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Showing posts with label Canadian History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Canadian History. Show all posts

Tuesday 28 July 2020

Interview on first edition of my Three Rebellions


This interview was originally published on the Chartist Ancestor blog but, although it is referred to on the revised website, there is no direct link to it.

Mark Crail: Three Rebellions is a monumental work of over 1,100 pages. What inspired you to write it – and how long did it eventually take?

Richard Brown: The inspiration for the book came from a comment made by a sixth form student in 2004 who asked, I think to get me off the subject of the Plug Plugs, ‘I don’t suppose Chartism was exported was it?’  It was one of those off the cuff comments that gets you thinking.  In truth, I didn’t really know the answer but remember saying that as many people emigrated to the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand in the 1840s and 1850s, they would have taken their beliefs with them and that presumably Chartist principles would have been part of their intellectual baggage.  What began as an off-hand remark led me to spend the next four years exploring the question.  I found that, although there was a widely held assumption that Chartism had played a role in the democratising of the Australian colonies, little had been written on the subject from a global perspective.  It was this that led me to explore the issue of rebellion in the colonies to see how far Chartist ideas contributed to the development of colonial reformist and radical thinking.   I did much of the research, drafting ideas and working out the structure for the book in my final two years of teaching when I was increasingly relieved of worrying about the next educational initiative.  Once I retired I was able to focus on the writing that took about eighteen months. 

Mark Crail: Your book deals with events that took place on three separate continents and spread over a period of nearly two decades. What is the common theme or central argument that makes sense of bringing them together in a single book?

Richard Brown: The reasons why I chose to consider three rebellions in different parts of the British Empire fall into two categories.  First, in each of three areas there were tensions between the colonial authorities and the ways in which they wished to govern and reformers who sought a greater say in the ways in which they were governed.  Secondly, it was the abject failure by the authorities to recognise the depth of anger on the part of reformers and its unwillingness to introduce some form of responsible government that led to rebellion.  Violence was born of frustrated dreams turning individuals such as Papineau, Mackenzie, Lalor and John Frost from supporters, even if critical, of the existing system of government into increasingly radical individuals who concluded that ending the existing despotism of the colonial state, if necessary by direct action, was justifiable.  It is this which is central to the book and brings together South Wales, the Canadas and Australia into a common political and constitutional context.  Once I had decided this, then the structure of the remainder of the book fell into place.  Before explaining the causes of the rebellions, they needed to be placed within a chronological context.  After the rebellions had failed, their aftermaths, links and how they were and are remembered needed to be considered.  Finally, I wanted to place the rebellions within some sort of overall framework and this forms the basis of the final chapter.

Mark Crail:  Is this a book aimed squarely at specialist historians, or is it accessible to a wider readership? What would you hope non-specialists would take away from reading it?

Richard Brown: As I see myself as a teacher as well as a historian, I would hope that my book will appeal to both specialist historians and to a more popular readership.  I’ve always believed that a good story is the best way to engage people with the past and this is a great story.  It has its heroes and villains and its martyrs to the cause.  It raises questions about ‘what if the rebellions had succeeded?’  It is also about how people remember the past and how the past is constructed and reconstructed across time.  The events happened but the ways in which we see them today is very different to how they were regarded by contemporaries.    Through reading the book I would hope that non-specialist readers would know about rebellions in Canada and Australia as well as in Newport and that they would recognise that though the rebellions ended in failure they played a critical role in the development of the democratic systems of government that we have today and that people were then as now prepared to stand up and fight for the democratic principles in which they believed against the heavy-handed dictats of the state.

Mark Crail: In closing the book you talk about the tension between heritage and history and to the later interpretations we put on Chartism (and the Canada and Ballarat rebellions), what part do you think the growth of interest in family history has played in that?

Richard Brown: There is no doubt that the growth of interest in family history, especially through the Internet, has played a seminal role in the burgeoning development of interest in and understanding of people’s heritage.  I remember talking to a history lecturer who saw this as a ‘dumbing down’ of his subject and that the heritage of the past was history itself.  Though his second point may be debatable, his view of ‘dumbing down’ missed the point big time.  The study of history has always had its populist dimension and family history is part of this search for understanding where we are now by seeking to understand where we’ve come from.  It was for that reason that I included the chapter on remembrance in the book.  If history is simply what happened without considering how what happened impacts on us today and how our view of events changes, then it is simply a good story but little more.  The key to the development of the subject is establishing the connections between the past and the present, not in a pedagogical sense of learning lessons, but as an essential part of understanding what humanity is and was.

Mark Crail: Finally, as a history teacher, you will doubtless have ended up covering everything from the Romans to the fall of the Berlin Wall. What brings you back time after time to Chartism? Have your students been particularly drawn to the period – or is it just we obsessives?

Richard Brown: My interest in Chartism and those who supported the Charter comes from two sources.  First, I was brought up as a Liberal radical in a family with a long tradition of political activity.  My father had fought, as a teenager in the Spanish Civil War and then against Hitler from 1939 though to 1946 (he always said his war did not end until he had finished the process of denazification in Germany).  His mother, my paternal grandmother came from a very political family.  Her sister was a suffragette; her brother a trade union official.  As I was growing up, I was told stories (fascinating to an eight year old, though rarely fully accurate) about the emergence of the labour movement and of the need to fight injustice wherever and whatever it was.  My own political apprenticeship was served in the student protests against Vietnam in the mid-60s and continued during the next four years at university.  Then teaching rather than politics, a decision I never regretted.  Secondly, I was brought up in a village where there had been major riots in 1816 after which my great-great-great-great uncle had been hanged for sedition.  Weaned on the tales of his sacrifice (in fact it appears he was in the wrong place at the wrong time), I turned both to history and to the question of what motivated people to act in the ways they did.  Was it need, greed or circumstance?  How far were people driven by ideals and principles or was pragmatism the key to understanding people’s experiences? Studying Chartism ticked all the right boxes for me...and if that’s obsessive, then and I’m certain my students would agree, I’m a dyed in the wool obsessive!


Sunday 11 November 2018

My Books and other publications

Those publications with an asterisk (*) were co-written with C.W. Daniels. This list does not include editorials for Teaching History, book reviews or unpublished papers. Neither does it include the two series of books for which I have been joint-editor: Cambridge Topics in History and Cambridge Perspectives in History. Including these books would increase the length of this appendix by 52 books.

1974-1979

Computer-based data and social and economic history (for the Local History Classroom Project), (1974).

Social and Economic History and the Computer (for LHCP), (1975).

‘Local and National History -- an interrelated response’, in Suffolk History Forum, 1977.

‘Our Future Local Historians’, in The Local Historian, Vol. 13, 1978. *

‘Sixth Form History’, in Teaching History, May 1976. *

‘Sixth Form History’, in The Times Educational Supplement, 3 June 1977. *

‘The new history -- an essential reappraisal’, in The Times Educational Supplement, 2 December 1977. *

‘Interrelated Issues’, in The Times Educational Supplement, 1 December 1978. *

‘The Myth Exposed’, in The Times Educational Supplement, 30 November 1979 * also reprinted in John Fines (ed.) see below.

1980-1984

Nineteenth Century Britain, (Macmillan), 1980. *

‘The Local History Classroom Project’, in Developments in History Teaching, (University of Exeter), 1980. *

‘A Chronic Hysteresis’, in The Times Educational Supplement, 5 December 1980. *

Twentieth Century Europe, (Macmillan), 1981. *

‘Is there still room for History in the secondary curriculum?’, in The Times Educational Supplement, 5 December 1981. *

‘Content considered’, in The Times Educational Supplement, 9 April 1982. *

Twentieth Century Britain, (Macmillan), 1982. *

‘A Level History’, in The Times Educational Supplement, 8 April 1983. *

‘History in danger revisited’, in The Times Educational Supplement,  9 December 1983. *

‘History and study skills’, in John Fines (ed.), Teaching History, (Holmes McDougall), 1983. 

‘History and study skills’, reprinted in School and College, Vol. 4, (4), 1983.

Four scripts for Sussex Tapes, 1983:

People, Land and Trade 1830-1914.

Pre-eminence and Competition 1830-1914.

The Social Impact of the Industrial Revolution.

Lloyd George to Beveridge 1906-1950.

Four computer programs for Sussex Tapes, 1984:

The Industrial Revolution.

Population, Medicine and Agriculture.

Transport: road, canal and railway.

Social Impact of Change.

‘It’s time History Teachers were offensive’, in The Times Educational Supplement, 28 November 1984. *

The Chartists, (Macmillan), 1984. *

1985-1989

‘Using documents with sixth formers’, in The Times Educational Supplement, 29 November 1985. *

Learning History: A Guide to Advanced Study, (Macmillan), 1986. *

GCSE History, (The Historical Association), 1986, revised edition, 1987, as editor and contributor.

‘Training or Survival?’ with M. Booth and G. Shawyer in The Times Educational Supplement, 10 April 1987.

Change and Continuity in British Society 1800-1850, (Cambridge Topics in History, Cambridge University Press), 1987.

‘There are always alternatives: Britain during the Depression’ for BBC Radio, 14 September 1987.

‘Cultural imperialism’, in The Times Educational Supplement, 4 December, 1987.

‘The Training of History Teachers Project’, in Teaching History, 50, January 1988.

‘History’ in Your Choice of A-Levels, (CRAC,) 1988.

