Please see my new edit of this article finished in 2023 and linked here. It has more pictures and a little more information added. Most importantly, a more logical arrangement of chapters.
The Manchester and Salford Bees appear to have been chosen as symbols for those Councils out of respect for the reforming Prime Minister Robert Peel. Peel had helped carry through the changes in local democracy that allowed the Manchester and Salford councils to be set up. He also changed the tax system to remove a huge burden on the poor against the wishes of his Party, almost destroyed the Tory Party and sacrificed his political career. By that act he changed Britain into a fairer and more inclusive country, relative to the horror show it had been before. The Manchester and Salford councils had both been ardent supporters of that law reform and celebrated Peel's success.
The Bee
The first Robert Peel (of the three in this story) made a lot of money from printing his designs on calico cotton cloth.
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| The Peel Shield and Motto ©-free. |
His son, the second Robert Peel, made even more money from cotton and opened a large warehouse shop in central Manchester. He bought a coat of arms in 1792 with a large flying bee on the shield. The motto on the Peel coat of arms with its single bee was, simply, "Industria".
The third Robert Peel, hereafter called Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Bart. or just Peel, was given a rotten borough as a 21st birthday gift by his father so he could also become a Member of Parliament. After his father became too frail to control him Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Bart decided to follow his heart and become a reformer. This was tricky as his father had set him up in the Tory party, who were mostly vehemently opposed to reform.
Despite it being an open secret that he was a reformer Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Bart rose in the party until he was proposed as Prime Minister by the Duke of Wellington. The Iron Duke was so hard-hearted and against reform that he had opposed the abolition of slavery.
Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Bart helped various reforms through Parliament in his first very short stint in office as Prime Minister from December 1834 to April 1835, including Parliamentary and Municipal reform.
The Municipal Corporation Act came into force in September 1835, allowing the cotton merchants and other industrialists of the newly rich and populous Manchester to Incorporate and form the Borough of Manchester under their own Council.
The Manchester reformers had been campaigning locally and nationally for more local democracy since before the Peterloo Massacre. That atrocious, unprovoked slaughter by cavalry of peaceful demonstrators for political reform at St Peter's Field in Manchester in 1819 was followed by a witch hunt of those who had been involved. The demonstrators had gathered at a location that is now on Peter Street between Deansgate and the Central Library.
The majority of the Manchester middle class, including many "Cotton princes", were reformers, nonconformists, philanthropists and generally eager to make the country a better place to live in for everybody. Many had been poor themselves or their parents had been or they had lived among the poor. They understood the hardships of a life never knowing if you could afford your next meal.
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| The Coat of Arms of Manchester Borough Council From The book of public arms : a complete encyclopædia of all royal, territorial, municipal, corporate, official, and impersonal arms by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies, 1915 Coloured by me. |
Both Manchester and Salford Borough Councils were led and dominated by members of the Anti-Corn Law Association. They wanted to remove the tax on essential staple foods that made life for the poor precarious and miserable. The Corn Law increased by 50% the price of flour, bread, butter, meat, milk, cheese and beer (beer was a useful source of B vitamins). All the reformers were hoping that the newly-crowned Queen Victoria would be the head of a new, kinder Britain.
Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Bart became Prime Minister for the second time in 1841. His second term lasted almost five years rather than almost four months. He pushed through many more reforms and jockeyed for position to repeal the Corn Law.
Manchester Borough Council started the process of deciding on a coat of arms in 1840 and were granted the arms on the 1st of March 1842. We know that the bees of the Council arms were considered to represent "industry" (note the similarity to the Peel family motto) as this was mentioned by the committee that had chosen them when the Arms were first presented to the Council.
The big division over the repeal of the Corn Law was between "industry", the newly rich towns that were expanding rapidly from the profits of manufacturing, and the mostly aristocratic landowners, staying rich from protectionism. "Protection" was the term used for the taxes used to keep British (and Imperial) wheat and other agricultural products artificially competitive though unnecessarily expensive.
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The Coat of Arms of Salford Borough
Council From The book of public arms :
a complete encyclopædia of all royal,
territorial, municipal, corporate,
official, and impersonal arms by
Coloured by me.
|
In Salford Borough Council's coat of arms we actually have Peel's motto Industria englished in the motto - "Integrity and Industry".
The scattering of flying bees is against a pure blue background in both the shields of Peel and Salford. The wheatsheaves clearly represent Salford Council's involvement in the Anti-Corn-Law Association. They used the excuse of the arms of Ranulf of Blundeville, Earl of Chester, who used to own Salford and made it a free borough in 1229/1230.
Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Bart did not finally get rid of the Corn Law until 1846, in the process destroying his political career and splitting the Tory party. Those not in the Tory party gave him great respect for putting country before party. The majority of Tories, of course, had wanted to hang on to all their aristocratic and financial privileges even if it meant provoking a Revolution as had happened in France.
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| The arms from Robert Peel's statue in Bury. At some point he added the Red Hand of Ulster to personalise his father's arms. Statue unveiled on the 8th of September 1852. |
Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Bart died in a fall from his horse in 1850. Before a week had passed the Manchester and Salford Councils both had appeals in the Manchester Guardian newspaper for contributions toward monuments to honour his memory. The Manchester Peel Statue was commissioned purely from the crowd-funding appeal. It was the first public statue erected by the Manchester Borough Council and was unveiled in 1853.
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Quotation from Peel's speech on quitting Parliament.
Reproduced on the Peel Statue in Bury and wreathed with stalks of wheat.
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Was the beehive of the co-operative movement an influence on the choice of bees as well? Certainly the co-operative movement had close connections to Manchester and their ideals would have been known to all the reformers on the Council. Robert Owen, ardent pacifist and "the father of the co-operative movement" had started his business career in Manchester. Owen's New Lanark factory experiment in cotton production introduced the concept of treating your employees like human beings. The experiment was wildly successful and made him a lot of money. The New Lanark Mill would have been well-known and fascinating to the reformers on Manchester Borough Council. John Bowring was an agent for one of the investors in New Lanark and knew Owen very well. Bowring gave the lecture that is credited with inspiring the Manchester Anti-Corn Law Association.
Owen chaired the first Co-operative Congress which was held in Manchester in 1831. In 1835 Robert Owen was on the first board of the Athenæum, a club to provide entertainment and education for young Manchester men and lectures on edifying subjects for the general public. The board of the Athenæum included, among others, Thomas Potter and William Neild, the future first mayors of Manchester and leaders of the Committee for General Purposes of the Manchester Borough Council that designed the coat of arms.
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| Labour Note from Robert Owen's Equitable Labour Exchange in 1832 showing a beehive. Note the words "Integrity" and "Industry" 12 years before the Salford Council motto From Robert Owen: A Biography by Frank Podmore Vol II, 1907 on the Internet Archive |
We do not have any direct evidence of the reasons the Councils chose the bee as their symbol. The only statement from the time appears to be that the bee represents "industry". The similarities between the arms of Robert Peel and Manchester Council and, very clearly, Salford Council seem like pretty conclusive evidence to me. It is only circumstantial evidence but when combined with the obvious high level of respect that both councils had for the achievements of Robert Peel, I find it quite convincing.
If I am right, the Manchester and Salford Bee does not just stand for Industry but also represents Fairness in society, employment and taxation, Compassion for the poor or disadvantaged and Democracy hard won by decades of peaceful campaigning and delicate negotiation after a despotic government-sanctioned massacre of innocents. With a healthy dose of Co-operation and Peace being the essential foundations of the human economy and community.
The Motto
The motto of the Manchester Council is Concilio et labore, "by Council and labour". The motto is often explained as coming from Ecclesiasticus 37:16:
"Let reason go before every enterprize, and counsel before every action." (King James version)
There are problems with this alleged origin for the motto. Clearly the phrase is not contained in the biblical quote. In the Manchester Guardian report of the presentation of the Arms to the Manchester Council in 1842 no mention is made of the origin of the motto. The entire explanation from the Committee which chose the motto was:
The motto, "Concilio et labore," which may be translated "By counsel and labour," appears to be appropriate to the circumstances of our corporation.
I don't remember seeing any reference to this Biblical origin for the motto in older books and none of my searches has turned one up. The oldest reference I have found is from a booklet called "Manchester Renaissance" published in 1967 by the City of Manchester Publicity Office. On the last page before the inside cover we find just the following paragraph on its own in the centre of the page:
The story of municipal administration in Manchester is told in a series of booklets under the title "CONCILIO ET LABORE." This title has been chosen not only because it is the motto of the city's coat of arms, but because it illustrates the spirit of all municipal life. A strict translation is "By Council and Labour," but a more expressive Biblical parallel is found in Ecclesiasticus, Chap. 37. v, 16:— "let reason be the beginning of every work, and let counsel go before every action."
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The frontispiece of the 1623 edition of
The Feminine Monarchie, etc, by Charles Butler
From the Biodiversity Heritage Library
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The Latin version of the biblical verse uses the word consilium for "counsel". The Manchester motto has Concilio with a c rather than s, which is quite a different word, meaning "council", "to unite or bring things together", "to procure", "to make friendly or agreeable" or "to pacify" giving us our English word "conciliate". My Latin and Greek come entirely from the excellent online dictionaries at Perseus.
The second edition of The Feminine Monarchie, Or the Historie of Bees: &c. by Charles Butler was published in 1623 in London. The book was the second practical guide to bee-keeping in English. It became very popular and was reprinted regularly for centuries. The frontispiece had the motto "Solertia et labore" repeated on both sides of a honeycomb. This is closest to the motto chosen by the Manchester Borough Council than anything else I could find in Latin on the internet. In Latin solertia can mean skill, shrewdness, quickness of mind, wit, ingenuity, dexterity, adroitness, expertness or knowledge.
The full quote is roughly translated to:
Wonderful Art created wonderful homes,Butler translates labore as "industry" in one edition.
Royal treasures are hidden here?
By skill and labour all things are made.
Charles Butler was the first beekeeper to determine by careful observation of his own hives that the Queen was female, not a King. Butler wrote: "the males heere bear no sway at all, this being an Amazonian or feminine kingdome." He dedicated the third edition of his book to Queen Henrietta Maria.
Could the choice of the motto be a nod of respect by the Council to Queen Victoria and the hopes the reformers had for her new reign becoming a kinder, sweeter Feminine Monarchy?
Did the members of Manchester Borough Council decide to take that bee-related motto and as a private joke turn it into "By the Council and Industry all things are made"?
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UPDATED 17/06/2018: I thought that I had finished this article last Sunday (ignore the date at the top of the article, that was when I started composing it online). Then I thought of something else to look up. It appears that there are two copies of Charles Butler's book on bees in the Rare Books and Special Collections at Manchester Central Library. I have emailed to book a viewing of the books this week. I also emailed the archivist to ask if they can discover where the books came from, if they were purchased by or donated to the library. The Central Library was, of course, set up by Mayor John Potter, son of Mayor Thomas Pottter who was on the committee to invent the motto.
FURTHER UPDATED 22/06/2018: I saw both copies of Charles Butler's book yesterday evening. The 1624 edition is definitely not from the Potter family as it was a gift to the Manchester Library in 1965. The 1635 edition had no indication of where it had come from, except that it had been in the Henry Watson Music Library collection. It was there because it contains one of the earliest examples of printed music in Britain. The Bee's Madrigall had two parts printed the usual way up and two parts printed upside down so that four singers could read their parts together. Quite intimately, as the book is only the size of a small paperback.
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This article is dedicated to those who lost their lives or were wounded by the bombing at the Manchester Arena on the 22nd of May 2017 and all those killed or scarred by all the wars and atrocities throughout human history.
We all just get one short life and to decide to destroy that life is an unspeakable treachery against humanity.
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| My version of the "terrestrial globe, semée of bees volant". Midsummer Manchester unusually hidden by clouds. Thanks NASA |
Chapter Links
Setting the Scene
An aside about the Manchester Grammar School
Some early Manchester Business Bees
More aside, about the Co-ops
Back to the Main Story
The Manchester Coat of Arms
An aside about the Manchester Motto
The Salford Coat of Arms
The Bury Coat of Arms
The Roberts Peel
The Robert Peel
A Great Banquet in the Free-Trade Hall
The Peel Statues
Conclusion
Setting the Scene
The end of the 18th Century saw the combination of the Industrial Revolution and the startling success of the American Revolution which was mirrored in Europe by the rapid French Revolution with its subsequent terrors. These changes had brought about an upturning of the old order and a great expectation among the people of Britain of a government that would be more fair, just and compassionate (or headless). Education was becoming more widespread in the population, especially in the middle classes whose numbers were growing and becoming wealthier. Newspapers and pamphlets had become a mass media that enabled new ideas to spread to the whole population rapidly.
The British government should have realised that the American and French Revolutions had come about because of an excess of authoritarian repression and extreme inequality. They could have started some gentle reforms. Instead they were terrified of every call for change no matter how politely framed. Their heavy-handed reactions in repressing demonstrations of popular unrest obviously made the reformers even more eager for change.
In Manchester between 60,000 and 80,000 people attended a meeting at St. Peter's Field in 1819. They were demonstrating for parliamentary reform and repeal of the Corn Law. The Corn Law and other monopoly taxes levied a tax on all the staples of life for the poor - flour, bread, butter, meat, milk, cheese and beer. 3 loaves of bread costing 1s 4d (16d) when the tax was added would become 2s (24d), 50% more to pay. This tax hit the very poorest much harder than those who earned more.
