Sir Arthur Helps and the Making of Victorianism [1 ed.] 9781443863698, 9781443851534

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Sir Arthur Helps and the Making of Victorianism

Sir Arthur Helps and the Making of Victorianism

By

Stephen L. Keck

Sir Arthur Helps and the Making of Victorianism By Stephen L. Keck This book first published 2013 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2013 by Stephen L. Keck All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-5153-1, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-5153-4

TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface ....................................................................................................... vi Acknowledgments ................................................................................... viii A Note on Sources ..................................................................................... xi Chapter One ................................................................................................ 1 Introduction: A Thoroughly Original Style Chapter Two ............................................................................................. 26 A Writer of Extraordinary Promise Chapter Three ........................................................................................... 50 Bound by Sacred Duty: Biographical Factors Chapter Four ............................................................................................. 75 We are Bound to Make Great Efforts Chapter Five ............................................................................................. 94 More at Hazard for Mankind Than had Ever Occurred Before Chapter Six ............................................................................................. 128 The Supreme Importance of Little Things Chapter Seven......................................................................................... 159 Sustaining the Public Sphere: Clerk of the Privy Council Chapter Eight .......................................................................................... 190 Presenting Queen Victoria Chapter Nine........................................................................................... 228 Conclusion: A Man of Two Lives Bibliography ........................................................................................... 233 Index ....................................................................................................... 240

PREFACE This book actually began many years ago in the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York city when I was researching John Ruskin’s historical thought. I remember reading Ruskin’s personal letter to someone named Arthur Helps and realised that I knew nothing about the man to whom one of Victorian Britain’s most famous critics was writing. Accordingly, I started a search which began to uncover not only the relationship between the men, but much more. Helps was not only forgotten, but had largely chosen to become so. More importantly, perhaps, as a writer, activist, civil servant, historian and friend to many significant persons, especially Queen Victoria, he had been a very prominent figure in the mid-Victorian firmament. And, at least as compelling, his story had never been told, and so he had in essence become nearly invisible to the history of his times. Making Helps visible again became my agenda because I believe that one of the fundamental obligations of a historian is to recover the historical record where it may have been lost or become marginalised. Professional historians usually get to do research on only a small fraction of the things which interest them, but some topics are compelling because it may only be a historian who is able to address them. It may not be obvious, but practicing historians have ethical responsibilities which come with the professionalisation of the discipline. Too much time and training have been invested in the making of a historian for them not to be intellectually and socially accountable in some way. In my case, it became an ethical ambition to recover Helps for history, because I reasoned if I did not, it might never happen. With the naïveté, then, that can possibly only come with a recently completed D.Phil. at Oxford, I began to contemplate a project which would make Helps reappear. With the assistance and patience of Cambridge Scholars Publishing, I decided to make Helps visible so that his ideas and career might be studied. The methodology of recovery—including first checking the index of virtually every book with any connection to the Victorians—became well known to me. In fact, checking indexes became a habit, and possibly an occupational hazard. Since Yale University generously makes its stacks available to visiting scholars, this involved going through a great number of indexes and periodicals. It turned out that many of Helps’ writings were available, even if their physical condition was quite uneven. Happily

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enough, the wave of digitisation made accessing Helps’ writings possible even as I lived and worked in places such as Singapore and Sharjah (United Arab Emirates). Additionally, research trips to the UK assisted me in reconstructing a more complete picture of Helps’ life and thought. Furthermore, I am unapologetic about writing what is an unashamedly old fashioned book. That is, while I am comfortable connecting the subject to recent and present scholarly interests, this book has had a more straightforward aim—namely, to let Arthur Helps speak. To that end, I have relied more upon quotations than I might have otherwise, and the book’s chapters try to tell stories which go a way towards identifying their subject. Yet, because Helps was an important figure in nineteenth-century Britain, it should be possible that those, whose scholarship is informed by more immediate concerns, will find this volume useful, despite its limitations. Finally, Arthur Helps was born on July 10, which is the day that I was married to Samantha in Singapore. Such a coincidence should clinch any decision about whom to dedicate the book. The years of marriage have been wonderful and have doubtless given Samantha the patience to wait for my next book—which will be dedicated to her. Sir Arthur Helps and the Making of Victorianism is dedicated to my father, Leander E. Keck who has supported this project from that first day when I came home from the Pierpont Morgan Library with a good deal to talk and think about. My father will be eighty-five when this book comes into print, and, like Arthur Helps, he organised many aspects of his life around scholarship, service and family. Growing up, I could not have enjoyed a better teacher, role model and, ultimately, friend, and so this first book is dedicated to him.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I want to begin by acknowledging Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for allowing me to quote directly from the manuscripts in the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle. Credit also goes to Helen Clark and her colleagues at Windsor for all their support. I have looked forward to adding that every archival researcher would do well to have a topic for which they must go to Windsor, because the experience was so pleasant. With respect to archival materials, I am also indebted to the librarians at the Pierpont Morgan Library, the Beinecke Library at Yale University, the British Library and Trinity College, University of Cambridge. I want to also thank the Interlibrary Loan Department at the American University of Sharjah, who made it possible for me to read a number of important secondary sources, while working in the United Arab Emirates. I have benefitted enormously from the response that I received from papers that focused on Arthur Helps which I delivered in conferences. In particular, I want to thank Ronald D. Cassell, Theodore Koditschek, Martin Hewett and Richard Bodek for their feedback in these situations. At Oxford I was very fortunate to have the excellent supervision of Jose Harris and Dinah Birch, who recognised the possible importance of the project and encouraged its development. I should also add that I will be forever grateful to be a member St. Peter’s College, Oxford; it was there that we all benefited from the leadership of Gerald Aylmer, who served as Master. He was also encouraging to me at an early stage of this project. St. Peter’s also had a vibrant graduate community which included a number of historians. Out of that group Steve Lee stands out for his support, friendship and skill as a colleague. I was no less fortunate to be a member of the Department of History of the College of Charleston. A number of my colleagues were again helpful, and I want to mention Bernard Powers, Peter McCandless, Richard Bodek, Bill Olejniczak, Amy McCandless and Frans and Katherine von Liere in particular. At the National University of Singapore I benefitted greatly from the wisdom and guidance of many talented historians. Brian Farrell and Malcolm Murfett stand out among those whose support for this project was the strongest. I would also like to acknowledge that I learned a great deal along the way from Maurizio Peleggi, Paul Kratoska, Gregory

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Clancey, Huang Jianli, Ian Gordon, Tim Bernard, Peter Borschberg and Tan Tai Yong. Since 2006 I have had the pleasure of being a member of the Department of International Studies at the American University of Sharjah. I want to thank all of my colleagues in the department and call attention to the support that I have received from its historians: Richard Gassan, Tom DeGeorges and Pernille Arenfeldt. It was also useful to team teach with Sabrina Tabhoub-Schulte, who was a great and positive stimulus in organisation and time management. Pia Anderson has been a great friend and marvellous source of wit and wisdom. More generally, I have benefitted from having a number of colleagues who have collectively made a difference in my research. This group includes some such as Jeremy Bendik-Keymer, Marcello Fiocco, Jamila Abu Bakar, Neil Partrick, Neemia Noori and Isa Blumi who are no longer members of the department; Nada Mourtada-Sabah, Antoliy Kharkhurin, Mark Aveyard , Angela Maitner, David Lea, Kevin Gray, Arianne Conty, Meenaz Kassam, Yuting Wang, Ravindaran Sriramachandran, James Sater, Karen Young and Line Khatib. The support of senior administrators is often underrated, but not by this author. In particular, the leadership of both Peter Heath and Winfred Thomspon and Chancellors Provost Thomas Hochstettler, John Mosbo and Kevin Mitchell have all ensured that AUS has continued to thrive. Deans William Heidcamp and Mark Rush have been important as well. Flor Khattab has been generally helpful and provided assistance with the formatting of a number of my drafts. Outside INS, Joseph Gibbs has been a great colleague and motivator. It was a pleasure to thank Her Majesty the Queen, and it is a much greater one to acknowledge my debt to His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan Bin Mohammad Al Qassimi whose vision, leadership and deep commitment to both humane letters and improving the peoples of the United Arab Emirates enabled the American University of Shajah not only to develop, but to flourish and lead. Three institutions have provided funds which have made it possible to complete this project. The College of Charleston assisted its development by enabling me to attend conferences where I could begin by presenting papers on Helps. The National University of Singapore made it possible for me to spend part of the summer of 2003 at the Public Record Office in Kew, the British Library and Trinity College, Cambridge. Finally, a Seed Grant from the American University of Sharjah enabled me to go to the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle in 2008.

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These institutions have also enabled me to have the privilege of teaching hundreds of wonderful students. These students have not only enriched my life, but in teaching them history, made me a better historian. Cambridge Scholars Publishing has enabled me to bring this project to fruition. I want to personally thank Carol Koulikourdi and Amanda Millar, as they have been helpful in a number of ways. Let me also commend Graham Clarke for his fine eye as a proofreader. His work has been very important in the final stages of this publication. Last, I want to thank my family, in particular my father, Leander E. Keck, to whom the book is dedicated, and my brother David Keck, who has made a bigger difference in the success of this project than he might have realised. Most important has been my wife, Samantha, who has given more time to this project than anyone should have to, reading draft chapters and the manuscript twice. More importantly, she has been a great source of assistance—she has challenged assumptions, nurtured and stimulated my ideas and, best of all, remained an inspiration to me. Sir Arthur Helps and the Making of Victorianism has been a pleasure to write, but it will not be the first monograph to have limitations. I am happy to acknowledge that these shortcomings are my work alone.

A NOTE ON SOURCES The sources used for this monograph are largely self-evident because they include both primary and secondary material. Many of these sources are familiar to specialists, but with respect to Arthur Helps’ publications a few preliminary remarks are in order. To begin with, scholars who work on Helps do so without any kind of standard edition of his works. In fact, there is no catalogue of Helps’ publications, which many of his contemporaries regarded as considerable. Therefore, this study will use Helps’ writings which were published in both Britain and North America. In most cases, preference will be given to the earliest edition, but some choices have been made by availability of the books. One exception is The Spanish Conquest in America; and its Relation to the History of Slavery and to the Government of Colonies (New York & London, 1900-04), which will be used as Conquerors of the New World and Their Bondsmen (1848–1852). A number of libraries have Helps’ earliest books, but in some cases their condition made using later editions preferable. For this study, then, there is an Appendix of Helps’ publications with the earliest date listed. There will also be a separate set of references in the bibliography which specifies the particular publication of Helps’ cited in the monograph.

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION: A THOROUGHLY ORIGINAL STYLE Up to this point, Sir Arthur Helps—early Cambridge Apostle, social reformer, literary figure, historian, Clerk of the Privy Council and trusted advisor to Queen Victoria—has succeeded in becoming anonymous to history. This prominent, possibly eminent Victorian who was both deemed significant and whose influence was widespread, deliberately sought oblivion. Helps’ effort stemmed partly from his tendency to value selfeffacement; however, he had a more important and even stronger reason to evade history—the primary motivation was that he was aware that any type of biography would probably fit into the genre of “life and letters,” opening up his private life for public inspection. In all probability, Helps had little to hide: his greatest setbacks appear to have been some ungenerous book reviews and financial mismanagement. Yet, the course of Helps’ life had brought him into intimate contact with some of the most prominent and fascinating figures of the nineteenth century. Helps had been close not only to the Queen, but also to Lord Palmerston, Benjamin Disraeli, Lord Ripon, Frederick Dennison Maurice, Charles Kingsley, Thomas Carlyle, George Eliot, George Lewes, Anthony Froude, John Ruskin and many other key persons. Since he foresaw that the publication of his papers would compromise, if not violate the trusts of these public figures, he chose to have many, if not most, of his private papers, notebooks and letters destroyed after his death.1 From the point of view of scholarship, this loss was undoubtedly significant. Not only did Helps manage to become invisible to subsequent generations of Victorian scholars, but he probably closed useful avenues of enquiry for students of the period, particularly those interested in Queen Victoria and midnineteenth-century intellectual life.

Helps’ Reputation If Sir Arthur Helps was lost to the generations which followed him, he was well known in his day. Helps’ reputation changed somewhat over the

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course of his life, but even though he was probably less well regarded in 1875 than he was in the previous decade, his death still merited considerable attention. More importantly, it is clear from book reviews, memoirs and the surviving correspondence of key figures and his publications, that Helps was a fairly eminent figure in Victorian Britain; that is, from the mid-1840s until his death in 1875. Helps was not only prominent but well connected. He could count among his friends the Royal family and just about every major political or literary figure in Britain. In addition, it is clear that in reviewing some select instances from his life, Helps had played a prominent and at times significant role in the nation’s public affairs. Accordingly, it is possible to document his impact as a “public moralist,” literary stylist, historian and civil servant. To begin with, Helps was regarded as an important writer in the middle decades of the nineteenth century. In the January 1875 issue of Macmillan’s Magazine, Thomas Hughes reviewed Helps’ Social Pressure (1875). Writing only a few months prior to Helps’ death, Hughes’ review already carried the hint of obituary, as he placed Social Pressure into a retrospective view of Helps’ career. Hughes held that Carlyle had been the dominant presence in addressing the question of the “condition of England.” Helps belonged to a smaller phalanx of writers who helped to shape public debate. In fact, Hughes claimed that Helps might challenge: Carlyle as to the priority, for his “Claims of Labour” (unless our memory is at fault) was published shortly before “Past and Present” … from that time he has worked with rare industry, ability, and persistence, in the same field. His persistence, indeed, has more than once drawn the fire of unfriendly criticism on his books. We have had these “friends in council,” it has been said, ad nauseam; they have discussed these same topics over and over again, only clothing them, for decency’s sake, in slightly new forms. When will they take their farewell benefit? “Never,” we hope Sir A. Helps would reply, “as long as these great social problems remain unsolved—until the conditions of life of all English citizens have been made as satisfactory as they can be on this confused planet.”2

Ralph Waldo Emerson, already regarded in the 1840s as one of America’s most significant thinkers, famously toured Britain where he met Helps, whom he described as “omniscient,”3 and complained that British newspapers, principally The Times, did not contain pieces among wellinformed men such as “Milnes, Carlyle, Helps, Gregg, [and] Forster.”4 The publication of The Claims of Labour (1845), and the two volume Friends in Council (1847), established his reputation as an essayist, wit and social reformer.

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At mid-century, Helps was emerging as a writer whose literary style was itself indicative of a thoughtful and wise point of view. The reviewer for Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal recommended Helps for readers who have an “enlarged observation of human life,” because his perspective drew upon wide experience for wisdom and practical advice.5 More important, perhaps, Helps had a distinctive style: All Mr. Helps’s writings have been published anonymously; and it is only within the last two years that he has become known out of his own circle, to be the author … It is a thoroughly original style, in the sense of being a correct representation of the author’s cast of intellect and character. Moreover, it seems to us to be the true style of a gentleman—not one of the “mob of gentlemen that write with ease”—but of an extensively informed, sincere cultivated man of the world; using the term “world,” not signifying “worldly,” but in its widest and most authentic meaning—as one who knows and understands the world. In purity of diction, clearness, ease, pith brightness, and variety, it is well-nigh as perfect as any style can be. Shrewder critics than ourselves might possibly detect “faults” in it, but, for our part, we have as yet been unable to discover any which it would not be sheer trifling to mention.6

However, many readers found Helps’ insistence of moral considerations to be more important than his powers of detachment and observation. William Whewell, like many Victorians, found Helps’ moral voice to be attractive: “I would rather read of the Councils for averting moral than physical evil.”7 While Leslie Stephen did not use the term public moralist, he identified Helps’ significance in much the same way. Stephen regarded Helps as a secular preacher: The “middle,” originally an article upon some not strictly political topic [writes Stephen] had grown in their hands into a kind of lay sermon. For such literature the British public has shown a considerable avidity ever since the days of Addison. In spite of occasional disavowals, it really loves a sermon, and is glad to hear preachers who are not bound by the proprieties of the religious pulpit. At this period the most popular of the lay preachers was probably Sir Arthur Helps, who provided the kind of material—genuine thought set forth with real literary skill and combined with much popular sentiment—which served to convince his readers that they were intelligent people. The “Saturday Review-ers” in their quality of “cynics,” could not go so far in the direction of the popular taste; and their bent was rather to expose than to endorse some of the common-places which are dear to the intelligent reader.8

If contemporaries such as Leslie Stephen saw Helps as a champion lay preacher, later Victorians could recall turning to his writings for wise

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counsel. To cite one instance, Lucy Soulsby, author and headmistress of Oxford High School, advocated the creation of a collection of sources for practical wisdom. Along with the works of Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Gratian, the book of Ecclesiasticus, Trench’s book on Proverbs, and Sir Henry Taylor’s Notes on Life, Soulsby commented: “Those of a philosophical turn may read Kant and Hegel, but all would find life easier for the mild metaphysics and shrewd wisdom of Friends in Council.”9 For both Soulsby and Stephen, then, Helps was valuable because he emphasised practical advice as an important resource for public morality. Helps was held in high regard as a prose stylist and, even when his readers praised his writing, they often acknowledged that his style was connected to larger social concerns. For example, the philosopher Alexander Bain (1818–1903) may not have directly appealed to Helps as a public intellectual, but long before Friends in Council appeared he was impressed by Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd. This early work evinces both Helps’ experience as an Apostle and reflects the set of elitist presuppositions which often characterised the discourse of the public moralist: namely, that while the problems which define modern society start with the crowd, it is the thought in the cloister that must make a key, if not decisive, contribution to their resolution. Bain explained that he was greatly struck with Helps’ first major work, Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd, and he had the “occasion to peruse Helps’ more mature writings, and to utilise them as illustrations in rhetoric.”10 Elizabeth Gaskell would tell Marianne Gaskell that Helps’ work was valuable: Those in Friends in Council & are admirable examples of how much may be said on both sides of any question, without any (dogma) decision being finally arrived at, & certainly without any dogmatism.11

Just as Stephen recognised Helps as a lay preacher, Gaskell understood that the value of his writings lay in their ability to approach public questions from a number of vantage points. Like others who might write and later be dubbed public moralists, Helps’ works appeared in a relatively wide selection of periodicals. Frederick Greenwood recruited Helps, along with Froude and Charles Kingsley, to write for the Pall Mall Gazette12 because he possessed the “gentle wisdom of words.”13 Writing about a number of moral issues, Helps’ works also appeared in the following: the Spectator, Cornhill’s Magazine, Good Words, Macmillan’s Magazine, the Contemporary Review, the Quarterly Review and Fraser’s Magazine. However, it would be Ruskin who would elevate Helps to an even higher plain:

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I should be very sorry if I had not been continually taught and influenced by the writers whom I love; and am quite unable to say to what extent my thoughts have been guided by Wordsworth, Carlyle, and Helps; to whom (with Dante and George Herbert, in old time) I owe more than to any other writers … there are things which I hope are said more clearly and simply than before, owing to the influence upon me of the beautiful quiet English of Helps.14

Beyond the quiet English, Helps’ significance as a public moralist was not confined to specific formulations about the burning issues of the day. Indeed, his dialogues assured Victorians that these questions—many of which produced considerable anxiety—could be approached from a variety of angles. As the musician and critic John Hullah (1812–1884) noted in his obituary tribute, Helps “habitually checked in himself and others sweeping conclusions respecting anything or anybody. He had something to say for the worst cause, and—which is less common, because far more difficult—for the worst man. His consideration for the ‘other side’ seemed sometimes excessive.”15 That is, Helps’ achievement was to insist that there was a safe, civil tone in which many fractious questions might be discussed. Above all, Helps aimed to impart a message which was at once subtle and humane. In addition to being a master rhetorician and essayist, Helps would have been recognisable to Victorians as a historian and biographer. Macaulay urged Palmerston to appoint Helps to the vacant Regius Professorship of History at Cambridge. Since Helps had treated some “interesting and important portions of modern history … ably and popularly,” Macaulay was confident that appointment by Palmerston would be applauded by the public.16 However, Helps turned down the Regius Professorship to concentrate on literary pursuits. The obituary notice in the Saturday Review—a publication which was at times associated with Helps—outlined some of the chief achievements of his career. These included not only reference to his work as a Clerk of the Privy Council and with the Queen (examined in chapters seven and eight respectively), but his literary reputation. The Saturday Review noted that as an author: Sir Arthur Helps cultivated with unequal success two or three distinct forms of literary activity … The possibility of adding largely to human happiness by petty arrangements and minute thoughtfulness is one of the doctrines which are most constantly and systematically taught in Sir Arthur Helps’s [sic] long series of essays and dialogues … he found in the Friends in Council his proper natural mode of utterance … Soon after the publication of his first essays, Sir Arthur Helps created the well known

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Chapter One personages whose discussions on social and moral questions have amused and instructed one or two generations. Philosophic dialogue is almost as old as philosophy itself; and the form is preserved, as it was first adopted, on natural grounds of propriety and convenience. Inspired teachers, with a strong and simple message to deliver, have found no need to balance their convictions, or to distribute the expression of their opinions among different interlocutors. In controversy Plato and his imitators found the advantage of introducing representatives of the doctrines which were to be confuted, as well as of the truths which required to be substituted for error. The form of dialogue also enables authors who have not quite made up their own minds to exhibit impartially the arguments for both sides of the question. The dramatic genius of Plato has never been approached by his imitators; but Sir Arthur Helps’s “Friends in Council” are as real and credible as the Marcus or Cassius of Cicero.17

The Saturday Review’s obituary reflected the reality that for more than a generation Sir Arthur Helps was well known in Victorian Britain as a civil servant, activist and man or letters. He had achieved both wide influence and a broad readership and could count upon the most significant people in Britain as his friends. Helps may not have been regarded as a seminal thinker, but it would have been clear to his contemporaries that his influence upon public life was wide-ranging.

Biographical Considerations Despite the fact that Arthur Helps was a significant person in midnineteenth century Britain, his biography has yet to be written, partly because the obstacles to such a project remain considerable. Challenges for potential biographers arose almost immediately. Helps’ daughter Alice explained that after her father’s death she was “besieged with offers of a life.”18 Alice Helps squashed these potential biographies in deference to Arthur Helps’ wishes—she explained to her brother such a volume would necessarily involve “many things related to the Queen’s confidence.”19 Helps’ wishes had to have been known to his friends—less than six months before his death in March 1875 Helps explained to Lord Northbrook: I cannot help praising myself. There will be no papers found after my death—no diaries—containing disagreeable stories about people and telling all that I have seen and heard of strange things. I resolved from the first that there should be an instance of a man who saw and heard much that was deeply interesting, but private, and who could hold his tongue and restrain his pen, forever.20

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Nonetheless, nearly a generation and a half later, E. A. Helps, his son, (who qualifies for a footnote in history as Oswald Spengler’s translator) published what remained of his father’s correspondence in 1917. The book’s title, The Correspondence of Sir Arthur Helps, K.C.B., D.C.L., was itself telling as the son wanted the father’s knighthood (Oxford conferred the D. C. L. in 1864 and Helps received the C. B. in 1871 and the K. C. B. in 1872) to be proclaimed for all who had forgotten.21 The appearance of the letters in 1917 reflected the fact that by the new century Helps had virtually succeeded in escaping into oblivion. Many of the epistles which have been published reveal a lively conversation with many major public figures; however, these letters can only suggest the size and extent of the destroyed correspondence. In all probability this was a vast and interesting correspondence. Writing to the editor of the Spectator in March 1870, Helps thanked him for a review Casimir Maremma, adding: “I am also obliged to you for having kept my name out of the review.” He explained that this amounts to a “real service to me, I am nearly overwhelmed with correspondence.”22 Yet, if Helps was successful in erasing his private life from any kind of historical record, his extensive writings would remain available. Many of his more celebrated publications stayed in print for nearly a generation after his death; the major writings Thoughts on the Cloister and the Crowd (1835), Organization in Daily Life and Essays Written in the Intervals of Business (1841), The Claims of Labour (1845), Friends in Council (18471859), Conquerors of the New World and Their Bondsmen (1848-1852), Thoughts Upon Government (1872), Some Talk About Animals and Their Masters (1873), and Social Pressure (1875) would all be reprinted and published in different venues. Other works, such as Helps’ historical fiction and his biographies, including The Life and Labours of Mr Thomas Brassey (1872), were not reprinted as frequently. However, both the major writings and these less successful works tended to be republished in North America. Aside from his own publications, Queen Victoria’s Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands (1868), which Helps edited and promoted, went through numerous editions and continues to be read by students of both the monarchy and time period. More generally, in the twentieth century select publishers brought out fragments of Helps’ writings. Of course, there is no systematic or standardised collection of Helps’ writings which would assist scholars who might seek to understand his life or ideas. The biographical sketch which follows will recount many of the critical developments in Helps’ life in order to make his ideas and career more comprehensible. It should emerge that Helps was a relatively

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consistent figure, but a number of developments in his life proved decisive for the maturation of his outlook. In recapturing Helps’ ideas it is probably safe to say that utilising the approach of organising his thought into the categories of early or late (which might work well with other thinkers), is not particularly fruitful. Furthermore, it would be an exaggeration to say that Helps’ life fit into equally discernible phases and periods. Nonetheless, it is clear that a number of points in his life proved to be crucial: Eton, Cambridge (where he was an early Apostle), ministerial service, marriage, early publications, his life as a public moralist, his attempt to create an Owen-like experiment which led to financial ruin, and his appointment as Clerk of the Privy Council where he would befriend both Prince Albert and Queen Victoria, ultimately making him both a literary figure and trusted advisor to the Queen.

Biographical Sketch While there was a strong autobiographical component in Helps’ writings, he did not leave behind any which tell us about his childhood and early youth. Helps was born in July 1813 at Balham Hill where his family lived. We do know that his family was comfortable, as his father, Thomas Helps, was prominent in both commercial and public affairs.23 The elder Helps was the head of a large Mercantile House in London and also distinguished himself as Treasurer of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. Thomas Helps had married Ann Frisquett Plucknett, who claimed to be descended from the twelfth century Norman Hugo de Pluggenet (who in 1155 obtained from Henry II a grant to the Manor and lands of Hedendune in Berkshire), but was herself remembered for her attractive personality, cleverness and appreciation of literature. Arthur Helps was the youngest of four sons: Thomas Williams, the eldest, would become a barrister and outlive his siblings; another died in early life from injuries gained in the hunting field; the last died in middle age.24 Young Arthur Helps proved to have notable intelligence, and by the age of eight he could read Greek. It seems probable that in these years he developed a love for animals and an awareness that he was not interested in athletic activities. E. A. Helps told his readers that his father attended an unspecified preparatory school.25 Arthur Helps entered Eton (which will be discussed in the next chapter) in 1829 and received his BA from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1835 where he was made an Apostle.26 His first official occupation was as private secretary to Lord Monteagle, who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in Lord Melbourne’s government. In 1839 Helps moved to a position under Lord Morpeth, the chief

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secretary for Ireland. As we will see in chapter two, it would be in the late 1830s and 1840s that Arthur Helps developed as an author. It is evident that by this point Helps was considered to be a promising thinker. As such, he soon found himself becoming friends with many leading intellectuals. For instance, nearly a generation later Helps dedicated The Life of Hernando Cortes (1871) to Carlyle: “you first honoured me by making me your friend, I was a mere youth, while you were in the full maturity of manhood.”27 By the 1840s, then, Helps was gaining access to the likes of the Carlyles and other figures who defined many of the intellectual circles which existed in London. One of the most significant developments which took place in Helps’ development occurred with the death of his father. While it is difficult to ascertain the emotional and psychological impact of this trauma upon Helps, it almost certainly changed his life in other obvious ways. Prior to his father’s death, Helps had lived in a house in Chester Square that had been left to him. In 1843 he bought a house in Hampshire. As E. A. Helps put it, this: was a queer, old-fashioned, rambling house, called Vernon Hill, after Admiral Vernon of Portobello fame, who had lived there. It stood on the top of a hill, and commanded fine views stretching away to the Isle of Wight, with the village of Bishops-Waltham, the ruins of a palace of Henry II, and a small lake in the foreground. There were woods near, and downs, called Stephen Castle Downs.28

Helps put a significant amount of energy into Vernon Hill, adding land to the estate, enlarged the house and took up farming on a modest scale. He told his family that he preferred an estate with vast woods at the back and a mere cabstand at the front.29 This nearly idyllic setting proved to be the place where Helps resumed not only the apostolic mission (vigorous, if humorous conversations) with his friends, but the place where many of the writings which make up Friends in Council were set. The most frequent guests included Charles Kingsley, Richard and Charles Doyle, Dr. Phelps, George Lewes, W. G. Clark (public orator Cambridge), Carlyle, Theodore Martin and Thomas Woolner. In addition, Ralph Waldo Emerson made a memorable visit to Vernon Hill.30 Despite the fact that Helps was becoming settled in the countryside, the publication of The Claims of Labour (1844) illustrated that Helps had become concerned with urban social questions. This work, with its attention to the condition of labourers, social relations, sanitation and housing, was based upon both his visits to factories and Parliamentary

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reports. It was also from Vernon Hill, a location that George Lewes proclaimed to be “Helps’s hospitable and delightful mansion,”31 that Helps functioned as an activist. Like Ruskin working around Coniston (possibly imitating or drawing inspiration from Helps), Helps established friendly relations with all his poorer neighbours.32 This took many forms, including the creation of a lending library. To cite another instance, during the 1856 Christmas season, Helps constructed a theatre so that he and Lewes could perform charades for the entertainment of local families.33 Lewes would prove to be one of Vernon Hill’s most frequent guests; he was sent there to take rest in 1854 when he began to suffer from intense headaches and a range of neurological symptoms which would bedevil him for years.34 Most of Lewes’ time at Vernon Hill was more relaxed, and he came to spend many Christmases there as a house guest.35 The full range of these activities would be realised in Friends in Council which appeared in 1847. This work drew upon not only on his experience as Apostle, and conversations with friends at Vernon Hill, but also on his increasing commitment to social questions. Even though Friends in Council was published anonymously it was clear from many of the reviews that it was widely known that the author was Helps. The success of this work along with Companions of My Solitude (1851) fully established Helps as a major figure by the middle of the century. In the second volume of Friends in Council, Helps addressed the question of slavery. This theme began to interest him during the second half of the 1840s. The result would ultimately be the massive four volume work The Conquerors of the New World and Their Bondsmen, which would later be published as The Spanish Conquest in America. This work was realised after two trips to Madrid where he consulted authorities and obtained copies of key manuscripts. All told, it took Helps seven years to produce the four volumes. The Conquerors of the New World and Their Bondsmen proved to be one of the standard treatments of the subject throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. It also established that Helps had become one of Britain’s leading experts on slavery and the slave trade. Finally, it meant that Helps would be regarded not only as a key literary figure, but also as a historian.

1850s: Helps at Midcentury Helps entered the 1850s as a rising star in the British intellectual firmament. He was regarded as a literary figure and historian who had both the experience of government and the connections which came with it to draw upon.36 Vernon Hill had not made Helps become detached from

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social problems. Yet, it also seems clear by mid-century that Helps had clearly decided not to directly engage most social questions. In Companions of My Solitude (1851), he looked ahead to the future and mused about how he might be remembered by one of his ancestors, who “busied himself about many worldly things.”37 Helps explained, nevertheless, that this ancestor, who had not become more prosperous, might regard him with contempt and incomprehension: I wonder why he did not become rich and great. I suspect he was very laborious. (“You do me full justice there.”) I supposed he was very versatile, and did not keep to one thing at a time. (“You do me injustice there, for I was always aware how much men must limit their efforts to effect anything.”) In his books he sometimes makes shrewd worldly remarks which show he understood something of the world, and he ought to have mastered it. “Now, my dear young relative, allow me to say that last remark of yours upon character is a very weak one. Admitting, for the sake of argument, that what you urge in my favour be true, you must know that the people who write shrewdly are often the most easy to impose upon, or have been so. I almost suspect, without, however, having looked into the matter, that Rochefoucault was a tender lover, a warm friend, and, in general, a dupe (happy for him) to all the impulses and affections which he would have us imagine he saw through and had mastered. The simple write shrewdly: but do not describe what they do. And the hard and worldly would be too wise in their generation to write about what they practice, even if they perceived it, which they seldom so, lacking the delicacy of imagination.”38

This fascinating passage hints that, at mid-century, even with his rising reputation, Helps suffered from self-doubts about his direction and possible achievements. It had become evident to him that while he possessed a full arsenal of intellectual gifts—a rich imagination, a sense of irony a desire to engage in playfulness, a sharp wit, a capacity for satire and fount of wide insights—he was nonetheless unclear about his ability to either have a decisive impact upon his times or to be able to acquire adequate wealth to pass down to his family. This premonition of relative failure may well account for his tendency to move away from writing works such as The Claims of Labour, which directly addressed “the condition of England” question, and instead invest in works related to the Friends in Council series which enabled him to present many options for policy without being directly connected to any one of them. In this way, Helps might demonstrate his erudition, wit and literary style without having his ideas easily or completely rejected.

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Nevertheless, despite these insecurities (and their implicit defence mechanisms) his writings from the 1850s engaged the full range of issues which confronted social reformers. Since he continued to rely upon the characters in Friends in Council, his works furnish later generations with a vivid picture of the manner and ways in which Victorians held informal debates and carried on in their drawing rooms. The most obvious thing about Helps’ publications was the stress upon social questions. Helps’ confidence in dealing with issues involving slavery reflects the position and awareness of someone who could see a complicated question from many sides, even though his abolitionist sympathies were clear. Helps’ encounters with Americans reflected his interest in the “slave question,” and the issue’s prominence at mid-century. He met Ralph Waldo Emerson on the latter’s famous tour of Britain. However, it would be Charles Eliot Norton who would know Helps best. Norton saw to it that Helps’ ideas received attention in North America. In April 1851 Norton sent Helps Uncle Tom’s Cabin, noting that it was a work of “extraordinary popularity.”39 Helps’ reply was a massive letter which was reprinted for private circulation in both Britain and America. The publication of Helps’ letter to Norton began a series of intellectual exchanges about the value of labour on both sides of the Atlantic. It would become evident that Helps sharply criticised the conditions of industrial labour, but it did not stop him from developing a highly nuanced argument which identified modern slavery as the greater evil. His relationship with Harriet Beecher Stowe is instructive. The publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin proved to be an event in Britain. Given Helps’ expertise, he was the logical choice to review the novel in Fraser’s Magazine, to which he gave his blessing in an open letter to Charles Eliot Norton. Helps came to correspond with Stowe, and he met her when she visited London. Stowe—arguably at the height of her powers—was at once surprised and impressed by Helps: We had never, any of us, met Lord Carlisle before; but the considerateness and cordiality of our reception obviated whatever embarrassment there might have been in this circumstance … The only person present not of the family connections was my quondam correspondent in America, Arthur Helps. Somehow or other I had formed the impression from his writings that he was a venerable sage of very advanced years, who contemplated life as an aged hermit from the door of his cell. Conceive of my surprise to find a genial young gentleman of about twenty-five, who looked as if he might enjoy a joke as well as another man.40

Helps’ enthusiasm for Uncle Tom’s Cabin did not prevent him from challenging Stowe’s comparison of slaves with the status of English

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workers; his review provoked a strong letter in reply.41 The picture which emerges, then, is that by the early 1850s Helps was regarded on both sides of the Atlantic as a well-connected and important intellectual, whose reviews and ideas mattered. Helps continued to work as an activist, moving into the field of public health. He responded (which will be discussed in chapter four) to the prospect of a cholera epidemic which threatened London by proposing a scheme for aiding local boards of health in the creation of a health fund. Helps envisioned support from public subscription which would provide for adequate sanitary action. He followed this with a pamphlet on cholera, cheerfully entitled “Thoughts for Next Summer.”42 Despite the fact that he had a number of influential friends involved, the project ultimately did not garner sufficient public backing. Ultimately, neither direct activism nor elective politics suited Helps. In the middle of the 1850s he declined to capitalise on a wealth of promising political connections when he decided not to stand for a seat in Parliament.43 He told his friend Lord Monteagle: What I am going to say will probably astonish you, but the truth is I am a speaker rather than a writer, and have always been so. I never feel so much myself as when I see a great number of heads looking up to me, and waiting to hear what I shall say next. My usual shyness and timidity vanish, the subject arranges itself before me in a clearer manner than I ever see it elsewhere. I have presence of mind on these occasions to abridge here, and enlarge there, accordingly as I see my audience coming to, or going from me: in a word, I was born a speaker as my father was before me.44

Despite the fact that he was interested in public issues and possessed gifts as an orator, he chose not to get involved directly in politics. For one thing, even though Helps’ outlook was liberal, he did not become involved with a political party.