‘The Development of Children’s Historical Thinking’ with G. Shawyer and M. Booth, Cambridge Journal of Education, Vol. 18, (2), 1988.

‘The New Demonology’, Teaching History, Vol. 53, October 1988.

The Future of the Past: History in the Curriculum 5-16: A Personal Overview, (The Historical Association), 1988.

‘History Study Skills: Working with Sources’, History Sixth, Vol. 3, October 1988. *

‘A Critique of GCSE History: the results of The Historical Association Survey’, Teaching History, Vol. 55, March 1989.

1990-1999

‘History Textbook Round-up’, Teachers’ Weekly, September 1990.

‘Partnership and the Training of Student History Teachers’, with M. Booth and G. Shawyer, in M. Booth, J. Furlong and M. Wilkin (eds.), Partnership in Initial Teacher Training, (Cassell), 1990.

Economy and Society in Modern Britain 1700-1850 (Routledge), 1991.

Church and State in Modern Britain 1700-1850 (Routledge), 1991.

‘History’ in Your Choice of A-Levels, (CRAC), 1991.

‘Lies, damn lies and statistics’, Teaching History, 63, April 1991.

‘BTEC and History’, in John Fines (ed.), History 16-19, (The Historical Association), 1991.

‘What about the author?’, Hindsight: GCSE Modern History Review, Vol. 2, (1), September 1991.

‘Appeasement: A matter of opinion?’, Hindsight: GCSE Modern History Review, Vol. 2, (2), January 1992.

Economic Revolutions 1750-1850 (Cambridge Topics in History, Cambridge University Press), 1992.

‘Suez: a question of causation’, Hindsight: GCSE Modern History Review, Vol. 4, (1), September 1993.

‘History’ in Your Choice of A-Levels, (CRAC,) 1993.

History and post-16 vocational courses’, in H. Bourdillon (ed.), Teaching History, (Routledge), 1993.

‘Learning effectively at Advanced Level’, pamphlet for PGCE ITT course, (Open University), 1994.

Preparing for Inspection, (The Historical Association), 1994.

Managing the Learning of History, (David Fulton), 1995.

Chartism: People, Events and Ideas (Perspectives in History, Cambridge University Press), 1998.

BBC History File: consultant on five Key Stage 3 programmes on Britain 1750-1900, 1999.

2000-2009

Revolution, Radicalism and Reform: England 1780-1846, (Perspectives in History, Cambridge University Press), 2001.

‘The state in the 1840s’, Modern History Review, September 2003.

‘Chartism and the state’, Modern History Review, November 2003.

‘Chadwick and Simon: the problem of public health reform’, Modern History Review, April 2005.

2010

Three Rebellions: Canada 1837-1838, South Wales 1839, Eureka 1854, (Clio Publishing), 2010.

2011

Three Rebellions: Canada 1837-1838, South Wales 1839, Eureka 1854, (Clio Publishing), 2011 Kindle edition.

Famine, Fenians and Freedom, 1840-1882, (Clio Publishing), 2011.

Economy, Population and Transport (Nineteenth Century British Society), 2011 Kindle edition.

Work, Health and Poverty, (Nineteenth Century British Society), 2011 Kindle edition.

Education, Crime and Leisure, (Nineteenth Century British Society), 2011 Kindle edition.

Class, (Nineteenth Century British Society), 2011 Kindle edition.

2012

Religion and Government, (Nineteenth Century British Society), 2012 Kindle edition.

Society under Pressure: Britain 1830-1914, (Nineteenth Century British Society), 2012 Kindle edition.

Sex, Work and Politics: Women in Britain, 1830-1918, (Authoring History), 2012.

Famine, Fenians and Freedom, 1840-1882, (Clio Publishing), 2012 Kindle edition.

Sex, Work and Politics: Women in Britain 1830-1918, 2012,  Kindle edition.

Rebellion in Canada, 1837-1885 Volume 1: Autocracy, Rebellion and Liberty, (Authoring History), 2012.

Rebellion in Canada, 1837-1885, Volume 2: The Irish, the Fenians and the Metis, (Authoring History), 2012.

2013

Resistance and Rebellion in the British Empire, 1600-1980, Clio Publishing, 2013.

Settler Australia, 1780-1880, Volume 1: Settlement, Protest and Control, (Authoring History), 2013.

Settler Australia, 1780-1880, Volume 2: Eureka and Democracy, (Authoring History), 2013.

Rebellion in Canada, 1837-1885, 2013, Kindle edition.

'A Peaceable Kingdom': Essays on Nineteenth Century Canada, (Authoring History), 2013.

Resistance and Rebellion in the British Empire, 1600-1980, 2013, Kindle edition.

Settler Australia, 1780-1880, 2013, Kindle Edition.

Coping with Change: British Society, 1780-1914, (Authoring History), 2013.

2014

Before Chartism: Exclusion and Resistance, (Authoring History), 2014.

Suger: The Life of Louis VI 'the Fat', (Authoring History), 2014, Kindle edition.

Chartism: Rise and Demise, (Authoring History), 2014.

Sex, Work and Politics: Women in Britain, 1780-1945, (Authoring History), 2014.

Before Chartism: Exclusion and Resistance, (Authoring History), 2014, Kindle edition.

2015

Chartism: Rise and Demise, (Authoring History), 2015, Kindle edition.

'Development of the Professions', in Ross, Alastair, Innovating Professional Services: Transforming Value and Efficiency, (Ashgate), 2015, pp. 271-274.

Chartism: Localities, Spaces and Places, The Midlands and the South, (Authoring History), 2015.

Chartism: Localities, Spaces and Places, The North, Scotland Wales and Ireland, (Authoring History), 2015.

2016

Chartism, Regions and Economies, (Authoring History), 2016.

Breaking the Habit: A Life of History, (Authoring History), 2016.

Chartism: Localities, Spaces and Places, The Midlands and the South, (Authoring History), 2016, Kindle edition.

Chartism: Localities, Spaces and Places, The North, Scotland Wales and Ireland, (Authoring History), 2015, Kindle edition.

Chartism, Regions and Economies, (Authoring History), 2016, Kindle edition.

Suger: The Life of Louis VI 'the Fat', revised edition, (Authoring History), 2016.

Robert Guiscard: Portrait of a Warlord, (Authoring History), 2016.

Chartism: A Global History and other essays, (Authoring History), 2016.

Chartism: A Global History and other essays, (Authoring History), 2016, Kindle edition.

Roger of Sicily: Portrait of a Ruler, (Authoring History), 2016.

Three Rebellions: Canada, South Wales and Australia, (Authoring History), 2016.

2017

Famine, Fenians and Freedom, 1830-1882, (Authoring History), 2017.

Disrupting the British World, 1600-1980, (Authoring History), 2017.

Britain 1780-1850: A Simple Guide, (Authoring History), 2017.

People and Places: Britain 1780-1950, (Authoring History), 2017.

2018

Britain 1780-1945: Society under Pressure, (Authoring History), 2018.

Britain 1780-1945: Reforming Society, (Authoring History), 2018.

Three Rebellions: Canada, South Wales and Australia, (Authoring History), 2018, Kindle edition.

Famine, Fenians and Freedom, 1830-1882, (Authoring History), 2018. Kindle edition.

Disrupting the British World, 1600-1980, (Authoring History), 2018, Kindle edition.

Britain 1780-1945: Society under Pressure, (Authoring History), 2018, Kindle edition.

Britain 1780-1945: Reforming Society, (Authoring History), 2018, Kindle edition.

Robert Guiscard: Portrait of a Warlord, (Authoring History), 2016, 2018, Kindle edition.

Roger of Sicily: Portrait of a Ruler, (Authoring History), 2016,  2018, Kindle edition.

People and Places: Britain 1780-1950, (Authoring History), 2017, 2018, Kindle edition.

Breaking the Habit: A Life of History, (Authoring History), 2016, 2018, Kindle edition.

2019

Radicalism and Chartism 1790-1860, Authoring History), 2019.

Radicalism and Chartism 1790-1860, Authoring History), 2019, Kindle edition.

2020

The Woman Question: Sex, Work and Politics 1780-1945, (Authoring History), 2020.

Canada's 'Wars of Religion', (Authoring History), 2020.

The Woman Question: Sex, Work and Politics 1780-1945, (Authoring History), 2020, Kindle edition.

2021

Canada's 'Wars of Religion', (Authoring History), 2021, Kindle edition.

The Woman Question: Sex, Work and Politics 1780-1945, (Authoring History), 2021, hardback.

Economy, Population and Transport 1780-1945, (Authoring History), 2021, paperback and hardback.
2022
Classes and Cultures 1780-1945, (Authoring History), 2022, Kindle, hardback and paperback.
Work, Health and Poverty 1780-1945, (Authoring History), 2022, Kindle, hardback and paperback.
Education and Crime 1780-1945, (Authoring History), 2022, Kindle, hardback and paperback.
Religion and Government 1780-1945, (Authoring History), 2022, Kindle, hardback and paperback.




