Francis Place

English politician

• Born: November 3, 1771
• Birthplace: London, England
• Died: January 1, 1854
• Place of death: London, England

Although Place never held an official position in the British government, he worked effectively for the advancement of organizations and legislation for the betterment of working persons and was an important figure during an era of fundamental political reforms.

Early Life

Francis Place was born in a private debtors’ prison near London’s Drury Lane Theatre Royal. His father, Simon Place, had in his early years been a baker; at the time of Francis’s birth, he was bailiff to the Marshalsea Court and operator of a debtors’ lockup house. The elder Place’s propensity for gambling lost for him and his family their home and livelihood on at least three occasions. Nevertheless, although he was strict with his four children and often cuffed the boys rather than answer their questions, he saw to their education in the manner of the times.

At four, young Francis was instructed by an old woman in Bell Street. After that, he and his brother attended boys’ schools, where they were taught the rudiments of reading, writing, mathematics, and biblical studies. Place attributed his attainment of “right notions” and “power of reasoning” to the efforts of his last headmaster, who encouraged analytical thinking through regular discussion and rewards. Self-confidence, perseverance, industry, and a strong desire for learning were the result. From this time onward, Place read omnivorously, borrowing books and reading at bookstalls until he could afford a library of his own.

At fourteen, Place was apprenticed to a leather-breeches maker; he had chosen to learn a trade rather than read for the law. In the shop he enjoyed a fair amount of liberty, as long as he did his work, and by the age of eighteen he became a journeyman. Like most young men of his age, he ran with a street gang and frequented taverns. At the same time, though he was a conscientious worker and was steadily employed in various shops, he was never able to make a “respectable appearance,” a goal dear to his heart.

With little in the way of worldly goods but with high hopes of one day owning his own business, Place married Elizabeth Chadd, the daughter of servants, on March 17, 1791. He was nineteen years of age; she was seventeen. At that time, Place described himself as muscular and short (five feet, six inches), with black curly hair and beard.

The leather-breeches trade was in decline, but by taking assignments from several masters, in two years Place reached what seemed a secure position. It was during this year, 1793, that a strike by the Breeches Makers Benefit Society deprived him of his employment, even though he was not actually involved with the society. For eight months, he and his family nearly starved, but Place learned valuable lessons. He set up a system for making the strikers’ money last and helped organize other trades. He also gained an intense appreciation of the plight of those who labored in abject poverty.

In June, 1794, Place joined the London Corresponding Society, a group of artisans and small shopkeepers who were concerned with “the unequal Representation of the People in Parliament.” He became a member of the general committee and the executive committee, where he met aware, intelligent men who attended weekly readings and discussions. He also helped write their new constitution. Later that same year, Place was chosen to prepare the successful defense of several members accused of treason, Thomas Hardy, the founder, among them.

The tensions of the war years, resultant government restraints, the suspension of habeas corpus, and the Treasonable Practices Act and Seditious Meetings Act of 1795 caused a decline. Nevertheless, Place and his friend John Ashley worked to keep the group together and financially solvent. When many of their colleagues insisted on holding a public meeting (prohibited by the new law), Ashley and Place withdrew (June, 1797). A year later the whole committee was seized by Middlesex magistrates, and not long after, the organization dissolved. The society had served Place well, and he reciprocated by raising money for the families of the imprisoned.

During these years, Place had been working independently and, despite periods of hardship, refused to go back to journeyman status. Never again would he be dependent upon an employer. On April 8, 1799, he realized his dream. He and Richard Wild, his boarder and colleague, opened a tailor shop at 29 Charing Cross. Frugal habits and hard work earned for them the necessary creditors and customers, and their business flourished. A year and a half later, his scheming partner left Place with his wife and four children virtually penniless. Fortunately for him, his reputation had been made, lenders came to his aid, and he was able to set up a new business, first on Brydges Street, and by spring, at 16 Charing Cross. By 1816, his net profits exceeded three thousand pounds, and in 1817, he was able to turn his business over to his son and engage in public pursuits. By this time, there were ten living children of the fifteen born to him.

Life’s Work

Place had become an elector for Westminster by virtue of his residence at Charing Cross in 1800. By the time of the 1805 and 1807 elections, his business well established, he became interested in the machinations of the election process whereby Whigs and Tories simply divided the two seats. The duke of Northumberland’s “beef, beer, and bread” purchase of votes sickened Place, and he worked to elect the Radical candidate, Sir Francis Burdett. The Westminster Committee was successful and became the key political unit in the district, with Place its chief organizer. His library became a meeting place for political discussion, and in time, leading political figures and their representatives gathered there to discuss and learn.

