ATTWOOD, Thomas (1783-1856), of Grove House, Harborne, nr. Birmingham, Warws.

Writing to the prime minister, Sir Robert Peel, 3 Dec. 1841, Thomas Attwood summarised his career as an agitator and parliamentarian by saying ‘that for near 30 years, the first object of my life has been to obtain a modification of the Currency, and that all my political labours have been mainly subsidiary to that great end’.1Thomas Attwood to Sir Robert Peel, Add. 40496, f. 193. Even Attwood’s leadership of the Birmingham Political Union (BPU) and participation in the popular campaign for parliamentary reform, 1830-32, stemmed from his frustration at the unwillingness of the unreformed Commons and Cabinet to contemplate his unorthodox economic remedies.2A. Briggs, ‘Thomas Attwood and the economic background of the Birmingham Political Union’, Cambridge Historical Journal, 9 (1948), 190-216 (at 207-16); C. Flick, The Birmingham Political Union and the movements for reform in Britain, 1830-1839 (1976), 17-18; D. Moss, Thomas Attwood: the biography of a radical (1990), 150-1. His subsequent parliamentary career was regarded as a failure, not least by Attwood himself, and perhaps never really recovered from a disastrous first session, with Disraeli’s description of him as a ‘provincial banker labouring under a financial monomania’ probably summing up the opinion of many MPs and newspapers.3D. Moss, ‘A study in failure: Thomas Attwood, M.P. for Birmingham, 1832-1839’, HJ, 21 (1978), 545-70; idem, Thomas Attwood, 4; B. Disraeli, ‘Third Runnymede letter’, 21 Jan. 1836, repr. in idem, Whigs and Whiggism, ed. W. Hutcheon (1913), 247-52 (at 247). Although Attwood has been portrayed by Clive Behagg as a middle-class radical, whose resistance to local working-class demands belied his reputation as a popular agitator, such an explanation is less helpful in analysing his parliamentary career.4C. Behagg, Politics and production in the early nineteenth-century (1990), 160-8. Attwood’s sympathy for the poor, persistent criticism of the reformed Commons, and opposition to classical political economy placed him refreshingly outside much of the conventional politics of the time.

Of Worcestershire stock, Attwood’s grandfather George had moved to Halesowen, Shropshire, in the mid-eighteenth century to mine coal and iron ore, and the family later diversified into land and commerce. In 1791, his father and Isaac Spooner established a bank at Birmingham, which Attwood joined at a young age. Spooner’s son Richard, MP for Birmingham 1844-7 and North Warwickshire 1847-64, was a colleague of Attwood’s in the business, as well as a friend, political comrade, and later, adversary.5Moss, Thomas Attwood, 17-26. Appointed high bailiff in 1812, Attwood, with Spooner, successfully lobbied for the repeal of the 1807 orders-in-council which regulated trade with Europe, but his experiences as a member of a deputation gave him a low opinion of MPs, and indeed government ministers, that he never entirely shook off.6Briggs, ‘Thomas Attwood’, 196; Moss, Thomas Attwood, 35-49. Although Attwood has often been termed a Tory or Ultra-Tory before 1830 by historians, it is more appropriate to describe him as one of the leaders of the ‘liberal’ party in Birmingham, which was distinct from local Whigs and Tories, and favoured reform, but not radicalism.7Moss, Thomas Attwood, 90. For the use of the Tory description, see Flick, Birmingham Political Union, 13-16; N. LoPatin-Lummis, ‘Birmingham Political Union (act. 1829-1839), www.oxforddnb.com.

