Abstract
From 1815 onwards, the Irish presence in Britain was increasingly the subject of comment. Throughout the nineteenth century, the Irish in Britain had a bad press. The epithets heaped on their heads usually included ‘dirty’, ‘filthy’, ‘violent’, ‘disgusting’ and ‘ungrateful’. Just as frequently, the character of the Irish, their moral fibre and lifestyle, was subject to critical analysis in column inches of the London and provincial press. The contrast with the comment, or lack of comment, on the Welsh and Scots living in English towns is startling. The modern reader could be forgiven for concluding that between all the Irish poor and the English poor generally there existed a yawning gap in both living conditions and moral fibre. Such a conclusion would be false and the validity or otherwise of the attacks on the Irish character and lifestyle must be judged, in part, on the basis of the urban environment in which a large proportion of the Irish immigrants were forced to live.’ Any immigrants arriving in a new country, devoid of economic resources, are forced into those sectors of the labour market in which there are no barriers to entry and, by definition, these are the lowest paid jobs. However, low pay was not the only factor bearing down on the poor in Victorian Britain; the casual nature of much employment meant that earnings per week were such that millions of people were always on the margin of destitution over the whole of the period under review, and beyond.2
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Notes and References
For a detailed treatment of English attitudes towards the Irish, see L.P.Curtis, Apes and Angels: The Irishman in Victorian Caricature, David Charles, (Newton Abbot: 1971). S.Gilley, ‘English Attitudes towards the Irish in England, 1798–1900’ in C.Holmes (ed) Immigrants and Minorities in Britain Society, (London: 1978) pp. 81–110.
J.H.Treble, Urban Poverty in Britain, 1830–1914, paperback, (Methuen, London: 1983) (referred to hereafter as Treble), chapters, 1 and 2.
PRO/MH12/16328/Merthyr/110438. T.J.Dyke to Poor Law Board, 14 May 1847.
Examples are (1) BPP (HC), Accounts and Papers, 1841, 2 (58), Correspondence between the Home Office and the Poor Law Commissioners on ‘Distress in Bolton: Report of Assistant Commissioner’. (2) BPP (HC) Accounts and Papers, 1842 (77) XXXV, ‘Distress in Stockport’. (3) BPP (HC) Accounts and Papers, 1837 (376), LI, Report of Dr Kay to Poor Law Commissioners on ‘Distress in Spitalfield’s.
D.Fitzpatrick, Irish Emigration, 1801–1921, (Dundalgan Press: 1984), part 4. Also C.O’Grada, Ireland: A New Economic History, (Oxford: 1994) ch. 9, section 9.3.
A.Redford, Labour Migration in England, 1800–1850, (Manchester: 1926). Also A.K.Cairncross, ‘Trends in Internal Migration’, Transactions of the Manchester Statistical Society, 1938–9, group meetings. pp. 21–5.
F.Neal, ‘Liverpool, The Irish Steamship companies and the famine Irish’, Iminigrants and Minorities, volume 5, March 1986, No.1, pp. 28–61. J.Kennedy, The History of Steam Navigation, (Liverpool: 1903).
For coverage of this phase in British economic history, see F.Crouzet, The Victorian Economy, (Metheun, London: 1982), ch. 2. D.N.McCloskey, ‘The Industrial Revolution 1780–1860: a survey’, in R.Floud and D.McCloskey (eds.), The Economic History of Britain since 1700, volume 1, 1700–1860, (Cambridge University Press: 1981) pp. 103–127. P.K.O’Brien, ‘Modern Conceptions of the Industrial Revolution’, in P.K.O’Brien and R.Quinault (eds.) The Industrial Revolution and British Society, (Cambridge University Press: 1993), pp. 1–30. For a succinct survey of Britain’s shipping industry, see ‘The Shipping Industry’ (ch. 7) in G.Jackson, M.J.Freeman & D.K.Aldcroft, Transport in Victorian Britain, (Manchester University Press: 1988).
R.Reid, The Land of Lost Content: The Luddite Revolt of 1812, (Penguin: 1986). An account of the impact of new technology on textile workers and their reaction to it.
For the modern scholar, the reading of these reports present problems because of the conventions of representation adopted by middle class people describing a world utterly beyond their previous experience. For a full discussion of the issues involved, see J.W.Childers, ‘Observation and Representation: Mr Chadwick writes the Poor’, Albion, Spring, 1994, pp. 405–432.
1851 Census, Birthplaces of the People: ‘Birthplaces of the Inhabitants of Principal Towns’, Div. XVIII, Liverpool Borough, p. 664.
I have multiplied the actual Irish-born population by a factor of 1.1. My own, as yet unpublished, study of the whole Irish-born population of Newcastle, Gateshead, Warrington, Leigh and Prescot, together with large samples of the same from County Durham’s small towns, yields a figure varying between 10% and 15% in terms of the ratio of English-born children of two Irish parents, to the whole Irish population. This is crude but not unrealistic as an estimator of the total ‘Irish’ in a town, including their English-born children. I have used the conservative estimate of 10%.