Friday 6 January 2017

New Review

Richard Brown, Famine, Fenians and Freedom, 1830-1882, Authoring History, second edition, 2017, £20.37, paperback, ISBN 978-1540352231; Richard Brown, Three Rebellions: Canada, South Wales and Australia, Authoring History, second edition, 2016, £19.72, paperback, ISBN 978-1539455707
 
The opportunity to revise and update the original texts as both these publications move into their second editions testifies to the success of previous print and electronic editions in helping to create markets for some of the less well trodden pathways of modern British and world history which have rarely featured so prominently in texts aimed at students in tertiary and higher education. In both instances the significance of the selected themes is succinctly explained in new prefaces. The new edition of Famine Fenians and Freedom, 1830-1882 takes its overall length from 582 to 602 pages and is now offered as the second volume of a quartet on resistance and rebellion in the British Empire. It examines the Irish dimension in Britain’s Empire through attempts especially by Young Ireland and the Fenians to achieve Irish independence through rebellion and by the populist and parliamentarian constitutionalist Repeal association and campaign for Home Rule to the achievement of devolved government. The book looks at the nature and impact of the Great Hunger in its global context in Britain, the United States, Canada and Australia and explains why, how and whither the Irish emigrated and how they settled into their new communities. The cover features Fenians at the Battle of Ridgeway in 1866, a victory, which the accompanying text argues ‘occurred too late to have any significant effect on the Confederation process’ though ‘it did play a major role in emotionally connecting the Canadian public to the idea of Canada’. However, the reader is warned in a cryptic caption that the book’s cover illustration amounts to a far from accurate depiction, though it might have helped some readers had this intriguing caption been elaborated and more of its provenance been revealed.
 
 
By contrast, the riveting cover illustration of the companion volume, focusing upon three rebellions in Canada, South Wales and Australia is extensively contextualised. Unusually, we discover, that it was painted by Katherine Jane Ellice, the daughter-in-law of the local seigneur, a prosperous fur trader, who was taken prisoner by the Patriotes at Beauharnois, near Montreal, in November 1838. Ellice described her captors as ‘the most Robespierre-looking ruffians, all armed with guns, long knives and pikes’. Their expressions and weapons are vividly captured in the watercolour. Moreover, Brown’s gripping account of the action and its significance is characteristically engaging and stimulating. He concludes that the rebellions in the Canadas, South Wales and Victoria were each a failure of popular constitutionalism to deliver political change and the unwillingness of the authorities to concede that change was necessary.
 
As the relationship of the United Kingdom with Europe and the wider world is re-defined post-Brexit, some of the global themes hitherto neglected but explored here with such insight, rigour and enthusiasm may perhaps again appeal to a widening readership.
John A. Hargreaves

Monday 10 October 2016

Three Rebellions…a second edition

There have been important change in the Rebellion Trilogy, a series of books that were written between 2004 and 2010 and published in 2010, 2011 and 2013.  The series will become a Quartet with the addition of a fourth volume entitled Ireland, Revolution and Diaspora 1882-1923. This was, in part, the result of a comment from a colleague who suggested that I’d looked at the aperitif and starter but hadn’t really got on to the main course. This echoed my own feeling about the Irish dimension in the series. I had started to tell the story but it had yet to reach the ‘freedom’ in my Famine, Fenians and Freedom, 1840-1882.
 
The first volume in the series is Three Rebellions: Canada, South Wales and Australia that considers the context, causes and consequences of three major popular disturbances in the British Empire during the early years of Queen Victoria’s long reign. In the Canadas during 1837 and 1838, at Newport in South Wales in 1839 and at the Eureka Stockade in Ballarat, Victoria in Australia in 1854 thousands of largely working people took up arms against the forces of colonial rule and oppression. What linked these three events was a popular form of constitutionalism, linked to British radicalism and especially to Chartism that sought constitutional and democratic change but which was denied by colonial oligarchies that sought to retain political power in their own hands. The rebellions each failed when faced by the overwhelming force of the colonial state but, although they were defeated militarily, each played a significant role in the emergence of more responsive and responsible government. Today, the losers are better remembered than those who defeated them in 1837-1838, 1839 and 1854.

The first edition of Three Rebellions was completed in 2008 and finally published in early 2010. In the intervening years I have continued to grapple with the issues raised in the original volume publishing more detailed discussion of the rebellions in Britain, Canada and Australia.The major difference between the first and second editions is that I have significantly reduced the length of the work by taking out the foreword, relevant in 2009 but not today, and the chapters that dealt with the links between the three rebellions and how the rebellions have been remembered and commemorated. My reason for doing this—other than making the work tighter—is that I have included revised versions of these chapters in my Chartism: A Global History and other essays, published earlier this year.

Saturday 8 June 2013

4000,000 and counting

PASSING 400,000

I started my Looking at History blog on Blogger on 30 July 2007 and it’s taken until 7 June 2013 to reach 400,000 ‘hits’: an average of around 66,000 per year.  I’ve published 823 blogs in that time, around 137 blogs a year.  Inevitably, take-up of the blogs was initially slow but once they began to appear in Google Search the number of hits began to rise significantly and in the past two years the blog has consistently been getting 20,000 hits a month.

Analysis of which blogs have been particularly popular shows that ‘Disease in the Victorian city: extended version’ has over 9,000 hits followed closely by ‘Suffrage since 1903: Arguments against  women’s suffrage’ with 8,300.  Generally the blogs on nineteenth century British society, women’s history and Canada have performed the best.  Given the nature of the blogs, their audiences is not surprising with the United Kingdom (150,000) and United States (121,000) being the most important.  There has also been a good take-up from Canada (23,000), Australia (13,000), France (11,000) and Germany (10,000) with a gap before Russia (2,000) and India (2,000). 

The bulk of the hits are accessed through Internet Explorer (41%), Firefox (21%) and Chrome(20%) using Windows (77%), Macintosh(10%) and Linux (5%).  Access using tablets or phones is currently more limited with iPad (2%), iPhone(2%) and Android (1%) but this represents a significant increase since the end of 2011 when these did not register at all. 

Comments on the site have been overwhelmingly positive and in several cases helpful in enabling me to correct errors and I have been both gratified by this as well as pleased that readers take the time to make comments (whether critical or not). 

Wednesday 5 June 2013

‘A Peaceable Kingdom’: Essays on Nineteenth Century Canada

JUST PUBLISHED

The essays in this book seek to unpick the notion of the 'peaceable kingdom' in the light of the violence that permeated Canada between 1837 and 1885 and argue that, far from having little impact on the development of Canada from a colonial state to a continental dominion, violence played a seminal influence in stimulating constitutional development. The British government's response to the rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada in 1837 and 1838 was to establish a union of the two provinces in 1841 and rule by a 'responsible' government from 1848 that proved sufficiently resilient in facing down the Tory reactions to the Rebellion Losses legislation. The Fenian invasions in 1866 impacted on the Confederation debates, though to what extent is unclear, but the fear of further Fenian incursions reinforced the argument that domestic security could only be achieved through a closer constitutional federalism. The resistance in Manitoba in 1869 and 1870 reflected the hesitant nature of the new Confederation especially its failure to take account of minority interests while the North-West rebellion in 1885 demonstrated its unwillingness to negotiate for a second time and the growing confidence of its political and military position.

Peaceable Kingdom

 

Contents

Preface

Prologue: A Peaceable Kingdom

1. Populism and Protest

2. Niagara, 1837

3. The Militia and French Canada 1760-1867

4. Defending the Crown

5. Provoking violence: Montreal and Longueuil

6. Patriotes and independence

7. Was Papineau to blame?

8. The Diary of the Rev. Henry Scadding, 1837-1838

9. Murder, Vengeance and Rebellion

10. Russia and rebellion in North America

11. Interpreting the rebellions

12. Canada’s ‘Wars of Religion’

13. The Offending Arch

14. Rebellion, remembering and trauma

Index

Thursday 2 May 2013

Resistance and Rebellion: a review

Resistance and Rebellion in the British Empire 1600-1980, Richard Brown, Clio Publishing, 2013, paperback, 626 pp., £27.95 ISBN 9780955698385

Susan England of Clio, in an unusual, but entirely appropriate, appreciation of the author by the publisher in a foreword to this final volume of Richard Brown’s remarkable trilogy of studies of resistance and rebellion in the British Empire, completed since his retirement from full-time teaching, observes that the recent recognition by the High Court in London in October 2012 of the case of three veteran survivors of the ‘systematic torture, incarceration and killing’ allegedly meted out by the British colonial powers in Kenya during the seven-year Mau-Mau rebellion in the 1950s, provides an ever-present reminder of the continuing resonance of the experience of empire in our world today. This third volume of Brown’s epic trilogy breaks the chronological mould of volumes 1 and 2, which focused predominantly on developments in Britain, Canada and Australia in the six decades extending from the 1830s to the 1880s. By contrast to its predecessors, it ‘explores a diverse range of anti-colonial rebellions within the British Empire from a broader chronological and geographical perspective’ utilising case studies from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries drawn from a gazetteer encompassing America, Australia, Cyprus, Kenya, Mauritius, New Zealand, Sierra Leone and South Africa, including some names more familiar to philatelists than to many students of history, all of which challenged at some point British imperial rule. The rebellions are crisply categorised as convict, migrant, fiscal, millenarian, nationalist and even a rum rebellion.

