The Domestic Impact of the Napoleonic Wars

1
The Domestic Impact of the Napoleonic Wars

• Sarah Richardson

2
Three Main Areas

• Economic effects of wars
• Impact on society
• Political consequences

3
The Economics of War

• (Elite) contemporaries often positive
• Ricardo Notwithstanding the immense expenditure
  of the government during the last twenty years
  there can be little doubt that the increased
  production on the part of the people has more
  than compensated for it.
• Forbes (banker) that wonderful extension of
  commerce and manufactures which, contrary to all
  former example, continued to swell as the war was
  protracted
• Earl of Rosse never did this country, carry on
  a war in which it suffered so few privations

4
Interpretations

• Crafts (Explorations in Economic History, 1987)
  attributes little to wartime dislocation or
  stimulus.
• Emphasised the differences between Britain and
  the later industrialising economies of Europe
  arguing that British industrialisation occurred
  over a long period
• Revolutionary change only occurred in a very few
  manufacturing industries
• Thus war had little impact as British industrial
  growth occurred at such a slow pace

5
Comparison of figures on Industrial Growth
Industrial Output Industrial Output GDP GDP
Crafts Deane Cole Crafts Deane and Cole
1700-60 0.7 1.0 0.7 0.7
1760-80 1.5 0.5 0.7 0.6
1780-1801 2.1 3.4 1.3 2.1
1801-31 3.0 4.4 2.0 3.1
1831-60 3.3 3.0 2.5 2.2
Percentage growth per year
6
Interpretations

• Williamson (Journal of Economic History, 1984) in
  contrast attributes slow growth during industrial
  revolution to wars and their aftermath, on
  capital and labour markets especially.
• Williamson asserted that modern economic growth
  follows a general pattern
• It was only the stress of the wars that deflected
  Britain from this pattern. Wartime government
  borrowing crowded out productive investment. If
  it were not for the wars, industrial growth would
  have been more rapid following a normal pattern
  of early industrialisation.
• But see Mokyr (Journal of Economic History, 1990)
  who estimates there was not enough crowding out
  of investment to bear the weight Williamson puts
  on it and Heim Mirowski who find no evidence of
  crowding out (Journal of Economic History, 1987)

7
Interpretations

• OBrien (Fernand Braudel Centre Review, 1989)
  eschews quantitative approach data constraints
  and the need to consider short and long term
  consequences make examination of national
  accounts unsuitable.
• Growth rates of domestic output declined between
  1793 and 1819
• Consumption standards were 10-20 below the
  levels they may have attained if the economy
  continued to grow at pre-war rate.
• But could one assume the growth rate of the 1780s
  would have continued indefinitely?

8
Assessment

• Need to consider
• Changes in government revenue raising and
  expenditure on different industries.
• Changes in agriculture
• Pressure for innovation technological,
  organisational and commercial.

9
Revenue

• 60 of extra funds raised by government to pursue
  war between 1793 and 1815 came from taxes not
  borrowing
• Tax strategy of government imposed major share of
  burden on consumption of population and
  encouraged private capital formation to continue.
  
• Private consumption fell sharply from 83 of
  national expenditure in 1788-92 to 72 in
  1793-1812 and as low as 64 in last years of war.
  
• Household incomes were depressed by heavy taxes
  and by inflation. Redistributed income from wage
  earners to farmers, employers and property owners
  thus private capital investment remained stable.
• Encouraged the stockmarket. Number of dealers
  rose during the war from 432 in 1792 to 726 in
  1812 and the Stock Exchange was formed in 1802.
  The number of banks also increased. In London
  from 63-60 and in the country from 280-660.

10
Estimates of total revenue from taxation
11
Structure of Central Government Tax Revenue
Years Direct Customs Excise Total indirect
1771-5 22.4 26.8 50.7 77.6
1791-5 25.8 22.7 51.5 74.2
1811-5 39.8 20.4 39.8 60.2
1831-5 25.2 38.3 36.4 74.8
1851-5 31.4 40.1 28.5 68.6
12
Nominal Wages, Prices and Real Wages(1778-82
100)
Period Average full-time earnings Cost of Living Index Full employment real earnings Real earnings adjusted for unemployment
1778-82 100 100 100 100
1783-87 100.2 99.1 101 101
1788-92 107.4 101.4 106 105
1793-7 129.6 119.2 109 105
1798-1802 154.6 153.8 103 99
1803-07 173.5 151.1 115 109
1808-12 188.7 181.8 104 98
1813-17 185.9 178.6 105 97
1818-22 166.5 150.9 111 102
1823-7 156.6 139.2 113 104
13
Agriculture Industry

• Wars had a commercialising effect on agriculture
  preventing the onset of diminishing returns.
• Added to the incomes of landowners and farmers.
  The consolidation of land into larger farms was
  encouraged, as was the assertion of private
  rights to commons and wastes.
• the upswing in agricultural prices associated
  with the war years pulled those who owned and
  managed British agriculture into a cage from
  whence escape from the imperatives to invest,
  innovate and exploit farm labour became more
  difficult. (OBrien)
• Increases in customs and excise duties harmed
  only a handful of industries including building
  and construction, brewing and salt.
• Iron, metal products, woollens, linens, candles,
  soap and leather experienced no significant
  additions to taxation on their inputs or outputs
  nor did they suffer from the rising costs of
  imported raw materials.

