Joseph
Brotherton was born on 22nd May, 1783 at Whittington, near Chesterfield,
Derbyshire. Joseph's father, John Brotherton, was an excise collector
and in 1789 the family moved to Salford. John Brotherton became involved
in the textile trade and eventually started his own cotton manufacturing
business. After leaving school Joseph worked for his father and by
1802 became a partner in the company.
In 1805 Joseph joined the Swedenborg Church
in Salford. Four years later the movement became known as the Bible
Christian Church. This new Nonconformist
movement stressed strict vegetarianism and total abstinence from alcohol.
Brotherton and his wife Martha were extremely active in the Bible
Christian Church. In 1812 Martha Brotherton wrote Vegetable
Cooking, the first cookery book devoted to vegetarian recipes.
Brotherton
wrote several books
on his religious beliefs including Facts
Authentic in Science and Religion (1816) and Letters
on Religious Subjects (1821). It is believed that On
Abstinence from Intoxicating Liquors
(1821) was the first teetotal statement to appear in Britain.
In this tract, which was also published in the USA, Brotherton argued
that alcohol was the source of almost all the evils of society. As
well as writing books and pamphlets, Brotherton
also frequently delivered sermons from the pulpit.
Brotherton was
a supporter of parliamentary reform and in 1815 became a member of
a group of Nonconformist liberals that used to meet in the home of
John Potter.
Others in the group included John Edward Taylor,
Archibald Prentice, John
Shuttleworth, Absalom Watkin, William
Cowdray, Thomas Potter and Richard
Potter. Influenced by the ideas of Jeremy
Bentham and Joseph Priestley, the
group strongly objected to a system that denied such important industrial
cities such as Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham, representation in
the House of Commons.
The group also supported Joseph
Lancaster and his Nonconformist
schools movement. Brotherton, like other members of the group, was
an advocate of religious toleration, and argued in favour of Catholic
Emancipation.
Joseph Brotherton was horrified by the Peterloo
Massacre and like other members of the John
Potter group, campaigned for a Parliamentary inquiry into the
events that took place on the 16th August, 1819. Brotherton was also
involved in organising the Declaration and Protest petition that was
signed by 5,054 people in Manchester.
In 1820 Brotherton joined with John Shuttleworth
and Thomas Potter to form the Manchester
Chamber of Commerce. Brotherton also played an active role in the
campaign against child labour in the textile industry.
In December 1830 Brotherton joined a committee of men including Thomas
Potter, Absalom Watkin, Richard
Potter, Mark Philips, William Harvey and William Baxter to campaign
for parliamentary reform. The group were moderate reformers and did
not fully support the demands of the radicals who wanted universal
suffrage. Watkin was given the task of drawing up the petition asking
the government to grant Manchester
and Salford three Members of Parliament.
The campaign was successful and in 1832 Joseph Brotherton was elected
at the M.P. for Salford. He served in the House
of Commons for the next twenty-four years. Brotherton was
so popular with the people of Salford that no other candidates stood
against him in 1847 and 1852.
In the House of Commons Brotherton played
an important role in the campaign for factory legislation. A strong
supporter of Richard Oastler and his campaign
for the ten hour day, Brotherton argued that
government interference was essential because no single employer could
reduce hours while others continued to work their employees for long
hours. Brotherton criticised those who argued that Parliament should
not attempt to control individual freedom. Brotherton pointed out
that workers in the textile industry did not have any choice in the
matter; either they worked long hours or they lost their jobs.
In Parliament Joseph
Brotherton voted against the 1834 Poor Law
and in favour of the repeal of the Corn Laws.
He was also one of the first members of Parliament to argue against
the death penalty. He pointed out that capital punishment was contrary
to the teachings of Jesus Christ and made repeated attempts to persuade
the House of Commons to establish a Parliamentary
Committee to investigate the subject. Brotherton also argued for a
reduction in military spending and favoured the formation of peace
groups.
Brotherton supported the expansion of local government powers and
was a strong advocate of the Municipal
Corporations Act that was passed in 1835. Throughout his political
career Brotherton argued for an improvement in working class education.
As soon as he arrived in the House of Commons he began making speeches
about the need to establish a national system of schooling. He was
also active in the National Public Schools Association, an organisation
that promoted the idea of a national system of secular education.
Brotherton helped establish the provision of vegetable soup kitchens
in Manchester during the food shortages in 1847. As a result of this
successful venture, Brotherton and fellow vegetarians in Manchester
decided to establish a Vegetarian Society. Brotherton was the chairman
of the Vegetarian Society's first meeting in September, 1847. Over
the next first few years, the Vegetarian Society used pamphlets written
by Brotherton as the main method to promote the organisation.