Colonial Rebellion Kindle cover

This latter, ‘very British rebellion’, occurring unusually within the colonial elite, and so-called because rum had become the substitute for currency in the barter-based economy of New South Wales, is particularly memorable since it challenged the authority of Captain William Bligh, the survivor of the mutiny of the Bounty in 1789 led by Fletcher Christian, the ship’s first mate. Bligh who in this later episode, lucidly and meticulously reconstructed by Brown, mainly from the contemporary evidence of Bligh’s correspondence and worthy perhaps of a cinematic sequel, was imprisoned from 1808 to 1810 by mutinous soldiers, but later exonerated of all blame and promoted admiral on his retirement in 1811. Brown’s characteristically trenchant analysis of Bligh’s conduct, however, reveals that even before his arrival as governor of the New South Wales penal colony, his style of governance had led to problems with his subordinates on the voyage, and that soon after his arrival he replaced many of the officials with military experience with his own appointments which ‘did not play well in a small community and did not endear him to the corps’. Indeed, he then proceeded to antagonise not only influential figures in the colony but also some of the less wealthy government leasehold tenants within Sydney, challenging their property rights and also gaining a reputation for ‘his abusing and confining’ the soldiers of the New South Wales Corps ‘without the smallest provocation’. This prompted John Harris, the corps’ surgeon who had been dismissed from his positions of naval officer and magistrate to compare his exercise of authority to that of Robespierre or the Terror or even the Roman emperor, Caligula, who ‘never reigned with more despotic sway than he does’. Meanwhile, in Sydney a verse was circulating, invoking the Bounty mutiny, appealing: ‘Is there no Christian in New South Wales to put a stop to the Tyranny of the Governor’.

Brown’s vivid analytical narrative, here as elsewhere, illuminates a relatively obscure episode of imperial history within a broader, carefully researched, wide-ranging study of anti-colonial resistance and rebellion. The publisher Clio and author Richard Brown are to be congratulated on producing such a wide-ranging concluding volume to a stimulating series in such an attractive format, which has the potential to engage with a wider student and general readership than might previously have been attracted to the study of British imperial history.

John A. Hargreaves

Monday 22 April 2013

Rebellion in Canada, 1837-1885

NOW AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE

‘…extremely impressed by the range of your scholarship and the depth of your research; you seem to have read just about all the secondary literature in a variety of different fields, and you present your material in a clear, engaging style that is refreshingly jargon-free.’

In less than fifty years Canada experienced six major rebellions: in Lower and Upper Canada in late 1837 and 1838, the Fenian rebellions of 1866 and 1870 and the Pembina affair in 1871 and Louis Riel’s resistance at Red River in 1869-1870 and his rebellion fifteen years later in Saskatchewan. Each failed to achieve its aims and, in one sense, this book is a study of political disappointment. The rebellions revealed the draconian ways in which the state responded to threats to public order and legitimate authority. Yet it is the losers in 1837-1838 and 1885, though this is less the case for those in 1866 and 1870 who are now better and more positively remembered than the victors.

Canadian rebellions 1

The two volumes in Canadian Rebellion 1837-1885 are published in two formats. There are two printed volumes that were published in the latter part of 2012 and this single Kindle volume that contains both printed volumes.  I have taken the opportunity of adding references to the most recent research and have added colour illustrations that were nor included in the original print version. 

The Prologue considers the natures of liberty in the emergence of Canada from a colonial to continental state.  Chapter 1 examines the development of the two Canadas between the end of French Canada in 1760 and the turn of the century. Chapter 2 looks at the economic, social, political, ideological and cultural tensions that evolved from the 1790s and the largely unsuccessful attempts by the colonial state and politicians in London to find acceptable and sustainable solutions to populist demands for greater autonomy. Chapter 3 looks in detail at the rebellions in 1837 and 1838 and at their immediate aftermath. Chapter 4 examines the ways in which Canadian politics developed in the newly united Province of Canada in the years between 1841 and the creation of Confederation in 1867. 

Chapter 5 examines the Irish diaspora to North America during the nineteenth century and focuses especially on the demographic and political impact of the Famine in the 1840s and 1850s. Chapter 6 considers at the ways in which Irish nationalism maintained a strong political presence in the United States and Canada from the beginning of the nineteenth century and the emergence of the Fenian Brotherhood in New York in 1858. The political impact of this movement was both enhanced and restricted by the American Civil War between 1861 and 1865 yet the Fenians emerged in April 1865 as a powerful, if increasingly divided, force with concrete plans for the liberation of Ireland. Chapter 7 explores in detail at the three Irish-American Fenian incursions into Canada in 1866, 1870 and briefly and debatably in 1871, the impact that they had on Canadian and American politics and how this led to changes in Irish nationalism in the 1870s. Chapters 8 and 9 extend the story geographically beyond Quebec and Ontario across the continent to the unchartered and largely unsettled prairies of the North-West. They look at the impact of economic, social and political change on the Metis and the two rebellions of 1869-1870 and 1885 led by Louis Riel that sought, unsuccessfully, to protect the Metis from the impact of the incursion of largely Ontarian settlers and from the continentalist aspirations of the federal government. The importance of rebellion in state-building in Canada is considered in the final chapter.

There are a series of appendices and a bibliography.

Wednesday 10 April 2013

‘Peaceable Kingdom’: Essays on Nineteenth Century Canada

I’m not sure when this book will finally be published but I’m hoping to complete it by August or possibly September.  While researching the Rebellions Trilogy and the two volumes of Rebellion in Canada, 1837-1885 I drafted a series of papers on Canadian history that contributed to the published work. This was part of the process of honing drafts of the books into a form that combined a narrative of the key events, their causation and consequences with a critique of that narrative by examining linkage and remembrance. This collection of essays brings together some of those jottings and has given me the opportunity to rewrite them in the light of further research.

Peaceable Kingdom

‘Canada is an unmilitary community,’ wrote C. P. Stacey, Canada’s pre-eminent military historian. ‘Warlike her people have often been forced to be, military they have never been.’ [1] There is a view that, unlike almost every other democracy, Canadians have not had to fight for their freedom. The rebellions in Lower and Upper Canada in 1837 and 1838 and Louis Riel's Red River ‘Resistance’ of 1869-1870 and the North-West Rebellion of 1885 are portrayed as little more than military skirmishes while describing the four-day action at Batoche as a ‘battle’ is seen as a serious over-dramatisation.

I’ve just completed an essay that explores the question of Russia and rebellion in Canada considering this less from the point of view of ‘rumour’, as previous historians have done but placing the Patriotes and Fenians and their calls for Russian support in the context of Russian foreign and diplomatic policy between 1837 and 1885.  What is now evident is that, although efforts to obtain Russian support ultimately failed, those efforts appear far less eccentric than previously thought and that Russian support, in part to destabilise Britain’s empire, was not as ridiculous as it often appears.

Other essays will examine populism and protest in 1837 and the deaths of Lieutenant Weir and Armand Chartrand and ask whether Papineau was to blame for the failure of rebellion in Lower Canada and whether Canada experienced ‘wars of religion’ in the nineteenth century.


[1] Stacey, C. P., Six Years of War: The Army in Canada, Britain and the Pacific, (Queen’s Printer), 1953, p. 3. Several years before Prime Minister W. L. Mackenzie King had stated: ‘We are fighting to defend democratic and Christian ideals [and] we have transformed one of the least military people on earth into a nation organised for modern war’, Hutchinson’s Pictorial History of the War, no. 1, Series 13, July-December, 1941, p. 199.

Sunday 6 January 2013

Three Rebellions: an interview

This interview was originally published on Mark Crail’s excellent Chartist Ancestors Blog (http://chartist-ancestors.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/interview-richard-brown-on-three.html).  As the trilogy of books that stemmed from it is now complete, I thought it might be worthwhile reprinting it.

Three Rebellions final cover Jan 010

Mark Crail: Three Rebellions is a monumental work of over 1,100 pages. What inspired you to write it – and how long did it eventually take?
Richard Brown: The inspiration for the book came from a comment made by a sixth form student in 2004 who asked, I think to get me off the subject of the Plug Plugs, ‘I don’t suppose Chartism was exported was it?’  It was one of those off the cuff comments that gets you thinking.  In truth, I didn’t really know the answer but remember saying that as many people emigrated to the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand in the 1840s and 1850s, they would have taken their beliefs with them and that presumably Chartist principles would have been part of their intellectual baggage.  What began as an off-hand remark led me to spend the next four years exploring the question.  I found that, although there was a widely held assumption that Chartism had played a role in the democratising of the Australian colonies, little had been written on the subject from a global perspective.  It was this that led me to explore the issue of rebellion in the colonies to see how far Chartist ideas contributed to the development of colonial reformist and radical thinking.   I did much of the research, drafting ideas and working out the structure for the book in my final two years of teaching when I was increasingly relieved of worrying about the next educational initiative.  Once I retired I was able to focus on the writing that took about eighteen months.

Mark Crail: Your book deals with events that took place on three separate continents and spread over a period of nearly two decades. What is the common theme or central argument that makes sense of bringing them together in a single book?
Richard Brown: The reasons why I chose to consider three rebellions in different parts of the British Empire fall into two categories.  First, in each of three areas there were tensions between the colonial authorities and the ways in which they wished to govern and reformers who sought a greater say in the ways in which they were governed.  Secondly, it was the abject failure by the authorities to recognise the depth of anger on the part of reformers and its unwillingness to introduce some form of responsible government that led to rebellion.  Violence was born of frustrated dreams turning individuals such as Papineau, Mackenzie, Lalor and John Frost from supporters, even if critical, of the existing system of government into increasingly radical individuals who concluded that ending the existing despotism of the colonial state, if necessary by direct action, was justifiable.  It is this which is central to the book and brings together South Wales, the Canadas and Australia into a common political and constitutional context.  Once I had decided this, then the structure of the remainder of the book fell into place.  Before explaining the causes of the rebellions, they needed to be placed within a chronological context.  After the rebellions had failed, their aftermaths, links and how they were and are remembered needed to be considered.  Finally, I wanted to place the rebellions within some sort of overall framework and this forms the basis of the final chapter.

