scholar

46 Justice. 15 October 1904.

47 Ibid., 27 May 1905.

48 MEN, 14 November 1904.

49 Ibid., 16 November.

50 Both were shopkeepers. I have found out little about Hitchen other than that he was a confectioner. William Edward Skivington's shop was in Hulme. He was arrested after the riot of 31 July 1905 and served a brief term of imprisonment. At this time he was a Chorlton guardian and later was appointed as a Poor Law representative on the Manchester Distress Committee; he gave evidence to the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws. Skivington died suddenly in 1910 at the age of forty-two.

51 MEN, 22 November. The offices were near the city centre.

52 Ibid., 16 November.

53 Ibid., 21 November.

54 Ibid., 23 November.

55 Ibid., 21 November.

56 Ibid., 28 November.

57 Salford Reporter, 3, 4 and 9 December.

58 MEN, 9 December.

59 Royal Commission on the Poor Laws, Appendix, Vol. VIII, p. 293.

60 MEN, 29–30 November, and Labour Leader, 9 December (for Campbell-Bannerman); MEN, 7 January 1905 (for Balfour).

61 MEN, 10 December 1904; Justice, 4 February 1905. Arthur Smith moved from the ILP to the SDF over the issue of unemployment. His bill enshrined the “right to work” principle, whereby once a man was registered as unemployed it would be the duty of the local authority to provide him with work or maintenance.

62 MEN, 10 December 1904.

63 Manchester Guardian, 16 December.

64 MEN, 20 December; see also Hyndman, , Further Reminiscences, op. cit., p. 279.Google Scholar

65 Labour Leader, 4 August 1905. The approval shown the Manchester movement at this time by the ILP's own newspaper reflects the joint ILP-SDF activities following the riot of 31 July, see below.

66 For an account of this demonstration and an assessment of its significance in the development of central-government policy see Brown, , Labour and Unemployment, pp. 59–62, and id., “Conflict in Early British Welfare Policy: The Case of the Unemployed Workmen Bill of 1905”, in: Journal of Modern History, XLIII (1971), pp. 615–29.Google Scholar

67 Manchester Evening Chronicle, 31 July 1905.

68 Brown, , Labour and Unemployment, p. 59.Google Scholar

69 MEN, 23 November 1904.

70 Epitome of the Proceedings of Council Committees, Watch Committee, 31 August and 14 September 1905.

71 MEN, 1 September 1909.

72 Labour Leader, 18 August 1905.

73 Justice, 17 June.

74 Ibid., 11 February.

75 Labour Leader. 25 August; MEN, 14 September.

76 MEN, 18 September.

77 For the Unemployed Workmen Act of 1905 see Harris, Unemployment and Politics; Gilbert, The Evolution of National Insurance, op. cit.

78 MEN, 27 November 1905, 6 February and 16 October 1906.

79 Ibid., 14 November 1905.

80 Ibid., 7 February 1906.

81 Justice, 21 July.

82 Clarion, 3 April 1908.

83 MEN, 8 April.

84 Ibid., 17 March.

85 Labour Leader, 3 April.

86 MEN, 1 September. Estimates varied, the Clarion, 25 September. put the figure at 11,000.

87 MEN, 2 September.

88 Dunning took on particular responsibility for organising the single men amongst the unemployed, who were generally not granted relief work.

89 MEN. 11 September.

90 Ibid., 14 September.

91 Ibid., 21 September.

92 Ibid., 22 September.

93 Ibid., 23 September.

94 Ibid., 18 September.

95 Ibid., 23 September.

96 Manchester Guardian, 25 September; MEN, 25 September.

97 Manchester Guardian, 26 September; MEN, 26 and 28 September, 7 October.

98 MEN, 28 September.

99 Ibid., 28 October; Manchester Guardian, 29 October.

100 MEN. 22 September.

101 Ibid., 15 October.

102 Ibid., 17 October.

103 Ibid., 26 October.

104 Ibid., 9 October.

105 Manchester Guardian, 26 September 1910.

106 This degree of police involvement was not typical of the relief mechanisms adopted in major cities. Investigators for the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws praised this aspect of Manchester's policy. Royal Commission on the Poor Laws, Appendix, Vol. XIX, Appendix I, p. 466.