1860s: Clerk of the Privy Council Helps re-entered official life in 1860 when he replaced W. L. Bathurst as Clerk of the Privy Council. Helps would serve in this position until his death in 1875. During this fifteen-year period he would help to lead the Privy Council under six different governments. This meant that he worked directly with Palmerston (with whom he was close), Lord John Russell, Derby, Disraeli and Gladstone. The discussion in both chapters seven and eight should make it clear that this appointment changed Helps’ life in many ways. To begin with, he had diverse responsibilities as the Privy

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Council drew up, and registered the Orders of Council. These Orders dealt with a great deal of affairs, ranging from appointments to public health. In practice this allowed Helps to operate behind the scenes managing the Orders in Council. As Clerk of the Privy Council, Helps became intimately involved with the administration of public policy. As E. A. Helps explained, the position also enabled his father to befriend not only Palmerston, but Lord Granville and W. E. Forster. As a well-established public writer, who had already served as a civil servant, Helps was an appropriate fit because the Privy Council had a significant literary reputation as Henry Reeve, editor of the Edinburgh Quarterly, was the Register of the Privy Court of Appeal, while the Registrar of Clergy Returns was Reverend W. Harness, who had been a friend of Byron and had a reputation for his brilliant writing.45 More important, as Clerk, Helps also gained access to the Queen. He esteemed the Prince Consort and was rewarded in 1862 when the Queen asked Helps to edit—initially for private circulation—a selection of Albert’s speeches and addresses. This collection would later be published with a character sketch which appears to have been regarded as a success.46 During this period, Helps became an important figure for the Queen, serving her as an advisor in both her private and personal affairs. As we will see in chapter eight, it was in this capacity that Helps encouraged the Queen to publish her journal. For this inspiration he was rewarded with the task of copy-editing the Queen’s hand. Putting up with the Queen’s temper proved to be worthwhile, and Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands was a bestseller during the second half of the 1860s. In this position, and by this point in his career, Helps had numerous influential contacts. In addition to his apostolic connections, social reformers, scholars and intellectuals, he befriended important politicians. For example, he became close to Lord Ripon and W. E. Forster, while Lord Salisbury was a regular correspondent.47 The picture we have of Helps in the mid-1860s is that of a man who was not afraid to wield his power in order to secure particular advantages for his friends. For example, Helps wrote to D. Bence-Jones—a physician who also served on the Royal Commission which investigated the Cattle Plague and who appears to have built a career on caring for prominent figures—to request “especial favours and encouragement” as it would be a “great kindness to me.”48 It is also clear that Helps continued to play an active role in London’s literary life. In addition to his own writing, he functioned as a pillar of the literary establishment. The novelist Jean Ingelow (1820–1897) found that Helps was an important stimulus for her career and development.49 To cite

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another example, Helps made a point of letting George Eliot know that the Queen regarded Mill on the Floss favourably.50 Helps’ opinion continued to be valued as significant. George Lewes wrote to George Eliot bringing her the “encouraging word that Arthur Helps highly enjoys Romola, and thinks it the finest thing I have done.”51 Probably Helps’ most significant achievement as Clerk concerned the Cattle Plague of the mid-1860s (which is discussed in Chapter seven). The Cattle Diseases Act led to the creation of a separate department to the Privy Council Office which dealt with infectious disease. The transit of animals was also placed under its jurisdiction. Helps served as Chairman for this Committee and was able to ameliorate some of the harsh conditions which governed the movement of cattle (across borders and by land).52 If the appointment to the Privy Council changed his public life, so too did the discovery of clay at Vernon Hill. Helps appears to have consulted a number of experts who told him that this clay was of value in the manufacture of hard blue brick and terracotta. Helps seized on what he felt to be an opportunity of the greatest magnitude—he could create an industry while establishing conditions for workers which would fulfil his ideal for the proper relationship between capital and labour. Drawing upon his friends for support, Helps invested the bulk of his wealth in the development of the clay enterprise. Unfortunately, he found that fuel and transportation costs eliminated his profits. At the same time, the company was not blessed with good management. In essence, he could not compete with the goods which were produced in Staffordshire, and since his investment was heavy Helps experienced significant financial hardship in the 1860s. This had two obvious consequences: first, the stress from these matters impacted negatively upon his health; second, he was forced to sell Vernon Hill. Subsequently, Victoria offered him one of her houses in Kew Gardens. This proved to be a welcome development as Helps could stroll in the gardens after Privy Council business. It also enabled him to befriend Sir Joseph Hooker. More importantly, it provided a comfortable environment in which Helps could continue to write. Nonetheless, it is clear that the prospect of financial ruin proved to be a devastating blow, one which almost certainly contributed to his early decline.53

1870s: Helps in Decline By the 1870s, then, Helps had seen his fortunes rise and fall. He had survived financial ruin and the embarrassment which accompanied it. During the 1870s he published a number of books which continued to

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emphasise social and governmental reform. In these works he relied upon the literary conventions which he had developed in Friends in Council. These books were generally well-received, but the reviewers increasingly paid less attention to the ideas than to the fates of Helps’ characters. In short, these last publications reflect a tired quality to Helps’ later writings. Helps had never possessed a strong constitution and by the 1870s the combination of hard work, financial stress and age led to a state of poor health. In March 1875 he contracted a chill while attending a levee given by the Prince of Wales. The chill was soon followed by an attack of pleurisy and inflammation of the lungs. After battling illness for several days, Helps died on 7 March 1875. Helps’ death had been unexpected. Queen Victoria was shocked and by all accounts badly shaken. E. A. Helps proudly cited the Court Circular: “the Queen has sustained a loss which has caused her Majesty great affliction. As a loyal subject and as a kind friend he rendered to her Majesty many important services. He assisted with a delicacy of feeling and an amount of sympathy which her Majesty can never forget … The Queen feels that in him she has lost a true and devoted friend.”54 However, Victoria and others would probably have been surprised and unhappy that Sir Arthur Helps—Apostle, civil servant, literary figure, historian, Privy Councillor and trusted friend—would soon disappear into history.

The Methodological Challenge The existence of Helps’ corpus of published writings makes access to his ideas possible, even if many of these pieces have long been out of print. The body of Helps’ published work extends over about thirty-five years and covers a relatively wide range of subjects. Victorians would discover that he wrote drama (though not very successfully), essays, books devoted to specific problems, biographies, history and the Friends in Council series, which were fictional dialogues on public issues. It should be pointed out that while Helps published two distinct series entitled Friends in Council, the characters in these works appeared in many of his mature and later writings. Taken together, these publications might amount to a medium-to-large body of work. Analysing these texts will provide the basis for recovering Helps’ core ideas. While Helps appears to have succeeded in destroying his personal papers, a number of documents did survive. Helps’ writings remain available in many libraries, but they have been largely forgotten. The published letters remain the most useful tool for students interested in Helps, but it leaves us with only a sketchy idea of the man’s life and

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thoughts. In addition, this study draws upon three other major sources of surviving Helps material: the Helps collection at Duke University, which is made up most of some of his correspondence with Froude; the correspondence of Lord Ripon, with whom he was close and, finally, materials from the Windsor Archive, where Helps’ papers relating to Victoria and monarchy can be found. Scholarship on Helps has predictably been limited—the most important student of Helps, John R. DeBruyn, collated a number of Helps’ published letters with archival materials to trace his relationship with Victoria, Ruskin, Carlyle, Gladstone and Disraeli. In addition, he also traced Helps’ contact with Dr. John Simon and some of the larger public health issues in London. Clearly, DeBruyn’s work remains valuable, but while it furnishes us with a great deal of information, it does not address the question of whether Helps actually had any lasting impact on his times. In fact, DeBruyn’s efforts to trace Helps’ influence among key figures bordered on being counterproductive. He concluded one article by asserting that it showed a “more cordial than just official relationship with Disraeli and Company.”55 This assessment was almost certainly correct, but the near desperation to use the surviving correspondence to document Helps’ proximity to leaders such as Gladstone and Disraeli reflects some insecurity about Helps’ perceived status. There is no doubt that DeBruyn’s publications have made it easier to trace Helps’ contact with a number of leading Victorians, but for the most part they did not try in any sustained way to measure his actual impact on his times. At the same time, DeBruyn did not directly explore Helps’ thought or seem to regard it as important in its own right. The approach in this study will be to build upon DeBruyn’s careful work by also considering Helps’ works and also try to recover how these writings were themselves perceived. This unstated assessment was consistent with the dismissive note in Asa Briggs’ Victorian People, where Helps was identified as the civil servant who had taught Samuel Smiles the advantages of shorthand.56 Helps, however, was regarded as important in the history of British public administration. Bernard Schaffer in The Administrative Factor (1973) regarded Helps as an important figure in the development of the Ministerial Department.57 Helps not only served as Clerk of the Privy Council, but his Thoughts upon Government provided some of the most pertinent reflections on the evolution of government practice in midVictorian Britain.58 A generation later, F. David Roberts in The Social Conscience of the Early Victorians (2002) located Helps as an important writer, whose ideas were part of a much larger effort between 1823 and

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1847 to provide some theoretical and practical basis for paternalist thought.59 Instead, this monograph will attempt to build on this slender body of work by investigating a number of key themes in Helps’ writings. These publications are wide-ranging and were evidently popular in their day, but are made less accessible by the fact that they have not been studied in a sustained way by scholars. Consequently, there has never been any attempt to collect and organise Helps’ works or even attempts to produce standardised editions of some of his more successful publications. Nor can there said to be any kind of Helps corpus, or even an essential Helps. Research devoted to exploring the texts and ideas of Victorian literary intellectuals—many of whom were Helps’ contemporaries—has the advantage of producing useful secondary literature. All of these projects might well have produced the scholarship to depict whatever changes Helps made in successive editions and, no less important, the cross referencing of themes, terms and ideas across his broader corpus. Therefore, it remains for scholars to pursue these enterprises because it would greatly facilitate the future study of Helps’ ideas, and with it the broader mid-Victorian world in which he flourished. In addition to navigating Helps’ works, scholars who have explored his ideas have yet to adequately place him in the broader historical context. One of the aims of this study is to connect Helps to many of the lived realities of mid-nineteenth century Britain. This project should not be read as exhaustive, but in exploring Helps’ engagement with industrialism, urbanisation, the writing of history, domestication, public health and the monarchy, it should become clear that he was a very significant voice in mid-Victorian Britain. Finally, by examining the highlights of Helps’ career and thought, this study will offer a preliminary assessment of his place in history. Those generations who lived after the Victorian period have understood nineteenth-century Britain from the biographies of many of key figures. The idea of comprehending the Victorians, as such, from those who were eminent is an old one—in fact, it is an idea which many in the nineteenth century would themselves have recognised. Furthermore, a great deal of useful scholarship has attempted to recover the lives of lesser known, but still significant figures. For instance, Julia Markus’s J. Anthony Froude: The Last Undiscovered Great Victorian made the case for the importance of her subject.60 Helps, with whom Froude carried out a vigorous correspondence over many years, was not mentioned once in Markus’ book. That Markus overlooked Helps is hardly surprising as the biographers of many key figures from the nineteenth century have

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neglected to follow the hints to examine his impact upon their narratives.61 Unlike Helps, Froude was comparatively well known to subsequent generations, but understudied. The point to be made here is that Froude was clearly not the “Last Undiscovered Great Victorian”; Arthur Helps— eventually Sir Arthur Helps—would merit a much better claim for such a description. What follows in these pages is the first sustained look at a man who had deliberately sought to maintain the integrity of his private life, but who in fact played an important role in the making of the world around him, much of which now bears the name “Victorian.”

Terms of Reference This study will rely on thematic chapters to explore different facets of his career and ideas, and in so doing will offer a biographical portrait of Sir Arthur Helps. That said, a comprehensive biography of Helps remains a future task for scholarship. Because Helps was a critical figure in midVictorian Britain, producing a biography would be a worthwhile goal. Such a volume, which would necessarily include much more information about his family, might well shed new light among on, among other things, the ways in which men and women experienced domestic conditions in the nineteenth century. In addition, it might well offer new insights into the lives of a number of prominent men and women. Nonetheless, a biographical approach to Helps is useful because many of this writings follow, or could be said to reflect developments in, his life. Hence, the Friends in Council series probably represents not only Helps’ engagement with mid-century problems, but also his much earlier experience as a Cambridge Apostle. Again, Helps’ disastrous investment in a pottery factory produced significant financial pressure; the development of this holds the key to some of his writings in the last ten years of his life. Therefore, this study will concentrate on a number of themes which are related to many events in Helps’ life. At the same time, the chapters are thematic but also roughly chronological in that they carry a biographical story forward. The chapters address key issues for Helps, while also presenting something of an incomplete but suggestive biographical portrait.

Historical Contexts Sir Arthur Helps lived and flourished during that part of the nineteenth century which some historians have dubbed “mid-Victorian.” While the full utility of the division of the century into early, mid and late has been

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challenged by historians, it is probably correct that some periodisation for the years 1815–1914 is a methodological necessity.62 Debates about both the boundaries (and usefulness) of the Victorian periods are likely to endure, but they will likely continue to play a key role in attempts to interpret the nineteenth century. Whether it makes sense to see the midVictorian period beginning with the collapse of Chartism or the repeal of the Corn Laws, and whether it ends with the proclamation of Victoria as Empress of India, or even later in the early 1880s, does not impact decisively upon assessing Helps, since the most significant part of his career and the bulk of his publications fall between 1845 and 1875. However, for these reasons it does become incumbent upon historians and literary scholars who are interested (or become interested) in Helps to comprehend the assumptions which scholars have about the nature of the mid-Victorian period. The Great Exhibition of 1851 has become a convenient landmark for those who have attempted to trace the major currents of nineteenth-century history, with one historian calling it “the achievement of balance.”63 The attractiveness or reliance upon the balance metaphor to characterise the mid-Victorian period carries with it an impressive scholarly pedigree.64 For our purposes, it is useful to briefly interrogate this emplotment strategy in order to better understand the contexts in which Sir Arthur Helps lived, worked and wrote.

Helps’ Position in Victorian Britain Arthur Helps was a major figure at mid-century who was understood to be an impressive prose stylist with a deep commitment to social reform. Those who might have wished for him to directly engage radical or utilitarian thought could have come away wishing for more—Helps was not a systematic thinker, but he did carry a determined moral stance toward both private and public questions. Social questions had urgency for Helps, but he brought a perspective of wisdom with its roots in Christian humanism. He was recognised for his subtle practical wisdom, but his ideas actually reflected rigorous moral assessments—a point that even A. V. Dicey, his most determined critic, had to concede. It serves to remember that Helps saw no significant contradiction in his own hierarchical vision, which was at once paternal, progressive and liberal. Helps may, accordingly, have disappointed those who understood modernity to demand profound change. In fact, Helps might be discontented about events around him, but his world always made sense to him. While he would befriend Carlyle and Ruskin, whom he would certainly influence, Helps was not attracted to the prospect of massive social change or

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revolutions in thinking. Instead, Helps would connect many facets of human experience in his writings, but advocated practical solutions to complicated problems. The chapters which comprise this monograph aim to recover the life and work of Arthur Helps, because at a minimum they will make evident his chief lines of thought; at the same time, they should further illuminate the mid-Victorian world in which he thrived. This discussion will show that his thought was often frustrating—it was wide-ranging, if at times uneven, underdeveloped and incomplete. Helps will be situated against not only some of the key events of his age, but also the work and ideas of some of nineteenth-century Britain’s most prominent intellectual figures. In fact, it may well emerge that some Victorian thinkers actually owed a greater debt to Helps than has been imagined. More generally, it should emerge that Helps was one of these writers decisively affected by the arrival of the ideas grouped as political economy. In fact, he could probably be grouped as part of the broader pattern of Christian Economics which Boyd Hilton recognised was part of the “great vogue for political economy” during the first half of the nineteenth century.65 Helps proved to be an organic thinker concerned with the development and maturation of individual character. This meant not only the way individual characters developed and affected history, but also as a moral category for contemporary behaviour. As a result, he was as interested in daily life and things which many others deemed to be insignificant. Helps’ understanding of the subject broadened with age (and almost certainly because of changes taking place in Britain), as his initial outlook tended to be homosocial, focusing on the growth and development of men. However, this changed and in works such as Realmah (1868) he challenged many of the conventions associated with the second sphere and domesticity. It might be remembered that within the last generation a number of scholars have concentrated on recovering the histories which might be associated with “Victorian Things.”66 For the most part, this has meant an emphasis on the analysis of material culture in order to recover a range of consumption patterns and more importantly to determine how those patterns reflected larger social realities. As we will see, Sir Arthur Helps himself would be charged with making little things important (and big things unimportant). This study begins with an exploration of some of Helps’ ideas, which might open up new avenues into mid-nineteenthcentury culture and society. To recover a better understanding of the ways in which material items affected or reflected the realities of daily life is a significant advance. With Helps’ work we will see that his little things

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were not always material, but moments or issues in a person’s life which carried with them larger social and moral meanings. The exploration of little things may well yield the recovery of a worldview at once moral, liberal and hierarchical. Helps was remembered for his wise writing and advocacy of domesticity, but it bears mentioning that he did some of this while serving the Queen. In this capacity he did much (as should be evident in chapter eight) to develop the monarchy’s public face and at a time when its role in British life was coming under question. It should be clear that Helps played an important role in making the monarchy palpable to his generation; perhaps it might not be too much to imagine that the sensitivity to domesticity provided him with powerful hints for serving the Queen. Taken together, Helps was a liberal monarchist with an organic hierarchical view of the social world, informed by a deep commitment to morality and the development of individual character. Future scholars may want to ponder the combination of these ingredients when exploring the concept of Victorianism. Defining this concept will probably always be somewhat illusive, but given that it is often associated with a culture which could connect moral questions to hierarchical values, it is easy to see that, in so many ways, Helps was appropriate for it. In fact, many who would later revolt against the culture named for the Queen would probably also have repudiated a large number of Helps’ priorities. Helps did not create Victorianism, but it is possible that a study of his work and thought might show that he assisted in harmonising many of its disparate and fascinating impulses.

Notes 1

Arthur Helps, Brevia: Short Essays and Aphorisms (London, 1871), 17. See, for example, his aphorism in Brevia: “What an immense respect one has for a man who is just dead, thinking that he may have suddenly come into such a vast estate of knowledge! The feeling goes off after a time, when one thinks that he is only one of the majority; but at first it is a striking—nay, an almost appalling thought. And the newly-dead man may be what we call an ignorant peasant, which adds much to the dread of the nature of thought.” 2 Macmillan’s Magazine (January 1875), 186. 3 Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson, ed. Ralph L. Rusk (New York, 1939) IV, 93. The letter is to Lidian Emerson and it is dated June 28, 29 and 30, 1848. 4 Ralph Waldo Emerson, English Traits, The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 394. 5 Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal 17, (February 7, 1852), 84. 6 Ibid., 84–87.

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E. A. Helps, Correspondence of Sir Arthur Helps, K.C.B., D. C. L., 164 (January 4, 1854). 8 Leslie Stephen, The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, cited in J. W. Robertson Scott, The Story of Pall Mall Gazette, 156–157. 9 Kate Flint, The Woman Reader, 95. Flint cites Lucy Soulsby, Happiness (1899), 26–27, cited in. Flint also indicates that the author of Girls and their Ways drew on Helps (91). 10 Alexander Bain, Autobiography (London, 1904), 133–134. 11 Letter 420, Elizabeth Gaskell, The Letters of Mrs Gaskell, eds. J. A. V. Chapple & Arthur Pollard (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1966), 541. 12 Robertson Scott, The Story of the Pall Mall Gazette, 123. 13 Scott, 137. 14 John Ruskin, Modern Painters V, 427–428. Unfortunately, there is not space here to explore Ruskin’s relationship with Helps. However, it is worth noting that in a letter (June 6, 1858) to his father, John James Ruskin the son admitted that there was “no man, after Helps, whom I would do much wish to please. Yes, the responsibility is great, but one mustn’t work much under the feeling of it, else one would write timidly and ill.” This letter is cited in Modern Painters V (VII, 361). For more on the relationship between Helps and Ruskin see John R. DeBruyn, “John Ruskin and Sir Arthur Helps,” Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library (Autumn, 1976), 75–94 and (Spring, 1977), 298–322. While DeBruyn addresses the history of the surviving correspondence between the two men, the relationship between their thought remains unexplored. However, a brief overview of Helps’ career suggests that the connections to Ruskin’s ideas may be considerable. In fact, it seems probable that Ruskin was influenced by both Helps’ writings and actions. Some of Helps’ works such as Organization in Daily Life, An Essay (1862), Conversations on War and General Culture (1871), and Some Talk About Animals and Their Masters (1873) would reflect Ruskinian themes. Even more interesting, Helps attempted to develop a pottery industry on his property which eventually failed. With hints of the Guild of St. George, Helps aimed to develop an industry which would realise his conception of the proper relationship between capital and labour. Finally, Ruskin’s correspondence with Margaret Alexis Bell and the children at Winnington Hall reveals his affection for Helps. See: The Winnington Letters, ed. Van Akin Burd, letters no. 59, 60, 68 and 109. 15 John Hullah, “Sir Arthur Helps,” Macmillan’s Magazine (April 1875), 551. 16 Macaulay to Palmerston, December 2, 1859: The Letters of Thomas Babington Macaulay Vol. 6, ed. Thomas Pinney, (Cambridge, 1981), 257–258. 17 The Saturday Review, March 13, 1875, 339–340. 18 Alice Helps cited in John DeBruyn, “Sir Arthur Helps and the Royal Connection II,” Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library 66 (2) (1984): 175. 19 Ibid., 175. 20 E. A. Helps, Correspondence of Sir Arthur Helps, K.C.B., D. C. L., 373. 21 Ibid., 9. 22 Duke University. Special Collections: the Arthur Helps papers (March 19, 1870).

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E. A. Helps saw fit to include Thomas Helps’ response to the social unrest of 1820, citing a “Declaration” of the Ward of Cripplegate dated December 11, 1820: “We view with abhorrence the attempts which factious and designing men have long been making, in infinite variety of ways, to excite disaffection in the country, and their endeavour, by degrees, to bring into contempt the Christian religion, the sacred person of the King, the administration of justice, and all our venerable and invaluable institutions: convinced, as we are, that at whatever sacrifice it may be of the happiness or property of their fellow-countrymen the ultimate object of the founders of these attempts is to subvert the established order of Society and the Constitution of the Kingdom.” 24 E. A. Helps, The Correspondence of Sir Arthur Helps, KCB, DCL, 2. 25 Ibid., 2. 26 W. C. Lubenow, The Cambridge Apostles, 1820–1914, 42–43, 49, 64, 126 and 159–160. 27 Sir Arthur Helps, The Life of Hernando Cortes, vi. 28 E. A. Helps, Correspondence of Sir Arthur Helps, K.C.B., D. C. L., 4. 29 Ibid., 4–5. 30 Ibid., 4–5. 31 Lewes cited in: George Haight, George Eliot: A Biography, 247. 32 Ibid., 5. 33 Ibid., 219. 34 Ibid., 143. 35 Ibid., 194. 36 Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 70 (432) (October 1851). The author noted that Helps’ development benefited from his retirement from official duties: Acknowledging Helps’ earlier publications the writer noted: “From these we gather that the earlier essays were written by some gentleman in office, who occupied the intervals in business in literary composition; and that the later series are the production of the same gentleman, retired from official cares, and enjoying in some country retreat that combination—surely the most delightful which human life presents—of domestic joys with literary pursuits. We hope this part of the picture is not merely a dramatic artifice of composition. The retirement from official duties has certainly been favourable to the cultivation of literature; the later series are far superior to the former,” 379. 37 Arthur Helps, Companions of My Solitude, 46. 38 Ibid., 47–48. 39 E. A. Helps, Correspondence of Sir Arthur Helps, K.C.B., D. C. L., 106. 40 Charles Edward Stowe, Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe, 229. 41 Ibid., 175–176. Stowe would reply to Helps that “I cannot but say I am greatly obliged to you for the kind opinions expressed in your letter … You will notice that the remarks on that subject occur in the dramatic part of the book, in the mouth of an intelligent Southerner … what I know is in fact constantly reiterated, namely, that the laboring class of the South are in many respects, as to physical comfort, in a better condition than the poor of England … This is the slaveholder’s stereotyped apology,—a defense it cannot be, unless two wrongs make one right … It is generally supposed among us that this estimate of the relative condition of the slaves and the poor of England is correct, and we base our ideas

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on reports made in Parliament and various documentary evidence; also such sketches as ‘London Labor and London Poor,’ which have been widely circulated among us. The inference, however, which we of the freedom party draw from it, is not that the slave is, on the whole, in the best condition because of this striking difference; that in America the slave has not a recognised human character in law, has not even at existence, whereas in England the law recognises and protects the meanest subject, in theory always, and in fact to a certain extent.” 42 E. A. Helps, The Correspondence of Sir Arthur Helps, K.C.B., D.C.L, 156. 43 Ibid., 2–16. 44 Ibid., 7–8. 45 Ibid., 9. 46 Ibid., 10. 47 Lady Gwendolen Cecil, Life of Robert Marquis of Salisbury, Vol. II, 9. 48 The letter is dated April 13, 1865. Cambridge MSS. Add.8546/I/108 49 Anonymous author, Some Recollections of Jean Ingelow and her Early Friends, 70. 50 Gordon S. Haight, George Eliot A Biography, 335. 51 Ibid., 336. 52 E. A. Helps, Correspondence of Sir Arthur Helps, K.C.B., D. C. L., 9. 53 Ibid., 11. 54 Ibid., 12. 55 John DeBruyn, “Sir Arthur Helps, Gladstone and Disraeli,” 114. 56 Asa Briggs, Victorian People: A Reassessment of Persons and Themes, 1851– 1867, 132. 57 Bernard Schaffer, The Administrative Factor: Papers in Organization, Politics and Development (Gateshead, 1973). 58 Ivan Melada, Guns for Sale, 17–23. Melada situates Helps into a group of English writers who explored the themes of war and capitalism. 59 F. David Roberts, The Social Conscience of the Early Victorians, 13. 60 Julia Markus, J. Anthony Froude: The Last Undiscovered Great Victorian. 61 To cite one astonishing example, John Dixon Hunt’s biography of John Ruskin does not mention Helps once—despite the fact that in many places Ruskin acknowledged his debt to Helps. For a more sensitive treatment of Ruskin and Helps, see both volumes of Tim Hilton’s biography of Ruskin: Tim Hilton, John Ruskin: The Early Years 1819–1859 (New Haven and London, 1985) and Tim Hilton, John Ruskin: The Later Years (New Haven and London, 2000). 62 Theodore K. Hoppen, The Mid-Victorian Generation 1846–1886, 2. 63 Colin Matthew, The Nineteenth Century, 8. 64 W. L. Burn, The Age of Equipoise and Martin Hewitt (edit), An Age of Equipoise: Reassessing Mid-Victorian Britain. See Hewitt, 1–38. 65 Boyd Hilton, The Age of Atonement, 36. 66 Asa Briggs, Victorian Things. Gloucestershire, 2003.

CHAPTER TWO A WRITER OF EXTRAORDINARY PROMISE The Promising Helps: Mill’s Review In 1837 John Stuart Mill published a review in the London and Westminster Review of a book of aphorisms by a young writer that he believed to have extraordinary promise.1 The slender volume entitled Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd, Mill informed his readers, was written by a “young man who has just left university” possessing a “really original mind.”2 Mill’s assessment of Helps as a very promising young writer initiates the discussion of the latter’s early works. In order to adequately interpret Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd, which was reviewed by Mill, and Essays Written in the Intervals of Business, this chapter will briefly consider both his experiences at Eton and Cambridge as well as some other key changes in his life. While these early publications were not nearly as well read as those in the Friends in Council series they are notable touchstones for the development of Helps’ thought. Mill’s review—itself a tour de force—situated this new work into the broader history of thought by considering it in relation to the works of Pascal and La Rochefoucauld, and also by locating it alongside the collections of aphorisms by Henry Taylor, Coleridge, and the Rev. Julius Hare and Augustus William Hare (authors of Guesses at Truth by Two Brothers [1827]) and noted that in the case of Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd, the thoughts are “really thoughts,” because they are culled from “things, and not books or tradition.”3 Mill noted that Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd contained one hundred and sixty-four maxims, of which five or six were “decidedly false or questionable,” and another fifty or sixty had “been as well or better said before.”4 These defects aside, Mill considered that the volume was important because about one hundred of these aphorisms: … are a real addition to the world’s stock of just thoughts happily expressed; and some of these may be ranked with the best things of the best satirists, while others give evidence of a soul far above that of any

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satirist—far too habitually intent upon its own ideal standard to bestow any other than an incidental notice upon the shortcomings of others.5

In addition, he concluded that the basis for the aphorisms came from the author’s direct experience. Mill observed that whether “he shoots over the heads of his predecessors, or timidly throws out some small fragment of a truth which others before him have seen in all its plenitude, in either case it is because he speaks what he himself has felt or observed, and stops where that stops.”6 The task of reviewing (and evaluating) aphorisms is not an easy one; Mill selected a few of the maxims from Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd to illustrate the themes and character of the volume’s ideas. Mill exhibited the aphorism below: It would often be as well to condemn a man unheard, as to condemn him upon the reasons which he openly avows for any course of action.

Mill pronounced it to be of very “great reach and importance,”7 adding that its explanation could be found in the following: The reason which any man offers to you for his own conduct betray his opinion of your character. How true! How obvious! yet how seldom adverted to, and, we think, never written before. The reason which a man gives for his conduct is not that which he feels, but that which he thinks you are most likely to feel. It often requires less moral courage to do a noble action than to avow that it proceeds from a noble motive. They who act on higher motives than the multitude suffer their conduct to be imputed to their personal position, to their friends, to their humor, even to some object of personal advancement—to anything, in short, which will not involve a reproach to others for not doing the like. They would rather the mean should think them as mean as themselves than incur the odium of setting up to be better than their neighbours, or the danger of giving others any cause to infer that they despise them.8

In highlighting the moral motivations behind altruism, Mill’s exegesis of the aphorism focused on a theme which would interest many in the middle parts of the nineteenth century. He also noted that the young author of extraordinary promise did not always pursue his ideas to their conclusion: “the author sometimes stops curiously short of some obvious inference from his own observations.”9 In many ways, Mill’s review proved as prophetic as it was insightful. As the author of Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd, Arthur Helps

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would, over the course of his life, focus a good bit of his energy worrying about the moral motivations for those who espouse to do the public good and be criticised for not always thinking through things in adequate depth or taking a position to its logical conclusion. Nonetheless, it was quite a start as Mill endorsed the book and author, saying that he had a feeling “we seldom entertain towards any of the young writers of this writing generation,” and therefore he would have the “full determination to read his next production, whatever it may be.”10

Eton Helps’ first meaningful connection with the layers of establishment, in which he would later flourish, came with his matriculation to Eton. Helps had followed Thomas Williams Helps to Eton. Like his elder brother, he would be tutored under the decisive John Keate (1773–1852). Helps probably just missed the most dramatic act of Keate’s career when, on June 30, 1832, he flogged eighty young Etonians. It was at Eton that Helps’ interest in literature first surfaced, becoming one of the founders of the school’s literary magazine. Yet, Eton may have taxed him. He was remembered as a delicate and meek boy and his elder brother, Thomas Williams, tried to provide help for his material needs. In the one surviving letter, he complained to his brother about the fatigue associated with an outdoor event: It was a very good Montem, at least so the townspeople say who are the best judges, and also a good collection, between 12 and 13 hundred pounds, but it was a miserable day for me, as after walking three times round the yard, which you must well remember is very fatiguing, particularly so this time, as it took us more than an hour, I had such a headache that I could hardly look up for the rest of the day.11

Of greater importance to Arthur was the poor state of family finances: I am very sorry to hear of the general poverty of the family … the time for me to give the 5th form supper approaches, and I have left at present the sum of three half-pence to provide the said supper … But I am talking to you as if you were to be the donor, whereas I only request you to mention it to my father. 12

Eton proved to be good predictor of Helps’ future, wherein his wellregarded literary activity was matched or framed by financial and physical limitations.

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Cambridge Following Eton, Helps matriculated to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he would take his BA degree in 1835. In matriculating to Trinity, he was again following his brother who had gone up as a Pensioner in 1825. Upon arrival Helps was assigned to J. P. Higman as his tutor. Higman probably taught mathematics and possibly some natural theology to Helps.13 The influence of Higman upon both Helps and Trinity cannot be considered to be very great, and the tutor left the college to pursue an ecclesiastical career.14 Helps’ experience at Cambridge proved to be formative, and he seems to have devoted himself to general reading and Mathematics, finishing thirty-first wrangler in the Mathematical Tripos. More importantly, Helps was elected as an apostle in 1833. Despite the fact that Helps was an early apostle, he still had to survive the informal recruitment and vetting process. William Hepworth Thompson, who would later become Regius Professor of Greek and Master of Trinity College, revealed: “we are talking seriously of Helps, who is getting licked into something which in loose & popular language may be called shape.”15 Subsequently, Helps became active in the propagation of Apostles; in addition, in Realmah he left behind one of the best portraits of the selection process.16 Apostleship meant that he formed lasting friendships with men who would play critical roles in British public life. Alfred Tennyson, F. D. Maurice, Richard Monckton Milnes (Lord Houghton), Richard Chenevix Trench, Charles Buller, Stephen Spring Rice and Arthur Hallam would become important conversation partners. Both former Apostles and students of the organisation have acknowledged that Helps’ contribution was significant. In fact, Helps’ Friends in Council and related writings offer possibly the best window into the type of sustained intellectual engagement which lay at the heart of the experience of being an Apostle. Yet, this experience could also be rather playful. For example, Helps wrote to Rev. J. Blakesly, who had to be famously evacuated to Trinity College from Kings, about some of the other apostolic figures: Thompson never possessed a watch, but he observed the stars and thus divined the time: and sometimes he was very right, and sometimes he was very wrong … Henry Lushington never had a watch and never gazed at the stars for any practical purposes; but time for the most part went cheerfully with him, and if the hours ever lingered, it was not that he was weary of them, but that they were unwilling to learn to delightful a companion … Macaulay had a good watch which was stolen I believe at an election by one of the Tory mob. Douglas Heath kept a chronometer, which was not of

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Chapter Two much service to “the general” but he and some few fortunate individuals knew the rate, and could always tell the right time by it.17

The picture of Helps at Cambridge was that of a young man eager for the intellectual stimulation which could come from friendly relationships between gentlemen. Helps studied Mathematics, but the formal course was subordinate to broad-minded conversations which might take place in relaxed settings. These friendships were not limited to apostles; it was also at Cambridge that Helps befriended Robert Phelps (later Master of Sydney Sussex College) and Charles Kingsley. It might be noted that while Helps was at Cambridge, a number of Trinity dons were exploring the possibilities associated with political economy. In particular, William Whewell, Adam Sedgwick, John Cazenove, John Herschel and Richard Jones were engaged in a series of conversations which might have led to a scientific basis for society in the nineteenth century. Beyond Trinity, William Smyth, the Regius Professor of Modern History, and George Pryme promoted the study of political economy.18 While there is no surviving evidence to connect Arthur Helps to these conversations, it would be the case that he would begin his authorial career with the assumption that the ideas associated with political economy had become predominant. The Cambridge years also saw the further development of Helps’ literary interests as he published Thoughts on the Cloister and the Crowd. This essay reflects the concerns of a bright undergraduate who was becoming interested in formulating connections between traditions of Christian and humanistic wisdom and larger social questions. At the same time, the work pointed to Helps’ future interests. Just as the experience of being an apostle presaged the Friends in Council series, Thoughts on the Cloister and the Crowd looks ahead to the divide between private debate about public questions.

New Directions: The late 1830s Helps left Cambridge in 1835 and soon capitalised on his university ties as he entered public service as private secretary to Spring Rice (later, Lord Monteagle), who was Chancellor of the Exchequer in Lord Melbourne’s government. In 1836 he married Elizabeth Fuller, who was the daughter of a Captain Edward Fuller and Elizabeth Blennerhassett. This marriage tied Helps to a family with strong ecclesiastical roots—his new wife was the daughter of Rev. John Blennerhassett of Tralee, while the Fuller family claimed to be part of the direct lineage of Thomas Fuller (1608–61), the Anglican historian who wrote histories such as History of

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the Holy War (1639), devoted to the Crusades, and Church History of Britain (1655).19 Fuller makes an interesting precursor to Helps—his The Holy State and the Profane State (1648) offered wisdom and advocated sound behaviour by focusing on the Christian moral ideal. This family background can be gleaned from Thoughts in The Cloister and the Crowd. Much more than his later works, Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd bears the stamp of the Christian humanistic tradition. These aphorisms reflected a commitment to both moral and intellectual growth. The title itself reveals one of Helps’ lifelong concerns—namely, how to develop the quality of mind for the larger public good, without capitulating to the vulgarities associated with mob rule. Examining some of these aphorisms is useful because they reveal not only Helps’ early thought, but many prove to be touchstones of his subsequent development. Exploring the complexities of moral individualism is one of the priorities of these aphorisms. Helps sought to show that the development of individual life required rigorous self-discipline and, more importantly, perhaps dearly purchased self-knowledge. For instance, regarding deception he noted: If you are very often deceived by those around you, you may be sure that you deserve to be deceived; and that instead of railing at the general falseness of mankind, you have first to pronounce judgment on your own jealous tyranny, or on your weak credulity. Those only who can bear the truth will hear it.20

Helps understood humility to be a necessary step for intellectual and moral growth. Humility was important, but it was also rare. In his discussion of awarding honours, the twenty-four year old Helps began to engage a theme which would concern him at different points in his professional life. His initial argument challenged the idea that awards should be based upon merit: The belief that merit is generally neglected, forms the secret consolation of almost every human being, from the mightiest prince to the meanest peasant. Divines have contended that the world would cease to be a place of trial, if a system of imperial distribution according to merit were adopted. This is true: for it would then be a place of punishment.21

Moral failings—in this case egotism—were very much a part of Helps’ assumptions about the difficulties inherent in personal growth. In addition, intellectual curiosity was almost certainly a necessary precondition for the individual growth necessary to inoculate an individual from the coarser elements in society. He observed that solitude could take many forms, but

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it was important for those who might wish to think about problems in depth: One thing is certain, that those who can with truth affirm that they are “never less alone than when alone,” might generally add, that they never feel more lonely than when not alone. A keen observer of mankind has said, to “aspire is to be alone:” he might have extended his aphorism—to think deeply upon any subject is indeed to be alone.22

While Helps would try to make solitude useful, one of his early fears was the crowd. Many of the aphorisms concern the impact of society on the intellectual outlook and behaviour of the potentially earnest individual. Helps warned of the dangers of conformity with his plea: “do not let us forever be engaged in a petty contest with our fellow-men, in order that we may be, or appear to be, less ignorant than those around us.”23 Furthermore, he noted that the achievement of tolerance is “the only real test of civilisation.”24 Given these issues, it was not surprising that Helps addressed the problems which might arise from misunderstandings. Overcoming prejudices was one of the challenges which faced the development of the moral individual and it could also be a barrier against the worst excesses of the crowd. He observed that: We talk of early prejudices … but in truth we only mean the prejudices of others. It is by the observation of trivial matters that the wise learn the influence of prejudice over their own minds at all times, and the wonderfully moulding power which those minds possess in making all things around conform to the idea of the moment. Let a man but note how often he has seen likenesses where no resemblance exists; admired ordinary pictures, because he thought they were from the hands of celebrated masters; delighted in the commonplace observations of those who had gained a reputation for wisdom; laughed where no wit was; and he will learn with humility to make allowance for the effect of prejudice in others.25

One of the keys for intellectual maturation was learning to deal with prejudices, which meant self-knowledge informing social understanding. That is, practical wisdom had its roots in the knowledge gained from selfexamination. Helps deprecated irony, which he held to be “contempt disguised as an actor in an ancient tragedy,”26 and argued instead for the importance of appearing earnest.27 The author of Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd, then, believed that individual moral life was demanding, but it could yield not only better behaviour but greater social skills.

