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The Union seems secure, but beneath the surface run deep divisions, leading to the emergence of a new working-class movement. A catastrophic famine comes to Ireland.
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00:12In the middle of the 19th century, the new Palace of Westminster, home to Parliament,
00:18was approaching completion. The new building had been decorated with the ancient symbols
00:24of the four nations that made up a state that was then only half a century old.
00:30The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
00:38Inside the palace, the Irish artist, Daniel MacLeese, had been commissioned to decorate this room,
00:45the Royal Gallery, with two enormous wall paintings.
00:51Their subjects were two British victories.
00:56Nelson's triumph at Trafalgar.
01:00And Wellington's defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo.
01:07Around the same time that MacLeese was painting, the Victorian fascination with Waterloo encouraged other artists to paint portraits of
01:17the last of the veterans.
01:20Others were captured by a new medium. Photography. The generation that had fought Napoleon, photographed in their final years, still
01:30wearing their campaign medals.
01:34This is because Waterloo was to the Victorians what the Second World War is to us, an almost sacred victory.
01:43But Waterloo had not just marked the end of a long war.
01:47It had also marked the beginning of an astonishing age in which the United Kingdom became, without question, the most
01:55powerful state on Earth.
01:58By the time MacLeese was painting his great panorama of Waterloo, the United Kingdom was the world's first and preeminent
02:07industrial nation.
02:10It was, at the same time, the world's greatest trading nation.
02:14The power of the United Kingdom was then also radiating across the world as it built what was to become
02:22the largest empire ever seen.
02:27And having defeated France, the old enemy, and having brought Ireland into the Union, the United Kingdom was secure within
02:36its borders, impregnable from invasion, protected by the mightiest navy on Earth.
02:44Victory at Waterloo was perhaps understandably taken as proof that the constitution, the government, the industrial economy of the United
02:54Kingdom were superior to those of all other nations.
02:59And yet, the cult of Waterloo, that the Victorians celebrated, concealed the fact that while the union between the four
03:07nations had in many ways grown stronger, another union seemed repeatedly to be close to falling apart.
03:16That was the union between the rich and the poor, between parliament and the people, between the landowners and the
03:24landless.
03:25Because those decades, after the wars with France, saw the full emergence of one of the great forces of disunion
03:33in our history, social class.
03:42Britain has never been an easy country to define or understand.
03:48It's a state made up not of one, but of four nations.
03:53Each with its own history, its own institutions, cultures, languages, and identities.
04:00If anybody was to say to me, oh, so you're British, I would always correct them, say, no, I'm Irish.
04:07I'm British first and Scottish second.
04:09Well, I'm a Brit. I'm a very proud Brit, but I'm also an English woman.
04:17Over five tumultuous and violent centuries, those four nations were slowly brought together by the power of faith, by the
04:30wealth of empire, by the threat of invasion.
04:34But that history has always been one of rival competing identities, loyalties, and nationalist passions.
04:47This long history of union and disunion continues to define how people see themselves and the country today.
04:58For this series, we invited people from all four nations, people of different backgrounds, faiths, and politics, to share their
05:07personal views on our history.
05:11How it binds us together.
05:13It represents a lot of good things, things that have made us great.
05:19Or divides us.
05:20If we're talking about recent past, time for a divorce.
05:25And why it still matters.
05:28I always describe union as a family. Families will always get on together. You know, we fought.
05:32The big question of today is, can the great historic forces that built the United Kingdom still hold us together?
05:43Are we merely passing through one of the many periods of turbulence in this long history?
05:50Or are we perhaps slowly approaching the end of the union?
05:55Are our generations, right now, in the 21st century, destined to become the last of the Britons?
06:03Or will the union survive?
06:23In the years after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, the soldiers and sailors who had survived the wars against
06:31France began to return home.
06:37Like other armies, at other moments in British history, the end of war did not, for them, mean the end
06:45of hardship.
06:48They returned home, as their great-grandsons would, a century later in 1918, not to a land fit for heroes,
06:57but to unemployment and class conflict.
07:03The service records of the Army of Wellington and the Navy of Nelson are today stored in hundreds of files
07:12and ledgers at the National Archives.
07:16This book contains the pension registers of a series of British regiments, and these pages are for the 78th Regiment
07:24of Foot, which was one of the famous Highland Regiments.
07:28And it tells us where in Scotland these soldiers have been born, and it tells us what their trade or
07:34occupation had been in civilian life.
07:36And by 1816, 1817, many of these men had spent decades fighting against France and her allies.
07:46The most interesting column is complaints.
07:50This gives us the reason why they are leaving the Army.
07:53There are two men here who are 55 and 64 years old, and they are simply described as worn out.
08:02There's a soldier here, Mackay, who's just 45 years old, and he's described as old and worn out.
08:10At the bottom of the page are the records for a David Hewitt.
08:15He's just 23.
08:16He's the youngest of the soldiers listed on this page.
08:20It tells us that he's been in the Army for nine years and two months, which means he was 14
08:27years old when he joined.
08:29So he was what today we'd think of as a child soldier.
08:35These are the discharge papers that David Hewitt was issued with when he left the Army, and it tells us
08:42another detail about him.
08:44Because when he comes to sign for his discharge, he does so not with a signature, but with an X,
08:51because this former child soldier is illiterate.
