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Historical witnessing for the present: Truth, remembrance, and mass deaths in east Lancashire

 

 

Between 24-28th April 2022, Dr David Scott initiated and led the inaugural ‘Weavers Uprising Remembrance Walk’, a 45 mile walk following in the footsteps of starving handloom weavers in east Lancashire 196 years ago. During this uprising handloom weavers and other working class people attempted to send a symbolic message to government about their precarious living conditions through the destruction of more than 1,100 powerlooms in the local mills.

 

Photograph of Aitkens and Lords Mill, Chatterton, before demolition in 1890s

 

Uncovering the Truth

One key reason why it is so important to remember the 1826 weavers uprising is because the unnecessary suffering and avoidable and premature deaths of working class people in east Lancashire has been largely misinterpreted or forgotten.   The political motivations behind the weavers uprising have been lost; the indiscriminate killings by the state at Chatterton have not been identified as a massacre; and data on the mass deaths due to starvation and related illnesses following the 1825-7 economic depression are only now, 196 years later, coming to light through archival research of 37 parish records in east Lancashire.  The modern day understanding of the weavers uprising has all the hallmarks of what Stan Cohen (2000), in his hugely influential book States of Denial, called ‘historical denial’ – where controversial historical harms perpetrated by the state are fully or partially hidden in the present day.  In other words, the truth is obfuscated, and important memories of the past disappear. But our contemporary knowledge of what happened in east Lancashire between 1825-7 also provides an example of what Cohen (2000) called ‘interpretive denial’ - where harms of the state are redefined or reinterpreted in ways that do not appropriately or fully represent their true nature or reality.  Interpretive denial can thus help reduce the appearance of wrongness or immorality of given actions/inactions and events.

 

Stan Cohen, Criminologist, author of the book States of Denial

Stan Cohen | Condolences (lse.ac.uk)

 

The intertwined concepts of historical and interpretive denial are apparent in the deficit of coverage of the weavers uprising in the historical and sociological literature.   Despite sharing characteristics similar to the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester only seven years earlier, academic silence surrounds the events at Chatterton.  Further, the weavers uprising itself is often omitted from historical discussions of popular protest, and where it is mentioned, it only seems to merit a few paragraphs or pages which only superficially cover these terrible events.    William Turner's 1992 book, entitled Riot! is a very well researched and respected monograph and provides a vivid account of what happened between 24-27 April 1826.  It goes some way in redressing this deficit, but this account defines the event in the language of a ‘riot’ carried out by a ‘mob’ , reproducing the interpretation of the powerloom destruction and Chatterton ‘fight’ from above.

 

What is required is alternative interpretation and understanding of the uprising and state killings ‘from below’.  Existing accounts (where they exist) partially see the weavers uprising through the eyes of the state and thus the truth of the weavers suffering and the deaths at Chatterton have been denied, both among the people of east Lancashire and in the academy.   There is a clear sense of injustice and invisibility, coupled with the fact that people in the present are not in a position to pay appropriate remembrance an homage to the people who died 196 years ago. Key to my activism and research on the weavers uprising and Chatterton Massacre is the aim to raise the profile, knowledge and understanding of this tragedy.  This is the reason why, on Day 1 of the remembrance walk, a new charity ‘The Weavers Uprising Bicentennial Committee’ was launched to mobilise local people and work towards the historical acknowledgement. But the work of the bicentennial committee will also be a form of historical witnessing for the present because through the informed discussions of the weavers plight a spotlight will be shone on what happens when the worst excesses of capitalism are ignored and the state fails to meet human need through appropriate welfare, something highly pertinent in the current ‘cost of living crisis’. 

 

The Response of the State

The weavers’ desperate attempts to raise awareness of the plight were not successful. The response of the state to the uprising and the impoverished social conditions motivating their actions was clearly insufficient.  Indeed, it is hard not to conclude that those in positions of power responded with little more than indifference and contempt, especially towards those weaves who had dared to challenge the authority of the state.  Thus, the deadly consequences arising through insufficient welfare interventions are here defined as ‘social murder’.