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All of this fed into his biggest obsession behind the aphorisms which amounted to commentary and analysis on the making and make-up of great men. Helps was interested in trying to determine how some men were great and others wrongly believed to be such: “There is hardly a more common error than that of taking the man who has one talent, for a genius.”28 Again, he observed that the “extreme sense of perfection in some men is the greatest obstacle to their success.”29 Helps pondered the “failures of many of our greatest men in their early career,”30 and also the depth of feeling which these men possessed.31 In what might be seen as an anticipation of Realmah, Helps focused on leadership: “The man of genius may be a guide, but the man of talents will be a leader.”32 He concluded that a man who could combine both might well develop the capacity to be an inventor.33 In Thoughts Upon Government, Helps would later note that great leaders are not always obvious, and in one aphorism he observed that the “most enthusiastic man in a cause is rarely chosen as a leader.”34 He also felt confident enough to instruct those who are great, arguing that it is “unwise for a great man to reason as if others were like him: it is much more unwise to treat them as if they were very different.”35 Not surprisingly, Helps identified moral courage as a key characteristic of greatness. He went beyond the aphorism to explain: If there is any quality of mind in which the really great have conspired, as it were to surpass other men, it is moral courage. He who possesses this quality may sometimes be made a useful tool or a ready sacrifice in the hands of crafty statesmen; but let him be the chief, and not the subordinate, give him the field, grant him the opportunity, and his name will not deserve to be unwritten in the records of the country. When such a man perceives that if he fail, everyone will be able to understand the risk that has been incurred; but that if he succeed, no one will estimate the danger that has been silently overcome; he bows, nevertheless, to the supreme dictates of his own judgment, regardless alike of the honours of his own age, and praises of posterity.36

Greatness demands a combination of moral courage, talent and intellectual rigor. Clearly, greatness was earmarked within the domain of male experience. In fact, Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd reflects the author’s tendency to view the world from a homosocial horizon. Women are absent from the public sphere, but also not worthy of mention in private life. Helps considered great men from a number of angles, none of which even made reference to their relationships with women. Instead, great men appear as a kind of bloated clerisy: intellectuals, business leaders and possibly organisers. Neither would these great men necessarily

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merit the term heroic, as their achievements were not directly identified with adventures or military glory (traditional attributes of male greatness). However, Helps had yet to make the move to connect greatness (in any sense) with domesticity. The binary opposition between home and commercial society, which would come to define much of the advocacy of domesticity, does not make its appearance in these early aphorisms. Instead, the most significant polarity exhibited in the work’s title was between the individual man and the larger society in which he lived. It should be noted that in Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd Helps also addressed the conditions of authorship. He argued that the best “commentary upon any work of literature, is a faithful life of the author.”37 At the same time, he explained that the private correspondence, “unless upon literary or scientific subjects,” should not become published material. Helps reasoned that the impact of the publication of private letters has “a very bad influence on the letter-writing of the present generation, who are thus tempted to write for effect.”38

Authorial Development in the 1840s Arthur Helps began the 1840s posted to Ireland, living in Dublin Castle. He left Ireland in 1841 and was soon appointed as one of the Commissioners of French, Spanish and Danish claims, which were related to the bombardment of Copenhagen. Yet, these matters proved to be less important because it was during this decade that Helps built upon Thoughts on the Cloister and the Crowd by spending increasing amounts of time writing. Helps’ first major effort, Essays Written in the Intervals of Business, illustrates his position as civil servant and author. This early publication— which would be reprinted several times in the twentieth century—built upon some of the aphorisms from Thoughts on the Cloister and the Crowd to develop essays which reflected the author’s commitment to explicate practical wisdom for his contemporaries. This work proved to be vintage Helps—it pondered the relationship between private belief and public conduct in the hope of addressing an unspecified common good. Going forward, it will become evident that Helps, following the unwritten apostolic tradition, lifted his pen in the belief that intelligent debate might produce both better individual persons and a more humane society. Examining Essays Written in the Intervals of Business is useful because many of its key themes proved to touchstones for Helps’ subsequent development. In particular, the stress placed on individual moral obligation—which could become manifest in specific situations—and on

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wisdom in public practice (which included government and commerce) together illustrated a view of life which some would dub “Helpsian.” Unlike many others who feared the rise of commercial power, Helps did not see a fundamental chasm between individual moral life and the pursuit of business interests. At the heart of Essays Written in the Intervals of Business is an exploration of practical wisdom. Helps confidently informed his readers that practical wisdom affected the mind as gravitation did the natural world; as such, it is always “reminding us where we are, and what we can do, not in fancy, but in real life.”39 Furthermore, practical wisdom “does not permit us to wait for dainty duties, pleasant to the imagination; but insists upon our doing those which are before us.”40 With strong theological overtones, Helps situated the importance of this mode of reasoning beyond the experience of the individual subject. The developing author asserted that this type of wisdom was not to be confused with expediency. Instead, the significance of practical thinking was that it made human progress possible: They do not know that practical wisdom is as far from what they term expediency, as it is from impracticability itself. They see how much compromise there is in all human affairs. At the same time, they do not perceive that this compromise, which should be the nice limit between willfulness and a desertion of the light that is within us, is the thing of all others which requires the diligent exercise of that uprightness which they fear to put in peril, and which, they persuade themselves, will be strengthened by inactivity. They fancy, too, that high moral resolves and great principles are not for daily use, and that there is no room for them in the affairs of this life. This is an extreme delusion. For how is the world ever made better? not by mean little schemes which some men fondly call practical, not by setting one evil thing to counteract another, but by the introduction of those principles of action which are first looked upon as theories, but which are at last acknowledged and acted upon as common truths. The men who first introduce these principles are practical men, though the practices which such principles create may not come into being in the life-time of their founders.41

To put this differently, practical wisdom refers to much more than administrative efficiency, but can involve the development of doctrines and paradigms. However, it is clear that the young Helps believed that both the Christian life and the doctrines which went with it were relevant to for practical thinking. Writing about self-discipline, Helps informed his

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readers that prayer was important when it is “sincere, intense, [and] watchful.”42 He urged the reflection that can come with prayer: Let a man ask himself whether he really would have the thing he prays for: let him think, while he is praying for a spirit of forgiveness, whether even at that moment he is disposed to give up the luxury of anger. If not, what a horrible mockery it is! To think that a man can find nothing better to do, in the presence of his Creator, than telling off so many words: alone with his God, and repeating his task like a child: longing to get rid of it, and indifferent to its meaning!43

Practical wisdom required reflection as it did overt social skills. Helps’ self-disciplined thinker might seek good habits and the ability to grow through spiritual life. At the very heart of Helps’ thought was the importance of individual character. Helps understood the issue not in terms of cultivation, but with respect to moral obligation and curiosity. One of the best tests of the acquisition of character was its ability to withstand the pressures of “the mob.”44 Helps depicted the private individual as endangered by the multiple pressures to conform. For Helps, character formed the very basis of social life, because it shaped the parameters of human relationships. The Helpsian self was shaped at once by internal moral pressures and by the task of understanding the true character of others. As a result, one of the primary tasks facing mature adults was comprehending their peers as persons (later for Helps this would also mean that employers needed to adequately comprehend their employees). In other words, the best human relationships were not dependent upon social convention, but upon mutually understood character. Helps assumed that understanding men was not necessarily easy: We have been considering the danger of adopting current sayings about men’s character and conduct: but suppose we consider, in detail, the difficulty of forming an original opinion on these matters; especially if we have not a personal knowledge of the men of whom we speak … we seldom know with sufficient exactness the facts upon which we judge: and a little thing may make a great difference when we come to investigate motives. But the report of a transaction sometimes represents the real facts no better than the laboured variation does the simple air; which, amidst so many shakes and flourishes, might not be recognised even by the person who composed it. Then again, how can we ensure that we rightly interpret those actions which we exactly know? Perhaps one of the first motives that we look for is self-interest, when we want to explain an action: but we have scarcely ever such a knowledge of the nature and fortunes of another, as to be able to decide what is his interest, much less what it may appear to

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him to be: besides a man’s fancies, his envy, his willfulness, every day interferes with, and overrides his interests. He will know this himself, and will often try to conceal it by inventing motives of self-interest to account for his doing what he has a mind to do.45

The importance of individual character could be matched by the degree of difficulty in understanding another person’s motivations. Helps focused on trifles as a way of grasping the inner drives of a person. The importance of little things, as one of his most determined critics would later put it, became emblematic of Helps’ ideas. In Essays Written in the Intervals of Business, Helps argued that focusing on minor things was very useful in trying to understand the character of a man which “is especially discernible in trifles; for then he acts, as it were, almost unconsciously.” Understanding these little hints was invaluable because it amounted to a “method of observing and testing,” which might produce “a just knowledge of individual men.” Face-to-face situations would be useful because you “may learn more of a person even by a little converse with him, than by a faithful outline of his history.” More interestingly, Helps did not regard a man’s achievements to be the best source for insight into this character because the “most important of his actions may be anything but the most significant of the man; for they are likely to be the results of many things besides his nature.” Instead, “you might not learn more from a good portrait of him, than from two or three of the most prominent actions of his life … if men did not express much of their nature in their manners, appearance, and general bearing, we should be at a sad loss to make up our minds how to deal with each other.”46 Helps broke character down into components which were both cognitive and moral. In fact, the basic division of character reflected the importance of moral discourses for Helps’ analysis: In judging others, it is important to distinguish those parts of the character and intellect which are easily discernible from those which require much observation. In the intellectual, we soon perceive whether a man has wit, acuteness, or logical power. It is not easy to discover whether he has judgment. And it requires some study of the man to ascertain whether he has practical wisdom; which indeed is a result of high moral, as well as intellectual qualities. In the moral nature, we soon detect selfishness, egotism, and exaggeration. Carelessness about truth is soon found out; you see it in a thousand little things. On the other hand, it is very difficult to come to a right conclusion about a man’s temper, until you have seen a great deal of him. Of his tastes, some will lie on the surface, others not; for there is a certain reserve about most people in speaking of the things they like best. Again, it is always a hard matter to understand any man’s

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Helps also made it clear that proximity was not an advantage: “of all the errors in judging of others, some of the worst are made in judging of those who are nearest to us.”48 To look at the world through the eyes of practical wisdom meant that private life was at least partly defined by the possibility of public improvement. A wise man or woman, to put it differently, might be expected to engage in benevolent activity. For Helps benevolence began with home duties,49 but ideally it would be extended to the “utmost verge of humanity.”50 Since he understood benevolence to be a logical extension of Christian teaching, Helps argued that it took a deep—not a ritual or compartmentalised—approach to properly fulfil the call of the benevolent life. This demanded toil, earnest thought, zeal and constant care; more importantly, benevolent exertions require not only patience, but a “habitual sacrifice of our own tastes and wishes.”51 At the very least, Christian social benevolence demanded “visiting the sick, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked,”52 but it also meant taking care of animals. Helps’ insistence on proper relations between humans and animals also had a strong theological root: Kindness to animals is no unworthy exercise of benevolence. We hold that the life of brutes perishes with their breath, and that they are never to be clothed again with consciousness. The inevitable shortness then of their existence should plead for them touchingly. The insects on the surface of the water, poor ephemeral things, who needlessly abridge their dancing pleasure of to-day? Such feelings we should have toward the whole animate creation. We have positive duties to perform to those animals over whom we are masters, for however short a time. This seems too obvious to be insisted upon; but there are persons who act as though they thought they could buy the right of ill-treating any of God’s creatures. We should never in any way consent to the ill-treatment of animals, because the fear of ridicule, or some other fear, prevents our interfering. As to there being anything really trifling in any act of humanity, however slight, it is moral blindness to suppose so. The few moments in the course of each day which a man absorbed in some worldly pursuit may carelessly expend in kind words or trifling charities to those around him, and kindness to an animal is one of these, are perhaps, in the sight of Heaven, the only time that he has lived to any purpose worthy of recording.53

Individual benevolence, then, ought to reflect a public philosophy which itself was indicative of Christian social teaching. In articulating a

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philosophy which might connect private life with public activity, Helps extended the vision to Creation. To put this differently, the outline and part of the agenda of Animals and Their Masters (1873) were well established by in these essays. Not surprisingly, at the core of Helps’ vision was an understanding of domestic life. He would hardly be the first of his age to try to write about home life, but Helps did insist not only upon its importance, but made its daily routines the basis for moral evaluation. In Essays Written in the Intervals of Business, Helps wrote to instruct his contemporaries about the nature of domestic life. He eschewed much longer and specific discussions which might be found in self-help manuals. Instead, he argued for the moral and intellectual significance of domestic life: For, either a man thinks that he must needs understand those whom he sees daily, and also, perhaps, that it is no great matter whether he understand them or not, if he is resolved to do his duty by them: or he believes that in domestic rule there is much license, and that each occasion is to be dealt with by some law made at the time, or after: or he imagines that any domestic matter which he may leave to-day omitted or ill-done can be repaired at his leisure, when the concerns of the outer world are not so pressing as they are at present.54

Helps asserted that even though domestic rule was a very powerful force in human affairs, its power was not readily understood.55 As a result, many underrate the extent of their own authority and may also wrongly believe that it is a natural right conveyed by social position. Ideally, domestic relations are founded on mutual understanding as Helps observed that coercion is but a “small part of government.”56 Accordingly, employers (or masters) should avoid provoking the “rebel spirit” to those who are “entrusted to our guidance.”57 It is instructive to compare the treatment of this subject with that of John Angell James (1785–1859), a Congregational minister who in 1830 published The Family Monitor or A Help to Domestic Happiness. In that work James addressed a number of issues, including the treatment of servants. James’ advice was theological, but it was also practical and specific. He urged his readers to hire pious servants who are to be “much preferred to those that are without the fear of God.”58 James added that an immoral servant could produce incalculable mischief in their dealings with a family’s children.59 He explained that masters and mistresses had three basic obligations towards their servants: Justice, Kindness and Religion.60 With respect to the first, servants should be paid, rewarded for longevity

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and if dismissed done so with their character intact.61 Kindness meant that servants should not be overworked: We have been often shocked to see in our streets, or on the public road, how cruelly some weak, half-starved animals have been used … but are there not scenes of equal cruelty, to be witnessed in some houses, where is to be found a poor young, friendless girl, whose pallid looks and delicate frame indicate to every one, but her hard hearted mistress, that she is incompetent to the tasks, which, without cessation, she is mercilessly compelled to sustain? Her toil commences, perhaps, at five or six o’clock in the morning, and continues without intermission till eleven at night … And even where unkindness is not carried to this extent, I am persuaded, that servants are in very many cases, quite overworked; they are so urged by incessant demands for their labor, that from the beginning to the end of the week, they have scarcely a moment to keep their won clothing in proper repair, much less to attend to the concerns of their souls; their employers seem to think, that every moment they sit down, is so much stolen from them.62

In addition, James counselled not to act out of bitterness and contemptuous pride when speaking with servants. Families should also safeguard servants from being humiliated or exploited by children and they should be permitted all indulgencies and recreations, when possible.63 Last, domestic employers had religious obligations which included not hindering the servant’s religion. More importantly, hindering religious life could come from bad examples of a heathenish state of the household where there is “no family prayer, no reading of Scriptures, no observance of the Sabbath, no regular attendance upon public worship.”64 In such families the servants “hear swearing, perhaps, but no prayer; see drunkenness, but no worship; witness card playing, dancing,” and other forms of convivial behaviour.65 Even worse are the problems caused by direct temptation: How many masters have by their atrocious and murderous arts, corrupted the virtue, blasted the reputation, and ruined the souls of those females, whom, having received into their house, they were bound, by every principle of honor, as well as religion to protect. Such wretches deserve the gallows far more than many who suffer there. How many unhappy women have been sent by such vile transgressors, into the career of prostitution, to an early grave, and to the place of punishment, where they will meet their seducer to be his tormentor, through eternity? Neither a word, nor a look, should ever be given to a servant, which has the remotest tendency to injure her modesty.66

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Less dramatic, James also beseeched his audience to make sure that servants should not be encouraged to lie for their masters. Helps would later write about the seduced woman becoming a prostitute in Companions of My Solitude (1851), but in the Essays Written in the Intervals of Business the treatment of servants is abstract and without reference to special social problems. Instead, Helps worried much more about the moral compass of the employer, and would write about duties which should not be understood as merely fulfilling obligations. Helps believed that these actions might be earnest or at least sincere. He warned that: We should be very careful that, in our anxiety to get the outward part of an action performed to our mind, we do not destroy the germ of spontaneousness which could alone give any significance to the action. God has allowed free will to man, for the choice of good or evil; and is it likely that it is left to us to make our fellow-creatures virtuous by word of command? We may insist upon a routine of proprieties being performed with soldier-like precision; but there is no drilling of men’s hearts.67

In this early argument for domesticity, Helps relied on a theological frame of reference. Helps argued further that since domestic authority was itself limited, it was critical to provide it with a correct foundation. In fact, he believed that reason could not conform to situations inherent in domestic rule, which possessed a broader base: Domestic Rule is founded upon truth and love. If it has not both of these, it is nothing better than a despotism. It requires the perpetual exercise of love in its most extended form. You have to learn the dispositions of those under you, and to teach them to understand yours. In order to do this, you must sympathise with them, and convince them of your doing so; for upon your sympathy will often depend their truthfulness. Thus, you must persuade a child to place confidence in you, if you wish to form an open upright character. You cannot terrify it into habits of truth. On the contrary, are not its earliest falsehoods caused by fear, much oftener than from a wish to obtain any of its little ends by deceit? How often the complaint is heard from those in domestic authority, that they are not confided in! But they forget how hard it is for an inferior to confide in a superior, and that he will scarcely venture to do so without the hope of some sympathy on the part of the latter; and the more so, as half our confidences are about our follies, or what we deem such.68

The proper foundation of domestic rule, then, could only be developed through superior understanding. Helps also believed that it must be

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transparent, even when it involved seemingly minor matters. Helps explains: There is a common expression about “overlooking trifles.” But what many persons should say, when they use this expression is. That they affect not to observe something, when there is no reason why they should not openly recognise it. Thus they contrive to make matter of offence out of things which really have no harm in them. Or the expression means that they do not care to take notice of something which they really believe to be wrong; and as it is not of much present annoyance to them, they persuade themselves that it is not of much harm to those who practice it. In either case, it is their duty to look boldly at the matter. The greater quantity of truth and distinctness you can throw into your proceedings, the better. Connivance creates uncertainty, and gives an example of slyness; and very often you will find that you connive at some practice, merely because you have not made up your mind whether it is right or wrong, and you wish to spare yourself the trouble of thinking. All this is falsehood.69

Unlike James, he did not depict the problems which might come from the breakdown of a family’s moral commitment to its servants. Rather, Helps offered instruction in paternalistic control. He advocated earnestness, transparency and ultimately responsibility. This meant being firm, but going to the trouble to understand subordinates on their terms. He counseled: Whatever you allow in the way of pleasure or of liberty, to those under your control, you should do it heartily: you should recognise it entirely, encourage it, and enter into it. If, on the contrary, you do not care for their pleasures, or sympathise with their happiness, how can you expect to obtain their confidence? And when you tell them that you consult their welfare, they look upon it as some abstract idea of your own. They will doubt whether you can know what is best for them, if they have good reason for thinking that you are likely to have their particular views of happiness entirely out of account.70

Helps wanted his contemporaries to understand the very small ways in which they could have a large impact upon their subordinates. He advocated trust and the judicious use of punishment, especially when the latter was not the product of anger. His fascination with interpersonal dynamics led him to council his readers to be careful with the employment of ridicule, which is to be avoided because “it tends to make a poor and world-fearing character.”71 Helps elaborated that ridicule is “too strong a remedy: and can seldom be applied with such just precision as to

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neutralise the evil aimed at, without destroying, at the same time, something that is good.”72 Domestic authority, then, carried great responsibility with it; this meant that daily interpersonal relations were subject to moral and intellectual scrutiny. Helps’ concern for humiliation—both public and private—would be a feature of his mature thought, as his discussion of the pressures on administration in Thoughts Upon Government would make evident. Understanding a person’s social situation also meant that transparency had its limits. Helps did not advocate secrecy for its own sake, but rather because certain situations required it: For once that secrecy is formally imposed upon you, it is implied a hundred times by the concurrent circumstances … There are few conversations which do not imply some degree of mutual confidence, however slight … That happy union of frankness and reserve which is to be desired, comes not by studying rules, either for candour or for caution. It results chiefly from an uprightness of purpose enlightened by a profound and delicate care for the feelings of others. This will go very far in teaching us what to confide and what to conceal in our own affairs; what to repeat, and what to suppress, in those other people. The stone in which nothing is seen, and the polished metal which reflects all things are both alike hard and insensible … Before you make any confidence, you should consider whether the thing you wish to confide is of weight enough to be a secret. Your small secrets require the greatest care. Most persons suppose that they have kept them sufficiently when they have been silent about them for a certain time; and this is hardly to be wondered at, if there is nothing in their nature to remind a person that they were told to him as secrets … You should be careful not to entrust another unnecessarily with a secret which it may be a hard matter for him to keep, and which may expose him to somebody’s displeasure, when it is hereafter discovered that he was the object of confidence. Your desire for aid, or for sympathy, is not to be indulged by dragging other people into your misfortunes. There is as much responsibility in imparting your own secrets, as in keeping those of your neighbour.73

The Helpsian individual, then, was one who invested interpersonal dynamics with a broad moral awareness. However, in writing about domesticity, it should be pointed out that Helps did not provide lists of advice about specific matters. His vision was a moral one which assumed an essential unity between the person, his or her moral choices, and social situations. Furthermore, Helps did not proclaim the home to be a special potentially pristine island of moral virtue in a social world benighted by commercial interests.

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Accordingly, the second part of the work concerned business practices (broadly understood). These discussions proved to be a combination of moral appeal and insights into improving efficiency. It might be remembered that Macaulay would label Helps one of the country’s most able men and that his career in administration would prove to be significant and far reaching.74 The title of the work is a bit misleading because by business Helps referred not only to commerce but to all professional activity. Perhaps not surprisingly, he insisted that business had a moral nature; ideally, it also might reflect a love of truth, because an honest man would act with simplicity and therefore less chance of error.75 Helps argued that it was important in business to act from principles. These principles should not be confused with moral maxims, but might be better understood to also include doctrines and paradigms. As a result, it was critical for a “man of business to form principles.”76 These principles are the result of study, whether “it is history, or political economy, or ethics.”77 It should be noted that Helps believed that principles were much more substantial than maxims. When describing decision, Helps believed that the reliance on maxims might prove to be disadvantageous and he recommended being to the point: “the most sagacious man had better content himself with pronouncing upon those points alone upon which his decision is called for.”78 In addition, it was imperative that Helps’ man of business should keep detailed records of his transactions. This account should be lucid but “not overburdened with details,” and include a “method in its form.” Helps advocated recording “an abstract of the reasons upon which you have come to a decision on any complicated subject.”79 The Essays Written in the Intervals in Business also reveals a meticulous approach to the flow of information. Helps explained that a record should be kept of all correspondence, including an account of what “was done upon any letter, and of where it was sent to, or put away.” In addition, it was important to have some system of filing documents: “You should endeavour to establish such a system of arranging your papers, as may ensure their being readily referred to … Fac-similes should be kept of all the letters which you send out. The management of correspondence ‘seem little things’… unless you neglect them.”80 Helps also described the institutions of collective intelligence, particularly the make-up and advantages of councils. He wrote that councils are serviceable for projecting how things are likely to be understood.81 Making use of councils required dexterity: The great art of making use of councils, commissions, and such like bodies, is to know what kind of matter to put before them, and in what

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state to present it … There is likely to be a great waste of time and labour when a thing is brought in all its first vagueness to be debated or examined by a number of persons. And there will be much in the “preparation” and “perfection” of matter which will only become confused by being submitted to a full assembly. You might as well think of making love by council or a board. It should be the business of someone, either in the council, or subordinate to it, to bring the matter forward in a distinct and definite shape. Otherwise there will be a wilderness of things said before you arrive at any legitimate point of discussion.82

The fascination with great men was again evident in the Essays Written in the Intervals of Business. Helps was interested not only in the process by which superior men might be identified and chosen, but exploring the qualities which made them valuable. The men who provided leadership in councils are “of that healthful nature which is content to take defeat with good-humor.” Not surprisingly, they are also “of that practical turn of mind which makes them set heartily to work upon plans and propositions which have been originated in opposition to their judgment,” and they are “not anxious to shift responsibility upon others”; and they “do not allude to their former objections with triumph, when those objections come to be borne out by the result.” Helps added that in “acting with such persons you are at your ease.”83 Along with these leadership skills, Helps emphasised the value of men who grasped committee procedures because they possess “a judicial intellect.” In his experience these qualities were critical because without “some such in a Council, a great deal of cleverness goes for nothing: as there is nobody to see what has been stated and answered, to what their deliberations tend, and what progress has been made.” These men have other skills as they can “gather the sense of a mixed assembly, and suggest some line of action which may honestly meet the different views of the various members.” Lastly, they have the capacity to “bring back the subject matter when it has all but floated away, while the others have been looking for seaweed, or throwing stones at one another on the shore.”84 Finally, Helps’ discussion on business ended with an assault on “partyspirit.” This discussion foreshadowed his later disinclination to become involved in electoral politics. Accordingly, in Essays Written in the Intervals of Business, Helps chronicled what he understood to be the evils associated with party-spirit. In addition to making people suspicious and uncharitable, factions undermined the public sphere. This means that people may be inclined to “think lightly of the offences which they hear so often charged against their most eminent public men.”85 Party-spirit undermines the quality of public life in other ways, as it “makes people

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abjure independent thinking.”86 Party-spirit makes it less likely that men and women will understand each other. Repeating the argument for selfknowledge, which formed one of the major concerns of Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd, Helps explained that we “often forget that we are partisans ourselves, and that we are contending with partisans.” He expanded on the way in which a person might unwittingly acquire prejudices: “We first give ourselves credit for a judicial impartiality in all that concerns public affairs; and then call upon our opponents actually to be as impartial as we assert ourselves to be.” However, he observed that these assumptions were themselves untested because our passions master us, and our “prejudices imprison us: and like madmen, we take our jailors for a guard of honour.” Helps avoided advocating neutrality, observing that while there may be a “great deal to be sides on both sides of the question,” these “phrases which may belong to indolence as well as to charity and candour.” He boldly added: “Let a man have a hearty strong opinion, and strive by all fair means to bring it into action—if it is in truth an opinion, and not a thing inhaled like some infectious disorder.”87 Helps acknowledged that political divisions were inevitable, but contest between factions or parties “may have something of generosity of it.” This generous or wise side of politics might be cultivated by appealing to character and intellectual rigor: “a good man will show that earnestness of his attachment to his party by his endeavor to elevate its character; and in the utmost heat of party contests, he will try to maintain a love of truth, and a regard for the charities of life.”88 Many of these issues had been addressed with the earlier aphorisms. The problems associated with partyspirit were in many ways anticipated by the complaints about prejudice in Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd. In addition, it was during this decade that Helps began to write historical plays. Catherine Douglas and Henry II were written for the sake of fiction; the later works—Ivan de Biron, Realmah, and Casimir Maremma—drew upon the imagined past to criticise the present. Both Catherine Douglas and Henry II were written as plays; given his subsequent authorship, it seems that Helps was more interested in creating characters who could be the mouthpieces of various positions and who could engage in witty exchanges, rather than actually developing a drama which would appear on stage. Yet, these works did reflect a significant historical interest which would not only culminate in more works of historical fiction, but also the four volume Spanish Conquest in America.

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Moral Individualism with a Male Outlook All told, these early works reveal that Helps was an ambitious if unevenly skilled young author. His vision, with the exception of Catherine Douglas, was largely a homosocial one—Helps was writing about mainly men and for men. Unlike John Angell James who directly wrote about the plight of female servants, Helps had analysed that problem (and others) without reference to women or the situation of young and vulnerable girls. His priorities were shaped by moral issues, but the application of these considerations did not preclude the acquisition or the utilisation of practical skills. That is, the boundaries between private and public were real, but they were flexible. In addition, Helps was concerned with individual moral development which he understood to be connected to a commitment domestic life. This did not imply, however, the fetishisation of the home in opposition to perils associated with commercial society. Rather, Helps was beginning to find ways to make the intellectual achievements associated with individual self-knowledge, maturation and resources for improving the broader social and commercial issues of his day.

Notes 1

Jean O’ Grady and John M. Robson, John (eds.), The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill 33, Vol. I, 425. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid., 426. 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid., 429. 10 Ibid. 11 E. A, Helps, Correspondence of Sir Arthur Helps, KCB, DCL, 21. 12 Ibid., 21–22. 13 See: Trinity College Manuscript: Add.m.a. 206/85. 14 Higman appears to have left Trinity with some unhappy results. In 1837 Higman wrote to Whewell endorsing the Bridgewater Treatise, but admitted to living with his wife and servant in a “very secluded manner. He also complained that the clergy of his part of Norfolk were ‘”stupid, ignorant and indolent.” Trinity College Manuscript Add. m.a. 206/85 15 W. C. Lubenow, The Cambridge Apostles, 1820–1914: Liberalism, Imagination, and Friendship in British Intellectual and Professional Life, 43.

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Ibid., xi, 42–49. Trinity College Manuscript Add. ms. 9. 243/138 18 Boyd Hilton, The Age of Atonement: The Influence of Evangelicalism on Social and Economic Thought 1785–1865, 48–49. 19 E. A. Helps, Correspondence of Sir Arthur Helps, KCB, DCL, 3. 20 Arthur Helps, Thoughts on the Cloister and the Crowd, 81. 21 Ibid., 87. 22 Ibid., 64–65. 23 Ibid., 20. 24 Ibid., 73. 25 Ibid., 29–30. 26 Ibid., 42. 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid., 11–12. 29 Ibid., 17. 30 Ibid., 23. 31 Ibid., 37. 32 Ibid., 51. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid., 56. 35 Ibid., 83. 36 Ibid., 94–95. 37 Ibid., 45. 38 Ibid., 80. 39 Arthur Helps, Essays Written in the Intervals of Business, 1. 40 Ibid., 1. 41 Ibid., 5–6. 42 Ibid., 23. 43 Ibid., 23–24. 44 Ibid., 27. 45 Ibid., 31–32. 46 Ibid., 32–33. 47 Ibid., 35. 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid., 41. 50 Ibid., 42. 51 Ibid. 52 Ibid. 53 Ibid., 42–43. 54 Ibid., 44–45. 55 Ibid., 44. 56 Ibid., 46. 57 Ibid., 47. 58 John Angell James, The Family Monitor or A Help to Domestic Happiness, 161. 59 Ibid., 162. 17

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Ibid., 163. Ibid., 167. 62 Ibid., 168. 63 Ibid., 172. 64 Ibid., 175. 65 Ibid. 66 Ibid., 176. 67 Arthur Helps, Essays Written in the Intervals of Business, 47. 68 Ibid., 49. 69 Ibid., 49–50. 70 Ibid., 50. 71 Ibid., 51. 72 Ibid., 51. 73 Ibid., 62–67. 74 Bernard Schaffer, The Administrative Factor: Papers in Organization, Politics and Development, 31. 75 Ibid., 71. 76 Ibid., 72. 77 Ibid., 72–73. 78 Ibid., 87. 79 Ibid., 89. 80 Ibid., 90. 81 Ibid., 112. 82 Ibid., 115. 83 Ibid. 84 Ibid., 117–118. 85 Ibid., 119. 86 Ibid., 190. 87 Ibid., 125–126. 88 Ibid., 127–128. 61

CHAPTER THREE BOUND BY SACRED DUTY: BIOGRAPHICAL FACTORS The Claims of Labour was understood by many Victorians to be immediately valuable because Helps used the text to make his contemporaries familiar with the findings of Chadwick’s study of sanitation.1 However, The Claims of Labour should also be regarded as an early attempt to challenge the discursive dimensions of the field of political economy. One of Helps’ major motivations in writing The Claims of Labour was his discontent with political economy. Writing to T. W. Helps, he explained that “there are many things yet to be said,”2 even though he acknowledged that the subject had been more than adequately explored. He explained: “what I mean is, not that there is anything new to be said for the old system, but that the mode in which a new one ought to be carried out is not yet seen by statesmen.”3 While political economy had become a set of popular doctrines in the 1820s, it remained part of the intellectual landscape for a number of decades. Helps was almost certainly writing for people who regarded it as a science which offered nothing less than the possibility for massive social improvement. As Lord Althorp had written: “My two lines of reading are divinity and political economy: the first to do myself good: the other to enable me to do good to others.”4 Ben Wilson has observed that the “political economist’s arguments for free trade was like the evangelical’s conception of God’s government of the world.”5 Helps did not reject utilitarian inspired economics, but he rejected their presentation or discourse. Helps could be grouped with what H. S. Jones has called the generation of 1830, because the impact of the new ideas associated with political economy was key to his outlook.6 Helps would not directly engage the discourses or advocates of political economy. Instead, he would try to depict or exhibit the lived realities which might be associated with many of these issues. It is also useful to contrast his work and ideas with those of Harriet Martineau, whose Illustrations of Political Economy proved to be highly influential during the 1830s. Martineau might be understood to write fiction in order to educate her readers into the truths of

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political economy, as she understood them. Helps, in contrast, would also become interested in translating these doctrines into immediate circumstance and much of his work can be seen as a more discontented recognition of the significance of political economy. It was probably during 1843 that Helps began to plan The Claims of Labour. In December he told Anster that he had visited factories in Britain and found them to be most interesting things.7 It should be observed that it was in the same year that Helps would make another decision which would affect The Claims of Labour when he decided to move away from the centre of London to Vernon Hill. However, Helps could not yet foresee that the move would permanently affect the calibre and modality of his authorship. Instead, he was in the process of attempting to foster a new method for the presentation of the issues associated with political economy by trying to directly understand factory life by investigating working conditions in France. Having obtained some of the “information [he] wanted” at Rouen, Helps complained that the manufacturers refused to give him permission to see their mills. As a result, he went to Lyon, “solely for the purpose of seeing a manufacturing place in France.”8 The publication of The Claims of Labour reflected both the immediate intellectual environment of the 1840s and the larger and deeper tensions which did much to define the decade. To begin with, Helps wrote with Carlyle’s Chartism (and Past and Present) in mind.9 At the same time, the volume illustrated not only fear of Chartism, but the beginnings of the production of knowledge about the social effects of industrialism. Readers of The Claims of Labour would also discover that its author believed that Christian theology was relevant to modern industrial problems. Helps had read F. D. Maurice’s Kingdom of Christ (1838) and it is possible that it provided a significant underlying theological influence on his development.10 Helps dedicated the volume to the dramatist Henry Taylor (1800–1886) who wrote a number of plays, the most important of which for The Claims of Labour was Philip van Artevelde, which had appeared a decade earlier in 1834. This work was consistent with the genre of Helps’ earlier literary works, such as Catherine Douglas and King Henry the Second. Taylor was also the author of The Statesmen (1836) which Helps clearly admired and cited in The Claims of Labour and would later return to in Thoughts Upon Government.11 It is worth noting that Helps had been accused by a reviewer of imitating Henry Taylor, a charge which Helps dismissed as the inevitable result of critics. Yet, one of the things which is striking about the work is that it reveals how little many of the age’s public moralists understood the problems posed by industrial development and rapid urbanisation. Indeed, a basic

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review of Helps’ sources documents his active engagement with the most important published materials of his day. It is even possible to make the case that he was a more dedicated student of his times than was Carlyle. Nonetheless, the very arguments which Helps set forth betray at least as much about his social situation and experience than they do about feasible solutions to the evils associated with industrialism.

