Thomas Barnes, the son of a lawyer, was
born in Tenterden, Kent on 11th September 1785. He was educated at
Christ's Hospital and Pembroke College,
Cambridge. After obtaining a degree
in 1808 he moved to London where he intended to become a lawyer. However,
after becoming friends with a group of writers that included William
Hazlitt, Henry Brougham, Lord
Byron, Leigh Hunt and Charles
Lamb, Barnes decided to become a journalist.
In 1809, Barnes met John Walter II, the
owner of The Times. Barnes began
contributing articles on legal matters but later that year became
the newspaper's drama critic. The following year Dr. John Stoddart,
the editor of The Times, appointed
Barnes as the newspaper's parliamentary correspondent.
In 1817, Dr. John Stoddart retired and Thomas Barnes became the new
editor of The Times. When Barnes
took over the newspaper it was selling around 7,000 copies a day and
was failing to make a profit. John Walter II
still held most of the shares in The Times,
but by 1819 Barnes had sought and obtained full control over the editorial
content of the newspaper.
Barnes supported the moderate reforms being suggested by his friends,
John Hobhouse and Henry
Brougham in the House of Commons. However, he was a strong opponent
of radicals who favoured universal suffrage. In the summer of 1819,
editorials in The Times denounced
the activities of radicals such as Henry Orator
Hunt and Major John Cartwright.
Barnes criticised radicals for holding public meetings on parliamentary
reform but warned the government not to try and suppress the movement
by force. Barnes wrote that "last Monday we concluded an article
which severely blamed Hunt as a moral agent, by expressing an anxious
hope that no person would so conduct themselves as to share with that
brawler the reproach of any evil consequences which might follow the
assemblage of so large a body of discontented labourers."
One of Barnes' new innovations was to send staff reporters to cover
political meetings. He decided that John Tyas
should cover the parliamentary reform meeting at St.
Peter's Field. Tyas was chosen because according to Barnes, he
"was nephew to an individual of great respectability in the town
of Manchester". Barnes was also convinced that Tyas was unlikely
to write a sympathetic report on Henry Orator
Hunt and the other radical speakers. Barnes wrote: "as far
as we can judge from his preceding conduct towards this journal, (Tyas)
is about as much a Jacobin, or friend of Jacobins, as is Lord
Liverpool himself."
John Tyas and the other journalists at the
meeting were positioned on the platform with the speakers. The soldiers
assumed the journalists on the platform were sympathetic to the radicals.
As a result, John Tyas was arrested with
the speakers when the meeting was broken up.
Thomas Barnes was furious when he heard John
Tyas had been arrested. As John Tyas was unable to send his report,
The Times published an account written
by John Edward Taylor, a journalist who
worked for the Manchester Gazette.
Although Taylor was not a radical, he was outraged by the Peterloo
Massacre and the article was very critical of the authorities.
After John Tyas was released from prison,
his full account of the events was published in The
Times on 19th August. The Times
mounted a campaign against the action of the magistrates at St.
Peter's Field. In one editorial the newspaper told its readers "a
hundred of the King's unarmed subjects have been sabred by a body
of cavalry in the streets of a town of which most of them were inhabitants,
and in the presence of those Magistrates whose sworn duty it is to
protect and preserve the life of the meanest Englishmen." As
these comments came from an establishment newspaper, the authorities
found this criticism particularly damaging.
After the Peterloo Massacre Barnes became
a more committed supporter of parliamentary reform. In 1830 Barnes
and The Times supported Lord
Grey and his government's attempt to extend the franchise. Barnes
worked very closely with one of Grey's ministers, Henry
Brougham. Barnes and Brougham saw a great deal of each other and
most mornings had breakfast together. This close relationship upset
the Tories and they complained that Henry
Brougham was the real editor of The Times.
Thomas
Barnes was now a committed supporter of parliamentary reform. Almost
daily The Times urged the Whig government
to take action. The views of Barnes had a great influence on public
opinion. The government tax on newspapers meant that its price of
7d. made it too expensive for most people to buy. However, copies
were available in reading rooms. In 1831 the Tory St. James's Chronicle
claimed that "for every one copy of The
Times that is purchased for the usual purposes, nine we venture
to say are purchased to be lent to the wretched characters who, being
miserable, look to political changes for an amelioration of their
condition."
In Parliament the Tories complained about The
Times campaign. In a debate that took place in the House of
Commons on 7th March, 1832, Sir Robert Peel
argued that The Times was the "principal
and most powerful advocate of Reform" in Britain. After the 1832
Reform Act was passed The Times
called it the "greatest event of modern history."