Mark Crail:  Is this a book aimed squarely at specialist historians, or is it accessible to a wider readership? What would you hope non-specialists would take away from reading it?
Richard Brown: As I see myself as a teacher as well as a historian, I would hope that my book will appeal to both specialist historians and to a more popular readership.  I’ve always believed that a good story is the best way to engage people with the past and this is a great story.  It has its heroes and villains and its martyrs to the cause.  It raises questions about ‘what if the rebellions had succeeded?’  It is also about how people remember the past and how the past is constructed and reconstructed across time.  The events happened but the ways in which we see them today is very different to how they were regarded by contemporaries.    Through reading the book I would hope that non-specialist readers would know about rebellions in Canada and Australia as well as in Newport and that they would recognise that though the rebellions ended in failure they played a critical role in the development of the democratic systems of government that we have today and that people were then as now prepared to stand up and fight for the democratic principles in which they believed against the heavy-handed dictats of the state.

Mark Crail: In closing the book you talk about the tension between heritage and history and to the later interpretations we put on Chartism (and the Canada and Ballarat rebellions), what part do you think the growth of interest in family history has played in that?
Richard Brown: There is no doubt that the growth of interest in family history, especially through the Internet, has played a seminal role in the burgeoning development of interest in and understanding of people’s heritage.  I remember talking to a history lecturer who saw this as a ‘dumbing down’ of his subject and that the heritage of the past was history itself.  Though his second point may be debatable, his view of ‘dumbing down’ missed the point big time.  The study of history has always had its populist dimension and family history is part of this search for understanding where we are now by seeking to understand where we’ve come from.  It was for that reason that I included the chapter on remembrance in the book.  If history is simply what happened without considering how what happened impacts on us today and how our view of events changes, then it is simply a good story but little more.  The key to the development of the subject is establishing the connections between the past and the present, not in a pedagogical sense of learning lessons, but as an essential part of understanding what humanity is and was.

Mark Crail: Finally, as a history teacher, you will doubtless have ended up covering everything from the Romans to the fall of the Berlin Wall. What brings you back time after time to Chartism? Have your students been particularly drawn to the period – or is it just we obsessives?
Richard Brown: My interest in Chartism and those who supported the Charter comes from two sources.  First, I was brought up as a Liberal radical in a family with a long tradition of political activity.  My father had fought, as a teenager in the Spanish Civil War and then against Hitler from 1939 though to 1946 (he always said his war did not end until he had finished the process of denazification in Germany).  His mother, my paternal grandmother came from a very political family.  Her sister was a suffragette; her brother a trade union official.  As I was growing up, I was told stories (fascinating to an eight year old, though rarely fully accurate) about the emergence of the labour movement and of the need to fight injustice wherever and whatever it was.  My own political apprenticeship was served in the student protests against Vietnam in the mid-60s and continued during the next four years at university.  Then teaching rather than politics, a decision I never regretted.  Secondly, I was brought up in a village where there had been major riots in 1816 after which my great-great-great-great uncle had been hanged for sedition.  Weaned on the tales of his sacrifice (in fact it appears he was in the wrong place at the wrong time), I turned both to history and to the question of what motivated people to act in the ways they did.  Was it need, greed or circumstance?  How far were people driven by ideals and principles or was pragmatism the key to understanding people’s experiences? Studying Chartism ticked all the right boxes for me...and if that’s obsessive, then and I’m certain my students would agree, I’m a dyed in the wool obsessive!

Wednesday 12 September 2012

Rebellion in Canada, 1837-1885, Volume 2: The Irish, the Fenians and the Metis

JUST PUBLISHED

In less than fifty years Canada experienced six major rebellions: in Lower and Upper Canada in late 1837 and 1838, the Fenian rebellions of 1866 and 1870 and the Pembina affair in 1871 and Louis Riel's resistance at Red River in 1869-1870 and his rebellion fifteen years later in Saskatchewan. Each failed to achieve its aims and, in one sense, the two books in the Canadian Rebellion series are studies of political disappointment. The second volume, The Irish, the Fenians and the Metis, considers the impact of the Irish diaspora on the United States and Canada and the rebellions led largely by Irish-American Fenians in the 1860s and 1870s and also the rebellions, led by Louis Riel in 1869-1870 and 1885, by the Metis.

image

Chapter 1 examines the Irish diaspora to North America during the nineteenth century and focuses especially on the impact of the Famine in the 1840s and 1850s. Chapter 2 considers at the ways in which Irish nationalism maintained a strong political presence in the United States and Canada from the beginning of the nineteenth century and the emergence of the Fenian Brotherhood in New York in 1858. The political impact of this movement was both enhanced and restricted by the American Civil War between 1861 and 1865 yet the Fenians emerged in April 1865 as a powerful, if increasingly divided, force with concrete plans for the liberation of Ireland. Chapter 3 explores in detail at the three Irish-American Fenian incursions into Canada in 1866, 1870 and briefly and debatably in 1871, the impact that they had on Canadian and American politics and how this led to changes in Irish nationalism in the 1870s. Chapters 4 and 5 extend the story geographically beyond Quebec and Ontario across the continent to the unchartered and largely unsettled prairies of the North-West. The importance of rebellion in state-building in Canada is considered in the final chapter.

Contents

Series Preface

1 Famine and Diaspora

2 Irish Nationalism in North America to 1865

3 Rebellions in Canada, 1866, 1870 and 1871

4 Riel and Resistance, 1869-1870

5 Riel and Rebellion, 1885

6 A Contested Consensus

Appendix: Who ran colonial government?

Further Reading

Index

Features

Comprehensive narrative and analysis of the context causes, course and results of the rebellions including analysis of constitutional, political, social, economic and cultural influences

Discusses the effects of the Irish Famine and the resulting emigration to the United States and Canada

Examines the influence of nationalism on political developments in the United States and Canada

Considers the role played by individuals such as John Mahony, Louis Riel and John A. Macdonald on the development of competing political agendas

Examines the rebellions in their historiographical context

Sunday 5 August 2012

Rebellion in Canada, 1837-1885 Volume 1: Autocracy, Rebellion and Liberty

JUST PUBLISHED

In less than fifty years Canada experienced six major rebellions: in Lower and Upper Canada in late 1837 and 1838, the Fenian rebellions of 1866 and 1870 and the Pembina affair in 1871 and Louis Riel's resistance at Red River in 1869-1870 and his rebellion fifteen years later in Saskatchewan. Each failed to achieve its aims and, in one sense, the two books in the Canadian Rebellion series are studies of political disappointment. The rebellions revealed the draconian ways in which the state responded to threats to public order and legitimate authority. Yet it is the losers in 1837-1838 and 1885, though this is less the case for those in 1866 and 1870 who are now better and more positively remembered than the victors. These events each represented the beginnings of political change and especially the move towards 'responsive', 'responsible' and 'representative' government as British Government, at least in its imperial manifestation recognised the necessity of rule with the consent of colonists.

image

 

Autocracy, Rebellion and Liberty examines the way in which the Canadas developed from the 1760s through to Confederation a century later. The opening chapters consider the context for the rebellions in 1837 and 1838. Chapter 1 examines the development of the two Canadas between the end of French Canada in 1760 and the turn of the century. Chapter 2 considers the economic, social, political, ideological and cultural tensions that evolved from the 1790s and the largely unsuccessful attempts by the colonial state and politicians in London to find acceptable and sustainable solutions to populist demands for greater autonomy. Chapter 3 looks in detail at the rebellions in 1837 and 1838 and at their immediate aftermath. Chapter 4 examines the ways in which Canadian politics developed in the newly united Province of Canada in the years between 1841 and the creation of Confederation in 1867.

Contents:

Series Preface
Prologue: Conflicting Liberties
1 Forming the Canadas
2 From discord to rebellion
3 Rebellions and Retribution, 1837-1839
4 From Union to Confederation
Appendices
Further reading
Index

Features:

Comprehensive narrative of the context, causes, course and consequences of the rebellions combining analysis of the constitutional, political, social, economic and cultural features.
Examines the critical role played by Louis-Joseph Papineau, William Mackenzie, Louis LaFontaine and Robert Baldwin in the move from an autocratic to responsive and responsible system of government.
Considers the rebellions in their historiographical context.

Wednesday 1 August 2012

Rebellion in Canada

My decision to publish Rebellion in Canada as two print volumes as well as a combined Kindle edition has given me the opportunity to produce the covers for the two books.

Rebellion in Canada Volume 1

Autocracy, Rebellion and Liberty examines the way in which the Canadas developed from the 1760s through to Confederation a century later. The opening chapters consider the context for the rebellions in 1837 and 1838. Chapter 1 examines the development of the two Canadas between the end of French Canada in 1760 and the turn of the century. Chapter 2 considers the economic, social, political, ideological and cultural tensions that evolved from the 1790s and the largely unsuccessful attempts by the colonial state and politicians in London to find acceptable and sustainable solutions to populist demands for greater autonomy. Chapter 3 looks in detail at the rebellions in 1837 and 1838 and at their immediate aftermath. Chapter 4 examines the ways in which Canadian politics developed in the newly united Province of Canada in the years between 1841 and the creation of Confederation in 1867.