08:55But perhaps the most tragic detail is in the reason for leaving the Army, the complaint, it says, insanity.
09:08Now, we know from the military records of this regiment that it had seen an awful lot of fighting,
09:14and it may well be that David Hewitt was suffering from what today we would call PTSD, post-traumatic stress
09:21disorder.
09:25David Hewitt's service in the Army, his records, are no different to those of thousands of other soldiers.
09:32What marks him out to me is something personal, because he's part of my family.
09:40He is the son of my five times great-grandfather, John Hewitt, and he was part of this great exodus
09:49of men who had fought in the wars against France and her allies,
09:53and who now, after Waterloo, find themselves discharged, returning to civilian life.
10:06The records show that after leaving the Army, David Hewitt, like many demobilized soldiers, returned home.
10:17Which, in his case, meant to the countryside around the little town of Trenent, in the county of Haddingtonshire, to
10:25the east of Edinburgh.
10:27Because there, his brother George and his family lived and worked the land.
10:33A map from the time shows where they lived, a cluster of cottages that were part of a farm called
10:40Taylor's Maines.
10:43Some of the cottages on the farm at Taylor's Maines, shown on the map, are still standing today.
10:52Now, we know that when David arrived here, he had a pension from the Army.
10:58This is a page from his Army records, and they tell us that for his more than nine years military
11:05service, he receives per day a pension of sixpence.
11:10But that is a fraction of what a laborer could earn for a day's work.
11:15So, he really is dependent upon his brother, George.
11:19Now, this document, from around the time David arrived back in Scotland, tells us that George Hewitt was a hind.
11:29That means he is a skilled ploughman.
11:32So, he is better off than many people.
11:35But the family would still have had to have supplemented their diet by using this space.
11:41This is a kale yard.
11:43This is where they would have grown vegetables.
11:46And David Hewitt will certainly have had to have helped in this kale yard.
11:50He almost certainly would also have had to have gone out into those fields to work with his brother in
11:57order to earn his keep.
12:00Those fields on which David and George Hewitt earned their keep were part of a 20,000-hectare estate that
12:08was the property of the local landowner.
12:12Francis Douglas, the Earl of Weems, a former Army officer and Old Newtonian.
12:19The cottages at Taylor's Maines were also his property.
12:25The Earl lived just six kilometres away from David and George Hewitt, across the wheat fields.
12:32But economically and politically, he inhabited a different world.
12:38With his stately home, Gosford House, a seat in the House of Lords, income from his farmlands,
12:44the Earl of Weems, was part of a landed elite who, in the years after Waterloo, dominated politics and controlled
12:52Parliament.
12:54And nowhere was the elite's grip on political power firmer than in Scotland.
13:01When David Hewitt gets back from the army, does he have any political power?
13:05None whatsoever.
13:06And in that respect, he's just joining the vast bulk of both the male and, for that matter, female population.
13:12Scotland in the 1830s, a decade or so after David has returned, has a population of about 2.3 million.
13:19The total electorate in Scotland is around the order of 4,500 people.
13:24That means 1 in 500 Scots can vote.
13:29Harringtonshire has probably not more than 90 people have a right to vote.
13:34And David is certainly not one of them.
13:37So where does the political power lie?
13:39Who does get to send MPs to Westminster?
13:41In this period, post-Union Scotland has got 45 MPs,
13:4630 of the MPs are what we call county MPs, so they represent the rural areas,
13:50and 15 MPs represent all of Scotland's towns.
13:53That means that political power is in the hands of the people who own the countryside.
14:01So the landed elites, the landowners, the estate owners,
14:05they're the people who can vote and they're the people who control politics?
14:08Absolutely.
14:08It's what we would call the landed interest,
14:11working in electoral cooperation with the big merchants and traders who control the urban sector.
14:17Together they make up what was often described as the complex of old corruption.
14:22People who can control the electoral system for their own immediate financial and economic interests.
14:29And who is that in heading control where the Ewart family are?
14:31So that's families like the Earls of Hopeton, the Earls of Weemus, big land-owning families.
14:38That's the type of family dynasties that have controlled land in this part of Scotland,
14:43often for many centuries.
14:48The names of those old Scottish dynasties and the names of their estates can be seen on the same map
14:56that shows the cottages where my ancestors lived.
14:59That tiny elite vied with one another to control Haddingtonshire's two MPs,
15:07who were sent to Parliament not to represent the local people, like David and George Hewitt,
15:13but to defend the economic interests of Haddingtonshire's wealthy land-owning families.
15:21What do the landowners do with their control of political power?
15:25They develop legislation designed to protect their immediate interests.
15:30Most obviously, the manifestation of that is the Corn Laws,
15:34where the landed interest passed legislation,
15:37which essentially protects the price of all arable production in Britain and Ireland.
15:42And that means the price of arable production keeps the income for the landed classes high,
15:48but the converse is that the price of bread for the lower and working classes is higher.
15:55That is, in a sense, the piece of legislation which most exemplifies the self-interested,
16:01or to use the terminology of the time, the corrupt use of political power
16:05to serve as one particular economic interests, namely the landed interest.
16:10The old corruption, the alliance of the landowners and the big merchants,
16:15used their political power not just to further their economic interests.
16:21In the years after Waterloo, they also used the law to repress opposition,
16:26from working people campaigning for political rights.