Some of those present at Peterloo carried the Liberty Cap or Phrygian Cap, an ancient style of hat worn by the Roman goddess Libertas. The Liberty Cap was used as a symbol of the French and American Revolutions.
Local magistrates called for the military to disperse the crowd and arrest the ringleaders. The cavalry charge that followed led to perhaps 15 deaths and over 400 injured. Many of those present were arrested and charged with treason. The Peterloo Massacre became the national example of the cruelty and repressive attitude of the government.
John Edward Taylor, a rich cotton merchant and Quaker, had been present at the St Peter's Field meeting. Most of the journalists who were present were arrested so Taylor wrote an eye-witness account. Another account was written by Archibald Prentice. Both pieces left Manchester on the night coach and both articles were published in London within 48 hours. By their prompt action they had avoided the official version of events from dominating the public perception of what had happened. Taylor went on to publish a pamphlet in early 1820 in response to the accusations that the government made against the demonstrators at St Peter's Field.
The radical Manchester Observer newspaper was closed down by police action in the crackdown on reformers in the following weeks. Taylor founded and became the first editor of the Manchester Guardian (now called The Guardian or Grauniad) when it started in 1821. Taylor's aim was to provide a more moderate but still effectively reformist newspaper. He was helped by the Little Circle of nonconformist reformers to the tune of £1050. They included his mentor in the cotton business John Shuttleworth (future alderman of Manchester and yet another cotton manufacturer and Unitarian), future mayor of Manchester Thomas Potter and vegetarian Salford MP Joseph Brotherton.
Taylor's Manchester Guardian became more conservative quite quickly with its rapid success. The front page full of classified ads drew a lot of readers. Taylor's old friend Archibald Prentice was particularly miffed. With the help of Thomas Potter and John Shuttleworth, Prentice bought the Manchester Gazette in 1824 and took to the left field. Unfortunately the Manchester Gazette was unable to compete with the hugely popular Guardian and closed in 1828, leaving Prentice bankrupt. John Edward Taylor was the editor of the Manchester Guardian for 23 years.
The nickname Cottonopolis was given to Manchester sometime before 1851 when EL Blanchard noted in his diary that it was pouring with rain while he was there in August. It became a common name for Manchester in the 1850s. An idea of the importance of cotton can be seen in the numbers of cotton-related businesses listed as being in Manchester and Salford in Pigot's Directory of 1821-2.
Manufacturers of, and Dealers in Cotton Goods 271, Calico Printers and Print Warehouses 145 (some duplicates with the preceding category), Cotton Spinners 118, Cotton, Twist and Weft Dealers 67, Cotton Dealers 66, Dyers 54, Drysalters (suppliers of dyes and other chemicals used in textile-making) 31, Manufacturers of Check 17, Bleachers 13, Engravers to Calico Printers 13, Cotton Waste Dealers 7, Loom and Warping Mill Makers 4 (all with the surname Coop, three of them called Thomas), Shuttle Makers 4, Calico Glazers 3 and Cloth Dressers 3. That is not including Fustian, Flannel, Baize, Heald Yarn, "Silk and Cotton", Woollen, Worsted, Pattern Card-Makers and Thread Manufacturers. There were also 49 Linen Drapers, 13 Irish Linen Merchants, 4 Linen Yarn Dealers and a Linen Manufacturer.
The Romantic poets were generally liberal, progressive reformers and had political ideas a few generations ahead of their peers. They were also massively popular, the pop stars of their age.
Percy Bysshe Shelley was so inflamed by the Peterloo Massacre and the ensuing crackdown led by Viscount Castlereagh that he wrote a howl of anger in the guise of a poem called The masque of anarchy. These two verses are representative of the 91 verse poem:
I met Murder on the way-
He had a mask like Castlereagh-
Very smooth he look'd, yet grim;
Seven bloodhounds followed him :
All were fat; and well they might
Be in admirable plight,
For one by one, and two by two,
He tossed them human hearts to chew
Which from his wide cloak he drew.
Rise like lions after slumberPercy's wife Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (as I am sure you know, the creator of Frankenstein and thus the modern science fiction novel) sent the original handwritten manuscript for The masque of anarchy to her friend John Bowring on the 25th of February 1826, 3½ years after Percy's death.
In unvanquishable NUMBER!
Shake your chains to earth, like dew
Which in sleep had fall'n on you:
YE ARE MANY - THEY ARE FEW.
In 1826 Bowring was in herring and wine import/export and was an ardent Free Trader. Bowring had scandalised some religious folk with his remark that "Jesus Christ is free trade and free trade is Jesus Christ". John Bowring was a Unitarian and polymath - being a political economist and accountant, writer, composer, linguist, businessman and diplomat. As well as Free Trade, he campaigned for decimalisation of the currency, the emancipation of women and Catholics, abolition of slavery and education for all classes and both genders. Of course, if you are friends with Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley you would have to be quite dim not to realise the benefits of women's education.
On the 19th of September 1838 Bowring made some apparently persuasive and striking statements about free trade and the injurious effects of the Corn Law at a dinner with 60 invited guests. Richard Cobden and John Bright were inspired so much by these remarks that they founded the Manchester and Salford Anti-Corn-Law Association before the end of that year. In 1841 Bowring was elected MP for Bolton where he continued his fight against the Corn Law and in favour of many reforms.
Bowring made a lot of money from iron and railways, investing at just the right time. Despite being openly radical Bowring later went on to a career as a civil servant specialising in government accounting. He then became a diplomat, ending up as Governor General of Hong Kong. He initiated many improvements in infrastructure and government. He did his best to reform the colony and treat the locals as human beings and equals despite the attitudes of his colleagues. He also founded the Hong Kong Botanical Garden. For this story, though, the most important thing is his opposition to the Corn Law.
An aside about the Manchester Grammar School
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| The bundled straw beehive or skep from Lawson's monument in Manchester Cathedral |
Charles Lawson was a master and High Master at Manchester Grammar School for 58 years. He died on the 19th of April 1807 at 79 years of age. A marble monument sculpted by John Bacon Jr. was unveiled in Manchester Cathedral (a.k.a. the Collegiate Church of St Mary, St Denys and St George) in 1810.
The beehive represented the hard work needed to attain wisdom, represented by an owl on the other side.
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| Charles Lawson's monument |
Lawson was once called the "Millgate Flogging Turk". However, Thomas de Quincey asserted that during his stay at the school from 1800 until he ran away in 1802 there was "the entire absence of all forms of corporal punishment". Thomas was impressed by the "self-restraint and self-respect", great ability at debate and comprehensive knowledge of literature of the boys. However, he had "no very high opinion" of Lawson.
The school was becoming much less popular. Between 1770 and 1779, 548 boys were admitted and 67 went to Oxford or Cambridge Universities. Between 1800 and 1809 only 288 were sent to Manchester Grammar by parents and only 29 went to Oxford or Cambridge. The population of Manchester had more than doubled in this time and the town was more prosperous than ever.
Thomas Potter, first mayor of Manchester, his brother Richard, MP for Wigan, the Rev. John Relly Beard and Mark Philips, first MP for Manchester (Unitarian and campaigner for the Reform Bill and against the Corn Law) were all very concerned in the affairs of Manchester Grammar School. They campaigned for the curriculum to be broadened to include modern languages and science in order to prepare their children better for a new world where technical challenges would come to affect success in trade and manufacture much more than before. At that time the only subjects taught at the Grammar School were spelling, simple mathematics, Greek and Roman classical literature and Bible studies. Their case against the Grammar School was fought for 15 years and, though ultimately defeated, did force the school to modernise.
After 1837, William Neild was one of the leaders of the Manchester branch of the Society for Promoting National Education which lobbied for education to become more widespread in the population, broader in subject and non-sectarian. The Manchester Grammar School was tied to the doctrine and services of the Church of England. Though the Mancunians still wanted religious education, the Church of England and the national Society for Promoting National Education vehemently opposed the Manchester branch's desire to break education away from the Church of England. The national Society insisted that the clergy should be represented in school management and that there should be full clerical control of education. The Manchester Quakers, Unitarians, Methodists and other nonconformists stood their ground on that principle.
In 1849 12 trustees were chosen for Manchester Grammar School, 6 for the Church of England and six for nonconformity. Three of those trustees had been leaders of the Anti-Corn-Law Association:
Elkanah Armitage, former mayor of Manchester, cotton manufacturer and Congregationalist.
William Benjamin Watkins, former mayor of Manchester, drysalter (supplier or manufacturer of dyes, mordants, glues and other chemicals to the cotton trade).
John Mayson, alderman of Manchester, cotton merchant and Wesleyan Methodist.
School reform was as important to many of the reformers as political change. Some reformers and nonconformists had started their own schools to provide a non-secular education.
Thomas Potter's wife founded the Lady Potter School in 1818 to provide non-sectarian education to seventy girls and boys in Irlams o'th'Height.
The Unitarian minister the Rev. John Relly Beard started Stoney Knolls High School at Higher Broughton in Salford in 1828. They taught Classics, English, Science and Modern Languages. A prolific author and translator, John Relly Beard was an "anti-war, anti-slavery, and anti-capital punishment man to the back-bone". He became famous for publishing a biography of the Black Haitian general and revolutionary Toussaint l'Ouverture in 1853. In the preface the author wrote:
The life which is described in the following pages has both a permanent interest and a permanent value. But the efforts which are now made to effect the abolition of slavery in the United States of America, seem to render the present moment specially fit for the appearance of a memoir of Toussaint L'Ouverture. A hope of affording some aid to the sacred cause of freedom, specially as involved in the extinction of slavery, and in the removal of the prejudices on which servitude mainly depends, has induced the author to prepare the present work for the press.
William Henry Herford, a former pupil at Manchester Grammar School, wrote to Relly Beard of his time at Stony Knolls High School:
"...having till then been gnawing the divine meal of sour thistles and brambles... ...The introduction to literature, the rational geometry, and the natural sciences, which you provided for us, were all rich, rich feasts after starvation."
I don't think that this symbolic beehive in Manchester Cathedral influenced the choice of bees by the committee of Manchester Borough Council. They would have been well aware that Charles Lawson stood against the progress and expansion in education for which they were still campaigning. Many of the same nonconformist reformers and anti-corn law campaigners went on to be trustees of Manchester University, when it started as Owens College. Opposed to the religious restrictions at Oxford and Cambridge Universities, John Owens had insisted in his will that:
"the fundamental and immutable rule and condition... ...that the students, professors, teachers, and other officers and persons connected with the said institution, shall not be required to make any declaration as to, or submit to any test whatsoever of their religious opinions, and that nothing shall be introduced in the matter or mode of education or instruction in reference to any religious or theological subject which shall be reasonably offensive to the conscience of any student, or of his relations, guardians, or friends..."
Some early Manchester Business Bees
Another early Mancunian Bee was a pub on Jersey Street called the Beehive that opened in 1815. William Brownhill was the victualler in 1821. Thomas Darlington was the landlord from at least 1823 to 1829. The pub was used for auctions of houses and businesses and for bankrupts meeting with their creditors in the 1820s and 1830s. In 1825 the address was given as 72 Jersey Street. When it was offered for sale in 1838 the pub had an adjoining cottage, a brewhouse, outbuildings, stable and yard. It was occupied by James Linney "and another".
In 1841 it was at 52 Jersey Street under Joseph Robinson. In 1850 the address was given by Slater's Directory as Beehive Tavern, 54 Jersey Street under the care of Edward Cummings. In 1858 the license was transferred from Cummings to James Carroll. In 1863 it was William McKnight and they seem to settle on 52 Jersey Street after that. In 1866 Hannah McKnight was named as the "keeper". On the 8th of April 1867 William McKnight died at the Beehive Inn at the age of 43. The license was transferred to Hannah on the 17th of July 1867. In 1879 and 1880 it was James Clegg. In 1895 it was Mrs Louisa Clegg. They advertised on 12th of February 1902 for "Girl, strong, Wanted as General: wages £14. Apply Bee Hive, Jersey-street, Ancoats." On the 18th of October 1902 the music license was renewed. In 1903 Mrs Louisa Bean had the drinks license.
I believe this picture from the Manchester Council Local Images Collection is of Murray's Little Mill just after the tragic fire that destroyed it on the 28th of January 1908. If that is true then the pub seen beyond the Mill would be the Beehive. Unfortunately the resolution is not good enough to be able to see much detail of the pub. The damaged fire tender leaning over in the photo may well be the one involved in the death of a fireman. George Griffiths was 35 years old and had been a fireman for 6 years. Griffiths was at least 46 feet off the ground on a 70 foot ladder, playing water on the upper floors of the nine-storey building. After an hour of work, being moved slowly along the street, the fire tender suddenly blew over in a gust of wind and the ladder broke in three places. Griffiths fell to the ground. He was the first Manchester fireman to die at a fire since 1881. The mill was working at full capacity when the fire started at midday on a Tuesday but the mill girls all evacuated the building without injury. The Manchester Guardian (29th of January 1908).
The photograph was taken by J. Jackson of the City Engineers Department. Jackson provided 1,594 images in the Local Images Collection.
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| More or less the same view in 2018 as in J. Jackson's photo in 1908, but with most original buildings gone. |
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| The entry arch of Beehive Mill. |
In the 1909 and 1911 Slater's Directory there is no listing for any business on Jersey Street between Bengal Street and German Street, though some of the other pubs are still listed on other parts of Jersey Street. The Old Pubs of Ancoats by Neil Richardson states that the Beehive closed in 1909. The author does not give a reference for that, perhaps he meant that the pub had closed by 1909.