 

Attempts to alleviate the suffering of the weavers and others facing starvation in east Lancashire took three different forms.  After the first intervention, the local parish relief, had been exhausted by the depth of poverty in east Lancashire in early 1826, a regional relief committee was set up in Manchester.  This committee attempted to mitigate the harms of the economic depression and provide some funding for the people in the area, but by May 1826, within just a few weeks of the Chatterton massacre, it was clear that this intervention was also insufficient.  Consequently, a London Relief Committee was established which included dignitaries like the Archbishop of Canterbury, representatives of the monarchy, and Home Secretary Sir Robert Peel.  The London Relief Committee generated considerable sums of money and recognised that east Lancashire was in genuine danger of mass starvation. 

 

Yet the punitive mentality of those in political power remained.  Sir Robert Peel made it clear that no-one who was involved in the uprising should receive any charity from the London Relief Committees.  It is little wonder then that the mentality of some of the protestors had been that it was better that the soldiers should shoot them than just be left by the state to starve to death.  Even when there was some understanding of the terrible social and living conditions of the weavers, the approach of government was still one of punishing the undeserving and withholding help and support as a way of sending a message that the weavers should never have protested in the first place.  The outcome of such a cruel approach in the face of mass starvation was devastating- and deadly.  The uprising had been widespread, with many thousands participating across the different days of the protests.  Whilst only a relatively small number were actively involved in the powerloom destruction many thousand had been supportive bystanders.  Through acting for their voice to be heard, their suffering was now silenced and ignored.

 

What happened to the charitable donations from London is also shrouded in further controversy.  Undoubtedly, significant amounts of the monies raised were distributed to people in east Lancashire and many others elsewhere in the country in dire need of support.  But at the same time it is also clear that, at least in east Lancashire, the recipients of much of this aid was not those in greatest need.  William Fielden, a leading manufacturer in Blackburn, in evidence given to the Emigration Committee of 1827 (which seriously considered the option of emigrating that large surplus population of east Lancashire to Australia as a solution to the problem of mass unemployment and food poverty) noted that when it came to the London Relief Committee money, large parts of this was syphoned off to pay for compensation for the powerloom destruction.  

 

After the 1826 Lancashire Assize had undertaken the criminal prosecutions of the people arrested during the uprising and handed down 41 death sentence (where ten people were eventually transported to Australia) the court heard claims for compensation by mill owners.  The courts found overwhelmingly in favour of the capitalist class. The debt for the damaged ad destroyed powerlooms was to be paid by the working class people in the ‘hundreds ‘ (local boundaries of administration) where the disturbances had taken place.  The Blackburn Hundred was most significant because it covered largest part of the area where the uprising in east Lancashire taken place, but there was also compensation to be found among the working poor in the Leyland Hundred and the Salford Hundred (the later also being the site of further disturbances by starving weavers  in Middleton, Oldham and Rochdale in 1826).

 

The people in these three Hundreds were then the very same people who were starving to death, and yet despite their desperate plight and virtually no income had to pay the mill owners.  Hence, large swathes of the money from the London Relief Committee were redirected form out of the mouths of the starving and into the pockets of the propertied class.  It was the poor who were deemed responsible for paying the costs for the damage irrespective of the damage and neglect of their wellbeing and lives.   The destroyed powerloom were estimated to cost around about £10 each.  There is evidence though that at least one mill owner put in claims for £15 pounds - a 50% increased - and the received this price.  Most mill owners though did accurately claim for the replacement costs (i.e 100 powerlooms at £10 each would lead to compensation of £1000) but even then this was to their advantage.  The powerlooms were refined throughout the 1820s and the new models they received post 1826 were likely to be more efficient than those that they had before the uprising.

 

Remembering Names and Naming Social Murder

What is clear is that the needs of the starving weavers were not met by the state or any of the charitable philanthropy that it endorsed.  The uprising had been motivated by fears of mass deaths from starvation. Tragically, there is evidence this indeed was the case during 1826-7. The town of Haslingden, which sits neatly at the centre of east Lancashire, had a population of approximately 6,000 people in 1826.  Between April 1826 and March 1827, 137 children under the age of four died of starvation and other illnesses generated through food poverty, such as malnutrition, cholera or other diseases related to those whose immune system has been weakened by starvation.   It is always the children who are most likely to be impacted by starvation.  Ongoing research is exploring death rates in 37 different parish records, but the data in this one parish record for Haslingden gives us an indication of the extent of the problem. 

