Debate on 1820 in the Scottish Parliament
The 1820 Rising: The Radical War by J.Halliday
1820 is the year of the so-called Scottish Insurrection. The events, which were to culminate in the execution of three weavers for high treason, were, however, in large part the expression of the resentment many in Scotland felt for having fought for Britain against Napoleon only to return home and find themselves treated as seditious rabble and industrial scrap.
Attempts had been made by the authorities, after the Napoleonic War, to relieve the hardship caused by unemployment. The Town Council of Glasgow, for instance, employed 324 workless to restyle Glasgow Green. Relief centres were also opened up in the town; but charity did little to ameliorate what was seen as the root of the problem. If the disaffected, as the government called them, were to continue to be intransigent, there was but one solution, namely to create a head-on collision that would put the radical movement in its place.
In 1820, government spies once again were ordered to infiltrate the radical ranks. They encouraged the radicals to form a Committee of Organisation for Forming a Provisional Government, and on 1 April placards appeared on the streets of Glasgow, calling for an immediate national strike and a rising on 5 April:
"To show the world that we are not that lawless, sanguinary' rabble which our oppressors would persuade the higher circles we are but a brave and generous people determined to be free."
The Proclamation, making reference, as it did, to the Magna Carta and the English Bill of Rights, was probably written by a government spy. Throughout Scotland some 60,000 stopped work on 1 April. Yet unknown to the rank and file of the radical movement, twenty-eight members of the so-called provisional government were in Glasgow jail and had been since 21 March when they had been quietly arrested. On April Fool's Day 1820, the streets of Glasgow were lined with troops. The government had called out the Rifle Brigade and the 83rd Regiment of Foot, together with the 7th and 10th Hussars, under the command of Sir Richard Hussey Vivian, the government's leading expert in cavalry tactics and expressly sent north by the Duke of York in case of disturbances. Samuel Hunter's Glasgow Sharpshooters were also on hand, under his personal command. There was a brief encounter in the evening when three hundred radicals skirmished with a party 'of cavalry', but no one came to harm that day. At Fir Park, now Glasgow's Necropolis, seventy radicals had been directed by government agents to go to Falkirk, where English sympathisers, it was said, would join up with them and help take the Carron Iron Works. When the small band got there, they found nobody and half of them dispersed. Thirty radicals were resting at Bonnymuir, near Castlecary, when a troop of the 7th Hussars advanced towards them. Andrew Hardie, one of the radicals, recalled the scene:
"Some of our men were wounded in a most shocking manner, and it is truly unbecoming the character of a soldier to wound, or try and kill any man whom he has it in his power to take prisoner, and when we had no arms to make any defence."
Forty-seven radicals were ultimately rounded up and taken to the military prison at Stirling Castle. Twenty-four were tried and sentenced to death. One of the three hanged was a sixty-year-old weaver, James Wilson. A special English Court of Oyer and Terminer, a royal commission court with power to hear and determine criminal causes, was set up in Glasgow. Wilson made an impassioned speech to the court:
"You may condemn me to immolation on the scaffold, but you cannot degrade me. If I have appeared as a pioneer in the van of freedom's battles - if I have attempted to free my country from political degradation - my conscience tells me that I have only done my duty. Your brief authority will soon cease, but the vindictive proceedings this day shall be recorded in history".
Sentence was passed by Lord President Hope. Wilson was to be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution, hanged, then his head severed from his body and his corpse quartered. Twenty thousand people witnessed James Wilson's execution on Glasgow Green. His remains were spared quartering and were ultimately allowed to rest in Strathaven, the village of his birth, where in his younger days, it is said, he had invented the purl stitch.
Two other radicals, John Baird a thirty-two-year-old weaver from Condorrat, and Andrew Hardie, a weaver from Glasgow aged twenty-eight were executed in Stirling, watched by a crowd of 2000. The night before Hardie wrote to his girlfriend:
"I shall die firm to the cause in which I embarked, and although we were outwitted and betrayed, yet I protest, as a dying man, it was done with good intention on my part... No person could have induced me to take up arms to rob or plunder; no, my dear Margaret, I took them for the restoration of those rights for which our forefathers bled, and which we have allowed shamefully to be wrested from us."
The authorities had trouble in finding someone who would chop off the heads of the two radicals at Stirling. Nine days before the execution two town clerks were sent to 'engage an executioner'. One went to Glasgow, where he witnessed James Wilson's execution and noticed he was first hanged by an executioner and then had his head severed by another masked man 'in a long robe'. Glasgow's hangman demanded ten guineas per victim and, grudgingly, the Stirling Town Clerk agreed to pay it. The decapitator was found in Edinburgh. He demanded twenty guineas per victim for what was regarded as a more dangerous job as the crowd would almost certainly react to his gory task. The sentences of nineteen other radicals captured after Bonnymuir were commuted to transportation to New South Wales, seven for life and twelve for fourteen years. Peter Mackenzie, a Glasgow journalist, campaigned to have them pardoned. He published a small book en-titled, "The Spy System, including the exploits of Mr Alex. Richmond, the notorious Government Spy of Sidmouth and Castlereagh."
Debate on 1820 in the Scottish Parliament
The Presiding Officer (Sir David Steel): Members' business today is
motion S1M-2101, in the name of Mr Gil Paterson, on James Wilson, John
Baird and Andrew Hardie.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament recognises the sacrifice of the three 1820
martyrs, James Wilson from Strathaven and John Baird and Andrew Hardie
from Glasgow, who were hanged and beheaded in the 1820 rising which
fought for social and economic justice, workers' rights and an
independent Scottish parliament and believes that the history of their
struggle should be included in the education curriculum in order to
mark the anniversaries, on 30 August and 3 September, of their
sacrifice for Scottish rights 181 years ago.
17:04
Mr Gil Paterson (Central Scotland) (SNP): On a bright summer's
afternoon, on 30 August 1820, a crowd of 20,000 people gathered on
Glasgow green to watch the execution of a Strathaven weaver, James
Wilson.
After taking part in a simple religious service and drinking the
customary glass of wine, Wilson, dressed in white, was dragged to the
bottom of the scaffold in a black, horse-drawn hurdle. He then mounted
the scaffold with his captors, to hisses and shouts of "Murder!" from
the sympathetic crowd. The 60-year-old radical was hanged, then
beheaded. The sentence of quartering could not be carried out because
of the hostility of the crowd. A few days later, in Broad Street,
Stirling, Andrew Hardie and John Baird met the same fate as Wilson.
Those three men were murdered by the state for believing in workers'
rights and Scottish independence. Why do so few people in Scotland
know about that vital part of Scottish history? Far from
schoolchildren having any knowledge of that episode, even history
teachers in Scotland are generally ignorant of the story.
The Tolpuddle martyrs are widely known about in schools and
universities in Scotland and extensively known about within the trade
union movement. In fact, the trade union movement has funded a museum
in Dorset to the memory of the Tolpuddle martyrs. I do not want in any
way to minimise the sacrifice made by the Tolpuddle martyrs. The
horror of being transported to the colonies was no soft option, but
they were able to return to England after a couple of years and now
have a place-rightly-in the history books.
What is the difference between the Tolpuddle martyrs and the Scottish
1820 martyrs? Is it simply that Baird, Hardie and Wilson were Scottish and therefore,
like many Scottish achievements or sacrifices, irrelevant? Or is the
fact that the Scottish martyrs believed in Scottish independence and
used a banner that declared, "Scotland Free-or a Desart!" a good
enough reason for writing them out of the history books, as the
Highland clearances were? Or is it just that the establishment-then
and now-has been so shamefaced, embarrassed and guilty about the way
those great men were treated that the only way it can cope with the
guilt is by trying to make everyone believe that the 1820 insurrection
did not happen?
Some 20 years after the executions, a committee was formed to seek the
removal of the remains of Hardie and Baird to Sighthill cemetery in
Glasgow and to erect a memorial to them. That was done in 1847 and the
permission of the then Solicitor General had to be obtained-but
permission was granted on condition that there was no publicity. That
conspiracy of secrecy continues to this day. It is time it was broken.
I was born 500 yards from Sighthill cemetery and I thought I knew
every nook and cranny in Springburn. My father was steeped in the
Labour movement, but I knew nothing of Baird, Wilson and Hardie. Had
it not been for the good services of the volunteers of the 1820
Society, I doubt that I ever would have known of the 1820 martyrs.
It is surely significant that the 19 Scots who were transported to
Australia for their part in the revolt proved that rebellion and
criminality are different things. They were pardoned a few years after
they were transported.
Wilson, Hardie and Baird were good men, with courage, dignity and
character. There is a lesson for all of us who work for a political
purpose in the fact that those men of 1820 worked for a political
objective and saw in political change the potential for social and
economic justice. That is how democrats go about their task.
