ABSTRACT
The old tradition of West Riding radicalism, which had been so vigorous in the forties, had by the eighties become sub merged beneath the overwhelming tide of Liberal complacency. The organizations of the working class-their trade unions, friendly societies, and cooperative societies-remained intact, but had for the most part become sufficiently saturated with social liberalism to make them agencies of self-help rather than radical challenge. The memories of Oastler and the Short Time Committees and of the Chartists were cherished; in later life the first generation of young socialists-Ben Turner, Fred Jowett, Philip Snowden-acknowledged the formative influence of their fathers, men who were admirers of Ernest Jones, who read Reynolds' and the National Reformer, and who were staunch cooperators. But the majority of the old Chartists had long since made their peace with Liberalism and been absorbed into its Radical wing. They met only to reminisce about the old days and pass votes of thanks ' to Mr. Gladstone and his government for passing into law those principles which we have endeavoured during a long life to enjoy'.1 At the time of the Chartist agita tion 'they were all poor working men earning low wages' , but now many of them had become 'men of business and in some cases employers of labour, and a few by economy, industry, and temperance have secured a competency for their old age'. In the dominant trade of the area, textiles, trade unions were weak, and mainly restricted to skilled workers. When Ben Turner joined the Huddersfield Weavers' Union in 1882 it was so weak that it could not even collect regular contributions: ' i t was really playing at Trades Unionism, but was as far advanced as the old Radical section felt able to go'.2 There had been trades councils in half a dozen towns of the West Riding in the sixties and seventies, but only those in Leeds and Bradford survived into the eighties. Yet within the ten years 1883-93 the whole climate of the West Riding changed-old unions were revivified, hundreds of unorganized workers were recruited into new unions, a political labour party was established, and the working-class movement became enthused and militant. Such was the effect of the dynamic of socialism.