14
Innovation

• Rate and scale of bankruptcies in trading and
  industrial sectors peaked after the war.
  Particularly bad years were 1815-16 and 1819.
• But losses were matched by the rise of new
  generations of entrepreneurs. Foreign commission
  agents settled in the provincial centres of
  industry and this was a direct consequence of the
  war. Wholesale warehouses which served only the
  export market were new developments.
• In the aftermath of war, monetary policy designed
  to protect bondholders restrained the growth of
  trade and industry. It depressed the employment
  and incomes of the urban poor. But the low
  incomes and regressive taxation also raised the
  rate of saving and investment which was to the
  long term benefit of economic growth and income
  levels.
• Short term costs of the wars need to be balanced
  against the capture of carrying trade,
  unification with Ireland, opening up of Latin
  America and seizure of enemy colonies.
• In longer term wars inflicted much greater costs
  on the economies of rival European powers which
  gave Britain an advantage.

15
Industrial Disputes

• Trade unions flourished even during combination
  laws.
• 1802 London shipwrights conducted a prolonged
  dispute used intimidation to prevent strike
  breakers
• collective bargaining by riot also occurred in
  the woollen industry of the South West

16
Luddism

• Occurred on wide scale from 1811.
• Began in stocking frame industry with
  proclamations bearing the signature Ned Ludd,
  King Ludd or General Ludd
• Threatened to wreck machinery occasionally
  threatened violence
• Trades affected framework knitting woollen
  industry cotton industry
• In 1779 failure of a Bill to regulate
  frame-knitting industry had resulted in 300
  frames being smashed

17
(No Transcript)
18
The Leader of the Luddites, E Walker (1812)
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Nottingham

• Frames were scattered round villages easy to
  smash
• March 1811-Feb 1812 smashed about a thousand
  machines at the cost of between 6,000 and
  10,000. 
• 1811 Act was passed to secure the peace of
  Nottingham. 
• In March 1812, 7 Luddites were sentenced to
  transportation for life
• April 1812, Luddites attacked William
  Cartwright's mill at Rawfolds near Huddersfield.
  Event described by Charlotte Brönte in her novel
  Shirley. 

20
Interpretations

• Thomis (Luddism in Nottinghamshire) primarily
  industrial and futile attempt to halt the process
  of industrialisation?
• Collective bargaining by riot?
• E P Thompson (Making of the English Working
  Class) sees it as quasi-political movement with
  ulterior revolutionary objectives.
• Rule (The Labouring Classes) argues it was
  primarily industrial a guerrilla campaign
• Varied from region to region and industry to
  industry
• Tapped into popular mood which was
  anti-government and anti-employer.

21
End of Luddism

• Government feared revolutionary potential of
  Luddites.
• Direct action continued to c. 1817
• 1816 was revival of violence following bad
  harvest downturn in trade. 
• Troops used to end riots, 6 men were executed 3
  transported. 
• After the trials, Luddism subsided e but
  concurrently, 'Swing' riots erupted in the
  countryside

22
William Cobbett, Political Register, 11 September
1819

• Society ought not to exist, if not for the
  benefit of the whole. It is and must be against
  the law of nature, if it exists for the benefit
  of the few and for the misery of the many. I say,
  then, distinctly, that a society, in which the
  common labourer . . . cannot secure a sufficiency
  of food and raiment, is a society which ought not
  to exist a society contrary to the law of
  nature a society whose compact is dissolved.
  Political Register, 11 September 1819

23
Society after the War

• Heyday of aristocratic excess and swagger
• Post-war economic boom for the landed
• Passed Corn Law of 1815 which further secured
  landed incomes
• Epitomised by Beau Brummell, Harriette Wilson and
  Lord Byron

24
London Dandies or Monstrosities of 1816 (George
Cruikshank)
25
The Arrest A caution to the DANDIES taken from a
late real scene The DANDY squinting through his
glass Surveys the Ladies as they pass But still
the Fribble lacks the wit To guard against the
Bailiffs writ (J Le Petit, 1820)
26
Harriette Wilson Blackmailer and lover of Lord
Craven, Marquess of Lorne, Marquess of Hertford,
Lord Brougham, Prince Regent and Marquess of
Worcester
27
Lord Byron, (Complete Poetical Works)

• 'Tis said Indifference marks the present time,
• Then hear the reasonthough 'tis told in rhyme
• A King who can'ta Prince of Wales who don't
• Patriots who shan't, and Ministers who won't
• What matters who are in or out of place
• The Madthe Badthe Uselessor the Base?