Place met and became friendly with many scholars, among them William Godwin, whose book An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, and Its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness (1793) had provided the impetus for Place’s venture into employer status. However, his well-meant attempt to rescue Godwin from financial chaos was foiled by Godwin himself, and Place severed their relationship. His experiences with James Mill, whom he met in 1808, and Jeremy Bentham, whom he met in 1812, were happier. When Place joined them in their studies at Ford Abbey in Devon for several weeks in the summer of 1817, he became a devoted disciple of utilitarianism.

Place later assisted Mill in copying, proofreading, and indexing his History of British India (1817). Place also aided Bentham in evaluating his Rationale of Judicial Evidence (1827) and in managing his business affairs. Along with other disciples, Place helped write Bentham’s later books from his notes. Place believed in Bentham’s practical approach to problems and shared his dedication to the principle that social policy should be determined according to “the greatest happiness of the greatest number.”

When the Royal Lancastrian Association, a group dedicated to bringing education to the London poor through a system of student monitors, fell on hard times, Place and Mill both extended aid. Place served on the committee of its successor, the British and Foreign School Society, with the goal of organizing primary and secondary schools throughout London. Though the project failed, it became the prototype for later efforts. Place made a more lasting contribution in helping to found the London Mechanics Institute in 1823. He and Dr. George Birkbeck, who lectured to workingmen, saw to it that there was middle-class participation, that subject matter was mainly technical and scientific, and that orthodox political ideas were followed. As Birkbeck College, the school later became part of the University of London.

Place’s interest in Thomas Robert Malthus’s An Essay on the Principle of Population as It Affects the Future Improvement of Society, with Remarks on the Speculations of M. Godwin, M. Condorcet, and Other Writers (1798) led him to ponder the multiplying population and shrinking resources. Although he could agree with Malthus’s theory of population, that people multiply geometrically while food can only expand arithmetically, his own experiences militated against the abstinence and late marriage that Malthus advocated. In 1822, he published his only book, Illustrations and Proofs of the Principle of Population . In it, Place argued for conscientious contraception, although he is seldom credited with being the first to do so publicly.

Place’s greatest triumph, according to his biographer, Graham Wallas, was his single-handed repeal of the Combination Laws. A law enacted in 1721 regulated the number of journeyman tailors; a second, enacted in 1799, prevented laborers from combining to change hours or wages. Place collected eight volumes of evidence illustrating the injustices suffered by workmen under these laws. Workers could be whipped or jailed for not accepting their masters’ terms and even have their wages withheld if they banded together to demand money owed to them.

At the same time, masters were demanding stiffer laws. Place began working to repeal these laws in 1814. Through writing articles and petitions and carefully instructing his protégé, the parliamentarian Joseph Hume, he finally won a parliamentary committee in 1824. Hume chaired the committee, and Place prepared endless instructions. Workers came to his home to give their stories, and he coached them to give their testimony. He set up questions for Hume to ask and rebuttals for objections. He reviewed each day’s proceedings and set up outlines and indexes for Hume. He then drew up resolutions that were directly incorporated into the bill. Many setbacks followed, but the law passed both houses of Parliament in 1824, and a somewhat more restrictive law followed in 1825.

Place’s wife, Elizabeth Chadd, died in 1824, and Place married a Mrs. Chatterly in 1830, from whom he was separated in 1851. In 1853, financial problems prompted his move to Brompton Square.

The reform spirit of England coincided with Place’s period of peak performance. The July Revolution of 1830 in France, together with the death of King George IV and the accession of William IV, motivated the Radicals to pressure the Whigs for parliamentary reform. People everywhere held meetings in cities, towns, and parishes; artisans and workers met in their associations; farmworkers carried on rick burning. Hard times made the situation tense, and even Place, a normally peaceful reformer, thought that violence might be necessary to bring about change. At the same time, he chaired meetings and helped organize the Parliamentary Candidates’ Society and the National Political Union.

After the first bill was rejected by the Lords on October 8, 1831, Place sponsored a peaceful procession, and urged members of Parliament to propose a second bill. Tempers were running high when the Lords refused the second bill and the king refused to create new peers. Lord Grey resigned, and the duke of Wellington set out to form a government of repression. The Birmingham Political Union threatened insurrection and contacted Place and the Parliament. At Place’s connivance, it was decided that a run on the banks would thwart the duke. The scheme worked, Grey came back to power, and the third bill passed the Lords on June 4. Place had successfully steered a course between insurrection and stand-pat conservatism. He had advised workers and government leaders. The Reform Bill was only the beginning of the democratization of the English system, but Place was pleased that the people had asserted themselves and yet was satisfied that the bill did not grant the common people full power.