Rebellion in Canada Volume 2

The second volume, The Irish, the Fenians and the Metis, considers the impact of the Irish diaspora on the United States and Canada and the rebellions led largely by Irish-American Fenians in the 1860s and 1870s and also the rebellions, led by Louis Riel in 1869-1870 and 1885, by the Metis. Chapter 1 examines the Irish diaspora to North America during the nineteenth century and focuses especially on the impact of the Famine in the 1840s and 1850s. Chapter 2 considers at the ways in which Irish nationalism maintained a strong political presence in the United States and Canada from the beginning of the nineteenth century and the emergence of the Fenian Brotherhood in New York in 1858. The political impact of this movement was both enhanced and restricted by the American Civil War between 1861 and 1865 yet the Fenians emerged in April 1865 as a powerful, if increasingly divided, force with concrete plans for the liberation of Ireland. Chapter 3 explores in detail at the three Irish-American Fenian incursions into Canada in 1866, 1870 and briefly and debatably in 1871, the impact that they had on Canadian and American politics and how this led to changes in Irish nationalism in the 1870s. Chapters 4 and 5 extend the story geographically beyond Quebec and Ontario across the continent to the unchartered and largely unsettled prairies of the North-West. The importance of rebellion in state-building in Canada is considered in the final chapter.

Thursday 26 January 2012

Rebellion in Canada: 1837-1885

In less than fifty years Canada experienced six major rebellions: in Lower and Upper Canada in late 1837 and 1838, the Fenian rebellions of 1866 and 1870 and Louis Riel’s resistance at Red River in 1869-1870 and his rebellion fifteen years later.

This book originated in my trilogy of studies on colonial rebellion and develops material from those books on rebellion in Canada. This allows me to examine the significance of rebellion in the development of the Canadian state as it evolved from a colonial organisation through responsible government and finally to its continental federal form after Confederation in 1867.
Chapter 1 examines the development of the two Canadas between the end of French Canada in 1760 and the turn of the century. Chapter 2 considers the economic, social, political, ideological and cultural tensions that evolved from the 1790s and the largely unsuccessful attempts by the colonial state and politicians in London to find acceptable and sustainable solutions to populist demands for greater autonomy. Chapter 3 looks in detail at the rebellions in 1837 and 1838 and at their immediate aftermath. Chapter 4 examines the ways in which Canadian politics developed in the newly united Province of Canada in the years between 1841 and the creation of Confederation in 1867. Chapter 5 considers at the ways in which Irish nationalism maintained a strong political presence in the United States and Canada from the beginning of the nineteenth century and the emergence of the Fenian Brotherhood in New York in 1858. The political impact of this movement was both enhanced and restricted by the American Civil War between 1861 and 1865 yet the Fenians emerged in April 1865 as a powerful, if increasingly divided, force with concrete plans for the liberation of Ireland. Chapter 6 explores in detail at the three Irish-American Fenian incursions into Canada in 1866, 1870 and briefly and debatably in 1871, the impact that they had on Canadian and American politics and how this led to changes in Irish nationalism in the 1870s. Chapters 7 and 8 extend the story geographically beyond Quebec and Ontario across the continent to the unchartered and largely unsettled prairies of the North-West and considers the two rebellions associated with Louis Riel.

Although much of the book has already been drafted, the need for further research means that the book will not be available on Amazon Kindle until early 2013.

Friday 18 November 2011

Just published: Famine, Fenians and Freedom, 1840-1882

In these days when students often have a bad press, Famine, Fenians and Freedom, is dedicated to the sixth form students whom I taught and tutored in the two years before I retired. They were a witty, interested and interesting set of over fifty students who challenged both their own ideas and mine in lessons that combined the best of learning: achievement of the skills and understanding necessary to do well in examinations and in education in its broadest sense. They were amongst the most affable, brightest and certainly the most challenging (in the nicest sense of that word) individuals I had ever taught. Their collective success, something that continued at university and beyond is something I have followed with intense interest.

2011-11-18 14-30-46.173

Famine, Fenians and Freedom is a detailed and nuanced study of the exodus of the impoverished and persecuted from Ireland before and after the Great Famine of the 1840s as they emigrated, or in some cases were transported to, America, Canada and Australia as well as to the British mainland. The critical question for many Irish men and women was whether Ireland should remain part of the United Kingdom, or whether they should seek greater freedom through devolved power or separation. This was an Ireland dominated by personalities such as Daniel O’Connell, James Stephens, Isaac Butt, and Charles Stewart Parnell, and by movements such as the Repeal Association, Young Ireland, the Fenians and Home Rule, and by rebellions against British domination in 1848 and 1867. It examines how those who saw themselves as exiled sought to restore Irish independence from what they determined as British tyranny. This led to unsuccessful Fenian invasions of Canada by Irish-Americans in 1866, 1870 and 1871, the attempted assassination of a member of the British Royal family, Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, in Australia in 1868, and the murder of two British politicians in Phoenix Park, Dublin in 1882. It is a story replete with dramatic events; the monster meetings of the Repeal Association, the battle of Ridgeway, the voyages of the Erin's Hope and the Catalpa, the Manchester ‘outrages’, and the Clerkenwell bombing, and considers developments in Ireland in their global colonial context and setting.

Monday 9 May 2011

The rise of Catholic clerical power in Lower Canada: After the rebellions

In 1806, Le French Canadian was established by Pierre Bédard in Quebec with its motto: ‘Notre foi, notre langue, nos institutions’. These became the three pillars of survival for French Canadians and had increased resonance in the aftermath of Durham’s Report in defining the distinctiveness of French Canada. The focus was placed upon what Michel Brunet called ‘Messianism’, ‘agriculturalism’ and ‘anti-statism’.[1] From 1841, leadership was progressively assumed by the Roman Catholic Church and religion was increasingly stressed to distinguish the French Canadian people from their ‘Protestant’ environment. The Church emphasised the duty of French Canadians to spread their religion and the conservative rural values associated with it. It also preached distrust of a state that was dominated by a majority alien in culture and religion. It was therefore better to rely on the Church to provide services normally associated with the State: charity, health, welfare and education. The Church was regarded as the guardian not just of the faith of the people but also of the nation. Within a few decades, the Church supplied the French Canadian people with a transcendental vision of their new situation. [2] Its definition of the French Canadian nation explicitly refuted that of the Patriotes, which had a strong liberal and emancipating connotation. As emphasised by a clerical ideologist in the 1840s, ‘it is not borders, nor even laws or political administrations which make a nationality; it is a religion, a language, a national character’. [3] The entanglement of Catholicism with nationalism later evolved into a close relationship between the Catholic faith and the French language according to which the latter was the best means to keep alive the former, and was condensed into the motto ‘the language, guardian of the faith’.[4]

During the rebellions, Mgr Jean-Jacques Lartigue[5], since 1836 first bishop of Montreal and his coadjutor, Ignace Bourget[6] were actively involved in maintaining the authority of the Church and colonial government against the demands of the rebels.[7] The Roman Catholic hierarchy threw its weight behind a policy of compromise. [8] Lartigue’s first injunction was dated 24 October 1837, two days after a demonstration by 1,200 Patriotes in front of the Cathedral of St-Jacques protesting against the sermon given by Lartigue on 25 July at the ceremony when Ignace Bourget was consecrated as Lartigue’s coadjutor with the right of succession. [9] Lartigue had reminded the congregation of the Catholic Church’s attitude to rebellion against lawful authorities. [10] The first pastoral letter restated the traditional doctrine of the Church to ‘the obedience due to authority’ casting serious doubt on the wisdom of the radicals’ policy, which he considered imprudent as well as harmful. However, he did not threaten ecclesiastical sanctions against those in his diocese who did not respect his instructions. This letter was not well received by Patriotes. La Minerve on 30 October was particularly critical, as was Étienne Chartier, priest of St-Benoît who challenged the argument on which the pastoral letter was based. [11] According to Gilles Chaussé:

…although the clergy disassociated itself from the views expressed by the curé of St-Benoît, nonetheless a significant section of the clergy entertained serious doubts about the action of their bishop and on his view of the doctrine of unconditional obedience to the Crown and its representatives. [12]

This pastoral letter reminded clergy and laity of their religious responsibilities. [13] In reality, for many Patriotes it meant making a choice between their religious and political conscience. [14]

Following Lartigue’s death in 1840, Bourget took his place at the head of the diocese. He had been Lartigue’s secretary since 1821 and had been well prepared for this task. The ten years after the rebellions saw considerable change in the Roman Catholic Church.

The character of education in Lower Canada both before and after the rebellions was a major concern for the Church. Before 1800, the education of habitants had been left largely in the hands of the Church and was largely ignored by the colonial state. This proved inadequate and accounted for the low levels of literacy among habitants. In 1801, legislation empowered the governor to appoint trustees who would form a Royal Institute, the administrative body of a new system of education. The governor appointed commissioners in parishes or townships that wished to set up a Royal Institute school and they would oversee the construction, financing and maintenance of the school while the colonial government would pay for the teachers. Although the legislation originated in a proposal from the Anglican bishop Jacob Mountain, there was little initial opposition to the Royal Institute schools from Catholics. However, by the 1810s, the Catholic hierarchy under Plessis was concerned that these schools were part of an assimilationist plan by Anglicans.[15] This opposition limited the potential of these schools for French Canadians and between 1801 and 1824 only between 13 and 17 French Canadian localities established these schools. Although resistance by the Roman Catholic Church was a major factor, there were other reasons for the limited impact of Royal Institute schools. There was an unwillingness of parents to contribute to costs and relations between the Legislative Assembly and colonial government deteriorated over government costs.

