Burning the “Slippery Premier”

Historians of the Corn Law repeal has underestimated the burning of Sir Robert Peel in effigy in 1842 when he, as a prime minister, proposed a revision of the Corn Laws passed in 1815, by overemphasising the role played by such respectable opponents as the Anti-Corn Law League and Peel himself in abolishing the legislation in 1846. In contrast, the present article argues that the burning of Peel in effigy reveals how the common people became actively involved in the growth of free trade ideology characterising Britain during the second half of the nineteenth century.<br> By scrutinising a variety of sources ranging from newspaper articles to the Home Office papers, the author finds that Peel’s effigy was being ritualistically burned throughout the country, its regularity depending on local responses to the ongoing deliberations in Parliament. Moreover, the burnings show how anti-Corn Law sentiment stemming from popular radicalism and political economy was being expressed in traditional forms of popular protest, such as the so-called “rough music”, in sync with more “sophisticated” forms of opposition, like associations and formal political platforms, in the midst of the social and political crisis plaguing Britain during the early 1840s.<br> 　 While it is indeed true that the effigy burnings brought about no decisive impact on either Parliament or public opinion, due to repugnance felt by more “respectable” reformers to its cruel and violent nature, the acts nevertheless functioned as a conduit through which the novel idea of free trade took root in the plebeian world. This article is therefore an attempt to contribute to the discussion over free trade as a part of the British national identity （see Frank Trentmann, Free Trade Nation）, representing not only an economic policy issue, but also an overarching ideology framing Britain’s political, social and religious life during the mid-and later Victorian era.