If people do not know where they came from, they have no chance of
knowing where they are going. It is said that only by understanding
its history can a people move forward with confidence. If Scotland is
to continue to move forward, its full story, which includes the story
of the 1820 martyrs, needs to be taught to its children.
A history without Baird, Wilson and Hardie is no history at all.
17:09
Mr Lloyd Quinan (West of Scotland) (SNP): I thank Gil Paterson for
securing this debate. Although the motion's key element is that we should remember the 1820 radical rising and the three
individuals who were executed by the British state for their leading
role in that rising, it more importantly brings to light our country's
hidden history. In 1787, the combined weavers of Glasgow went on
strike. The strike was declared illegal by the Government and the town
council; seven were shot dead at Glasgow cross and more than 120 were
transported to the colonies. That story is not well known, even in the
Scottish labour movement.
As an ex-member of Glasgow Trades Council, I must at least thank that
organisation, which employed me in 1986-87 to carry out a community
arts project that led to the largest May day demonstration that
Glasgow had seen. It was apt at the time. That year, we operated under
the banner "Muskets to Multinationals-Calton to Caterpillar" because
at that time Scottish workers were occupying the Caterpillar factory
at Tannochside. We drew a direct parallel between the combination of
the Calton weavers in Glasgow in 1787 and the Caterpillar workers who
were being driven out of their jobs in 1987. A limited number of
badges were struck, most of which were held by members of the trade
union movement. That demonstration did not give rise to any history
books or changes in the curriculum that made it clear that the
original combination of workers in the islands of Great Britain
happened in Scotland-and, indeed, in Glasgow.
Other untold elements of our history are the true story of the true
story of the union, its rejection by the mass of the people in this
country and the five to seven years of riot and disturbance that
followed. That is not taught in our schools, but it should be.
Furthermore, there is the true story of the Highland clearances, which
has been mutilated into the story of greedy Highland chiefs driving
people off their land. In reality, the clearances were started by the
dragoons of Cumberland's army. As has happened many times down the
centuries, a British army worked against its own people.
However, it is important that we remember not only Baird, Wilson and
Hardie. I ask the Executive to raise a monument in Greenock to the 14
people killed in the town by the British Army when they attempted to
rescue those who were to be transported to the colonies after the
Bonnymuir battle. Those ordinary people of Greenock rose up against
the British Army and freed the prisoners, only to be massacred in
their own streets the next day. Fourteen were killed, 70 were wounded
and 160 were transported to the colonies for protecting the freedom of
the right of workers to combine together under the banner of a free
Scotland. Those real issues of our forgotten history have been
conveniently forgotten by many.
Now is the time for us to redress the balance and to have the
monuments and-more important-a history curriculum that tells the true
story of our country so that we can move forward into Europe and the
21st century.
Mr John McAllion (Dundee East) (Lab): I too thank Gil Paterson for
securing this important debate in the Scottish Parliament. As he said,
the bodies were removed to and buried in Sighthill cemetery. I grew up
on the other side of the wall from Sighthill cemetery, on Springburn
Road-up the high road-and never heard of the monuments or the martyrs.
Indeed, as a young boy I played all over Sighthill cemetery-perhaps I
should not have, but I did-and the working class people in that area
at the time had no idea that those workers and heroes were buried so
close to them. The fact was brought to my attention only much later.
I was interested in Gil Paterson's reference to the banner "Scotland
Free-Or a Desart". I remember seeing it after the 1992 general
election-or doomsday number four, or whatever it was called at the
time-when the Scotland United group called a rally in George Square
and spoke from a top deck of a bus. The banner was out in the crowd.
I referred to the banner in my speech during the rally. It is
important that we remember who we are, where we come from and who the
real heroes are in Scotland's history. The real heroes in Scottish
history are not the kings-French, Norman or whatever-but the ordinary,
working-class people who have contributed so much.
One of the few things that I remember being taught in school-in
Springburn, of all places-was the history of the period following the
Napoleonic wars, between 1815 and 1820. It was a period of terrible
Tory reaction. There have been some reactionary Tory Governments in
Scotland, but that was one of the worst. It had just abolished income
tax-I am sure that some people in the Parliament would like to do that
again-which had been used to pay for the Napoleonic wars, and it
turned to indirect taxes that impacted on the poor. There was a series
of working-class revolts throughout Britain.
I was taught about the Manchester blanketeers and the terrible
massacre that took place in St Peter's Field, just outside Manchester
when the yeomanry charged the crowd of about 100,000 workers and cut
down men, women and children who were peacefully demonstrating for
radical reform. The yeomanry nowadays would be called paramilitaries.
There was also the Cato Street conspiracy, in which Government agents provocateurs were used to flush out radicals so that they
could be executed as Gil Paterson described.
But Scottish kids have never been taught about the Scottish
insurrection that occurred during the same period or that in 1820 the
workers had demonstrated in the same way. When I became a teacher, I
eventually taught history to higher students-although at first I had
to teach modern studies, which no one had heard of at that time-and
dealt with the British labour movement in the period following 1914.
We studied the war and its impact on the British labour movement, but
there was no mention of John MacLean, who was perhaps the outstanding
figure in the British labour movement at that time and who is never
referred to.
The curriculum that has been taught in Scottish schools throughout my
lifetime has rarely focused on the marvellous contributions that the
Scottish working class made to the history of our country. I have
always thought that Tom Johnston's texts "History of the Working
Classes in Scotland" and "Our Scots Noble Families" should be
mandatory elements of the curriculum in Scottish schools. Tom Johnston
was later embarrassed about the content of those books when he became
a minister in the Government at Westminster, but they tell more of the
truth about what happened at Bannockburn than the established version
could.
Gil Paterson has served Scotland well by introducing this debate,
which is long overdue. I only wish that I had thought of it.
Linda Fabiani (Central Scotland) (SNP): As well as being a member of
the 1820 Society, I am a resident of Strathaven, where James "Perlie"
Wilson was from. I am pleased to be able to speak as a member of the
Scottish Parliament, as we have now achieved the restoration of an
element of our sovereignty due to the efforts and sacrifice of many
Scots over the years, of whom James "Perlie" Wilson was one. His
compatriots who were killed along with him and those who were deported
were others.
As Gil Paterson said, James Wilson was not a young man. He was about
63 at the time of the rising. For many years he had been an unceasing
and energetic worker for the radical cause. It is easier to be radical
when young. For James Wilson, who had suffered many disappointments
and who had reached that age, still to be fighting against adversity
for the rights of his fellow Scots was wonderful. Following the
infiltration of the organisation by Government forces, the radical
rising of 1820 was fairly short-lived and the consequences for those
who were involved were dire. Nevertheless, the success of the rising can be judged
by the fact that it continues to inspire succeeding generations and is
remembered nearly two centuries later, despite the fact that its story
has never been taught as part of the school history curriculum.
It is arguable that the Scottish Parliament is a step forward, but it
is only one step in the long process in which James "Perlie" Wilson
and his compatriots played a part. We should honour men and women who
have made such an important contribution to the life of Scotland.
We must remain alive to the struggle that continues around us. That
struggle might have changed its character over the years, but
fundamentally it is the same as the cause for which Wilson, Hardie and
Baird made the ultimate sacrifice. The rising encouraged Scots to
pursue their liberty-as individuals and as a nation.
Other members have spoken about education. Like Gil Paterson, I was
taught about the Tolpuddle martyrs. I am a bit younger than Gil
Paterson, so what we were taught did not change much. I was also
taught about the French and Russian revolutions. Why was I never
taught about a radical uprising in my own country?
Mrs Margaret Ewing (Moray) (SNP): The teachers did not know about it.
Linda Fabiani: Margaret Ewing is right-they did not know about it. We
did not know about it and we should be ashamed.
We must avoid complacency and self-satisfaction when we consider that
times have changed. It is true that things are easier than they were
in 1820, but the social conditions and the freedom that many of us
enjoy were brought about by the struggle of those earlier generations.
We must continue to safeguard our position by remembering that.
The rising of 1820 should not be a far-off event of which our young
people know nothing. We should make it more widely known and we should
teach its significance for the cause of social progress and for the
cause of Scottish self-determination. In the tradition of Hugh
McDiarmid, debates such as this and the teaching of our history to
future generations should not be based on tradition alone, but on a
willingness to acknowledge and to learn from historical precedent.
In James Wilson, we should recognise a commitment to social progress
and to the restoration of Scotland's ability to make a unique
contribution to international affairs. It is only through concrete
achievements that we will honour most effectively the sacrifice made
by James Wilson, John Baird and Andrew Hardie.
