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American Morris Newsletter
Volume 25,
Number 1 |
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by Andrew Bullen
There are many reasons for the demise of pre-revival Morris traditions caused by the profound forces acting upon England in general:
Whole theses, books and careers
have been based upon the changes in European and English society brought about
in the mid-18th to late 19th centuries. I also believe, though, that two acts of
law helped spell the Demise.
The first of these was a nasty piece of legislation enacted in George I's reign,
1723, 9 Geo. I, c. 22, known colloquially as the Waltham Black Act. It had been
drafted to deal with some minor agrarian uprisings near Waltham Chase in
Hampshire in which a group of laborers had burned hay stacks and poached fish
and game. According to Leon Radzinowicz ,"There is hardly a criminal act
which did not come within the provisions of the Black Act; offences against
public order, against the administration of criminal justice, against property,
against the person, malicious injuries to property of varying degree - all came
under this statute and all were punishable by death. Thus the Act constituted in
itself a complete and extremely severe criminal code. ... It is very doubtful
whether any other country possessed a criminal code with anything like so many
capital provisions as there were in this single statute." If one was
convicted for violating one of myriad provisions of this act, one could at best
pray for deportation to America and later Australia; death by hanging was a very
real possibility. Hanoverian England believed that the best maintenance of
social order was to instill terror in the general population, the "loose
and disorderly sort of people" cited by Lord Hardwicke
as being the main
culprits of crime. A provision of the act made it illegal-- in fact, a capital
offense-- to appear "in disguise, either by mask or by blackened
face." One could literally be hanged for appearing on the High Street with
a sooty or otherwise blackened face. This was, of course, meant to protect a
pre-police force society from bandits, anarchists, and highway robbers like the
infamous Dick Turpin.
The second set of legislation that may have had some effect was more
well-intentioned, if not any less devastating in its effect. The Poor Laws were actually a series of legislative
initiatives dating back to 1601. The 1601 laws, known commonly as the
Elizabethan Poor Laws, placed the burden of caring for the poor on the parish
"of their settlement." Local taxes and church relief were raised for
the support of the poor and sick. The parish of settlement was generally the
parish of birth, or of the husband's birth. Morris traditions found themselves
in many instances turned towards the purpose of relief and fund raising for the
poor. Dr. Robert Plot, in A Natural History of Staffordshire, 1686, wrote that
the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance was performed for charity:
"To this Hobby Horse dance there also belong'd a pot, which was kept by
turnes, by four or five of the cheif of the town, whom they call'd Reeves, who
provided cakes and ale to put in this pot; all people who had any kindness for
the good intent of the institution of the sport, giving pence apiece for
themselves and families; and so forraigners too, that came to see it: with which
mony (the charge of the cakes and ale being defrayed) they not only repaired
their church but kept their poore too: which charges are not now perhaps so
cheerfully boarn."
All this changed with the so-called New Poor Laws of 1834, which removed much of
the burden of caring for the poor from the parish and placed it onto the state.
These new, "more caring" poor laws gave the world the workhouse,
incidentally, with all of its Dickensian horrors; provisions of these laws
continued until 1930.
So how did these two bits of legislative zeal-- the Black Acts of 1723 and the
Poor Laws of 1834-- help bring about the Demise? First, I believe that, by
making it illegal to appear in public in disguise or black face, the draconian
provisions of the Black Act had a chilling effect on traditions that depended
upon ritual disguise. The Act was enforced with particular vigilance in rural
parts of the country, as the landed gentry feared for their property and wealth
before an imagined mob of rioters, anarchists, and brigands; much of the Act dealt with
penalties to rural and agricultural properties. Rural areas were precisely the
areas where Morris ritual celebrations were performed.
The Poor Laws may have also helped put a final "nail in the coffin" to
Morris rituals. Why spend the tremendous effort of organizing, rehearsing, and
performing an annual ritual celebration when one of the main reasons that it was done--
relief of the poor and charity towards the indigent-- was no longer necessary?
Pitofsky, Alex,
"The Warden's Court Martial: James Oglethorpe and the Politics of Eighteenth-Century Prison Reform"
Eighteenth-Century Life - Volume 24, Number 1, Winter 2000, pp. 88-102
Duke University Press
Cited in a letter
to Robert Peel. More about Hardwicke can be found at http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/terrace/adw03/pms/goderich.htm
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