16:30And while the union between the four nations seemed stable enough,
16:35relations between the rich and the powerful and the great bulk of the people
16:40appeared dangerously fractured.
16:44I wanted to know how my ancestors, particularly David Hewitt,
16:48the boy soldier returned from the wars,
16:51coped during this age of turmoil and disunion.
16:59And that search, ultimately, took me here.
17:06This is Trenent Parish Church,
17:08just down the road from the cottages where David and George Hewitt lived.
17:14In the graveyard, at the front of the church,
17:17are the grand tombs of the local landowners and aristocrats.
17:24But down an overgrown path at the back of the church is another cemetery.
17:30And this is where David Hewitt's story comes to an end.
17:39This is a copy of a page from the mortality register of the parish of Trenent for the year 1851.
17:47And what it tells us is that on the 18th of February, David Hewitt died.
17:54He was 59 years old and he died of dropsy, which is a buildup of fluids in the body.
18:02And in this last column is the word pauper.
18:07And what that means is that David and his family couldn't afford a proper funeral.
18:14And though he is buried somewhere in this graveyard,
18:18he's buried in an unmarked grave.
18:22Now, it is a strange thing, perhaps, to say about a man who went through the horror of war,
18:28who came back from war with mental illness,
18:31and then who spent the rest of his life scraping a living from the fields around here.
18:37But David Hewitt was, in a way, lucky.
18:40He was lucky to live for three decades after the war,
18:44or lucky to get to the age of 59,
18:47because without his family, his prospects were really not great.
18:54And although it does break my heart to see the word pauper on a document for one of my ancestors,
19:01I also, if I'm honest, feel a bit of pride
19:06that people that I'm descended from did at least look after one another.
19:16Political powerlessness was not restricted to those at the bottom of Georgian society,
19:23like my ancestors in rural Scotland.
19:32It also affected another group,
19:35who were then beginning to emerge as economic rivals to the great landowners,
19:41the middle classes.
19:44As the middle classes expanded and as they grew wealthier,
19:48it was increasingly their styles and tastes and their money
19:51that began to shape what this United Kingdom looked like.
19:55Across all four nations, new middle-class suburbs were appearing,
20:00in which they spent the wealth generated through industry and through trade.
20:05And despite all of that wealth,
20:07many of the people who lived in places like this still had no vote.
20:14Political power remained concentrated in the hands of the landowners and the big merchants.
20:19And the laws that determined who could and could not vote
20:23had not significantly changed since the 15th century.
20:27And what that meant was that in 1831,
20:30around 2% of the UK population had the right to vote.
20:36And the whole system was skewed against the place
20:40where increasing numbers of working and middle-class people actually lived,
20:44the towns and cities.
20:49And those cities were expanding at an astonishing rate.
20:53Manchester, back in the 18th century, had been a small market town.
20:58By the 1830s, it was the shock city of the Industrial Revolution,
21:03home to over 160,000 people.
21:08By the same date, Glasgow had expanded by nearly 2,000%
21:13and was now home to almost 230,000 people.
21:18And yet, neither of those cities,
21:21despite their huge populations,
21:23sent their own MPs to Parliament.
21:28In 1832, after a nationwide campaign
21:32for the extension of voting rights,
21:35Reform Acts were finally passed in all four nations.
21:40These are a couple of pages from the Bristol Poll Book
21:44for the general election of December 1832.
21:48And what these poll books list are the names,
21:52the professions and the addresses of the voters.
21:55This is the first page listing the voters
21:58in the parish of Clifton,
22:00which was then a growing middle-class suburb
22:03up on the hills,
22:04overlooking the old industrial city centre.
22:08And on this page, we find a Charles Anthony.
22:11He is a surgeon, so a very middle-class profession,
22:14and he lives at number one, the Mall,
22:17which is that house just there.
22:20And further down on the same page
22:22is a John Benjamin Burroughs,
22:25another surgeon,
22:26and he lives almost opposite
22:27in that house through the trees.
22:30But the names of neither of these men
22:32can be found on the poll book
22:33for the previous election.
22:35And that's because they are just two
22:38of the around 4,000 people
22:40who've now won the right to vote in Bristol
22:42under the terms of the 1832 Reform Act.
22:46And they can vote
22:47because they own enough property.
22:50Now, the problem is that men like Charles Anthony
22:53and John Burroughs,
22:55they had campaigned for voting reform
22:57alongside working-class campaigners.
23:00But working-class people
23:02had nothing like the levels of property
23:05needed to vote under the terms
23:07of the 1832 Act.
23:09And so that alliance
23:11between working-class and middle-class campaigners,
23:15that is broken by the Reform Act.
23:19After the Reform Act,
23:21around 80% of British men,
23:23and of course, 100% of British women,
23:26still had no vote.
23:29Many among the working-class
23:31saw this moment
23:32as an act of betrayal
23:34by middle-class campaigners.
23:37And so, in 1838,
23:39six years after the disappointment
23:41of the Reform Act,
23:44working-class reformers
23:45launched a new movement
23:47to fight for the vote
23:48and political rights.
23:50That movement, chartism,
23:52was the first to spread
23:53across the nations
23:54and the first
23:56in which people define themselves,
23:58not by their nationality
24:00or their religion,
24:01but by their social class.