As a parliamentarian in our new Parliament, I hope that the
Parliament will live up to the sacrifices made in its name over the
years from 1820 to the present.
Mr Brian Monteith (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con): Understandably,
colleagues have treated the motion with solemnity. It might come as no
surprise that I cannot do the motion the same service, although I
regard it as a partisan issue, for all that it is a member's motion.
That might disappoint members, but it is clear that people have
different interpretations of history. Although I respect Gil
Paterson's position and his right to lodge his motion, I trust that he
respects that I might have a different view and interpretation.
Members talk about strikes and executions that took place in Scotland,
but members cannot deny that they took place throughout Britain.
Mr Paterson: Will the member give way?
Mr Monteith: No, I believe that I am the only member who will make the
following point, so I will grant myself a fair wind. Members cannot
deny that, eventually, it was the social reform of the Conservative
party rather than revolution that enshrined the rights of trade union
members.
It is by the often bitter experience of a turbulent history that Scots
have learned that the surest road to social progress lies through
reform and not through revolution. If the attempt at revolution in
1820 had progressed any further-and it hardly got anywhere at all-it
would have brought misfortunes that far outweighed any conceivable
benefits. Revolution could have brought the occupation of lowland
Scotland by the British army, which included many Scottish regiments
as components of that army, just as there were many Scots who fought
on different sides at Culloden. It would have gained Scots the
reputation of being rebellious and violent people, which was the
reputation that the Irish had at that time. It would have stopped
Scots from becoming full partners in the union as the Irish never did.
Mrs Margaret Ewing: Will the member give way?
Mr Monteith: No, I will not give way.
Following revolution, Scotland could never have become an industrial
power; it would have remained a primitive backwater. The prospects
offered to Scotland by those revolutionaries of 1820 were, in every
respect, worse than the history that Scotland has experienced. That,
of course, is the difficulty of teaching Scottish history in schools.
That is why they were defeated-
Tommy Sheridan (Glasgow) (SSP): Will the member give way?
Mr Monteith: No. I am sure that Tommy Sheridan will speak later.
The revolutionaries were not defeated by any external power, as some
might have it, but by the Scottish people. That is what sticks in the
craw of many. When the revolutionaries set out from Strathaven to
march towards Falkirk to take the Carron ironworks, they expected to
spark off a popular rising. They thought that townsmen and villagers
would join them from every town and village that they passed through.
They expected that, by the time they got to Falkirk, an enormous army
of the people would have assembled to overawe any military unit sent
against them.
What happened? Few people, if any, joined them. Places they passed
through were silent or hostile. When they got to their destination,
there were fewer of them than when they started. The so-called battle
of Bonnymuir consisted of their being rounded up by the soldiers who
met them. The executions of the revolutionaries are indeed unpalatable
but are part of the context of the time in which they lived. While
their executions were unjust-and it is worth remembering that they
died for their cause and respecting them for that-that is not to say
that their cause cannot be challenged.
It is worth asking ourselves the reasons for this utter failure, not
just at Bonnymuir but in Glasgow and other places where insurrection
was attempted or rumoured. As Tommy Sheridan will no doubt admit, it
is difficult to have a revolution without the people being behind it.
Scots wanted not upheaval, violence and civil disobedience, of which
they had seen enough in their history; they wanted peaceful
constitutional advance, which is what their status as citizens of the
United Kingdom offered them.
Many pamphlets and posters of that period spoke of British freedom and
implied that the Scots did not share enough in it. The reformers
offered the remedy of the pursuit of progress by constitutional means.
In 1832, 12 years after Bonnymuir, the first Reform Act was passed and
the political life of modern Scotland was created. Scots won freedom
by dint of their being part of Britain. They still possess and value
that freedom, and I believe that they will value it for a long time to
come. They chose Walter Scott, not the martyrs of Bonnymuir. That is
why, if we were to have a vote, I would urge members to reject this
motion.
I favour the teaching of Scottish history. I have lodged motions in
the Scottish Parliament calling for the teaching of Scottish history.
However, we would be wise to teach the lessons that the nation has
learned from that history rather than glorifying men who betrayed it.
Mr Andy Kerr (East Kilbride) (Lab): The fact that Brian Monteith did
not mention fear, persecution and the use of the military and of
agents provocateurs demonstrates the fact that he has an unbelievable
perspective on these issues. I am glad that he is not in charge of the
curriculum and that, based on his performance today, he never will be.
Other people addressed some of the issues that Brian Monteith raised,
so I will address the local impact of the Strathaven radicals. In
local schools, particularly the Strathaven primary schools, one of
which my daughter attends, a lot of good work is done on local issues,
including the Strathaven radicals. Such work recognises the struggle
of the working classes at that time and points out to local people the
effect that the Strathaven radicals had on Scottish society.
Perhaps 15 or 20 years ago, I attended my first 1820 Society march. At
the last march I attended, I had to run away from the Strathaven gala
day, dressed as a bin man, to change quickly into a shirt and tie so
that I could speak at one of the 1820 Society's events. I appreciate
the invitation to do so.
In Strathaven, at the site of James Purlie Wilson's house, people can
see a commemoration of him and they can see his grave in the
graveyard. The issue is not completely ignored locally and I encourage
those who are interested in the issue but who may not have been to
Strathaven to go there. They will find leaflets in the tourist
information office and the shops and will be able to buy publications
by local writers on the Strathaven martyrs and on Baird and Wilson.
Although a lot of good information is available, there is more that
can be done. I am interested in what the minister says about the
curriculum and the education of our young people. The issue is not
forgotten history: it exists and can be seen in Strathaven. I
encourage people to visit Strathaven, a place in which I live and have
the privilege of representing as a constituency MSP.
Stewart Stevenson (Banff and Buchan) (SNP): I congratulate Gil
Paterson on bringing to light a little bit of Scotland's hidden
history. The congratulations are personal because he has brought to
light a little of my family's hidden history. There was always a
legend that somebody in my family had been hung for sheep stealing.
The initial investigations led me to my great-great-grandfather John
Stevenson, a mining serf who was killed in a mining accident in Fallin
in 1833. No, that was not the family's hidden secret. The secret was
that John Baird's sister was one of my ancestors. So, for me, the motion has a personal resonance.
Since learning the secret, I have of course read all the books and I
am particularly struck-in the light of Brian Monteith's
contribution-by the parallels with today. As the marchers went to
Bonnymuir, Government spies were working against them in their midst.
I see Brian Monteith in that role today, but today we will not let him
achieve the objectives that the spies achieved in August and September
1820, when the three martyrs were despatched to meet their maker.
A little bit of contemporary evidence is still available. I say to
John McAllion that I do not think that the banner is still around, but
the axe that dispatched Hardie and Baird is in the museum in Stirling.
It is worth reflecting on what being hung, drawn and quartered meant.
It meant that those who were to be thus dispatched were put on the
gallows and gently lowered down until they lost consciousness, but
before they died, they were cut down and restored to consciousness.
The axe was then run from sternum to scrotum and from left to right.
The bowels were then drawn while the person was still alive from
within the abdominal cavity.
The agonies that our martyrs were put through are unimaginable to
today's generation. I thank Gil Paterson for bringing that to our
attention. I feel the emotion conveyed down the centuries from my
ancestor.
Donald Gorrie (Central Scotland) (LD): The minister-who will be
assailed, as he has been in the past, for lowering educational
standards-may take comfort in the fact that, on the banner that said
"Scotland Free-Or a Desart", they did not spell "desert" correctly.
Things were not always perfect in the past either.
It is depressing to study the issue if you are a radical in politics,
as I consider myself to be. The radicals almost always fouled up, and
in 1820 they fouled up. There was meant to be a splendid revolution in
the north of England, on which the Scots would build, but the chaps in
the north of England failed to perform. What started as a successful
strike in Scotland dwindled into a few people, rather than a large
mass, carrying on with a rebellion. However, it did have an effect and
it helped the subsequent Chartists.
On Brian Monteith's point, the subject should be taught. There are
different strands in our politics: the radicals-the various efforts by
the working classes to improve their lot and get the vote and so on-as
opposed to the more orderly reforms One can understand Brian Monteith celebrating
the first Reform Act, which the Tories fought against tooth and nail:
they fight against proportional representation in politics, which is
the only reason that he is sitting in the chamber. The Tories are
quite used to lauding things that they opposed.
The fundamental point is that most Scots know nothing about their
history. They have heard vaguely of Mel Gibson. We should learn and
teach much more about Scottish history. We have a lot to be proud of
in the contributions of working-class movements and do-gooders of
different sorts, in our contribution to Europe over many years and in
our constructive contribution to the Empire and the Commonwealth and
to other countries through emigration. Scots should know a lot more
about their own history and about how we fit in to the world. The
failed revolution that we are discussing is one example of that. It is
good that the subject has been raised; we should encourage schools to
teach it in the wider context of people really understanding Scotland.
