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THE ECONOMISTS AND THE COMBINATION LAWS: A REAPPRAISAL
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 February 2022
Abstract
The repeal of the British Combination Laws in 1824 is generally considered by historians as the landmark of modern trade unionism, and has been attributed to the contributions of classical political economists. In the sole article that addressed this issue in the field of the history of economic thought, William Grampp reached the opposite conclusion, according to which the influence of the economists (John Ramsay McCulloch, David Ricardo, Thomas Robert Malthus, Robert Torrens, and Nassau William Senior) on repeal was actually small. Resituating the debates over the Combination Laws in their political context, we try to show, despite the relatively reduced volume of the classical economists’ direct contributions, that the economists were clearly favorable to the measure, and how “political economy” played a significant role in the achievement of repeal. In doing so, we offer a reflection on the methodology used by Grampp to study the influence of economic ideas on political debates and public policy.
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- © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the History of Economics Society
Footnotes
Preliminary versions of this article were presented at the History of Economics Society Annual Conference (Chicago, 2018), the History of Economic Thought Seminar at the Université Lumière Lyon 2 (2018), and the UK History of Economic Thought Conference (London, 2019). The author is grateful for the comments received from participants at these events, especially Pierre Dockès, whose remarks have significantly influenced the evolution of the manuscript. The careful reading by two anonymous referees from JHET have also been very helpful to improve the article. The author would also like to thank Carlos Eduardo Suprinyak and George J. Sheridan for their revisions of the last versions of the paper.
References
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Google Scholar
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Google Scholar
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Thompson, Edward P. 1963. The Making of the English Working Class. London: Victor Gollancz.Google Scholar
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Webb, Beatrice, and Webb, Sydney. 1907. The History of Trade Unionism. London, New York, and Bombay: Longmans & Green.Google Scholar
British Library Manuscripts. Place’s Papers, Add. 27799.Google Scholar
British Library Manuscripts. Letters from James Maitland, 8th Earl of Lauderdale, to William Huskisson, Add. 38745.Google Scholar
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Google Scholar
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Google Scholar
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Google Scholar
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Aspinall, Arthur. 1949. The Early English Trade Unions: Documents from the Home Office Papers in the Public Record Office. London: The Batchworth Press.Google Scholar
Babbage, Charles. 1832. On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures. London: Charles Knight.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdeau, Vincent, Jarrige, François, and Vincent, Julien. 2006. Les luddites: Bris de machines, économie, politique et histoire. Paris: Éditions Inculte.Google Scholar
Bowley, Marian. 1971. “Nassau Senior and Classical Economics.” In Coats, Alfred W., ed., The Classical Economists and Economic Policy. London: Methuen, pp. 57–84.Google Scholar
Bythell, Duncan. 1969. The Handloom Weavers: A Study in the English Cotton Industry during the Industrial Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clapham, John H. 1916. “The Spitalfields Acts, 1773–1824.” Economic Journal 26 (104): 459–471.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clough, Shepard B., and Cole, Charles Woolsey. 1947. Economic History of Europe. Boston: D. C. Heath & Co.Google Scholar
Coats, Alfred W. 1971. “Editor’s Introduction.” In Coats, Alfred W., ed., The Classical Economists and Economic Policy. London: Methuen, pp. 1–32.Google Scholar
Daunton, Martin. 2010. “Creating Legitimacy: Administering Taxation in Britain, 1815–1914.” In Cardoso, José Luís and Lains, Pedro, eds., Paying for the Liberal State: The Rise of Public Finance in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 27–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deakin, Simon, and Wilkinson, Frank. 2005. The Law of the Labour Market: Industrialization, Employment, and Legal Evolution. Oxford Monographs on Labour Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Derry, Thomas K. 1931. “The Repeal of the Apprenticeship Clauses of the Statute of Apprentices.” Economic History Review 3 (1): 67–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gash, Norman. 1978. “After Waterloo: British Society and the Legacy of the Napoleonic Wars.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 28: 145–157.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geary, Frank, and Prendergast, Renee. 2008. “Philosophers and Practical Men: Charles Babbage, Irish Merchants and the Economics of Information.” European Journal of the History of Economic Thought 15 (4): 571–594.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
George, M. Dorothy. 1927. “The Combination Laws Reconsidered.” Issue Supplement 1, Economic Journal 37: 214–228.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
George, M. Dorothy. 1936. “The Combination Laws.” Economic History Review a6 (2): 172–178.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grampp, William D. 1948. “On the Politics of the Classical Economists.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 62 (5): 714–747.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grampp, William D. 1960. The Manchester School of Economics. Stanford: Stanford University Press; and London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Grampp, William D. 1965. “On the History of Thought and Policy.” American Economic Review 55 (1–2): 128–135.Google Scholar