If it were damaged by fire, falling brickwork or water during the mill fire, the Inn is unlikely to have reopened. The mill next door was completely gutted by the fire. Large mechanical looms at both ends of the building had fallen through the floors from the upper storey all the way to the ground floor. The two open chimneys this created provided an unstoppable airflow that turned the fire into a furnace. In the J. Jackson photo, windows by the Beehive Inn are shattered and debris is scattered on the pavement. The roof of the mill and the top of the wall above the Inn can be seen to be missing with daylight showing through the windows on the top two storeys.
The New Little Mill was built on the same land, apparently in 1908. The new building extended further south over Gas Street and further east. The Beehive public house must have been demolished for this extended building. The old Little Mill had been 62% of the street front between German Street and Bengal Street. The Beehive then accounted for about 18% and the other buildings up to the corner were 20%. The New Little Mill takes up 73% of the street front.
In 1829 there were at least three other pubs on Jersey Street, the Murray's Arms at 70 (129 in 1850), the Royal Oak at 125 (42 in 1850) and the Green Dragon at 142 (number not given in 1850 but at 8 in 1863). I am not sure if they were swapping premises or just changing the numbering system. The Green Dragon in Jersey-street was mentioned in the Manchester Mercury as the business contact address of Mr John Whitehead on the 23rd of January 1810.
Jersey Street was an incredibly busy street full of shops, mills and cottage industries, with plenty of passing trade. Many supplies were brought in and products sent out by the nearby Rochdale Canal which had been completed in 1804. Little branches of the canal would bring goods up to the mills themselves, such as the branch that divided the coal wharf from the Beehive Mill. The canal also provided water for the steam-driven spinning machines and looms. There had been cotton spinners and weavers in the area before but after the canal opened there was a boom in cotton mill building. In the 20th Century the area became an industrial desert until the recent revival of New Islington (which was New over 200 years ago).
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| Cross Keys pub on the corner of Radium Street and Jersey Street, 2018. Closed for a while, a pub sign bracket can still be seen at the top left. |
The only pub building left from that era appears to be the Cross Keys, presumably named for one of the symbols of Saint Peter, the keys to Heaven. Possibly via the Cross Keys Street less than half a mile to the north.
In 1841 the address was given as 87 Jersey Street with John Goodier as victualler. In 1850 we have Charles Chouler and the address as 99 Jersey Street. In 1850 the Ordnance Survey map shows the Cross Keys at the other end of the block from the place it now occupies on the corner, across German Street from the Beehive Mill.
Though it has been claimed that the Cross Keys was called Amalgamation before it became the Cross Keys, the only mention I have found for this name is in 1863 at 107 Jersey Street under Thomas Newton. The name obviously did not stick as the license for the Cross Keys was transferred from Thomas Newton to Charles Barwis in 1867. An 1893 map shows the Cross Keys at its new location on the corner of German Street and Jersey Street. In 1895 we have Thomas F. Ellison at the Cross Keys at 95 Jersey Street. On the 18th of October 1902, Thomas F. Ellison applied for renewal of the music license as "concerts were held regularly at the house, and that no complaint had ever been made that they were not well conducted". Despite this, the music license was refused.
According to the Drink Map of Manchester (United Kingdom Alliance, Manchester, 1889) Jersey Street had in total 4 licensed victuallers and 5 beerhouses. That seems about average for Manchester in 1889. The United Kingdom Alliance was a Temperance lobby organisation whose aim was to bring in prohibition of alcohol. The Alliance had been set up in Manchester in 1852 by a group including many nonconformists and Anti-Corn Law League activists. Joseph Brotherton was one of the founders.
Radium Street was called German Street since at least 1813. The name was changed in 1914 because of the temporary unpopularity of the German nation. The street probably had nothing to do with Germans as the name in 1794 and 1797 was Germain Street. At the same time there was a Richard Germain, cow-keeper and Special Constable, living on Newton Lane/Great Newton Street (now Oldham Road) at the northern end of Germain Street.
Here is a picture of the Cross Keys in 1962 from the Manchester Libraries Local Images Collection. The Cross Keys lasted until quite recently and was apparently popular with customers coming out from Sankeys Soap nightclub in the Beehive Mill. Mainly due to the Cross Keys landlord's apparent ignorance of the law concerning closing times of public houses.
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| The Beehive Mill. |
It has been suggested that the Beehive Mill was so-called because it was one of the "hives of industry" of Manchester. However, the Beehive pub was there first and almost certainly gave its name to the Beehive Mill which was started in the early 1820s. The first mention I can find for the Mill in the Manchester Guardian was an advertisement on 5th March 1825 for leases on the newly built section. The mill was not described by name, just that it was being offered by Copley, Barrow & McKinley and was situated on Jersey Street, Ancoats Lane. By the time employees were listed in Pigot's Directory in 1829 it was definitely known as the Beehive Mill.
The Beehive Mill on Jersey Street was destroyed by a fire in November 1841. The damages were estimated at £14,000. The fire was discovered by an engineer at 6pm on a Saturday. The engineer ran downstairs and across the street to the Beehive tavern, where he found his "assistant or fireman".
The fire engines that attended were, in order of arrival, the Niagara (for the waterfall), the Vesta (Roman goddess of the hearth and tamed fire), the Water Witch (named for the novel The Water Witch; or, the Skimmer of the Seas by James Fenimore Cooper, published in 1830), the Neptune (old Roman god of the sea) and the Thetis (ancient Greek goddess of the sea).
There was a perfect movie moment described in the Manchester Guardian report. A waterman was trying to open a water plug on German Street to get a closer supply of water for the fire engines. The head fireman, Mr Rose, saw that the wall was about to collapse and called out to the waterman to get away. The waterman appeared not to hear him and carried on until a few small fragments of the wall hit him and he fled "with great terror and precipitation". Immediately the greater part of the wall fell, "covering the plug at which this man had been working an instant before, with a great mass of brickwork." The firemen could not save the mill but did stop the fire spreading to the surrounding buildings. There were no casualties.
The freehold on the land with all the remaining buildings and machinery were sold in 1843 to Joseph Lamb. The area sold was a total of 2,479 square yards, a little over a fifth of a hectare or a half of an acre. In 1841 Joseph Lamb had been at 40 Bloom Street (not then known as the Gay Village) as a spindle and fly manufacturer. Lamb refurbished the mill and it was opened again in 1844.
Lamb built an adjoining mill and that started work in 1848. This new mill on Bengal Street was destroyed by fire in 1861 with estimated damage worth £25,000. There were no casualties. The Manchester Guardian reported on 12th of January 1861 that "About 300 persons will be thrown out of employment for a time through this disaster." The valiant work of firemen working inside the building stopped the fire spreading to the Jersey Street mill. "Great coolness and bravery were displayed by the firemen who maintained their ground on a burning floor 60 or 70 feet high, and with beams falling around them."
At the time of the fire in 1861 Joseph Lamb was the proprietor of the Beehive Mills complex with several tenants. In 1865 Lamb posted a notice in the Manchester Guardian that his spindle-making business had been transferred to Frederick Alexander Fitton. F. A. Fitton also placed a notice to that effect, mentioning his 25 years of experience in spindle-making. There was a Frederick Alexander Fitton & Son, Limited. spindle and fly manufacturer at the Beehive Mill, Bengal Street until at least 1909. Also in 1865, Lamb was advertising that the ground floor had "shafting for 144 looms".
On Saturday, 29th of June 1872 Lamb put an advert in the Manchester Guardian:
Mr. Lamb begs to return his grateful thanks to Mr. Superintendent Tozer, the members of the Fire Brigade, and the Neighbours and Friends who so kindly assisted to extinguish the fire at the Beehive Mills on Saturday last.
Bengal-street, Manchester, June 26.
A Manchester Guardian advert for "Room and Power" at the Beehive Mills in 1881 (similar to another in 1879) has the reassuring description "Large and Small (Fireproof) Rooms, at low rents, to suit tenants."
The Beehive Mill was still being used for weaving and spinning in 1895, though there were glass and mirror makers as well. On the 21st and 28th of September 1907 an auction was announced in the Manchester Guardian for the 9th of October:
The buildings upon the said plots of land comprise the Bee Hive Mills, St. Peter's Schools, four cottages, and the canal basin.
One of the tenants of the Beehive Mill was John Sankey & Son(s?) Ltd., Dry Soap Packing. They occupied part of the Beehive Mill from at least 1943 to 1959. On the 11th of November 1944, "John Sankey and Son, Limited, Radium Street, Manchester, manufacturers of Sankey's Soap, &c." advertised for a sales representative to cover Liverpool, Preston, Blackpool, Wigan, Bolton and Blackburn, &c. On the 23rd of September 1955 they advertised for a representative for "Retail Grocery and Hardware Trades". They were now "Soap and Salt manufacturers".
In 1994 a nightclub was opened in the Beehive Mill that the impresarios called Sankeys Soap after the previous residents. The club became very popular and hosted many cool performers such as Björk and Daft Punk. Sankeys Soap nightclub closed and reopened a few times before dazedly wandering off to Ibiza and then waking up to find itself in various other cities around the world. In 2017 they sold the building to be developed into apartments.
The Bee Hive was a popular name for pubs, here are just a few more from Manchester and Salford for which I found some minimal information.
Bee Hive beerhouse (became St Lukes Tavern), King Street, Salford. Opened 1821.
Bee Hive, Blackwater Street, Rochdale. James Diggle victualler. Existed in 1822, at St Mary's Gate in 1825. A fight on the 25th of April 1840 resulted in a death. Under Joseph Clegg in 1841 and 1853.
Bee Hive, 14 York Street, Salford - Benjamin Green. Existed in 1825, mentioned in History, Directory, and Gazetteer, of the County Palatine of Lancaster... by Edward Baines and in 1828 was mentioned in Pigot's Directory.
Beehive and Chorlton Row Arms Inn, Chatham Street, Chester Street, Chorlton Row. Charles Johnson. Pigot's Directory, 1828.
Bee Hive beerhouse, Watkin Street, Salford. First recorded 1843.
Beehive Inn, Stockport. John Etchells contributed 10 shillings to the Anti Corn Law League in 1846. Could be the Beehive, 28 John Street, Portwood (that part of Stockport including the Peel Centre shopping mall and some areas east of there) listed in 1853 as under Robert Leach.
Beehive beerhouse, Queen Street, Deansgate. Freehold advertised in the Manchester Guardian in 1850, including bakehouse, outbuildings, yard, three cottages and coach house.
Beehive public house, Greek Street, Chorlton-on-Medlock in 1851 and 1855. The landlord James Walker caught a boy stealing some old bones from his yard in January 1851 and handed him over to a policeman. The Borough Court dismissed the boy with a suitable caution. The renewal of the license was refused on the 7th of March 1903. Manchester Guardian
Beehive public house, 21 Pine Street, off York Street. On the 29th of March 1852 Elizabeth Marshall, John's wife, died aged 34. On the 3rd of August 1852 a customer stabbed the landlord in the face when the landlord tried to break up a fight between silk-weavers. The accused was committed for trial, according to the Manchester Guardian. The landlord, still John Marshall, was well enough to attend the trial by the 11th.
Samuel Hampshire was given £80 in gold sovereign coins by his employer Mr James Smith Buckley, a cotton spinner in Mosley Street. Hampshire was to deliver the coins to Ryecroft Hall in Ashton. On leaving work with the money he popped into the Beehive beerhouse on Pine Street. The pub was just round the corner from work. Less than three hours into his drinking session and five glasses of ale later, he left to catch the omnibus to Ashton. He met two women who persuaded him to go into another beerhouse in Major Street. He treated them to some ale. They then took him to a nearby house. He definitely had the 80 sovereigns in his trouser pocket when he entered the house. Though they would take up less than 50cm³ and are about the size of a modern new penny or 20 pence piece, he would be very aware of the 80 coins. The 22 carat gold coins would weigh 630g. They would be worth £18,300 if sold just for the gold content today (4/6/2018). The women gave Hampshire "something to drink out of a bottle which they took with them." He fell asleep almost immediately and woke alone at about 7 o'clock. He realised the money was missing and was then thrown out of the house by the remaining woman. The money had not been recovered at the time of this hearing. Several male accomplices were taken in a nearby house after a serious fight with police. The court regarded the robbery of £80 as a far more serious crime than assaulting outnumbered policemen with kicks, pokers, pieces of iron and knives. When the lone Inspector Buckley was assaulted his constable broke down the locked door to join the inspector in subduing the miscreants. Constable McConnell took a knife off one of the women and gave the Inspector a poker to defend himself. The four criminals were all successfully taken into custody. Reported in the Manchester Guardian on the 1st and 8th of September 1852.
In the Whellan Directory in 1853: John Marshall, beer house, 21 Pine Street. There is a report in the Manchester Guardian of a trial started at the City Police Court on the 28th of November 1854. Four men were charged with the robbery of a silk warehouse of silk cloth worth over £150 pounds. Two were caught in the act. The other two were suspected because one of them popped out into the street from the Beehive beerhouse in Pine Street nine or ten times while keeping a watch on the warehouse.
Beehive, Sickle Street, Market Street. Advertised for waiting staff in 1857 and1858 in the Manchester Guardian. Auction of hotel fittings in the Manchester Guardian Classifieds on 17th September 1878 at "The Old Beehive Hotel, Sickle Street, Manchester." On the 18th of November 1881 Little Joe's Bar at Mrs Broadhurst's, Beehive Inn, Sickle Street advertised that they had "Oysters Oysters Oysters - the first arrival in Manchester of Real Blue Points, One shilling per dozen, including a Glass of Stout and Bread and Butter."