17:35
Brian Adam (North-East Scotland) (SNP): I wish to pay tribute to the
1820 Society, which has struggled for many years to bring this subject
to the fore. Had it not been for a dedicated band of supporters, I
think that the subject would have been dead, gone, buried and
forgotten a long time ago. I am delighted to see that there are at
least some representatives of the society in the public gallery. I
have had a minor involvement, as a supporter, over a number of years,
and I pay particular tribute to Councillor Jim Mitchell, who, through
clever publicity stunts, managed to raise awareness of the issue and
persuaded some authorities to identify the sites of graves and to
commemorate the martyrs. In fact, he embarrassed the authorities into
doing so.
The approach adopted by Mr Monteith is a most unusual one. Having gone
along with the idea that the subject would never ever be talked
about-almost on the basis that the victors write the history; in this
case, they have written the subject out of history-but having failed
to suppress it totally, those sharing that approach then say, "Well,
of course, that's not really the story," and then proceed to tell
their version. Their attitude seems to be that, if they cannot
eliminate it from history, they will write their own version, which
will place the events of 1820 in the worst possible light. I find that
very disappointing.
Such events as the 1820 rising ought to be taught as part and parcel
of our history. If we have to have different views of it, that is fair
enough, but, in the view that they have portrayed of it, those who
have written its history-supported by the 1820 Society-have the right of it. Similarly, John
McAllion was correct about John MacLean also being substantially
written out of history.
There is a proud history in Scotland of those who have fought for
social and political issues, yet they have been edited out of history.
Gil Paterson's success in bringing this subject on to the floor of the
Parliament is very much to be welcomed. I commend the activities of
the 1820 Society in helping to keep that history alive and well, so
that we can bring it to the fore today.
The Deputy Minister for Education, Europe and External Affairs (Nicol
Stephen): I add my thanks to Gil Paterson for securing this important
debate. As part of my background reading-my thanks go to the 1820
Society-I read an article from which I must quote. It is by Ian Bayne,
the secretary of the society. He says:
"One of his 'comrades' on the march to Cathkin carried a flag with the
still evocative inscription: 'Scotland Free - Or a Desart' (sic)
though admittedly, this can also be construed as a
'liberal-democratic' as well as - or instead of - a 'nationalist'
slogan."
There are various views on that slogan and we have heard various views
in this debate on the whole issue of the 1820 radical protests.
Mr Paterson: I wonder whether the minister is aware that Mitchell of the Glasgow police wrote, when referring to entrapment methods, that the people who were meeting were conspiring for Scottish independence. The police in Glasgow wrote that down.
Nicol Stephen: I was not aware of that but I am learning about the
issue all the time. Whether one draws from the nationalist, the
Liberal Democrat, the socialist or the Conservative tradition, we can
all agree that the Government's reaction to the events was predictably
brutal. Eighty-eight treason trials resulted in the three executions,
which have been referred to, and 19 transportations to Australia. In
comparison, England's pioneering trade union martyrs, the Tolpuddle
martyrs of the 1830s, achieved far greater fame but got off lightly.
By then, of course, the Whigs were back in power.
As has been mentioned, the 1820 radicals were given free pardons in
1835. That hints that even at that time the establishment was clearly
embarrassed and, I hope, shamed by what was done in 1820.
Wilson, Baird and Hardie made an important contribution to the
promotion of social reform in Scotland. One of the documents that was
distributed among the 1820 radical protestors declared that "equality of rights ... is the object for which we contend
and which we consider as the only security for our liberties and our
lives".
In 1820, their liberty and their lives were held too cheap and those
men should not have died.
Gil Paterson's motion advocates that the history of the radical
protest should be included in the school curriculum. It is said that
history is written by the winners, but there were no winners, only
shame. However, the opportunity to study the topic already exists. As
Andy Kerr mentioned, the Bonnymuir rising, which involved Baird and
Hardie, is studied in some schools and is designated as a topic in the
standard grade history course "Changing Life in Scotland and Britain
1750s-1850s". That sounds like a topic for "Mastermind", but the 1820
rising is already a part of that course.
Mrs Margaret Ewing: Does Nicol Stephen accept that one of the reasons
why some-and I stress some-of those issues are now included in the
school curriculum is the work that many people in Scotland have
undertaken to ensure the availability of textbooks for our children to
study? When I taught the same period of history and social revolution,
I could find many books about the Peterloo massacre but damn few about
1820.
Nicol Stephen: I agree that the production of more materials, not only
textbooks, is important. That will happen over the coming years.
There is an opportunity to study the 1820 martyrs in history courses
and in environmental studies courses in the five to 14 curriculum. It
would be appropriate for the subject to be taught in all or any of
those areas. I must stress that it would be appropriate only if the
education authorities and the schools so wish. As members know, the
Executive's policy is directed at ensuring that education authorities
and schools have flexibility to deliver a school curriculum that will
meet the needs and wishes of all pupils.
The national priorities for education set the key outcomes that should
result from a high-quality education system. At the risk being
controversial-especially in the mind of Brian Monteith-I suggest that
the national priorities already embody the values of the radical
protestors that I quoted earlier. For example, the national priorities
set out a commitment
"to promote equality and help every pupil benefit from education"
and
"to work with parents to teach pupils respect for self and one another
and their interdependence with other members of their neighbourhood
and society and to teach them the duties and responsibilities of
citizenship in a democratic society".
The Executive wants education authorities and schools to be more innovative and to be flexible in the
methods that they use to deliver those key outcomes. That is why we
issued a circular to education authorities and schools that emphasised
the opportunities for flexibility. I firmly believe that that approach
will be the most effective in ensuring that all Scotland's
schoolchildren receive an education that will enable them to
understand their place in history and to meet their full potential as
individuals and as citizens.
The more flexible approach that the Executive is now taking will
provide schools with a greater opportunity to study a wide range of
topics in Scottish history. In my view, too many of those topics are
currently ignored. As Donald Gorrie pointed out, that breeds ignorance
of many important Scottish issues.
As I said, schools can if they wish study the radical protests of 1820
at standard grade and as part of the five to 14 curriculum. The
Scottish Executive has also funded a range of learning and teaching
support materials to assist schools in studying Scottish history. They
range from publications such as the "Scottish History Resource Guide
for Primary and Secondary Schools" to a series of CD-ROMs on the
Scottish people. One covers the period 1450 to 1850, while another
covers the period 1840 to 1940. I agree with Margaret Ewing that we
need to do more, and we intend to do more.
Members will agree that there are many opportunities for increased
study of Scottish history in our schools. In an education debate,
however, promoting or prescribing one area of study as the motion
seeks to do would raise the wrath of Russell, Mike Russell would tell
us that that was inappropriate, and I would agree with him. On that
note of consensus, I conclude.
The Deputy Presiding Officer (Mr George Reid): That concludes this
debate in memory of James Wilson, John Baird and Andrew Hardie.
Meeting closed at 17:46.
The 1820 Rising: The Radical War by J.Halliday
There has really been very little excuse in recent years for continuing ignorance about the 1820 Rising. Even before the excellent publicity work of the 1820 Society, Scottish (and other) readers, students and teachers, have had available to them since 1970 the book by Messrs. Ellis and Mac a' Ghobhainn. Before that there was Henry Meikle's study of Scotland in the late 18th and early 19th centuries; and Tom Johnston's 'History of the Working Classes in Scotland' ought to have sparked off some curiosity. The Memoirs of Peter Mackenzie, though often regarded with some suspicion, have long been known; many public libraries carry files, or at least copies, of newspapers of the period; in Glasgow and in Dundee at least there are documents generously informative on the period, and the records of the treason trials of the time have long been available.
The Ellis and Mac a' Ghobhainn book may perhaps have prompted Hector Macmillan to write his play "The Rising," performed widely and with much success some years ago; and Michael Donnelly was (and I hope is) actively researching on the topic. That ignorance and indifference should survive all this activity suggests that there is some deeper obstacle to interest and understanding.
Perhaps it is the old problem that teachers generally teach what they themselves were taught. Not every course taken by potential history teachers in Scotland will include coverage of the 1820 events; and some lecturers and teachers will judge that the topic doesn't much interest them anyway. So, it is little wonder that Scottish children in an age when the teaching of history of any sort is increasingly under furtive or even overt attack, should have no knowledge of Hardie, Baird and Wilson, or their work. For this reason the 1820 Society is surely right in planning, as its next move, to see what can be done to encourage teachers to include the story of the Rising in their syllabuses.
