52:, which protected landowners’ interests by levying taxes on imported wheat, thus raising the price of bread at a time when factory-owners were trying to cut wages. The League was a middle-class nationwide organisation that held many well-attended rallies on the premise that a crusade was needed to convince parliament to repeal the corn laws. Its long-term goals included the removal of feudal privileges, which it denounced as impeding progress, lowering economic well-being, and restricting freedom. The League played little role in the final act in 1846, when Sir
33:
978:
1002:
990:
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128:. One of the most nationally visible efforts came in the 1843 election in Salisbury. Its candidate was defeated, and it was unable to convince voters regarding free trade. The political parties in the 1830s targeted bigger cities for more support on 'free trade'. However, the League did learn lessons that helped to transform its political tactics. It learned to concentrate on elections where there was a good expectation of victory.
124:, while also attempting to replicate its mantle of moral reform. Among these were the use of emotionally charged meetings and closely argued tracts: nine million were distributed by a staff of 800 in 1843 alone. The League also used its financial strength and campaign resources to defeat protectionists at by-elections by enfranchising League supporters through giving them a 40-shilling freehold: the strategy certainly alarmed the
954:
185:
Reform League and Free Trade Union, and in the 1950s S. W. Alexander's Anti-Dear Food League. It also inspired imitators in France, Germany, the Low
Countries, Spain, and the United States. The league had only temporarily reshaped the landscape of parliamentary politics but it had helped create a vibrant popular attachment to free trade within British political culture that would last well into the twentieth century.
220:. His cockney protagonist refers to “the ‘umbuggery of its ways...strong symptoms of utilitarian self-interest”; while a roguish actor is shown being couched as a paid lecturer for the League: “you have nothing to do but repeat the same old story over and over again…. Whatever is wrong, lay it to the corn tax. If a man can’t pay his Christmas bills, attribute it to the bread tax”.
184:
It remained the model for many diverse pressure groups, for example, the United
Kingdom Alliance, the National Educational League, the Navy League, the Tenant League in Ireland, and the National Society in Piedmont, as well as those specifically related to free trade, including the Edwardian Tariff
69:
and became the focus of opposition from urban groups who had less political power than rural
Britain. The corn laws initially prohibited foreign corn completely from being imported at below 80s a quarter, a process replaced by a sliding scale in 1828. Such import duties still made it expensive for
178:
Although historians remain divided on the impact of the league on Peel's decision to abandon the corn laws it was undoubtedly, in appearance, the most successful of nineteenth-century single-issue pressure groups, in its ability to generate enthusiasm, support, and unparalleled financial backing.
166:
The League marked the emergence of the first powerful national lobbying group into politics, one with a centralized office, consistency of purpose, rich funding, very strong local and national organization, and single-minded dedicated leaders. It elected men to
Parliament. Many of its procedures
157:
W.H. Chaloner argues that the repeal in 1846 marked a major turning point, making free trade the national policy into the 20th century, and demonstrating the power of "Manchester-school" industrial interests over protectionist agricultural interests. He says repeal stabilized wheat prices in the
95:
Fourth, it would introduce through mutually advantageous international trade a new era of international fellowship and peace. The only barrier to these four beneficent solutions was the ignorant self-interest of the landlords, the 'bread-taxing oligarchy, unprincipled, unfeeling, rapacious and
170:
The model of the League led to the formation of the
Lancashire Public School Association to campaign for free, locally financed and controlled secular education in Lancashire. It later became the National Public-School Association. It had little success because national secular education was a
117:, who specialized in the grass-roots mobilisation of opinion through pamphlets, newspaper articles, correspondence, speeches, and endless local planning meetings. The League was based in Manchester and had support from numerous industrialists, especially in the textile industry.
70:
anyone to import grain from other countries, even when food supplies were short. The League was responsible for turning public and elite opinion against the laws. It was a large, nationwide middle-class moral crusade with a utopian vision. Its leading advocate
179:
Although its potential was not realized, it had shown the capacity for an extra-parliamentary middle-class organization to reshape politics so as to reflect the anti-aristocratic objectives of a determined band of entrepreneurial politicians.
139:, had also been privately won over by Cobden's reasoning to the league's way of thinking. When the crunch came, Peel put through a (staggered) repeal through Parliament without a general election, to the applause of Cobden and Bright.
56:
led the successful battle for repeal. However, its experience provided a model that was widely adopted in
Britain and other democratic nations to demonstrate the organisation of a political pressure group with the popular base.
142:
The League then prepared to dissolve itself. The Tory victory of 1852 saw preparations to revive the League, however, in order to keep a watching brief on
Protectionist forces; and it was only after
131:
Nevertheless, the League had a restricted capability for contesting electoral seats, and its role in the final act of 1846 was largely that of creating a favourable climate of opinion. 1845 saw
150:: “The Budget has finally closed the controversy with Protection... The League may be dissolved when you like”. Many of its members thereafter continued their political activism in the
105:
The first Anti–Corn Law
Association was set up in London in 1836; but it was not until 1838 that the nationwide League, combining all such local associations, was founded, with
171:
divisive issue even among the radical groups. However, it did help convert the
Liberal Party from its laissez-faire philosophy to that of a more interventionist character.