Attwood’s first contribution to economic debate came through his 1816 pamphlet, The Remedy, and he soon became one of the leading opponents of the resumption of cash payments (making paper notes convertible into gold), which he thought would depress prices and consequently profits, wages and employment. For the remainder of his political career, he always argued that the rigid and restrictive monetary system instituted in 1819 was at the root of the distress and severe fluctuations of the time. Although he was often accused of advocating unrestricted paper money and inflation, Attwood envisaged a managed currency, with the circulation judiciously adjusted by the government or a state bank, to secure prosperity and full employment.8This summary of Attwood’s economic thinking is based upon: A. Briggs, ‘Thomas Attwood’, 190-216; S.G. Checkland, ‘The Birmingham economists, 1815-1850’, Economic History Review, 1 (new series, 1948), 1-19; F.W. Fetter, ‘Introduction’, idem (ed.), Selected writings of Thomas Attwood (1964), pp. vii-xxi; idem, Development of British monetary orthodoxy, 1797-1875 (1965), 74-8, 114-16, A.J.B. Hilton, Corn, cash, commerce (1977), 56-7, 65-6, 70-1; Moss, Thomas Attwood, chs. 3-4; D.P. O’Brien, ‘Introduction’, Foundation of monetary economics (1994), vi., pp. vii-xiv.

In the 1820s, Attwood lobbied government and Parliament, the latter with the aid of his elder brother Matthias, Tory MP for Callington at this time, for a change in monetary policy, but faced powerful opponents, notably the economist David Ricardo and the influential minister William Huskisson, later president of the board of trade, who combined against him to good effect when he gave evidence to the 1821 committee on agriculture.9Fetter, British monetary orthodoxy, 103-4; Hilton, Corn, cash, commerce, 133-4. Frustrated, Attwood increasingly came round to the view that some measure of political reform was necessary, and lent behind the scenes support to Charles Tennyson’s attempts to enfranchise Birmingham at the expense of East Retford, 1827-30.10Moss, Thomas Attwood, 138-40. Mounting distress in Birmingham forced him to take more direct action, and the BPU was formed at a public meeting, 25 Jan. 1830, headed by Attwood, who temporarily shelved currency reform to campaign for parliamentary reform. A charismatic public speaker, Attwood’s conception of popular leadership was autocratic: power was vested in a self-appointed political council, mostly made up of employers and tradesmen, and he resisted working-class demands for more radical reforms or greater influence in the Union.11Behagg, Politics and production, 162-3; Flick, Birmingham Political Union, 29. A cautious reformer, Attwood was careful to keep the Union’s activity within legal limits and its campaign was largely based upon peaceful mass meetings in favour of political change, and after March 1831, the Grey ministry’s reform bills. The passing of the Reform Act, in June 1832, seemed to vindicate Attwood’s strategy, but Flick has argued that the Union was only sporadically active and its influence on events overrated.12Flick, Birmingham Political Union, 11-13, 31-2, 43-8, 51-3, 57-63, 79-94. Behagg has maintained that the BPU’s cross-class support, emphasised by Asa Briggs and others, was really the result of a temporary marriage of convenience between Attwood and working-class radicals.13Behagg, Politics and production, 158-83; idem, ‘An alliance with the middle class: the Birmingham Political Union and early Chartism’, in J. Epstein and D. Thompson (ed.), The Chartist experience: studies in working-class radicalism and culture, 1830-60 (1982), 59-86; Briggs, ‘Thomas Attwood’, 215-16; idem, ‘The background of the parliamentary reform movement in three English cities (1830-2)’, Cambridge Historical Journal, 10 (1952), 293-317. However, recent work has tended to rehabilitate Attwood’s influence in the passing of the Reform Act, and there is little doubting his popularity at this time.14N. LoPatin, Political unions, popular politics and the Great Reform Act of 1832 (1999), 9-11, 17-37, 137-8, 160; E. Pearce, Reform! The fight for the 1832 Reform Act (2003); Moss, Thomas Attwood, 223-7.