A very familiar topic in traditional school syllabuses is the famous "Discontent after Waterloo," which has been studied by thousands upon thousands of Scottish pupils. How many of those thousands however, have been asked to go back to first principles, and begin by asking the question "Who was discontented" "Why?" and "What did they do about it?" In seeking an understanding of the period, there are few better case studies than the 1820 Rising.
A historical event of this nature can be expected to have its origins in intellectual climate and in social and economic conditions. How far is this expectation borne out in regard to the Rising?
GLASGOW
Take first of all, the social and economic circumstances of the time and place. "Glasgow" at the time in question, was in the process of absorbing various small villages and hamlets around its perimeter; places like Bridgeton, Calton and Anderston. In all of these communities the main occupation was weaving, handloom and mill both. The weavers - or at least the handloom weavers - enjoyed traditionally a semi professional status, dictated by the nature of their work. They worked to commission, giving a skilled service which only they could provide. They could decide upon their own hours of work and could decide upon periods of leisure if they were willing to forego some proportion of their earnings in the short term. In these aspects they had something in common with smiths and wrights and shoemakers, all of whom had similar advantages over wage earners. These groups in a sense formed an aristocracy of labour because such options were open to them.
LITERACY
Given that these workers had opportunities for leisure, how then did they use it? Here it is important to appreciate the impact upon the Scottish people of the system of Church government which had by then prevailed for over a century. The Presbyterian church, at least in theory, encouraged egalitarian attitudes and defended the right of the individual to make principled judgements. It thus encouraged disputatious habits and tended to encourage preoccupation with "rights."
There was also the long-standing commitment to education which had produced a level of literacy more widely among the community than in any other European community except, possibly, in Prussia. This quality may have been exaggerated, and perfection was certainly not achieved, but a high proportion of Scots were able to read, wanted to read, and debate about what they had read - and weavers, wrights and shoemakers had very commonly the opportunity to do both.
It is no accident that even in modern times there has come down to us the tradition of men sitting around discussing politics in the blacksmith's forge, the shoemaker's workshop, or the weaver's cottage. They might discuss public events, recent publications and their own social condition. By the early 1800's they could have been discussing the triumph of the American revolution and of the principles of representative government which that revolution had carried to victory over the British crown and Parliament.
They could have been - and frequently were - discussing the works of Bums, and the messages of liberty and equality which were there to be found. In "Common Sense" they read Tom Paine's thoughts on the American issue, and in his "Rights of Man" they found insights into the French Revolution with its commitment to "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity."
REFORM
So, our weavers did not lack intellectual stimulation. What would they conclude when they contrasted what they read with the social and political realities around them? In early 19th century Scotland only 1 in 250 people had the right to vote. If the Americans and the French were right in asserting that from political power alone would come any reform in social and economic conditions, then clearly political reform and a vast extension of the right to vote must be sought. Some attempts to make progress towards reform had been undertaken in the aftermath of the American experience by sympathetic aristocrats and other influential persons who formed groups - often under the collective title of the "Friends of the People" - to secure more representative government in burghs and counties.
Another line of approach, originating in England and extending gradually to Scotland, was the use of "Corresponding Societies " among whose members political ideas were exchanged, circulated and discussed. Finally there emerged a network of "Hampden Clubs," devised by the English reform enthusiast Major Cartwright, using the name of John Hampden, the great Parliamentary hero of the English Civil War period, to indicate the political attitude of his Clubs.
SOCIETIES
The word "society" had been familiar in Scotland when the term had been applied to groups of 17th century Covenanters and to religious dissenters of later days. "The Society men" they were often called by writers of the time, and "societies" or "unions" were terms quite commonly used of such groups. So when, in the early 1790's meetings were held under the auspices of the Friends of the People, delegates were sent by local branches of the "Friends" or of some Corresponding Society. This comparatively calm and respectable work for reform was to give way to much more robust speech and action as the French Revolution took on a more violent aspect, and as the French leaders enthusiastically set about spreading their ideas abroad.
Sympathisers in Scotland circulated Paine's "Rights of Man" and other documents and publications publicising the principles and objectives of the revolution. One such sympathiser was the Glasgow lawyer, Thomas Muir, who encouraged the study of these revolutionary writings; who established contacts with reform sympathisers in Ireland - the United Irishmen - and who played a prominent role in the 1793 Convention of the Friends of the People in Edinburgh.
SEDITION
Publicity, and events in Europe, had produced a greatly heightened sense of excitement and had increased the influence of the more extreme reformers; and the 1793 Convention was seen by the increasingly worried government as being a seditious gathering. For his part in its deliberations, and for his reform activities, Muir was eventually arrested, tried and sentenced to 14 years in the penal colony in Australia. When, in the summer of 1793, Britain went to war with France, any sympathy with the French Revolution was liable to bring down charges of treason or, at least, sedition, upon the head of the sympathiser. One man who suffered prosecution accordingly was Thomas Fysshe Palmer, a Unitarian minister in Dundee who, in 1793, was given 7 years transportation for helping to prepare and distribute reform tracts.
PAMPHLETS
In the trial of Palmer frequent mention was made of a much more interesting and, to the Government, more sinister, character, George Mealmaker. To the annoyance and frustration of the authorities no satisfactory evidence could be used to prosecute Mealmaker, but by 1797 they felt able to move against him. Mealmaker, a weaver in the Seagate, Dundee, was said to be the author of various pamphlets or leaflets to which the authorities took exception. His works included, according to the prosecution, "An Address to Friends and Fellow Citizens," "The Moral and Political Catechism of Man" and "John Bull starving to pay the debts of the Royal Prodigal."
Mealmaker's offence, however, did not lie merely in his writings - on which he was given grudging compliments by his prosecutors who seemed surprised that a weaver could display such literary skills. Not only publicity, but organisation too enjoyed the services of his talents.
LIBERTY
He was, in 1792-93, a member of a society calling itself "The Friends of Liberty" which met in Dundee, and at which poor Palmer had made his dangerous contacts. With the increasing official hostility to reformist agitation the open functioning of such groups had given way to an underground organisation called the United Scotsmen, whose constitution and rules had been drafted by Mealmaker. The United Scotsmen had branches scattered throughout Fife and Angus, members paying 6 pence an evening and 3 pence dues per month thereafter. Delegates from each branch 'union' met in district assemblies where they remained unnamed, known to one another only by the name of the branch from which they had been sent.
Their objectives were votes for all male adults, vote by secret ballot, payment of MPs and annual general elections - objectives which were to remain on the reform programme, for more than a century. Mealmaker and his United Scotsmen may not have been the originators of this programme but at the very least they must be identified as remarkably astute and farsighted persons who had the capacity to set the agenda for generations to come. One other feature, however, set Government nerves jangling.
The United Scotsmen administered an oath to new entrants. Such a practice always frightened the authorities, and in their fear they were always rigorous in charging any, who administered or took oaths, with conspiracy. And, from that day to this, the law is frequently harder upon conspiracy to commit an action than it is upon the action itself.
TRIAL
For all these various activities, and once a witness had been obtained who would testify against him, Mealmaker was brought to trial in January 1798. The key witness "Walter Brown, Bleacher in Cupar, an Independent Quaker" testified to the revolutionary and murderous words and plans of the United Scotsmen who, he claimed, planned to establish a Republican government, relying upon the army and navy to join them. Few events had more terrified the government than the activities which had paralysed the navy in the summer of 1797, and evidence of this nature would clearly influence judges towards severity. The court concluded that there existed "a deep and secret conspiracy... founded upon illegal oaths of secrecy to overturn the laws and to establish in their room Anarchy and Universal Suffrage" and sentenced Mealmaker to 14 years "transportation beyond seas." With the punishment of Mealmaker, the activities of the United Scotsmen appear to have ceased, though ex-members and supporters would nurse their hopes in secret through the ensuing years.
The next upsurge in reform directed activity had a rather different character, less ideological and more material in its motivation. Between 1800 and 1808, it has been calculated, the earnings of weavers were halved; and the fall in income continued between 1808 and 1820. In 1816 weavers in Glasgow were working for just over £1 per week; and by 1820 their income was down to between 55 and 60 pence per week. Magistrates were empowered to fix wage rates.
In 1812 the weavers petitioned for an increase which, surprisingly perhaps, the magistrates granted. Despite this, the employers ignored this legal ruling, and refused to pay, whereupon the weavers called a strike. Although they were legally on thoroughly sound ground and the employers were the law-breakers, the fact they had gone on strike diverted attention from the original dispute, and enabled employers and magistrates to return to their more normal friendly relationships united in their determination to break the strike.
UNIONS
The strike lasted for nine weeks, and was supported by a "National Committee of Scottish Union Societies," echoing and, very probably, reviving the organisational structure of the United Scotsmen. The "Unions" were territorial, not occupational. The widespread participation by weavers was a consequence of the conditions and militant attitudes of weavers. It does not mean that the "unions" were weavers' unions, in the Trade Union sense.