In 1834 a group of Whigs purchased control
of the Morning Chronicle. Barnes
disagreed with the way the Morning Chronicle
gave "slavish support to the government". Barnes had talks
with the leaders of the Conservative Party and after they had agreed
that they would not attempt to interfere with reforms introduced by
the Whigs, such as the 1832 Reform Act and
the Tithe Act, he agreed that the newspaper
would became a supporter of Sir Robert Peel
and his new government.
Under Thomas Barnes' editorship, sales of The
Times continued to grow. For example, the issue of 11th February,
1839, that contained an account of Queen Victoria's plans to marry,
sold 30,000 copies. Thomas Barnes remained editor of The
Times until his death on 7th May 1841.
(1)
Editorial in The Times (18th August,
1819)
We
kept the press open until a late hour this morning in the hope of
receiving minute accounts. The Riot Act was read, and the troops called
upon by the Magistrates to enforce their orders that the crowd should
at once disperse. Hunt himself was taken prisoner - and we add, with
unfeigned sorrow, that several lives were lost.
The troops that were employed were the Manchester, Macclesfield and
Chester Yeomanry. The 15th Light Dragoons were likewise in the field,
but were not called into action. The local troops, it is said, behaved
with great alacrity. The consternation and dismay which spread amongst
the immense crowd cannot be conceived. The multitude was composed
of a large proportion of females. The prancing of the cavalry and
the active use of the sabre among them, created a dreadful scene of
confusion, and we may add carnage, killed eight; wounded eighty to
a hundred.
Such is the brief or general outline. What actual violence or outrage
was perpetrated - what menaces were uttered, or symptoms exhibited,
which induced the Magistrates to read the Riot Act, and to disperse
the meeting by force of arms, we cannot possibly state.
(2)
Editorial in The Times(19th August,
1819)
Whatever
an observant mind may suspect as to the real objects of the few (Hunt
and Co.) who thus played upon the passions and misfortunes of a suffering
multitude - all such considerations, all such suspicions, sink to
nothing before the dreadful fact, that nearly a hundred of the King's
unarmed subjects have been sabred by a body of cavalry in the streets
of a town of which most of them were inhabitants, and in the presence
of those Magistrates whose sworn duty it is to protect and preserve
the life of the meanest Englishmen.
(3)
Thomas Barnes, The Times (9th December,
1830)
We are staunch friends to a broad and fundamental reform; and
if enemies to universal suffrage, or to the establishment of a low
qualification for the great mass of electors, it is because such a
principle would be, in effect, a narrowing of the representative system,
by the virtual exclusion of all influence derived from property. We
are haters of all monopolies, and among others of a monopoly of the
elective franchise, by such a reform of Parliament, by means of universal
suffrage, the mass, and with the mass the dregs, of the existing population.
(4)
Thomas Barnes, The Times (21st March,
1831)
The all-important question of full and satisfactory parliamentary
reform is, we have no doubt, now completely settled. The people, the
brave English people have won it decidedly as they have won battles
in the field or on the ocean; nor can they by any possibility be cheated
or robbed of the fruits of their victory. They petitioned, they addressed,
they resolved. We proposed these courses to them, we urged the prosecution
of them with vigour, and our advice prevailed to a degree that even
we, used as we are to move the noble feelings of our countrymen in
a just cause and on subjects of vast moment - could hardly have conceived,
and were almost surprised at our success.
(5)
Thomas Barnes, The Times (25th March,
1831)
We are too upright to be flatters of the wealthy,
and what honest man will dare charge us with having ever abandoned
or betrayed the poor? Who has pleaded more strenuously than we have
done for the reform which has put power in the hands of some many
of the working class? Who has pressed so vigorously against the landlords
the wickedness of the tax upon the poor man's bread? Who raised and
directed the public spirit in England against the vile massacre of
the manufacturing poor at Peterloo in 1819? Who would now open the
poor man's eyes to the snares and treacheries which his mock friends
are practising against him, who but this Times journal.
(6)
Thomas Barnes, The Times (22nd May,
1832)
Died, at the lodgings at St. James's on Friday,
May 18th, 1832, at a very advanced age, but still in possession of
his faculties, the Right Hon., Right Rev., and Right Worshipful TORY
POWER, A squire! Born so long ago as the reign of Charles I, he was
given over at the close of that of James II, but rallied under the
later reigns of the House of Hanover, and was kept alive by artificial
means until William IV; when, detected in the act of some disreputable
practices, he expired by his own hand.
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