28
Childe Harolds Pilgrimage, J M W Turner, 1823.
29
Lord Byron, The Age of Bronze

• Safe in their barns, these Sabine tillers sent
• Their brethren out to battle why? For rent!
• Year after year they voted cent. Per cent.,
• Blood, sweat and tear-wring millions why? For
  rent!
• They roard, they dined, they drank, they swore
  they meant
• To die for England why then live? for rent!
• The peace has made one general malcontent

30
Middle-class reactions

• Response came particularly from the nonconformist
  sects and Evangelical Anglicans.
• The Society for the Promotion of Permanent and
  Universal Peace (known as the Peace Society) was
  formed in 1816 as a direct response to the
  Napoleonic wars. Alongside the urge to reform
  society and the religious motives against war
  were the secular influences of liberalism and
  humanitarianism which stemmed from the
  Enlightenment.
• Clapham Sect led by Henry Thornton, William
  Wilberforce, Charles Grant, James Stephen and
  Zachary Macaulay. Most of the inner core members
  lived at Clapham in South London where their
  close friend John Venn was the rector.
• Group published tracts, formed associations, and
  had an official periodical, the Christian
  Observer.
• Greatest public cause to which they devoted
  themselves was anti-slavery but were also
  crusaders for the renewal of Christianity, the
  sanctity of the family and female domesticity.
• Examples of these sentiments may be found in
  Mansfield Park by Jane Austen which was
  published in 1811.
• The same year, the Unitarian, Anna Laetitia
  Barbauld composed her darkly satirical poem
  Eighteen Hundred and Eleven

31
Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Eighteen Hundred and
Eleven

• But fairest flowers expand but to decay
• The worm is in thy core, thy glories pass away
• Arts, arms and wealth destroy the fruits they
  bring
• Commerce, like beauty, knows no second spring

32
Political Consequences

• Reduction in prices and wages and the numbers of
  discharged soldiers and sailors added to
  unemployment.
• December 1816 a political meeting at Spa Field
  ended in an armed attack on the Tower and the
  suspension of habeas corpus.
• Government passed the so called "Gag Acts" in
  February and March 1817.
• March 1817 the blanketeers from Manchester
  (blanket carrying weavers) assembled at St
  Peters Fields Manchester to march to London to
  present a petition to the Prince Regent. The
  magistrates read the Riot Act and sent in the
  army.
• Later that year there was a riot of textile
  workers at Pentich in Derbyshire which ended in
  execution of Jeremiah Brandreth and two others
  and transportation of thirty more. Brandreth was
  encouraged by William Oliver the Home Offices
  notorious agent provocateur.

33
Print showing Henry Orator Hunt speaking at Spa
Fields
34
Peterloo

• Manchester Patriotic Union Society invited Henry
  Orator Hunt and Richard Carlile to speak at
  public meeting on 16th August. Also included John
  Knight, Joseph Johnson Mary Fildes, leader of
  the Manchester Female Reform Group
• Magistrates were concerned at crowd ordered
  arrests of leaders. Yeomanry brought in to aid
  police arrested speakers newspaper reporters
• In process, 11 people were killed 400 wounded.

35
Hustings
Magistrates
36
Aftermath

• Richard Carlile managed to avoid being arrested
  took first mail coach to London.
• Placards began appearing in London with the
  words 'Horrid Massacres at Manchester'.
• Full report of the meeting appeared newspapers
  including the Times which used eye-witness
  accounts by moderate radicals including Archibald
  Prentice.

37
"Down with 'em! Chop em down my brave boys give
them no quarter they want to take our Beef
Pudding from us! ---- remember the more you
kill the less poor rates you'll have to pay so go
at it Lads show your courage your Loyalty"
38
Dreadful Scene at Manchester
39
Role of Women

• Mobilised on huge scale voted at meetings,
  formed associations with female officers, held
  their own meetings and presented addresses.
• Women were claiming the right to public space and
  inclusion within the political nation.
• Loyalist government commentators rejected claim
  that women gave moral tone to protests instead
  presenting them as lax in manners morals.

40
Colour engraving by George Cruikshank, 1819
41
but see also this caricature of female
reformers by Cruikshank
42
Consequences of Peterloo

• Peterloo hardened political positions.
• Government passed the Six Acts
• Received enormous publicity and blunders were
  carried out in full view of the radical, active,
  provincial press.
• Epstein has noted use of the cap of liberty
  carrying branches of laurel playing music such
  as Rule Britannia and God Save the King
  illustrate the change from Paineite republicanism
  to popular constitutionalism.