The events of 1812 placed the authorities in a state of alarm sufficient to prompt them into creating an apparatus of spies and informers to ward off any revival of reformist activity. The sheriff of Lanarkshire had, as his main agent, a man named Biggar; and Glasgow's leading citizen, Lord Provost and MP, Kirkman Finlay, employed Alexander Richmond, formerly active in the weavers' strike, but now engaged to observe and report upon the activities of his former associates.
HAMPDEN CLUBS
Between 1812 and 1815 Major Cartwright made tours of Scotland, establishing Hampden Clubs in a variety of locations; and government agents were able to find enough evidence to bring about conspiracy trials in 1816 and 1817. By 1819 the position was that many workers were suffering hardship and were feeling a mounting sense of grievance. They had a programme of political reform, by now at least 30 years old, which they could use as an objective to be pursued; and they had an organisation, semi-clandestine though it was, through which they might be able to act. All that remained to bring about some confrontation with the government was some immediate spark or crisis.
That spark was provided by events in England, where in Manchester on 16th August 1819, a reform meeting in St Peter's Fields, Manchester, was attacked and dispersed by military force. The deaths at "Peterloo" provoked widespread demonstrations of protest in Scotland. On 11th September a memorial rally in Paisley led to a week of rioting in that town, which required the use of cavalry to control a crowd of around 5000 "Radicals" as the rioters were coming to be collectively called.
ARRESTED
In October, Gilbert McLeod's newsheet, "The Spirit of Union" began to carry forward the publicity war; a meeting in Stirling had 2000 people in attendance, and in Airdrie a demonstration was led by a band playing "Scots Wha Hae," for which action the entire band was arrested. November saw demonstrations in Renfrewshire, Ayrshire and Fife - still, especially, in weaving areas; and on 13th December a prominent reformist leader, the "Radical Laird" Kinloch, was arrested for addressing a mass meeting on Magdalen Green in Dundee. On 22nd December Kinloch escaped and fled abroad, where, it was widely assumed, he would be planning further rebellious acts.
AGENTS PROVOCATEURS
1820 began restlessly with the so-called "Cato Street Conspiracy" in which a group of English dissidents plotted to assassinate the Cabinet. The exposure of this plot understandably frightened the government, but it gave them also the excuse to suppress reform agitation while enjoying wide-spread public support in so doing. It is not unreasonable to guess that the authorities, encouraged by an excited and frightened electorate, felt that they might safely go over to the offensive against reformers who could now be caricatured as assassins in the making. Certainly, in Scotland, the government now had an apparatus of spies and agents provocateurs.
On 18th March, Mitchell of the Glasgow police was able to notify the Home Secretary in England that he was fully aware of the activities of the Radicals in Scotland, reporting that "a meeting of the organising committee of the rabble.. . is due in this vicinity in a few days hence." On the 29th March, Mitchell was able to report that "a week past, we apprehended their committee of organisation, due solely to the efforts of an informant who has served his government well." We have to turn to other sources of information to find out what had happened between the 18th and the 29th which had satisfied Mitchell.
There had come into being sometime before March, a Committee for organising a Provisional Government, consisting of 28 men, elected by delegates of local "unions." The Committee elected officers and decided that it should arrange for its supporters to receive military training. Some responsibility for the military training programme was given to a Condorrat weaver, who had served in the army, John Baird. (Ex-soldiers turn up quite frequently as reform activists both in England and in Scotland at this time). This is the Committee of whose existence and plans Mitchell was aware, thanks to "our informants," on the 18th.
On 21st March, the Committee met in Marshall's tavern in Glasgow's Gallowgate to carry forward their plans. Among those present was one John King, a weaver from Anderston. King left the meeting early, and shortly thereafter the premises were raided and the entire Committee was arrested. This was kept secret by the authorities, however, and the Committee's supporters and agents were unaware of what had happened.
ENGLISHMAN
On the 22nd, a local meeting was held in Anderston, attended by some 15 or 20 people, and among them John King (once again); John Craig, another weaver; Duncan Turner, a tin-smith, and one Robert or Thomas Lees, described, not by his occupation but simply as "an Englishman." King, ever the optimist, reported that a rising was imminent and encouraged all present to hold themselves in enthusiastic readiness for the call to arms.
On the 23rd some proportion of the group met on Glasgow Green, but from there adjourned, at the suggestion of Duncan Turner, to Rutherglen. On reconvening in Rutherglen, Turner revealed plans to establish a Provisional Government and secured from those present a resolution to "act accordingly." He then handed over a copy of a draft Proclamation to one John Anderson, who was to pass the draft on to a printer.
ARREST
Meanwhile, from Mitchell's report of the 25th we can find out something of the situation following upon the arrest of the Committee. The Committee, said Mitchell, had "confessed their audacious plot to sever the Kingdom of Scotland from that of England and restore the ancient Scottish Parliament." He went on to explain his plan to bring the whole reformer plan out into the open. "If some plan were conceived by which the disaffected could be lured out of their lairs - being made to think that the day of "liberty" had come - we could catch them abroad and undefended."
Mitchell's scheme was merely an updating of an old government tactic. His predecessors had used it back in the 1670's against the Covenanters - goad members of an underground movement into open rebellion and they can then be easily crushed. The plan, Mitchell was confident, would work beautifully because "few know of the apprehension of the leaders. . . so no suspicion would attach itself to the plan at all". "Our informants" Mitchell concluded, "have infiltrated the disaffected's committees and organisation, and in a few days you shall judge the results. "So Mitchell's plan was clear.
The reformers were to be deceived by false information circulated by his agents, that a rising had been called; many would respond to the call to arms, and would then be easily identified and destroyed.
SALTMARKET
The leaders of the Committee were in custody, and could not therefore be the authors of any such call. Who then was the author of the Proclamation which Turner had revealed, and which Craig and Lees had presented to a printer in the Saltmarket on 25th March? On the 30th Lees visited the printer and paid him a sum on account for his work thus far; while Lees with companions, King and Turner, had been going the rounds of supporters encouraging them to make pikes for use in the battles to come. During Saturday 1st April, Craig and Lees collected the printed copies of the Proclamation; and, on the morning of the 2nd, Glasgow's citizens awoke to find copies of the document displayed throughout the city.
REDRESS
The Proclamation, claiming to be the work of the "committee of organisation for forming a Provisional Government," described its authors as being driven by "the extremity of our sufferings, and the contempt heaped upon our petitions for redress" into "taking up arms for the redress of our common grievances" . . . "Equality of rights (not of property) is the object for which we contend" . . . "Liberty or Death is our motto, and we have sworn to return home in triumph - or return no more." So much for the motives and the oratory. What was suggested in the way of practical action? The Proclamation went on "we earnestly request all to desist from their labour from and after this day, the first of April... not to recommence until. . . in possession of those rights. . . of giving consent to the laws."
In other words, the call was for a general strike; and violence was threatened in retaliation for any violence which might be used against those who responded to the call.
INFORMANTS
As we have seen, the Committee for Organising a Provisional Government had been in custody since 21st March, and its members could hardly have been the authors of the Proclamation which Craig, Turner and Lees had been submitting to printers on the 28th. Had some other Committee been created to carry on the struggle? This seems hardly likely, since the arrest of the original committee was unknown to the rank and file of the reformers, and they would not, therefore, have felt any need to select an alternative committee. It is no doubt just possible that the original committee had drafted the Proclamation before the arrests took place, and that King, Craig, Turner and Lees had delayed in doing anything about it for a week, for reasons which cannot be explained.
Unfortunately, it seems much more probable that the Proclamation was a fake, concocted by the authorities for the reasons given by Mitchell - to provoke an open display of rebellion. If this is so, then those who circulated the Proclamation and sought to recruit support in its name, must have been the agents and "informants" organised by Mitchell.
Some study of the later exploits of these men might help us to arrive at an opinion. However, real or fake, the call for a general strike met with a response which must have given the authorities a very considerable fright. On Monday 3rd April work had stopped in a wide area of central Scotland from Stirlingshire into Dunbartonshire, Renfrewshire, Lanarkshire and Ayrshire - especially in the weaving communities in those districts. The strike call, as an official ruefully reported, had been "but too implicitly obeyed."
DRILLING
Not only had men gone on strike, but reports came flooding in of military-style activities on the part of the strikers. Men were reported to be drilling on Glasgow Green, in Dalmarnock, Tollcross and at Pointhouse. Foundries and forges had been raided, and iron files and dyer's poles taken to make pikes. In Kilbarchan soldiers came upon men engaged in making pikes; in Stewarton a group of around 60 strikers was dispersed, and in Balfron some 200 men had assembled as though bent upon some sort of action.
