The Making of the English Working Class

by E.P. Thompson

Paine lacks any depth of reading, any sense of cultural security, and is betrayed by his arrogant and impetuous temper into writing passages of a mediocrity which the academic mind still winces at and lays aside with a sigh.

To the argument of greed a new argument was added for general enclosure—that of social discipline. The commons, “the poor man’s heritage for ages past”, on which Thomas Bewick could recall independent labourers still dwelling, who had built their cottages with their own hands,2 were now seen as a dangerous centre of indiscipline.

In the first phase of decline there were a dozen contributory factors, including the general effects of the post-war deflationary decade: but the underlying causes would appear to be, first, the breakdown of both custom and trade union protection; second, the total exposure of the weavers to the worst forms of wage-cutting; third, the overstocking of the trade by unemployed to whom it had become “the last refuge of the unsuccessful”.

Re: Weavers

These two distinctions between the nature of labour and capital, (viz. that labour is always sold by the poor, and always bought by the rich, and that labour cannot by any possibility be stored, but must be every instant sold or every instant lost,) are sufficient to convince me that labour and capital can never with justice be subjected to the same laws.…

The capitalistic economy of the present day is an immense cosmos into which the individual is born, and which presents itself to him … as an unalterable order of things in which he must live. It forces the individual, in so far as he is involved in the system of market relationships, to conform to capitalistic rules of action.

Moreover, since salvation was never assured, and temptations lurked on every side, there was a constant inner goading to “sober and industrious” behaviour—the visible sign of grace—every hour of the day and every day of the year. Not only “the sack” but also the flames of hell might be the consequence of indiscipline at work. God was the most vigilant overlooker of all. Even above the chimney breast “Thou God Seest Me” was hung. The Methodist was taught not only to “bear his Cross” of poverty and humiliation; the crucifixion was (as Ure saw) the very pattern of his obedience: “True followers of our bleeding Lamb, Now on Thy daily cross we die …”.3 Work was the Cross from which the “transformed” industrial worker hung.

Methodism is permeated with teaching as to the sinfulness of sexuality, and as to the extreme sinfulness of the sexual organs. These—and especially the male sexual organs (since it became increasingly the convention that women could not feel the “lust of the flesh”)—were the visible fleshly citadels of Satan, the source of perpetual temptation and of countless highly unmethodical and (unless for deliberate and Godly procreation) unproductive impulses.

Death was the only goal which might be desired without guilt, the reward of peace after a lifetime of suffering and labour.

How was it that Methodism could perform with such success this dual role as the religion of both the exploiters and the exploited? During the years 1790–18301 three reasons may be adduced: direct indoctrination, the Methodist community-sense, and the psychic consequences of the counter-revolution.

Most of the houses are without ovens but have a “bakstone” for baking. The stone floors are sanded, furniture is plain and sparse: “in some houses there is an oaken chest or kist—a family heirloom, or a small cupboard fastened up in a corner, and a delfcase for pots and plates”. Water is scarce, and on wash-days queues of twenty or thirty may form at the wells. Coal and candles are dear, and in the winter neighbours gather to share each others’ fires. Baking and brewing are done at home; white bread and meat are regarded as luxuries: “oatcake, brown bread, porridge pudding, skimmed milk, potatoes, and homebrewed beer, which they always call ‘drink’, are the principal articles of food”.

“The Levelution is begun, So I’ll go home and get my gun, And shoot the Duke of Wellington.” Belper street-song