 

The invisibility of these mass deaths today adds only further injustice to the plight of the weavers and other working class people in east Lancashire in the 1820s.  Between 1826-1827 (and indeed in year preceding and following this) large numbers of people were not just dying by accident – people were starving to death whilst mill owners and property gently took money or goods and the government refused to provide the poor with appropriate subsistence.  These deaths are what are called here ‘social murder’.

 

Haslingden Cemetery

Haslingden Cemetery © Robert Wade cc-by-sa/2.0 :: Geograph Britain and Ireland

 

Friedrich Engels (1845), in his book The Condition of the Working Class in England, gives the classic definition of ‘social murder’. Engels maintains that some people:

 

...inevitably meet a too early and an unnatural death, one which is quite as much a death by violence as that by the sword or bullet; when it deprives thousands of the necessaries of life, places them under conditions in which they cannot live – forces them, through the strong arm of the law, to remain in such conditions until that death ensues which is the inevitable consequence – knows that these thousands of victims must perish, and yet permits these conditions to remain, its deed is murder just as surely as the deed of the single individual.

 

Historians and sociologists have an ethical responsibility to the dead. First, we owe them the truth of their story, both in terms of their lives and their deaths.  This also includes how their deaths are defined and understood. Uncovering the truth and challenging historical and interpretive denial is a form of what libertarian socialists call ‘ethical hermeneutics’ (for discussion see my 2020 Book For Abolition).  Whilst it is of course impossible to fully understand all the facts and nuances of events from the past, our ethical responsibility is to get as close to the truth as possible.  This means seeing through the eyes of the people involved – the view from below - rather than accepting the state defined truth.   The dead cannot speak, so they need passionate advocates willing to speak for them in their place so that their voice can be heard.  The tragedy of the weavers is that back in 1826 their voice was not heard despite the uprising.  This injustice is compounded by the way their story has been told or (more likely) ignored in the present.  The role of the historian is to breach this silence and say what has previously been unsayable.

 

Remembrance and breaking the silence involves confronting the problem of the ‘nameless other’.  Names are important.  A name reminds us that this was once a person, albeit now gone.  Names remind us that someone counts.  Names provide visibility.  But the ethics of naming is not just about people.  It is also about events and actions.   Wrongly naming an event is also a form of epistemic injustice.  This epistemic injustice includes, for example, interpreting the uprising as a ‘riot’; claiming the ‘riot’ was motivated merely by fear of new technology; and hiding of the indiscriminate killings at Chatterton by describing it either as a ‘riot’ or a fight’.  When searching for the truth and historical acknowledgement it is essential that we refer to what happened in east Lancashire in language that expresses its truth: mass starvation, massacre and social murder.  

 

Witnessing for the Present

The work towards historical acknowledgement and remembrance should not occur in isolation but enter a direct dialogue and engagement with the wider community.  The objects of the ‘Weavers Uprising Bicentennial Committee’ are then not just uncovering the truth through new archival research, but about mobilising a community spirit that can return to the people of east Lancashire an important aspect of their past that has been lost.   The bicentennial committee is driven by this ethical responsibility to remember the past but also to promote inclusion and human flourishing, notably by looking to the future through learning the warnings signs from the past.  This is an example of historical witnessing for the present.

 

We should collectively be learning the lessons from 1826 now in the 2020s.  In 2022 in the UK and beyond people still feel the deadly consequences of economic and social inequalities. In the UK in the last few years there has been a decline in life expectancy, and experts have predicted that life expectancy for people in the lower social strata is likely to go down in the future.  Food poverty in the UK in 2022 is not exactly the same as what happened in east Lancashire nearly 200 years ago – we have more safeguards in place (which are slowly being eroded under neoliberal governance) than in 1826 put the connections of there. The story of what happened in east Lancashire nearly 200 years ago should be remembered because their story tells us so much about what happens when the government fails to do its basic duty to address the existential needs of those people that live in this community.

 

 

Poster on Cost of Living Crisis

The cost of living crisis rolls on - Counterfire

 

All premature and avoidable deaths where the state or large corporations are explicitly or implicitly responsible, whether it be by the bullets of law enforcers   or starvation and related illnesses, should be taken seriously.  Like the weavers in 1826, in hard times it is important for ordinary people to make a stand; to struggle collectively and ensure that their voices heard. The voice of the weavers in 1826 were not heard and their suffering is now long forgotten.  Though those in positions of power will not always automatically listen or help, the voice of those suffering due to the cost of living crisis today must be heard.