Returned unopposed as a Reformer for Birmingham at the 1832 general election, Attwood was soon disillusioned with the reformed Parliament, telling his son, 9 Feb. 1833, ‘I am quite disgusted with the King’s speech’.15Thomas Attwood to De Bosco Attwood, 9 Feb. 1833, qu. in C.M. Wakefield, The life of Thomas Attwood (1885), 264. He condemned the Whigs for renewing the coercion bill in Ireland, whilst doing nothing to alleviate distress, 20 Feb. 1833.16Hansard, 20 Feb. 1833, vol. 15, c. 1002. See also 27 Feb. 1833, vol. 15, cc. 1204-9; 8 Mar. 1833, vol. 16, cc. 397-8. Impatient to discuss the currency, he ignored the advice given by Charles Western before the session, to bide his time, build alliances and wait for a propitious moment to introduce the issue, and after displaying the ignorance of Commons procedure that became a feature of his parliamentary career, eventually proposed a select committee on distress, 21 Mar. 1833, which, after a repetitive and rambling speech, was rejected 158-192. 17Charles Western to Thomas Attwood, 21 Jan. 1833, qu. in Wakefield, Life of Attwood, 265-6; Hansard, 21 Mar. 1833, vol. 16, cc. 918-38; Moss, ‘Study in failure’, 551. He made his brother raise the issue again, 24 Apr. 1833, when it was defeated by a larger margin and Lord Althorp passed a motion in favour of the present monetary system designed to close the question.18Hansard, 24 Apr. 1833, vol. 17, cc. 540-91; Moss, Study in failure’, 551-3. Attwood quickly gained an unwelcome reputation as a monomaniac, who sought to introduce his favourite subject at every juncture, prompting Peel to comment drily, 3 July 1833, that ‘no doubt the hon. Member kept the currency question always at full cock, but he doubted the propriety of firing it off on the presentation of a petition on the subject of the Game-laws’.19Hansard, 3 July 1833, vol. 19, c. 80. In a similar vein, Grant remarked:

He is a man of one idea … Hence, whatever the subject of debate … he is sure … to lug in a small-note currency, and to hammer away at the idea through at least three-fourths of his speech, whether long or short. […] As a speaker, Mr. Attwood does not rank high. He speaks with sufficient ease, and his language, without being polished, is tolerably correct; but he has a broad, gruff, unearthly voice, aggravated by a strong provincial pronunciation, which sounds strangely in the ears of those who hear him. […] The word Birmingham he always, in the broadest possible accent, pronounces “Brummagem”; and this, too, though every time he does it, he is greeted with the loud laughter of the House. […] He is middle-sized, and proportionally stout. His face has not an intellectual expression. Like his pronunciation, it is “countrified”. It is of an angular conformation. His hair and his complexion are both dark.20J. Grant, Recollections of the House of Commons (1837), 292, 293-4.

Attwood’s attempt to use his membership of the select committee on manufactures, commerce and shipping to press his case was equally unsuccessful and he later described the inquiry and that on the state of agriculture as ‘complete humbugs’.21PP 1833 (690), vi. 2; Moss, ‘Study in failure’, 554; Report of the proceedings of the fourth annual meeting of the Birmingham Political Union held...on...September 16, 1833 (1833), 3. His sympathy for Polish independence made him a staunch critic of the government’s foreign policy and he made the first of his many calls for a pre-emptive war against Russia, 9 July 1833.22Hansard, 9 July 1833, vol. 19, cc. 416-23.

Although his strident criticism, conspiratorial mindset, wild rhetoric and poor tactics, as well as his radical and unorthodox views, meant that Attwood made a bad impression in his first session, much of the derision he faced stemmed from snobbery, particularly towards his provincial accent, and his critics preferred to ignore or marginalise him, such as when he was counted out, 3 July 1834, rather than engage with his arguments.23Grant, Recollections, 294; Hansard, 3 July 1834, vol. 24, c. 1116. For his part, Attwood was withering in his criticism of the reformed House out of doors throughout the 1830s, telling local supporters that it was ‘little better … than the old concern’.24A full and accurate report of the proceedings at the grand public dinner given to Thomas Attwood, Esq. and Joshua Scholefield, Esq., members for the Borough of Birmingham, at Mr. Beardsworth’s repository on...Sept. 15, 1834 (1834), 5. On one occasion he complained that the ‘great bulk of the House of Commons are mere representatives of retired capitalists, of lawyers, placemen, pensioners, money-mongers, Jews, and great big squires or sucking cubs of the aristocracy’.25Report of the proceedings at the grand dinner of the nonelectors to the borough members T. Attwood...and J. Scholefield...on...February 1, 1836 (1836), 6. Attwood duly supported further political reforms, especially payment of MPs, as he thought that currently parliamentarians were ‘too rich to look to your interests’.26Morn. Chro., 21 June 1837.