24:04Working people
24:05have been campaigning for decades
24:07for electoral reform
24:09against corruption.
24:09What's new?
24:10What's different about chartism?
24:12First of all,
24:13I would say it's economic circumstances.
24:15So, poverty,
24:17poor living conditions.
24:19That's because of
24:19the Industrial Revolution.
24:21Yes.
24:21All of those things
24:23frame the need
24:24to change society.
24:26And what are the demands
24:27of chartism?
24:28What is the charter?
24:29The charter
24:30is often framed
24:32as six specific points.
24:35And you can see
24:36from this document,
24:38which is the
24:39People's Charter.
24:41First and foremost,
24:43universal suffrage.
24:44The idea that everyone
24:46should be entitled
24:47to a vote.
24:48But only men?
24:49Initially, men and women.
24:52But eventually,
24:53only men.
24:55Secondly,
24:56no property qualifications.
24:58That is to say,
24:59you don't have to have property
25:00in order to be
25:01elected as an MP.
25:02What the 1832 reform act
25:04didn't give.
25:04Yes.
25:05Annual parliaments.
25:07If you are annually
25:08accountable,
25:09you are less likely
25:10to be a corrupt representative.
25:12The equal representation,
25:14some areas had two MPs,
25:17others had one,
25:17some had none.
25:18So what they wanted
25:20was an even spread
25:22of representatives.
25:24And the payment of members,
25:26that is to enable
25:27the working people
25:28to stand for parliament.
25:30Because working class people,
25:32even if they could get elected,
25:33they couldn't afford
25:33to stand in parliament.
25:35They couldn't sustain themselves.
25:36That's right.
25:37And then finally,
25:38and crucially,
25:39vote by ballot.
25:40Because pressure brought to bear
25:42by large employers,
25:44large landowners,
25:45it ruled out
25:46any possibility
25:47of the population
25:48exercising their ballot
25:50freely and,
25:51you know,
25:52privately.
25:53This is not radical
25:54to us today,
25:55the fundamental basis
25:56of our democracy,
25:57but they are radical
25:58in the 1830s.
26:00Completely.
26:01You've got a very elitist
26:02House of Commons,
26:03and they're not going
26:04to change the system
26:05so they can no longer
26:06control it.
26:07The organisers of Chartism,
26:09they will have known
26:10that the campaign
26:11for a reform that ended
26:13in 1832
26:14with a reform act,
26:15that that also ended
26:16with violence.
26:17Is there an element
26:18that thinks
26:19this might come down
26:21to violence?
26:23There is a divide.
26:25There are,
26:26you might call,
26:27ultra-radicals
26:28who believe
26:29in the politics
26:31of last resort.
26:32So they would say,
26:35peaceably,
26:36if we can,
26:38forcibly,
26:38if we must.
26:40And that is a threat.
26:41It is a threat.
26:42Of course it is.
26:47One of the places
26:48in which Chartism
26:49had most firmly
26:50taken root
26:51was South Wales.
26:59Here,
27:00the expansion
27:01of the coal mines
27:02and the iron works
27:03in places
27:04like Pontypool
27:05had drawn in
27:06thousands of working people
27:08who lived
27:08who lived in
27:09what was
27:09a frontier zone
27:11of the Industrial Revolution.
27:13And it was here,
27:15in 1839,
27:16that some Chartists
27:18concluded
27:18that the landed elite
27:20and the middle classes
27:21would only share power
27:23if made to do so
27:25through physical force.
27:27This is a page
27:29from a London newspaper,
27:30the London Dispatch,
27:32and it reprints
27:33the address
27:33and declaration
27:34of the Pontypool
27:35Working Men's Association.
27:38And in this declaration,
27:40the working men
27:40say that societies
27:42are best ordered
27:43where the citizens
27:45are neither too rich
27:46nor too poor.
27:48At the bottom
27:50of the declaration,
27:51it names the authors.
27:53One of them,
27:54the chairman
27:55of the association,
27:56is Samuel Schell,
27:58although they misprint
27:59his name.
28:00And in this declaration,
28:02Schell and his co-author
28:03don't just make demands.
28:05There is also
28:06just a hint
28:08of a threat,
28:10an implication
28:11that working people
28:12aren't just asking
28:13for their political
28:15and economic rights,
28:16but that they may
28:17seek to take them.
28:19They write here
28:20that he who would be free
28:22himself
28:23must strike the blow.
28:32In June 1839,
28:35Parliament rejected
28:36a Chartist petition
28:38in which 1.3 million
28:40working-class people
28:41had peacefully
28:42appealed for the vote.
28:46In the months
28:47that followed,
28:48rumours began
28:49to circulate
28:50in South Wales.
28:50The Chartists
28:52employed
28:52in the local
28:53ironworks
28:54were secretly
28:55making weapons.
29:03Then,
29:03in November,
29:04the mayor
29:05of the Welsh town
29:06of Newport,
29:07Thomas Phillips,
29:08received news
29:09that a group
29:09of armed Chartists
29:11were marching
29:12through the industrial
29:13towns of the valleys
29:14on their way
29:15to Newport.
29:20Among them
29:20was a 19-year-old
29:22cabinetmaker
29:23called George Schell,
29:25the son
29:25of Samuel Schell,
29:27the author
29:27of the Pontypool Declaration.
