Protest and change

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The leaders of the Anti-Corn Law League were Richard Cobden and John Bright.

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Source A is useful because it gives a vivid first-hand account of working conditions in a textile factory. Elizabeth Bentley started work at the age of six, worked from 5 in the morning until 9 at night when trade was busy, was beaten with a strap by the overlooker if she was slow, and says that the work left her deformed. This shows child labour, extremely long hours, harsh discipline and serious damage to workers' health. It fits other evidence that young children were employed as doffers and piecers in the mills, and it was this kind of evidence that led to the Factory Act of 1833, which banned children under 9 from textile mills and limited the hours of older children.

The provenance both strengthens and weakens the source. It was evidence given to a parliamentary committee, so it is detailed and personal, and Bentley was describing her own experience. However, the committee was chaired by Michael Sadler, a leading campaigner for a ten-hour day, who chose witnesses whose stories supported his bill. Mill owners complained that the evidence was one-sided and had not been properly tested, and they persuaded the government to set up a Royal Commission in 1833. That commission found that some of the evidence had been exaggerated, although it agreed that children worked very long hours. Bentley also describes only one flax mill, and flax mills were among the worst, and her hours were for busy periods only. Conditions varied: some employers, such as Robert Owen at New Lanark, offered shorter hours and schooling.

Overall, Source A is useful for showing how bad conditions could be for children in textile factories in the early 1830s, but because it was chosen to support a campaign and describes only one worker, it is less useful for showing how typical such conditions were.

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One similarity is that both campaigns used boycotts - economic pressure by ordinary people - to fight racial injustice. In 1791, after Parliament rejected Wilberforce's bill to abolish the slave trade, hundreds of thousands of people in Britain stopped buying sugar grown by enslaved people on Caribbean plantations, and some shops advertised sugar that had not been produced by slaves. In 1963 the Bristol Omnibus Company refused to employ Black and Asian people as drivers and conductors. Paul Stephenson and the West Indian Development Council, inspired by the Montgomery Bus Boycott in the USA, called on people not to use the city's buses. In both cases campaigners used the power of consumers to put pressure on those who profited from racial injustice.

A second similarity is that both campaigns brought together Black campaigners and white supporters and used publicity to win public opinion, which led to changes in the law. In the 18th century Black writers such as Olaudah Equiano worked alongside Quakers and evangelicals such as Thomas Clarkson and William Wilberforce, and the campaign used petitions, pamphlets and images like the plan of the slave ship Brookes. In 1963 students from Bristol University marched in support of the boycott, the local MP Tony Benn and the Labour leader Harold Wilson spoke out against the colour bar, and the national press covered the story. Both campaigns succeeded: the slave trade was abolished in 1807 and slavery in 1833, and on 28 August 1963 the bus company ended the colour bar. The boycott also helped to build support for the Race Relations Act of 1965, which banned racial discrimination in public places, and the 1968 Act, which extended this to housing and employment.

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The economy has had a major influence on whether protest and reform movements succeeded in Britain. Economic circumstances often decided how much support protesters had, how much money they could raise and how strongly employers and governments could resist. However, the economy was rarely the main factor on its own: organisation, ideas, religion and the attitude of government often decided how far economic opportunities were used.

In some cases economic factors clearly helped movements to succeed. The Anti-Corn Law League was funded by wealthy manufacturers, which paid for its lecturers, newspapers and millions of pamphlets, and repeal in 1846 suited the needs of Britain's industrial economy. In 1888 and 1889 trade was booming, so the match girls at Bryant and May and the London dockers were able to win, because their employers wanted to restart work quickly. Even when protest failed, economic forces could achieve its aims: the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 was crushed, but the labour shortage after the Black Death gave peasants bargaining power and serfdom declined over the following century.

Economic factors also explain many failures. Chartism faded in the 1850s as wages rose and food became cheaper. The Grand National Consolidated Trades Union collapsed in 1834 when employers locked out union members. In 1926 the General Strike collapsed after nine days, and the miners were eventually forced back to work by hunger; in 1984-85 the miners' strike failed in an industry already in decline, against a government that had built up large coal stocks.

However, other factors were often more important. The abolition of the slave trade in 1807 and slavery in 1833 is sometimes explained by economic decline in the Caribbean, but many historians argue that slavery was still profitable and that the campaign succeeded because of religion and humanitarian ideas - the Quakers and evangelicals - and because of brilliant organisation by Thomas Clarkson and the parliamentary persistence of William Wilberforce. Factory reform succeeded despite economic arguments: mill owners claimed that shorter hours would ruin industry, but Lord Ashley and the Ten Hours Movement won the Factory Acts because of moral pressure and evidence.

The attitude of government was often decisive. The reformed Parliament after 1832 passed the abolition of slavery and the Factory Act in 1833, and the Liberal governments of 1906-11 responded to evidence of poverty. But governments also crushed protests regardless of economic conditions, as Henry VIII did in 1537 and as Wellington's preparations did in 1848. War could be even more powerful: the First World War transformed the chances of the women's suffrage campaign and led to the Act of 1918.

Overall, the economy has been very important because it shaped the resources and support of protesters and the willingness of employers and governments to give way. But it was not the main factor across the whole period, because campaigns such as the abolition of slavery and factory reform succeeded mainly through religion, ideas, organisation and political pressure, and governments often decided the outcome whatever the economic conditions.