Party distinctions were largely irrelevant for Attwood because the measures he most objected to, such as Irish coercion, the 1834 new Poor Law, which he thought ‘monstrous’, and above all the renewal of the Bank Charter Act in 1833, were passed with the support of the Whig and Tory frontbenches.27Hansard, 26 May 1834, vol. 23, c. 1338. Neither did he have much time for Radicals whose priority was retrenchment of public expenditure, as he thought ‘low and niggardly economy’ was a bogus remedy for distress, which would also weaken the country’s defences.28Thomas Attwood, ‘Address to electors’, 1837, qu. in Wakefield, Life of Attwood, 308. Joseph Hume’s innumerable motions for retrenchment in minor public offices were ‘more suited to the discussions of a parish vestry than a great legislative body’, Attwood thought.29Hansard, 9 Feb. 1836, vol. 31, c. 224. Reflecting on his parliamentary career to date at the 1835 general election when he was returned at the top of the poll, Attwood said that he usually voted with a ‘small but patriotic band’, including his colleague Joshua Scholefield, the Irish leader Daniel O’Connell, and Radicals critical of political economy such as John Fielden, and, despite his opposition to currency reform, William Cobbett.30Triumph of reform!: great and overwhelming majority in favour of Attwood and Scholefield (1835), 8. However, the growing local Conservative challenge (led by Spooner), which necessitated a reluctant alliance between local Whigs and Attwood’s party; the accession of Peel to power after the dismissal of Melbourne’s ministry; increasing prosperity and his natural pragmatism led Attwood to pursue a different strategy.31Moss, Thomas Attwood, 253-9; idem, ‘Study in failure’, 557-9. Thereafter he supported the Whigs in the major party divisions of the 1835 and 1836 sessions, approving of municipal reform in particular, and he became more reserved in the number, length and tone of his spoken contributions.32Great meeting in support of corporation reform, held in... Birmingham, on...the 18th of August, 1835 (1835), 4; Hansard, 22 Aug. 1835, vol. 30, cc. 866-8; Proceedings of the important town’s meeting convened by the Political Union and held in the Birmingham Town Hall on ...Jan. 18, 1836 (1836), 7.