Beehive, 45 York Street, Chorlton-on-Medlock. Opened 1861. Joseph Gillott renewed the license on the 13th of April 1905 on appeal against a refusal by the city justices.
Bee Hive Inn, Lower Broughton Road, Salford. First listed 1863.
Beehive Inn, Union Street, Greenheys. Existed in 1867 and 1923.
Bee Hive, Worsley Fold, Pendlebury. Opened 1868.
Bee Hive, West Worsley Street, off Regent Road, Salford. Opened 1868.
Beehive, Portland Street. Existed in 1871. Landlord Frederick Crompton prosecuted for illegal betting but dismissed with a caution despite some clear evidence. In 1874, 1880 and 1903 they advertised for a General Servant. "To be let" 18th of November 1898, Manchester Guardian.
The Beehive beerhouse, 49 Dalton Street, Hulme. "The Most Handsomely Fitted-up Beerhouse in Hulme: best thoroughfare: piano &c." "Parties desirous of laying out their money in a lucrative Public House or Beerhouse will do well to apply early..." 24th of January 1871. Sold by auction on the 6th of May 1871, Manchester Guardian. Also advertised to be let on the 9th of January 1879 and 4th of December 1882.
Beehive, Thomas Street. On the 14th of June 1872 the license was transferred from Mary Higson to Peter Higson. "Found, a Brown Retriever Bitch: if not owned in three days will be sold.- Apply Beehive Inn, Thomas-street, West Gorton." 21st of January 1876 (these could be different pubs on different Thomas Streets, considering the abundance of Beehives). Manchester Guardian.
Bee Hive Inn, Stanley Street, New Bailey Street, Salford. Found a black retriever dog on the 8th of October 1872. Searching for "retriever" in the Manchester Guardian shows that people were losing their dogs all the time. In 1874 advertised "Wanted, a Young Girl, from 14 to 15 years of age: one from the country preferred." Manchester Guardian.
Beehive, Great Jackson Street, Hulme. "To be let, Good Free Beerhouse: three rooms and snug: doing a good business." 14th of July 1874 Manchester Guardian
Bee Hive Inn, Forge Lane, Bradford. This was in Manchester's Bradford just to the east of Ancoats and New Islington, not the other ones in Yorkshire and six other parts of England. Bradford was a busy coal-mining area at the time. The Inn was open before 1874 and after 1883 as it was advertised to be let in the Manchester Guardian.
Beehive, Carruthers Street, Butler Street, Oldham Road. "To be let, a First-class Beerhouse, splendidly fitted up: doing a good trade." Manchester Guardian 1878.
Bee Hive Inn, 252 Oldham Road, Ancoats. Alfred Steele, beer retailer, 252 & 254 Oldham Road. Slater's Directory 1879. "Wanted good General Servant Girl, with good character. Bee hive 252 Oldham Road" Manchester Guardian the 9th of May 1882. This inn had a triangular mural of a beehive with bees under the eaves, as seen in this picture in the Local Images Collection.
Beehive Inn, Chester Road. Manchester Guardian advert 1881: to be let "A Good Beerhouse, with Grocer's Shop and Coalyard." In 1897 "To be let, Well-known Beerhouse".
The Bee Hive, 23 Percy Street, Hulme and the Beehive Inn, Ruby Street, Chorlton-on-Medlock were both in the Manchester Guardian on the 2nd of March 1906 as "referred for compensation" and had their licenses refused on the 26th of April, meaning they were closing. The Bee Hive beerhouse, Ruby Street, was allowed £600 in compensation in June 1906.
Beehive, Temple Street, Chorlton-on-Medlock. This pub was presumably Victorian as it looks more than 16 years old in this 1916 photo from the Local Images Collection. Closed 1931.
I am sure there were others that I have missed. It might seem that Manchester has a particularly large number of Beehive pubs. If you look at the Drink Map of 1889 you will see that Manchester has always had a huge number of pubs. Some of them had to be called the Beehive. Beehive has also been a popular name for pubs all over the country for a very long time. I would suspect that it is not out of admiration for the industry, productivity and co-operation of the bee but a comparison to a crowd of creatures giving their undivided attention to drinking liquids all day.
One old example is the Beehive Inn in Grantham which is thought to have started in the 16th century. The living sign of an actual functioning beehive in the street outside was mentioned as an oddity in various regional newspapers in 1791. At some time since 1815 it expanded into the house next door and still appears to be thriving with locally-brewed real ales.
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| Fictional Bee Hive pub sign from the Americas. No connection to Manchester, as far as I know. |
I couldn't resist including here a fictional pub sign from John Swig by Edward Carswell (National Temperance Society and Publishing House, New York, 1871). The poem recounts a fictionalised account of a publican converted from his evil ways by a terrible trauma. Fictionalised because in the true events on which the poem was based the publican was unchanged by his awful experience and he continued drinking.
Joseph Levy had started a business in Manchester in 1811, according to his family. He arrived in 1813 and started as a slop (cheap ready-made clothing) seller, jeweller and pawnbroker according to The Making of Manchester Jewry 1740-1875 by Bill Williams (Manchester University Press, 1985). There was a Joseph Levy clothes broker at 16 Shudehill in 1821 then in 1829 he is described as "silversmith, &c.". There was also a Rebecca Levy, clothes dealer, at 82 Shudehill in 1829. In 1841 Joseph is at 33 Shudehill as "pawnbroker, &c." and at 31 & 33 Shudehill as a tailor. The company placed an advert in the Manchester Guardian on 26th of September 1846 as Joseph Levy and Sons, Tailors, Woollen Drapers and Outfitters. They thanked their customers for 35 years of liberal patronage. "The Bee Hive Outfitting Establishment, 31 and 33 Shudehill." They state they have no connection with any other house in the trade. The reason for this warning is obvious from the advert two spaces down, a shawl and tartan clothing shop called the Bee Hive at 6 St. Ann's Square.
An advert in the Manchester Guardian in July 1852 shows that Reuben Levy had taken over the business. It was now the Bee Hive General Clothing and Outfitting Establishment. His advert featured tents for hopeful migrants joining the Australian gold rush. In his next adverts he details the entire expedition outfitting they provided for the gold diggers, from gold-weighing scales and gold-washing cradles to Macintosh caps and portable iron bedsteads. This was obviously a lucrative trade as in December 1852 he announced that they had taken over 51 Shudehill in addition to 31 and 33. In this advert he also has the assertion that the company was established in 1811, so this is either a business exaggeration or Bill Williams was wrong about the year when Joseph Levy arrived. In one of the following adverts Reuben promises to help with information about how to get to Australia, "having made arrangements with the most respectable shipowners".
The Old Beehive Clothing Bazaar (at 31 and 33 Shudehill, Market Street end) was claimed by Israel Levy in 1864 to have been established for 53 years. "Appreciated by all who value style with economy." In 1872 Israel Levy left off the Beehive name but was advertising varied clothing, featuring "Xchange for a Guinea, Good Reefers", referring to waterproof coats. In 1876 Israel Levy was at the same address and described as a clothier and military tailor. Reuben Levy was also at that address in 1876 and described as an emigration agent and authorised passage broker. In 1895 31 & 33 Shudehill were occupied by Samuel Levy, tailor. In 1911 a silk handkerchief dealer named Alfred E. Levy and a wholesale jeweller called J.R. Levy & Co. were at 31 Shudehill. Levy and Stanger Outfitters (menswear) were next door at 33 Shudehill.
In 1836 the Bee Coffee Room moved to 101 Market Street due to a rapid increase in business. An advert ran in the Manchester Guardian on the 1st of November 1837 from J.H. Parker, the manager of the Athenæum and Bee Coffee Rooms promising to produce;
"Breakfasts, Luncheons, Soups, Dinners, Tea and Coffee, and Suppers, furnished at any hour, at one minute's notice on most reasonable terms."
Beehive Coach to London, every evening at seven o'clock; Honey Comb to Birmingham, through the Potteries; Eclipse, the only direct coach to Hull in one day; Celerity to Leeds, &c. Other coaches daily to all parts of the kingdom from the Beehive Coach Office, Market-street.
The Manchester Guardian 14 Nov 1835.
A Beehive coach had an accident returning from London on a piece of rough road near Stockport Moor. Outside passengers were flung off but no life lost or limbs fractured.
The Manchester Guardian 11 June 1836.
A parcel containing £80 in cash was stolen from the Beehive Coach company in December 1836. Reported in Manchester Guardian 15th of February 1837.
In April 1844 the opening was announced of the Bee Hive Wholesale and Retail Boot & Shoe Warehouse at 37 Oldham Street. There were many other Beehives around Manchester in Victorian times including Shops, Works and Yards.
An aside about Reformist and Reactionary Bees
The association of bees and industry is, of course, ancient.Bees and beehives have been used as religious, political and philosophical symbols since the earliest recorded times. To keep this short I will start in the 16th Century.
Busy bees arrive quite early in English, The Oxford English Dictionary has:
1535 The bulk of the croniclis of Scotland translated into Scots dialect by William Stewart from a Latin original by Hector Boece: "Now ar tha maid als bissie as ane be."
Before 1547 Earl of Surrey Poems "The busy bee her honye now she minges." "To minge" meant "to mix" or "to blend".
The first use of the phrase "hive of industry" that I have found was in a description of the hinterland of Dublin in King Alfred - A Poem Vol III by John Fitchett, published in London in 1813.
De Byen-korf der H. Roomscher Kercke (The Beehive of the Holy Romish Church) by Philips Marnix Heer van st. Aldegonde was published in 1569 in Dutch and later translated into French, German and English. Purporting to be a work of essential reading by and for Catholics it was actually a harsh Protestant deconstruction of Catholic religious customs.
Balance was provided for the Catholics in 1631 by the publication of the much smaller A Hive of Sacred Honie-combes: Containing Most Sweet and Heavenly Counsel. A translation by Antonie Batt from the Latin of Alveare favorum sacrorum desumptum ex operibus S. Bernardi, compiling extracts from the writings of St Bernard of Clairvaux.
During the political turmoil of Cromwell's rule after the execution of Charles I, a pastor from Essex published a book dedicated to Robert, 2nd Earl of Warwick. Robert was a Puritan who had supported Parliament in the Civil War. A theatre of politicall flying-insects. Wherein especially the Nature, the Worth, the Work, the Wonder and the manner of Right-ordering of the Bee, is Discovered and Described. Together with Discourses, Historical, and Observations Physical concerning them. And in a Second Part are annexed Meditations, and Observations Theological and Moral, in Three Centuries upon that Subject by Samuel Purchas (1657, R.I. for Thomas Parkhurst, Cheapside, London). I must admit that I didn't get far beyond the title.
Sir Edward Turner, the Speaker of the House of Commons (having replaced the far more impressively-named Sir Harbottle Grimstone), gave a speech to King Charles II on the adjournment of Parliament on 30th July 1661. This was 14 months after the King's restoration to the throne. The Speaker ended with this flourish of rhetoric:
"... and when we leave our hive, like the industrious bee, we shall but fly about the several countries of the nation to gather honey; and, when your majesty shall be pleased to name the time, return with loaded thighs unto our house again."
In 1698 Sir Josiah Child's 300 page "A New Discourse on Trade, ..." was printed in London. In the course of his argument that interest rates should be reduced to boost the British economy he stated:
"For the Sufferers by such a Law, I know none but idle Persons that live at as little Expence as Labour, Neither scattering by their Expences so as the Poor may Glean anything after them, nor Working with their hands or heads to bring either Wax or Hony to the common Hive of the Kingdom; but swelling their own Purses by the sweat of other Mens Brows and the contrivances of other Mens Brains: And how unprofitable it is for a Nation to suffer Idleness to suck the Breasts of Industry; needs no demonstration."
Many economists have also used the beehive as a metaphor, such as Bernard Mandeville in his Fable of the Bees in 1714. The book was a prose extension of his poem The Grumbling Hive published in 1705. In an episode devoted entirely to Mandeville, the book was said by Melvyn Bragg in the Radio 4 programme In Our Time to have "scandalised the British Establishment". The thesis of the book seems to have been that human vices are an essential driving force of our economy. If everyone turned good the economy would collapse.
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| Admirable Government or the Republic of the Bees by Jean Baptiste Simon, 1740 from the Internet Archive |
John Thorley used the example of bees to defend the status quo of British society in his The Female Monarchy, Being an Inquiry into the Nature, Order, and Government of Bees (London, 1744).
The beehive was used as a symbol during the French Revolution, though that was controversial due to the monarchy represented by the Queen Bee.
Napoleon Bonaparte was crowned Emperor of France in 1804. He was wearing a robe sewn with bees modelled on those found among the grave goods of Childeric I, king of the Salian Franks and founder of the Merovingian dynasty in the 5th Century AD. They had been found in Tournai (Roman Tornacum, now in Belgium) by workmen doing construction in 1653 and eventually ended up being put into storage by Louis XIV, who was particularly unexcited by them. Some commenters have identified them as other insects or even flowers but after 1500 years it is difficult to say exactly what they were. Napoleon chose the bees as the symbol for both the Empire and himself, presumably because they were not exactly French and small but fierce.
Freemasons and Oddfellows also used the beehive in their imagery.
