The ecclesiastical reorganisation in Scotland overlapped with the tourist renaissance started by Victoria and Albert, who could be called the first media royals. Victoria’s book Leaves from a Highland Diary is full of rapture for the Scottish landscape, the Scots and Scotland itself. Albert shared her affinity. It also reminded him of the mountainous scenery of his native Saxe-Coburg. Memories of ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ and Culloden were still vivid, as was that of the ‘Butcher of Culloden’, Prince William Augustus, Victoria’s great-uncle. But Victoria’s love and understanding won over the hearts of the Scots.
A new awareness about the need to preserve wild scenery had been raised by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who urged readers to appreciate nature and to look in forests, not gardens.2 These efforts to appreciate unexploited nature were duplicated by William Gilpin, a Hampshire clergyman, schoolmaster and amateur artist who invented the word ‘picturesque’ and helped to open the eyes of the British to the wild areas of Britain. His books, The Lakes, The West of England and the Isle of Wight and The Highlands,3 made people look more deeply at the beauty of the countryside in its untamed state. The Highlands became a cherished destination for upper-class tourists. Thatched cottages, wild gardens, orchards, enjoyment of the open air, walking in the woods and going on picnics all took on new meaning. Many English people, reared on Sir Walter Scott’s novels and picturesque engravings, turned to Scotland, to salmon leaping in swift rivers, lochs, islands, moors, white Highland cattle, men baring their knees in kilts playing fiddles or bagpipes – and to tartan.4
The popularity of tartans, which had become internationally fashionable during the Napoleonic wars, had been boosted again in 1822 by George IV’s state visit to Scotland, organised by Scott. George’s standing in Scotland had been enhanced by much ‘Highland’ regalia, and at the Caledonian Ball he demanded Scottish reels: ‘None of your foreign dances!’ Vain about his slender legs and an enthusiastic reader of Waverley and Rob Roy, at the levée at Holyrood House he wore a kilt over flesh-coloured pantaloons and posed for Sir David Wilkie5 in a much-reproduced oil painting. It was as if he tried to compensate for the absence of any reigning British monarch coming north of the Border since Charles I.
Back in Leicester, Thomas was both advertising a trip which was the first of its ‘kind ever made from England to Scotland’ and preparing his Handbook of a Trip to Scotland with ‘such information . . . will be found most useful for those who avail themselves of a privilege which no previous generation ever had offered to them – an opportunity of riding from Leicester to Glasgow and back, a distance of about 800 miles, for a guinea!’
Earlier criticism led Thomas also to include a few swipes against the upper classes: ‘A few years ago a “visit to a watering place” was a luxury beyond the reach of the toiling artisan or mechanic; his lot was to waste the midnight oil and his own vital energies in pandering to the vitiated tastes of the sons of fashion . . .’6
Posing the question, ‘But what does it amount to?’ and quoting critics who said that ‘it neither fills the belly nor clothes the back’, he said that travel ‘provides food for the mind; it contributes to the strength and enjoyment of the intellect; it helps to pull men out of the mire and pollution of old corrupt customs; it promotes a feeling of universal brotherhood; it accelerates the march of peace, and virtue, and love; – it also contributes to the health of the body, by a relaxation from the toil and the invigoration of the physical powers’.7
Tactfully he did not advertise two things: that the trip would take place the very year that potatoes failed in the Highlands;8 that it coincided with the centenary of Culloden, the battle on Drumossie Moor, on 16 April 1746, when 5,000 Scots had died supporting Bonnie Prince Charlie, Prince Charles Edward Stuart, grandson of James II. Lasting less than an hour, Culloden led to the virtual extinction of a way of life and the traditional ways and means of earning an income in the Highlands.
There were no easy connections to Scotland, as no railway line yet crossed the border with England. So the organization of the trip was extremely difficult for Thomas. Newcastle upon Tyne was then the northern limit of the English railways, and there was no through line from Leicester to Newcastle. Approaches to railway managers were met with nothing but rebuffs and he had ‘great difficulty in persuading the companies to accept’ his proposals.
