PREFACE In saying good-bye to Hovell in July 1916 I learned from him that he had almost finished the first draft of the book on which he had been working for several years, and I promised that, should the fortune of war go against him, I would do my best to get it ready for publication. Within a few weeks I was unhappily called upon to redeem my word. Mrs. Hovell put into my hands all the material that her husband left behind. I was delighted to find that it contained a fairly complete draft history of the Chartist Movement up to the summer of 1842, written out so neatly in his beautiful hand that it would have made good printer's "copy" as it stood. I read it with interest, and concluded that with a certain amount of trouble it could be made eminently worthy of publication. But the Chartists were far too remote from my general line of work to give me confidence in my own judgment, especially as it was biassed by friendship and sympathy. Accordingly I showed the draft to my colleague, Professor Muir, and to Professor Graham Wallas, both of whom confirmed my favourable impression. Publication accordingly was resolved upon. It remained to prepare the book for the press. As a first step I was advised by Mr. Wallas to submit the manuscript to Mr. Julius West, the author of a recently completed History of Chartism, whose publication is only delayed by war conditions. Mr. West has been kind enough to go through the whole manuscript and also to read the proofs. His help has been of great service, not only in correcting errors, resolving doubts, and removing occasional repetitions, but also in advising as to the form which the publication was to take. He also drew up the basis of the bibliography. Mr. West informs me that his study and Hovell's have some points of almost complete agreement, notably where both differ from recent German writings. It is hardly needful to say that Mr. West had come to his conclusions before this book had been put in his hands. The final preparation for publication I undertook myself. I had discussed the progress of the book so often with Hovell that I pretty well knew the lines on which he was working. He was one of the most scholarly and systematic note-makers that I have ever known, and the numerous note-books and his great store of carefully prepared and neatly tabulated slips afforded copious material for carrying to the end the task of revision. With their aid I have revised the whole book with some care. There was little to do with the earlier part save to add a few notes from the manuscript material, and carry still further the process which Mr. West had begun. My difficulties were greater with the concluding chapters, which were put together, I suspect, under the adverse conditions of active preparation for military service, and therefore became increasingly incomplete until their abrupt conclusion in May 1842. Here more revision, amplification, and correction were necessary, but even here I felt it my duty to treat with the utmost respect all that Hovell had written. If I have erred, it is in the direction of leaving things as I found them. I must, however, emphasise the fact that what Hovell left behind him was a rough draft, not a book ready for the press. He had not completed even the digestion of his material. Much less had he given it the literary form which would have satisfied his critical spirit. Accordingly, what is here published is not what the author meant to see the light. Had he lived, it would have been much more definitive in its scholarship and much more polished in its style. I hope, however, that it will be recognised that the work was too good to put aside, and that it may be received by readers not only as a memorial of a brilliant career prematurely ended, but as a serious contribution to the literature of a great subject. I must now speak of the parts of the book for which I am solely responsible. These are the Introduction, in which I have tried to sketch Hovell's character and achievement, and the long concluding chapter, which carries the history of Chartism from the failure of the Petition of 1842 down to its slow extinction in the course of the 'fifties. Dealing with the latter first, I may say that it was the result of my increasing unwillingness, as I warmed to the work of revision, to publish the book with its end-so to say-in the air. Though it is a bad thing to attempt to finish another man's book, it is a worse thing to publish a posthumous volume so incomplete that it has little chance of filling its proper niche in literature. I knew, too, that Hovell regarded the period which he had not covered in his draft as strictly the epilogue of the Chartist Movement, since the Chartists had done their best work by 1842. Accordingly when he gave a course of six popular lectures on the Chartists he devoted only one of the series to the period after 1842. Fortunately his note-books and "fiches" contain copious material for carrying the narrative to its final conclusion, and suggested the general lines on which he had wished that it should be worked out. I have also made much use of three treatises by Messrs. Rosenblatt, Slosson, and Faulkner, published in 1916 in the Columbia University Studies in History, and also of M. Dolléans' elaborate book on Le Chartisme, all of which have been published too recently to be available for Hovell. How far I have succeeded it is not for me to say, but it gave me real pleasure in making the attempt; and I have spared no pains in carrying it through. In these days of universal warfare the Chartists seem a long way removed from us, but they are at least a good deal nearer actuality than the problems of fourteenth-century administration which under ordinary circumstances would have had a first claim upon my time. A veteran can hardly find a more acceptable war task than doing what in him lies to fill up a void in scholarship which the sacrifice of battle has occasioned. It was in this spirit that I have attempted a short appreciation of Hovell himself. This is based partly upon material b provided by friends, for whose help I am very grateful, but mainly on personal knowledge and a large number of letters which Hovell wrote to the lady who is now his widow, and to myself. It would have been interesting to have published more of these letters, but we thought that brevity was the sounder policy. It would have been easy, too, for me to have let myself go more freely than I have ventured to do, but here again reticence seemed the best. As I pen these concluding lines I think not only of Hovell himself, but of the many ardent and gallant souls of which he was the type, and in particular of the many contemporaries, comrades, and pupils of his own, and the sadly increasing band of those younger members of the Manchester history school, who have gone on the same path and met the same fate. The next generation will be the poorer for their loss. In conclusion, I must thank other willing helpers, notably Mr. J. L. Paton, High Master of Manchester Grammar School, Mr. William Elliott, History Lecturer in the Manchester Municipal Training College, Mr. Mercer, Head Master of the Moston Lane Municipal School, the Rev. T. E. McCormick, Vicar of St. Mary's, Ashton-on-Mersey, and Hovell's sister, Mrs. Gresty, for biographical information. Professor Unwin, my colleague, has been good enough to go carefully through the proofs, and has made many useful suggestions and corrections. Finally I must express my special thanks to Mrs. Mark Hovell for the help she has given me at every stage of our sad task. I should add also that the manuscript material left behind by Hovell, his note-books and "fiches," have been deposited by Mrs. Hovell in the Manchester University Library, where they will be available for future workers on the same field. The bibliography, originally drafted by Mr. West, has been amplified by myself in the light of Hovell's notes and of a rough bibliography found among his papers, and with special reference to what has been added to the work since it left Mr. West's hands. The index has been compiled by Mrs. Hovell. The photograph of the author is reproduced by kind permission of Mr. J. Lafayette, Deansgate, Manchester. T. F. TOUT. MANCHESTER, December 1917. The National Charter-Its preamble-Six Points and minor provisions-Its programme of Parliamentary Reform-Origins of 1815-1840 the critical years of the Industrial Revolution- |