1851 Census, Birthplaces of the People: ‘Birthplaces of the Inhabitants of Principal Towns’, Div. VIII, Manchester (City) and Salford (Borough), p. 664.
J.G.Williamson, ‘The Impact of the Irish on British Labour: Markets during the Industrial Revolution’, Journal of Economic History, XIVI, No. 3, September 1986, pp. 639–721.
J.Garrard, Leadership and Power in Victorian Industrial Towns 1830–80, (Manchester University Press: 1983). This is a study of the exercise of power in three industrial towns, Salford, Bolton and Rochdale. See also D.Frazer, Power and Authority in the Victorian City, (Blackwell, Oxford: 1979).
The growing awareness of an urban crisis was noticeable by 1830 and the next two decades witnessed the production of a number of reports by government agencies. These provide a wealth of detailed information, statistical and descriptive, of the social conditions in Britain’s towns, with many references to the Irish. For anyone coming to the subject for the first time, they provide the natural inroad into the topic. Sec i. SC (Health) 1840; ii, First Report, Large Towns; iii, Second Report, Large Towns. All these reports contain material dealing with conditions in specific towns in Britain. In addition to these there are a large number of reports from various bodies and committees dealing with every aspect of urban squalor and problems generally, both local and national. Especially recommended, in addition to Treble referred to above are A.S.Wohl, Endangered Lives: Public Health and Victorian Britain, paperback, (Methuen, London: 1983). J.Burnett, A Social History of Housing, paperback, (Methuen, London: 1980). Gareth Stedman Jones, Outcast London: A Study of the Relationship between Classes in Victorian Society, (Oxford University Press: 1971); F.B.Smith, The People’s Health, paperback, (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London: 1990). The Unknown Mayhew: Selections from the Morning Chronicle 1849–50, (Penguin: 1984). Labour and Poor in England and Wales 1849–51: Letters to the Morning Chronicle, volume 1, (Frank Cass, London: 1983).
For Liverpool, see John Finch, Statistics of the Vauxhall Ward of Liverpool, (Liverpool: 1842). A.Hume, Missions at Home or a Clergyrnan’s Account of a Portion of the Town of Liverpool, (Liverpool: 1850). Manchester is particularly well served. See, James Phillips Kay, The Moral and Physical Condition of the Working Classes Employed in the Cotton Manufacture in Manchester, (London: 1832), referred to hereafter as Kay, 1832. Joseph Adshead, Distress in Manchester: Evidence of the State of the Labouring Classes in 1840–42, (London: 1842), referred to hereafter as Adshead, 1842. Richard Parkinson, On the Present Conditions of the Labouring Poor in Manchester, with Hints for Improving it, (London: 1841), referred to hereafter as Parkinson, 1841. Leon Faucher, Manchester in 1844: Its Present Condition and Future Prospects, (London: 1844), reprinted F. Cass, 1969, referred to hereafter as Faucher, 1844.
Irish Poor (1836)
Irish Poor (1836). Liverpool, pp. 8–41, Manchester, pp. 42–84, Glasgow, pp. 101–41.
Irish Poor (1836) p. 9.
Irish Poor (1836) p. 10.
Irish Poor (1836) p. 18.
Irish Poor (1836) p. 22.
Irish Poor (1836) p. 23.
Irish Poor (1836) p. 23.
Irish Poor (1836) p. 24.
Irish Poor (1836) p. 28.
Irish Poor (1836) p. 18.
I.C.Taylor, ‘The Court and Cellar Dwellings: The Eighteenth Century Origins of the Liverpool Slum’, Transactions of the Historical Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, volume 122 (1970) pp. 67–90.
SC (Health) 1840, Minutes of Evidence, J.R.Wood, pp. 128–173.
SC (Health) 1840, Wood, q. 2136–7, p.128.
SC (Health) 1840, Wood. q. 2205, p. 132.
SC (Health) 1840, Duncan, q. 2374, p. 141.
SC (Health) 1840, Duncan, q. 2416, p. 144.
SC (Health) 1840, Duncan, p. 2442–43, p. 145.
SC (Health) 1840, Duncan, q. 2511, p. 149.
SC (Health) 1840, Duncan, q. 2513, p. 149.
SC (Health) 1840, Duncan, q. 2516, p. 149.
First Report (Large Towns), W.H.Duncan ‘On the Physical Causes of the High Rate of Mortality in Liverpool’, p. 29.
Second Report (Large Towns), Minutes of Evidence, ‘Causes of Disease Among the Inhabitants’, J.Aspinall, q. 23, p. 78.
Second Report (Large Towns), Minutes of Evidence, ‘Causes of Disease Among the Inhabitants’, J.Aspinall, qq. 26–8, p.78.
Second Report (Large Towns), Minutes of Evidence, ‘Causes of Disease Among the Inhabitants’, J.Aspinall, qq. 34–6, pp. 78–9.
See Manchester Guardian 7 July 1847. The stipendiary magistrate, Rushton, refused to sign any ejection orders until he was assured that alternative arrangements had been made for sick cellar dwellers. The fit persons were to be sent back to Ireland. A week later, receiving such assurances, Rushton ordered the cellars to be cleared but the policy was not fully implemented.