The apathy of the railway managers was unexpected, as railways were competing for trade and most were looking for ways to increase their traffic and returns to shareholders. Thomas found similar resistance with his efforts to get passages on the ships going north. The General Steam Navigation Company’s initial refusal to carry a large number of passengers from Newcastle to Leith caused him to later write despairingly, ‘Failing to make my way into Scotland by the East Coast route, I turned to the West, and after some difficulty succeeded in effecting a railway arrangement to the Port of Fleetwood; a steamboat from there to Ardrossan; and railway from Ardrossan to Glasgow. This trip was advertised for Midsummer, 1846 . . . I offered to guarantee £250 to the General Steam Navigation Company, for the conveyance of passengers from Newcastle to Leith and back, but they would not accept . . . I then arranged to take passengers by that route to Ardrossan, and from thence by Rail to Glasgow.’
The two steamers which regularly plied on the west coast, the Queen and Consort, did not have adequate cabins for the anticipated 500 to 1,000 passengers, so Thomas tentatively booked a larger boat which had more first-class cabin accommodation. Bookings, though, failed to come in. Unable to guarantee a fixed number of passengers, again he switched to two steamboats which regularly ran between the two ports.
Then, at the eleventh hour, many last minute bookings were made, so there were suddenly 350 passengers. Most believed that their ticket included a cabin. But when they boarded they found they had the choice of staying out on the deck, with waves washing over it, or paying a surcharge to the purser for the use of a cabin. Bad weather exacerbated the lack of cabins and a large number of the passengers were forced to stay shivering and crowded outside during the wet and cold night as a result. Complaints and litigation would hound him for months. Remembering the importance of keeping up appearances and putting a good face on things, Thomas hoped the fuss would die down and tried to dismiss the matter, just saying that the sea voyage was ‘disagreeable to some of the party’. Yet the misery and inconvenience suffered by many of the passengers were things that would not go away so lightly. It was written up by a member of the party under the derisive heading ‘The “Pleasure” Trip to Scotland’ in the Leicester Chronicle of 4 July 1846. The main grievances were about the lack of provision of tea at Preston station and the extra charge of ten shillings for a cabin:
More than twenty carriages, containing about five hundred passengers, left the Leicester Midland Station on Thursday morning . . . from Fleetwood, where the greater number embarked the same evening for Ardrossan. From the handbill published by Mr Cook, the bookseller (the getter-up of the trip), it was made to appear that the passengers would be allowed the privilege of leaving the train at Manchester, Parkside, or Preston, at any of which places they might re-unite with it on his return on Friday, July 3rd. What authority Mr. Cook had for making this statement, we know not, but the reverse was the fact; for after leaving the Midland Railway at Normanton, where the passengers were certainly afforded both time and opportunity for refreshment, the tourists were rigidly compelled to keep their seats as if they had been prisoners about to leave their country for their ‘country’s good,’ instead of a body of respectable citizens who had paid their fares for a pleasure trip. This was particularly the case at the Victoria Station, Manchester, where policemen were placed to prevent the passengers from leaving the carriages – an injunction which was strictly enforced, and created much dissatisfaction among them. At Parkside, sixteen miles from Manchester, the same command was made, and with few exceptions, enforced. At Preston, where, according to Mr. Cook’s handbill, tea was to be provided in the Exchange, at one shilling eac
h, the train only stopped for a few minutes, to the no small disappointment of all who had anticipated the enjoyment of such a tempting repast.
The correspondent included a scathing attack in which he said that ‘rather than subject myself to such rough and unceremonious treatment!’ in future he would travel alone. He added:
Mr Cook is a Temperance man, an advocate for the principle of Total Abstinence, and it would seem as if he wished those whom he has so shamefully duped to practise total abstinence too . . . a toss overboard into the projector’s favourite element would have been almost his due. Let us beware how he again attempts to gull the public in the matter of an Excursion Train.9
However, others forgot about the boat trip and enjoyed the journey through Scotland in a special train that took them to Glasgow. To celebrate their arrival, guns were fired as the train drew up, then a band escorted the travellers to the City Hall, to a large soirée. A similar ovation awaited them at Edinburgh, where they were met by a band of music and escorted through the principal streets, and the publisher William Chambers, another passionate advocate of Temperance, laid on a special musical evening. They did not get to the Highlands, but made various side trips instead, travelling on a steamer on the river Forth to Stirling, sailing on Loch Lomond and Loch Long and making a slow journey on the Ayrshire Railway to ‘the Land of Robbie Burns’ and the shrine to Lord Bute’s former ploughman who had become Scotland’s most quoted poet.