There were some enterprising persons who saw a commercial opportunity, and offered pikes for sale at around 5p each. Gunpowder was offered at 2p per pound or thereabouts; and weapons known as "wasps" (a sort of javelin), and "clegs" (a shuttlecock with a barb on its end, very damaging when thrown at horses) were also on offer.
Meanwhile reports also speak of persons stripping lead from roofs, presumably to make bullets. Among the men engaged in these activities, rumours of a military significance began flying around. An army was said to be mustering at Campsie under the command of Marshal MacDonald, a Marshal of France and son of a Jacobite refugee family. This army was going, so it was whispered, to join forces with another array at Cathkin, under Kinloch, the fugitive Radical laird from Dundee.
In Paisley the local reformers' committee met with apparent military purpose under one Parkhill, an ex-soldier who had been their drill instructor, but his group scattered when Paisley was put under curfew. In Glasgow an old acquaintance, John Craig, is found leading a party of around 30 men along Sauchiehall Street, making, he told them, for the Carron works, where weapons would be available for the taking. Before this little group reached Germiston it was intercepted and scattered by a police patrol. Craig was caught, brought before a magistrate and fined 25p. The magistrate paid his fine for him. We must surely wonder why.
We might also spare a thought for a detachment of Hussars which was waiting in ambush at Port Dundas Toll with the intention of catching men marching off from Glasgow to Carron. Perhaps they were clairvoyant; and in any case they would be none too happy to be robbed of their prey by an over-zealous police patrol. The fiasco may well have been blamed upon Craig who now seems to have vanished from the story.
SUPPORTERS
His colleagues were still busy. On Tuesday 4th April, we find Duncan Turner assembling a group of around 60 men in Germiston, the plan being, Turner told them, to march to Carron. He, Turner, could not unfortunately go with them, as he had some very important organising work to do elsewhere, but he was very anxious to stir them into action. The company divided almost exactly, between those who felt that they were far too small a group to proceed any further, and those who felt that they should carry on in the hope and belief that they would pick up supporters along the way.
This, Turner assured them, would happen, especially at Condorrat. He handed over to the leader of the 30 or so who would actually march, a torn half of a card which was to be matched against the other half which would be found in the possession of a supporter in Condorrat. Thus it was that Andrew Hardie, member of the Castle Street Union, set off at the head of his 30-strong force carrying his half-card towards Condorrat, where, holding the other half of the card, there was waiting John Baird. Baird had not actually received his half-card until he was visited around 11 pm by John King, who handed over the token to him, and instructed him to wait and match the card with the leader of the force from Glasgow which would be along very soon.
King at this stage was calling himself Andrews, but his alias seems to have fooled nobody in particular, as he seems to have been known under his real name (if indeed King was his real name) to some of the men in Condorrat. At around 5 am, Hardie and 25 men reached Condorrat, soaked through and in no very great heart. Baird, who had expected a small army, was much taken aback, but King, always a great source of encouragement, urged them to stick to their task. He would go on ahead, he said, to rally supporters at various points between Condorrat and Carron.
DOUBTS
The Condorrat men may perhaps have begun to harbour some doubts about King, because when he left they sent with him one of their number called Kean, possibly to keep an eye on King's doings. So King and Kean left, and after a short rest, Baird and Hardie set off with Hardie's 25 men from Glasgow, reinforced by the 6, including Baird, from Condorrat. Others had been on the road that night. In response to orders received during 4th April, Lt Ellis Hodgson of the 11th Hussars, quartered in Perth, set off for Stirling in readiness to protect Carron where an attack was expected on the 5th.
Once again the authorities enjoyed either remarkable powers of foresight or very accurate and regular information. By 6 o'clock on the morning of Wednesday 5th April, Baird, Hardie and their followers were at Castlecary, where the soaked and hungry men found some food at the inn. Setting off again they met a traveller making for Glasgow. Trusting him to keep quiet about what he had seen, they let him go. It was their bad luck that he shortly afterwards met a soldier, Nicol Baird, returning from leave. The traveller told Baird what had happened, and the two men now turned to carry their news to the authorities, Baird to the army at Kilsyth and the traveller to Stirling Castle.
BONNYBRIDGE
Meanwhile Hardie's force encountered another off duty soldier, Hussar Sergeant Cook. Again they let him go, and he too set off speedily to Kilsyth. By 9 am Hardie, Baird and their men were at Bonnybridge, where they were no doubt heartened by the arrival among them of King. Kean was not with him and be does not reappear in the story. We are left wondering just what might have happened to him. As always, King had instructions from some unspecified superior body. This time his story was that he had now to go quickly, still in his gallant quest for supporters, to Camelon; while Baird and Hardie were to leave the road and await developments on Bonnymuir.
They didn't have long to wait. Lt Hodgson, brought up to date by Nicol Baird and Sergeant Cook, left Kilsyth with 16 Hussars and 16 Yeomanry troopers. At Bonnybridge he left the road and made with remarkable accuracy on to the slopes of Bonnymuir.
PRISONERS
"On observing this force the radicals cheered and advanced to a wall over which they commenced firing at the military. Some shots were then fired by the soldiers in return, and after some time the cavalry got through an opening in the wall and attacked the party who resisted till overpowered by the troops who succeeded in taking nineteen of them prisoners, who are lodged in Stirling Castle.. . . Lt Hodgson received a pike wound through the right hand and a sergeant of the 10th Hussars was severely wounded by a shot in the side and by a pike. ...Four of the radicals were wounded... Five muskets, two pistols, eighteen pikes and about 100 rounds of ball cartridges were taken." So much for the newspaper reports which appeared on 6th and 7th April.
As the authorities and their supporters had had something of a fright it was to be expected that they would now dismiss the whole episode as an action of deluded men, and to sneer at the defeated leaders. Baird in particular, who had taken command during the actual fighting, was characterised as "the greatest boaster," deferred to because he had been in the army.
CONSPIRACY
In the press there are echoes of Mitchell's wish to see an open insurrection attempted so that the disaffected might be identified and destroyed. The Glasgow Herald in particular couldn't quite make up its mind whether to snigger happily over the pitifully small number of men actually fighting, or to continue to worry over the possibility that the 19 men taken at Bonnymuir were only the tip of the iceberg of conspiracy and rebellion.
The Herald on the whole, was still inclined to urge the need for vigilance, as "the conspiracy appears to be more extensive than almost anyone imagined" and opined that "radical principles are too widely spread and too deeply rooted to vanish without some explosion and the sooner it takes place the better." Meanwhile the employers in the cotton trade had resolved to employ no-one who could not prove himself "a peaceable man." The defeat of the rising was clearly going to be merely the beginning of a campaign by the victorious government to restore discipline and obedience among the working population at large.
YEOMANRY
However, there was more to the rising than the battle at Bonnymuir. Throughout that day, 5th April, Glasgow itself had been a scene of considerable excitement, contributed to very handsomely by the authorities who had brought into the city quite an army. In the Gallowgate were the 1st Rifle Brigade and the Ayrshire Yeomanry. In Eglinton Street were the 7th and 10th Hussars (less, no doubt, the 16 troopers with Lt Hodgson). Yeomanry detachments were in position in St Enoch Square and St Vincent Street, and artillery was deployed at the Clyde bridges. Four further regiments had been summoned, and were on their way. Some attempts to organise resistance were reported.
In Bridgeton a drum was used as a signal to call together around 200 men, many "armed with pikes, blunderbusses or pistols." "In Tradeston the radicals were summoned with a large bugle. They amounted to 60, armed with pikes." Radical banners were reported flying in Dalmarnock Road, and Pollokshaws was said to be "the headquarters of the radicals." Faced with these signs of unrest the army stood on the alert well into the night but no radical attack materialised. Outside the city arrests were made of persons found, or reported, to be drilling, or making pikes, in Duntocher, Paisley and Camelon. Most spectacular of all, however, were the events in Strathaven.
WILSON
During the afternoon of 5th April after the Bonnymuir fighting, but before news of it had spread, our old acquaintance, "the Englishman" Lees, colleague of King, Craig and Turner, approached James Shields, a weaver, and asked him to carry a message to the radicals of Strathaven. Shields was wholly innocent and, acting in all good faith, delivered the message in Strathaven some time after 5 o'clock. Prominent among the Strathaven radicals was the veteran James Wilson, now aged 63, active in his younger days in the Friends of the People and possibly too in the United Scotsmen. His experience and service in the reform cause was lifelong. He was determined and loyal, but no fool. Lees' message, conveyed by Shields, was convincing enough to persuade the Strathaven men that great things were afoot in Glasgow and to the north, and they seem to have had little hesitation in deciding to Join in the rising.