29:33Mayor Phillips
29:34summoned 500 local men
29:36as special constables
29:37and awaited
29:38the arrival
29:39of the Chartists.
29:43This is the Westgate Hotel,
29:45and it is right
29:46in the centre
29:47of Newport.
29:48and it was here
29:49that Thomas Phillips,
29:51the mayor,
29:51gathered around 60
29:53of the special constables
29:54and 32 soldiers.
29:56They then went inside
29:58the hotel
29:58and from there
29:59mounted a defence
30:01of Newport
30:02against the Chartists.
30:05As the Chartists
30:06approached,
30:08some of the special constables
30:10fled.
30:14Gathered up here
30:15on the first floor
30:16of the Westgate Hotel
30:17was the mayor,
30:18the soldiers
30:18and the special constables.
30:21And downstairs
30:22on the ground floor,
30:23a group of Chartists
30:25burst through
30:26the front door
30:27into the hotel.
30:29Now,
30:29among those Chartists
30:31was George Schell.
30:33Thomas Phillips,
30:34the mayor,
30:35left us an account
30:36of what happened next.
30:37He says,
30:38it was at this moment
30:39that the soldiers
30:40opened fire
30:41through the windows
30:42upon the insurgents
30:44who were in front
30:45of the hotel
30:46and through the door
30:47upon those
30:48who had entered
30:49the passages
30:50of the hotel.
30:51And at that moment,
30:53Phillips himself
30:54was wounded.
30:55He went off
30:56to find someone
30:56who could bind his wounds
30:58and then,
30:59he tells us,
31:00one of the insurgents
31:01made his appearance
31:02in the passage
31:03and when he was preparing
31:05to thrust at us,
31:06that insurgent
31:07was shot,
31:09presumably by one
31:10of the soldiers.
31:11Thomas Phillips tells us,
31:13he fell at my feet
31:15on his face
31:16and lay there
31:17with scarcely any motion,
31:19apparently dying.
31:23Now,
31:23historians believe
31:24that the insurgent
31:26who was shot dead
31:27in front of the mayor
31:28was George Schell.
31:34The battle
31:35of the Westgate Hotel
31:36lasted 25 minutes.
31:39Alongside George Schell
31:41lay another
31:4121 dead
31:43Chartists.
31:45Some of the survivors
31:47were charged
31:48with high treason.
31:50Those found guilty
31:51were imprisoned
31:52or transported
31:53to Australia.
31:54in Australia.
31:59Although the movement
32:01eventually ran out
32:02of steam
32:03and faded away
32:04to the relief
32:05of the ruling elite,
32:07almost all
32:09of the original
32:10Chartist demands
32:11for voting reform
32:12and the reform
32:13of parliament,
32:14the original points
32:15of their charter
32:16were ultimately
32:18passed into law.
32:24Unchartism had been
32:25the first movement
32:26that united people
32:28from across
32:28all four nations.
32:31And what allowed them
32:32to spread their message
32:34so widely
32:35was a series
32:36of technological innovations.
32:39A faster postal service,
32:42cheap printing presses
32:43for their newspapers
32:44and pamphlets.
32:46But most of all,
32:47the coming
32:48of a truly reverent.
32:49revolutionary technology,
32:51the railways.
32:59It was in the 1840s
33:01that the railways
33:02began to physically
33:04bind together
33:05the nations
33:06of the United Kingdom.
33:08At the beginning
33:09of the decade,
33:10Britain had 1600
33:11kilometres of railways.
33:13By the end
33:14of what was called
33:15the railway mania
33:16of the 1840s,
33:18there were 8,000
33:19kilometres
33:19of railway track
33:21linking together
33:22the major cities
33:23and towns.
33:24It was the railways
33:26and the way
33:27they transformed
33:28the nation
33:28that made possible
33:30an unprecedented event.
33:32One that for many people
33:34marked the end
33:35of the age
33:36of conflict
33:37and instability
33:38that had followed
33:39Waterloo.
33:40that event took place
33:42here in one of London's parks.
33:47It is really difficult
33:49to even picture it
33:51today,
33:52170 years later.
33:54But in 1851,
33:56this patch of grass
33:57right on the edge
33:59of Hyde Park,
34:00this was just about
34:01the most talked about,
34:03the busiest,
34:04the most dynamic
34:04and the most
34:05hypermodern place
34:06on the face
34:07of the earth.
34:08And that was
34:09because,
34:10as you can see
34:11from this map
34:12from the time,
34:13it was right here
34:15that there stood
34:15the great glass building
34:17in which were held
34:18100,000 objects
34:20from all over the world
34:22that made up
34:23the great exhibition.
34:27And this was
34:29an event
34:29that was made possible
34:31by the way
34:32the railways
34:32were stitching together
34:34the four nations
34:35of the United Kingdom.
34:37Many of the people
34:38who came here
34:39to Hyde Park
34:40had never visited London.
34:42And the numbers
34:43who came,
34:44even almost
34:45two centuries later,
34:46are astonishing.
34:48The population
34:49of the United Kingdom
34:50in 1851,
34:52which then included
34:53all of Ireland,
34:54was around 28 million.
34:56And of them,
34:586 million people
34:59came here
35:00to the great exhibition,
35:02a little less
35:03than one in five
35:04of the entire population.
