Abstract
During the early 19th century, after a number of sensational and counterproductive acquittals in cases of seditious libel, the British state came increasingly to rely on press taxation as a means of controlling the spread and influence of newspapers. Such taxation worked by keeping prices relatively high and so beyond the usual purchasing power of ordinary working people, and by confining newspaper ownership to the prosperous and privileged. It consisted of a stamp duty, advertising duty and a tax on paper. Opposition to press taxation went through several stages, culminating in the campaigns of the 1850s which led to their repeal. There is no doubt that their repeal was a watershed historical occurrence, yet the campaigns themselves and the consequences of the repeal have been relatively neglected. Martin Hewitt’s task in this impressive study is to make good this neglect.
He attributes the major cause of the neglect to the way the case for reform in the 1850s compares with the struggle for a free press in the early 1830s. This makes it seem rather anodyne. I have to admit here that for many years, I have accepted this unfavourable contrast and remained far more attentive to the earlier campaign waged by the unstamped press, with its widespread popularity (sales in excess of those of The Times), its clandestine distribution network and systematic evasion of the stamp duty and security system (introduced in 1819, the same year as the Peterloo massacre, and requiring publishers to register their papers and place financial bonds with the authorities). Who could fail to admire the courage and determination displayed in the first-page editorial of the inaugural edition of The Poor Man’s Guardian, founded by Henry Hetherington in 1831 and selling at one penny, or in other words, in defiance of the stamp duty? There it was stated that this paper would contain ‘news, intelligence, and occurrences, and remarks and observations thereon, upon matters of Church and State, tending, decidedly, to excite hatred and contempt of this Government and Constitution of the tyranny of this country, as BY LAW established …’ As well as directly challenging state control of the press and striking such a majestic blow for freedom, The Poor Man’s Guardian was a champion of the rights of working people, advocating extension of the franchise and an equitable distribution of the wealth created by the working class out of their labour. It and other radical newspapers like it paved the way for the Chartist movement of the mid-century period.
Even from a bare sketch such as this, the contrast is clear. What becomes steadily more decisive in reading Hewitt’s book is that it is easy to overstate the contrast and set the differences in a melodramatic light. One of the main values of the book is that, without attempting to play down and render less significant the ‘war of the unstamped’, it puts the later campaigns against the taxes on knowledge into a broader and more balanced perspective. This is achieved through two important scene-setting chapters, followed by meticulously presented chapters on the distinctive features of the Association for the Promotion of the Repeal of the Taxes on Knowledge as an extra-parliamentary pressure group, the repeal process, the impact of repeal and the rapid expansion and spread of the cheap press, including a case study of the Morning Star. Overall, Hewitt offers a fuller and more detailed account all that went on in and around these campaigns than any hitherto available, not least because of the extensive use he has made of the archival evidence, including newly discovered papers of the Association for the Promotion of the Repeal of the Taxes on Knowledge. He also highlights the weaknesses and shortcomings of Collet Dobson Collet’s 1899 two-volume history of the anti-taxes on knowledge movement. This is a further value of the book since many subsequent references to the movement have taken their cue from Collet. The differences between the campaigns of the 1830s and 1850s certainly remain, but not as starkly as before, now that we have a more considered and insightful account of the middle-class campaigns of the mid-century period, and of their broader influence. Along with its achievement in bringing about repeal, the success of the Association encouraged and facilitated the development of other pressure groups. For Hewitt, its signal influence in this respect was the example it set of sapping
the will of the state to resist by making it increasingly conscious of the falsity of its position, and by shifting the balance of the costs of concession and defence of the status quo until it tipped decisively in favour of retreat … (p. 173)
It was, in short, a strategy of attrition rather than assault.
Unfortunately, Hewitt does not dwell much on the longer term outcomes of the repeal of the taxes on knowledge, even in his conclusion. It would obviously have been appropriate to attend more fully to them there. One aspect of what this involves lies in the claim made early on in the book that the thesis pursued over various influential publications by James Curran, arguing that the abolition of the stamp duty and other items of legislation led directly to the commercialization and depoliticization of the British popular press, is in itself rather simplistic and too straightforward. This may be a fair point, but to establish it fully requires relating it in a more comprehensive manner to the subsequent development of the ‘new journalism’ and then the rise of the tabloid press. Hewitt remains in the end confined to the mid-Victorian period on which he mainly focusses. While this concerted attention to historical context is admirable, at the same time, it is important, at least at certain junctures, to deal with questions of context in a rather more flexible manner, ranging out as well as homing in. In the spirit of this, we still need to see the end of the campaign against the taxes on knowledge in relation to its beginnings, its successive stages and its consequences. We still need to place it, in other words, in a more expansive canvas where the Regency radicalism of Thomas Wooler’s The Black Dwarf has switched remarkable, by the end of the century, to the daily fare offered by Harmsworth. Historically, this would enable us to move to a more adequate assessment of the kind of knowledge offered by the popular press, and of the ways in which this has changed over the past couple of centuries, as well as gaining a better understanding of why the claim of depoliticization needs refining or developing in a more complex manner.
The book is nevertheless a fine study of the landmark moment in the history of the British press when the odious taxes on knowledge were finally removed. It is packed with carefully researched detail concerning the political and cultural context of Victorian Britain in the 1850s and 1860s, and brings new light to bear on various issues, including the Gladstonian strand of political ideas and policies during these years. As a result of this book, the previous neglect of this moment in newspaper history is most ably redressed, and our understanding of the execution and success of the campaign against the taxes on knowledge is most certainly enhanced.