Traditional skep beehive,
De Europischen Insecten by Maria Sibylla Merian (Amsterdam, 1730)
An apparently socialist sentiment can be seen in the use of a beehive in a parade of guild floats described on page 2 of the Manchester Guardian 30 June 1838:
"The Grand Procession formed at the Crescent, Salford, extending backwards to Pendleton. Among the Procession of Trades, number 5 was the Plumbers and Glaziers who had a float and many decorative devices including many of "beautifully stained glass, worked in lead as for windows. One had the royal arms in the centre compartment, to which succeeded a blue silk flag, with the motto "Labour, mental and physical, is the only source of wealth." This was surmounted by a bee-hive, with the motto "Each for all.""Ninth were the "Ancient Free Gardeners, and in the year 5838 of gardenery" who saw beehives more as a symbol of the fabled Land of Milk and Honey. They had a large emblem of:
"an ark, between two beehives, one surmounted by flowers and fruit, the other by the dove returning to the ark, with the olive branch; this was borne by four boys."
Michel de Cubières-Palmézeaux commented on the wide variety of meanings authors saw in the domestic arrangements of the bee, in Les Abeilles ou l'heureux gouvernement (The Bees or the happy government) in 1792:
...les Abeilles ont été pour nous ce que sont les nuages; chacun de nous y a vu ce qu'il a desiré d'y voir.
...the Bees are like the clouds are for us, each of us sees in them what we desire to see.
More aside, about the Co-ops
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| Robert Owen from The History of Co-operation by George Jacob Holyoake in 1826 from the Internet Archive |
The model for J Minter Morgan's wise and good bee was Robert Owen, the Welsh businessman, utopian socialist, pacifist, education and factory reformer, diplomat and one of the inspirations of the co-operative movement. Robert Owen used the beehive, a traditional bundled straw skep, as a symbol several times.
Born in 1771, from the ages of 15 to 28 years old Robert Owen lived and worked in Manchester. He started off at 18 years old as a partner in a business manufacturing cotton-processing machinery. Within the year he sold his part of the business to other investors and started up on his own, renting a factory and leasing parts out to other tenants to cover the entire rent. At 21 he got employment as a manager in a spinning mill with 500 employees. In 1792 he worked on the first bags of American cotton imported into England. He improved relations with the workforce and then worked on the machines to improve the quality of the thread to a degree previously unknown. He started his career in public speaking by giving regular talks at the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester.
Robert Owen decided on a revolutionary employment model of treating the mill workers as though they were human beings. He provided for their education and welfare and maintained the mill machines in excellent condition. The benefits of his experiment led to his fortune being made when he took over management of New Lanark Mills in 1800. The New Lanark Mills were about 25 miles inland from Glasgow along the River Clyde and employed 2000 adults and children. The Mills closed in 1968 and the Mills and village are now one of the 27 UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Sites in the United Kingdom.
Owen had many powerful friends in government. Among many other luminaries with whom he disagreed on economics and politics, he knew Sir Robert Peel, 1st Bart, the father of the future Prime Minister. Owen stated that their discussions were never unfriendly. Robert Owen seemed to have the most remarkable powers of friendliness. Once those opposed to him got to know him they would find themselves won over by his charm and sincerity, even if he did not change their minds.
Robert Owen chaired the first Co-operative Congress, held in Manchester in May 1831 and arranged by the Manchester Association for the Spread of Co-operative Knowledge. The concluding address contained this rousing prophecy:
“They will show to the world that the working classes are not only able, but are fully determined to follow the advice of Mr (now Sir Robert) Peel and ‘TAKE THE MANAGEMENT OF THEIR AFFAIRS INTO THEIR OWN HANDS’.”A letter dated April 10th 1832 was sent to all MPs inviting them to attend the third Co-operative Congress, to be held in London. A copy was printed in a newspaper called The Crisis, or the change from error & misery to truth and happiness, edited and published by Robert Owen. Once again they referred to Robert Peel's call for the working classes to help themselves.
Some time ago, Sir Robert Peel, when Secretary for the Home Department, expressed a desire that "the Working Classes would take their own affairs into their own hands." as he found Government could do little to relieve them from their increasing pecuniary difficulties."
In 1833 the traditional straw beehive was pictured sat among lush flowers on Robert Owen's paper truck system of payment, using a certificate representing a certain number of hours work that could be exchanged for similar work or services.
There were failures in the Co-operative Movement and the usual shady sorts looking to take advantage of a fashionable new trend. A hasty and ill-managed community was set up on 200 acres at Manea Fen in October 1839. GJ Holyoake wrote in his The History Of Co-operation published in 1906 that William Hodson (though Holyoake calls him Hodgson) was:
"a handsome and lusty farmer, who heard from clerical adversaries that a community might serve harem as well as public purposes; and as he had some land, a little money, and plausibility of address, he turned out as a peripatetic orator in favour of beginning the new world in his native fens of Cambridgeshire."
Though some called Manea Fen an Owenite community, Owen did not approve. Owen had visited Manea Fen and talked to the neighbouring landowners. The locals were happy to reveal to Owen what they knew of Hodson's complete unfitness as a farmer, planner and leader of a community. Despite the encouragement of the well-written journal The Working Bee published by the Hodgsonian Community Societies and some of the community being genuinely hard-working, the utopian community project soon failed. Many of those it attracted were more interested in drinking and free love, or brothels when that did not happen. The organisation, communal dynamics, knowledge of farming, markets and finances all proved inadequate. The Working Bee soon introduced the terrifying motto "He who will not work neither shall he eat." Hodson withdrew his support in 1841 citing the failure of a local bank. The disheartened worker bees and lazy drones soon swarmed to find a better site.
A recent archaeological dig found remains of the community at Manea Fen, though some of the artefacts may be from the locals who took over the buildings soon after they were abandoned.
Some Christians supported Owen but many saw him and his followers as Socialist infidels and enemies of Christianity. Though an ardent reformer in education and race relations, John Relly Beard published The Religion of Jesus Christ defended from the assaults of Owenism in Nine Lectures in 1839.
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| Central Stores of the Rochdale Pioneers, 1868 from Self-Help for the People: A History of the Rochdale Pioneers by George Jacob Holyoake from the Internet Archive Note the huge beehive with a lightning conductor at the top of the building. |
The prolific writer, secularist and co-operator George Jacob Holyoake published Self-Help for the People: A History of the Rochdale Pioneers in 1857. This book is credited with promoting a surge of popular interest in setting up co-operative businesses.
Robert Owen died in 1858 at the age of 87, having revisited his hometown of Newtown after he attended the Social Science Congress in Liverpool. Col. H. Clinton, obviously an admirer, wrote that:
Of all who ever breathed the breath of life, Robert Owen was the man of largest heart, of head most wise, continually throughout the course of a long life, sedulously, zealously, thinkingly, with ever open purse in hand, generously, devotedly intent on devising how, best and soonest, to mitigate the misery incidental to the destiny of man.
Meetings held in Middleton and Manchester in 1860 led in 1863 to the founding of the North of England Co-operative Wholesale Society to supply the 332 co-operative shops that had already been set up. This, of course, was later shortened to the Co-operative Wholesale Society or, to most people then and now, the Co-op. From the beginning the Co-op had the wheatsheaf and beehive as their symbols. The beehive symbol is still used by the Co-operative Heritage Trust .
Later in the 19th Century, the watchmakers of La Chaux-de-Fonds, a village in French-speaking Switzerland, formed a highly successful co-operative. They called themselves the Republic of the Bees and decorated many of their buildings with bees. The coat of arms and flag of the town features a beehive. Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret) was born in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1885. His father was one of the enamellers who worked on the watches that made the fortune of the town. Le Corbusier's style of architecture was inspired by the modern beehive. Many architects and artists have been inspired by the dwellings built by bees.
The Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí was inspired by natural beehives, with very different results from Le Corbusier. In 1876 Gaudi also produced a banner design for the cotton textile processors of the Worker's Co-operative at Mataró (Cooperativa La Obrera Mataronense) that included bees flying around a loom. The only part that survives is the lovely bronze bee that adorned the top of the banner.
Back to the Main Story
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Prime Minister Robert Peel, 2nd Bart.
Painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence,
engraved by Samuel Cousins.
from the frontispiece to
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In 1832 the Whig government finally addressed parliamentary abuses with the "Representation of the People Act", known as the Great Reform Act (with separate Acts covering Ireland and Scotland). As well as creating many new voters the act enabled parliamentary boroughs to be set up in the newly expanding industrial cities such as Manchester.
On being asked to form a new government of Tories, Robert Peel published his Tamworth Manifesto of 1834. In this he states that the Reform Acts were
"... a settlement which no friend to the peace and welfare of this country would attempt to disturb, either by direct or by insidious means."
and followed with:
"...But if the spirit of the Reform Bill implies merely a careful review of institutions, civil and ecclesiastical, undertaken in a friendly temper combining, with the firm maintenance of established rights, the correction of proved abuses and the redress of real grievances, - in that case, I can for myself and colleagues undertake to act in such a spirit and with such intentions."Thus he ensured that many reluctant reactionaries in both the Whig and Tory parties would accept some moderate reform.
Immediately after that passage, Peel's Manifesto then addressed the parliamentary inquiry into Municipal Corporations. The Municipal Corporation Act followed in September 1835, aiming to remedy the abuses of local government. The passage of the Act was helped substantially by the persuasiveness of Robert Peel while he was briefly Prime Minister, against the objections of other Tories in both Houses of Parliament.
In 1837 Richard Cobden (more on him later) published a pamphlet titled "Incorporate your Borough" to encourage the reformers in eligible towns to take control of their local representation by taking advantage of the new legislation.
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| William Neild Second Mayor of Manchester from Manchester Old and New by William Arthur Shaw |
Neild was one of the few close friends of fellow Quaker John Dalton, the pioneering Manchester chemist, physicist, biologist and meteorologist.
In 1837 Neild refused to become a boroughreeve for Manchester and was fined £250 to be paid to the lord of the manor, a hefty sum in those days. He did not consider "that government any longer fit for a town of such importance as Manchester." At a meeting of ratepayers held in February 1838 the motion was proposed by Richard Cobden and enthusiastically carried:
That it is due to the character of this important borough that its chief municipal officers should be a body popularly chosen.In March 1838 a petition with 11,000 signatures was delivered to Parliament. A counter-petition was raised by Tories but the 30,000 signatures were found to be mostly fictitious. There were over 300 Pickwicks and Sam Wellers from Charles Dickens' recently finished bestselling serial The Pickwick Papers.
Manchester merchants rapidly took advantage of the new legislation to set up the Manchester Borough Council, being officially incorporated on the 23rd of October 1838. Unfortunately, it would take more than three years of costly legal wrangling with the old commissioners of police and overseers and the Tory "anti-corporators" before the new Council was fully recognised and was paid all the rates that were due to it. Many members of the council (and Richard Cobden) guaranteed a loan of £27,100 from the Bank of Manchester to cover the council spending.
Perhaps coincidentally, in 1838 a Polish priest called Jan Dzierzon invented the first modern wooden-framed beehive, allowing the honeycomb to be harvested without destroying the structure of the hive and the bees inside.
The Manchester and Salford Anti-Corn-Law Association was founded on the 19th of September 1838. On the 23rd of January 1839 a dinner was held at the Corn Exchange. More than 800 people attended, including 14 Members of Parliament.
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| Thomas Potter 1st mayor of Manchester with the Charter of Incorporation of Manchester Borough Council on the table behind him. Painted by Mancunian artist William Bradley in 1842 from Manchester Town Hall via ArtUK |
One of the speakers was Thomas Potter, the first mayor of Manchester Borough Council, cotton merchant and Irish linen importer, Unitarian, Liberal and a dedicated reformer. Potter was a networker who brought together other reformers. Since 1815 he had been a founding member of an informal Unitarian reform group called the Little Circle. Many of the members of the Little Circle went on to be on the Manchester Borough Council and the Anti-Corn-Law Association. Potter was also one of the backers from the Little Circle of the reforming Manchester Guardian newspaper founded in 1821 and the Manchester Gazette in 1824 when the Guardian turned disappointingly moderate. With two others of the Little Circle he had set up the Manchester Chamber of Commerce in 1820.
At a meeting of the Chamber of Commerce in December 1838 Potter revealed that he had been a farmer near Tadcaster in Yorkshire from 16 to 28 years old (1790 - 1802) and the farm had thrived without the "protection" of the Corn Law. His brother Richard Potter had been a partner on the farm and in their cotton business in Manchester. Richard had become a Whig MP for Wigan in 1832 to promote reform.
Of course, as a farmer Thomas Potter would have been familiar with bees as they were kept everywhere in rural communities to produce wax for candles and honey for sweetening. We even have a description from 1797 of a little cottage with a quarter of an acre of garden two miles from Tadcaster that had three hives of bees. An account of a cottage and garden, near Tadcaster by Sir Thomas Bernard (1797, T. Becket, London) used that neat, well-kept cottage and garden of Britton Abbot and his wife as an example of how the poor in rural areas can be helped rather than driven into workhouses.
While he was mayor, Thomas Potter worked to preserve public footpaths and introduce many other services that benefited the people's health, wealth and security. Thomas' son John Potter was also mayor of Manchester for three years from 1848 to 1851 and MP for Manchester after that. He got a coat of arms in 1851 but did not get a bee. John did have a terrestrial globe but with a seahorse sat on it. John Potter gave us our first Manchester Library.