Sources for Assessing Urban and Industrial Change Helps made extensive use of vast amounts of parliamentary reports published from the 1830s onwards. Most important was the work of Edwin Chadwick, but he also drew upon the Handloom Weavers Report of 1841, the Report on Bethnal Green and Whitechapel and the Select Committee in 1841 on Building Regulations. Furthermore, Helps’ correspondence reveals a deep antipathy about not only political economy, but social class. Writing to Anster he explained: Perhaps I am wrong in saying that Literature is in some instances conducted quite in the spirit of a war between class and class, but I hardly know in what other words to express what I mean, and what I certainly see. You know what I mean, what would you call it? I assure you, being a peaceable man, and particularly reluctant to be drawn into any literary squabbles, I am very unwilling to say what I have said: but I felt it an imperative duty.12

Helps saw the power of class, but would seek to deny its efficacy and he saw the problem from above—there was relatively little room in his thought to sense the possibility that class consciousness might provide agency to workers; instead, he focused on the ways in which class interests inhibited benevolent efforts or produced cynicism. All told, The Claims of Labour amounted to an attempt to redefine the discursive basis for the debates regarding the solutions (and to a lesser extent the origins) to social problems. Nobody understood better than John Stuart Mill that The Claims of Labour represented at least a divergent position on the status of political economy as a discourse. Mill seized the publication and apparent popularity of The Claims of Labour to launch an attack on the growing philanthropic movement by reviewing the work in the Edinburgh Review (April, 1845). Mill explained to Macvey Napier, editor of the Edinburgh Review, that he had a great inclination to “write something on the doctrines & projects which are so rife just at present.” A review of The Claims of Labour would provide the appropriate occasion. Mill elaborated

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that his motivation came from what he regarded as the dangers associated with popular philanthropy: It appears to me that along with much of good intention, & something even of sound doctrine, the speculations now afloat are sadly deficient, on the whole, in sobriety & wisdom—forgetful, in general, of the lessons of universal experience, & of some of those fundamental principles which one did think had been put forever out of reach of controversy by Adam Smith, Malthus, & others. The general tendency is to rivet firmly in the minds of the labouring people the persuasion that it is the business of others to take care of their condition, without any self-control on their own part--& that whatever is possessed by other people, more than they possess, is a wrong to them. I am sure you will agree with me in thinking it very necessary to make a stand against this sort of spirit while it is at the same time highly necessary as well as right, to show sympathy in all that is good of the new tendencies, & to avoid the hard, abstract mode of treating such questions which has brought discredit upon political economists & has enabled those who are in the wrong to claim, & generally to receive, exclusive credit for high & benevolent feeling.13

John Stuart Mill used The Claims of Labour to challenge what he understood to be the intellectually unsound philanthropic understanding of the “condition of England” question. The publication of Helps’ work, which Mill deemed to be timely, became the occasion to address the question of labour and poverty which Malthus’ Essay on the Principle of Population and, more generally, the emergence of the field of political economy had made urgent.14 Mill, who described Helps as a man of feeling and reflection,15 noted the use of the aphorisms in the text and declaimed that: [A] person disposed to criticise might indeed object, that these earnest and thoughtful sayings are chiefly illustrative of the duty of every one to every one; and are applicable to the formation of our own character, and to human relations generally, rather than to the special relation between rich and poor. It is not concerning the poor specially, that these lessons are needed. The faults of the rich to the poor are universal faults. The demeanour fitting towards the poor, is that which is fitting towards every one. It is just a charge against the English nation, considered generally, that they do not know how to be kind, courteous, and considerate of the feelings of others. It is their character throughout Europe.16

Mill objected to the emerging philanthropic discourses of the mid1840s because they did not take seriously enough the research (and vigorous intellectual debate) on the economics of labour and poverty; he also repudiated many of the policies associated with the philanthropic

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movement as unsound. Instead, Mill emphasised that a combination of discipline (for the poor) and education were the only principles which might meet Britain’s social problems. Mill exposed the terms in which Helps cast some of the primary arguments of The Claims of Labour as intellectually naïve at best. While Mill acknowledged that Helps had done a useful thing by giving additional publicity to the work of Samuel Greg, he believed that Greg’s experiment was inadequate to cure great social evils.17 More importantly, Mill redefined the discussion in terms of overpopulation and economic productivity. Whether this could be said to be fair to Helps is another matter. Mill had understood that The Claims of Labour marked an attempt to reformulate many of the leading social issues of the day. Mill probably did not foresee that while The Claims of Labour would not be regarded as a decisive text (in terms of its arguments), it would prove an important milestone in the development of a new vocabulary for Britain’s social problems. In contrast, Helps sought to make a moral argument buttressed by recent empirical data. While further exposition is needed here, Helps arrived at his vision with a combination of ideas (however attenuated) taken from the broader streams of Christian doctrine, modern humanism and utilitarianism. Mill’s review had characterised philanthropic thinking for wanting to restore or perpetuate a doctrine in which: “it is the recognised duty of every owner of land, not only to see that all who dwell and work thereon are fed, clothed, and housed, in a sufficient manner; but to be, in so full a sense, responsible for their good conduct.”18 Mill, as such, was not fair to the complexity of The Claims of Labour. Helps’ position did not make responsibility fully dependent upon property or material wealth. The core assumption—that human life was defined by its social responsibilities—meant that the text was a sustained argument against any type of radical individualism. It would be significant that Helps did this in the context of trying to establish boundaries for private and public life. At the heart of Helps’ analysis was a moral argument to solve or at least address economic and social problems. Despite the noble attempt to digest the information—the type which within a decade Dickens would so famously and effectively satirise—Helps’ paternalistic argument betrayed not the direct engagement of the activist, but the subtle detachment of the Apostle. This detachment meant more than an academic conversation—it was an attempt to clarify some of the modalities of beginning to deal with the vast and social problems which Helps perceived. Ironically, Helps’ broader argument included a sustained attack on narrow mindedness, which was a theme he would also address in

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Companions of My Solitude (1851) that would find echoes in John Stuart Mill’s seminal On Liberty. In writing a metadiscursive analysis of the attempts to deal with industrial social issues, Helps anticipated John Stuart Mill’s arguments for open-mindedness which defined some of the purple passages of the latter’s On Liberty (1859). Half a generation before Mill wrote what now seems like a necessary and inevitable defence of liberty, Helps set forth a clever argument about the difficulties of achieving intellectual innovation. Helps’ aim was not so much to establish liberty as the basis for social interaction, as to inveigh against what he believed to be restrictive thinking. Nonetheless, it is evident that Helps’ plea for broadminded solutions would find a definite echo in Mill’s more famous work.

Immediate Improvements: The “Crusade Against Misery” A superficial reading of The Claims of Labour reveals that Helps accepted many of the recommendations made by utilitarian thinkers in articulating a possible future which was both practical and realisable. The Claims of Labour offered a combination of proposals for immediate improvements, broader considerations about the difficulties inherent in responding to industrial and urban problems and a plea based upon moral considerations that people understood and act upon the duties which they possessed. Helps’ urgency reflected the fact that this text—which was written in two parts in 1844 and 1845—was an attempt to engage the “condition of England” question. While Helps noted the publication of the Report by the Health of Towns Commission lay between the writing of the first and second essay,19 the two texts can be taken as a singular response to the burgeoning industrial and urban crisis which Helps labelled: “the coming pestilence.”20

Intellectual Service These conditions required solutions which called upon both state action and private efforts. With echoes of both his earlier writings and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s idea of a clerisy, Helps believed that one thing required by government was the recruitment of an elite talent which might try to understand and solve the problems caused by industrialism.21 While Helps did not spell out the means for recruitment, he did elaborate on the means to motivate a policy-making elite. One of the first proposals which Helps sets forth is for the creation of an honours system to reward productive service. Nearly a full generation before Ruskin titillated his readers with the promise of a “crown of wild olive,” Helps envisioned the award of

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some type of civic crown for those who were diligent and effective in government service.22 Beyond this, he also thought that it was imperative to mobilise the traditions of Christian social activism. This meant developing an understanding that Stewardship was a feature of leadership.23 The theme of stewardship, which Ruskin would soon use to help frame some of the arguments of The Seven Lamps of Architecture, could be made manifest in the ways in which men and women carried out their individual relationships (with their domestic servants), or in forming associations (to support social causes), or, even more broadly, in the shaping of public opinion.24 The argument from doctrinal premises was not explicitly theological; instead, it amounted to little more than a call to acknowledge the legacy of Christendom. That is, Helps wanted to invoke Christianity to underscore both the centrality of duty and moral obligation for his readers. One of the things which make The Claims of Labour interesting is that Helps could move from residual Christian doctrines to a relatively detailed discussion about specific urban and industrial problems.

Industrial Conditions Helps resisted the temptation to re-describe urban conditions as he assumed that his audience were familiar with the works of Edwin Chadwick and Southwood Smith, and other urban and public health investigators. Yet Helps, in contrast to the abstract discussion of political economists, emphasised the possible improvements in urban environments. The Claims of Labour combined a near environmental determinism with the language of moral obligation. For example, in analysing ways to improve the Mill, Helps addressed issues such as hours, working conditions and sanitation. Helps cited the instance of the building of party-walls to show that government interference could be a positive development.25 To be sure, much of the discussion was general, but Helps, like so many of his contemporary reformers, did insist on the importance of ventilation.26 The concern for the conditions of workers was extended to their overall health and welfare. Nowhere did Helps make this so clear as his concern for education. Again, Mill had distorted the argument of The Claims of Labour as Helps argued that Britain should have some form of national education.27 Mill had asserted that education for workers should be guided by the needs of industry: “We want schools in which the children of the poor should learn to use not only their hands, but their minds, for the guidance of their hands.”28 More importantly, Mill’s review did not

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mention that Helps did, in fact, advocate education as a means to improve the condition of the labouring poor. While Helps did not make specific proposals, he carried out an impressionistic discussion of what education for workers might entail. For instance, Helps believed that music was an essential feature of education, necessitating singing in schools.29 At the same time, Helps wrote about the conditions of the schoolroom as he worried about rote memorisation well before Dickens so effectively savaged the method in Hard Times. Above all, the education of workers should be of a moral nature. Helps believed that moral education could help reduce social ills (he would finally engage the issue of prostitution in Companions to My Solitude), but his aims were actually more ambitious. Helps envisioned a pedagogy which would at once enshrine the dignity of labour, while also teaching workers (and their employers) about the centrality of duty for life.30 Helps articulated a view of teaching which reflected many Victorian pieties about the connections between education and social stability. With respect to teaching he argued: … one would like to see a great deal of manual teaching, with a view not only to the future profit, but also to the future pleasure and instruction of children. When you think that many of them will be artisans, whose only occupation, perhaps, will be to perform some one process of manufactures, requiring next to no thought or skill, it becomes the more necessary to educate their hands as well as their heads. Man is an animal very fond of construction of any sort; and a wise teacher, knowing the happiness that flows from handiwork, will seize upon opportunities for teaching even the most trivial accomplishments of a manual kind. They will come in, hereafter to embellish a man’s home, and to endear it to him. They will occupy time that would, otherwise, be ill spent. And, besides, there are many persons whose cleverness lies only in this way; and you have to teach them this or nothing.31

Helps’ argument, which illustrates the commitment to education which Mill implied was lacking, might just has easily have been written by Ruskin in the 1850s. The playground was no less important to Helps, who would also address the issue of recreation in the first series of Friends in Council. Like many reformers, Helps assumed that the creation of maintenance of open spaces that might be used as playgrounds was essential to improving the fate of urban workers.32 In addition, well ahead of many public school reformers, Helps championed the importance of manly games.33 The playground, then, was not only the place for better air, but it was a place to promote character development. Finally, Helps made the point that

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workers needed greater mobility or cheap locomotion.34 He foresaw the railway as a device which might mitigate the crowded slums. In essence, Helps was interested in bettering the conditions of workers as he also argued that it was incumbent on employers to worry about the leisure time of their employees. Moving away from state intervention, Helps suggested that the benevolent employment of labour would mean owners would use the playground to improve the lives of their workers.35 This might well mean prizes for athletic skill, the creation of zoos, promotion of the public exhibition of paintings and making concerts available. In addition, Helps envisioned that these workers would also be improved by being able to visit mechanics’ institutes.36 Lastly, these considerations also meant that the working day ought to end much earlier so that workers would have the time (as well as the place) to enjoy their lives.37 It should be noted that all of this would be taken up later by John Ruskin.

Urban Environments The Claims of Labour carried the discussion away from the need to to preserve old buildings, to advocating the construction of new and impressive structures. Not surprisingly, this would mean a cityscape with designed sanitation features. Helps championed the construction of public bathhouses, but used a historical example rather than contemporary discussions to frame his argument. He compared the ancient Roman practice of bathing with what might be possible in mid-century Britain. Helps distinguished the former from the latter, noting that Roman baths were only open to citizens, which restricted public access; in contrast, he foresaw that baths created in Britain would be available to the entire population.38 Helps’ discussion anticipated the passage of the 1846 Baths and Wash-Houses Act, but it did not foresee the problems associated with making public baths common in Britain.39 Helps championed public bathing as a way to improve the condition of workers and, more broadly, their behaviour. In order to improve sewage, the second essay championed the suggestions of the Health of Towns Report.40 However, he was even more concerned with the problems caused by air pollution. Helps’ point of view was consistent with that of reformers who worried about smoke. Like a number of early Victorians, he was ahead of some of the scientific discourses of the day in that he understood the problem of pollution without having the means to quantify its significance and impact upon the larger environment. He tried to articulate and ultimately define a smoke rate without understanding how to measure

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its effects. In the second essay, Helps advocated following the basic recommendations of the Health of Towns Report and called for Smoke Prohibition without spelling out exactly what this might entail.41 Not surprisingly, Helps connected smoke to sanitation. He advocated surveillance for public health, and it was evident that the health of towns had to be watched by scientific men.42 He conceded that a committee made up of examiners would be worthy of despotic power.43 The Helpsian town, then, would have a good water supply, adequate drainage, less smoke and good ventilation. In the second essay, Helps explored the modalities in which his vision might be realised. With the work of Chadwick now before the public, Helps called for the establishment of a Department of Public Health which would be independent. This body should bring a fresh perspective to public health as its membership would ideally be made up of new hands.44 This institution should be set up in such a manner so as to guarantee its diversity of mind. Helps believed that only by creating such a body could government be mobilised to address matters which the public might not appreciate (such as smoke or poor drainage) and which might otherwise fall outside the sphere of politics. Therefore, one of its tasks was to directly address nuisances which might otherwise escape legislative intervention.45 The assumption that Helps and many others shared was that these nuisances had a cumulative effect—the impact of smoke might not be immediately obvious but, in fact, constituted a critical public health problem. Helps also believed that public opinion could be usefully mobilised through the work of associations. He thought that a department of public health would be useful to manage public environments (especially once improved), but the value of associations would be exigent and local. That is, an association would be particularly useful in identifying and even addressing an existing problem. Helps cited the example of the ways in which local associations could suggest immediate improvements—such as the creation of a public park. Helps was impressed with the ways in which local associations had begun to work in Battersea—a series of initiatives which would ultimately result in the creation of a public park on that location. He appears to have been known or studied the London builder Thomas Cubitt’s (1788–1855) suggestions to Queen Victoria’s Commission for Improving the Metropolis. In 1843 Cubitt, who would be remembered for his contributions to the east front of Buckingham Palace and the development of Pimlico, Belgravia and Tavistock Square, recommended that a park be built in Battersea, eventually resulting in an

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Act passed in 1846 which enabled the Commissioners to form a Royal Park in Battersea Fields.46 Therefore, the opportunity created by the publication of the Health of Towns Report meant that Helps wanted to use The Claims of Labour to mobilise opinion. Associations could begin to identify areas which needed to be addressed and suggest immediate improvements. These gains would be matched by the creation of a Department of Public Health to provide surveillance and management of urban and industrial environments. Taken together, private initiatives and public investment might make possible the realisation of Helps’ romantic vision (which he would later move away from), itself rooted in the traditions of Christian social activism, for a new British landscape. It was characteristic of Helps’ writing that he could take a subject such as a town’s ventilation and move effortlessly into a new, but related area. This lateral facility was not always to his advantage. To anticipate further, critics would complain that many of his ideas lacked depth. The Claims of Labour might well frustrate a more systematic thinker because Helps could not resist connecting the detailed social discussion to a larger moral argument. In this case, Helps used the occasion to venture back to the relationships between the employers and the employed. This crusade against misery would be multifocal; it would involve centralised state planning, local legislation, association activism, and an alteration in the way Britons thought.47 Helps’ vision might have been revolutionary as it called for a transformation in self and society. However, what separated Helps from the likes of Owen, Carlyle, Ruskin and Morris was his assumption that even if these problems were urgent and compelling they required changes which must be shaped by sensitivity to procedure, process and local realities, and that significant alterations in life and thought should be made within the ambit of existing social and cultural habits. Looking ahead, it was precisely these types of characteristic differences which helped to ensure that The Claims of Labour would be ultimately less interesting and, more likely, as a consequence be lost to subsequent generations. However, it was attention to these smaller realities which also made Helps a significant Victorian presence.

Improving Domestic Conditions Possibly the most important worker environment for Helps was the home, and he stressed the centrality of improving the domestic situation for the moral advancement of workers and their families. The discussion

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of domestic environments in The Claims of Labour ranged from an exploration of the ways to produce more effective drains to the motivations for constructing houses. All told, Helps’ vision of the worker’s home was possibly the most farsighted and imaginative argument in the text. The importance placed upon the condition of the home could be gleaned from the discussion about the difficulties inherent in regulating construction. With sanitation in mind, Helps wanted to see basic rules devised for the construction of houses—regulations that would ensure that homes were built with backyards and open spaces. Helps wanted to modify the window tax to benefit the poor.48 However, the most notable thing in Helps’ examination of the subject was his attention to the legal and political complexities inherent in developing standards for domestic construction. He believed that local improvement Acts could be useful, but ultimately the problem could only be addressed through central government, and he foresaw the creation of a central office to accede to the inevitable variations in the application of the law. This central office would supervise the work of the local boards of health, allowing them to make adjustments relevant to local circumstances. The problem of ensuring reliable housing for the poor straddled the divide which emerged in the nineteenth century between public and private. In addition to envisioning an expanded role for both local government and the centralised state, Helps asserted that private individuals could make a great difference in the development of good housing.49 He connected the project of building quality housing to some of the greatest achievements of medieval Christendom. To develop good houses for poor workers would be an endeavour equal to the building of cathedrals in the Middle Ages to glorify God.50 Helps attempted to meet the objection that improving housing was not profitable by again invoking the legacy of Christianity in reminding his readers that not all ventures had to be done with the utmost profit in mind.51 Given these realities, it should be possible that cottages (with open spaces, windows and other features to enhance sanitation) could be built for the poor. Helps’ framework, then, drew upon a vision of an active government which would utilise legislation to define national standards and, yet, be sensitive to local considerations, moral arguments, the heritage of Christian social policies, and an awareness of the economics of the construction industry. Creating good homes necessarily meant more attention to public spaces as well, and the rationale for local intervention would be public health.52 Helps argued that it should be local government which would also ensure that water supply was adequate, roads paved and public areas adequately

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lit.53 In the second essay, Helps emphasised the importance of providing towns with a constant supply of water.54 He worried that the multiplication of water companies had caused problems, leading him to wonder if the water supply might necessitate the work of a political economist.55 Again, Helps looked for private individuals to make the homes appear nice, as they were to be much more than alms houses.56 Helps also advocated the allotment system, arguing that room might be left for allotments of land.57 Finally, in attempting to address the worker’s home environment Helps again argued that labour need not be located at their place of employment.58 Helps’ romantic vision called for a substantial investment in the project of building homes for the workman.59 It reflected the detailed study of many government reports which established beyond doubt or mere anecdote the ugly realities of industrialised Britain. Helps’ thought was environmental; he connected the situation in the factories to homes and slums and sought a new landscape to solve social and moral problems. The vision of a better future staked out in The Claims of Labour would find echoes in the life and work of Ruskin and William Morris. The romantic future went beyond the workplace, school, playground and home to also include the urban setting. Helps’ discussion of the town is actually quite brief, but it does indicate an attempt to create a new and healthy environment for industrial Britain. Anticipating the work of Ruskin, Helps identified the appearance of public buildings as a means to improve the quality of life.60 Just as the author of The Seven Lamps of Architecture would see monumental and public building as a way to promote moral improvement and political stability (Ruskin was writing in 1848), Helps believed that monumental architecture could be a silent influence and decisively define urban environments.61

Practical Wisdom: Developing Methods for Social Problems Beyond making specific recommendations across a broad spectrum of issues, Helps believed that it was even more necessary to enable his contemporaries to alter their understanding of the age’s key problems. Helps asserted that the dimensions of Britain’s industrial problems were not fully understood. Yet, he found it encouraging that there was an increased solicitude for the obligations connected to labour.62 With clear echoes of Carlyle, this new focus on a broader conception of labour was ultimately of greater significance than the mechanical triumphs, which seemed to garner the attention of those who sought to comprehend the

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leading realities of the present.63 The discussion of social government reflects an anxiety not uncommon to organic moral thinkers, namely that their contemporaries did not understand how to see or think adequately about the problems of the day.64 These concerns were also present in the second essay; most notably, the treatment of individual exertion amounted to a sustained examination not of specific proposals, but rather what he assumed to be his audience’s presuppositions about labour, employer obligation, history and social activism. The author of The Claims of Labour used the text to emphasise the urgency of Britain’s social problems. At the heart of his argument was an appeal to individual duty, based upon a combination of human letters, traditional Christian social thought and ideas derived from efficiency. Helps weighed in against an individualism based upon material gain, asserting that duties are the “great realities of life.”65 More importantly, while attacking individual ambitions, he claimed that self-advancement can instead be measured by a person’s contributions to social improvements. In order to prepare for a different way of regarding human achievement, Helps addressed the fear of criticism,66 arguing that courage—especially Christian courage—was among the rarest possessions.67 Courage to try new modes of life—an essential feature of the crusade against misery in the face of criticism, would be indispensible in the undertaking of any ambitious project. It would be characteristic of Helps’ writing that it focused on both the impact of the active exertion on society as well as the ways in which these responses may have also affected the activist. To this end, he encouraged his readers to understand that projects of social reform may not only face criticism, but also may not result in any short term or immediate gratitude.68 Citing Sir Walter Scott (“let us not lessen the victory they have won by affecting to claim a share in it”), Helps offered, instead, the activist the code of chivalrous behaviour as a basis for conduct because he assumed that it was self-denying.69 With benevolence in mind, Helps also explained that just as activists should be selfless, so too should they be broad minded. With possible hints of Carlyle, Helps warned against adopting social policies which might be reducible to mere rules.70 The individual experience of the activist should be understood to be an insufficient basis for the formulation of rules which might be regarded as general principles for humanity.71 In addition to selflessness and broadmindedness, Helps cautioned his readers to be wary of hidden agendas and other ungenerous motives.72 Helps foresaw that the difficulties associated with generosity could prove to be an obstacle to benevolent exertion. These might include envy, based

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on the improvements, which might be effected by either activism or government intervention. Helps had in mind the moral challenge which might be experienced by one generation which had to suffer a number of unpleasant realties and be tempted for selfish reasons to not remove the same realities for the next generation. Helps thought that it was important to alert his contemporaries to the dynamics of change by attacking what he perceived to be narrowmindedness. Helps’ critique anticipates both Mill and Mathew Arnold’s objection to ‘stiff neck’ outlooks which they saw developing around them. Helps would pick up this theme repeatedly and in many different guises. In Companions of My Solitude it would be a subtle attack on the character of the Puritan mind and, less obviously, in a discussion about the tyranny of the weak,73 while Realmah would use satire to ask its readers to reexamine existing social conventions. Helps warned against apprehensive timidity, which might prevent his contemporaries from adopting the best solutions to social problems.74 With the doctrines of political economy and the Poor Law in the background, Helps made specific reference of the term “practical,” arguing that it would be used to maintain the status quo: Under that insidious word “practical” lurk many meanings. People are apt to think that a thing is not practical, unless it has been tried, is immediate in its operation, or has some selfish end in view … Every new thing from Christianity downwards, has been suspected, and slighted, by such minds. All that is greatest in science, art, or song, has met with a chilling reception from them. When this apprehensive timidity of theirs is joined to the cold or selfish spirit, you can at best expect an Epicurean deportment from them. Warming themselves in the sun of their own prosperity, they soothe their consciences by saying how little can be done for the unfed, shivering, multitude around them. Such men may think that it is practical wisdom to make life as palatable as it can be, taking no responsibility that can be avoided, and shutting out assiduously the consideration of other men’s troubles from their minds.75

Even though he had argued that there was no immediate need for new ideas, Helps carried the advocacy of fresh solutions further. One of Helps’ motivations in writing The Claims of Labour was to stress not only the urgency of Britain’s problems, but also to challenge what he perceived to be the innate caution of his contemporaries. Just as Mill would make the case in On Liberty for the potency of ideas, Helps observed that some great idea could end many of history’s obvious atrocities.76 Helps cited the example, “to do unto others as you have them do unto you.”77A single big idea might work wonders for the nineteenth century:

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… and this is what is wanted with regard to the relation of the employer and employed. Once let the minds even of a few men be imbued with an ampler view of this relation, and it is scarcely possible to estimate the good that may follow. Around that just idea what civilisation may not grow up! You gaze at the lofty cathedral in the midst of narrow streets and squalid buildings, but all welcome to your sight as the places where miserable men first found sanctuary; you pass on and look with pleasure at the rich shops and comfortable dwellings; and then you find yourself amongst ample streets, stately squares, and the palaces of the great, with their columns and their statues: and if then you turn your thoughts to the complex varieties of modern life, and the progress of civilisation and humanity, may you not see the same thing there; how all that is good, and merciful, and holy, is to be traced up to some cathedral truths, at first little understood, just restraining rude men from bloody deeds, and then gradually extending into daily life, being woven into our familiar thoughts, and shedding light, and security, and sanctity, around us? And, as the traveller’s first impulse, when he rises in the morning after his journey, is to catch a glimpse of that famous building which must ever be the thing most worthy of note in the city; so, in your travels, would you not look first for the cathedral truths, and delight to recognise their beneficent influence wherever you may meet with anything that is good in man?78

While this passage is suggestive of Ruskin’s The Stones of Venice, it amply illustrates Helps’ belief that the solution to Britain’s problems lay in the possibility of improving the moral outlook of men and women.

Private Duty: The Ordering of Domestic Life Helps subsequently moved the discussion away from abstract conceptual principles to something which was more concrete; namely, the relationship between the employer and the employee. In fact, it would be in The Claims of Labour that Helps would make a strong case for what might be labelled domesticity. In this context, he expanded this to include domestic life, which included not only familial relationships, but the conduct of domestic employers towards their servants.79 Readers of The Claims of Labour would discover that Helps believed that wise behaviour in the domestic sphere was not only important in itself, but might serve as a paradigm for public social relationships. That is, the family served as the best model for society. At the heart of Helps’ argument were two cherished assumptions, neither of which would make him unique to the world of the nineteenth century: first that every human being had social responsibilities towards both their superiors and inferiors, which could be identified with duty, and second that there existed or at

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least could exist an essential congruence between the virtues of private life and public behaviour.80 To master one’s duty meant understanding how to interact with a wide range of people and that the skills used to do this might successfully be translated in the public realm into appropriate behaviours and sound policies. Social behaviour was not instinctive but a matter of great principles, which ought to guide human interaction.81 Accordingly, in describing the manner in which one should try to talk to inferiors, Helps championed flexibility and, even more important, empathy.82 He asserted that temper and the sterility of character frequently undermined the quality of domestic life.83 In addition to flexibility and empathy, he understood transparency to be critical to domestic relationships. Helps advocated sincerity and earnestness as good foundations for domestic life. It is instructive to note that Helps’ discussion of the topic was directly connected to politics, and that his exploration of this area reflected a divide within his thinking about the place of morality and the role of social class. In examining this set of problems Helps referred to the political confidence of the operatives, and worried that they had lost confidence in the country’s political leadership.84 He attributed a significant degree of political discontent to the satirical and shrill language incumbent in politics; in addition, the poor conduct of public men (apart from bribery and intimidation) manifested by violent and injurious language, meant that political leaders were hard to respect.85 However, the more ominous problems concerned the ways in which politicians who abused their position to support their own individual self-interest might be seen to be acting not out of their own greed (a bad enough problem), but as part of some kind of governing or class interest. Worrying about the chasm between the workers’ opinions and the outlook of the political parties, Helps lamented the laws which benefited “those classes at the expense of their poorer brethren,”86 because they might lead to a situation in which the government would not be based upon consensus, but fear. Helps’ treatment of the topic is interesting because it shows that, as he worked his way through it, he found it harder to resist the importance of class in politics. Helps referred to the governing class87 as not just the government, but those who are able to elect it. The logic of his argument is that unless politicians behave properly, Britain will be left with a politics in which the decisive division is not between political parties, but between the governing class and the great mass.88 In the second essay, Helps clearly rejected class as the basis for outlook and argumentation; he wanted to believe that workers would be comfortable being led by their social superiors. Therefore, recent electoral

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problems and the unfulfilled promises made by parliamentary candidates were relevant to the much broader and deeper industrial and urban problems. It seems clear that in the mid-1840s Helps could not grasp that the operatives might only be fully satisfied by their own participation in the political process. Moreover, men and women might become more sympathetic towards their dependents and inferiors by first developing some self-knowledge. This meant understanding one’s own temper before regarding the offenses that might be created by someone under our power.89 This caution should be matched, curbing any desire to exhibit authority. At the same time, Helps urged that his contemporaries adopt a pattern of discourse with dependents which would resist the careless conclusions which come from a superior social position.90 In addition, Helps drifted into aphorism by claiming that forgiveness ought not to resemble forgetfulness.91 Above all, Helps rejected any kind of private morality. This did not mean a repudiation of selfish or greedy behaviour, but in trying to provide an unusual advantage to someone who is socially inferior. The basis of his argument is that any social relationship between two persons has implications for broader societal patterns. Individual relationships, as such, existed within the context of a trust for society in general.92 Nonetheless, Helps wanted to shrink the actual distances between people of different social positions. To this end, he advocated that playfulness was useful, even if it might be mistaken for ridicule.93 Beyond play, Helps wanted his readers to never make the mistake of treating a dependent or inferior as without hope of amendment.94 He also counselled that it was important to avoid being suspicious of the behaviour of one’s inferiors. Finally, Helps also emphasised that masters had an obligation to command their emotions. That is, when they became angry with a dependent or inferior it meant making sure that they acted in accordance with the fault and not the degree of their own vexation.95

Harmonising Private Virtue and Public Duty Since the arrangements of domestic life are relevant to public benevolence, Helps cautioned his readers against feelings of disgust and weariness.96 In making an argument for constancy, Helps invoked what would become a theme in his writings—that of practical wisdom. To be able to employ practical wisdom meant being ready to accept that small things are necessary to the realisation of great principles, and that those who engage in benevolent activity should have tempered expectations and

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hold their course of action with “calmness, with hope, and with humility.”97 In addition, those who are committed to a career of usefulness should not be overconfident but expect a range of oppositions which might be based on vanity, selfishness and unreasonableness.98 Therefore, the wise activist must not expect quick and dramatic improvements, but avoid weariness by beginning with an awareness that a definite period must elapse before the realisation of one’s project.99 Last, the motivation for benevolence must rest on more than human relations; instead, it must be based on an inexorable sense of duty of a person’s obligation to God as well as to their fellow man.100 Helps explored the ways in which “Remedies” might be achieved in the second essay. This question turned upon attempting to connect public good with private behaviour. Again, he sought to keep each independent, but believed that they were fundamentally compatible.

“Active Exertion”: The Creation of a Public Crusade These issues also involved the different levels of government authority. We have also seen that he found a good role for associations, which might complement that of government. With significant government experience already behind him, he worried about the ways in which government departments became rigid.101 It might be noted that his anxiety about ineffective government would prove to be a lifelong concern. However, it was when he explored the possibilities for individual exertion that Helps analysed the many conceptual problems inherent in this earlier vision. That is, in trying to find a way for private initiative to fit into a sophisticated set of public institutions, Helps’ analysis exhibited the wide range of considerations necessary to improve the conditions of British life and society. Helps invoked the Crusades to argue that these events were not so much collective enterprises as an aggregation of individual efforts.102 Therefore, in attempting to promote individual exertion, he sought to find principles which might unify the actions necessary for a crusade against misery. Helps feared the waste of individual effort; he was concerned to see a consensus develop which might guide the actions of well-meaning men and women.103 At the core of Helps’ vision was the development of principles which might define reform. Any serious effort to meet these social problems required the acceptance of interference in many avenues of life.104 Yet, it would prove to be characteristic of Helps that he would insist on avoiding any kind of rigid instructions about the relationship between private

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experience and public duty. Helps worried that state intervention might produce situations in which rules became more important than individual freedom.105 As we will observe, Helps would find it important to bring as much energy to reform—meaning personal effort, local action, state intervention—but insist that the private sphere of existence—domestic life, personal ambition and civic freedoms—remain sacrosanct. Accordingly, the author of Thoughts Upon Government would not deploy the language of crusades or romance, but rely on the development of greater public administrative competence. In this sense, Helps proved less interesting than many writers who exhibited desperate social ills in order to offer or demand drastic modification in life, but in so doing probably did more to chart the future trajectories of British governance. Therefore, meeting the challenges of social conservatism proved to be significant for Helps. One of themes central to The Claims of Labour was the recognition that even if interference was inconvenient, it was positive and probably inevitable. Nearly half a generation before On Liberty, Helps argued that one of the advantages of state intervention was that it secured greater individual freedom. That is, the significance of Britain’s industrial problems was such that state intervention would ultimately produce an improved situation where individual liberty might flourish.106 However, Helps made the case for intervention on cultural grounds as well. He asked his readers to recognise that non-Western civilisations tended to advance only with external contact. The conservative forces in any society were so great that change would not occur without some form of intervention. Helps, then, used a generalised colonial example to suggest to his readers that the forces of inertia were normally overcome by relatively drastic measures.107 In the first essay we saw that Helps had explored the importance of class for politics, trying to resist the implication that class held the key to political problems (and their solutions), and in the second he went much further in rejecting its importance. He challenged the idea that class divisions were the main basis for Britain’s social problems and therefore he attacked the idea that class solutions were realistic.108 In rejecting class-based arguments, Helps was part of a larger argument in the nineteenth century which asserted the primacy of ideas in human affairs. Like Coleridge before him, and like both Mill and Ruskin, Helps advanced the prominence of a kind of clerisy, as he held that thinkers and writers constitute the governing class.109 Therefore, Helps held that production of knowledge was important to overcome the slightest concealment of truth.110 In addition, literature (Helps deprecated both the “Literature of Despair” and the “Literature of Envy”111) should not be

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written to divide society (or exploit its existing divisions), but to “unite all classes into one harmonious whole.”112 Helps, like Carlyle and Ruskin, were organic moral writers, but even though he was unimpressed by party politics, he insisted upon the importance of many minute and particular boundaries. Organic thought meant trying to adjust society’s many moving parts, ultimately trying to improve the whole. Unlike those sages, Helps sought to depict organic social and moral relationships not to promise (or threaten) radical transformation of society, but to find ways of using its existing resources to make decisive and durable changes to it. To this end, Helps understood one of the chief aims of literature was to consist in the promotion of moral improvement. Helps championed a more careful approach to representing working people in mid-century discourses. They ought to be portrayed as more than victims and should be encouraged to see themselves as at least partly self-reliant.113 At the same time, he encouraged his readers to see that the moral vocabulary already existed to support improvements. In offering the prospects for individual exertion he rejected the need for genius (and drastic solutions), suggesting instead that Christianity and British thought possess more than adequate resources to affect the decisive improvement of society. Helps summed it up by saying: “let us sit down and make use of what we have.”114 Much as Ruskin would in Unto This Last, Helps located national wealth with human potential, focusing on moral improvement.115 Class relations could be improved by developing that “kindly feeling which is already in the world,” which can be found within families (and can make a parent “kind even to the faults of his children”).116 Helps believed that this might be achieved by making sure that classes understood each other better. Education would be important because it enabled people from different social positions to live more harmoniously together.117 By enlarging social sympathies he envisioned a situation in which there would not need to be a doctrine of conduct for friends, one for dependents and others for neighbours; instead, one spirit would be sufficient to “guide us rightly in all these relations.”118 Helps offered the improvement of the duties of master to man as a basis from which widespread social improvement might take place.119 Unfortunately, the importance of fulfilling these obligations has not been properly understood as there was a want of chivalry in the ways in which employers treated employees. Helps cited Sir Walter Scott as an example of a figure who treated his dependents well, making them happier than had they been independent.120 He appealed to Catholic tradition, as well, by citing the example of the pope’s washing the feet of poor men because it

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signified humble charity.121 Helps asserted that this type of humble charity should always accompany true lordship and dominion.122 Helps ended the second essay with an appeal to the importance of hope. He believed that despair was a great problem, but that benevolence should be done with hope. Helps explained that the “condition of England question” would pass, but that the efforts to which he referred in The Claims of Labour required a much more sustained commitment. Just as he had used the slogan “crusade against misery” at the end of second essay, he foresaw the need for a thirty years war, directed against sloth and neglect.123 This meant developing leadership capable of understanding the degree of difficulty in fighting deep-rooted social problems. It also meant understanding that being a member of a nation meant a person was enriched by many duties.124 For Helps, The Claims of Labour met the rediscovery of duty as the best way to meet England’s worst conditions.

Social Reform and the Promise of Activism The Claims of Labour was Helps’ first attempt to directly engage the many problems spawned by the newly emerging industrial society. The work was also an attempt to bring together a wide range of considerations: utilitarian ideas, new modes of discourse, the implications of the Report of the Health of Towns Commission, Christian theology, Carlyle’s cultural criticism and a sense of urgency about “the condition of England.” In offering a vision of sacred duty125 (which amounted to private virtue producing public duty), Helps supplied an organic solution that might “unite all classes into one harmonious whole.”126 The book would prove to be a touchstone for much of Helps’ career. While the literary format would prove different, many of the themes of Friends in Council can be found in The Claims of Labour. More important, perhaps, the combination of advocacy and ideas, which would be spelled out not only by Helps’ prose but by his deeds, can also be observed in this work. The Claims of Labour might also be seen as a broader cultural touchstone. Many of the themes enunciated by Helps in this work would find significant echoes. To cite the best example, some of John Ruskin’s most notable works—The Seven Lamps of Architecture, The Political Economy of Art, The Crown of Wild Olive, Unto This Last and Fors Clavigera—all develop ideas, often more successfully, which first appeared in The Claims of Labour.