In 1824, the government introduced the fabrique law. This provided for elementary education directly controlled by the parish fabrique (church council) and was supported by both the Church and the nationalist Parti Canadien. It allowed the parish priest and the fabrique to use a quarter of the parish’s annual revenue to finance schools. This legislation did not replace the state-run Royal Institute schools but established a parallel system more in keeping with French Canadian needs and wants. Despite the potential of the fabrique system, it appears to have made as little impact on the education of French Canadians as the Royal Institute schools. Parish revenues were generally inadequate to sustain a school and parish priests appear to have preferred spending the money on enriching the fabric of their churches rather than the education of their parishioners. In addition, there was growing alienation between the Church and the more radical and reorganised Parti Patriote that took a more liberal nationalist view and wanted to snatch education from the grasp of the Church.

This growing ideological and political split was exacerbated in 1829 with the passage of the Assembly School Act that gave deputies rather than local priests control over elementary school system. [16] This legislation, renewed in 1832, created a third parallel system of education, the Écoles de Syndic that the colonial state was prepared to finance. It wanted a system of public education to reduce levels of illiteracy but this concerned the clergy as they saw it as lay interference in what they thought should be a Catholic education. The anglophone middle-class exerted pressure in London to establish a free and public system of education conscious of its importance in producing a skilled workforce. The plan called for primary and secondary schools in each parish or canton and the introduction of a university in Quebec. The Church feared that schooling would occur in ways that were contrary to Catholic faith and morality and that the centralising nature of the legislation would further limit control by the Church.[17] However, attempts by parish clergy to put pressure on habitants by, for example, refusing the sacrament to those who sent their children to Assembly schools of had a negative effect, a reflection of the growing resentment by habitants of the ways priests spent fabrique revenues and their simmering anticlericalism. The hegemony of parish clergy was being challenged by rural liberal professionals and merchants who were increasing critical of the Church over education and the sought control through the democratic nature of the fabriques. This, however, had the effect of hardening the attitude of the Church hierarchy to the Assembly’s School legislation.

When the Assembly attempted to amend the legislation in 1836, it was rejected by the Legislative Council on the grounds that the new bill was too costly and would extend the control of deputies over the existing system in unacceptable ways. This rejection was the result of two things: the effective lobbying of Lartigue that met with a sympathetic hearing in the Council and the increasingly bitter disputes between the Patriote deputies and the nominated Council members. The rejection of the school bill left Lower Canada without an official school system, something lamented by contemporaries. La Minerve stated that ‘Today, a vital law for this colony expires...The Legislative Council in its rage and folly has closed 1665 elementary schools...’[18] Durham’s Report was highly critical of the Assembly schools because he maintained they promoted patronage and abuse since Patriote deputies used for their own political advantage. In general terms, however, the impact of the Assembly schools in rural areas led to an increase in levels of literacy and had the widespread support of habitants. [19] Despite calls from parents for the reestablishment of the Écoles de syndic, in 1838 Arthur Buller proposed a new non-sectarian system of education for the United Canada where anglophones and francophones would be educated together ‘in order to develop harmony and mutual understanding and, in the long term, the anglicising of French Canadians.’[20] The desire for assimilation of French Canadians was always a political hope.[21] To avoid colonial government assuming the expenses of running this system of education, there was to be a school tax that parents and landowners would pay. This provoked widespread opposition from both Protestant and Catholic clergy who saw this as an attempt to leave education in the hands of the state.[22] The Catholic Church’s campaign for a Catholic and French education system in Lower Canada during the 1840s proved an important feature in its revival as the institutional basis for revived French Canadian nationalism that was conservative rather than liberal in focus.

In Europe and especially in France and Italy during the 1820s and 1830s a Catholic revival linked to ultramontanism became increasingly important and it arrived in Quebec during the 1840s. Mgr Bourget, who had close links with the Papacy, restructured the Church to increase its presence in the social and political spheres as part of the campaign to strengthen French Canadian faith and willingness to adhere to Catholic doctrine. To achieve this he initially needed to resolve the problem of the shortage of priests in the province and recruited priests from religious communities in Europe. This resulted in an increase in the number of priests per head of population from 1:1,800 in 1830 to about 1:1,000 by 1850. This expanded clergy allowed Bourget to make the presence of the Church felt more closely and in a more disciplined manner in the lives of parishioners. This was accomplished since priests became more involved in charitable work, education and the organisation of religious processions, retreats and temperance societies.

La lutte que se sont livrés mutuellement l’Église et l’État au XIXe siècle, aussi bien en Europe qu’au Canada-français, n’a été en fait qu’une transposition, au niveau des institutions, d’une opposition fondamentale entre deux groupes sociaux aux intérêts divergents, soit le clergé, d’une part, et la bourgeoisie, d’autre part.[23]

The Church was also concerned by the influx of largely Protestant immigrants into Lower Canada at the same time as many French Canadians emigrated to the United States. Like other elite groups, the Church was concerned about cultural survival and consequently promoted the colonisation of new lands in Canada where French Canadian communities could be established beyond the influence of Protestant anglophones. In 1848, Bourget supported calls for a project to colonise the Eastern Townships and subsequently expended considerable energy in colonising northern Quebec.

Initially Bourget was wary of the reformist politics of Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine but by the mid-1840s, he recognised the value of an alliance with the dominant political grouping especially with the introduction of responsible government in 1848. The new structures gave the people a stronger voice since their representatives were now ministers in the Executive Council. Bourget’s spiritual revival was closely linked to his political agenda for the Church would have greater influence over the lives of the people if those lives were being structured and monitored by Catholic clergy. The French Canadian petite bourgeoisie also saw the advantage of allying with the clergy, which needed the support of the Lower Canadian middle-class, to strengthen their position in relation to British middle-class commercial power. In seeking these alliances, Bourget was without doubt

...l’un des premiers leaders ecclésiastiques à saisir l’importance de cette entreprise comme facteur d’intégration et de cohésion à la fois idéologique et administrative au sein de la communauté religieuse canadienne.[24]

In 1840, education was still relatively decentralised. The 1840s, however, saw the central state and its political agents take control of institutions that had previously been under the control of local bodies or by creating new institutions. Municipal and school laws created a local structure of governance where none had existed before and this was regulated by a centralised state. The development of education policy after 1840 was closely linked to changes in local administration introduced by Lord Sydenham. In 1840, his Municipal Ordinance was the first attempt to bring municipal government to Lower Canada creating two levels of local government. At the local level, municipal corporations were established based on existing parishes and townships with over 300 inhabitants with limited powers vested in an annual meeting for all male residents who met the property qualification. Regional municipal corporations were based on districts (initially 22, but increased to 24 in 1842) with district councils, which met quarterly, with the power to levy taxes for municipal projects. These basic features of municipal government were criticised by Lower Canadian members of the new Assembly largely because the new councils were firmly under executive control. There was also considerable resentment among habitants at the taxing powers of the councils. This situation was made worse by Sydenham’s belief that a comprehensive public education system was as important as municipal government. The result was a period of intense debate over the form that this education system should take lasting from 1841 to legislation in 1846 that laid the foundations for Quebec’s system of schooling for over a century.

The Common Schools Act was adopted in 1841 and applied to both Upper and Lower Canada. The act remained in force in the upper province only for a short time and was replaced in 1843. After this the two sections of the United Province developed separate systems of education. The control of schools that had previously been vested in the Assembly now lay with the office of superintendent of education. The original legislation established one superintendent but in 1842 governor Bagot appointed an assistant superintendent for each province and Jean-Baptiste Meilleur was appointed for Lower Canada.[25] The legislation introduced, with several modifications to satisfy opposition, Buller’s proposals but it did not prove promising: few schools were founded and local opposition often prevented their construction and financing. [26] The cooperation of the new district councils was essential for the success of the new system and this was not forthcoming. Meilleur made clear in 1843 that the reason why local taxation was not introduced was the suspicion of local voters that the monies collected would be used for other than local purposes. The connection between the municipal and school acts in the early 1840s can be seen as one of the major reasons for the failure of the common school legislation.

Despite opposition to the 1841 legislation, schools did gradually increase in number during the first half of the 1840s largely because parents and the Church were willing to provide funding on a voluntary basis. To address the problems with the legislation, in 1845 taxing powers were given to locally-elected school commissioners rather than to the municipal corporations.[27] However, this legislation was replaced a year later by the 1846 Act ‘to make better provision for Education in Lower Canada’. The most significant feature of this Act was the return to compulsory school taxes: in addition to annual school taxes, parents of children between 5 and 16 had to pay a monthly tax whether their children attended school or not and this was symptomatic of a more centralised system of education. The Church gained a little ground through this legislation as it allowed clergy to act as visitors to the schools. However, there was widespread opposition to the compulsory nature of school taxes that took the form of withdrawing children from school, refusing to elect local officials and putting pressure on the Church to make the tax voluntary. [28] While compulsory taxes remained, adjustments were made in response to local complaints.