The Manchester Coat of Arms
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| Over the front door of the former Newton Street Police Station on Newton Street. One of the best-preserved carved, outdoor Manchester coats of arms. |
It was clear that Manchester was at the forefront of the opposition to the Corn Law. A third of the councillors and a half of the aldermen of the council of the Borough of Manchester were openly members of the Anti-Corn Law Association. The current mayor Thomas Potter and his successor as Mayor in 1840, William Neild, were on the provisional committee of the Association. They chose the flying bee for the crest of Manchester Council four years before Peel finally repealed the Corn Law but it was clear they had hoped he would be the one to effect change.
The Manchester Borough Council formed a Committee of General Purposes to design and purchase the new Coat of Arms on the 9th of November 1840. Both the new mayor William Neild, who started as mayor that day, and the ex-mayor Thomas Potter were on the committee. They deliberately chose a small number for the committee to encourage attendance and facilitate rapid communication. They sought designs "from various distinguished artists, both in London and elsewhere". They rejected those excessively fanciful compositions and those depicting particular trades.
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| The Coat of Arms of Manchester Borough Council Original from The book of public arms : a complete encyclopædia of all royal, territorial, municipal, corporate, official, and impersonal arms by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies, 1915 Coloured by me. |
The Committee presented the Arms to the Council on the 25th of May 1842, as reported on the 28th in the Manchester Guardian:
"Your committee determined that, in whatever design they might adopt, the arms of the lords of Manchester should be retained.The reporter may not have determined exactly whether what was said was "counsel" or "council".
In the present seal it will be observed, that the coat of the lords of Manchester, known as the Manchester Arms, is therefore retained, "surmounted by a chief, thereon a ship in full sail." indicating commercial enterprise. The crest is a "a terrestrial globe, semée of bees volant," representing the world, to all parts of which the manufactures of this district are transmitted, and emblematical of that industry by which alone that success in trade and commerce which has distinguished this borough, and raised it to an importance second only to that of the metropolis, has been secured. The motto, "Concilio et labore," which may be translated "By counsel and labour," appears to be appropriate to the circumstances of our corporation."
The significance of the supporters, the antelope and lion, was stated to be that they were the supporters of the arms of Henry IV, Duke of Lancaster and the red roses on their shoulders being, of course, his badge - the famous Red Rose of Lancashire.
The grant of arms cost the new Council £225 and 4 shillings. The fees to the College of Arms were £153 and 17 shillings. The rest included the cost of engraving seals and the embossing press to take them, the design, two seals for the use of the mayor and town clerk, altogether £71 and 7 shillings. The mayor's seal was
"a very handsome large gold seal, with a fine blood-stone, on which the arms of the body corporate are deeply engraven."
An aside about the Manchester Motto
The motto of the Manchester Council is Concilio et labore, "by Council and labour". No mention is made in the newspaper report of 1842 of the derivation sometimes given for the motto as from Ecclesiasticus 37:16:
"Let reason go before every enterprize, and counsel before every action." (King James version)In the Vulgate Bible the Latin version is:
Ante omnia opera verbum verax præcedat te, et ante omnem actum consilium stabile.
Literally:
"In all your works, let a true word precede you, with steadfast counsel before every deed."Note that the version here has the Latin word consilium for "counsel". The Manchester motto has Concilio with a c rather than s, which is quite a different word. Concilio can mean "to unite or bring things together", "to make friendly or agreeable" or "to pacify" like our English word "conciliate". It can also mean "assembly of people" or "meeting of minds" like our English word "Council". It can also mean "to procure" in proper and improper senses. Conciliatrix meant a procuress of prostitutes.
A journalist reporting on a golf tournament in the Manchester Guardian of the 14th of May 1926 translated "Concilio et labore" as "By gathering in council together and by hard work". The reporter thought the American team had been inspired to their success by the Manchester motto.
Ecclesiasticus has only one use of the verb that concilio comes from, in 48:10:
qui inscriptus es indiciis temporum et lenis iracundiam Domini conciliare cor patris ad filium et restituere tribus Iacob
In that verse it means "to reconcile" and the chapter is discussing the prophet Elijah:
Who wast ordained for reproofs in their times, to pacify the wrath of the Lord's judgment, before it brake forth into fury, and to turn the heart of the father unto the son, and to restore the tribes of Jacob.Or in another translation into English:
Who art registered in the judgments of times to appease the wrath of the Lord, to reconcile the heart of the father to the son, and to restore the tribes of Jacob.
Concilio can also mean the preparation of woollen cloth by fulling but cotton does not need fulling. However, I would not be surprised if the textile reference was quite pleasing to whichever Latin scholar on the council thought up the motto.
I don't remember seeing any reference to this Biblical origin for the motto in older books. The oldest reference I have found is from a booklet called "Manchester Renaissance" published in 1967 by the City of Manchester Publicity Office. On the last page inside we find just the following paragraph on its own:
The story of municipal administration in Manchester is told in a series of booklets under the title "CONCILIO ET LABORE." This title has been chosen not only because it is the motto of the city's coat of arms, but because it illustrates the spirit of all municipal life. A strict translation is "By council and Labour," but a more expressive Biblical parallel is found in Ecclesiasticus, Chap. 37. v, 16:— "let reason be the beginning of every work, and let counsel go before every action."Note that the author calls the biblical passage a "parallel" for the translation - not a source or inspiration for the motto. The author is merely expressing an opinion of what message the reader should take from the motto. Mottos are, of course, designed to be short, pithy and ambiguous. Unfortunately, the idea that this biblical passage is the origin of the motto has been repeated at many times and in many places since, with no reference to the source.
I have always found this attribution puzzling as it is not very similar to the motto. This quote comes not from Ecclesiastes, the canonical book of the Old Testament but from Ecclesiasticus, a book of the Apocrypha (though canonical for Catholics and Orthodox) also known as the Book of the All-Virtuous Wisdom of Joshua ben Sira or Wisdom of Sirach or just Sirach.
The entire 31 verses of chapter 37 are mostly about avoiding false friends and the nature of wisdom. It also contains the advice to avoid eating too many dainty things or too much meat because that will make you sick and may kill you. The closest it gets to mentioning work is in by far the longest verse, 37:11:
"Neither consult with a woman touching her of whom she is jealous; neither with a coward in matters of war; nor with a merchant concerning exchange; nor with a buyer of selling; nor with an envious man of thankfulness; nor with an unmerciful man touching kindness; nor with the slothful for any work; nor with an hireling for a year of finishing work; nor with an idle servant of much business: hearken not unto these in any matter of counsel."It would seem to be strange to pick a verse from this chapter if you were nonconformist merchants but a verse in another chapter was used by the Anti-Corn-Law Association. On the 13th of January 1840 (reported in the Manchester Guardian, 15th of January 1840) a massive and extravagant banquet was held at the newly opened Free Trade Hall. This was the wooden precursor to the later brick-built Halls. The pavilion was decorated with several quotes from different sources including the very apt Ecclesiasticus 34:21:
The bread of the needy is their life: he that defraudeth him thereof is a man of blood.
The Feminine Monarchie, Or the Historie of Bees: Shewing Their Admirable Nature, and Properties, Their Generation, and Colonies, Their Gouernment, Loyaltie, Art, Industrie, Enemies, Warres, Magnamimitie, &c. Together with the Right Ordering of Them from Time to Time: and the Sweet Profit Arising Thereof. Written out of experience by Charles Butler was published in 1609 by Ioseph Barnes, Oxford.
The frontispiece of the 1623 edition of
The Feminine Monarchie, etc, by Charles Butler
From the Biodiversity Heritage Library
The second edition was published in 1623 in London and had a frontispiece of the "Four orders of bees": a crowned queen bee, bee dukes and some workers on a honey comb with some idle drones below. The motto repeated on both sides of the honeycomb was "Solertia et labore". This is closest to the motto chosen by the Manchester Borough Council than anything else I could find in Latin on the internet. In Latin solertia can mean skill, shrewdness, quickness of mind, ingenuity, dexterity, adroitness, expertness or knowledge. Arte also means skill, but more in the sense of skill at a particular art, science or profession.
The full quote is
Miraris Arte conditas mirâ domos,
Opesq[ue] regales in his reconditas?
SOLERTIA ET LABORE fiunt omnia.
C.B.
Roughly translated by me to:
Wonderful Art created wonderful homes,In the 1635 edition Charles Butler provides a more-or-less translation, in a lot more words. He gives Solertia et labore as "wit and industrie".
Royal treasures are hidden here?
By skill and labour all things are made.
The 1639 edition is entirely in a phonetic alphabetic invented by Butler. He gives another translation, though very free. I couldn't find all of those letters in Character Map, though equivalents may be in there. Therefore I have transliterated it into normal modern spelling.
These curious buildings fraught with richest treasure,
Not without cause, to some do wonders seem:
But they with greater cause, those wonder's causes,
Bee's WIT and INDUSTRY may wonders deem.
These do make those new wonders in respect:
For what will not INDUSTRIOUS WIT effect?
Charles Butler was a vicar at Wootton St Lawrence in Hampshire and is famous as the "Father of British Bee-keeping". Through careful observation of his own hives he determined that the Queen was female. Before Butler's studies on bees the monarch had always been thought to be a King. In the third edition in 1634 he started the custom of dedicating books on bees to the Queen, in this case Queen Henrietta Maria. Butler wrote:
... the males heere bear no sway at all, this being an Amazonian or feminine kingdome. ...
...they may well bee said to have a Commonwealth, since all they doe is in common, without any private respect. ...
...They worke for all, they watch for all, they fight for all. ...
... Their dwelling and dyet are common to all alike: they have like common care both of their wealth and young ones. ...
... And all this under the government of one Monarch, of whom above all things they have a principall care and respect, loving, reverencing, and obeying her in all things.
Butler also discovered that beeswax was produced from glands on the bee and not collected from plants in the same way as honey, pollen and propolis. An edition from the 1950s states that the book "travelled into the most remote parts of this great Kingdom of Great Britain, and was entertained of all sorts, both learned and unlearned."
Charles Butler was not the first to write a guide to bee-keeping in English, though many have said so. That honour goes to Edmund Southerne who published the comprehensive manual A Treatise concerning the right use and ordering of Bees: Newlie made and set forth, according to the Authors owne experience: (which by any heretofore hath not been done) in 1593, printed in London. Southerne gave advice on how best to look after your bees and get the highest yield of honey. He also defended honey against the new fashion of using expensive imported white cane sugar. He stated that it was impossible for a honey eater to suffer a surfeit (an overdose of a food causing harm) if they always ate it with bread.
There was also a bee book in English by Thomas Hill published in 1563 but he just rehashed the writings of ancient authors. Nobody believes that he counts.
So here we have another connection to bees and the industry/landowner divide of Britain in the early 19th century. Did the members of Manchester Borough Council decide to take that bee-related motto and as a private joke turn it into "By the Council and Industry all things are made"?
The Salford Coat of Arms
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The Coat of Arms of Salford Borough
Council From The book of public arms :
a complete encyclopædia of all royal,
territorial, municipal, corporate,
official, and impersonal arms by
Coloured by me.
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"The semée of bees, volant," means that the whole field, or shield, is strewed, scattered, or sown over, with bees flying,-an emblem of the industrial character and pursuits of the borough. This semée of bees is also borne by the corporation of Manchester, and in this respect even the heralds recognise the fraternal or sisterly relationship of the two boroughs. ... ... while the whole being strewed with bees, indicates the busy, industrious habits of the large and active population of the borough.The inclusion of wheatsheaves would be very odd if we did not know about Salford Council's involvement in the Anti-Corn-Law Association. Salford has not produced much wheat for a very long time. They used the excuse of the three golden wheatsheaves used by the Earl of Chester in his coat of arms, which the College of Arms would think was a pretty good excuse. The Earls of Chester used to own the Hundred of Salford. Ranulf de Blundeville, Earl of Chester made Salford a free borough in either 1229 or 1230. Ranulf's shield was of three golden wheatsheaves against a blue background.
The wolf (the creature on the left, honestly supposed to be a wolf) came from the arms of the first Norman Earl of Chester, called by the English Hugh Lupus, Hugh the Wolf. He probably preferred that to the nickname the Welsh gave him - Huw Fras, Fat Hugh.
In this case we actually have Peel's motto Industria englished in the motto of Salford - "Integrity and Industry". The scattering of golden flying bees is against a blue background in the shield of Salford, the same colour scheme as the single bee of Peel's arms. There is also another parallel. The crest of Robert Peel's coat of arms had a silver demi-lion holding a golden shuttle between its front paws. The crest of Salford's coat of arms had a silver demi-lion holding a flag depicting a golden shuttle. I didn't include the crest for my version of the Peel coat of arms above because I am no artist and it would take quite an artist to make a convincing half-a-lion holding a weaving shuttle between its front paws.
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| Bury Council Arms from the Fusilier Museum, previously the Bury Technical Colleges, built in 1884 but the stone front appears to have been added in 1893 |
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| The better-preserved Bury arms on the ex-Public Library and Art Gallery, built in 1899 Now Bury Sculpture Centre. |
There were other Lancashire councils to get arms with bees in Victorian times:
Blackburn Borough Council
Parsley Peel, grandfather of the Prime Minister, went to Blackburn Grammar School and set up his first cotton printing factory there as "Haworth, Peel and Yates".
Motto arte et labore - "by skill and labour".
Three naturally-coloured flying bees against a silver background on the shield.
The crest is a dove standing on a golden weaving shuttle with the thread from the shuttle and an olive branch in its beak.
Granted 14th February 1852.
Burnley Borough Council
Motto pretiumque et causa laboris - "the value and reason for work".
Two golden bees on the shield, with other stuff. The crest being a stork holding a flowering stalk of cotton in its beak.