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Notes 1

A little more than seven years after its publication, Blackwoods argued that The Claims of Labour was “amongst the first to extend the information collected by it, [The Report upon the Health of Towns] and to insist upon the measures which it pointed out.” (Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. LXX, October 1851, 380). 2 E. A. Helps, Correspondence of Sir Arthur Helps, K.C.B., D.C.L, 31. 3 Ibid., 31. 4 Ben Wilson, The Making of Victorian Values Decency & Dissent in Britain 1789–1837, 326. 5 Ibid., 326. 6 H. S. Jones, Victorian Political Thought, 1. 7 E. A. Helps, Correspondence of Sir Arthur Helps, K.C.B., D.C.L, 35. 8 Ibid., 36. 9 John Morrow, Thomas Carlyle, 101. It is clear that Carlyle was interested in the publication of The Claims of Labour. For more on Helps and Carlyle see 132. 10 Ibid., 25. 11 Arthur Helps, The Claims of Labour (London, 1845), 239. 12 Ibid., 42. 13 Jean O’ Grady & John M. Robson (eds.), The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill vol. XIII, 643–644. 14 Ibid., 643. 15 O’ Grady &. Robson, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill IV, 365. 16 Ibid., 380. 17 Ibid., 381. 18 O’ Grady & Robson, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill XIII, 343. 19 Arthur Helps, The Claims of Labour, 179. 20 Ibid., 145. 21 Ibid., 22. 22 Ibid., 23. 23 Ibid., 24. 24 Ibid., 26–32. 25 Ibid., 77. 26 Ibid., 81. 27 Ibid. 28 Mill, IV, 378. 29 Arthur Helps, The Claims of Labour, 90. 30 Ibid., 89. 31 Ibid., 91–91. 32 Ibid., 94. 33 Ibid., 93. 34 Ibid., 94. 35 Ibid. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid., 96. 38 Ibid., 124.

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The 1846 Baths and Wash-Houses Act applied only to England. For more on the difficulties connected to public bathing see: Claire Parker “Improving the ‘Condition’ of the People: The Heath of Britain and the Provision of Public Baths 1840–1870,” The Sports Historian 20 (2) (2000): 27–35. 40 Helps, The Claims of Labour, 205. 41 Ibid., 224. 42 Ibid., 136. 43 Ibid. 44 Ibid., 222. 45 Ibid., 226. 46 Ben Weinreb & Christopher Hibbert, The London Encyclopedia, 44. 47 Arthur Helps, The Claims of Labour, 235. 48 Ibid., 110. 49 Ibid., 112. 50 Ibid., 118–119. 51 Ibid., 113. 52 Ibid., 116. 53 Ibid., 117. 54 Ibid., 206. 55 Ibid., 207. 56 Ibid., 117. 57 Ibid., 121. 58 Ibid., 122. 59 Ibid., 121. 60 Ibid., 123. 61 Ibid. 62 Ibid., 3. 63 Ibid. 64 Ibid., 39. 65 Ibid., 42. 66 Ibid., 43. 67 Ibid., 44. 68 Ibid., 45–46. 69 Ibid., 48. 70 Ibid., 48. 71 Ibid. 72 Ibid., 49. 73 Arthur Helps, Companions of My Solitude, 38. 74 Arthur Helps, The Claims of Labour, 159. 75 Ibid., 158–159. 76 Ibid., 164. 77 Ibid. 78 Ibid., 164–165. 79 Ibid., 51. 80 Ibid., 52. 81 Ibid., 61. 82 Ibid., 63.

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Ibid., 52. Ibid., 54. 85 Ibid., 55. 86 Ibid., 59. 87 Ibid., 60. 88 Ibid. 89 Ibid., 65. 90 Ibid., 66. 91 Ibid., 67. 92 Ibid. 93 Ibid., 68. 94 Ibid. 95 Ibid., 69. 96 Ibid., 71. 97 Ibid., 72. 98 Ibid. 99 Ibid., 73. 100 Ibid., 72. 101 Ibid., 222. 102 Ibid., 235. 103 Ibid., 241. 104 Ibid., 242–243. 105 Ibid., 247. 106 Ibid. 107 Ibid., 244–245. 108 Ibid., 251–252. 109 Ibid., 251. 110 Ibid., 252. 111 Ibid., 112 Ibid., 253. 113 Ibid., 254. 114 Ibid., 255. 115 Ibid. 116 Ibid., 256. 117 Ibid. 118 Ibid. 119 Ibid., 259. 120 Ibid., 262. 121 Ibid., 264. 122 Ibid. 123 Ibid., 268–269. 124 Ibid., 272. 125 Ibid., 17. 126 Ibid., 253. 84

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CHAPTER FOUR WE ARE BOUND TO MAKE GREAT EFFORTS Experiments in Activism Arthur Helps matched the advocacy of action which had defined The Claims of Labour with direct involvement in a number of social causes. As we will see, Helps would serve as a special constable during the Chartist crisis. More memorably, he also joined a number of leading Victorians to try to meet the political turmoil of the late 1840s by supplying writings for a series of pamphlets entitled “Politics for the People.” With these interests, Helps became involved in the early stages of the Working Men’s College. Helps followed the leads of Chadwick, Simon and others concerned with public health by trying to address the challenge posed by cholera. Finally, Helps would follow W. R. Greg in trying to create a model industrial community on his property. This event—about which he did not write—proved to be of decisive importance for his career. It should be pointed out that while Helps became personally involved in these causes his primary efforts came with the pen. Indeed, it is probably not too much to claim that these relatively early efforts (and his attempts to write about them or related issues) were matched by a search, which was ultimately successful, for an authorial voice.

Chartism Given the paternalistic arguments set forth in The Claims of Labour it is hardly surprising that Helps regarded Chartism and the disturbances associated with it as a misguided threat to social order. In April 1848 Helps was mobilised as a Special Constable. This was a response (which included as many as 150,000 Special Constables) to the possibility of violence when the Chartists delivered their Charter. Characteristically, Helps connected this activity (which worried his family) with an open letter about Chartism. Helps reflected that this mobilisation amounted to a national event which was supported by a wide range of Britons:

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Chapter Four … there never was a body so varied in every way as that which turned out on Monday last to aid in keeping the peace. Noblemen, tradesmen, and workmen were thoroughly intermingled. No class stood apart. Gray-haired men and slim youths went side by-side; coal-whippers and young dandies; literary men and those to whom books are unbeknown, and by whom they would be thoroughly believed in … There have been various accounts of our numbers, which, as you see, have been rated as high even as 150,000 … there was more grumbling on the 10th of April and on the preceding days, respecting the defective arrangements for making special constables, from those who were impatient to be sworn in, than there was from the Chartists themselves against the Government.1

For Helps, the mobilisation as Special Constable was probably a near sacred event because it involved the rejection of class or narrow partisan interests for the preservation of social stability. Readers of The Claims of Labour would have had no difficulty recognising the stress that Helps placed on moral obligation: “[We] all feel, every man of us, that we are ready to come out again and to do duty for any time that might be requisite.”2 At the same time, the centrality of social harmony would also be well known to Helps’ readers as he argued that the want of harmony would be a significant evil. The mobilisation of private citizens meant nothing less than the realisation—however brief—of the kind of secular crusade which Helps had called for in The Claims of Labour. Helps wanted his readers to know that he was not particularly uncomfortable with the Chartist opinions, but feared the groundwork of these opinions because they reflected significant social division.3 Helps asserted that, “at the bottom of Chartism there is something socially wrong; not merely politically or politico-economically, but socially wrong.”4 Helps’ argument was based upon a rejection of egalitarian ideas; he asserted that life is an interchange of dependencies. His dislike of abstract thought was evident as well: “Folly, which lives in crude abstractions, never found such a home as in this word ‘equality’.”5 Furthermore, the repudiation of academic authority was part of his argument: “Clever articles in the Edinburgh, the Quarterly, and other Reviews and Magazines, come not near the Chartists.”6 Not surprisingly, Helps understood that the origins of the problem lay in the relationship between the employers (centres of action) and their employees.7 At the heart of Helps’ argument was a rejection of any hint of social atomisation. Helps believed that Britain’s social crisis (of which Chartism was a symptom) could be at least be partly solved by education. This meant not only promoting some basic education for the poor, but more importantly moral education. Britons needed to better understand the interconnections between one another as well as their social obligations.

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Helps believed that there existed hoarded wisdom which, if used properly, might furnish his contemporaries with the ability to meet newly emerging social problems.8 It is instructive to cite a couple of representative passages here because they aptly illustrate the deep belief that Helps possessed in the organic character (and the collective wisdom which came with it) in British society. Helps offered the following advice to a Chartist: Tell him that there is such a thing as civilisation, which he profits by, though not in the degree that he ought to do; (and by the way which of us does?) and that any disturbance of social order in this country is likely to do him incomparably more harm than good. Tell him, and you will not be exaggerating, that there are people in the higher classes, whom he curses as aristocrats, the best energies of whose minds have been given for many a year to thought and endeavour for him. If he begins with his “liberty, equality, and fraternity,” tell him that there is here neither time nor space for such things.9

Helps regarded the public sphere as deep and nuanced, and not easily manipulated. That said, his appeal looks at the latter vantage points (as it must have many times in the mid-nineteenth century) as hopelessly naïve: By kind words, by kinder deeds, by a long course of masterly behaviour, he will be our best safeguard, and conduct authority by the gentlest descent from the highest to the lowest. He may rely upon it the evils of the day are not to be met by giving up power but by making more use of it … we should look to the employers of labour, and to any of those in our body who have influence with Chartists. Many of these Chartists are said to be shrewd men, many doubtless are honest men. Surely they could be made to see that good times would be good for them as well as the rest of the community, and that good times are to be gained by quiet. If these men have entirely got beyond our influence, it is … in some measure our own fault: and we are bound to make great efforts to regain that influence.10

Helps can be taken here quite literally—those employers (broadly understood) are bound to re-establish adequate social relationships. These great efforts would involve both private and public initiatives. It is significant that reconstruction of the public sphere required hard work and not simply legislative action: Quackery always promises great things to be effected in short times, and predicts sudden changes. You are to be at the point of death to-day and quite well to-morrow. Ages will pass and the world will continue to believe that all its evils are curable by some sudden process … It is astonishing what clever people there are who in all the profoundest social difficulties

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Looking ahead, Helps will be charged with emphasising the trivial at the expense of larger matters. It is certainly the case that in addressing the realities of Chartism, Helps tended to dismiss the idea that large, dramatic actions could adequately address the nature of the problem. Helps then belittled the assumption that society could ever be reconstituted by legislation or other forms of government action: Suppose in any country a government were to arise of great power, no want of means to begin with, hampered by no relationship with the past, capable of issuing decrees as fast as clerks could write them; and that this government had men in it really bent upon settling the world to rights; and that they were especially devoted to the interests of the labouring classes: and that war, and hunger, and death of trade, and the sewing-up of the mouth of free speech, and the provincial tyranny of one city over a whole empire, were to be the result of all these tremendous good intentions and great edicts; if we were to have such a spectacle before us, it might make us pause and even be contented with all manner of apparently small and unpretending ways of getting our poor fed and our work done, and our discontent allayed, which was never, I suspect, intended to be a very easy matter.12

Helps had belittled great measures, but he did not in any way ignore the depth of problems facing British society. Instead, Helps understood public life to be built upon a complicated set of social relationships. Since the existence of Chartism revealed a fractured society, he assumed that social reconstruction would demand much more than government action. More broadly, the open letter contained many of Helps’ basic ideas about the connections between private lives and public spheres. Helps’ view of public life was a complex one—he rejected the possibility that individuals could ever be isolated or removed from social obligations. In addition to rejecting doctrines associated with abstractions (such as egalitarianism), and stressing the centrality of social dependencies, Helps advanced an argument for the development of collective social wisdom. Helps claimed that literary figures bore “greater responsibility for improving social cohesion.”13 In writing about the role of the literary intellectual, Helps presaged his own career development: It is no good your asking this and that from the Government, or from the higher classes, on behalf of the class whose claims you advocate, unless you prepare your readers to receive it. In all cases the benefit of any gift lies in the receiver as well as in the gift of the giver. What political

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privilege, what social advantage, what physical enjoyment can compensate for an acrid murmuring spirit? Tell your readers what is beautiful, what is dignified, what is strong as humility, so dignified as forbearance, so great as contentment. You want to make these people happy, you say. Make yourself happy first: and if you do not do so by limiting your expectations rather than by gaining your wishes, you are a peculiar specimen of human nature, which I cannot presume to say anything further about. One thing I warn you of,—to think twice before endeavouring to impress your notions on the world, especially on half-educated persons.14

In typical Helpsian fashion he continued with the observation that men and women weep over interesting novels.15 Instead, he brought the thought to an epigrammatic end: “the books they ought to cry over shallow books dealing with great subjects, and moving large masses of men.”16 Again, it was characteristic of Helps at mid-century that he distinguished his own writing from the political economists. The polemic against political economy was more developed than in The Claims of Labour because with Chartist disturbances in the background Helps extended his attack beyond the doctrines of Riccardo or the Manchester School to theory itself. Helps turned his guns on the “so-called political economist,”17 meaning: … the man who having read in some books certain theories not wholly untrue as far as they appear in black and white, is determined to apply them throughout his life with the desperate rigour of a man with one or two ideas. Chartism, is, perhaps, the rebound of such narrow views as his. I do not ask him, however, to forsake political economy (which is ill-used enough in most places just at present), but to study it more deeply, and to translate its doctrines into life, with due recollection at all times that he is dealing with living beings. Very consistently, this pseudo-political economist has ridiculed, as an old remnant of feudalism, any notion of a relation other than pecuniary between employers and employed, between master and servant. And thus, as far as he can make it, the relation becomes degraded. But there is nothing so cruel as a theory. All other wild beasts have been tamed, but not a theory.18

Helps followed the precedents established by his earlier writings: he was prepared to offer the prospect of social improvement based upon mutually understood obligations. To put it differently, the public of the nineteenth century should be based upon understood dependencies. Helps’ open letter on Chartism, which ended with the signatory, “One of the Force Which Came Out On Monday, the 10th of April 1848,” looked ahead to collaboration with Maurice and Kingsley in calling upon the teaching of arts subjects to improve the condition of workers. Attempting

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to tackle the fractured social fabric which Helps identified with Chartism, he noted that those who wanted to remove the causes of the problem: … will be given due encouragement of arts, of studies, of domestic pursuits, of fitting recreations and of home adornments amongst their dependents and those over whom they may have influence. These are the surest means of elevation for our poorer classes: these are the things to soften down the asperities, and to remove the squalor of their daily life: these will tend to raise them out of faction into love of country. A man who knows something of any art (say of music, for instance, and imagine him one of Mr. Hullah’s pupils), has found out what study is; has gained a perception of excellence in contemplating great works; ascertains what a difficult matter it is to do anything well; and perceives that so far from men being equal, the same class will afford specimens of every variety of proficiency. Setting himself to wrestle with nature, trying to master some one branch of art, he may learn a humility which he will never acquire while he is fabricating fancy constitutions.19

Helps referred here to Hullah, but what he described fits Ruskin’s development and outlook. While we do not know the exact date that Helps first met Ruskin, it is possible to establish that this meeting took place earlier in that month. The supposition here is that Ruskin read this piece and learned a great deal from it.

Politics for the People Helps was one of the participants in Politics for the People (1848) which attempted to provide a journal aimed at working class readers.20 This publication, under the editorship of Maurice and John Ludlow, ran during the spring and summer of 1848 and carried a number of articles, poems, dialogues and aphorisms all attributed to anonymous authors. The subjects of these pieces included French socialist thought (almost certainly under the influence of Ludlow), Sanitary Reform, issues which directly involved Chartism, and the appreciation of art. The contributors were an impressive group made up of a young men devoted to connecting religious beliefs to politics. In addition to Maurice and Ludlow, the contributors to Politics for the People included Charles Kingsley (who wrote under pseudonym Parson Lot), Thomas Hughes, Rev. Richard Whatley, Rev. R. C. Trench, A. P. Stanley (future Dean of Westminster), James Spedding (who would become a well-known editor and literary critic), John Connington (who would become a Professor of Latin at Oxford), William A. Guy (Dean of the medical faculty at Kings College) and Edward Strachey (a pupil of Maurice).21

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While it is difficult to ascertain Helps’ exact contribution to Politics for the People, it seems clear that he contributed material and probably played a role in the editorial process. Ludlow and Maurice were the editors, but the stress on Duty and Christian teachings (and making them relevant to the turbulence of the late 1840s) would have been consistent with Helps’ open letter regarding Chartism. In addition, the main themes—improving industrial conditions, sanitary reform, the need for arts education and even the interest in French socialism—were all present in The Claims of Labour and the open letter. Helps’ most obvious contribution to the journal was the submission of three instalments of aphorisms. Many of these aphorisms were developed from earlier writings. More importantly, a great number were aimed at teaching wisdom. To cite a few examples: “A selfish man upsets the boat in the endeavour to make his place in it more comfortable” “It is astonishing how keen even stupid people are in discovering imaginary affronts.” “In giving way to selfish persons, remember that you cannot sacrifice yourself alone. Any relation in which you may be placed to them is not a thing that concerns you only; but is, as it were, a trust for society in general.” “It is certainly very moderate in men to covet those things chiefly which they cannot possibly enjoy for long. “In legislation, and indeed in our private conduct, there should be constant reference to great principles, if only from the exceeding difficulty of forseeing the results in detail of any measure.”22

The stress on the moral foundation of the public sphere could through aphorisms be communicated to Chartists or those sympathetic to their demands. “Dialogues in the Penny Boats,” an anonymous piece, which appeared in the second issue (May 13), has been attributed to Maurice.23 While it is clear that Maurice wrote many of the dialogues which appeared in Politics for the People, the one situated in the Penny Boats bears at least the strong influence of Helps—if not his literary stamp. The conversation, which took place in a penny boat, between a lawyer (a Templar), a silk weaver, a coalwhipper and the author. Recalling the open letter on Chartism, Helps

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served with a coalwhipper on April 10, but it is the narrator’s admissions about himself which fit the author of Friends and Council: … the penny boats are altogether different. I like them for a thousand reasons … You are in a crowd, without feeling angry at the people who compose it … You meet people of all sorts … Ten or fifteen minutes don’t leave much time for prosing; one can endure even a bore so long; if not, there is an escape to the other side of the funnel, or even into the cabin … I shall put down some of the penny-boat dialogues to which I have been a listener, and to which I have, more or less, contributed. The reader will discover that in general it is less rather than more; for I am shy; and though I sometimes talk a good deal, nearly half my sentences, from mumbling or some other cause, are not very intelligible to bystanders; nor, if I must speak the plain truth to myself. Some people have been heard to say, ‘He has got something in him if he could only bring it out’ … Twelve days ago I found, when I got into the boat at Hungerford, three men who has served with me as a special constable on the 10th of April … I was decidedly the shortest man in their body, and many friendly jokes, which did me good, and lessened my awkwardness, were cracked—I might say, at last broken into very small pieces—at my expense.24

The description of the Templar also merits examination because it discloses the kind of character sketch which would become so dear to Helps’ writing: I was mainly indebted to an old schoolfellow at Westminster, senior to me by a year, and taller than me by ten or twelve inches, whose fag I was there, who wrote my exercises and drubbed me, and who has felt it a sort of calling ever since to superintend my moral discipline, and to see that the conceit which, as he believes, is natural in all little men, does not grow to unnatural dimensions in me. He generally confutes all my opinions with a pooh! or a psha!—words of great power, which always impress me much more than his arguments, though they are by no means contemptible. He is essentially a kind-hearted man, always ready to do one a good turn, whatever he may say about it; and he has never shown the least inclination to cut me, though he is a Templar, rising in his profession, and rather anxious, I suspect, to be thought well of in the circles at the west end of the town; and though I—but I will not trouble you with the memoirs of my life at present.25

In addition to rejecting the practical application of Louis Blanc’s ideas (another connection with the open letter), the conversation in the dialogue made fun of abstract thinking, more importantly, and the point of the dialogue is to highlight the inadequacy of political economy as the basis for behaviour. To pull this together, “Dialogues in the Penny Boats” almost

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certainly reflected the immediacy of Helps’ experience on April 10; the conversation between the characters provided him with the vehicle to challenge arguments based on abstractions and well-enshrined doctrines associated with political economy. In addition, it was Helps rather than Maurice who served as Special Constable; the latter was not allowed to participate on the grounds that he was clergy.26 Nonetheless, Helps appears to have maintained his distance from Maurice. Politics for the People was not entirely Helpsian. The articles on liberty, fraternity, equality and other topics ran counter to his polemic against abstractions. More tellingly, Politics for the People proved to be the ritual commencement for the development of an intellectual circle around Maurice. This group, which began formal meetings around the end of 1848, seems not to have included Helps. If Helps did attend, it was almost certainly not for long. Helps disassociation with Maurice might appear to be of limited significance. However, it proved to be important because it meant that the former veered away from Christian socialism and writing about issues which were directly theological. In all probability, Helps had been drawn to Maurice and Politics for the People by his friendship with Maurice and his desire to respond to the challenges posed by Chartism—all of which appear to have been heightened by his experience on April 10. Helps probably moved away because the writers who produced Politics for the People were at once too radical and doctrinal for him.

Public Health: The Coming of Cholera In the mid-1850s Helps shifted his actions away from promoting social cohesion to public health. In a privately circulated pamphlet, “Some Thoughts for the Summer,” Helps devised a scheme which he believed would help to alleviate cholera, which he predicted would return. However, it would be indicative of his thinking that he would use a medical issueto again develop a larger discussion of social problems. During the second half of 1853 Helps followed the precepts which he had laid down in The Claims of Labour for voluntarism by working to develop a plan to reduce the incidence of cholera in East London. Helps believed that cholera was bound to return during the following summer and so devised a scheme to improve living conditions in select areas, because like so many in his day he attributed the disease to urban squalor. Helps assumed that cholera was produced in diseased environments which themselves were more likely to be generated by squalid conditions.

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He assumed that meeting the challenges posed by cholera would take a substantial effort and sought to demonstrate that private charitable efforts could be a significant supplement to public work: “the rich, the wise, and the powerful may fairly be asked whether they can do anything to avert or lessen the approaching evil.”27 Again, like many involved in what might be called the public health movement, Helps invoked the basic tropes associated with cleanliness and space. The key problem was urban conditions in which crowding produced a situation in which: “all the requirements of decency and comfort are so inadequately provided, that cleanliness has really no chance, and the ordinary human education appears as a far-off luxury, almost unfitted for creatures who are often worse housed than the beasts of the field.”28 John R. DeBruyn has traced Helps’ efforts in considerable detail, showing that the basic scheme was a limited one aimed at the immediate challenge which Helps predicted for the summer of 1854. Helps aimed to raise up to one hundred thousand pounds by private subscription; these funds would pay for sanitary improvements and other precautionary anticholera measures.29 These measures included improving drainage and water-supply, and paving yards and cellars was also a feature of the scheme. In addition, it seems clear that Helps called for the construction of model sanitary homes.30 It is no less evident that Helps went to great lengths to bring his plan to fruition. To begin with, he recruited John Simon to work as the chief inspector. Simon saw the merits and limitations to Helps’ proposal: Undoubtedly it would not give to entire London immunity from Cholera. Universal sanitary improvements are needful for the result:--improvements which must cost millions of money and occupy years of progressive labour … I believe it to be not less certain that very great good might be done … Instead of sixteen hundred deaths—instead of four or five thousand grevious sicknesses—instead of that universal degrading panic which pestilence diffuses amid a population—there would be comparative health and comparative sense of security … I very heartily wish success to your plan—believing it to be substantially sound and practical and feasible, as well as benevolent; and thinking also that, whatever lives it may be immediately instrumental in saving, whatever bereavements in preventing, its ulterior good may be immensely beyond this, as an educational stimulus to our torpid public.31

Helps must have cherished some of the letter’s last formulations: Men may begin to think the physical improvement of their poorer fellow creatures as important as the fattening of cattle; and your Model Houses

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may receive as many studious visitors as flock to the Christmas show of the Baker Street Bazaar.32

In addition, he gathered a large number of influential writers and policy makers in support of his scheme. The Health Fund for London, as such, drew support from Charles Dickens (at least at the beginning), John Ruskin, Lord Stanley, Lord Granville, Lord Monteagle, Maurice, Joseph Toynbee, Lord Ebrington and Stephen Spring-Rice.33 In addition, Tom Taylor, who had become secretary to the Board of Health in 1852 (he would soon also become the editor of Punch), was enlisted in January 1854.34 Despite the impressive intellectual and political firepower amassed to support the creation of the Health Fund for London, Helps’ scheme also began to attract opposition. It is probably fair to say that Helps had probably not thought through the problems posed by using a private initiative to deal with a public problem, which many deemed to be a matter for the state; in addition, he failed to make clear that this plan was a response to a coming crisis and not necessarily a model for subsequent sanitation efforts. DeBruyn has reconstructed some of the opposition to Helps’ proposal. To begin with, Simon became apprehensive because he stressed the importance of separating permanent and temporary anti-cholera measures. Stronger opposition came from Lord Ebrington, an ally of Chadwick and other members of the Board of Health, who believed Helps’ proposed subsidy for housing improvements to be unwise. Ebrington advocated, instead, building houses at low cost or low rent for the individual, which might be built by the Association for Building Houses for the Poor. Ebrington was joined by Lord Granville, who also advocated the use of private capital to invest in improved housing. Granville was clearly skeptical of Helps’ general approach as he cautioned that the plan’s “principal promoters should be stained as little as possible by royalty, nobility, literature or philanthropy: instead, he thought it would make more sense if the backing came from four or five money-making men of great energy,” because such individuals understood what “pays and what does not and to carry out the plan.” Given this type of support, Granville was optimistic: “I believe the thing is done.”35 Opposition came from other sources as well. Charles Howard, whom Helps had known at Cambridge, was also skeptical of the plan. Howard was influential—being the brother of Lord Morpeth (whom Helps had already served as private secretary to Ireland and was also the first President of the Board of Health)—and Helps worked hard to convince

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him of his possible importance.36 However, Howard did not believe that there would be a cholera epidemic in the summer.37 The ambiguity of the Health Fund for London scheme further undermined Helps’ intentions. To cite one notable example, Edward Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby (and both a graduate of Trinity College and an Apostle) was uncertain of the plan’s goals. Helps failed to persuade Stanley about the nature and feasibility of the scheme. He explained to Helps that it was difficult to raise money in London for public causes; Stanley cited the inability to raise adequate funds for the creation of a collegiate school in memory of the Duke of Wellington. In addition, Stanley wanted a more precise statement of the scheme’s objectives: “You are rather in the position of that projector of the South Sea days who advertised for ‘project of great national advantage,’ but nobody to know what it is.”38 Charles Dickens, who had once supported the idea, became opposed to the scheme. The basis of Dickens’ apprehensions about the Health Fund for London stemmed from bitter experience. He related to Helps that in his experience providing small homeowners with improvement loans was a bad idea: … for they are a wickedly willful and prejudiced class whose market is disease and dirt. Only half a year has gone by since I was entrusted with the endeavour to improve, by drainage and ventilation, a very bad part of London which is certain to be devastated by the cholera, if it should happen with any virulence. A survey of that district was made at great expense, the cost of the improvements in every house was estimated, the house-owner was informed that he should receive the best guarantee in London for the expense (to him) not exceeding the estimate, as a loan upon the easiest terms. Yet these men threw such obstacles in the way of improvement that it was necessary to call them together to entreat them to consent to it as a favour. And when they came together, they so ridiculed and set their faces against the whole scheme, it was dropped to despair.39

Dickens was sympathetic to Helps’ scheme, but he believed that the types of policy followed by Southwood Smith and Chadwick had a greater chance for success. More importantly, Dickens thought that they should not pass over or supersede the Board of Health.40 Despite his desire to support the Health Fund for London, Dickens does not appear to have been involved any further in the project.41 With support dwindling, Helps still mustered an impressive delegation and went to Palmerston to plead his case. The delegation, which included Helps’ brother Williams, Kingsley, Robert Stephen Rintoul (editor of the Spectator), Charles Howard, Ebrington and Lord Harrowby (a close friend

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of Palmerston), who was chosen to be the main speaker, was greeted rather coolly (at least this was Helps’ perception), and encouraged to produce a memo on the subject. Helps lamented the lack of a single body dealing with the subject of public health. Simon complained about the defects in the Nuisances Removal Act. However, the proposal appears not to have been taken seriously by either Chadwick or Sir William Molesworth (the President of the Board of Health). Helps and his friends were unable to generate enough public pressure to force Palmerston to make the Health Fund for London a priority.42 Debruyn attributes the defeat of the proposed Health Fund of London to a combination of Helps’ excessive idealism, his lack of administrative experience, and his reliance on the advice of men of science—a description which included professional sanitarians.43 Another look at “Some Thoughts for the Summer” furnishes another reason—Helps’ inability or indifference to form concrete arguments. The piece effectively calls attention to the prospect of cholera in 1854 (and it did come to London that year); Helps’ interest in the moral issues connected with service stands out, and readers would surely recognise the discussion on the various motivations by which persons engage in causes. This discussion—vaguely reminiscent of Soren Kierkegaard’s discussion of personality types—might well have been interesting, but it was probably not terribly effective in advancing Helps’ scheme. Whewell had it right when he said that he would rather “read of the Councils of your Friends for averting moral than physical evil.”44 It should be pointed out that Helps’ ideas about public health would continue to hold appeal. Lord Stanley would write to Helps in March 1857 that Helps’ project was still relevant: Your sanitary project, though its immediate purpose remains unaccomplished, has not been without fruit: it has stirred up the public mind, and when such matters are talked of, I hear frequent reference made to it even at this day. Has it ever occurred to you to try, systematically, to get the people enlightened on that question? I mean, by a large diffusion of cheap (if not gratuitous) tracts upon it, putting in plan and strong language that which it concerns all people to know. The Board of Health publications are too official, too technical: they are for Parliament, not for the nation.45

In Helps, Stanley saw an activist writer who could move beyond the discourses of the professional sanitarians to communicate with the broader public.

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The Limitations of Activism Despite the inability to make the Health Fund for London a reality, Helps had succeeded in acquiring a significant reputation as both an a writer and activist. To revisit his earlier dichotomy he had made a meaningful impact upon both the “Cloister and the Crowd.” The Apostle who had already served in government knew virtually all—if not most—of the leading political and intellectual figures of the 1850s. Helps’ writings, especially those which featured the characters developed in Friends in Council, had established his literary reputation. In addition, Helps had emerged as a leading advocate for public health and social reform. Given these realities, the prospect of a political career loomed during the middle part of the decade. In both 1856 and 1857, Helps was approached about the possibility of standing as a candidate for Parliament. Helps was probably more flattered than interested; his correspondence is important not because it reveals his motivations for declining to stand, but because it provides a fair indication of how he understood his own role in society. For example, writing to Stanley (who had urged Helps to stand because he regarded the author of The Claims of Labour as rare, because he was thoughtful and independent),46 he articulated his frustration with the inadequacy of Parliament in dealing with social questions: [T]here is no one I imagine to whom personally a Parliamentary life would be less attractive. But there are social questions to which, and to the legislation about which, I have of late years given much attention; and it seems to me (perhaps the captiousness of a bystander) that these questions are not adequately discussed in Parliament; and that even the voice of one odd person who cares about them, might be valuable.47

The pull of social legislation, however, was not strong enough to lure Helps into standing for a seat. The next year Helps again declined to stand for a parliamentary seat. His disconnection from politics appears to have been stronger, as he was in all probability becoming increasingly comfortable engaging social questions as a writer who could still become involved in charitable causes. Dr. Phelps, the Master of Sydney Sussex College, enquired whether he might wish to become a candidate. Helps’ response is again revealing about how he understood himself, social problems and politics. He explained that he was uncomfortable being connected to minor sectarian issues such as the Maynooth Grant and Sabbath Observance, because he believed that he was a man of decidedly liberal tendencies. More

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importantly, Helps did not identify with the present embarrassing condition of Britain’s political parties; he claimed that in theory he could stand for Parliament if it were feasible: I shall not reject any feasible opportunity of obtaining a seat in Parliament, for in so doing, I may strengthen, though by one vote only, and by the labour of one additional mind, that small party which finds most employment for its energies in matters connected with social legislation.48

Helps merely reflected a common activist conclusion that established political culture prohibits or is indifferent to significant social reform.49 In The Claims of Labour Helps had made the case for the importance of national political leadership; by 1857 he had become disillusioned with its realities. Ironically, it also meant that some of the core arguments in The Claims of Labour were challenged by the things which Helps had described. It is worth recalling that The Claims of Labour made a very strong argument about social bonds in order to reject any type of notion of a society formed by atomised individuals. Instead, men and women (employers and their employees) all had a series of social obligations which would shape not only their own moral lives, but the health of society. The Helpsian public sphere, to put this differently, was made up of socially bound individuals. However, in rejecting politics as too partisan, Helps had come close to the position he repudiated—an individual who was not bound by social obligations. The frustration which social activism had given Helps was to see moral relationships but be unable to find a way for political leadership to use them as the basis for solutions to social problems.

Creating a Model for Employer/Employee Relationships E. A. Helps remembers the event in the 1860s which changed his father’s life—the discovery of clay on his property and Vernon Hill. Helps invested heavily in the hope of developing a business which might produce and sell blue pottery. To this end, Helps created the Bishops Waltham Clay Company, and this business furnished him with the opportunity to put into practice the employer/employee relationships about which he had written so passionately in The Claims of Labour. In all probability, Helps not only invested percentages of his own funds but even received support from Prince Albert. The company went into liquidation in 1867 and was taken over by a man named Blanchard who manufactured bricks and tiles in Bishops Waltham.50

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Before the Bishops Waltham Clay Company began to lose money, Helps had acted as a benefactor to the area. In the early 1860s he provided land for the construction of an infirmary. In 1864 Prince Leopold laid the first foundation stone and Sir Frederick Perkins presented a statue of the Prince Consort. However, this building would later be claimed by his creditors.51 The fate of the building reflected the larger pattern of failure which defined Helps’ business ventures. E. A. Helps claims that he had underestimated transportation costs and hired poor managers (there is no evidence to indicate that these managers may have been hired to fulfil Helps’ moral guidelines), and as a result the business failed. Helps was left with significant debt and almost certainly had his relatively fragile health compromised by the process. The financial disaster also meant that Helps had to sell his property at Vernon Hill. With the Queen’s intervention, Helps managed to secure a place to live at Kew Gardens. This house was furnished by the Queen and it meant that Helps faced much of the 1860s under sustained financial pressure and without independent means, but with considerable bitterness. At times, Helps’ bitterness crept into his writings. For example, in Realmah during a discussion of the Friends about the value of sleep, Milverton observes: [W]hen you come to our time of life, you will find that there are a great many worse things than disappointed love, requiring much heavier doses of high-priced sleep,—shame, poverty, impending bankruptcy, and remorse. The middle-aged man, gradually going down in the world—with lots of people depending upon him—who has undertaken some unfortunate enterprise, which, poor fellow, he meant to turn out so well, is a more pitiable object than the desponding or rejected lover. About this love there is always a sustaining power of romance.52

To Helps’ friends the autobiographical side to this passage would have been obvious. For instance, it is possible that Helps borrowed money from John Ruskin. In December 1871, Ruskin learned that the financial pressures on his friend were considerable, so he wrote to “acquit you of any obligation,” and added that, “I will take no interest from you.”53 These realities were undoubtedly behind Ellesmere’s comment about an individual who: Dreads rent and taxes, who humbles himself before the butcher, who fears to tell his anxious wife of this loss, and that bad debt; and has to smile and smile, and be a pauper perhaps with a brougham, which is afraid to put down.54

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The loss of Vernon Hill also meant that Helps’ career as an activist was for all practical purpose at an end. However, it would be the case that as Clerk of the Privy Council Helps he would actually have his greatest impact upon British society.

Social Activism Makes a Public Administrator Arthur Helps’ engagements with social problems proved to be decisive. He had made the great efforts which he believed that circumstances demanded. Helps followed the publication of The Claims of Labour with direct involvement with the challenges he perceived to be posed by Chartism. The author of Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd had visited factories and served as a Special Constable (as did many, including Bagehot). These experiences broadened his sympathies and furnished the basis for his interest and contributions (however limited) to Politics for the People. Helps did not make a sustained commitment to radical politics. Instead, these experiences seem to have put him off direct political engagement. The attempts to fight cholera and create a progressive and humane business did not prove successful or ultimately durable. Helps would take away from these efforts a disenchantment with organised politics and eventually a skepticism of what isolated individuals or philanthropy could solve. To put this another way, the episodes were probably useful in the ministerial outlook which he brought to the position of Clerk of the Privy Council.