From 1834 to 1836, Place worked for the reorganization of local government through the Poor Law and the Municipal Corporation Act. He was enthusiastic about both and had unrequited hopes of becoming a Poor Law Commissioner. Place waged a campaign against the Newspaper Stamp Tax (enacted in 1819, it stipulated a four-penny duty on all periodicals under six pence) as a “Tax on Knowledge.” In 1836, the tax was dropped to a penny; it was not abolished until 1855, the year after his death.

Disappointment with the Reform Bill and hard times led to a new drive for working-class solidarity during the mid-1830’s. The Grand National Trades Union grew, and the home secretary, Lord Melbourne, talked of new combination laws. Place worked with laborers to apprise them of their rights and keep them within the law. In 1837, he helped William Lovett organize the Working Men’s Association and in 1838 drafted the People’s Charter. Chartism failed as a revolutionary movement, but five of its six goals (universal manhood suffrage, an abolition of property qualifications for members of Parliament, salaries for members, equal electoral districts, and a secret ballot) later became part of the English system.

Place’s involvement with the Anti-Corn Law League took him to Manchester in November of 1841 in cold and rainy weather. He never recovered from the resulting illness, and in 1844, he suffered a cerebral attack. Unable to read very much but still dedicated to the workers, Place spent his last years organizing clippings and pamphlets related to their history and assembling them into 181 volumes. He died in his sleep at the home of his two unmarried daughters on January 1, 1854.

Significance

It is difficult to assess the long-term influence of a man such as Francis Place. He has been criticized for lack of creativity, yet the time period in which he lived demanded just such characteristics as he possessed: a keen and receptive mind, analytical abilities, unflagging industry, and dogged persistence. His early experiences provided him with great understanding of and sympathy for workingmen. Though he never held an official position, he worked endlessly in their interest; that he sometimes pursued programs later rejected (for example, the Poor Law) is not surprising.

It is a commentary on both Place’s intellect and his character that he made friends and worked with many luminaries of the day and was consulted by men of all classes. Place foresaw the rise of the democratic system and the concomitant decline in both the aristocracy as a class and the House of Lords as an institution. The fact that he worked diligently that workers might be prepared for the change through education and a gradual expansion of rights makes Place a key figure in the glorious history of England’s peaceful change.

Bibliography

Cole, G. D. H., and Raymond Postgate. The Common People, 1746-1946. London: Methuen, 1963. Indispensable background reading for a broad understanding of the working-class movement and the conditions that fostered it. Place and his activities are well covered.

Johnson, Dorothy Catherine. Pioneers of Reform: Cobbett, Owen, Place, Shaftsbury, Cobden, Bright. London: Methuen, 1929. Reprint. New York: B. Franklin, 1968. A brief and closely reasoned account of Place’s life and career. Johnson sees her subject as without sympathy or emotion, a practical man of action. She traces the development of his philosophy through his contacts, especially with the utilitarians, and describes his political activities. Good brief rundown.

Miles, Dudley. Francis Place, 1771-1854: The Life of a Remarkable Radical. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988. Comprehensive biography covering the full range of Place’s political and social activism.

Place, Francis. The Autobiography of Francis Place, 1771-1854. Edited by Mary Thale. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1972. Place traces his intellectual and political development together with his early economic fortunes. However, his work with the Combination Laws is mentioned only briefly, and his later political activity, not at all. Letters to friends and relatives are included.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Illustrations and Proofs of the Principle of Population. London: Longmans, Green, 1822. Reprint. New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1967. Well-read and politically and socially aware, Place came to believe that Malthus’s ideas of moral restraint for population control were completely impractical. They did not conform to experience or utility and were contrary to human nature. In this book, he reviews Malthus’s ideas step by step and comes out unequivocally for early marriage as a prevention for promiscuity, and contraception as a remedy for its consequences.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. London Radicalism, 1830-1843: A Selection from the Papers of Francis Place. Edited by D. J. Rowe. London: London Record Society, 1970. A unique collection, selected from Place’s vast number of papers. Concentrates on the Reform Bill and the major organizations: The National Union of the Working Classes and the National Political Union. Limited coverage is given to the London Working Men’s Association. Valuable for providing examples of Place’s vast industry as well as of his lesser known ideas and activities.

Wallas, Graham. The Life of Francis Place, 1771-1854. New York: Longmans, Green, 1898. 4th ed. London: Allen and Unwin, 1951. The only full-length biography of the subject. Wallas utilized all of Place’s papers, except for the many volumes that he collected in his final years. Well written, this work incorporates the then unpublished autobiography, often in Place’s own words, and provides a good picture of the subject and his development in the context of the times.

Ward, John Towers. Chartism. New York: Harper and Row, 1973. Beginning with a brief chapter, “The Antecedents,” Ward traces the reform impulse through the Chartist years. He puts Place in historical context and relates his activities to those of his reformist contemporaries.