FOURTEEN
Corn Laws: ‘Give Us Our Daily Bread’
Back in Leicester, Thomas was caught up in a wild, tumultuous movement, the Anti-Corn Law League, becoming one of a large number of socially aware Nonconformists playing an active and prominent part. The Anti-Corn Law League, a vehicle for Free Trade and many forms of political agitation, took on the character of two of its founders, John Bright and Richard Cobden, both fiery orators and propagandists1 who denounced the privileged position of landlords.
Every Monday and Friday evening Thomas stood behind the middle window on the first floor at Granby Street using the skills in oratory he had learnt as a preacher. Shouting at the top of his voice, he would call out the prices of wheat and other cereals, then he would pause, waiting for the thunderous clapping, and call out through the roar, shouting even louder, to announce ‘the state of the markets and other matters connected with Corn Law Repeal’. Thomas was such a vocal campaigner that, if MPs had then been paid, he could well have taken up politics as a career.
The crowds were constant. Over a thousand people thronged, sending up loud cheers as Thomas described graphic examples of the false claims of certain bakers. He enjoyed the applause. Appreciative crowds, especially those following him, were mesmerised as if he were the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Thomas and a new committee were formed to arrange meetings against the Corn Laws, to bring regularity to the price of bread and to keep it in line with the price of flour. It aimed to shame bakers to sell bread by weight. If that did not have any results, the committee threatened to resort to the law.
Among the immense multitude in Granby Street, throngs of shabbily dressed men took off their hats, waving them in the air as they cheered him. Thomas, eloquent and pragmatic, adopted theatrical-type cue boards to reinforce what he was saying. Brightly coloured placards announced the prices of corn, wheat and other cereals and their correlation with the price of bread. Some of the placards bore ‘Down Again’ as prices fell, or ‘Up Again’ if prices rose. His outbursts brought him nothing but adulation from the crowds, who from time to time shouted ‘Hurrah!’
Apart from the deleterious effects of alcohol, Temperance supporters blamed the manufacture of spirits for an unnecessary demand on corn and other cereal crops, which should be used as food. Wheat, barley and corn prices were spiralling; agricultural protectionists were accused by the Free Traders of inflating the price of wheat. They said that it was the demand on cereals by the liquor industry, together with the duties on imported corn, that sent the price of bread to ridiculous heights.
In order to bring down the price of bread, the League fought vigorously for the repeal of the iniquitous law that kept the price of corn high. After it was set up in Manchester in 1839, the League spread like wildfire, fanned by urban discontent, the recession, a few bad harvests and rising prices. Unemployment affected labourers, poor tenants, wheat growers, textile workers, craftsmen and manufacturers. Some were not just hungry, but were malnourished and near death. In the late 1830s and the ‘hungry forties’, starving labourers set fire to farmers’ ricks and there were clashes with the military. In the Potteries, the Black Country and the cloth towns of the west, men could no longer find jobs, and the high price of bread brought them and their families near to starvation. Radical action was urged at many meetings.2
Already adept at banging the drum against such issues as smoking, drink and the poor, Thomas now put the Anti-Corn Law campaign through his printing presses. While his Cheap Bread Herald spoke of the ‘moral injustice’ and ‘class legislation’ which only helped the landowners, Thomas addressed meeting after meeting with intense fervour. His speeches, forthright and to the point, were delivered with the passion of someone who had known the suffering of hunger as a child. Behind the impassioned speaker was his childhood persona: the hungry boy smelling the aroma of freshly baked crusty loaves, but being unable to taste them because his mother could not afford it. Similar misery and suffering had fuelled his horror of alcohol.
