Class Conflict in Uley 1795

Uley and Michinhampton Common 1795

(1795 was a key year of national unrest, high food prices, decline in ‘deference’ and anonymous threatening letters)

O remember ye poor in distress by ye high prs of provision if not the consiquens will be fatall to a great many in all parishis round a bout here how do ye think a man can support a famly by a quarter flour for a shillin and here is a man in this parish do say the poore was never beter of as they be now a fatel blow for him and his hous and all his property we have redy 5000 sworn to be true to the last & we have 510000 of ball redy and can have pouder at a word & every think fitin for ye purpose no King but a constitution down down down o fatall dow high caps & proud hats for ever dow down we all.

One of three notes sent to the gentlefolk of Uley in July 1795 – a parish that had seen incendiarism against the houses of master clothiers.

The response was to eventually provide subsidized bread – but the quality was found wanting, and so this message was sent two months later, in mid-September:

The distress of the industerous people through the dearness of provisions calls aloud for an immediate consultation therefore a meeting is desired next Munday morning 21int by nine o clock in the morning on Hampton coman to consult what steps to take for an immediate alteration. Be pld to let more know it further. With it make no delay or else we all must starve immediately.

The response was to put troops on standby – 300 people met on Minchinhampton Common on the afternoon of that day and another, smaller crowd gathered on 5^th October.

The next local ruling class response was some detective work in Uley to ascertain who was the author of the anonymous letters – they decided it was an ‘obscure’ local tailor. The JP, the Reverend Baker, and fellow magistrates, thought a warning would suffice, but two other differently lettered, seditious, anonymous notes threatened violence: ‘expect to loase yr heads without any ado’.

In consequence, the magistrates decided to ask the Secretary of State, the Duke of Portland, for advice.

His response?

‘The person in question is in so low a situation of life … that I am inclined to think it may perhaps be the best way of preventing disturbances in future to let him know that the Magistrates are well informed of his attempts & that they have it in contemplation to proceed against him, which may possibly induce him to quit the country …’

E.P.Thompson in his chapter The Crime of Anonymity in Albion’s Fatal Tree shows how this sort of dialogue between the ruling class and the lower orders was part and parcel of the so-called Age of Deference. Gloucestershire was no exception – and just think! How many anonymous threatening letters might have been destroyed at source, or have disappeared, or remained unwritten for lack of materials or courage – or just blew away, or lost legibility, provenance and import in a night of rain?

So just as with Stroud Scarlet and slavery, we might need to go beyond the available evidence:

So how do we create a counter-narrative?

That is,

“A performative counter-narrative, what we might call a ‘guerrilla memory’”,

Or “Lieux de memoire, sites of history, torn away from the moment of history” (Pierre Nora),

Memorialisation that moves beyond ‘obsessional empiricism’

 and ‘the fetishisation of surviving historical documents and sources’,

To a counter-heritage, a counter-memorialisation.

O remember ye poor in distress by ye high prs of provision if not the consiquens will be fatall to a great many in all parishis round a bout here how do ye think a man can support a famly by a quarter flour for a shillin and here is a man in this parish do say the poore was never beter of as they be now a fatel blow for him and his hous and all his property we have redy 5000 sworn to be true to the last & we have 510000 of ball redy and can have pouder at a word & every think fitin for ye purpose no King but a constitution down down down o fatall dow high caps & proud hats for ever dow down we all.

How a Cotswold Village Memorialises Itself: Uley

In 1795, anonymous threatening letters were left for gentlemen of the parish,

Sufficiently disturbing for the local JPs to contact London for advice,

And sufficiently noteworthy for inclusion in national historical studies,

So, having done the reading, I decided to hop on the number 35 bus,

The timetable giving me a clear hour’s run before the return to Stroud,

In an attempt to take a few photos of how Uley presents its history

To itself, its residents, plus tourists and visitors.

The Uley Millennium Green notice boards

For People and Nature, And Breathing Spaces,

Make no mention.

There is a brass plaque in The Street:

Uley Community Stores

Officially opened by HRH The Prince of Wales

On the 22^nd February 2013;

There is a detailed large map of Uley and Owlpen,

But again, no mention of 1795;

The church has several grand 18^th century gravestones,

Master clothiers remembered,

But, alas, no ‘Village-Hampdens’:

‘Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast

The little tyrant of his fields withstood;

Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,

Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.’