Granted 17th May 1862
Barrow-in-Furness
Though now in Cumbria, Barrow used to be in Lancashire. The council seem to have chosen the bee as a jokey picture puzzle. The shield has a bee with an arrow pointed at it for "B-arrow".
Motto semper sursum - "always up".
Granted by someone who was not taking his job seriously on the 13th of December 1867.
Bacup Borough Council
Motto honor et industria - "honour and industry".
On the shield two flying bees flank a black sheep being airlifted off a cliff by a helicopter, under a squirrel flanked by two cotton bales.
Granted 13th March 1883.
Widnes Borough Council
Motto industria ditat - "industry enriches".
The shield is divided into four with a Lancashire red rose in each of two quarters and a beehive surrounded by four flying bees in each of the other two.
Granted 5th June 1893.
The Roberts Peel
The Grandfather Robert Peel (1723 - 1795) was a dairy farmer in Blackburn known locally as "Buttermilk Bob". He decided to try his hand at calico manufacture. He started experimenting with printing in his kitchen with the help of his family. A parsley leaf pattern calico, suggested by his young daughter, became incredibly popular and made his fortune. He then acquired a new nickname and was known as Parsley Peel. Many other designs quickly followed.
Parsley Peel's son Robert "No Nickname" Peel (1750 - 1830) set up a mill with partners in Bury in 1772. He improved the dyeing process and made even more money. This was before the invention of synthetic dyes for cloth. The first dye synthesised by chemists was not used until the 1840s. Greeny-yellow silk was made with picric acid, a poisonous compound that when dry had the same explosive power as modern high explosives such as TNT. The colour faded quickly and this dangerous dye did not catch on. The first synthetic dye to become widely used was invented accidentally in 1856 and called Perkin's mauve, aniline purple or mauveine.
Before that discovery all dyes were made with plants, lichens and minerals. Many used minerals as mordants to attach the plant or lichen dye permanently to the cloth. Revolutionary chemical investigations of the late 18th Century and early 19th Century by a new generation of chemists such as Humphrey Davy led to the development and purification of many new inorganic compounds. Robert Peel found that some of these new compounds would brighten the colours and improve the length of time the dye stayed on the cloth before it faded.
Before 1794, the younger Robert Peel's company had set up a warehouse shop in Manchester as Peel, Yates and Co., merchants, manufacturers and printers, 6 Peel Street, Manchester. He also purchased £300 worth of shares in the Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal that opened in 1797. The canal enabled direct transport of his products by barge from Bury into Manchester. The son of Parsley Peel was granted a coat of arms in 1792 when he was 42 years old. The shield had a large bee volant and the motto "Industria". He became a Baronet in 1800, becoming Sir Robert Peel, 1st Bart. It is said that the arms were designed by Peel himself, as you would expect of a man who made his fortune from design. The bee signified industry and the bundles of arrows symbolised the strength of family togetherness.
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| My version of the shield and motto from Sir Robert Peel, 1st Bart's coat of arms. |
Robert Peel, 1st Bart was also an MP for 30 years. He had bought the rotten borough of Tamworth, which meant he could become their MP. Though a fervent Tory in most of his attitudes, Robert Peel, 1st Bart. was obviously an influence on his son's later reforming zeal. In 1802 he got a bill passed by parliament that required cotton mills to be ventilated and cleaned and that apprentices should have a basic education and attend a religious service once a month. Their working hours were limited to 12 hours a day and they were to be provided with sets of clothing. Unfortunately, most cotton mills employed children who were not apprentices so Robert Peel 1st Bart. teamed up with his son 2nd Bart. to introduce further bills in 1815 and 1819 that aimed to alleviate the exploitation of children a little more.
The Robert Peel
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| Julia Floyd, Lady Peel Married Robert Peel, 2nd Bart in 1820 Painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence, mezzotint by Samuel Cousins. |
In 1809 Robert 1st Bart. also bought his son Robert "Orange" Peel, 2nd Bart. (1788 - 1850) a single voter in a rotten borough that was all that was needed to make him MP for Cashel (Caiseal in the local spelling), County Tipperary, now in the Republic of Ireland. Having only just left Oxford University and entering parliament at the age of 21, Grandson Peel rose quickly in the political system until he became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on two occasions. Prime Minister Peel often referred to his Lancastrian and cotton roots in Parliamentary speeches. Though Grandson Peel had co-operated with his father on reforms in laws governing factory conditions, the 1st Bart. was very much against reform in other areas such as Catholic Emancipation. It was only as his father got frail, eventually dying in 1830, that Robert 2nd Bart could start to act on his own conscience and free himself from the tangles of old political alliances. He was no longer so Orange as he had been forced to be by his father and his father's political allies.
Meanwhile, a bunch of reformers and radicals came to power in the council of the recently incorporated Borough of Manchester. Among their targets for reform was one very controversial national tax, the Corn Law. This tax raised the price of the most common staple foods by 50% and was a huge burden on the poor. The reformers in the Manchester Council were mostly the newly rich of the cotton industry and other new local industries. Partly philanthropic and sympathetic to the sufferings of the poor all over the country they were also bothered by the fact they had to pay their workers much more for them to be comfortable or even well-nourished.
Despite his obvious leanings toward reform, Peel managed to get the support of many in his reactionary party. He was suggested for the post of Prime Minister by the previous Tory Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington. Wellington was against the Reform Act - he had even voted against the abolition of slavery. How did Peel arrange all this? He was an excellent public speaker but he must have had more. He was socially awkward and could be cold and aloof. Presumably he was a consummate politician, which is not usually a compliment.
John Fort, MP for Clitheroe was another "Cotton Prince" whose father Richard Fort had made his fortune from printing cotton. Either this John Fort (1793-1842) or his son Richard Fort 1822-1868, also MP for Clitheroe, or his father Richard Fort (1770-1829) had bought a coat of arms with a flying bee, sometime before 1851. Unfortunately, I can't yet pin down exactly when the arms were granted. A letter from John Fort assured the Manchester and Salford Anti-Corn-Law Association that
"in or out of parliament, no-one can be more opposed to the existing corn laws than I am."A less benevolent cotton king was Samuel Horrocks MP, Mayor of Preston, born in Bradshaw (1766 - 1842). Another wealthy cotton merchant, he was granted a coat of arms with a bee volant between two shuttles in 1825. This was two years after a cotton spinner called Andrew Riding tried to assassinate him with a butcher's cleaver for making wage cuts, seriously wounding him on the left arm. Motto Industria et spe, meaning "Industry and Hope".
Richard Cobden got his start in business in 1828 as a commission agent for the Fort family calico printer, Fort Brothers & Co. He progressed rapidly, taking on direct ownership in 1831 of one of their printworks in Sabden in the Ribble Valley near the Fort's home at Read Hall.
Richard Cobden was later to become the driving force behind Manchester's Free Trade movement, a prominent Free Trade campaigner and as an MP for Stockport was an opponent of the Corn Law in the House of Commons.
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| Richard Cobden Esq: M.P., painted by Charles Allen Duval, engraved by George Adcock. |
Evening classes were offered at the Athenæum and included French, German, Italian, Spanish and other modern languages. The public lectures were very popular and covered a range from "application of chemistry to the arts and manufactures" through Athens, elocution, the prison system, the effects of gradients on railways, the institutions of the Middle Ages, music and optics to pacifism and the education and emancipation of women.
The Athenæum was one of several such enterprises including The Mechanics Institute, the Lyceum and the Parthenon.
The first Manchester Free Trade Hall, celebrating the movement for repeal of the Corn Law, was opened in 1840 on the site of the Peterloo Massacre on land donated by Richard Cobden.
Cobden said in 1841:
"There can be no doubt that Sir Robert Peel is at heart as good a Free-trader as I am. He has told us so in the House of Commons again and again; nor do I doubt that Sir Robert Peel has in his inmost heart the desire to be the man who shall carry out the principles of Free Trade in this country.It was an open secret in the country that Robert Peel was in favour of the repeal of the Corn Law. Reminiscences of Manchester fifty years ago by JT Slugg of Chorlton-cum-Hardy (JE Cornish, Manchester, 1881) included a story that illustrates the relationship of Peel and the Free Traders and the delicate balance he had to maintain.
"At the time when the Anti-Corn-Law agitation was at its height, and a suspicion lurked in the minds of many, especially amongst the supporters of Protection, that Sir Robert Peel was undergoing a process of conversion, and was about to bring in a measure of free trade in corn, and whilst the country was anxiously awaiting some sign from him, Mr. Charles Ramsay, of Ancoats Vale, printed a pattern consisting of an ear of corn with the stalk and a flowing blade or leaf. On this blade was printed the word "FREE." He forwarded a piece of it to Sir Robert Peel, asking his acceptance of it as a piece of printed cotton velvet, but without drawing his attention particularly to the nature of the design. Sir Robert, of course, gracefully accepted it, and thanked the donor. In a very short time a paragraph went the round of the papers describing the pattern, and reporting Sir Robert's acceptance of it. Inferences were drawn, and the Protectionist party were up in arms, but the storm was instantly quelled by Peel's returning the piece to the donor with an explanatory note. I have in my possession a small portion of this piece of printed velvet which was the cause of so much commotion, which I had given to me at the time, and have religiously preserved ever since."
There was a Charles Ramsey & Co. Dyers, bleachers, finishers and woollen and stuff printers at Ancoats Vale Dye Works in 1853. The company took out patents for 104 ornamental print designs between 27th of July 1843 and 12th of February 1864. The online descriptions of the patents only give the address as "Ancoats Vale".
This was not Charles Ramsey's only printed velveteen (cotton velvet) on a Free Trade theme. In the Manchester Guardian on 17th February 1844 a letter was printed. Richard Cobden thanked Charles Ramsey & Co. for the present of a piece commemorating a large gift from The Marquis of Westminster to the Anti-corn-law League. Cobden also praised the workmanship of the cloth. Ramsey was, perhaps, showing off his techniques as well as promoting the League. The pattern was of the arms of the Marquis and the phrase "The League £500". The Guardian reporter had seen the velveteen and described it as "really beautiful material".
One of his fellow Tories called Robert Peel "a Liberal wolf in sheep's clothing". Sheep were possibly held in higher regard in the 19th Century than they are now and wolves were rather despised.
In 1841, after he became Prime Minister for the second time, Peel maintained his cover by voting against repeal of the Corn Law and Sugar Duties for the first five years. He claimed they were justified exceptions to his support for Free Trade. It is more likely that he knew they could end his career.
Prime Minister Robert Peel is now remembered for many things during his political career, including:
Catholic Emancipation: His earlier opposition, influenced by his father, earned him the name of Orange Peel. He changed his opinions and he oversaw the final dismantling of laws that restricted the rights of Catholics in the UK. This was a Good Thing.
Reducing the exploitation of many children: The Mines Act made the employment of women and children underground in mines illegal. The Factory Act reduced the number of hours women and children could legally be made to work in factories. This was a Good Thing.
The foundation of the modern Police force: Starting the "peelers" first in Ireland and later giving his first name to the "bobbies" in London. This was mostly a Good Thing, compared to what had been before. Peel devised nine Peelian Principles for the newly-formed police force. If the modern police would abide by these they would probably be more admired by all races, classes and political persuasions.
"...by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth or social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humour,..."Peel also reduced the number of crimes punishable by death and further reformed the prison system.
The Irish Famine: The disaster caused by the destruction of potato harvests by blight led to the death and suffering of many people in Ireland and emigration in vast numbers to any country that looked like a sanctuary, including the UK, the USA, Canada and Australia. Peel's response to the emergency in the first year was to buy maize from the United States and institute public works. The actions were slow, inadequate and incompetent, leading to much more death and suffering than should have happened. Peel had hoped that the repeal of the Corn Law would help, but it was too late for pricing to make a difference. This was a Very Bad Thing.
The next government under the Whig Prime Minister Lord John Russell did even worse as the Famine continued. They followed the trendy Malthusian idea that the best way to reduce the suffering of the poor and starving was to eliminate them entirely by letting them die. So they just let them die because it was God's Will. They did nothing to curb the actions of the landlords who were mostly resident in England and even enabled the evictions. Farm tenants could not pay the rent because they had no crop of potatoes so the landlords would evict them. They took away the only thing that stood between the farmers and their families and death by starvation. As records were not well kept, we can only guess but it is estimated that a million people died and a million emigrated. They fled to every part of the world - anywhere they might have a possibility of making a living. Many died while travelling to new countries because they were weakened by starvation and illness.
The repeal of the Corn Law and reintroduction of Income Tax: changing the burden of tax from everyone who bought food to only those on incomes over £150 per year - a very reasonable wage. This was a Good Thing. The repeal of the Corn Law destroyed Peel's government, ended his political career and split the Tory party. Only one-third of his party voted with Peel and it was the Whigs who provided the bulk of the votes in favour that carried the repeal.
A Great Banquet in the Free-Trade Hall
It was reported in the Manchester Guardian on the 3rd of February 1849 on page 8 that a banquet to celebrate the repeal of the Corn Law was held on 31st January to last until after midnight "to usher in, with all honour and rejoicing, the advent of free trade in corn on the first of February."
The food included:
2,500 sandwiches, 2,500 veal pies, 2,000 preserve tarts, 1,500 pork pies, 600 mince pies, 600lb Carr's fancy biscuits (the first biscuit manufacturer to get a Royal Warrant, from Queen Victoria in 1841), 600lb soda biscuits, 6,000 oranges, 6,000 American apples, 600lb almonds and raisins, 600lb figs, 600lb grapes. 25 bottles of pure filtered water were placed on each table. A large stock of wines was provided, available at reasonable prices.