Second Report (Large Towns), Evidence of S. Holmes, p. 187.
SC (Health) 1840, Appendix, J.R.Wood, q. 2206.
First Report (Large Towns), Appendix, W.H.Duncan, ‘On the Physical Causes of the High Rates of Mortality in Liverpool’, pp. 12–33.
ibid, p. 15.
ibid, p. 28.
SC (Health) 1840, Minutes of Evidence, W.H.Duncan, q. 2403, p. 143.
Chadwick Report (England), Liverpool, pp. 293–94.
M.A.Busteed and R.I.Hodgson, ‘Irish Migration and Settlement in Nineteenth Century Manchester, with special reference to Angel Meadow’, Irish Geography, 27 (I), 1994, pp. 1–13. M.A.Busteed, R.I.Hodgson and T.F. Kennedy, ‘Myth and Reality of Irish Migrants in Mid-Nineteenth Century Manchester: a preliminary study’, in P.O’Sullivan (ed.), The Irish World Wide, History, Heritage, Identity, volume 2, The Irish in New Communities, (Leicester: 1992), pp. 26–51. M.A.Busteed and R.I.Hodgson, ‘Coping with Urbanisation: The Irish in Early Manchester’, in S.J.Neary, M.S.Symes and F.E.Brown (eds.) Proceedings of the 13th Conference of the International Association for People - Environment Studies, (Chapman: 1994).
Kay, 1832.
Kay, 1832, pp. 77–8.
Kay, 1832, p. 44.
Kay, 1832, pp. 20–1.
Kay, 1832, p. 32.
Kay, 1832, p. 34–6. Another description of Little Ireland in Manchester, see Sanitary Inquiry, Local Report, No. 20, pp. 307–8. M.A.Busteed, ‘The Most Horrible Spot? The Legend of Manchester’s Little Ireland’, Irish Studies Review, 13, 1995–6, pp.12–20.
M.A.Busteed and R.I.Hodgson, ‘Angel Meadow: a study of the geography of Irish settlements in mid-nineteenth century Manchester’, Manchester Geography, 14, pp. 3–26. See also Busteed and Hodgson, ‘Irish Migration and Settlement in Early Nineteenth Century Manchester with special reference to the Angel Meadow District in 1851’, Irish Geographer, 27, pp. 1–13.
Irish Poor (1836) p. 61.
Irish Poor (1836) p. 59.
Irish Poor (1836) pp. 42–3. Estimate of Manchester’s Irish-born population made by Fr T.Parker and Fr D.Hearne. The Salford figure is from the 1841 Census Report.
Irish Poor (1836) pp. p.44.
Irish Poor (1836) p. 47.
Irish Poor (1836) p. 51.
Irish Poor (1836) p. 66.
Irish Poor (1836) p. 65.
Irish Poor (1836) p. 69.
Irish Poor (1836) p. 48–9.
Irish Poor (1836) p. 56.
Irish Poor (1836) p. 57.
Irish Poor (1836) p. 58.
Chadwick Report (England) R.B.Howard. ‘On the Prevalence of Diseases Arising from Contagion, Malaria and Certain Other Physical Causes Amongst the Working Classes in Manchester’, p. 305.
ibid, p. 306.
Adshead, 1842, p.v. These people had contributed £4000 for the relief of Manchester’s indigent workers.
Adshead, 1842, p.14. Table ‘Families living in cellars’.
Irish Poor (1836) p. 101.
Irish Poor (1836) p. 110.
Irish Poor (1836) Glasgow, p. III.
Irish Poor (1836) p. 108.
Irish Poor (1836) pp.113–4.
Irish Poor (1836) p 141.
Irish Poor (1836) p. 133.
Irish Poor (1836) p. 116.
Irish Poor (1836) p. 111.
Irish Poor (1836) p. 112.
Irish Poor (1836) p. 116.
Irish Poor (1836) p. 117.
Irish Poor (1836) p. 118.
Irish Poor (1836) p. 119.
SC (Health) 1840, J.C.Symons, q. 1068, p. 60.
SC (Health) 1840, J.C.Symons, q. 1072, p. 61.
SC (Health) 1840, J.C.Symons, q. 1078, p. 61.
SC (Health) 1840, J.C.Symons, qq. 1144–5, p. 65.
SC (Health) 1840, J.C.Symons, qq. 1150–1, p. 65.
SC (Health) 1840, J.C.Symons, q. 1074, p. 61.
Chadwick Report (Scotland) ‘Sanitary Condition of the Working Classes and the Poor in the City of Glasgow’, pp. 159–195.
Chadwick Report (Scotland) p. 166.
Chadwick Report (Scotland) p. 181–2.
Chadwick Report (Scotland) p. 196.
Glasgow Courier, 24 April 1847.
Chadwick Report (Scotland) p. 185.
F.Engels, Condition of the Working Class (Manchester: 1844) p.91.
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© 1998 Frank Neal
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Neal, F. (1998). The Urban Environment and Pre-famine Irish Settlements. In: Black ’47. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230372658_2
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