The Leeds Times was founded by four businessmen in March 1833.
Within a year Frederick Hobson had taken full control of the newspaper.
The politics of the paper was middle-class radical although it did
attract some working-class readers. By the summer of 1837 the Leeds
Times was selling 3,500 copies a week. However, circulation of
the newspaper fell when the Chartist newspaper, the Northern
Star, appeared at the end of 1837.
In the first six years the Leeds Times had four editors. In
1838 Samuel Smiles was invited to become
editor. Smiles decided to abandon his career as a doctor and to become
a full-time worker for the cause of political change. In the Leeds
Times Smiles expressed his powerful dislike of the aristocracy
and made attempts to unite working and middle class reformers.
Although the Leeds Times under Smiles' editorship supported
the six points of the Charter, it severely criticised the ideas of
Feargus O'Connor and the Physical
Force Chartists. Smiles was especially unhappy about the way some
Chartists stirred up anti middle-class feeling. Smiles also employed
his newspaper in the campaign in favour of factory legislation.
Although sales fell to 1,846 in April 1839, by the time Samuel
Smiles left in 1842, circulation was once over 3,000. With the
demise of the Northern Star sales
of the Leeds Times continued to improve. In 1848 the newspaper
was selling over 5,250 copies a week.
(1)
Samuel Smiles wrote his autobiography
in his eighties. The autobiography was not published until 1905, a
year after his death.
1832 Reform Act: Parliament met on the 3rd February 1831, and on the
1st March, Lord John Russell brought forward his measure of Parliamentary
Reform. The whole country was roused by this proposal. Shoals of petitions
were sent in from all quarters; political unions were formed. A monster
meeting was held in the King's Park, Edinburgh, at which I was present
as a spectator, when enthusiastic resolutions were unanimously carried.
At the close of the University Classes at the end of April, 1831,
I returned to Haddington, where I found the same excitement prevailing
about the Bill.
Leeds Times:In 1838 I received a letter which had an important influence
on my future career. It was from Mr. Bingley, reporter for the Leeds
Times, and was written on behalf of Mr.Hobson, the proprietor
of that newspaper. The letter was to the effect: that the prosperity
of the Leeds Times had not continued since the death of Robert
Nicoll (the previous editor); that the circulation had fallen off,
partly through the competition of the Chartist organ, the Northern
Star, conducted by Feargus O'Connor; and that, though Charles
Hooton (present editor) was a most able man, he had somehow not entered
freely into the political movements of the neighbourhood, and that,
in short, he was about to leave, and Mr. Hobson wished to replace
him with another Scotsman.
Chartism: I became Honorary Secretary of the Leeds Parliamentary Reform
Association. We felt that we needed to infuse some new blood into
Parliament by the extension of the franchise. The ten pound suffrage
introduced by the Reform Bill had only enfranchised the middle classes.
Why not extend the suffrage to the industrious people - the working
people. For instance, it was shown that twenty-five small boroughs,
of no importance whatever, sent fifty members to Parliament, whilst
Leeds, with 20,000 more population than all these boroughs combined,
sent only two.
Physical Force Chartism: I went to the public meeting held in New
Palace Yard, on the 17th September, 1838. The object was to petition
Parliament in favour of the People's Charter. The chief speaker was
Feargus O'Connor, who was loud and mouthering. Richardson, his disciple
also spoke. The proceedings were marred by the physical force swagger
of some of the speakers. I did not much admire the London crowd. They
seemed loafers and idlers, not working men.
In 1839 the working people suffered much. Towards the close of the
year, at least 10,000 persons were out of employment in the burgh
of Leeds. Though the people complained, they did not riot. It was
different elsewhere. There were riots at Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle,
and other places. At Newport, in Wales, a Chartist insurrection took
place, which ended in the capture of John Frost and a number of rioters.
At Bradford, men openly practised with pikes and firearms. Sixteen
of them were apprehended by the police, and were sentenced to various
terms of imprisonment. Feargus O'Connor himself was sentenced to eighteen
months' imprisonment for inciting to insurrection and plunder in the
Northern Star.
Joseph Hume: From the time he took his seat in Parliament, down to
the year 1841, when he offered himself to the Leeds constituency,
Joseph Hume distinguished himself by his indefatigable industry. There
is scarcely a page of the parliamentary register which does not contain
some record of his sayings and doings. In the finances, the revenue,
the excise, the public accounts, the army and navy, the representation
of the people, the removal of religious disabilities, he was always
at work. He was the most regular attender, the most consistent voter,
the most laborious investigator, the most active and useful member,
perhaps, who ever sat in Parliament.
Co-operative Movement: Leeds, like other large towns, had a Socialist
Hall. It was afterwards taken by the Mechanics Institute. But when
I first knew it, the place was used for Socialist meetings and lectures.
I went there occasionally to see what was done and said. The body
had preachers or lecturers who could talk cleverly and well. Tome
Paine was the writer most quoted. But unfortunately, they mixed up
a great deal of atheism with their views on co-operation. It was not
until the Revs. Charles Kingsley, Frederick Denison Maurice and Edward
Larken, developed the practice of Christian Socialism that the co-operators
were dragged out of this frightful pit.
Robert Owen had been the beginner of the movement. He held that in
the competitive system was found the root of all the miseries of society.
The metaphysics of Socialism was comprised in the maxim that character
is formed for, not by, the individual; and that society may so arrange
"circumstances" as to produce whatever character it pleases.
There efforts in co-operation were successful. Some of the members
started an Operative Land and Building Society, others a Redemption
Society. They bought land, erected dwellings, built mills, and by
clubbing their means, began to manufacture, and to grind corn for
themselves. Such associations were conducted under the provisions
of the Friendly Societies Act, and many of them proved very successful.
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