Entertainment was provided by an orchestra of 26 and a choir of 30. Guests were served by 56 female waiters. The hall was decorated with high-quality artificial flowers and fruits made by Mr Clayton of Brazenose Street. Banners and medallions had many devices and mottoes including a golden wheatsheaf and a ship at sea.
Entry was available to 2000 gents at 5 shillings per ticket and almost 1000 ladies at 3 shillings and 6 pence. It is pointless comparing the value of money then and money now. We have so many commodities that could only have featured in the dreams of the early Victorians. The distribution of wealth is also very different in the modern population of Britain. However, as the cost of bread is so important to this narrative, we could compare that.
If 3 loaves were 16 pennies in 1850 then £1 (of 240 old pennies) could have bought 45 loaves. The standard Victorian loaf was a little over 4 pounds in weight. A white crusty bloomer is probably the most comparable style of bread to that made in Victorian times. We should ignore the fact that the Victorian loaf would be, by default, artesanal and organic, as it was also often not entirely made of food. Adulterants including chalk and plaster were at the safer end of the range of substances used to add weight by the less moral bakers. A standard 800 gram white crusty bloomer would now cost about £1.10. This gives us the figure of an old Victorian pound being worth £119 in modern Elizabethan coinage.
At this exchange rate the price of a ticket to this banquet cost the equivalent of about £30 for a man and £21 for a woman.
Four years after repealing the Corn Law Robert Peel, 2nd Bart was injured when thrown from his horse. He died three days later on the 2nd of July 1850. The day of his funeral was observed voluntarily by most of Manchester closing their businesses. Mill-owners gave their workers paid time off.
The Mayors of Manchester (John Potter, Thomas Potter's son) and Salford (Edward Ryley Langworthy) headed a committee formed on the 8th of July 1850 to erect a statue or monument to Peel's memory in Manchester. On the 12th of July 1850 another committee headed by the mayors decided to raise a statue in Peel Park in Salford. The statues were crowd-funded, with no contribution allowed over 20 guineas (£21). Adverts were placed in the Manchester Guardian. The advert for Manchester stated that the monument would be "commemorative of his very eminent services". The Salford advert "considers it desirable to commemorate his great services by a suitable monument". The Manchester committee had received £4,894 by the 10th of August 1850, less than six weeks after Peel's death. The full amount of £5,109 came from 1,057 individuals. Using the bread price ratio calculated above would make the value of the payment for Peel's Manchester statue the equivalent of about £600,000.
The rash of building of statues of Peel across the country is seen by many art historians as the start of the mania for public statuary of town and city councils across the kingdom throughout the Victorian era. Some towns also built parks and public baths in Peel's name.
For the Salford statue 9,020 members of the public contributed, including workers in 45 factories. A total of £1,200 was given.
For Salford the winning artist was chosen in an unlimited competition. Over 70 artists entered over 100 designs which were then shown in a public exhibition. Most were impossibly expensive. The winner was Matthew Noble, 35 years old at the time of the inauguration. He went on to a prolific career in political statuary, including the statue of the Duke of Wellington in Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester.
As reported in the Manchester Guardian on the 12th of May 1852, the Salford statue was inaugurated on Saturday the 8th of May 1852, the first public statue in Salford. The unveiling had been delayed from the 5th of February due to the artist being too ill to attend. It was still the first statue of Peel completed in the country. The 31 year old Frank Ashton, the new Mayor of Salford was present but Joseph Brotherton, MP for Salford and a famous reformer and vegetarian, led the festivities.
The Salford statue had the following quote from Peel engraved into one side of the plinth:
"It may be, I shall leave a name sometimes remembered with expressions of good will in the abode of those, whose lot is to labor, and to earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brow - when they shall recruit their exhausted strength with abundant and untaxed food the sweeter, because it is no longer leavened by the sense of injustice."The unveiling was overshadowed by a tragedy on the Monday before the great day. Thomas Gibbons had been the head gardener of Peel Park since it opened 6 years previously. He was working with some of his men near the pedestal of the Peel statue in the early afternoon. The lodge-keeper told them that a woman had thrown herself into the nearby River Irwell. The men ran to help and Gibbons swam out to the woman, whose clothes were keeping her afloat. Unfortunately, he could not overpower her and after a few minutes struggle was drowned. His body was recovered after 20 minutes and no effort could revive him. In addition to the usual methods, they even tried to revive him with electricity from a battery.
Hannah Normanton was saved from the river and on inquiries being made was found to have had chronic mental health issues. She stated:
"I went into the park to get some fresh air. I didn't know what I was doing. I had a swimming in my head and I ran into the river. I was so very ill."Hannah was removed to the workhouse of the Salford union.
On the 29th of May the Humane Society awarded Mrs Gibbons £10. A public subscription was raised for Gibbons' widow and three children and on the 15th of September the reasonable sum of £511, 13 shillings and 7 pence was invested in a trust for the benefit of Mrs Gibbons and her three children. Queen Victoria had admired the enthusiastic and skilled work of Gibbons when she had visited Peel Park the previous year and appears to have donated £10.
In 1954 the Peel statue along with the statues of the other reformers Joseph Brotherton and Richard Cobden were put into storage. This was due to the extension of the Royal Technical College, Salford (which after some complicated history later became the University of Salford) taking some of Peel Park. In 1969 the statues of Peel and Brotherton were sold by Salford Corporation to the owner of Gawsworth Hall in Cheshire, though it was doubtful that they had the right to sell them. Peel can still be seen on a public footpath past the Hall, in poor repair, crusted with verdigris and having lost his left hand.
The Salford Peel statue is probably so green and crusty now because it was made with bronze of a much inferior quality compared to that used for the Manchester and Bury statues. The committee of Salford Council had specified that "the casting should be of the best standard metal". They referred to the foundry contracted to produce the statue "the eminent bronze founders, Messrs. Moore and Co. of London" (Manchester Guardian 8th of May 1852). Unfortunately, this was Moore, Fressange and Moore of Leather Lane in Holborn, a company that had only been in business since 1848. Perhaps their selection was a mistake by the eager but inexperienced artist Matthew Noble, also based in London. The bronze foundry had just made some bronze reliefs for Nelson's Column so might have appeared "eminent". The choice might have been the result of having less money to spend than Bury or Manchester.
The bronze foundry of Moore, Fressange and Moore collapsed when the partners were charged with fraud a few months after the Salford statue was put in place. An anonymous informer revealed in August 1852 that the foundry was using cheap, substandard bronze. The informer was a former employee who had seduced the wife of one of the partners and then ran away with her to Australia. Other workers then revealed that lumps of scrap iron had been added to bronzes to make them up to the contracted weight. The partners (John Moore, James Moore and Peter Fressange) were imprisoned in 1853. By 1858 Fressange was out of prison and working as a gold and silver caster at Poland Street in Soho. Hopefully, he was a reformed character or perhaps he had been an innocent patsy.
Peel's birthplace Bury also beat Manchester by over a year, unveiling their two ton bronze of Peel on the 8th of September 1852, reported in the Manchester Guardian on the 11th of September 1852. The Guardian also published an editorial that same day, praising Peel to the skies:
"And we have no doubt that, although a strong feeling of material obligation pervades the sentiments of the English people towards Sir ROBERT PEEL, a still larger element in the popular admiration is furnished by respect for courageous self-sacrifice, and for solemn sense of duty."
Peel Statue, Bury
They then went on to attack Lord Derby, the Prime Minister in 1852 and Benjamin Disraeli, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, finishing:
"Lord DERBY has a seat in the House of Lords, and may, for all we know, have a tomb in Westminster Abbey; but when will he get a corner in the market place of a dozen English towns, or a niche in the households of the people?"
The artist was selected after a large number of models were submitted by various artists. Bury chose Edward Hodges Baily who had plenty of experience making monuments. Baily was 64 years old at the inauguration. His most famous bronze is the statue of Admiral Nelson on Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square. EH Baily was also a great supporter of Peel's reforms. The total cost of the statue and plinth was £2,500, donated by the public. Bury had used The Bronze Works in Pimlico, the same bronze foundry as Manchester had for their statue. Presumably Bury got their order in first or the smaller pieces of bronze were much quicker to produce.
On the day the statue was inaugurated most mills, warehouses and shops around Bury were closed and a general holiday observed. It was a delightfully fine day and it was guessed that between 12,000 and 15,000 people attended.
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Quotation from Peel's speech on quitting Parliament.
Reproduced on the Peel Statue in Bury
and wreathed in stalks of wheat. |
"But, thanks to that courageous statesman who stood forward to serve his country and to give employment and food to the people of Lancashire in particular, a magic change had taken place.—(Applause.) Instead of misery and discontent, we had happiness and contentment; instead of disloyalty to the crown and disaffection towards the institutions of the country, our glorious, great and fair Queen was more revered, respected and cherished in the hearts of her people, than she herself, or any monarch who ever sat on the throne, had been before.—(Cheers.)
The statue has Peel standing by a sheaf of wheat. A brass plaque on the side of the plinth bears a wheatstalk-wreathed quote from Peel, the same one as was engraved on the side of the plinth of the Salford statue.
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| The allegorical figure of Manchester with a crown of brick, a spindle and sheaf of wheat |
Flanking the figure of Peel, the allegorical figure of Manchester has a bale of cotton, a spindle wound with thread and a sheaf of wheat under her shield which can only be explained by the association with the repeal of the Corn Law. Manchester does not produce much wheat. She also wears a mural crown, representing a wall, to show that she is a city.
The Manchester statue committee also included Salis Schwabe, a German Jewish emigré. Schwabe had settled in Glasgow in 1817 as a cotton merchant. He then moved down to Middleton and set up a calico printing mill. He had a reputation as a kind employer, provider of schools for the poor and a philanthropist. The family was very well-connected in artistic and progressive political circles. Schwabe was a free-trade campaigner and donor. Salis and his wife Julie Schwabe accompanied Richard and his wife Catherine Cobden on their European tour to promote free trade in 1846-1847. Julie Salis Schwabe published Richard Cobden, notes sur ses voyages, correspondances et souvenirs in Paris in 1879. The book was translated as Reminiscences of Richard Cobden and published in London in 1895.
A competition was held where 9 artists produced models for the new statue. The models were put on public display. The Edinburgh-born artist and sculptor William Calder Marshall won the competition in January 1851. Calder Marshall was 40 years old at the time. The bronzes were cast at The Bronze Works, Pimlico in London. The Robert Peel statue was unveiled on the 12th of October 1853 in front of the Royal Infirmary as the first public statue erected in Manchester. Later it was moved to its intended place in Piccadilly Gardens where it still stands an equal number of paces from Queen Victoria to her left as the statue of the Duke of Wellington stands to her right.
Conclusion
I believe the respect and admiration that the reforming Manchester Borough Council had for Prime Minister Peel as their fellow reformer and Lancastrian son of cotton manufacturers is evident from the historical record. The Peel coat of arms with its prominent flying Bee would have been familiar from the busy business his father conducted in Manchester for over 50 years and Peel's own prolific political activities. The association of Peel's motto Industria with the description of the Bee in the Manchester Borough Council coat of arms as signifying industry is also telling.
The big division over the repeal of the Corn Law was between "industry", the newly rich towns that were expanding rapidly from the profits of manufacturing, and the mostly aristocratic landowners, staying rich from protectionism. "Protection" was the term used for the taxes used to keep British (and Imperial) wheat and other agricultural products artificially competitive though unnecessarily expensive.
If I am right, the Manchester and Salford Bee does not just stand for Industry but also represents Fairness in society, employment and taxation, Compassion for the poor or disadvantaged and Democracy hard won by decades of peaceful campaigning and delicate negotiation after a despotic government-sanctioned massacre of innocents. With a healthy dose of Co-operation and Peace being the essential foundations of the human economy and community.
I would like to think that those bright-eyed and hopeful reformers also had a bit of a naughty sense of humour when selecting a motto for the Council. Not only referencing their power and responsibility and the dependence of Manchester on trade and work for its fortune but also their reverence for the adored new Queen Victoria as the Queen Bee with her subject dukes (who don't actually exist in beehives), busy workers and lazy drones.
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| Queen Victoria Painted by Edmund Thomas Parris The Cooper Gallery Via ArtUK |
"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty; power is ever stealing from the many to the few."Robert Peel has sometimes been credited with laying the foundations of the modern Conservative Party. This would have been said in the days of the One Nation Tories who cared about the effects of their policies on all the people who made up the nation. The current crop of Tories put Party before Country and are proud of it. They are happy to sell off national treasures and put the profits in the pockets of their friends and relatives. They promote fracking and send the police to crack heads to defend it despite fracking being a dirty and short-term energy source that nobody needs in a world with cheap oil. They make promises they can never keep and gamble with the future of Britain because of petty internal Party squabbles. They have to be publicly shamed into remembering that the poor have a right to live and eat. Robert Peel would have hated them. Peel saw himself as a pragmatic public servant and he cared about the future of every single human being in his care. Even the Irish, though he let them down badly in his response to the start of the massive emergency of The Famine. I believe that was probably incompetence rather than malice. Those who followed him in government in London were malicious and downright evil in their response to The Famine.
Thanks to the Archive of the Manchester Guardian, the Biodiversity Heritage Library the University of Leicester Special Collections and the Internet Archive, without which this would be a much shorter and less interesting article. If I have missed out any references or links they are probably to be found in one of these sources.