Notes 1

E. A. Helps, The Correspondence of Sir Arthur Helps, K. C. B., D. C. L., 59–60. Ibid., 60. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid., 63. 5 Ibid., 68–69. 6 Ibid., 62. 7 Ibid., 66. 8 Ibid., 68. 9 Ibid., 67. 10 Ibid., 70–73. 11 Ibid., 74–75. 12 Ibid., 75. 13 Ibid., 71. 14 Ibid., 71–72. 15 Ibid., 72. 16 Ibid. 2

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Ibid. Ibid. 19 Ibid., 73–74. 20 It is worth noting that G. D. H. Cole claimed that Politics for the People was the beginning of Christian Socialism. Cole observed that these young men possessed energy but relative ignorance about “all the previous attempts that had been made in Great Britain to achieve this very thing” (97). In addition, Cole argued that while they had politics for the people, the group lacked a “programme” (98). 21 Brenda Colloms, Victorian Visionaries, 37–38. 22 Politics for the People (London, 1848), 112. 23 Frederick Maurice, The Life of Frederick Denison Maurice vol 1., 472 24 Ibid., 18–19. 25 Ibid., 19. 26 Frederick Maurice, The Life of Frederick Denison Maurice vol 1., 472. 27 E. A. Helps, The Correspondence of Sir Arthur Helps, K. C. B., D. C. L., 157. 28 Ibid., 157. 29 John DeBruyn, “Journal of the Plague Year,” 172. 30 E. A. Helps, The Correspondence of Sir Arthur Helps, K. C. B., D. C. L., 166. 31 Ibid., 165–167. 32 Ibid., 168. 33 John DeBruyn, “Journal of the Plague Year.” 34 Ibid., 179. 35 Ibid., 178–179. 36 John DeBruyn, “Journal of the Plague Year,” 182. Helps desire for Howard’s support caused the former to lose his normal temperate approach: “Useful as you have been, you have hardly made that impression on the world which the force and uprightness of your character leads one to expect of you. You have now an opportunity of doing something very considerable in the world—more, a great deal, than you will probably imagine on first reading this letter.” 36 Again, Helps lost his temper. Writing to Stephen Spring-Rice he admitted: “I have a monster letter from Lord Stanley and have fired a monster in return. They are not very pleasant letters. I cannot say smooth things: the Ellesmere part of me must break out sometime, or I die.” 37 Ibid., 180. 38 Ibid., 182–183. 39 Ibid., 181. 40 Ibid., 182. 41 Helps was upset by Dickens’ reply. Writing to Spring-Rice he explained that Dickens was an important “person and must not be allowed to go around talking against us, if it can be helped” (JPY, 182). 42 Ibid., 184. 43 Ibid., 171. 44 E. A. Helps, The Correspondence of Sir Arthur Helps, K. C. B., D. C. L., 164. 45 Ibid., 186–187. 46 Ibid., 184. 18

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Ibid., 185. Ibid., 190. 49 E. A. Helps, The Correspondence of Sir Arthur Helps, K. C. B., D. C. L., 188. The failure of the Health Fund for London was probably one of the reasons why Helps conceded that he had developed an ambivalent view of Palmerston’s government: “I admire Lord Palmerston for his many brilliant qualities, and for much of his conduct of the late war; but I think his Home Administration singularly deficient in purpose and usefulness. He holds out little or no promise … of political or social reforms … I am obliged to admit, that, if I had been in Parliament, I must, however reluctantly, have voted against the Government upon the China question.” 50 Tim Lambert, “A Brief History of Bishops Waltham,” at http://www. localhistories.org/waltham.html 51 See: “The Parish of Bishops Waltham,” in British History Online at http://www. british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=41968. 52 Arthur Helps. Realmah, 13. 53 Pierpont Morgan Manuscript. The letter is dated December 2, 1871. 54 Ibid., 14. 48

CHAPTER FIVE MORE AT HAZARD FOR MANKIND THAN HAD EVER OCCURRED BEFORE Helps as Historian The combination of The Claims of Labour and Friends in Council (to be discussed in Chapter six) meant that by the time he published as a historian, Helps was already well-established as an intellectual figure in the Victorian world. Reviewing the Spanish Conquest in America in 1855, the Spectator reminded its readers: “Admirers of ‘Friends in Council’ and ‘Companions of My Solitude’ will find here all that charmed them in those books.”1 The publication of the four volume history further enhanced his stature as both an activist and a literary writer. During the process of publication, Helps had become well known in the United States as a British intellectual with strong abolitionist views. It bears repeating that in the first series of Friends in Council the second volume explored the topic of slavery in great depth. The institution was regarded as cruel, needless, unauthorised and mischievous, and that the arguments against it were universal as they applied to every race. Moreover, Helps’ review of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in Fraser’s Magazine in 1853 provoked a furious protest across the Atlantic, especially in Charleston.2 The completion and appearance of these volumes established Helps’ authority to write about the New World for both British and North American readers. James Anthony Froude and Macaulay regarded Helps as a significant historian because of the stature of this four volume history. For our purposes, it will be useful to explore Helps’ craft as a historian—his sources, and interpretative scheme—in order to understand both his methodological sophistication and to call attention to his progressive impulses. More importantly, by tracing his analysis of the cultures of the New World, Spanish policy towards race, the different types of bonded labour and the depopulation of the New World, it will reveal that one of the things which was significant about Helps’ narrative was its choice of historical subjects. Furthermore, having addressed Helps’ ability to write history and find critical subject matter in the past of the New World, it will

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be our task to see how these considerations themselves either reflect or challenge some of the dominant historical issues of mid-century Britain. To that end, Helps’ treatment of topics such as character, empire, civilisation, aborigines and religion point to larger European and Victorian debates about other cultures which were features of a number of nineteenth century discourses. In addition, Helps’ ambivalence about modernity and the direction of history also indicate a philosophy of history which may alter the stereotypical picture of liberal, or whig, historiography in which the given trope or metaphor is progress. Finally, Helps’ writing about Las Casas, which at times smacked of hagiography, reflects the age’s need or obsession with heroes; in this case, with a hero whose paternalism would at once promote spiritual life, progress and colonisation. In Helps’ Las Casas we see a germ (already presaged with Robert Owen’s social experiments) of the types of paternal activism which later culminated in his own experiment with pottery manufacture and, more famously, with those of Prince Albert and Ruskin.

Helps’ Historical Craft One of the remarkable things about Helps’ work is that he developed a history of a wide subject without the benefit of the professional historical study which, later in the century, would emerge triumphant. By mining chronicles and the writings of earlier historians, Helps followed a path which was recognisable to many pre-professional historians. To be more specific, Helps made use of material in the manner which R. G. Collingwood later disparaged as “scissors and paste.”3 In particular, Helps made extensive use of Spanish and Portuguese writers of history. The works of Peter Martyr d’Anghiera’s (1457–1526) De orbe novo, Jose de Oviedo Y Banos (1671–1738) Azurara’s Chronicc de Guinea, Bernal Diaz del Castillo’s (1492–1585) Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España and Bartolome de Las Casas (1474–1566) were all important to Helps. His research also meant a considerable amount of time in Madrid, gaining access to and then studying primary sources. He was fortunate to befriend an eminent Spanish lawyer, Antonio de Leon Pinelo, who was the author of a massive bibliographical work, Epitome de la Biblioteca Oriental y Occidental Nautica y Geografica, which contained extracts (of royal cedulas) drawn from hundreds of thousands of folios. Pinelo gave Helps access to Spain’s colonial records. Finally, Helps admitted that he made use of the collections of the Spanish historian, Munoz, which were,

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“wisely entrusted to the care of that courteous and learned body, the Royal Academy of Madrid.”4 However, while Helps’ work constituted a departure for English historians, whose efforts were largely concerned with British and European developments, he was also able to draw upon some non-Iberian historians. Two figures were useful to Helps: William Robertson (1721– 1793) and the American William H. Prescott (1796–1839). In addition, Helps acknowledged that the publication of many documents (which had previously been manuscripts) and “the spirit of research which has grown up of late years in America, and which has brought to light many valuable works connected with the early records of that country.”5 Helps, then, drew not only upon a wealth of Spanish sources, but also a growing body of Anglo-American scholarship.

Helps’ Outlook Helps’ motivation to write about the Spanish conquest of the Americas was directly connected to his outrage about the continuing existence of slavery in the Western Hemisphere. Given Helps’ background, education and career in government, it is hardly surprising that he would understand the significance of the Spanish conquest of the Americas in relation to one of the biggest public moral issues of his time. Helps authored what would become a massive four volume work because he felt that its contents would be relevant to the debates about slavery which were taking place in Britain and especially the United States.6 Like many Victorians, Helps understood human progress to be the key organising theme in human history; the ultimate defeat of slavery and the end of the slave trade could be understood as key markers of advancement. Yet, for a writer who would create the drawing room dialogues of Friends in Council (and related writings), there was a surprising amount of scope in his thought to make human disaster a major feature of his historical perspective. Possibly more significant was Helps’ concern with slavery that led him to connect the rise of empire with the development of modern racism. This linkage underscored a presentation of Western expansion, which would not be prominent in many of the historical writings in the second half of the nineteenth century. Helps’ narrative rested on a number of traditional historical methods, but exhibited a far-sighted set of historical sympathies, many of which would become popular only in the second half of the twentieth century. Yet, unlike so many professional historians, who would be minted in the doctrines and practices of the modern university, Helps insisted upon

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the connections between morality and historical events. Accordingly, he wrote from a point of view which drew on a number of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century ideas. For example, just as Ruskin and Carlyle drew upon eighteenth-century ideas of character, so also would Helps; his readers would learn that character (or the lack of it) could play a decisive role in history; they would also glean that it was through the moral decisions of key individuals (Columbus, Isabella, Las Casas, Cortes, etc.) that the human side of the past might be easily grasped. The idea that readers in the present would probably not be able to understand the magnitude of past events was an assumption which motivated many Victorian writers. Arthur Helps was no exception; his history would exploit the picturesque sensibility which had emerged in the late eighteenth century to attempt to make the past vivid several centuries later. Ruskin would famously rely on this motif in his Stones of Venice. Helps was hardly the first nineteenth-century writer to adopt this strategy, as many worried that the past needed, in effect, to be translated into the present. He might have pushed this further when he addressed race and empire—issues which remained in the background during his day, but became rather prominent in the last decades of the nineteenth and first years of the twentieth century—as he perceived that his contemporaries were largely indifferent to the responsibilities and obligations which came with British power.

The Subject Matter of History One of the things which distinguished Helps’ historical scholarship was that he addressed a number of topics which were relatively unexplored by his contemporaries. The subject of conquest and empire building was not by itself new or unknown to those who studied history; Helps went further than most in sensing that the importance of the Spanish conquest of the New World went well beyond sixteenth century power politics. Helps humbly admitted that: “there was much to be told about the early discoveries and conquests in America, which is not to be met with in its history as hitherto narrated.”7 The original motivation, however, was not to uncover an area of history which had remained unexplored; instead, it came out of Helps’ concern with a contemporary issue: namely, the persistence of slavery in the Western world. He explained to his readers: I began to investigate the origin of modern slavery. I soon found that the works commonly referred to gave me no sufficient insight into the matter. Questions, moreover, arose in my mind, not immediately connected with slavery, but bearing closely upon it, with respect to the distribution of races

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Chapter Five in the New World. “Why,” said I to myself, “are there none but black men in this island; why are none but copper-coloured men on that line of the coast; how is it that in one town the white population predominates, while in another the aborigines still hold their ground?” There must be a series of historical events which, if brought to light, would solve all these questions; and I will endeavour to trace this out for myself.8

Despite his long-stated ambivalence about the discourses associated with political economy, Helps’ attempt to sort out the different groups of population according to geographic differences may well have reflected an environment in which Malthusian ideas were nearly dominant. It might also be argued that Helps’ approach to the subject also looked forward to Darwin’s efforts in the Origin of the Species to chart the species of finches in the Galapagos Islands. With respect to the subject matter of history, Helps’ questions encouraged him to explore not only imperial expansion, but also race, religion, civilisation and the practice of imperial discourses. In fact it was his very sensitivity to the realities of historical representation that made Helps suspicious of the work of earlier historians. Helps understood his work as opening up new vistas which were overlooked—possibly necessarily—by the first historians of the Spanish conquest. Many of those figures were court or in some other way official historians, leading Helps to conclude that they either missed or chose not to see the worst features of New Spain. Therefore, despite the significance of the Spanish arrival and domination of much of the New World, the subject had been inadequately treated by historians: We have no such accounts of travellers to aid us; neither will the formal accounts of historians throw much light upon the matter. It is the remark of one of the most eminent lawyers (and it is from the lawyers and priests that most information is to be derived in this all-important part of the history), that all the historians, Gomara, Remesal, Herrera, Torquemada, though treating of political matters, put aside the question of encomiendas--that subject, however, being, as the lawyer well observes, the end to which all these political matters were directed. This is not surprising: the same thing may be observed in Theology as in History; and it must have occurred to every studious person, how, in the cloud of comment on a difficult passage in the Bible, the commentators often seem to avoid the whole gist of the difficulty.9

Helps, then, understood his role to be at least partly connected with the recovery of a difficult subject, which lay at the very heart of both New Spain and the development of modern slavery. More importantly, Helps assumed that earlier representations of that history—as both documents and chronicles—were probably flawed or at least incomplete. That is,

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despite the trend in the nineteenth century in British historical writing to reward or depend on evidentiary positivism, Helps emphasised the relativity of discourses which might make the past accessible. Helps also assumed that the history of the Spanish Conquest was not only understudied, but also not fully understood. That is, Helps believed that there was little in the experience of his contemporaries to enable them to comprehend the scale of suffering involved in the Americas and also to divine its long-range historical significance. Britons might easily grasp the significance of discovery and imperial expansion; indeed, it might even be likely that they would identify with the Spanish and Portuguese achievements: It may seem, at first sight that this will not be a very attractive subject; but if we find it uninteresting, it will only be from our want of knowledge or want of imagination. We proudly follow, identifying ourselves with him, merely stupid or selfish conqueror, and scarcely spend a few poor thoughts upon the fate of millions, who lived at the same time, and were affected in a thousand ways by his conquests. In this particular case of the Conquest of America, there was, however, more at hazard for mankind that had ever occurred before, or can well occur hereafter. Distant Africa was immediately to feel the effect of even slight changes of legislation at the Spanish Court, and the petty conquests of some ignorant captain, and the obscure endeavours of some humble priest, were to be magnified in the most gigantic and portentous manner, and to be felt hereafter throughout the whole civilised world. If mere destruction of life, the life of men like ourselves, be taken into account, this Conquest and its consequences will be found to be one of the greatest transactions in history; for, however we may grieve to hear it, further research only more and more supports the statements of Las Casas, who was wont to estimate the loss of lives by millions--a way of talking which has ever since seemed to imply great exaggeration, but which we must, henceforth, listen to with respectful attention, if not with complete assent.10

Historians in the nineteenth century had little experience with assessments of genocide or even mass death. Helps’ quiet English, or gift for understatement, may not have corresponded to the subject matter which defined The Spanish Conquest in America. Nonetheless, there was ample precedent in Victorian historical thought to locate developments in the early modern world as decisive for modernity. Just as Ruskin in The Stones of Venice would find the Renaissance to be significant for Europe’s subsequent development, Helps saw in the Spanish conquest the germ for many later social and political realities. Ruskin would struggle to make it possible for his readers to see Venice as he had; Helps felt that he had to find ways (he also used adopted rhetorical strategies which relied upon

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visual information) to translate the development of New Spain into human terms, so that he might puncture the comfortable prejudices of his contemporaries. More broadly, Helps carried the descriptions and ideas about the social impact of industrialism to the subject of the Spanish conquest. In many ways, Helps’ four volume work looked ahead—not to the sunny days of late Victorian imperialism—but to a global situation in which new nations were displacing empires, while historians and public intellectuals would focus their attention on the ways in which the collision of Western and non-Western cultures had shaped much of world history. If Helps can be understood as a nineteenth century reformer who sought to promote human progress, his understanding of the Spanish conquest of Latin and South America might have surprised the reader, because he sought to recapture the full horrors which accompanied the development of New Spain. In the second volume Helps asserted that the conquest was a “great tragedy,”11 in which the discoveries of the New World were not random, isolated events, but instead a “connected history, in which it may be seen how great things grew out of little … and how the minor actors in the complicated tragedy… contributed no little to the final dread result.”12 Helps, then, sought to draw together two often unrelated themes: the history of the discovery of the new world and the development of modern slavery. Helps explored not only the conquest, but also the development of the encomendias, slavery, the issue of race, the collision between Spanish and indigenous cultures, religious practices (including human sacrifice) and the development of imperial discourses. Attention to these themes meant that even if the reader subscribed to a progressive view of history, they would inevitably be confronted with the brutality which defined the development of New Spain.

Spain’s New World Empire The origins of Spain’s overseas empire lay in the work of Prince Henry the Navigator’s efforts to promote Portuguese seafaring. More importantly, Helps linked the earliest European interest in the New World to the practice of slavery. This meant connecting the development of Atlantic slavery to some of the heroic narratives associated with early modern European imperialism. The ugly subject of slavery, as such, was directly related to the royal family of Portugal, Ferdinand and Isabella, Christopher Columbus and the whole band of brave captains who followed in the discovery and conquest of America; Helps referred Charles V, “Ximenes, Las Casas, Vieyra, and hosts of churchmen and statesmen from those times” to the present.13

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Slavery was not of primary importance to Prince Henry, but Helps cites his religious faith to illustrate the fact that great cruelty and professions of religious devotion would accompany one another in both the construction of empire and development of modern slavery. Upon the arrival of some of his mariners Henry understood that they: “had been the fruit and sign of the promised land; and besought our Lady, whose name the plants bore, that she would guide and set forth the doings in this discovery to the praise and glory of God, and to the increase of His holy faith.”14 Helps encouraged his readers to believe that one of the motivating factors in the development of the Spanish empire was the promotion of Christianity. In fact, the Portuguese motivations would be a mixture of profit, faith and curiosity. Helps explained to his readers that the first slaves were landed on the Iberian Peninsula in the fifteenth century. The successes of Prince Henry’s explorers—bringing back to Lisbon commodities, slaves and excitement, and also the establishment of a fortress in one of the islands of Arguim (where trade in both gold and slaves would take place)—motivated both the Portuguese and the Spanish to muster greater efforts in overseas expansion. By the early sixteenth century the social and economic factors were such that both colonisation and the development of slavery were all but certain: At the time of passing these laws of Burgos, nearly a century had elapsed since Prince Henry of Portugal, suddenly resolving upon his first expedition of discovery, sent out two gentlemen of his household to get beyond Cape Nam if they could, and to do what mischief to the Moors might come in their way. Since then, how changed and how enlarged a world it had become! The whole coast line of Africa had been followed out, and the way by sea to India ascertained; the Atlantic had been crossed; the most important of the West India islands, Hispaniola, Cuba and Jamaica, had been discovered; nor was the continent of America unknown, though the margin only of a small part of it was yet beginning to be colonised. Navigation, instead of being the childish, timid thing it was in the first instance, had sprung up at once into full manhood; and mariners now lost sight of land altogether, and yet went to sleep as fearless as if they were in their own ports. Europe had become acquainted with new plants, new animals, new trees, new men; and these new things and creatures will not remain mere curiosities for the Old World; but will henceforth be mixed up with its policy, its wars, its daily and domestic habits, and become part of its anxieties. The finances of great nations and the sustenance of numerous people will depend upon plants which the Spanish discoverers of this century were just beginning to notice, and were speaking of with an indifference which seems almost wonderful to us who know what a large part these things are hereafter to play in the commodities of European life.15

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These developments meant that the histories of Europe, the Americas and Africa would never be the same: [M]uch had already taken place in the course of this first century of modern discovery, which determines, if we may say so, the fate of millions to people to come. Already a slave trade has been established in Africa; already had the first instance taken place of colonists destroying aborigines (an example hereafter to be so frequently followed); already had peculiar difficulties attendant upon modern colonisation begun to be felt, and the first beginnings been made of state papers, fearful to think of, from their number and extent, to regulate the relations between the colony, the mother-country, and the original inhabitants.16

The fact that both the Portuguese and the Spanish sought gold, commodities, and slaves and, in addition, took the possibility of converting indigenous populations to Christianity meant that the modern slave system had deep roots. Yet, Helps painted a different picture of the Spanish conquest, showing that it was unplanned, growing from the whims of individual leaders. Helps anticipated, as such, the claim that J. R. Seeley’s remark that British control over India came about from an absence of mind, because it would have been clear to Helps’ readers that chance played an unusually significant role in a number of critical events. The key figures in the early part of Helps’ narrative are Columbus, Isabella and Ovando, because it is through their deeds that the Spanish first encountered and then began to colonise most of the Caribbean. Ojeda, Nicuesa and Vasco Nunez carry the story further, as Spanish domination moved beyond Hispaniola towards Central America. The exploits of Cortes and Pizarro were covered in considerable detail, partly to refute the notion that the Spanish conquest had been in any way easy, especially in the case of the defeat of the Incas. With his deep rooted interest in both leadership and the moral obligations which come with it, Helps exhibited many of these figures—Las Casas and Columbus might serve as examples—who were torn between their deeds and their consciences. That is, the public/private division which became a hallmark of Helps’ literary writings found their way into his understanding of history. Therefore, in a sense Helps painted a picture which his friend Carlyle would certainly understand—while the motives for Spanish involvement in the New World were substantial, the actual development of it was dependent upon a few key figures. At the same time, Helps’ interest in narrating the key events which culminated in Spanish control over the Caribbean was the vehicle for his readers to encounter and understand the scope of cruelty which accompanied it. To cite one graphic example, the behaviour of Ovando’s

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soldiers in the province of Higuey (eastern Hispaniola) is made central to the narrative of the first volume. These troops behaved barbarically in putting down a rebellion of Indians: The Indians, however, found their chief safety in flight; and it is recorded that those whom the Spaniards compelled to act as guides, and whom they kept attached to them by ropes, often threw themselves off the precipices, and thus balked their masters. Unfortunately, amongst the Spaniards themselves, were men who had become very skillful in tracking Indians; so much so, that from the turn of a withered leaf, they could detect which way their prey had gone. The cruelty wreaked by the Spaniards upon their captives was excessive. They used the same mode of sending terror amongst the Indians which had been adopted in the former war; namely, cutting off the hands of their captives. Las Casas mentions that one occasion they hanged up thirteen Indians “in honour and reverence of Christ our Lord and this twelve Apostles.” These men, hanging at such a height that their feet could just touch the ground, were used as dumb figures for the Spaniards to try their swords upon. This hideous cruelty Las Casas says he saw, but at the same time he adds with a shrinking which all will feel to be natural, that he fears to relate these things now, hardly being able to persuade himself but that he must have dreamt them. On another occasion he saw some Indians being burnt alive in a sort of wooden cradle. Their cries disturbed the Spanish Captain taking his siesta in his tent; and he bade the Alguazil, who had the charge of the execution, to dispatch the captives. This officer, however, only gagged the poor wretches, who thus fulfilled their martyrdom in the way he originally intended for them. “All this I saw with my bodily eyes,” emphatically exclaims the witness for the fact.17

This example is representative of Helps’ vivid description of Spanish atrocities. Having noted as much, Helps attempted to preserve the agency of the Indians as historical actors, by asking his readers to try to imagine how the Spanish conquest appeared from the point of view of those who were being vanquished. Helps also tried to evaluate the Spanish with some detachment, suggesting that the circumstances (the possibility of great riches) virtually undermined their ability to act wisely. Meditating on the methods by which the Spanish colonised much of the Caribbean, Helps noted that while the Indians suffered their conquerors did not always prosper: The recklessness of the conquerors, their love of wild adventure, the attractive power of gold which uses men for its divining-rods, drawing them hither and thither through the utmost dangers to the most wretched parts of the earth, as it lists--all these together prevented, and must have prevented, anything like patient steady, forbearing, concentrated

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Chapter Five colonisation … They may be conquerors, but they seem, after all, more like demon-driven captives. Little, apparently, is gained for humanity by all they do; and the majority of them, after filling up their measure of destruction, die miserably and contemptibly, with the hard eyes upon them of suffering companions, suffering too much themselves to have any pity left for others.18

Helps found room to note the ways in which the situation in the New World proved to be as dehumanising for the Spanish as it was destructive for the indigenous populations. Helps’ relatively compassionate assessment led him to reflect further on the tragic nature of life and history: Of the most eminent men among the Conquerors who came to a miserable end, long lists have been formed, in which names of Nicuesa, Ojeda, and Vasco Nunez are sure to be found … there is nothing in the fate of these men very different from that of other adventurous people. Most men are hastening to meet some great disaster. With most men the object they pursue, which is ever present to their imaginations as something radiant in white robes and most beautiful, is attended by a companion clad in very different guise, wholly invisible to the pursuer; and but too often when he comes close to that which he has so long desired and so long pursued, and is just at the summit of his wishes, the other--the dark thing--steps forward to receive him. And it is this that he has all along been struggling up to. What, however, is peculiar about these Spanish Conquerors is not so much their own fate as the miserable nature of their objects, the deplorable idea they had of success, and the villainous path over which they hurried to their doom--each Spaniard leaving a long track of desolation behind him, and being attended to the shades by hosts of slaughtered Indians … I am reminded of an old proverb of awful import which, in these wars and devastations, applies to the conquerors as to the conquered, and which says “God may consent, but not for ever” (Dios consiente, pero no para siempre), indicating that there is an end, however remote, to all that is not built up in consonance with His laws.19

Helps, then, evaluated the conduct of the Spanish not only in terms of human freedom, but against an unspecified theological view of history. Appropriately enough, Froude told Helps that his discussion of the character of the Spanish enabled him to better understand the vice of modern historical writing in which historians evaluate the deeds of historical actors by their own moral stance in the present.20 The construction of the Spanish empire in the New World, then, was understood not only as inadequate for the basis of sustained colonisation but also as morally illegitimate. In reflecting on Spanish colonisation in

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these terms, Helps challenged many of the assumptions which would govern much of British and European thought in the last decades of the nineteenth century, when the stated motivations for Western imperial expansion would be based upon perceived progress and the articulated needs of the subjected peoples.

The Fate of Indigenous Populations Helps was concerned not only with the growth of modern slavery, but also with the “extirpation of native races,” which resulted from the Spanish conquest of the New World.21 If Helps understood the Portuguese to play a critical part in the development of the African slave trade, he found in Columbus’ first voyage the beginnings of what would amount to genocidal practices. The narrative, however, presents the first encounter between the Indians and Columbus as one between innocence and ruthless opportunism. Drawing on Columbus’ diary, Helps records the naive way in which the Indians understood the Spanish: I gave to some of them some coloured caps and some strings of glass beads for their necks, and many other things of little value, with which they were delighted, and were so entirely ours that it was a marvel to see. The same afterwards came swimming to the ship’s boats where we were, and brought us parrots, cotton threads in balls, darts and many other things, and bartered them with us for things which we gave them, such as bells and small glass beads. In fine, they took and gave all of whatever they had with good will. But it appeared to me they were a people very poor in everything. They went totally naked as their mothers brought them into the world.22

According to the diary, Columbus immediately believed that these innocent Indians would make faithful servants and could easily be converted to Christianity.23 However, Helps understood the significance of Columbus to lie only partly in the discovery of the New World. The positive historical achievements of Columbus were matched by the fact that he played a key role in the development of slavery in the New World. It was during his second voyage to the Caribbean that he addressed the issue of Indian slavery, sending an account of the fledgling colony back to Spain in which he made an argument for enslavement: Columbus now touches upon a matter which intimately concerns our subject. He desires his agent to inform their Highnesses, that he has sent home some Indians from the Cannibal Islands as slaves, to be taught Castillian, and to serve afterwards as interpreters, so that the work of

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Chapter Five conversion may go on. His arguments in support of this proceeding are weighty. He speaks of the good that it will be to take these people away from cannibalism and to have them baptised, for so they will gain their souls, as he expresses it. Then, too with regard to the other Indians, he remarks, we shall have great credit from them, seeing that we can capture and make slaves of these Cannibals, of whom they, the peaceable Indians, entertain so great a fear. Such arguments must be allowed to have much force in them; and it may be questioned whether many of those persons who, in these days, are the strongest opponents of slavery, would then have had the perception of the impending danger of its introduction which Los Reyes appear to have entertained … in the next paragraph he boldly suggests that, for the advantage of the souls of these Cannibal Indians, the more of them that could be taken, the better: and that, considering what quantities of livestock and other things are required for the maintenance of the colony, a certain number of caravels should be sent each year with these necessary things, and the cargoes be paid for in slaves taken from amongst the Cannibals. He touches again on the good that will be done to the Cannibals themselves; alludes to the customs duties that their Highnesses may levy upon them.24

Ferdinand and Isabella set aside the proposal for slavery. What is important here is that, in Columbus’s worldview, Helps found the combination of some of the religious and material factors which nurtured the creation of modern slavery. Helps’ narrative contains a number of episodes in which Indians resisted the Spanish without success, often finding themselves enslaved as a consequence. More importantly, Columbus also imposed a tribute system on the Indians of Hispaniola, which amounted to the beginning of slavery in the Caribbean. Helps described the tribute system which Columbus imposed upon the helpless Indians: He now took occasion to impose a tribute upon the whole population of Hispaniola … Every Indian above fourteen years old, who was in the provinces of the mines, or near to these provinces, was to pay every three months a little bell-ful of gold; all persons in the island were to pay at the same time an arroba of cotton for each person. Certain brass or copper tokens were made--different ones for each tribute time--and were given to the Indians when they paid tribute; and these tokens, being worn about their necks, were to show who had paid tribute.25

While Columbus was forced to modify this cruel system of tribute, he was able to impose service obligations on a number of Indian villages. This is one of the most significant developments of Helps’ history because

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it amounted to “the beginning of the system of repartimientos or encomiendas,” as they were later designated.26 Furthermore, Helps described a rather desperate attempt by some Indians to resist the Spanish by depriving them of supplies. These free Indians had watched: … the Spaniards quietly settling down in their island, building houses, and making forts, and no vessels in the harbour of Isabella to take them away, fell into the profoundest sadness, and bethought them of desperate remedy of attempting to starve the Spaniards out, by not sowing nor planting anything … though the Spaniards suffered bitterly from famine, they were only driven by it to further pursuit and molestation of the Indians, who died in great numbers, of hunger, sickness, and misery.27

Both Columbus and the men who served under him played a key, if not formative, role in the depopulation of the Indians of Hispaniola. Of course, Helps’ narrative was organised to show that the events of the 1490s were but the beginning of a series of related developments which amounted to genocide of the indigenous populations of Central and South America and the subsequent importation of African slaves into the New World. Helps broke new ground showing that the depopulation of the indigenous inhabitants of the Caribbean was evident as early as the first decade of the sixteenth century. Relying on archival evidence, Helps cites a letter from the King to Ovando which showed that the latter had clearly asked for African slaves. This illustrates Helps’ view that Negroes were employed in the Caribbean, much “earlier than has been supposed” because the Indians were less numerous and they were, “deficient in physical energy for the severest kind of labour.”28 Yet, Ovando’s government first turned towards more immediate sources for slave labour, such as the Lucayan Islands. Helps related in some detail not only the means used to capture the Lucayan islanders for slavery, but also the theological justification for it. The main cause was the depopulation of Hispaniola, but the King of Spain was informed that the Lucayan Islands had many inhabitants who should be imported so that they might “enjoy the preaching and political customs,” which the Spanish had already brought to the New World.29 Helps wanted his readers to understand the manner in which the Lucayan islanders were entrapped: It will be remembered that the first land seen by Columbus, and called by him St. Salvador, was one of these Lucayan islands … The first Spaniards who went to entrap these poor Lucayans did it in a way that brings to mind the old proverb of “seething a kid in its mother’s milk”--for they told some people that they had come from the heaven of their forefathers, where

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Chapter Five these forefathers and all whom the Indians had loved in life were now drinking in the delights of heavenly ease: the good Spaniards would convey the Lucayans to join their much-loved ancestors, and dearer ones than ancestors, who had gone thither. We many fancy how the more simple amongst them, lone women and those who felt this life to be somewhat dreary, crowded round the ships which were to take them to the regions of the blest. This hideous pretence of the Spaniards did its work; but there were other devices, not mentioned to us, which were afterwards adopted; and the end was, that in five years forty thousand of these deluded Lucayans were carried to Hispaniola.30

It would prove to be characteristic of both Helps’ historical and literary writing that he used these horrific events to reflect further on the nature of despair. This kind of wisdom of insight was also employed to both narrate and evaluate: Most men in the course of their lives have rude awakenings which many enable them to form some notion of what it was to come down from the hope of an immediate paradise to working in a slave in a mine. Some lived on in patient despair; others of fiercer nature, refusing sustenance, and flying to dark caves and unfrequented places, poured forth their lives, and we may hope were now, indeed, with the blest. Others, of more force and practical energy, “preadventure the wisest” as Peter Martyr says, made escape to the northerly parts of Hispaniola, and there, with “arms outstretched” towards their country, lived at least to drink in the breezes from their native lands. Those lands were not a paradise to them.

The depopulation of the Caribbean was connected, then, not only to the need for slave labour, but also to the manipulation of Christian theology. Helps accepted the explanation that disease killed large numbers of Indians throughout the region, but his treatment of this aspect of the genocide looks forward to twentieth-century scholars who would understand and assume that official explanations (such as those readily found in archives) were not entirely credible. With respect to the depopulation caused by smallpox, Helps claimed that it had been lethal, but that the disease had also given the Spanish an excuse to overlook their atrocities. Helps cites the case of the Jeronimite Fathers who attempted to settle wayward Indians: The small-pox came among them and carried off numbers. As I said before, I think this cause of the destruction of the Indians (a very convenient one for the conquerors to allege) has been exaggerated. And I am confirmed in this opinion by a letter written by Zuazo, which must have arrived at court about four or five months before this time, in which he says nothing of the small-pox, but assigns as one of the main causes of the

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decrease of the Indians the frequent change of government that there had been, which led to new repartimientos, and to changes of climate and water for the Indians, which were fatal to many of them, as in a number of small things, passed rapidly from hand to hand, even with care, the number is soon diminished.31

Helps wanted his readers to understand that while the precise combination of causes could not be reconstructed it remained clear that one of the things which accompanied the discoveries of the Caribbean was the substantial depopulation of the region’s inhabitants. Visual imagery enabled Helps to better explain the fate of Indian populations to his readers. Writing about a slaving expedition to Manzanares in the 1540s he painted a devastating picture, showing that in a very brief period the landscape had come to reflect the depopulated state of the region: This was the very spot where the Franciscan monastery, with its pleasant gardens once stood. The pearl-fishery … had ceased entirely, or had ceased to be productive. Where the witty Ocampo had sought to build his town of Nueva Toledo, there stood now four or five huts, constructed of reeds. The whole of the coast was desolate, and, numerous population which once gladdened those shores, scarcely any remained except a few poor Indian Chiefs, whose presence was a sign of still greater desolation, as they were kept there only for the purpose of assisting the Spaniards in their slavehunts.32

In addition, to making use of unpleasant visual images, Helps employed Las Casas to provide some measure of the loss of Indian life. This issue continues to preoccupy scholars and will probably never be adequately settled.33 Helps put the range of Indians on Hispaniola (prior to the arrival of the Spanish) at 1.1 to 3 million, and by the time Albuquerque divided the Indians there were only 13,000 to 14,000 left. With respect to other parts of the Americas, the results were just about as drastic. Helps cited the example of the Peruvian Indians who suffered a similar fate to those of the West Indies: The Peruvian Indian had worked well under despotism, which demanded much labour from him but at the same time provided for all his comforts. Placed under Spanish dominion, he was subject to a rule which was fitfully severe and self-seeking, also fitfully benevolent, according as the colonists and conquerors prevailed, or as the clergy, the Court of Spain, and the other Protectors of the Indians were able to carry out their benevolent aspirations for the good of the Indian population. For a hundred and fifty years, at least, there was a constant struggle between these two great

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Chapter Five parties of the Spaniards. And when the clergy and the humane statesmen of Spain at last prevailed, the poor people they had anxiously and benevolently legislated for, had dwindled down into a state of feebleness and inanition which deprived this legislation of its chief power of doing good.34

Spanish rule could be fatal to Indians in many ways. Helps cited a conflict between the Pizarros and the Almagros in 1539 because the main victims of the conflict were Indians: The wars of the Spaniards, whether amongst themselves, or upon Indian nations “not yet reduced,” were always conducted with exceeding loss of life to the Indians already in the power of Spaniards. It was not only that upon them was thrown the burden of transport and of camp labour; but the other consequences of war were largely fatal to these poor people. Their cattle were taken away; their homes were deserted; their lands left uncultivated … occasionally, there is direct testimony … when the feuds between the Almagros and Pizarros were at their height, the Council of the Indies received a letter from Panama … “The news from Peru is very bad. As our people have carried off the provisions from Cusco and more than fifty leagues round it, and have taken the cattle, more than eighty thousand Indians have died of hunger. All those (journeying from Peru) agree in this. And they say, that the Indians going in procession with crosses, through Cusco, asking for food, fall down dead in the streets.”35

The pattern of Indian depopulation persisted throughout South America, possibly because, “the conquered never possessed the respect of their conquerors.”36

Slavery in the New World Helps wanted his readers to understand that the need for slaves was one of the preconditions necessary to motivate both the Portuguese and Spanish towards overseas expansion. If the possibility of bringing slaves to Lisbon and Madrid was appealing, it was much less significant than the need for slaves to work in the Caribbean. One of the central themes of Helps’ history was to show that the Spanish conquest of the Caribbean, Mexico and Peru was directly connected to the establishment of slave practices. This meant both the enslavement of indigenous populations and the origins of the African slave trade. While many Victorians had a relatively sound grasp of both the slave trade (as it existed in the nineteenth century) and the practices of slavery in the American South, Helps’ narrative made available the origins and

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development of the less publicised types of slavery which had actually defined much of the social history of the Caribbean. At the heart of Helps’ history was the development of the system of encomiendas. Since the Spanish monarchs had not advocated slavery, this institution grew at variance from what both Ferdinand and Isabella had intended. One of the key subplots of Helps’ saga was the gap between what Spanish rulers intended—as made manifest by their stated policies—and the execution of their orders in the new hemisphere. Ferdinand and Isabella had given permission for the creation of a feudal system which would both allow the Spanish to govern new territories such as Hispaniola and also to promote the religious conversion of the Indians. Helps relates that in 1503 these Catholic sovereigns directed Ovando to regard the Indians as free persons, but they were unable to ensure that this was carried out. Instead, Ovando adopted a system in which he distributed these new Indian subjects to the Spanish: “giving to one man fifty, to another a hundred,” with the deed which Helps cited: “To you such a one, is given an encomienda of so many Indians with such a Cacique, and you are to teach them the things of our holy Catholic Faith.” The word encomienda, which will now be more frequently used than repartimiento, was a term belonging to military orders, corresponding to our word, commandery or perceptory; and this term naturally enough came into use with the appointment, as governors in the Indies, of men who held authority in these orders, such as Bobadilla and Ovando. With respect to the implied condition of teaching the Indians the “holy Catholic Faith,” it was no more attended to from the first than any formal clause in a deed which is supposed by the parties concerned to be a mere formality; and, indeed, to be put in chiefly to gratify the lawyers.37

The practice of slavery had already existed, but Ovando’s system provided it with legal sanction. This development provided a foundation for subsequent enslavement: We have now arrived at the climax of the repartimiento system. That which Bobadilla did illegally, was now done with proper formalities on parchment: and from hence-forward many a dreary day will have to pass the world’s history, before the statesmen most impressed with humane and wise counsels will be able to reduce this gigantic evil in the least.38

Helps declined to chronicle the actual growth of slavery in the region (to the extent that its development could have been traced), but he did provide a number of instances of it. At the same time, he also showed that the adoption of the system of encomiendas was not without its critics.