679:
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206:
than it is that of the Lower
Classes,—whose wretched social situation, however it might be alleviated for a few years, could in no wise, as I think, be
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463:«As no other gentleman has anything to address to this meeting, it is now my duty to say that the Anti–Corn-Law League stands conditionally dissolved»
217:
1047:
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in January 1840: "the abrogation of the Corn-Laws seems to be the cause of the Middle Classes and manufacturing Capitalists still
135:, the Whig leader, declare for complete repeal of the corn duty as the only way to satisfy the League; while the Tory leader, Sir
1052:
926:
167:
were innovative, while others were borrowed from the anti-slavery movement. It became the model for later reform movements.
92:
Third, it would make English agriculture more efficient by stimulating demand for its products in urban and industrial areas.
857:. London: Cash. 1853, 2 vol.; 2. ed. with a new introduction. by W. H. Chaloner. (London: Cass. 1968. and New York: Kelley.
1037:
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among its leaders. Cobden was the chief strategist; Bright was its great orator. A representative activist was
199:
1062:
86:
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Simon Morgan, "The Anti-Corn Law League and British anti-slavery in transatlantic perspective, 1838–1846."
198:
declined invitations to lend support for the league, despite his opposition to the Corn Laws. He wrote to
158:
1850s and 1860s; however other technical developments caused the fall of wheat prices from 1870 to 1894.
944:
935:
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First, it would guarantee the prosperity of the manufacturer by affording him outlets for his products.
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147:
114:
125:
728:
Spall, Richard Francis Spall Jr. "Free Trade, Foreign Relations, and the Anti-Corn-Law League,"
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982:
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48:
was a successful political movement in Great Britain aimed at the abolition of the unpopular
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210:
thereby, nor even, without other provisoes, be put more decisively on the way towards cure".
1077:
895:
8:
740:
398:
Ronald K. Huch, "The Anti-Corn Law League and the Salisbury Election of November 1843."
65:
The Corn Laws were taxes on imported grain introduced in 1815. The laws indeed did raise
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151:
32:
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858:
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701:
132:
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890:
Lord Rosebery's Speech on the Anti-Corn Law League and Free Trade, Manchester 1897
994:
752:
324:
Michael J. Turner, "The 'Bonaparte of free trade' and the Anti–Corn Law League."
235:
878:
868:
756:
195:
106:
71:
847:. London: Low, Marston & Co., 1895. Reprint New York: Kraus Reprint, 1969.
1016:
799:
Free Trade Nation. Commerce, Consumption, and Civil Society in Modern Britain
790:
764:
744:
529:
213:
930:
815:(Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 2003) vol 1. pp. 56–57, 185–186, 283–284
622:
Evans, Eric J. "The politics of pressure: II The Anti-Corn-Law League." in
660:
Lawson-Tancred, Mary. "The Anti-League and the Corn Law Crisis of 1846".
629:
Gilbert, R. A. "John Bright's contribution to the Anti-Corn Law League."
136:
110:
66:
53:
37:
989:
733:
78:, promised that repeal would settle four great problems simultaneously:
690:
511:
Donald K. Jones, "The Educational Legacy of the Anti-Corn Law League."
240:
89:' by cheapening the price of food and ensuring more regular employment.
75:
965:
640:(Vol. 4) (Barnes & Noble, 1961) pp. 3–150; narrative history
49:
374:
The Forging of the Modern State: Early Industrial Britain 1783–1870
143:
782:
953:
593:
The Making of Modern England 1783–1867: The Age of Improvement
300:
The Making of Modern England 1783–1867: The Age of Improvement
720:
The Life and Speeches of the Right Honourable John Bright, MP
873:
Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, by John Bright, M.P.
827:
Recollections of Richard Cobden and the Anti-Corn Law League
154:, with the goal of establishing a fully free-trade economy.
120:
The League borrowed many of the tactics first developed by
900:
The Life and Speeches of the Right Hon. John Bright, M.P.
698:
The people's bread, a history of the Anti-Corn Law League
161:
834:
Speeches of John Bright, M.P., on the American Question.
439:
Sir Robert Peel: The Life of Sir Robert Peel after 1830
942:
914:
Speeches on Parliamentary Reform by John Bright, M.P.
595:(1959) pp. 312–325, short interpretive history;
524:
A. C. Howe, ‘Anti-Corn Law League (act. 1839–1846)’,
146:’s 1852 budget that Cobden felt able to write to
1014:
845:The public letters of the Right Hon. John Bright
674:Miller, Henry. "The Anti-Corn Law Campaign." in
888:Archibald Philipp Primrose (Earl of Rosebery):
685:Mosse, George L. "The Anti-League: 1844–1846."