Brotherton
also felt passionately about the importance of adult education. He
argued for a national system of public libraries and museums. In 1849
he played an important role in helping Salford become the first municipal
authority in Britain to establish a library, museum and art gallery.
The following year Brotherton joined William
Ewart in helping persuade Parliament to pass the Public
Libraries Act.
Brotherton's experiences of the textile industry convinced him that
workers desperately needed the opportunities to have good recreational
facilities to combat the unpleasantness of factory life. He started
his campaign for the establishment of public walks and open spaces
in 1835. His efforts resulted in the establishment of Peel Park in
Salford.
Joseph
Brotherton
continued
to campaign for his various causes until his death on 7th January,
1837. Brotherton was active to the end, dying
of a heart attack on an omnibus while on the way to a meeting in Manchester.
After his death, the people of Salford started a Joseph
Brotherton Memorial Fund. With some of the money they commissioned
a bronze statue of Brotherton in Peel Park. The pedestal includes
Joseph Brotherton's motto: "My riches consist not in the extent
of my possessions but in the fewness of my wants."
(1)
Joseph Brotherton and other members of the John Potter group organised
the Declaration of Protest petition soon after the Peterloo
Massacre on 16th August, 1819.
We, the undersigned, without individually approving of the manner
in which the meeting held at St. Peter's on Monday, the 16th August
was constituted, hereby declare, that we are fully satisfied, by personal
observation or undoubted information that it was perfectly peaceable;
that no seditious or intemperate harangues were made there; that the
Riot Act, if read at all, was read privately, or without the knowledge
of the great body of the meeting; and we feel it our bounden duty
to protest against, and to express our utter disapprobation of, the
unexpected and unnecessary violence by which the assembly was dispersed.
(2)
Archibald Prentice, Personal Recollections
of Manchester (1851)
John Shuttleworth and John
Edward Taylor could sell their cotton to men who could not buy it
cheaper elsewhere. In like manner, Thomas and Richard Potter could
sell their fustians, Joseph Brotherton and William Harvey their yarns,
Baxter his ginghams and shirtings, and I my fine Glasgow muslins.
And yet our position was uncomfortable. We were safe ourselves, but
every day brought us report of wrong and outrage done to our humble
fellow countrymen - wrong and outrage which we felt could not fully
redress. We thought, in our own cheerful homes, of the poor men in
prison for alleged political offences - the main offence being that
they, like ourselves, were of opinion that our representative system
was susceptible of amendment. The whole aspect of society was unfavourable.
The rich seemed banded together to deny the possession of political
rights; and the poor seemed to be banding themselves together in an
implacable hatred to their employers, who were regarded as their oppressors.
(3)
Joseph Brotherton, speech, House of Commons (9th May, 1836)
Under the present system,
every man who knows anything of the matter knows that the labour is
too much for children to . I have no hesitation in declaring, unequivocally,
that the labour is too much for children to bear. When we consider
that between 400,000 and 500,000 persons are immured in factories
from half-past five to six o'clock in the morning till eight or nine
o'clock at night, and this not upon a few particular occasions only,
but day after day, week after week, and year after year, during their
whole lives, or as long as they are capable of following their employment,
I would ask, whether any person professing the Christian religion
can sanction such a system as that, or desire that such a state of
things should continue? Of what use can education be to those who
are employed.
I hold in my hand a copy of a bill which was brought into parliament
in the year 1815 by the late Sir Robert Peel, whose memory will long
be held in grateful remembrance by the labouring classes in the manufacturing
districts, for the humane exertions to shorten the hours of labour
in factories. The object of the bill was, to limit the hours of labour
to ten hours and a half a day. We had to struggle with the same difficulties
as those who are advocates of his views now. I was a master-spinner
at that time, and I believe I stood almost, or quite, alone at Manchester
in rendering assistance to those who, with Sir Robert Peel, were endeavouring
to accomplish what he had designed; and at last, in the year 1819,
he succeeded only in carrying a bill which limited the period of labour
to twelve hours a day, or seventy-two a week, for all children under
the age of sixteen years. It was soon found that the measure was liable
to be evaded; and subsequent experience showed that it was evaded.
Numerous frauds are committed, and the provisions of the act are continuously
violated. It is a common trick, according to the inspectors' reports,
for parents to send children of a healthy appearance and sufficient
age to a surgeon to procure a certificate, under a false name, for
the younger brother or sister.
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