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Helps relied upon Las Casas to show that the Dominicans launched an early but ineffective protest against Indian slavery. Helps recounted that the Dominicans disputed the rights of the colonists to enslave the Indians of Hispaniola; this conflict led to an appeal (by both parties) to Ferdinand. The subsequent deliberations led to the Laws of Burgos, which had the result of further codifying Indian slavery. Again, Helps presented a vivid picture: In their preamble these legislators pronounce upon the indolence and depravity of the Indians; and declare that the best thing which can be done at present, is to break up the Indian settlements and to place the Indian in the neighbourhood of the Spaniards: that thus both in body and mind the aborigines will be well cared for. The laws were to the following effect-The Indians were first to be brought amongst the Spaniards; all gentle means being used towards the Caciques, to persuade them to come willingly. Then, for every fifty Indians, four bohios (large huts) should be made by their masters. The bohios were to be thirty feet in length by fifteen by breadth. Three thousand monotones (the hillocks which were used to preserve the plants from too much moisture) of yuca, of which they made a cassava bread, two thousand monotones of yams, with a certain space for growing pimento, and a certain number of fowls, were to be assigned for the living of these fifty Indians. Every Spaniard who had an encomienda of Indians was to make some sort of building, however rude, for a chapel; and in it were placed an image of Virgin Mary, and a bell.39

Helps sought to make his readers understand that while these laws were devised in Spain they had direct impact on local conditions: By these laws it was settled that the Indians appointed to work at the mines were to stay there five months; then they were to have forty days for holidays, in which time, however, they were to till their own lands; then they were to go to the mines for another five months. Certain regulations follow about the food to be given to the Indians working at the mines, or on Spanish farms … The employment of the Indians in the mines is not only encouraged but insisted upon; for it is ordered that a third part of each encomienda, or if the owner should wish it, more than a third part, should be so employed.40

The Laws of Burgos may well have been intended to ameliorate the worst conditions of Indian labour, but their practical effect was to provide legal sanction to the organisation of slavery. Taken as a whole, Helps painted a graphic picture of the creation, methods and system of slavery as it started and grew in Hispaniola. The

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connection between Indian slavery and the depopulation of the region should have been predictable: The circumstances under which that island was occupied, were as unfavourable to human life as can well be imagined. The conquered people were employed in a manner alien from all their former pursuits, habits, and enjoyments. They worked for the production of commodities which had no interest in their eyes. They were hurried off to the mines without any suitable provision being made for a great movement of population. Nothing, in such a mode of government, had time to grow. It was not, as in older and settled countries, a surplus part of the adventurous youth that was attracted to a severe, but gainful occupation; but the most stable and precious part of the community, such as fathers of families suddenly demanded for a kind of labour for which it had received no previous training, and in the profits of which it had no concern. It would have been contrary to all the laws by which life is regulated, if such a mode of proceeding had been otherwise than most fatal to the people amongst whom it was introduced. They died, as they must have died, by thousands; and the mode of supplying the vacuum was equally contradictory to the laws of nature.41

Beyond Hispaniola, Helps provided arresting descriptions of the enslavement of many of the indigenous peoples of Central America. Helps followed the Italian traveller Jerome Benzoni’s account of the Spanish activities in Central America in order to depict the ways in which slaves were hunted. Helps explained to his reader that the view of an Italian traveller was a better source than official documents which would “necessarily be mixed up with many political and civil events, unimportant in themselves.”42 Benzoni accompanied the Spanish governor of the island of Margarita and the governor of Cubagua in a slaving expedition which landed at the mouth of the river Cumana (later, the Manzanares).43 Helps wanted to make the expedition vivid: This marauding expedition was to move towards the east, along the Gulf of Cariaco, to a part of the country where the Spaniards had alliances with the Indian Chiefs. There, with the inducements of a little wine, a little linen, or a few knives, they procured guides. Then commenced a hunt that led the Spaniards through the wildest tracts of country, which Benzoni thinks that foxes would hesitate to enter. The cruel hunters, like wild beasts, made their forays more by night than by day … they succeeded in capturing two hundered and forty Indians … another mode of hunting was adopted. During the daytime the Spaniards hid themselves amidst the dense foilage, or behind the rocks near the sea-coast; and when the Indians came down to fish, the Spaniards rushed out of their hiding places and generally

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Benzoni also witnessed the return of a more successful expedition which returned to Maracapana with four thousand new slaves: Would that this were anything like the number that had been torn from their homes,--for toil, scarcity of provisions, the bitterness of captivity, and the terrible nature of the journey had greatly thinned the number of captives; and some of those who were unequal to the journey had been put to death on the road. I cannot but quote the exact words of the Italian traveller, which, curiously enough, recall to mind the words used by the Portuguese chronicler who saw the first cargo of negro slaves arrive at Lagos. That miserable band of slaves was indeed a foul and melancholy spectacle to those who beheld it: men and women debilitated by hunger and misery, their bodies naked, lacerated, and mutilated. You might behold the wretched mothers, lost in grief and tears, dragging two or three children after them, or carrying them upon their necks and shoulders, and the whole band connected together by ropes or iron chains around their arms or hands.45

Not only did this amount to a miserable sight, but Helps wanted his readers to be aware that it represented a great deal more suffering. Again, Helps’ use of pictures exploited the picturesque sensibility of his audience: just as pictures of ruins amid the natural world yielded a melancholy vision of human history, so too, the image of captures slaves not only pointed to the means of their capture, but, equally importantly, to the fact that the way in which they were captured and processed ensured that many had died before they could even be pictured. To cite another example, Helps used the image of Hernardo Cortes dividing slaves to argue that the scene was more horrible than a casual reader might imagine. Here, Helps created a textual scene and then performed an exegesis upon it to convey the horror in human terms. This particular scene might be easily recalled by a reading public which might have been familiar with Harriet Martineau’s writings about her visit to the slave market in Charleston. Upon subduing the province adjacent to La Segura, Cortes divided slaves, allowing the men from Narvaez to return to Cuba and Helps instructed his readers that this event merited special attention.46 As Helps related it: These slaves were first collected together, and then branded with the letter “G,” which signified guerra (war). A fifth was taken for the King; then, another fifth for Cortes; and the rest were divided amongst the men. We naturally picture to our minds, when reading of slaves of war, that they

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were strong men, who, having come out to fight, had been conquered by stronger or more valiant men, and that the penalty of defeat was servitude,-a transaction which does not shock us much, especially in an age, comparatively speaking, barbarous. But, in this case, and, doubtless, in many others, we should have been much astonished if the slaves had been paraded before us, seeing that they consisted of boys, girls, and young women, for the Spanish soldiers would not make slaves of the men, because they were so troublesome to guard; and, besides, the Spaniards had already, in their Tlascalan friends, men who were ready to do any hard work for them.47

Slavery, then, first meant the summary execution of male prisoners of war. More important, to see the picture which the chronicles made possible was not sufficient; instead, it was up to Helps to translate it into even more understandable terms. To state it simply, there is a hermeneutic of translation which runs through Helps’ history and literary writings—the academic in the cloister must first recover the past and then explain it in human or populist terms to the crowd. Just as Helps resisted the abstract notions of political economy, so too his historical writings aimed to make the past vivid and not distant. Helps used Benzoni as a motif to show what a traveller might have seen had he or she visited New Spain and observed the reality of the encomiendas system. Explaining that it is unfortunate that we do not have travellers such as Benzoni, Helps suggested to his readers that their travel journals would have been vivid: If there had been such travellers, the aspects which the conquered country would have presented to them would have been very various, and very difficult to understand. They would have seen some Indians with marks in their faces, toiling at the mines; while other Indians, unbranded, and perhaps with their wives, were also engaged in the same unwelcome toil. They would have noticed some Indians at work in domestic offices in and about the Spanish houses; other Indians employed in erecting public buildings and monasteries; others working, in their rude primitive way, upon their own plantations; others occupied in the new employment, to them, of tending cattle brought from Spain; others engaged in manufactories of silk and cotton; others reckoning with king’s officers, and involved in all the intricacies of minute accounts. Everywhere, on all roads, tracks, and by-paths, they would have seen Indians carrying burdens; and these travellers must have noticed the extraordinary fact that an activity in commerce, war, and public works, greater perhaps than that of Europe at the same time, was dependent, as regards transport, upon men instead of beasts of burden. Such a state of things the world had never seen before … across the path of these travellers would have moved a small, stern-looking body of Spaniards, fully armed, and followed by more thousands of

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Chapter Five Indians than the men in armour numbered hundreds,--probably five thousand Indians and three hundred Spaniards … If the travellers … could have gained the opportunity of speaking a few words with any of the Indians engaged in these various ways, they would soon have heard narratives varying in a hundred particulars, but uniform in one respect, namely, that the Indians were all unwillingly engaged in working for alien masters.48

Again, Helps created pictures of slavery to try to communicate the extent to which the institution pervaded New Spain. The discussion of the institutional development of slavery was supported by ample documentation. Helps included analysis of the government’s interest in the branding of slaves in order to show the extent to which the state had become involved in the maintenance of the institution which Ferdinand and Isabella had originally opposed. Helps also deployed visual images to make his readers see the results of the importation of African slaves into the depopulated West Indies. Helps quotes from a document in which the adaptability of “the Negro” is expressed by the assumption that Africans seemed as natural to the environment as oranges. More imaginatively, Helps used European landmarks to convey the significance of Negro slavery: The money arising from the licences and customs duties on the importation of the negroes was employed in building the fortress-palaces of Madrid and Toledo. Many of the noted buildings on the earth are of most questionable origin; but these two palaces must be allowed to enjoy a remarkable pre-eminence as monuments of folly and oppression. Other buildings have been erected solely at the cost of suffering subjects of great despots, or by prisoners captured in war. But the blood-cemented walls of the Alcazar of Madrid might boast of being raised upon a complication of human suffering hitherto unparalleled in the annals of mankind. The Indians had first to be removed by every kind of cruelty and misgovernment from the face of their native country, and the Africans had to endure bloody wars in their own country before a sufficient number of them could be captured to meet the increasing demand for negro slaves. Each ducat spent upon these palaces was, at a moderate computation, freighted with ten human lives.49

While this passage might remind readers of passages from The Stones of Venice, it should be clear that Helps’ imagery was connected to his belief that the human experience of the past must be translated into the present. Yet, despite the fact that Helps presented a graphic picture of genocide under the Spanish, there was a progressive note to his history. In the final

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volume, Helps charted some of the more successful pieces of legislation enacted by the Spanish government to protect the Indians. Most of this work involved the Indians of Mexico and Peru and, again, there was a gap between the law and the colonist’s practice. In addition, these improved polices were also made in the wake of the importation of Negroes into the New World. Nonetheless, Helps was able to tell his readers that Indian slaves were regarded differently from African slaves, because the latter were believed to be slaves either through war (with other Africans), or by having sold themselves into slavery. Therefore, Africans had not been enslaved in the manner of the indigenous inhabitants of the Caribbean. Of course, slavery would persist but the justifications for it would begin to change: The justification thus propounded by these learned Jurists for the introduction of negro slaves, is doubtless very shallow; but still it was a great advance in humanity that they should lay down the principle that, in no wars of their own nation with barbarians, could slaves, as general rule, by righteously made. The almost indomitable natives of Chili gave the Spaniards so much trouble, that, even as late as the year 1652, in the reign of Philip the Fourth of Spain, the Chilians might be made slaves in war; but this was only the exception to the general rule in the Spanish dominions throughout the New World--that Indian captives were not to be considered as slaves.50

The horrible fate of the Indians—depopulation through conquest, disease and slavery—had purchased real progress in history.

Understanding Indian Civilisations Unlike many nineteenth-century historians, Helps attempted to evaluate the Spanish conquest of much of the New World not only in terms of its impact, but also from the point of view of the conquered. That is, he sought to understand the events which took place in the Caribbean and South America not merely as a projection of European powers, but also as it impacted indigenous populations. Nowhere is this more evident than in his attempt to comprehend Indian civilisations in their own right. This could be seen in both his treatment of the Aztecs and the Guatemalans. Helps built on the tradition of European writing which recognised that the Aztecs had possessed a sophisticated civilisation. To cite a notable example, liberal Anglican historical thought connected the cultures of some of the New World civilisations to larger patterns of universal history. Henry Hart Milman (1791–1868) had argued that both the Aztecs and the

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Incas were: “but another illustration of the form which religious sentiment takes at certain phases of human society.” Aztec Mexico was “advanced to a high state of what we may venture to call, without pledging ourselves to its origin, Asiatic civilisation.” Furthermore, the Toltecs were analogous to the Pelasgians, and to the civilisation of Anahuac “are ascribed the buildings of the greatest solidity and magnificence, the monuments of ‘Transatlantic Cyclopean architecture’.” To put this another way, Mexico was to the civilisation of Tezcuco as the more warlike, serious Rome was to the cultivated and sophisticated Greek civilisation.51 Helps rejected any attempt to place these civilisations into any scheme of universal history. Instead, he worked as a Rankean might—treating each civilisation as a unique product of historical circumstance. To be sure, Helps used comparative analysis to explore some of the central features of these civilisations, but he refused to subordinate them to any type of theology of history or predetermined pattern of progress as Milman had. Nonetheless, Helps assumed the reality of both progress and, in a more general way, the notion that civilisations could be regarded as being at stages. One of the most remarkable aspects of Helps’ historical analysis, then, was the way in which he determined to try to write sympathetically towards barbaric, non-European cultures. Helps did not invoke judgement when writing about Aztec religious practices, but first sought to get his readers to re-examine their own perspectives before evaluating one of the most significant civilisations of the New World. For example, he compared Mexico to ancient Rome: Lest the reader should think that the historian is too studiously apologetic for the Mexican barbarities, let him imagine, for a moment, that Christianity has arisen in the New instead of the Old World; that some Peruvian Columbus had led the way, from West to East, across the Atlantic; and that American missionaries had come to Rome, in the first century of the Christian era. Honoured by the Emperor as ambassadors from some “barbarian” power, and taken in his suite to the Coliseum, with what intense disgust and consternation would these pious men have regarded all that they saw there. They would have seen men torn to pieces by wild beasts, not for anything so respectable as superstition, but simply to indulge a vile morbid love of amusement, to gratify the meanest vanity, and to attain the basest popularity. “These spectators are indeed savages,” they would have exclaimed: “and behold, there are women, too, amongst them! No longer beautiful in our eyes, are the golden palaces, the marble colonnades, and the countless images, admirably sculptured, which we find amongst these barbarous Roman people. Let us hasten to convert them.”

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But the Old World has always been proud of its Rome, and spoken of its Romans as the masters of civilisation.52

Helps, then, worried about the way in which history is written by the victor, as his treatment of the Aztecs aimed to domesticate them for history. Helps relied on visual representations to make the Aztec practice of human sacrifice more palpable to his readers. Again, he created a word picture which enabled his readers to see what might otherwise be an abstract historical reality. Helps recorded the Spaniards’ encounter with the practice of human sacrifice: The Spanish explorers discover that the priests are carrying to the upper area of the temple the body of a naked and living man. The long flights of steps are slowly mounted, and the unfortunate victim placed upon a large, convex, green stone. Four of the attendant priests hold him down by the arms and legs, while a fifth places a wooden instrument, of a serpent form, across his throat. The convex altar raises the body of the victim into an arched shape, and enables the chief priest to make, with more facility, the fatal incision, and to remove the heart of the victim. The heart was then presented to the idol, being laid within his uncouth hand, or placed upon his altar. It was a beautiful day on which I imagine the pious explorers to have been witnesses of this dread scene. The emeralds worn by the chief priest glittered in the sun; and his feathers fluttered lightly in the breeze. The bright pyramidal temples were reflected in the lake and in a thousand minor mirrors formed by the enclosed waters in the water-streets. A busy, pleasant noise from the adjacent market-place was heard throughout the great square. The victim had uttered no sound. He knew the inutility of any outcry. In Mexico, priests, victims, and people, were alike accustomed to view such ceremonies, and this was one of the ordinary sacrifices. The expression of the faces in the crowd was calm and almost self-satisfied. All around was beautiful and serene, and it was hardly until the mangled body, hurled down from the upper area of the temple, had come near to the feet of the astounded voyagers, that they could believe they had really seen what passed before their eyes.53

Rather than simply address the place of human sacrifice in Aztec society, then, Helps created a picture to enable his readers to see that what was striking was not the sheer horror of the act, but rather the fact that it was an ordinary event. It might do well to recall that much of Helps’ popularity came from his ability to write incisively about the many unexpected complexities associated with daily life, as it was experienced

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in the middle of the nineteenth century. Whereas in writing history Helps had earlier created pictures to illustrate the cruelty of the Spaniards, here he sought to convey the way in which human sacrifice functioned in Aztec life. Like both Ruskin and Carlyle—the Victorian prophets—who took features of everyday life and made them the basis for cultural criticism, Helps was fascinated by the way in which human sacrifice could become the basis for the daily life of Aztec society. It is useful again to follow Helps’ word picture: Cortes, with all due courtesy, took leave; and the Spaniards, descending with difficulty the deep steps of the temple, marched back to their quarters, sickened, saddened, and somewhat enlightened as to the nature of the men by whom they were surrounded … hearing the busy tumult of the marketplace and the merry noise of children playing in the sun; then catching bright glimpses of the water, and looking at the unnumbered boats which plied along the streets; all that they had seen in the dark and dismal charnel-houses of Huitzilopochtli and Tezcatlipuk must have seemed to the Spaniards an ill-omened dream. Years would pass away, and they would become veterans, covered with wounds and with renown, before they would have time to think over and to realise to themselves the full horror of the accursed things which they had looked upon that day.54

This narrative was constructed for readers to comprehend more than the evil of the accursed things—Helps was concerned to show that these rituals were a normal part of Aztec life. Helps was also interested in a theme which would be recognisable in the twentieth century; namely, the apparent contradiction inherent in a civilisation which is at once sophisticated and powerful and, yet, has a series of barbaric or deeply problematic practices at its centre. The commitment to understanding history in its own terms meant that Helps explained this ostensible paradox in terms or religious and historical development: In justice to the Mexicans, we should consider what can be said for them. An historian should know no hate; and we of this age must not share the blind sentiments of horror which occupied the minds of the conquering Spaniards, and served to justify their proceedings. When we reflect upon the untoward, disastrous, and ridiculous aspect of human life--how, for instance, little things done or neglected at an immature period have so fatal an influence throughout a life-time,--when we behold the successful iniquity, the immense injustice, and the singular infelicity, which often beset the most innocent of men--nay, further, when we see the spitefulness of nature--for so it seems unless profoundly understood,--when we

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consider the great questions of human life, such as free will and the origin of evil, which are not explained now, but only agreed to be postponed in humble hopefulness, and which, in earlier periods of the world’s history, exercised to the full their malign discouragement,--we cannot wonder at the belief in the evil deities of great power and supremacy … what more natural than to clothe such deities with the worst attributes of bad men, and to suppose that they must be approached with servility, and appeased by suffering. Then, further, what more natural than to offer to such gods of the best upon earth, namely, our fellow-men. It must not be forgotten that there was often a friendly feeling towards the persons sacrificed, and in some cases they were looked upon as messengers to the gods, and charged with distinct messages.55

Having explained human sacrifice in historicist terms, Helps pushed his analysis a step further by addressing the way in which the practice became a part of Aztec society. It is worth noting that Helps’ explanation for the standardisation of the practice was consistent with his understanding of the development of slavery in the New World: The idea of human sacrifice, as pleasing to the gods, being once adopted in moments of victory, doubt, or humiliation, is soon developed. The evil practice becomes a system, and partakes of the strength of all systems, taking root amongst the interests, the passions, and the pleasures of mankind; and, thenceforward, he will be a bold man, and, rarer still, a thinker, not given to stop anywhere in thought, who shall lift himself above the moral atmosphere of his nation, and shall say, “This thing which all consent in, and which I have known from my youth upward, is wrong.”56

Human sacrifice was undoubtedly barbaric, but its origin and development was comprehensible as another instance of the way in which social practices begin and grow into their larger societal environment. Helps did not take the step here that Ruskin and Carlyle would have found tempting—namely, to use a terrible set of social practices deeply enmeshed in the normal functioning of Aztec society to reflect on the society of mid-nineteenth century Britain, in order to suggest that despite the proclamations of progress, it had also routinised other forms of exploitation and human suffering.

Bringing the Spanish Conquest “Face to Face” with the Present In his Spanish Conquest in America, Helps succeeded in tackling one of the critical episodes in early modern history. His contemporaries were

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impressed with several aspects of the work. In connecting morality with history, Helps had emphasised many of the smaller details of specific events. The reviewer for the Spectator was impressed with the fact that Helps had used his mastery of detail to make the drama of key events vivid: Mr. Helps’s work comes naturally into comparison with those of Robertson and Prescott. Over the former he enjoys the immense advantage of perfect familiarity with the original authorities, and that more distinct and vivid sense of the men and the events with which he deals which always comes from going to the original sources. Robertson, with all his knowledge and his fluent eloquence, writes like a man who knew only at second-hand: Helps writes as if he had talked with the actors in his scenes. So far as acquaintance with original authorities goes, Prescott is probably equal or superior to Mr. Helps, but he has not the same power of bringing people face to face with his readers; he knows as much about the men, and he does not know the men themselves so well. But, in truth, the subject is so little worn that it is needless to makes these comparisons. Mr. Helps’s special object of illustrating the rise and progress of Negro Slavery gives a distinct originality to his work, even where his facts are familiar; and his own nature is such that he could touch no familiar subject without giving it fresh and deep interest.57

The detailed word pictures had enabled Helps to not only connect morality and history, but also to capture the motivations of the primary actors in the conquest of the New World. Yet, Helps’ effort to faithfully represent the Spanish conquest may well have inhibited him from exploring the significance of the event in greater depth. For example, Helps did not take the step which figures such as Jacob Burckhardt and John Ruskin did when they explored the Renaissance—namely, to investigate the event and then show how its defining characteristics would later be enshrined as the essence of modernity. Rather than make the emergence of the Atlantic world a precondition for many developments in the nineteenth century, Helps was instead tracing a single if critical development—namely, the beginnings and growth of the slave trade. Measured against the likes of Ruskin and Burckhardt, then, Helps’ agenda might appear to be modest, but in the 1850s the American Civil War had yet to be fought, slavery was a living institution on at least three continents, and emerging anti-racist discourses still had to contend with the many forms of practiced racism. Not surprisingly, perhaps, one of the immediate legacies of the four volume work was the biographies which Helps would write about key figures: Cortes and Pizarro. These works would be well received, but many in Britain believed that the slavery issue

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was largely solved after the Union’s victory. Helps later admitted that his work had become “to a certain extent obsolete.”58 This judgment may well have been false, but it may aid in understanding why Helps’ work as a historian never moved beyond the Spanish Conquest in America.

A Progressive Historical Imagination In March 1875 The Saturday Review praised Helps for a number of his literary and civic achievements and the writer observed that he might have obtained greater popularity as a historian had his work not suffered from his moral earnestness.59 That is, that Helps’ commitment to exhibiting the origins of modern slavery was a liability because: Nations and men, and not a special department of their activity, are the proper subject of history. The history of commerce, of manners, of religion, or of many separate political functions, may belong to moralists, to economists, or to divines, but not to historians.60

While this assessment may have demonstrated the parochialism of the reviewer, it was true that Arthur Helps has not been connected to the development of the study of history in Britain. In fact, the comment would prove to be prophetic as the emergence of the profession of history and the development of historical thought in nineteenth-century Britain would be recounted without reference to Arthur Helps. After all, he had turned down the Regius Professorship at Cambridge and did not produce another major work of history after the Spanish Conquest in America. In addition, historians have regarded the maturation of historical thinking primarily in relation to national narratives. Herbert Butterfield criticised the Whig interpretation of history, and scholars have also been interested in the ways in which Victorian historical writing reflected contemporary concerns. Accordingly, the achievements of Macaulay have been well remembered and J. W. Burrow wrote incisively about the works of Froude, E. A. Freeman and William Stubbs.61 More broadly, the historical writings of Thomas Carlyle have been cited in conjunction with the broader cultural movement of medievalism, which reflected, among other things, the need to find a useable past. However, this chapter has documented that Arthur Helps was a very significant historian at mid-century and one whose nowforgotten work looks almost startlingly progressive. At a time when the “condition of England question,” and the movement towards democratisation shaped the imaginations (and with it the choice of subject matter) of historians, Helps chose to study Spanish colonialism. In showing that more was at hazard, for humanity, Helps was required not

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only to spend significant time in Madrid’s archives, but also to rethink of many of the presuppositions which are now associated with the broader experience of European imperialism. That is, Helps’ history addressed racism, genocide, exploitation, religious intolerance, global inequalities, colonial practices and their many means of legitimation. Above all, Helps was attempting to write about a global catastrophe which had produced one of the most insidious practices which remained extant in his world. This point was at least noticed by the writer of the Saturday Review in December 1868 when it reviewed Helps’ The Life of Columbus (1869). The reviewer complained that the Spanish Conquest could not be reduced to a series of good biographies because the massive work had treated these events as a “framework for the study of the origins of modern slavery.”62 The reviewer added that significance of these events is “nowdays appreciated more and more,” and put what is gained by reading The Spanish Conquest in America into a wider historiographic perspective: A thought which abides with one in reading books like these is that of the strange delusion which still prevails as to what is the true history of the world. In common historic writing, a figure like that of Prince Henry is hardly seen in the blaze of such a person as our contemporary Henry V., and yet Agincourt is nothing to the moral revolution which was wrought by the first cargo of Moorish slaves in 1441. The voyage of Sebastian Cabot is glanced at in a line; which the imposture of a Perkin Warbeck covers page upon page; or, to take perhaps the strongest instance we remember, M. Guizot devotes a chapter to the three first Parliaments of King Charles, and not a word to the great emigration of the eleven years of his tyranny which carried 20,000 Puritans to New England, and, in founding its greatness, changed the fortunes of mankind. A day may perhaps come when Parliaments and drums and trumpets will be rated by the historian at their true level, but till that day comes we cannot wonder at what is sometimes called “our English indifference to history.”63

Helps’ moral commitments had motivated him to write a wide-ranging and possibly alternative (to the subject matter of his day) history which drew upon large amounts of archival material to tell a tragic story which had a global impact. Furthermore, Victorian and European scholarship has been remembered for its ability to successfully create historicist narratives by placing emphasis on depicting gradual developments as they were made manifest in history. Not only did Helps tell a non-British story, but he sought to exhibit the many facets of this catastrophe and then to show how it provided the warrant for subsequent colonial developments. In both senses, Helps’ historical thought was at significant variance from much of

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the work of his contemporaries. To be sure, his progressive and moral vision fit easily within the contours of nineteenth-century thought. Therefore, at a time when other, better-remembered historians were worrying about issues critical to Britain’s past, Helps was critically engaging one of the most important episodes in global history. Yet, a broader view of Helps’ writings reveals that his attitude towards empires and colonisation was not as forward looking as his trenchant critique of slavery and racism. At about the same time as Helps was publishing the biographies from the Spanish Conquest in America, he also wrote Casimir Maremma (1870). This historical novel may well have entertained readers on many levels, but they would not have been able to miss the advocacy for emigration and colonisation: “the noblest enterprise which the present state of the world holds out to any of us.”64 In that discussion, colonisation was understood as a means not only to relieve immediate social problems, but to create a new and better society. Helps could not foresee the agonies which settler colonies would come to inflict upon many areas of the world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Understanding this area of Helps’ thought aptly illustrates that at midcentury it was perfectly plausible to believe in the progressive potential of colonisation, even if it was abundantly clear that the story of European imperial expansion was inseparable from the development of slavery and the catastrophes which a number of indigenous populations experienced in the Americas. For our purposes here, it is a reminder that while Helps’ vision of empire was ultimately a progressive one, it was tempered by many mid-century assumptions to which subsequent generations have looked askance or regarded with embarrassment and contempt. Finally, beyond the publication of biographies and works of historical fiction (such as Casimir Maremma), Helps would not write about history again. However, it would be in writings such as Casimir Maremma that Helps would deploy the Friends in Council characters to discuss a vast area of public questions.

Notes 1

The Spectator, July 28, 1855, 789. Stephen Keck, “Slaves or Labourers: Revisiting the 1852 Debate Between Sir Arthur Helps and ‘A Carolinian’ (Edward J. Pringle),” in The Proceedings of The South Carolina Historical Association, 1997, 12–23. 3 R.G. Collingwood, The Idea of History, pp. 257-263. 4 Arthur Helps, The Spanish Conquest in America; and its Relation to the History of Slavery and to the Government of Colonies, v, 1–4, vol. I, xxxiii. 5 Ibid., xxxiii. 2

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Arthur Helps, The Life of Pizarro: With Some Account of His Associates in the Conquest of Peru, v–vi. 7 Ibid., xxxi. 8 Ibid., xxxi. 9 Arthur Helps, The Spanish Conquest in America; and its Relation to the History of Slavery and to the Government of Colonies, vol. III, 78. 10 Ibid., vol. III, 80. 11 Ibid., vol. II, 161. 12 Ibid., vol. II, 161. 13 Ibid., vol. I, 2–3. 14 Ibid., vol. I, 18. 15 Ibid., vol. I, 189–190. 16 Ibid., vol. I, 190. 17 Ibid., vol. I, 147. 18 Ibid., vol. I, 305–306. 19 Ibid., vol. I, 306. 20 Duke University Helps Papers: the letter is dated April 2, 1857. 21 Ibid., vol. I, 5. 22 Ibid., vol. I, 80–81. 23 Ibid., vol. I, 81. 24 Ibid., vol. I, 95–96. 25 Ibid., vol. I, 103. 26 Ibid., vol. I, 104. 27 Ibid., vol. I, 105. 28 Ibid., vol. I, 155. 29 Ibid., vol. I, 158. 30 Ibid., vol. I, 158–9. 31 Ibid., vol. II, 19. 32 Ibid., vol. II, 154. 33 Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper, Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference, 164–165. 34 Ibid., vol. IV, 260. 35 Ibid., vol. IV, 261. 36 Ibid., vol. IV, 263. 37 Ibid., vol. I, 138–139. 38 Ibid., vol. I, 139. 39 Ibid., vol. I, 185–186. 40 Ibid., vol. I, 186. 41 Ibid., vol. I, 192. 42 Ibid., vol. II, 158. 43 Ibid., vol. II, 154. 44 Ibid., vol. II, 154–155. 45 Ibid., vol. II, 156–157. 46 Ibid., vol. II, 301. 47 Ibid., vol. II, 301–302.

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Ibid., vol. III, 77–78. Ibid., vol. III, 152. 50 Ibid., vol. IV, 256. 51 Duncan Forbes, The Liberal Anglican Idea of History, 46–47. The reading of Milman is based on Duncan Forbes’ book. 52 Ibid., vol. II, 219–220. 53 Ibid., vol. II, 101–103. 54 Ibid., vol. II, 236. 55 Ibid., vol. II, 236–237. 56 Ibid., vol. II, 237. 57 The Spectator, July 28, 1855, 790–791. 58 Arthur Helps, The Life of Pizarro: With Some Account of His Associates in the Conquest of Peru, vi. 59 The Saturday Review, March 13, 1875, 340. 60 Ibid., 340. 61 J. W. Burrow, A Liberal Descent: Victorian Historians and the English Past. 62 The Saturday Review, December 19, 1868, 805. 63 Ibid., 805–806. 64 Arthur Helps, Casimir Maremma, v.2, 242. 49

CHAPTER SIX THE SUPREME IMPORTANCE OF LITTLE THINGS Arthur Helps was a distinguished historian in his day, but most Victorians knew him more for the publications which were associated with his fictional Friends in Council series. To put these in writings into perspective, this discussion will begin with A.V. Dicey’s determined attack on Helps which addressed the broader public significance of the Friends in Council. Exploring the initial publication of that work reveals that Helps was engaged and writing about public issues by depicting how they might be regarded in private conversations. The satiric side of the Friends in Council series also aptly illustrates that while Helps could write about imperial history and social issues, he was at least as capable of portraying many of the virtues and foibles of the drawing room. The characters which make up the dialogues of the Friends in Council’s writings proved to be popular, and Helps brought them back to contextualise his discussions of other issues and literary works. The characters were, in fact, as important as the ideas they set forth; examining Realmah makes this evident, but it has another benefit—it sheds light on the author’s attempts to come to terms with the gendering of many facets of experience in his time.

A. V. Dicey’s Attack on Helps A. V. Dicey’s attack on Helps can be viewed as an indication that he believed he was an important public voice. That is, he regarded Helps as an author whose impact was far reaching in forming the cultural outlook of his contemporaries. Dicey launched his assault in the Nation (May 16, 1872) in a review of Helps’ Thoughts Upon Government. Dicey indicted Helps for the impact that his authorship had had over the past generation. Dicey acknowledged that as a historian Helps had produced works which “placed him high among historical writers.”1 However, Dicey complained that Helps had, in effect, founded a school of essayists which had encouraged readers to ignore the age’s most pressing problems.2 Dicey

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recognised that Helps’ style and approach to readers had been imitated, and he understood Helps’ influence to be both wide-ranging and negative. Dicey’s indictment was directed against Helps and his school because he believed that it had discouraged significant political and social debate. Helps had, in essence, succeeded in reframing the issues which the political economists had explored earlier in the century. Dicey complained: The School has notoriously flourished, and now boasts representatives in every magazine and newspaper, who teach the public how much thought may be expended on all those topics, down from the making of marriages to the arrangement of dress, which the uneducated fancied could be managed without any abstract theories.3

The triumph of Helpsian ideas over the discourses of political economy could be gleaned from not only the popularity of Friends in Council, but in the many publications which followed Helps’ essays. Dicey elaborated that the extent of Helps’ influence was to create a basic division among the writers who looked to the author of The Claims of Labour and Friends in Council. Dicey explained that the school has “become so large that it has split into various branches and consists of two great bodies of cynical essayists.”4 The first school consisted of essayists who “instruct the public through the columns of the Saturday Review”5; the second was made up of “genial essayists such as Mr. Helps and his disciples, ‘A.K.H.B.’ and ‘Timothy Titcomb,’ who pour forth truths or platitudes in books and magazines.”6 Dicey referred to Helps’ immediate disciples, noting that impact of works such as Friends in Council was widespread.7 However, he identified some writers such as A. K. H. Boyd to be his legitimate disciples.8 Despite the fact that he perceived Helps’ disciples to be widespread, Dicey believed that they were actually united by one great doctrine.9 In other words, that even though the school of Helps might be divided into sects, their work was united by one central idea. Dicey held that the Helpsians assumed the supreme importance of little things.10 Dicey’s contempt for Helps and these writers was clear: It is, as it were, a fundamental article of faith, for no one who did not hold it could bring himself to write, and write with ingenuity, on the subjects— such as “worry,” “ dress,” “misunderstandings,” “friendship,” and so forth—with which modern essays generally deal.11

Dicey attacked the “great dogma of the importance of little things,” because its effect was to deaden debate and undermine the possibility for more radical modes of social reconstruction.12 He elaborated that one of

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the reasons for the success of the Helps school was the passion which they brought to minor matters. Again, Dicey did not mince words: Mr. Helps and his disciples owe their influence in part to the zeal with which they inculcate the importance of little things, and to their optimistic view of English society; but the school is, after all, distinguished by its mode than the matter of its teaching … This practice of trifling with everything may not raise our respect for Mr. Helps as an author but, we believe, greatly increases his influence as an essayist, for ordinary readers dislike the trouble of consecutive thinking, and feel a sort of reverence for a teacher who seems always to hint at some thing great which he could say if only he chose to follow out the thought which he thinks it better merely to suggest.13

Dicey believed that the modality of the teacher was important because it was personal. In fact, the “second characteristic of the school’s mode of teaching” was that it adopted a style of discourse in which hints were preferred to assertions.14 Dicey connected Helps and Boyd by their personal approach with their readers: Mr. Helps and his disciples make it a point of conscience to establish a sort of personal relation between the writer and reader. The mode in which this is done depends of course upon the particular author’s sense and taste. A. K. H. B. narrates anecdotes about his little girl, his fireside, his sermons, and, if our memory does not deceive us, his gloves. Mr. Helps writes like a gentleman, and does not fall quite so low as this: still he is pleasantly confidential, and, as he says, wishes to bring himself and his readers “into closer contact.”15

Dicey observed that in 1872 Helps could be particularly effective because he was a well-known public figure. Therefore, when Helps created a personal mode of contact for discussing the questions of the age it was inevitably popular, especially with younger readers: Youthful readers especially, just beginning to like speculation and not perhaps fond of thinking, must find it unspeakably delightful to learn all these details about the great Mr. Helps, and to feel that the man who has been honored by having grave questions sent to him for consideration is so good and kind and considerate that he wishes to take Master Brown and Miss Jones into council with him, and wishes them to remember that he too is a man and may have all the prejudices of his calling. It seems almost cynical to suggest that such personal statements are at best irrelevant, perhaps a trifle vulgar and possibly delusive, for, though we are perfectly willing to believe that Mr. Helps possesses all the many virtues to which he

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lays claim, it is as well to bear in mind that a man’s own testimony to his own merits is not always considered conclusive proof of their existence.16

In effect, Dicey was charging Helps and his school with literary demagoguery. The modality was part of the message—the essayist defined what was important by being at once authoritative and close. In trying to assess the impact of Helps and his disciples, Dicey launched his most searing and incisive criticism. He claimed that Helps, and still more his disciples, had stimulated two of the worst tendencies of their readers.17 He held that the first reflected some of the least impressive features of English society. Helps and his school promoted the tendency which: “is very marked in modern English society, to turn the mind towards little, trivial interests.”18 This had the more important result of “encouragement to consider little things as great, and as a consequence to consider great things little.”19 Dicey argued that the other negative tendency was less reflective of historical or social circumstance. Dicey referred to “a writer who teaches his readers to delight in personal anecdote—to think rather who the teacher is than what it is he teaches,” because he believed that this sort of essayist tended to limit the intellectual horizon of their audience.20 Readers became interested in “A. K. H. B.’s fireside or the details of Mr. Help’s life, rather than in the worth of the arguments put forward by the person or the official, [it] distinctly stimulates a vulgar curiosity instead of exciting intellectual interest.”21 The impact of Helps’ writings, then, was to first inspire a school of disciples and second to restrict the intellectual debate of his times. Dicey said of Helps’ school that “we cannot with honesty say much good.”22 However, in the wake of British reactions to the Franco-Prussian war, Dicey indicated that at least Helps regarded morality as a serious issue for historians. He ended the review noting that Helps was: “one of the few men who still believe in moral force, since in England at least, the number of persons who did not bow down and worship force when represented by Louis Napoleon, began to adore it when represented by Bismarck. From this passionate admiration for successful violence Mr. Helps is entirely free.”23 The intensity of Dicey’s invective reflected his antagonism towards mid-century reading habits. Unfortunately, Dicey’s agenda did not include greater documentation; his task was not to establish Helps’ influence— which he understood to be widespread—but to assess its significance.24 In fact, this kind of charge against Helps’ essays had been made before. Dicey may have been familiar with the piece which ran in the Spectator a decade earlier in which the reviewer observed:

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Chapter Six It is neither possible nor desirable to read Mr. Helps’ essays without drawing some conclusions as to the characteristics marking the class of writings of which they are the best specimens. For essay writing, which seemed to be a kind of literature belonging to another century, has, in common with hoops and turned-down collars, experienced a curious revival. A weekly newspaper provides each Saturday essays on all topics from friendship to lying, and two of our magazines rarely omit to print articles on subjects which have occupied moralists from long before the time when Cicero composed his immortal platitudes on old age … They all have a tendency to write about their subject rather than drive straight to the matter in hand, and it is not without a certain instinctive propriety that the feeblest of their number always commences his title with the word “concerning” … Even Mr. Helps is too fond of touching lightly upon great problems and the leaving them. He gives many hints about organisation— he does not teach how to organise … No writer can so truly adjust the claims of conflicting opinions on matters of social life as can the author of “Friends in Council.” But he is greatest when his subject is least. He is unrivalled in discussing “Worries.” He is much less successful when speaking of “War.”25

A decade later, Dicey looked about and saw the contemporary landscape shaped by Helps and his disciples. In particular, he was uncomfortable with the Saturday Review as well as Andrew Kennedy Hutchison Boyd (1825–1899) and the American writer Josiah Gilbert Holland (1819–1881). To understand the basis for Dicey’s argument (and its predecessor), it is necessary to briefly recount the popularity of these forgotten writers. Boyd was a relatively well established figure in the mid-Victorian literary world. His writings could be found in periodicals such as Fraser’s Magazine, Blackwood and Longman’s Magazine. Boyd covered a range of topics— many of which were ecclesiastical. Like Helps, many of his writings concerned everyday experience. For instance, readers would not be surprised to learn that it was Boyd who wrote “Concerning Work and Play,”26 and “Concerning Tidiness.”27 In addition, Boyd reviewed both of Helps’ Friends in Council (1859) and Oulita, the Serf (1858) in Fraser’s Magazine. Holland took his literary career to greater heights than did Boyd. Holland was almost certainly better known to a generation of midnineteenth century readers as Timothy Titcomb, which was the pseudonym he used for his novels and essays. Holland co-founded Scribner’s Magazine, which contained stories, consistent with many of Helps’ interests. For instance, the 1871 monthly carried columns about European and British culture as well as domestic life. While his Lessons in Life does

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not bear any direct connection to Helps, it is notable that many of the chapters (to cite a few examples: “Greatness in Littleness,” “Men of One Idea,” “Unnecessary Burdens,” “Truth and Truthfulness” and “Animal Content”) would all have resonated with readers of the Friends in Council series.28 To put this in perspective, it is important to recall the importance attributed to “Victorian things.”29 Helps may not have created a school, but as we will see in locating the importance of things as they were manifest in everyday life, he was certainly sensitive to the priorities and interests of his contemporaries. For Helps, the centrality of seemingly minor matters was the perfect set of instances to call into question the discourses of political economy. In Friends in Council, Helps created the perfect vehicle to undermine the abstract discourses associated with political economy. The characters created by Helps were interesting to their contemporaries as they displayed their private lives while discussing public issues. Exploring the first series of Friends in Council, written against the background of both 1848 and the politics surrounding the Corn Laws, reveals a sustained attempt to at least question the dominance of political economy in public life.