Grampp, William D. 1972. “Robbins on the History of Development Theory.” Economic Development and Cultural Change 20 (3): 539–553.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grampp, William D. 1979. “The Economists and the Combination Laws.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 93 (4): 501–522.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grampp, William D. 1982. “Economists and Politicians: Some Cautionary History.” Review of Social Economy 40 (1): 13–29.Google Scholar
Harris, Abram L. 1960. “Mill on Freedom and Voluntary Association.” Review of Social Economy 18 (1): 27–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hay, Douglas. 2000. “Master and Servant in England: Using the Law in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.” In Steinmetz, Willibald, ed., Private Law and Social Inequality in the Industrial Age—Comparing Legal Cultures in Britain, France, Germany and the United States. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 227–264.Google Scholar
Henson, Gravener, and White, George. 1823. A few remarks on the state of the laws, at present in existence, for regulating masters and work-people, intended as a guide for the consideration of the House, in their discussions on the bill for repealing several acts relating to combinations of workingmen, and for more effectually protecting trade, and for settling disputes between masters and servants. Goldsmiths’-Kress Library of Economic Literature. https://library.princeton.edu/resource/title/goldsmiths-kress-library-economic-literature. Accessed November 16, 2021.Google Scholar
Hilton, Boyd. 1977. Corn, Cash, Commerce: The Economic Policies of the Tory Government, 1815–1830. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hilton, Boyd. 1988. “The Political Arts of Lord Liverpool.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 38: 147–170.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hilton, Boyd. 2006. A Mad, Bad, and Dangerous People? England 1783–1846. The New History of England. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Hupfel, Simon. 2012. “The Spitalfields Acts and the Classics: Ricardo, J. S. Mill, Bowring, and Senior on the London Silk Industry (1823 to 1841).” European Journal of the History of Economic Thought 19 (2): 165–195.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hupfel, Simon. 2014. “L’enquête de John Bowring à Lyon aux mois d’avril-mai 1832 et ses conséquences en Grande-Bretagne.” In Frobert, Ludovic, ed.,
Archives de soie, Fabrique et insurrections
. Milan: Silvana Editoriale, pp. 35–50.Google Scholar
Kelsall, Roger Keith. 1972. “Wage Regulation under the Statute of Artificers.” In Minchinton, Walter E., ed., Wage Regulation in Pre-Industrial England. Newton Abbot: David & Charles, pp. 124–127.Google Scholar
Kelsall, Roger Keith. 1972. “A Century of Wage Assessment in Herefordshire, 1666–1762.” In Minchinton, Walter E., ed., Wage Regulation in Pre-Industrial England. Newton Abbot: David & Charles, pp. 200–238.Google Scholar
McCulloch, John R. 1824. “On Combination Laws, Restraints on Emigration, &c.” Edinburgh Review 34 (78): 315–345.Google Scholar
Moore, James, and Rodger, Richard. 2003. “Municipal Knowledge and Policy Networks in British Local Government, 1832–1914.” Jahrbuch für Europäische Verwaltungsgeschiechte 15: 29–57.Google Scholar
O’Brien, Denis P. 1970. J. R. McCulloch: A Study in Classical Economics. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Orth, John V. 1987. “English Combination Acts of the Eighteenth Century.” Law and History Review 5 (1): 175–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Persky, Joseph. 2016. The Political Economy of Progress: John Stuart Mill and Modern Radicalism. Oxford Studies in the History of Economics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richards, Paul. 1979. “The State and Early Industrial Capitalism: The Case of the Handloom Weavers.” Past & Present 83: 91–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robbins, Lionel. 1978. The Theory of Economic Policy in English Classical Political Economy. London: Macmillan.
Google Scholar
Rudé, George. 1962. The Crowd in History: A Study of Popular Disturbances in France and England, 1730–1848. New York, London, and Sydney: J. Wiley & Sons.
Google Scholar
Senior, Nassau William. 1865. Historical and Philosophical Essays. London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts & Green.Google Scholar
Sraffa, Piero, ed. 1951. The Complete Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Stedman Jones, Gareth. 1983. “Rethinking Chartism.” In Jones, Gareth Stedman, ed., Languages of Class: Studies in English Working Class History, 1832–1982. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tawney, Richard H. 1972. “The Assessment of Wages in England by the Justices of the Peace.” In Minchinton, Walter E., ed., Wage Regulation in Pre-Industrial England. Newton Abbot: David & Charles, pp. 37–92.Google Scholar
Thompson, Edward P. 1963. The Making of the English Working Class. London: Victor Gollancz.Google Scholar
Thompson, Noel W. 1984. The People’s Science: The Popular Political Economy of Exploitation and Crisis, 1816–1834. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Thompson, William. 1827. Labor Rewarded. The Claims of Labor and Capital Conciliated. London: Hunt & Clarke.Google Scholar
Vint, John. 1995. “John Stuart Mill’s Wages Fund Recantation: A Lakatosian Analysis.” Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics 6: 233–254.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wade, John. 1828. “An Appeal to the Public in Favour of the Working Classes.” Gorgon, 12 September.Google Scholar
Webb, Beatrice, and Webb, Sydney. 1907. The History of Trade Unionism. London, New York, and Bombay: Longmans & Green.Google Scholar
British Library Manuscripts. Place’s Papers, Add. 27799.Google Scholar
British Library Manuscripts. Letters from James Maitland, 8th Earl of Lauderdale, to William Huskisson, Add. 38745.Google Scholar
House of Commons [HC]. 1818a. Select Committee on Petitions of Ribbon and Silk Weavers and Manufacturers Second Report of Minutes of Evidence.
Google Scholar
House of Commons. 1818b. Report from the Select Committee on Petitions of Ribbon and Silk Weavers and Manufacturers.
Google Scholar
House of Commons. 1824. First report from Select Committee on Artizans and Machinery.
Google Scholar
House of Commons. 1835. Select Committee on Petitions of Hand-Loom Weavers Report, Minutes of Evidence, Index.
Google Scholar
National Archives, State Papers Domestic 37/10, Letters from John Fielding to the Home Secretary.Google Scholar