At 7 o'clock in the morning of 6th April a small force of 25 men left Strathaven making, as instructed, for Cathkin. Wilson marched with them carrying. so tradition has it, his banner with its slogan "Scotland Free or a Desert." At East Kilbride the party was warned in the nick of time that soldiers lay ahead of them in ambush. Wilson, like the cunning old fox he was, sniffed treachery in the air, and returned to Strathaven.
His colleagues, taking the warning given, skirted around the army's ambush and reached Cathkin. Finding nothing happening there - (no Kinloch and no army) - they dispersed. Ten of them, however, were identified and caught and by nightfall on the 7th were in jail in Hamilton.
PUNISHMENTS
Now the punishments could begin. On Saturday 8th April prisoners from Paisley were taken under escort to jail in Greenock. Their escort - the Port Glasgow Militia - came under attack from the citizens of Greenock, who fought the militia in the streets and from the windows and doorways of their houses. The escort managed to struggle through, and the prisoners were lodged in the jail by 5 o'clock. Then the soldiers having fought their way into Greenock had to fight their way out of it.
Coming under attack from stone throwing citizens, they opened fire killing 8 people, including the 8 year old James McGilp, and wounding 10 others. By such means the militiamen made their escape, but in the evening the angry Greenockians stormed the jail and set the prisoners free. This ended the fighting, but not the killing. In Glasgow on 20th July, James Wilson, hosier, was put on trial on 4 counts of treason.
His record was examined, and he was revealed as a reader of the Manchester Observer, the Black Book and the Spirit of the Union. He was identified as having been seen sword in hand on the march from Strathaven. He was further identified as a maker of pikes - "more effective than those taken at Bonnymuir," said the prosecution and a very damning case was built up against him.
His defence argued that he had acted under compulsion, and his age was presented as meriting some measure of clemency. He was found Not Guilty on 3 counts, but Guilty of "compassing to levy war against the King in order to compel him to change his measures." The jury recommended mercy, but the death sentence was passed none the less.
JURIES
It is worth noting that juries in 1820 were not behaving as had the juries in the 1790's. Five of Wilson's colleagues were found Not Guilty and another was discharged. On 1st August, in spite of efforts by the prosecution and the Bench, a jury refused to convict James Spiers of Johnstone, and John Lang of Kilbarchan, both weavers; and got the rough edge of the judge's tongue for their obstinacy.
On 4th August in Stirling, two men from Camelon Andrew Dawson and John McMillan, changed their pleas to Guilty whereupon a further six radicals were discharged. Dawson and McMillan were to face the same sentence as the Bonnymuir prisoners who also faced trial and conviction on 4th August in Stirling. John Baird, John Barr, William Smith and Thomas MacFarlane, all of Condorrat and all weavers. Andrew Hardie, Thomas McCulloch, Alexander Latimer, Alexander Johnstone, David Thomson, Thomas Pike and Robert Gray, all weavers from Glasgow.
From Glasgow there were the blacksmiths James Cleland and Allan Murchie (who survived to write verses about his experiences and his thoughts); the shoemaker William Clarkson, Andrew White, bookbinder; Alexander Hart, cabinet maker; Benjamin Moir, labourer and James Wright, tailor.
EXAMPLE
All of these men had been captured on the actual battlefield and their prospects had to be grim. The judge, Lord President Hope, expressed his wish that mercy might be shown to most of the accused, but for Hardie and Baird he had no good news. "To you Andrew Hardie and John Baird I can hold out little or no hope of mercy." The Crown would feel the need to make an example of somebody "and, as you were the leaders, I am afraid that example must be given by you." And so it worked out.
Twenty men including the 15 year old Alexander Johnstone - were in due course sent to the penal colonies in New South Wales or Tasmania, where they survived and some even prospered. On 30th August, in Glasgow, James Wilson was hanged and beheaded, not before remarking "Did you ever see such a crowd, Thomas?" to the executioner who sat with him in the cart en route to the scaffold. As last words go, Wilson's are not without gallantry.
On 8th September Hardie and Baird died together in Stirling, and the "Radical War" was finally over. The Rising and its associated demonstrations was very much a West of Scotland phenomenon. If its leaders had managed to prolong it no doubt its effects would have been more widely extended, but we cannot now know how much support and how many organised groups might have emerged to add strength to the Radical Cause.
As it actually happened it was an event localised especially in the textile working areas in the shires of Stirling, Dumbarton, Lanark, Renfrew and Ayr. Within Glasgow the reported activity was in the industrialised villages from Pointhouse and Anderston in the west of the city through Port Dundas to Germiston and Townhead and on eastwards to the textile working strongholds of Camlachie, Calton, Bridgeton, and Tollcross, then south to Poliokshaws and along the Clyde to Tradeston and Dalmamock.
West and north of Glasgow the movement was most obviously active in Dumbarton and Duntocher and moving into the Blane Valley and Campsie areas through Milngavie and Balfron, Kirkintilloch and Kilsyth. Eastwards, on the road taken by Hardie and Baird, lay Condorrat and then Camelon and Falkirk, St Ninians and Stirling. The significance of the weavers' support is even more obvious when we look to Paisley, a major centre of Radical activity, and a town whose economic and social sufferings were only just beginning.
In twenty years time Paisley and its people would endure misery and destitution beyond that ever suffered by any Scottish town. In 1820 the instincts of its working people were very sound. Around Paisley reported Radical activity and support for the General Strike was most apparent in Elderslie, Johnstone, Kilbarchan and Neilston, then over the moors to Eaglesliam and the north Ayrshire craft villages of Beith, DaIry and Stewarton. The Irvine Valley, strong weaver territory, produced solid indications of Radical power in Newmilns arid Galston, from where there were communication links north-east to Strathaven arid south-west to Tarbolton and Mauchline. Kilmarnock and Ayr both saw Radical activity and even south of Ayr there was a spirit of rebellion in Minigaff, Ballantrae and Portpatrick.
In the east of Scotland there was less apparent activity and such as there was took a more centralised form rather than revealing itself in the villages. Thus all Fife strength seems to have been exercised in Kirkcaldy and, similarly, Angus strength in Dundee. The east had its fingers burned a generation earlier with punitive conspiracy trials in Dundee, arid the display of military force in Tranent.
It would be understandable if politically reform - minded people there waited to see what the prospects were before coming forward with open support. What can be our response as we reflect upon the story of that remarkable summer of 1820? I would guess that most of our fellow-countrymen have never heard of it. Some of those who have heard it will have heard it as part of their school lessons and will have mislaid the memory along with most of what they were told in school.
Some of those who remember will follow the strange Scottish instinct to denigrate arid diminish whatever is native to Scotland. The Scot cannot bear to be thought naive or gullible and so he must sneer and mock in case he should stand accused of letting his emotions run away with him. So it has been with the Rising and even academics have overlooked the significance because they have been preoccupied with the arithmetic. They have considered only the Bonnymuir part of the story.
An army of 20 men they have argued, was no army at all, and a rising supported by such numbers is pitiful and absurd. But they have overlooked the strike, and the extent of the area affected by the strike. They have overlooked the 88 treason charges which were brought against men in many different towns. They have counted the deportees but have forgotten the refugees who, in what they saw as permanent defeat, left for America and Canada and despaired of democracy in their own homeland.
They have carelessly ignored the fact that the men of 1820 were merely the cast in one act of a longer drama; and the Rising was a sequel to the reform movements of earlier generations just as it in turn was to lead on to the Chartist movement in the 1830s and 1840s. They have failed to grant any significance to the fact that once again the Scottish people had proved capable of producing leaders from among their own ranks when the need arose.
Finally there is surely significance in the fact that no bad men were deported - the men who were sent to Australia proved in their later lives that rebellion and criminality are two very different things. The men who died were good men, with courage, dignity and character far superior to those who set out to deceive and betray them.
And for all of us who work to a political purpose, there is the lesson that these men of 1820 worked for a political objective and saw in political change the potential - the necessary and exclusive potential - for social and economic justice. That is how democrats go about their task.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
'THE SCOTTISH INSURRECTION OF 1820' (Gollancz 1970, Pluto Free 1989) P. B. Ellis & S. Mac a'Ghobhain
'THE SCOTTISH RADICALS. TRIED AND TRANSPORTED FOR TREASON IN 1820' (Australia 1975, SPA Books 1975) M. & A. MacFarlane
'SCOTLAND: A CONCISE HISTORY BC - 1990' (Gordon Wright Publishing 1990 ) James Halliday
'MUIR OF HUNTERSHILL' (OUP 1981) Christina Bewley
A HISTORY OF THE SCOTTISH PEOPLE 1560 - 1830 (Collins 1969) T.C. Smout
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