485:W. H. Chaloner, "The Anti-Corn Law League,"
1058:Lobbying organisations in the United Kingdom
1043:1852 disestablishments in the United Kingdom
819:
608:Chaloner, W. H. "The Anti-Corn Law League,"
840:. . Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1865.
27:Former political movement in Great Britain
1028:1838 establishments in the United Kingdom
655:Free Trade and Liberal England. 1846–1946
36:A meeting of the Anti–Corn Law League in
738:
693:; the organized opposition to the League
585:(1966), a standard scholarly biography;
526:Oxford Dictionary of National Biography,
216:satirized the league in his 1845 novel,
31:
540:
14:
1048:Economic history of the United Kingdom
1015:
700:. (Leicester University Press, 2000,
162:Model for other lobbying organisations
696:Pickering, Paul A and Alex Tyrrell.
1068:Organizations disestablished in 1852
645:Richard Cobden: A Victorian Outsider
575:
936:Cobden and the Anti–Corn Law League
855:History of the Anti-Corn Law League
713:History of the Anti-Corn Law League
617:Richard Cobden, independent radical
541:Carlyle, Thomas (24 January 1840).
426:British History in the 19th Century
361:British History in the 19th Century
24:
829:, 2 editions, London 1876 and 1881
749:The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism
669:The Anti-Corn Law League 1838–1846
570:
25:
1089:
1073:Organizations established in 1838
920:
813:Reader's guide to British history
805:
601:Briggs, Asa. "Cobden and Bright"
1000:
988:
976:
964:
952:
801:(Oxford University Press, 2008).
657:(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997).
619:(Harvard University Press, 1986)
605:(Aug 1957) 7#8 pp. 496–503.
624:The Forging of the Modern State
583:John Bright: Victorian Reformer
553:
534:
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492:
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466:
457:
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1053:John Russell, 1st Earl Russell
732:10#3 (1988), pp. 405–432
689:(1947) 17#2 pp. 134–142.
647:(Yale University Press, 1987.)
353:
340:
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318:
305:
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279:
266:
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85:Second, it would relieve the '
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1:
927:The Online Library of Liberty
500:The Making of Modern England,
174:Historian A. C. Howe argues:
100:
87:condition of England question
916:, revised by Himself (1866).
892:. London: Cobden Club, 1898.
730:International History Review
664:(1960) 3#2 pp. 162–183.
612:(1968) 18#3 pp. 196–204
376:(2nd ed. 1996, pp. 280–281)
60:
7:
1038:1850s in the United Kingdom
1033:1840s in the United Kingdom
1023:1830s in the United Kingdom
811:Loades, David Michael, ed.
671:. (Allen & Unwin, 1958)
633:(1970) 34#1 pp. 16–20.
626:(Routledge, 2014). 371–380.
563:(Stroud 2006) pp. 39, 44–47
400:Canadian Journal of History
224:
10:
1094:
638:Victorian years, 1841–1895
547:The Carlyle Letters Online
189:
820:Contemporary publications
543:"TC to Thomas Ballantyne"
528:Oxford University Press.
476:(London 1961) pp. 325–328
454:(London 1961) pp. 123–125
389:(London 1961) pp. 110–111
315:(London 1961) pp. 330–334
74:, according to historian
836:With an introduction by
765:10.4135/9781412965811.n9
739:Steelman, Aaron (2008).
246:
115:Thomas Perronet Thompson
718:Smith, George Barnett.
687:Economic History Review
489:(1968) 18#3 pp. 196–204
328:41.4 (1998): 1011–1034.
741:"Anti-Corn Law League"
676:Campaigning for Change
41:
896:Smith, George Barnett
843:Leech, H. J. (ed.):
751:. Thousand Oaks, CA:
711:Prentice, Archibald.
313:The Triumph of Reform
287:The Liberal Awakening
274:The Liberal Awakening
261:The Liberal Awakening
231:Manchester Liberalism
122:British abolitionists
35:
1063:Middle class culture
615:Edsall, Nicholas C.
513:History of Education
428:(London 1922) p. 268
415:(London 1961) p. 115
402:6.3 (1971): 247–256.
363:(London 1922) p. 270
350:52.1 (2009): 87–107.
289:(London 1961) p. 249
46:Anti–Corn Law League
18:Anti-Corn-law League
851:Prentice, Archibald
530:accessed 8 Nov 2017
441:(1972) pp. 575–576.
797:Trentmann, Frank.
759:. pp. 14–15.
662:Historical Journal
515:3.1 (1974): 18–35.
348:Historical Journal
326:Historical Journal
276:(London 1961) p. 5
263:(London 1961) p. 4
42:
825:Ashworth, Henry:
715:(Routledge, 2013)
581:Ausubel, Herman.
576:Scholarly studies
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411:E Halévy,
385:E Halévy,
311:E Halévy,
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272:E Halévy,
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241:Meat riots
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76:Asa Briggs
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50:Corn Laws
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126:Tories
743:. In
247:Notes
208:cured
859:ISBN
787:OCLC
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753:Sage
702:ISBN
204:more
109:and
44:The
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