‘Workers on the Silent Highway’, from Street Life in London (1877) by Adolphe Smith, with photographs by John Thomson. Working class men suffered considerable disadvantages for public life, and especially public speaking. When semi-literate colliery mechanic George Stephenson, of Killingworth near Newcastle-upon-Tyne, went south to London to testify before a Parliamentary committee (he had to promise that locomotives on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway would not exceed ten miles per hour), the barristers who cross-examined him asked dizzily ‘whether he was a foreigner’. In a moment of weakness Stephenson toyed with the idea of employing a teacher in Peckham to smooth out his Northumberland accent, but did not pursue it. See also The Length of a Horse.
Part 1 of 2
Rochdale, February 13, 1875.
DEAR Sir,
It seems impossible to say anything in public which will not be misunderstood and misrepresented.
I have no objection to working men as candidates. What I object to is that a candidate should be chosen only or mainly because he is a working man, and that I should be expected to vote for him for the same reason. I do not vote for a candidate because he is a middle-class man, or a man of high family connections; and I refuse to be under any obligation to vote for one who is chosen as a candidate because he belongs to some other class or section of the community.
Précis
In 1875, Liberal MP John Bright remarked that he did not like working men being fast-tracked as election candidates. When a Joseph Hulme of Burslem wrote to scold him for class prejudice, Bright replied that all he had said was that he thought MPs should be chosen for their character and politics, not for the socio-economic label affixed to them. (59 / 60 words)
Part Two
A carte de visite by Elliott and Fry, made for John Bright. In his speech in Birmingham that day in 1875, Bright had urged voters to select their candidate from any carriage on the train, regardless of whether he habitually travelled first class or third. “If you can find a man with intelligence, and honesty, and firmness, and the kind of capacity which you understand for Parliamentary duty, then I say lay hold of him at once and make him a Member of Parliament.”
If the Liberal party in a constituency, speaking and acting through its recognized organization, selected a working man as its candidate, I hope I should give him my hearty support; but I object to have him thrust upon the party merely because he is a working man. The policy now recommended to working men in regard to this matter is, in my judgment, fatal to unity, as it is to an honest representation of all classes and interests.
I hope I need not say that, if I were one of your constituency, I should have no difficulty in giving my vote to Mr Walton.
I am sorry you should have misunderstood me. Your letter has only just reached me, and I send you this hasty reply.
I thank you for the kind expressions in your letter, and am,
Very truly yours,
John Bright.
Précis
To make sure he had been rightly understood this time, Bright repeated his point, adding that such class favouritism was highly damaging to the party and to democracy itself. As for his correspondent’s election hopeful, Bright gave his assurance that Mr Walton could count on his support, and with that he signed off courteously. (54 / 60 words)
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