35:14The organisers
35:15of the great exhibition
35:16had secretly feared
35:18that a gathering
35:19in London
35:20of so many people,
35:21many of them
35:22from the working classes,
35:23could lead
35:24to conflict
35:25or even,
35:27in their worst nightmares,
35:28spark a revival
35:30of Chartism.
35:32What, in fact,
35:34happened
35:34was that within
35:35the vast spaces
35:37of the Crystal Palace,
35:38the Victorian public
35:40mixed amicably.
35:43after decades of turmoil,
35:45the sight of this
35:46unique gathering
35:47of people
35:48from all classes
35:49and from all four nations
35:51became the real fascination
35:53of the exhibition.
35:55And that wave
35:56of celebration
35:57and self-congratulation
35:59can be seen
36:00in newspaper articles
36:01from the time.
36:03This is a page
36:05from an Irish newspaper,
36:07the Sligo Chronicle
36:08and Western advertiser.
36:10It's from the summer
36:11of 1851
36:13and like all the newspapers,
36:15it has a big report
36:17on the great exhibition
36:19in rather lovely,
36:20flowing language.
36:21It says,
36:22the exhibition is London,
36:24the exhibition is Parliament,
36:25it is the British Empire,
36:27it is house and home,
36:28park and club,
36:29shop and bazaar,
36:30everything in a word
36:32that a man
36:33or a woman wants.
36:35But in this same newspaper
36:37on the same page
36:39is this little advertisement.
36:42It's inviting builders
36:44to tender for work
36:46building a workhouse
36:48in the village of Bourneboy
36:50in County Cavan in Ireland.
36:54And this is a detail
36:56from a disaster,
36:58from a tragedy,
37:00from arguably
37:00the greatest tragedy
37:02in British history,
37:03which took place
37:04in the United Kingdom
37:06in the same years
37:07that the great exhibition
37:08was being planned
37:10and the crowds
37:11were flocking
37:12to Hyde Park.
37:19These are the ruins
37:21of the workhouse
37:22at Bourneboy
37:23in County Cavan,
37:24170 years
37:26after the advertisement
37:27appeared
37:28in the Sligo Chronicle.
37:31And this was just one
37:32of the 163 workhouses
37:35built in Ireland
37:36in the 19th century,
37:38as that nation,
37:39which had been part
37:40of the Union
37:41since 1801,
37:42was decimated
37:43by famine.
37:47On the eve of the famine,
37:49Ireland had been home
37:50to 8.2 million people,
37:53making it
37:53the most populous part
37:55of the United Kingdom
37:56after England.
37:58One in every three
38:00of Queen Victoria's subjects
38:02were Irish,
38:04most of them Catholic,
38:05most of them poor,
38:06living in small,
38:08rural settlements,
38:09and 4 million of them
38:11totally reliant
38:12on a single crop,
38:14the potato.
38:15A crop that was planted
38:17in ridges
38:18that can still be seen
38:20on the landscape today,
38:21alongside the remains
38:23of abandoned villages.
38:25When a disease,
38:27the potato blight,
38:28wiped out a third
38:29of the crop,
38:30in 1845,
38:31the British government
38:32sent shipments
38:34of cheap American wheat
38:35to feed the poor
38:37of Ireland
38:38and established
38:39a commission
38:40to oversee
38:41and coordinate
38:42relief efforts.
38:45But in 1846,
38:47the blight returned,
38:48and that year
38:49destroyed almost
38:50the entire crop,
38:52leaving millions
38:54of poor Irish people
38:55to face starvation.
39:00One of the thousands
39:01of places
39:02from which the story
39:04of the Great Famine
39:05can be told
39:05is here
39:06in County Cavern.
39:0951 kilometres
39:10to the east
39:11of the workhouse
39:12at Bournboy
39:12lies the small town
39:14of Coot Hill.
39:18A rare collection
39:19of letters
39:20was recently
39:21discovered here.
39:23These are petitions,
39:25letters written
39:26to the authorities
39:27by the Cootiers,
39:29poor agricultural workers,
39:31who were pleading
39:32for help.
39:34Once the second crop
39:36fails in the summer
39:37of July,
39:37August of 1846,
39:39disaster is approaching
39:42for a large body
39:43of people,
39:44millions of people,
39:45really.
39:45They're petitioning
39:46for help,
39:47to be given food,
39:48to be given shelter.
39:50There's a whole host
39:51of reasons
39:51why people are petitioning.
39:53Here we have
39:54the petition
39:54of Philip Lynch.
39:56The petitioner states
39:57that he is nine
39:58of a family
39:59and that he is
40:00out of employment
40:00for the last month
40:01and that he is
40:02in a very bad state.
40:03In fact,
40:04nothing to support
40:04his family
40:05and he hopes
40:06that Your Honour
40:06will consider his state
40:08and get him
40:09some employment
40:09that will enable him
40:11to support his family.
40:12If he does not get
40:13some employment
40:13for himself,
40:14the family must be lost.
40:16Must be lost?
40:17Must be lost.
40:19He's saying his family
40:20are going to die
40:21if they can't find him work.
40:24They've witnessed
40:24a lot of death
40:25in the locality
40:26so he knows
40:27that that's
40:28what's going to happen.
40:31We have another petition
40:33here from
40:34Catherine Brady of Lappan
40:35and Catherine Brady
40:36has seven
40:37in her family.