Attwood’s commitment to currency reform remained undiminished, however, and once signs of economic distress became apparent in 1837, he lobbied the Whig government through three memorials to the prime minister, Lord Melbourne, and moved as an amendment during a debate on the Irish poor law bill, that the present monetary system was inadequate, 5 June 1837.33Wakefield, Life of Attwood, 305; Moss, ‘Study in failure’, 559-60. He told his wife that he was ‘heard with creditable patience and attention’, but his opening line, which compared the Commons to Nero fiddling whilst Rome burned, was poorly calculated to win support and his amendment was defeated by sixty votes in a thin House.34Hansard, 5 June 1837, vol. 38, cc. 1189-1205, 1208 (at 1189); Attwood to Ann Attwood, 6 June 1837, qu. in Wakefield, Life of Attwood, 317. Attwood was re-elected in first place at the general election soon after, but played little part in Parliament during the next session, bitterly complaining in late 1837 that ‘MPs care little for domestic misery or foreign shame, but they care much for the gratification of spleen and the paltry interests of party’.35Attwood to Ann Attwood, 7 Dec. 1837, qu. in Wakefield, Life of Attwood, 325. By this time Attwood had declared himself in favour of universal suffrage, openly admitting that ‘the masses of the people constituted the only engine through which it was possible to obtain reform, and that mighty engine could not be roused into efficient action without [it]’.36Birmingham Journal, 23 Dec. 1837, qu. by Behagg, Politics and production, 193. He hoped that a new mass movement, to be led by a revived BPU, in conjunction with the northern anti-poor law radicals led by Feargus O’Connor and others, could achieve substantial political change. Although he was largely absent from Birmingham, depriving the Union of leadership at a time when it was becoming increasingly marginalised within early Chartism, Attwood, despite his criticism of the rhetoric of his northern allies, acted as their parliamentary spokesman during the 1839 session.37Moss, Thomas Attwood, 281; Behagg, Politics and production, 188-200; M. Chase, Chartism: a new history (2007), 1-7, 35, 48, 58, 66, 68; Flick, Birmingham Political Union, 125-74. He unsuccessfully proposed a paper currency, 30 May 1839, but his main duty was to present the first Chartist petition, 14 June 1839, and move, after a generally restrained and sober speech, for a committee on it, 12 July 1839.38Hansard, 30 May 1839, vol. 47, cc. 1139-56; 14 June 1839, vol. 48, cc. 222-6; 12 July 1839, vol. 49, cc. 220-35. The motion was defeated by a crushing majority, but what really made Attwood despair was Lord John Russell’s coup de théâtre, holding up in the chamber a Chartist placard which ridiculed his currency prescriptions.39Ibid., 242. He was mortified that ‘at this very moment, out of my own camp, a mortal weapon was directed against my heart!’, and thereafter he opposed, unsuccessfully, the attempt to suspend Birmingham’s commission of the peace, and made little attempt to hide his contempt for Whigs, Tories and the Commons generally.40Hansard, 23 July 1839, vol. 49, cc. 948-51; 2 Aug. 1839, vol. 49, cc. 1166-8.

A weary Attwood removed to Jersey in autumn 1839, and resigned as MP that December, telling his constituents that he had retired as ‘I found it utterly impossible to do any good to my country by honest means, either within … or without the walls of Parliament’.41Birmingham Journal, 21 Dec. 1839, qu. in Morn. Chro., 23 Dec. 1839. He returned to Birmingham to nominate Scholefield at the 1841 general election, and wrote letters to the premier Peel and newspapers advocating paper money as a solution for distress.42T. Attwood, Borough election, June 30th, 1841: Mr. Thomas Attwood’s speech on the nomination of Joshua Scholefield, Esq. as candidate for Birmingham (1841), 1; Moss, Thomas Attwood, 292-3; Letters to The Times, 13, 27 Nov. 1843. However, after the failure of his vague and short-lived ‘National Union’ in August 1843, he effectively retired from public life.43Wakefield, Life of Attwood, 385-6. Never a rich man, Attwood spent his final years in ‘almost Spartan poverty’, afflicted by ‘paralysis agitans’ (probably Parkinson’s disease), and he was described as a ‘thin, wasted, and decrepit old man’ in 1849.44Moss, Thomas Attwood, 294-302; Wakefield, Life of Attwood, 395, 412 (first and second qus.); E. Edwards, Personal recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham men (1877), 50 (third qu.) He died in 1856, having been predeceased by his eldest son De Bosco, who had declared himself ‘sick of politics’ after his experience as a candidate at Walsall in the 1832 general election.45Wakefield, Life of Attwood, 253-5. None of Attwood’s three other sons pursued a political career, but his Tory brother Matthias (1779-1851) sat in the unreformed Parliament for Fowey, Callington, and Boroughbridge and for Whitehaven, 1832-47.46Ibid., 384; ‘Attwood, Matthias’, HP Commons, 1820-1832, iv. 120-7. Attwood’s successor as champion of currency reform was his protégé George Frederick Muntz, MP for Birmingham, 1840-57.