The emergence of a professional state bureaucracy and the introduction of responsible government that gave the dominant political groupings access to widespread patronage resulted in closer ties between the Roman Catholic Church and Lafontaine’s Reform Party and this was reflected in important changes at local level. Social legislation and the bureaucracy necessary to manage it provided openings for professional men in French Canadian rural society. Participation in local government and school affairs gave individuals status within their communities as well as potential access to lucrative patronage positions. Following Bourget’s lead, local clergy involved themselves in Church initiated social activities as a further way of influencing the lives of their parishioners. For both the professions and the Church, the social initiatives introduced by the state provided important opportunities. It was this new alliance and the loss of prestige for the traditional seigneurs that led to their alliance with habitants over state-imposed taxation. This represented a reversal of the situation in the 1830s when it was the alliance of habitants and professionals that confronted the Church and seigneurs. Education in itself was not the issue; it was a matter of who should control it.

Bourget was largely responsible for the assertion of the rights of the Church over their parishes and schools and over birth, marriage and death, the critical events in people’s lives that were independent of the state. [29] Education was seen first as a means of training good Christians and only secondly intelligent and educated individuals.[30] However, European ideas of secularisation and anticlericalism were not without their supporters in Lower Canada in the 1840s and 1850s. The Parti Rouge supported the abolition of the dime in 1849 that would have severely weakened the economic position of the clergy and the Church in general.

The return of Papineau from exile in 1845 and the emergence of the Rouges as a radical, nationalist party reasserted the role of education and liberalism in the development of French Canadian nationalism. Faced by this, the Church drew attention to the fact that the French Canadian nation was defined in terms of its language and religion. It restated its links with the French Canadian people and also its loyalty to the British Crown. [31] Bourget’s position was reinforced by the elevation in 1846 of Pius IX who was more open to innovation than his predecessor. He went to Rome to ask for the establishment of an ecclesiastical province and to recruit clergy who were prepared to go to Canada and, as a result a new diocese was set up in Toronto.

The decade after the rebellions saw widespread change in the Canadas. Political changes, modifications in established political ideologies and crises in social policy especially in education were issues in which the Catholic Church with its growing self-confidence and viability as a loyal part of the colonial state had little choice but to be involved. In the aftermath of the rebellions, it was the Roman Catholic Church that provided many in Lower Canada with a focus for their faith but also for their political and cultural aspirations. Though conservative clerical nationalism was not fully formed by 1850, its roots were clearly identified in the growing ultramontanism of the Church and in its increasing appeal to many French Canadians as the protector not simply of their faith but of their cultural heritage as well.

Perhaps the most enduring bequest of Victorian Christianity whether Roman Catholic or Protestant to its religiously committed descendants has been in the realm of form rather than content. The nineteenth-century ‘churching of Canada’ differed significantly from the corresponding process witnessed in the United States and as a consequence, the anatomy of contemporary Canadian religion bears less resemblance to its American counterpart than might initially or superficially be supposed. In this respect, the evolution of Canadian religion has followed a European rather than an American model, in keeping with a characteristic Canadian reluctance, both French and English, to abandon the ties of ancestral authority in a revolutionary American manner. Steeped in the heroic mythology of religious dissent and constitutionally celebrating the separation of church and state, the United States has long accommodated the sect as its predominant and paradigmatic mode of religious organization. In contrast, Canadian religion boasts establishmentarian roots. Sectarianism has undoubtedly played a vital and vigorous minor role but it has been large churches with strong links to powerful political, business and cultural elites that dominated Canadian religious experience.


[1] Brunet, Michel, La Présence Anglaise et les French Canadians: Études sur l’histoire et la pensée des deux Canadas, (Beauchemin), 1964, pp. 113-166.

[2] Eid, N. F., Le clergé et le pouvoir politique au Québec: une analyse de l’idéologie ultramontaine au milieu du 19e siècle, (Hurtubise), 1978, Ferretti, L., Brève histoire de l’Église catholique au Québec, (Boréal), 1999, ibid, Hardy, R., Contrôle social et mutation de la culture religieuse au Québec, 1830-1930 and Voisine, N., Histoire du catholicisme québécois: Les XVIII et XIXe siècles, Vol. 2: Réveil et consolidation (1840-1898), (Boréal), 1991, provide context.

[3] Cit, Dumont, F., Genèse de la société québécoise, (Boréal), 1993, p. 227, and Lamonde, Y., Histoire sociale des idées au Québec, 1760-1896, (Fides), 2001, p. 286.

[4] Sylvain, Philippe, ‘Libéralisme et Ultramontanisme au Canada français: affrontement idéologique et doctrinal (1840-1865)’, in Morton, W. L., (ed.), Le Bouclier d’Achille: regards sur le Canada de l’Ère victorienne, (McClelland & Stewart), 1968, pp.111-138, 220-255.

[5] Ibid, Chausse, Gilles, Jean-Jacques Lartigue: Premier eveque De Montreal and Chausse, Gilles and Limieux, Lucian, ‘Jean-Jacques Lartigue’, DCB, Vol. 7, 1836-1850, pp. 485-491.

[6] ‘Ignace Bourget’, DCB, Vol. 11, pp. 94-105.

[7] Ibid, Lemieux, Lucien, Histoire du catholicisme québécois, Les XVIIIe et XIXe siècle, Vol. 1, Les années difficiles, (1760-1839), pp. 383-394.

[8] Correspondance de Mgr Jean-Jacques Lartigue (1836-1840), in Rapport de l’archiviste de la province de Québec, Vol. 25, (1944-1945), pp.173-266; Vol. 26, (1945-1946), pp. 47-134.

[9] Ibid, Chaussé, Gilles, Jean-Jacques Lartigue, p. 199.

[10] Ouellet, Fernand, ‘Le mandements de Mgr Lartigue de 1837 et la réaction libérale’, Bulletin des recherches historiques, Vol. 58, (2), (1952), pp. 97-104. See above, pp.

[11] Chabot, Richard, ‘Etienne Chartier’, DCB, Vol. 8, 1851-1860, pp. 140-146, and more generally ‘Le rôle du bas clergé face au mouvement insurrectionnel de 1837’, Cahiers de Sainte-Marie, Vol. 5, (1967), pp. 89-98.

[12] Ibid, Chaussé, Gilles, Jean-Jacques Lartigue, p. 211.

[13] Ibid, Chaussé, Gilles, Jean-Jacques Lartigue, p. 200.

[14] Ippersiel, Fernand, Les cousins ennemis: Louis-Joseph Papineau et Jean-Jacques Lartigue, Montreal, 1990, provides a valuable juxtaposition.

[15] Nationalist historians such as Groulx supported Plessis’ position but more recently this has been questioned. To establish a Royal Institute school meant that the majority of people in a parish were prepared to support it and more importantly finance it. In addition, the Board of Trustees of the Royal Institute allowed considerable local autonomy so French Canadian parishes could appoint French-speaking Roman Catholic teachers.

[16] Ibid, Lemieux, Lucien, Histoire du catholicisme québécois, Les XVIIIe et XIXe siècle, Vol. 1, Les années difficiles, (1760-1839), pp. 191-197.

[17] Dufour, Andrée, ‘Tous à l’école’, État, communautés rurales et scolarisation au Québec de 1826 à 1859, (HMH, Cahiers du Québec, Collection Psychopédagogie), 1996, p. 36.

[18] La Minerve, 1 May 1836.

[19] Ibid, Dufour, Andrée, ‘Tous à l’école’, État, communautés rurales et scolarisation au Québec de 1826 à 1859, p. 93.

[20] Ibid, Dufour, Andrée, ‘Tous à l’école’, État, communautés rurales et scolarisation au Québec de 1826 à 1859, p. 97.

[21] Curtis, Bruce, ‘The State of Tutelage in Lower Canada, 1835-1851’, History of Education Quarterly, Vol. 37, (1), (1997), pp. 25-43 considers the question of ‘liberalism’ and ‘conservatism’ in education reforms.

[22] Ibid, Dufour, Andrée, ‘Tous à l’école’, État, communautés rurales et scolarisation au Québec de 1826 à 1859, p. 99.

[23] Eid, Nadia F., Le clergé et le pouvoir politique au Québec, une analyse de l’idéologie ultramontaine au milieu du XIXe siècle, (HMH, Cahiers du Québec, Collection Histoire), 1978, p. 26.

[24] Ibid, Eid, Nadia F., Le clergé et le pouvoir politique au Québec, une analyse de l’idéologie ultramontaine au milieu du XIXe siècle, p. 32.

[25] Ibid, Voisine, N., Histoire du catholicisme québécois: Les XVIII et XIXe siècles, Vol. 2: Réveil et consolidation (1840-1898), p. 29.

[26] Ibid, Dufour, Andrée, ‘Tous à l’école’, État, communautés rurales et scolarisation au Québec de 1826 à 1859, p. 101.

[27] In 1845, district councils were abolished and greater powers were given to local municipalities based on parishes and townships.

[28] Ibid, Dufour, Andrée, ‘Tous à l’école’, État, communautés rurales et scolarisation au Québec de 1826 à 1859, pp. 110-111.

[29] Ibid, Eid, Nadia F., Le clergé et le pouvoir politique au Québec, une analyse de l’idéologie ultramontaine au milieu du XIXe siècle, p. 37.

[30] Ibid, Eid, Nadia F., Le clergé et le pouvoir politique au Québec, une analyse de l’idéologie ultramontaine au milieu du XIXe siècle, p. 201.

[31] Ibid, Eid, Nadia F., Le clergé et le pouvoir politique au Québec, une analyse de l’idéologie ultramontaine au milieu du XIXe siècle, p. 231.