40:39Eleven,
40:39twelve,
40:40thirteen in the family
40:40is not uncommon.
40:41Again,
40:42she's appealing
40:42for assistance
40:43and to be provided work.
40:45What's important
40:46about this letter,
40:46I suppose,
40:47is that she says
40:48that if she doesn't
40:49receive relief,
40:50her family
40:51will inevitably starve.
40:54So there's no other option,
40:55there's no other outcome
40:57that they're going to die
40:58unless she's given relief.
41:02The relief
41:03that Catherine Brady
41:04and Philip Lynch
41:05were appealing for
41:06was to be given
41:07employment
41:08on public work schemes
41:10that had been set up
41:11across Ireland
41:12to provide work
41:13and therefore
41:14some income
41:15to those left hungry
41:17by the failure
41:18of the potato crop.
41:20The legacy
41:21of those public works
41:23can be seen
41:24not just
41:24in the documents
41:25left behind
41:26but also
41:27on the landscape
41:29of places
41:30like County Cavern.
41:33This is the
41:34Killie-Creenie Road
41:35six kilometres
41:36to the west
41:37of Coot Hill.
41:38It took
41:39hundreds of people
41:40over six months
41:42to build the road
41:43and this bridge.
41:45And across Ireland
41:47700,000
41:48men,
41:49women
41:50and children
41:50facing starvation
41:52were put to work.
41:54We must remember
41:56that the young and old
41:56are working side by side
41:57on these schemes
41:58so there's children
41:59as young as
42:0010, 11 years of age
42:01there's men and women
42:02in their 60s, 70s
42:04there's reports
42:05of people dying
42:06just collapsing
42:07from hunger
42:08and exhaustion
42:08and the works
42:09carry on.
42:11So you're making
42:12people who are
42:13unwell
42:14because of malnutrition
42:15work,
42:16do hard labour
42:16to get food
42:17to address
42:19the malnutrition?
42:19Yes, yeah.
42:21And what's the ideology
42:21behind that?
42:22Why not just
42:23feed people
42:23who are hungry?
42:25The ideology
42:26is that if they
42:27provide people
42:28they become lazy
42:28and that Ireland
42:30will be better
42:30for it in the long run
42:31if people are
42:32actually working
42:34rather than
42:36and receiving
42:37relief
42:38or handouts
42:39effectively.
42:39So these
42:40public work schemes,
42:42these relief schemes,
42:44the administration
42:45of them
42:46is going to determine
42:47who survives
42:48and who doesn't.
42:49Yes,
42:50and it was a
42:51huge task
42:52to actually
42:52oversee these
42:54relief schemes.
42:54We have a
42:55more detailed
42:56document there.
42:57It's recommendations
42:58for employment
42:59on the relief works
43:00from the barony
43:00of Tullygarve
43:01dated 21st of
43:02November 1846.
43:04So the second
43:05winter of famine,
43:07the winter of
43:081846-47
43:09is particularly bad.
43:10Snow lying on the
43:11ground for upwards
43:12of three months
43:12in parts of the
43:13country.
43:13So particularly harsh
43:14for people that
43:15are already starving.
43:17So one of the
43:17big jobs at the
43:18relief committee
43:19was to actually
43:20ascertain who's
43:21entitled to work
43:22and who's
43:23entitled to
43:23this relief.
43:24And you can see
43:25a lot of the
43:25names are actually
43:26crossed off on this
43:27list, which might
43:28indicate that they're
43:29either deceased or
43:31that they're not
43:31entitled to work.
43:33And when you got a
43:34place in the work
43:35schemes, you were
43:36given a ticket and
43:37you had to show up
43:37with your ticket.
43:38So if you are
43:39awarded a ticket,
43:41you get to do
43:42your day's labour.
43:43You get paid some
43:44money and you can
43:45buy some food for
43:46your family.
43:46But without it,
43:48you've got no hope.
43:48Like the letters
43:49we've seen from
43:50Catherine Brady and
43:51Philip Lynch, you
43:54know, they will
43:54inevitably starve if
43:55they don't get work.
43:58The worst year of
44:00the Great Famine
44:01was 1847.
44:03In June of that
44:04year, the British
44:05government began to
44:07directly feed the
44:08poor of Ireland.
44:10Over 1,800 soup
44:12kitchens were set up.
44:14And at their height,
44:15they were feeding
44:163 million people.
44:20But later, that
44:21same year, the
44:22government decided
44:23that the worst of
44:24the famine was over.
44:26And most of the
44:27soup kitchens and
44:28the public works
44:29were wound down.
44:31As the British
44:32economy slipped into
44:34recession, the
44:35government also
44:36decided that any
44:37famine relief for
44:38Ireland had now to
44:40be paid for only
44:41through taxes raised
44:43in Ireland.
44:45For thousands of
44:46desperate people,
44:47those decisions left
44:48only one place to
44:50turn to.
44:51The dreaded
44:53workhouses.
44:55And when the
44:56workhouses were
44:58overwhelmed by
44:59hundreds of
45:00thousands of
45:01starving people,
45:02those who could,
45:03headed for
45:04Ireland's ports.
45:08The story of
45:10emigration from
45:11Ireland during the
45:12famine years can
45:13again be told here
45:14in County
45:15Cavern, through the
45:16records of the
45:17town of Coote Hill.