Since 1815, the price of corn and other cereals had been protected by the Corn Laws because it was argued that agriculture needed to be propped up. Wheat had trebled in price from 43 shillings a quarter (28lb) in 1792, the year prior to war against France breaking out. It rose to 126 shillings in 1812, the year Napoleon had marched across Russia to Moscow.3 When prices had dropped after Waterloo, many farmers were ruined and rents could not be paid. While the Corn Law of 1815 safeguarded landlords, it both penalised consumers and caused political unrest. Cereal crops may have appeared not to be relevant to the warehouses in Lancashire piled high with unsold cotton goods, but both were the subject of tariffs, and both were arguments in the strategy of the Leaguers. This protection was implemented when foreign corn, including much from the United States, was prohibited if, due to a good harvest, the home corn fell to a specified price. In the following years import duties fluctuated dependent on the price of home corn.
The religious fervour of Leaguers was shown by the name of the newspaper, the Free Trade Catechism, and in such mottoes as ‘Give us our daily bread’, as the theme of many of the speeches. Free Trade was put up as a panacea capable of overcoming all economic and social ills.
Among the many arguments in the Anti-Corn Laws agenda was the suggestion that a high-rate of duty on imported grain would provoke foreigners to retaliate by boycotting British exports. Thomas proudly told how he was one of the agitators: ‘I was intensely interested in the progress towards Free Trade; and in connection with the repeal of the Corn Laws I took a very active part in promoting interest and excitement among the people. I published a little paper entitled the Cheap Bread Herald, in which my main object was to accelerate the downfall of Protection.’4 He further spoke of the havoc wrought by farmers keeping the price of wheat high and bakers who cheated with underweight loaves. Appalled at bogus claims and false advertising, he formed a committee to expose bakers and force them to price their bread honestly. His motivation was similar to that behind the soup kitchens he was later to organise:
On such evenings there generally collected together about 1,000 people to listen to my statements from my public window of my house, and during most of the time I had the satisfaction of issuing exposing placards headed ‘Down Again,’ as prices continued to fall. A committee was formed to work with me, and very strenuous efforts were made to compel the bakers and breadsellers to sell bread by weight, and much excitement was created in the town. One Monday morning we sent out a number of men to purchase a loaf from every baker and breadseller in Leicester; the loaves were ti
cketed with the name of the shop where each was bought and the price paid, and in the evening, in response to an invitation by placard, at least 2,000 people assembled in the Amphitheatre in Humberstone Gate to witness a public Assize of Bread.
One by one, the loaves of bread from the shops, of all shapes and sizes, were carried up to the raised platform, where, by permission of the town clerk, the borough scales were waiting. Each loaf of bread was weighed. Loaf followed loaf. Now performing as a cross between the preacher that he was and the auctioneer he could have been, Thomas announced the weight of each loaf. The scales revealed the truth of his hypothesis. Bakers were found to be cheating their customers by not using enough flour. In some instances, 4lb loaves were little over 3lb. Whenever Thomas announced a large discrepancy, the audience roared and cheered. He added: ‘The names of the dealers and their prices were all published, and great excitement was caused in the trade, but the magistrates were with us and enforced numerous fines – not only for the omission to weigh the loaves, but also for adulteration. An analyst was employed, and a number of fines were inflicted for adulteration.’
There may have been justice in the attacks on the Whigs by many members of the Corn League, such as Thomas, who liked to point out their folly, disunion and incompetence.5 Indeed, he was not averse to attacking the Whigs as if they were Tories. Meanwhile, he fell foul of the law by failing to pay stamp duty on the Cheap Bread Herald for an issue which had included a paragraph referring to the French Revolution of 1848. As this was deemed as general news and the Stamp Duty Act specified that only papers and periodicals which did not carry general news were exempt from stamp duty, Thomas received an urgent summons calling him to London to face the Court of the Exchequer.
Thomas Cook Page 10