45:20Have you found
45:21individual records for
45:23families who were
45:24here at the beginning
45:25of the famine who
45:25were gone by the
45:27end?
45:27If you look at the
45:28business directory here
45:29for Coote Hill, this
45:30is from 1846.
45:31Now, under
45:32butchers here, we can
45:33see the name Patrick
45:34Crummey.
45:35So that butcher's
45:36business was there at
45:37the beginning of the
45:38famine, but how on
45:40earth can you sustain a
45:42business given the
45:43calamity that is
45:44unfolding during this
45:46period?
45:47We can find
45:48Crummeys who have left
45:50Coote Hill and are now
45:52in New York.
45:53And this is a census
45:55return from Brooklyn
45:57City in 1850.
45:59Here we have William
46:01Crummey, Mary Crummey,
46:02Jane Crummey, Sarah
46:03Crummey.
46:04And they're listed under
46:05profession as butchers
46:06and their place of birth
46:08is Ireland.
46:09What I find fascinating
46:11about this as well, New
46:12York City becomes the
46:14most Irish city in the
46:16world by 1861.
46:18This is a letter from a
46:21Dublin newspaper in 1847
46:23that contains a
46:24communication from a
46:25correspondent in Coote
46:27Hill.
46:28And this is about Irish
46:31immigrants settled in New
46:32York, sending money back
46:34for the relief of the
46:37crisis in Ireland.
46:38Dear sir, I have the
46:40pleasure to forward the
46:41enclosed order for £21,
46:43the amount of a
46:44subscription entered into
46:46by the people of Coote
46:47Hill, residents in New
46:49York and Brooklyn for the
46:50relief of their old
46:51neighbours in this season
46:53of distress.
46:55What an understatement,
46:56this season of distress.
46:57This is Black 47.
46:59This is the worst year of
47:00the famine.
47:00This is the worst year of
47:02the famine.
47:02And these are people from
47:03this little town in
47:05County Cavern who've got
47:06together and they've
47:08raised money to send back
47:10to Ireland, back to their
47:11own community.
47:12These are people from very
47:15near where we are now.
47:16And what I find fascinating
47:17about this is that again,
47:18we meet the Crummies.
47:19William Crummie, James
47:21Crummie, Thomas Crummie.
47:23It says here in this letter,
47:26Sympathy for the Irish
47:27Immigrants, the sum is small
47:29but there are few of us here
47:31that have not paid or into
47:33several collections made here
47:35for the most distressed
47:36districts of Ireland.
47:38So they're apologising that
47:40they haven't been able to
47:41raise more money.
47:42I mean, there's an awareness
47:43that it's never going to be
47:45enough.
47:46We wish we could do more.
47:48And how could you raise money
47:51on the scale that was needed?
47:54Always felt proud to belong to
47:56old Coot Hill.
47:57But I feel doubly proud since we
47:59commenced this little collection
48:01for nothing could exceed the
48:03gladness with which everyone
48:05subscribed.
48:06They are proud that they managed
48:09to get, scrape this 21 pounds
48:12together.
48:13They are very proud of it.
48:14But there is pride in that idea
48:16that they will not forget the
48:18networks.
48:19And here we are in a church of
48:20Ireland church in Coot Hill.
48:22The famine doesn't discriminate
48:23when it comes to religious
48:24affiliation.
48:25It affects both Catholics and
48:26Protestants.
48:33In the years after the Great
48:36Famine, the Irish emigrants
48:37slowly became Irish
48:40Americans, part of a community
48:42who not only sent money back
48:44to their lost homeland, but who
48:46increasingly offered support to
48:49a growing campaign for Irish
48:51independence from Britain and an
48:53end to the Union.
49:02Before the famine, Ireland had
49:04been home to over 8 million
49:06people.
49:08By the famine's end, 1 million
49:10had died and over a million
49:13had emigrated.
49:15Even today, in the 21st century,
49:18Ireland has still not returned to
49:21the population levels of 1845.
49:26The famine is an open wound in
49:28Ireland.
49:29It is a glaring wound.
49:31The population still hasn't
49:33recovered.
49:33The language has never recovered.
49:36It had huge impacts culturally
49:39in terms of the Irish language.
49:41Many of those poor communities,
49:42Irish was their only spoken
49:44language, and so the language was
49:45decimated, absolutely decimated.
49:49The one thing that always resonates
49:51with me from the time of the famine
49:53is how many Irish people emigrated.
49:55It's the kind of thing where you're
49:56sitting thinking, if that hadn't
49:58happened, how many people would be
50:01living in Ireland, and what would
50:02Ireland be like now?
50:11Now, the potato blight was a natural
50:14disaster, but the United Kingdom, the
50:17richest, most powerful nation on
50:19earth at the center of a vast empire,
50:22it had the money and it had the power
50:24to intervene decisively.
50:26But for reasons that were economic,
50:29ideological, political, and religious,
50:31countries, Britain's leaders failed
50:34Ireland, and that failure ensured
50:37that the Great Famine became the
50:38great rupture in Irish history and
50:41eventually in the history of the
50:43Union.
50:48Next time, into the 20th century,
50:53there is revolution in Ireland.
50:57Total war.
51:00And new ideas that bind the nations
51:03together.
51:16In the future, in the 19th century,
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