Friends in Council: Helps as Public Philosopher Arthur Helps was called the philosopher of the hearth, but he is better understood as a thinker who was concerned with public philosophy. There would be many manifestations of Helps’ public thought and one that was underestimated by his contemporaries was his sensitivity to the discourses which were coming to shape the definition of national, social and cultural issues. Helps’ key ideas about public life were partly the result of his religious and intellectual outlook, but they also reflected his frustrations with political economy and broader disjunction between the discourses of the cloister, and lived realities of those who made up the crowd. Helps did not directly write about discourses, but his treatment of the subject could be gleaned by his own writing style. With The Claims of Labour, Helps had directly engaged the “condition of England” question, but it would be with the development of the Friends in Council series that he would create a vehicle to address public issues. Friends in Council ventured in a new direction by presenting a set of considerations which might enrich public life. Helps’ observation that the development of civilisation has made it easy for a man to brutalise himself might be understood as the issue which underpinned his public philosophy.30 As we will see, this public philosophy was based upon the

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conjunction of several modes of improvement: Helps believed that along with the achievement of specific social policies, private life had to be made wise and ultimately rich in order to create a public domain which could make civilised life flourish.

The Organization of Friends in Council The publication of Friends in Council in the late 1840s introduced first British, and later North American readers to a literary work which would soon be widely recognised for its language, style, wit, playfulness, satire and, most importantly, characters. With the initial two volume work, Helps created a group of characters who would later reappear in many of his other works. These fictional personages were the vehicle for a more sustained conversation about many of the most contentious issues of the day. It would be misleading, however, to regard these characters as mere signposts for mid-Victorian debate. Instead, the characters—normally professional males with considerable intellectual pretensions—might well be enjoyed for their very priggishness. For example, it is clear that Ruskin found the satire one of the best features of Friends in Council. At the same time, the content of Friends’ debate—initially regarding schemes for rural improvement and the abolition of slavery—was no less critical. During the following decades, the main characters—John Ellesmere, Milverton and Dunsford—developed easily recognisable traits. Given the popularity of Helps’ works, it seems reasonably clear that these figures were well known to the mid-Victorian reading public by the 1860s. In addition, it seems plausible that an investigation into these characters might well shed light upon the early Cambridge Apostles and other significant personages in nineteenth-century British life. While Helps populated these fictional dialogues with other persons, these three were the most used and probably the most memorable. These dialogues were introduced by a narrator who is eventually identified as Dunsford. He had been a mathematician at the university which Milverton and Ellesmere attended. Helps used him to portray these figures in a tender light. Helps’ narrator explains with characteristic selfeffacement: None but those who, like myself, have once lived in intellectual society, and have been deprived of it for years, can appreciate the delight of finding it again. Not that I have any right to complain, if I were fated to live as a recluse for ever. I can add little, or nothing, to the pleasure of any company; I like to listen rather than to talk; and when anything apposite does occur to me, it is generally the day after the conversation has taken

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place. I do not, however, love good talk the less for the defects of mine; and I console myself with thinking that I sustain the part of a judicious listener, not always an easy one. 31

Friends in Council began, then, not only as a set of discussions, but as a celebration of the possibilities of conversation. It seems clear, as well, that Helps wanted his readers to appreciate the value of listening and reflection. The narrator also sought to get his readers to understand that these dialogues were based upon a series of gentle relationships. The bonds between Dunsford and his former pupils were realised through sensitivity to the public and private realities: Milverton and Ellesmere were my favourite pupils … What tricks he and Milverton used to play me, pretending not to understand my demonstration of some mathematical problem, inventing all manner of subtle difficulties, and declaring they could not go on while these stumbling-blocks lay in their way! But I am getting into college gossip, which may in no way delight my readers. And I am fancying, too, that Milverton and Ellesmere are the boys they were to me: but I am now child to them. During the years that I have been quietly living here, they have become versed in the ways of the busy world. And though they never think of asserting their superiority, I feel it, and am glad to do so.32

These conversations, then, take place in the context of a comfortable and rare private space, which had been created by friendship and respect. While both Ellesmere and Milverton were favourite pupils, it would be the latter which would present the essay for discussion.33 Despite the fact that he did nothing at the University,34 his task was also to be serious; these pieces represented an academic effort to approach the subject at hand. The narrator introduced Milverton by noting that he was “my old pupil,” and was writing essays which he “occasionally read to Ellesmere and myself.”35 Milverton was the more moderate of the two and it could have hardly surprised Helps when Froude wrote that Milverton would have calmed him during a five minute period when he behaved badly.36 Most of these conversations took place on the lawn before Milverton’s house,37 in a place nine miles from the sea and might appear to be far removed from the unpleasant realities which the Friends debated: It was an eminence which commanded a series of valleys sloping towards the sea. And, as the sea was not more than nine miles off, it was a matter of frequent speculation with us whether the landscape was bounded by air or water. In the first valley was a little town of red brick houses, with poplars coming up amongst them. The ruins of a castle, and some water which, in

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Helps would later change the setting of the Friends—they would debate abroad, in railcars and in drawing rooms—but the idea of putting them in a space which was domestic, safe and, above all, private, was essential to the work’s purpose. John Ellesmere, a lawyer, was a sharper, more dynamic, but ultimately less likeable character than Milverton. Schaffer observed that Ellesmere provided Helps with the opportunity to be illuminating because he was at his “least conventional.”39 The narrator claimed that, like Milverton, Ellesmere lacked ambition while at university, preferring instead to follow whatever fancy occurred to him. In one of the few biographical episodes contained in Friends in Council, Helps’ readers learn that the narrator believed that: Once I thought I had stimulated Ellesmere to the proper care and exertion: when to my astonishment and vexation, going into rooms about a month before an examination, I found that, instead of getting up his subjects, like a reasonable man, he was absolutely endeavouring to invent some new method for proving something which had been proved before in a hundred ways. Over this he has wasted two days, and from that moment I saw it was useless to waste any more of my time and patience in urging a scholar so indocile for the beaten path.40

Ellesmere, then, brought both intellectual intensity and playfulness to Milverton’s essays and subsequent debate. Helps sought to portray a relaxed but rigorous human context to the issues of the day. Ellesmere was regarded as lifelike by the critical reviewers.41 Ellesmere speaks, “neither better nor worse than many a clear-headed barrister of Westminster Hall.”42 The character was appealing not because he was attractive, but because he was familiar: Such men as Ellesmere every one has encountered. They repel you at first by their flippancy, their boundless impudence of assertion, and their perpetual air of mockery and derision: you think they have neither love for anything, nor faith in anything; but, on closer acquaintance, they are found really to have a heart under that jingling coat of mail which they carry over it.43

The character’s discussion of “Fiction,” “Living with Others” and “Slavery” illustrate the ways in which Helps employed satire to deal not only with contemporary issues, but also with the contradictions of elite

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middle-class life. Helps introduced “Fiction” with a brief but light-hearted dialogue which commenced in Milverton’s study on a rainy day. Ellesmere began: Is it not comfortable to have our sessions here for once, and to be looking out on a good solid English wet day? Dunsford. Rather a fluid than a solid. But I agree with you in thinking it is very comfortable here. Ellesmere. I like to look upon the backs of books. First I think how much of the owner’s inner life and character is shown in his books; then perhaps I wonder how he got such a book which seems so remote from all that I know of him-Milverton. I shall turn my books the wrong side upwards when you come into the study. Ellesmere. But what amuses me most is to see the odd way in which books get together, especially in the library of a man who reads his books and puts them up again wherever there is room. Now here is a charming party: “A Treatise on the Steam Engine” between “Locke on Christianity” and Madame de Stael’s “Corinne”. I wonder what they talk about at night when we are all asleep. Here is another happy juxtaposition, old Clarendon next to a modern metaphysician whom he would positively loathe. Here is Sadler next to Malthus, and Horsley next to Priestly; but this sort of thing happens most in the best-regulated libraries. It is a charming reflection for controversial writers that their works will be put together on the same shelves, often between the same covers, and that, in the minds of educated men, the name of one writer will be sure to recall the name of the other. So they do down to posterity as a brotherhood. Milverton. To complete Ellesmere’s theory, we may say that all those injuries to books which we choose to throw upon some wretched worm, are but the wounds from rival books. Ellesmere. Certainly. But now let us proceed to polish up the weapons of another of these spiteful creatures. Dunsford. Yes. What is to be our essay to-day, Milverton? Milverton. Fiction. Ellesmere. Now, that is really unfortunate. Fiction is just the subject to be discussed; no, not discussed, talked over, out of door, on a hot day, all of us lying about in easy attitudes on the grass, Dunsford with his gaiters

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Chapter Six forming a most picturesque and prominent figure. But there is nothing complete in this life. “Surgit amari aliquid;” and so we must listen to Fiction in arm-chairs.44

Helps followed this innocent conversation with an almost tepid discussion about the nature of fiction. The most interesting part of this brief essay (for Milverton) concerned the comparison of the public utility of fiction. Milverton compared the public’s capacity to draw from literary characters with the limits imposed upon history by factuality. Fiction allowed writers to explore the complete private emotions of the characters which helped to make up literary narratives; in contrast, history was limited by what actually did and did not happen. However, it is the subsequent discussion in which Helps employs the characters to connect fiction to contemporary political debate: Ellesmere. I am glad you have kept to the obvious things about Fiction. It would have been a great nuisance to have had to follow you through intricate theories about what fiction consists in, and what are its limits, and so on. Then we should have got into questions touching the laws of representation generally, and then into art, of which, between ourselves, you know very little. Dunsford. Talking of representation, what do you two who have now seen something of the world, think about representative government? Ellesmere. Dunsford plumps down upon us sometimes with awful questions: what do you think of all philosophy? Or what is your opinion of life in general? Could not you throw in a few small questions of that kind, together with your representative one, and we might try to answer them all at once. Dunsford is only laughing at us, Milverton. Milverton. No, I know what was in Dunsford’s mind when he asked that question. He has had his doubts and misgivings, when he has been reading a six night’s debate (for people in the country I dare say to read those things), whether representative government is the most complete device the human mind could suggest for getting at wise rulers. Ellesmere. It is a doubt which has crossed my mind. Milverton. And mine; but the doubt, if it has ever been more than mere petulance, has not had much practical weight with me. Look how the business of the world is managed. There are a few people who think out things, and a few who execute. The former are not to be secured by any device. They are gifts. The latter may be well chosen, have often been well chosen, under other forms of government than the representative one. I

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believe that the favourites of kings have been a superior race of men. Even a fool does not choose a fool for a favourite. He knows better than that: he must have something to lean against. But between the thinkers and doers, (if, indeed, we ought to make such a distinction,) what a number of useful links there are in representative government on account of the much larger number of people admitted into some share of government. What general cultivation must come from that, and what security! Of course, everything has its wrong side; and from this number of people let in, there comes declamation and clap-trap, and mob-service, which is much the same things as courtiership was in other times. But then, to make the comparison a fair one, you must take the wrong side of any other form of government that has been devised.45

The fear of the abuse of representative government continues to trail the essay on fiction: Milverton … The great danger, as it appears to me, of representative government, is lest it should slide down from representative government to delegate government. In my opinion, the welfare of England, in great measure, depends upon what takes place at the hustings. If, in the majority of instances, where were abject conduct there, electors and elected would be debased; upright public men could not be expected to arise from such beginnings; and thoughtful persons would begin to consider whether some other form of government could not be forthwith made out. Ellesmere. I have a supreme disgust for the man who at the hustings has no opinion beyond, or above the clamour round him. How such a fellow would have kissed the ground before a Pompadour, or waited for hours in a Buckingham’s ante-chamber, only to catch the faintest beam of reflected light from royalty. But I declare we have been just like schoolboys talking about forms of government, and so on. “For forms of government let fools contest, That which is worst administered is best—” that is, representative government.46

Finally, the discussion also enabled Helps to reflect upon both the process and outcome of the debate over the Corn Laws: Dunsford. I suppose I am becoming a little rusty, and disposed to grumble, as I grow old: but there is a good deal in modern government which seems to me very rude and absurd. There comes a clamour, partly reasonable; power is deaf to it, overlooks it, says there is no such thing; then great clamour; after a time, power welcomes that, takes it to its arms, says that now it is loud it is very wise, wishes it had always been clamour itself.

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Chapter Six Ellesmere. How many acres do you farm, Dunsford? How spiteful you are! Dunsford. I am not thinking of Corn Laws alone, as you fancy, Master Ellesmere. But to go to other things, I quite agree Milverton, with what you were saying just now about the business of the world being carried on by few, and the thinking few being in the nature of gifts to the world, not elicited by King or Kaiser.47

Helps successfully connected fiction to many of the key political issues of the day. Last, the subject of slavery also proved to be useful as the basis of satire. Helps used an essay by Milverton on the cruelness of slavery as the basis to portray learned indifference to human problems. Milverton had ended the essay by observing that among the developments which occurred in the sixteenth century the slave trade was the most enduring. This point set up the conversation between the Friends: Dunsford. Strike out the word “enduring,” Milverton; endure it cannot, endure it shall not. Ellesmere. Well done, my dear Dunsford! I have seen for some time that you have been at boiling point, quite ready to go out in a boat by yourself and attack a slaver (some one did the other day); or to set up an academy for Negro boys in a slave state, perhaps the more dangerous thing of the two. Milverton. Have I dwelt too long upon the cruelty? Ellesmere. For me you have. But then I was brought up amongst the defenders of slavery; and the facts which need to come out in a quiet way, quite convinced me of the opposite to what my friends used to argue fiercely for. And their arguments did something in the same way too. Milverton. I know the impatience of modern readers, but I cannot proceed in a subject of this magnitude without a large stratum of facts. Ellesmere. People can use in this chapter what some man has called the first privilege of Englishmen--that of skipping. By the way, imagine a nation condemned to read books through! Dunsford. Pray do not cut out any of the facts in this chapter. The length of it will not frighten away anybody who is worth convincing. If people do not care enough about a subject to linger upon the details of it, their aid will be ignorant and their sympathy shallow. When we do care about any thing or body, we do not know that it is to be tired with details about them.

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Ellesmere. Well, well, keep it all, if you like. I really believe I am not a fair judge: the thing is self-evident to me. But I must say in general I like facts; and seldom think we can have too many of them. But do not let us say any more at present about this part of the subject. I have a sort of sickness at heart after hearing so many horrors, though I am not as soft as Dunsford.48

The conversation—with its Dickensian overtones—moved away from merits of facts to travel: Milverton. I am in hopes that the locomotion of the present day will have some great effect upon the slavery question. Many more things are carried over land and water by those puffing steam-engines, than are entered in the way-bill or the purser’s book. Ellesmere. Yes, travelling is a grand thing. I don’t mean your statistical, political, benevolent, or scientific travelling, though that is often very serviceable. But I am thinking of travelling for one’s self. Horace may say what he likes about care laying hold of the tow-rope of a steamer, or sitting behind the horseman like his master’s coat strapped round a groom; but a judicious traveller cuts the tow-rope or undoes the buckle, and care is obliged to drop off behind. Dunsford. Very Horatian these similes! Ellesmere. Then the coming back in such a delight. After a man has been beyond the Alps some time, there is absolutely a halo in his mind round the idea of parish business at home. But then he must be contrived to keep tolerably clear of letters. Milverton. Yes, I often thought I could make the fortune of small German principality, by persuading the prince to forbid any English post coming in or going out. Then set up some mineral waters and a town with a queer name: it would be instantly overpowered with the best class of English visitors. Ministers of state would be sure to have frequent attacks of a peculiar disorder which nothing but the waters of this place could cure. You see, the beauty of the scheme would be, that there would be a complete excuse for not writing, as well as an impossibility of receiving letters. Ellesmere. Very good, certainly: but don’t you think the wish to write letters would come directly letter-writing was forbidden? Milverton. No; letter-writing is one of the few things you may safely forbid. Ellesmere. But what excuse should the prince have?

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Chapter Six Milverton. Oh, English intrigue. Don’t you know the general theory abroad of our deep-laid schemes. To be sure there are ten or twelve Englishmen (I should rather say ten) who care about foreign politics. But this droll theory of the foreigner is quite enough for my scheme. Ellesmere. Special messengers: a “hurried Hudson”-- how can you meet that? Milverton. Ah, there is no such thing as perfection. But this principality would be the best thing that civilisation could offer. Of course a man cannot be secure without making a Robinson Crusoe of himself. Ellesmere. There would be this good too. A man, seeing how well the world gets on without him, may just bethink himself whether he could not get on without the world. He may reflect that as it is not at all a slave to him, he need not be quite a slave to it. Of course all separation from the world tells this; but the more complete tells it louder.49

What had started with Milverton’s essay about the cruelty of slavery quickly became a satirical piece involving English travel habits. These themes were joined by explicit discussions of both larger philosophical questions and practical issues. In the original Friends in Council, the key figures discussed “Truth,” “Despair” and “Greatness” while also exploring “Conformity,” “Recreation,” “Education,” “the Art of Living With Others,” “Unreasonable Claims” and “Public Improvements.” These topics organised the discussions, but what was probably more interesting was that they served as departure points for the little things which so frustrated Dicey. In addition, the Helpsian critique to political economy runs through these early dialogues as something of a subtext. Milverton’s essays are forgotten, but the ideas contained in “Recreation” were later better and more forcefully developed by Ruskin. Furthermore, the essay on “Unreasonable Claims” anticipated some of Mill’s arguments in On Liberty. Last, it should be pointed out that it was in these conversations that Helps was able to explore the tensions between private life and the obligation of public life.

Reflecting upon Gender The Friends in Council writings offer a very interesting glance into the changing gender roles in nineteenth-century Britain. These early dialogues are homosocial—the characters, their ideas, complaints and humor are almost exclusively male. These conversations reveal a social world which was normal or unproblematic for Helps; the professional, university-

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educated, males engaging first in debates about public question of the day, and then taking their argument as a way to poke fun at one another. Yet, it also made evident a pattern of homosocial interactions which could take place in select areas of the home. To put this a bit differently, Helps used the home to have his characters replicate the experience of the club. If Helps was an advocate for domesticity it was under certain conditions. He did not often frequent encomiums towards the home, but he assumed its centrality. It was the home which provided the critical private space—for the articulation of individual male (and later female) characters; in addition, Helps may well have situated many of the dialogues within the home—but they were largely among friends. In this sense, the home provided the space for males with professional occupations to participate in both the public and private life. These options were hardly available for women. Helps’ dialogues reflect the trend towards “the remoralisation of men’s leisure,” which seemed to have begun after the 1830s.50 For three publications, the characteristic quality of the dialogue almost certainly had their roots in apostolic experience. More interesting is that the dialogues focused upon moral, political, social and cultural issues, but are largely devoid of discussion about the activities which many of his contemporaries identified with vice. Hence, the Friends are relatively silent about prostitution, alcoholism, crime and other forms of non-morally sanctioned behaviours. It is possible that it is the very absence of these topics which makes them comparatively inaccessible to post-Victorian readers. Nevertheless, Helps’ writings were consistent with those didactic writers at mid-century who advocated the virtues of domestic life.51 Toth has argued that domesticity was challenged by homosociality and traditions of associating masculinity with heroism and adventure. Helps’ response was to present these instances of male activity in familial settings. More importantly, perhaps, in these early dialogues these characters were not connected in any way to adventure and heroism. Instead, these images of male activity did take place in and around the home, but they might also be regarded as deviating from some of the tropes associated with the advocacy of domesticity. The cult of domesticity, after all, has been understood as an advocacy for home and family, which itself is predicated on an assumption of marked sexual difference as well as a fear of the pressures (and dangers) inherent in the commercial and professional worlds. Yet, Helps does not fit too neatly into this dichotomy. He also wrote with interest about practical matters as Organization in Daily Life attests. His two essays, both of which were

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frequently republished, showed no less concern in promoting professional growth and capacities. In some ways, Helps easily qualifies as an advocate for domesticity. We have already noted that in his Claims of Labour, Helps wrote about the treatment of servants and the importance of housing for social development. The Helpsian house did mark off spaces, and of greater interest is perhaps the veritable absence of children (unlike domestic pets) from these narratives. Again, the difference between the Friends assembling for their discussion and rituals associated with the father being in the home are not all that great. However, the central argument of domesticity is that in its fully developed form it offers a moral view of the world.52 Helps’ writing could easily be cited as testimony of this trend— little things pointed back to a much larger moral universe. All of this makes Helps’ writings a good window into many of the conventions of mid-nineteenth century Britain. However, Helps aimed to entertain and instruct his readers into the full complexity of public questions. The conversations aim to exhibit the many nuances inherent in contemporary issues and they connect public and private experience, a priority for many Victorian moralists. Helps wanted his subjects to be able to argue, laugh, be angry and appreciate each other’s point of view. Helps, as such, functioned as a public intellectual, but one with a commitment to display wisdom.

Realmah: The Importance of Little Things Towards the end of 1868 Carlyle informed Helps that he had completed Realmah, which had run in Macmillan’s Magazine. He told the author that the book was strange, wandering and meandering, unlike any he had ever read.53 However, Realmah was characteristic of its author’s many strengths. Realmah was set in the Neolithic age in the lake villages of the Swiss Alps. That is, the setting for Helps’ novel was further temporally from the world of the Royal Court than anything else that he had written. The distance may have succeeded in masking Helps’ multiple intentions to many readers such as Carlyle, but it seems probable that one of the reasons for both the shape and content of the volume concerned the author’s close relationship with the Queen. Realmah (1868) represents the fulfilment of many of Helps’ literary ambitions.54 This excessively lengthy and forgotten book amounted to another visit with the Friends (including two of their wives) and a novel set in the Neolithic world. The characters discuss the achievements of Realmah, a nobleman who became a king of a lake settlement, which was

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modelled on the Neolithic Swiss lake villages. Helps created this action around the city of Abibah, which was the home of the Sheviri. This fictional society was partly based on Helps’ historical works as the Sheviri possessed some Incan characteristics and lived in a city which was partly inspired by the Aztec capital. The story of Realmah, which included a bereaved king, military adventures, captivity, the patronage of arts, the discovery and utilisation of iron and the challenge of religious intolerance, was a heroic tale which also raised issues about gender, morality and the progress of human history. By the late 1860s, of course, Helps’ readers understood that the narrative was only part of the story because it functioned to generate the dialogues between the familiar Friends characters. In this case, it allowed them to discuss a number of immediate issues such as the militarisation of Europe, efficiency in government and colonialism. More important for our purposes here, the Friends could also reflect on domestic life and morality—both as they appeared within the Realmah narrative and as they perceived them in their own lives. Since domestic issues abound in Realmah, it is useful to highlight a few features from both the narrative and the dialogues to call attention to the ways in which the text called for making wise choices in daily life. This amounted to asking his readers to consider, or reconsider, the gender differences which made up the Sheviri so that they might call their own ordering of male and female into question. Realmah was easily grasped as a satire (that worked on many levels) which allowed for the open discussion of many areas of nineteenth-century society. For example, Realmah’s achievements can best be understood as a friendly reply to John Ruskin’s social criticism. Above all, Realmah provided Helps’ readers not with the opportunity to ponder dramatic social transformations, but to reflect on the possibility for increasing their own comfort.

The Critique of Consumption Even before the commencement of the Realmah narrative, Sir Arthur Godolphin told a story about traveling to land where sleep was the most important commodity for consumption. Sir Arthur’s tale was at once a lively dialogue, a mild satire on travel writing, and also a more determined criticism of consumption. This dialogue, which began: “the conversation turned upon sleep,” opened a discussion about the consumption of luxury goods.55 This included the ways in which the commercial development and exploitation of sleep reflected pre-existing social hierarchies. In addition, the narrator explicitly described the plight of those who over-consumed. Sleep could also refer or suggest a state of mind—people consuming sleep

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while avoiding some key social and moral issues. In Realmah the Friends soon left sleep behind, but the critique of consumption continued throughout the book.

Using Fiction to Explore the Roles of Women and Men One of the things which separated Realmah from some of Helps’ earliest Friends dialogues was his attention to the manner in which the differences between men and women were articulated in British society. Those who had faithfully read the first series of Friends in Council could not have missed the inclusion of critical female characters—Lady Ellesmere and Milverton’s wife. However, even though these women exhibited quick wits and offered thoughtful commentaries, they were merely a beginning. The exploration of the Sheviri society revealed an alternative set of gender relations to those which were dominant in Helps’ time. This included a different series of marital rules and by religious belief. Indeed, Realmah’s early remark that “water is the women” announced that gender would be a critical issue in the narrative.56 Even more striking, the story of Realmah—his wives, their roles and their fates—provided Helps with the chance to write about gender relations— ostensibly in the Sheviri society, but reflecting contemporary concerns. It should be pointed out that Helps had always been interested in portraying a variety of male roles, but over the course of the 1860s he came to engage the experiences of women. In understanding the ways in which Helps regarded the experiences of and expectations for women, it is useful to make some cross references to John Ruskin’s Sesame and Lilies. While there is not an explicit reference made to this text in Realmah, there is both direct and indirect allusion to Ruskin and his work. Both Lady Ellesmere and Miss Milverton might easily fit into the “Queen’s Gardens.” Yet, as we will see, the Realmah narrative required a much more serious rethinking of gender roles than Sesame and Lilies implied. More importantly, perhaps, it is clear that Helps’ suggestions towards improving comfort were aimed at both men and women. The portrait of the Sheviri revealed a society in which the women’s roles were deliberately complementarity—that is, they were clearly defined in ways which were useful for their male counterparts.

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Gender Roles in Sheviri Society Milverton explained that the Sheviri society was a polygamous one and that it was normal for important personages (such as Realmah) to have three wives. These wives were related to specific functions: The laws of marriage which prevailed amongst the Sheviri were very peculiar … as regards the marriage of the princely families, their young men were compelled to take three wives, lest there should be default of issue in those families. One of the three wives was to be taken from among the family. She was chosen by the head of the family, and was called the Varnah-Varee, which meant the cousin-wife; the second was taken from the great body of the common people, and was called the Ainah-Varee, which means the alphabet-wife. I do not exactly understand how the choice was regulated; but I believe that it depended upon the number drawn out of a vase by the fortunate maiden, corresponding with the number of letters in the man’s name, or being some multiple by four of that number. The third wife was chosen by the young man himself, and was called Marah-Varee, which means the love-wife.57

The experiences of men in this society were not comprehensible without reference to their belief in their own individual nymph, who they thought assisted in shaping their destinies: There were nymphs who played a most important part in the affairs of the Sheviri. Each man supposed himself to be protected by a nymph, who watched over him from birth to death, and to whom every thought of his mind, every aspiration of his heart, and every one of his actions, was a matter of deepest interest. It was a rule of politeness that when any man in the city of Abibah seemed to be absorbed in thought he was not be interrupted in any way; for, said the bystanders to themselves, “He is communing with his nymph, and she is giving him heavenly advice: therefore be silent.”58

In short, the males had prominent roles, but they were at once defined by their wives and their beliefs in superior women.

Realmah’s Relationships with his Wives Nowhere was the rethinking of women more obvious than in the Realmah narrative. This narrative would have been easily recognisable to Victorians as heroic—Realmah becomes king, invents iron, vanquishes the invaders, and makes Abibah thrive. However, he also took three wives and it was ultimately his relationship with the Ainah (the name of one of

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Realmah’s wives) which defines some of the most critical parts of the narrative. The Ainah was married to Realmah as a slave, and was not particularly attractive. Yet, it would be this unlikely woman who would not only win Realmah’s heart but help him to save Abibah from aggression. The Ainah even helps to rescue Realmah from his confinement and only then captures Realmah’s affection. In fact, in one telling passage he admits that he does not even know her name, even though he has owned her and been saved by her. Given their social positions, Realmah must keep his passion for the Ainah secret and so he loves her privately. Quite recognisable to readers in the 1860s would be the twist in the story in which the Ainah becomes ill and eventually dies. This grief, which proves to be an intensely private matter, becomes one of the dominant features of his character. At the same time, Realmah’s relationship with the Varnah is also important. This woman had the full range of domestic responsibilities, which meant organising the household. After all, the “Varnah knew that she was transcendent in the art of housekeeping, and looked upon all others as children of whom she had to take care.”59 It was in reviewing the Varnah’s outlook that Helps sustained his critique of the needless consumption of luxury items and collectibles. Helps explained: Realmah had really been very good to the Varnah. On ordinary occasions, and when his mind was full of business, he could not pretend to sympathise with her in her petty cares and hopes, but every now and then he made a great effort to please her. He would send for some rare product or some rare work of art to a distant part of his dominions, and would then confide to the Varnah what he had done, pretending all the while that he was doubtful whether he should get it, though he knew full well that no one ever refused the great King anything he asked for. Then he would charm the Varnah by taking about the expected present, as if he was deeply interested in it, and he would contrive that it should come upon some festal day, especially upon the birthday of her departed mother; for the mother’s birthday was always held in great reverence. Realmah really liked the Varnah, admired her skill in household management, was pleased with her orderliness (though he had none of that quality himself), never forgot the aid he had received from her during the siege, and believed that in her way she was attached to him. Indeed, to that court jester, the only man whom he allowed a glimpse into his inmost soul, he would say, “I am the Varnah’s choicest possession, and she will mourn for me, poor thing, when I am gone, as no one else will mourn. In truth, I am afraid lest then all the other possessions should lose favour in her sight.”60

The stress on commodities was tied to shallow egotism. Nonetheless, Helps’ criticism remained gentle—he did not disown or further diminish

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the Varnah nor indicate that her efforts were without value. More importantly, perhaps, the Varnah’s inheritance of Realmah’s property reflects the change in legal protections for married women. Over the course of the middle decades of the nineteenth century, that status of married women began to change. Most notably, the Divorce and Matrimonial Act which was passed in 1857 improved the legal protections of married women. This was especially the case for protecting married women’s property rights. Nonetheless, this Act left the balance of power with the husbands, but the fact that the statute did not fully satisfy feminists and advocates for married women, itself supplied ample cause for the continuation of debates about the legal status of women in marriage. The 1857 Act would be followed by the passage of Married Women’s Property Acts of 1870 and 1882. Realmah’s attitude toward her at the end of his life reaffirmed her, but in a reduced role. The Talora represented the external demands of marriage. Realmah’s attitude towards the character reflected disenchantment with the requirements of social hierarchy. However, it did not mean a repudiation of it. The wives of Realmah did much to define his identity in the world of the Sheviri and in the story told by Milverton. They illustrated the ways in which women were important to male identity. It is also worth noting that Helps did not connect these women to raising children. Realmah mirrored the tendency in Helps’ work (with some exceptions) to portray a social world in which children were at the very margins of adult society. More importantly, they also signified the range of expectations which Helps believed his society had for women. Much of this was beyond the Queen’s Gardens, but it also amounted to a fulfilment of it. The Ainah, the Varnah and the Talora all functioned to complement Realmah. Helps’ division of martial labour also exposed some of the inadequacies of Ruskin’s earlier visions. However, it is worth noting that in the wake of the Second Reform Bill, Helps had eschewed the issue of democratisation. Helps may well have read Harriet Taylor Mill’s The Enfranchisement of Women (1851), but it was clear that the political issue was of little interest to him. The situation of the Sheviri women (and the Friends’ dialogues) represented a much more nuanced approach to gender than Sesame and Lilies. Yet, Realmah did not hint at the agenda of John Stuart Mill’s On the Subjection of Women, which was published the following year. Yet, the Ainah’s role in the narrative was the most important. She emerges as a practical, active and purposeful woman who lived comfortably within socially prescribed boundaries and hierarchies. She was not Ruskin’s “Queen of the Air,” but

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a woman which Britons would understand, and whom the Queen might be easily comfortable with.

Realmah and the Ideal of the Gentleman Realmah also shows a broadening of Helps’ thought about masculinity and the development of manliness in his society. While Helps seemed to have little interest in exploring these concerns in any kind of systematic manner, he was nearly obsessed with the development of men who came with the experience of the university behind them. That is, Helps’ writings were situated within the ambit of those writers who championed the gentlemanly ideal. With respect to this particular work, Ellesmere raised the issue by predicting that Realmah would be a man consistent with their age. Realmah also identified the ideal man with more than university education and apostle style discussions, because it was a critical feature of the narrative that the hero was also an inventor—in this case, first inventing the way in which iron might be manufactured and, second, devising multiple ways for its use. Helps was responding to Ruskin’s earlier work on “The Work of Iron in Nature, Art and Policy,” which had appeared in The Two Paths (1859) and took the opposite point of view— the utilisation of iron was a symptom of much of which was wrong with the nineteenth century. Realmah placed iron and economic development in a progressive and heroic framework. To be sure, this was partly the material of satire, but the explicit links to Ruskin in the text (as well as their relatively close relationship) marks this aspect of the narrative. Therefore, domestication, manliness and progress (achieved by both broadmindedness and invention) underscored the Helpsian ideal for manliness. Yet, there was another sense in which Realmah was being used to defy the conventions associated with domesticity. Both the narrative and the dialogue raised questions about existing presuppositions of gender roles. With respect to the narrative, Realmah and other members of his society are depicted as dependent upon women. The articulation of complementary roles in a polygamous society might be read as not only counter to the articulation of home life, but also a sly recognition about the realities of prostitution in British society. Helps had actually made this point earlier in Companions of My Solitude, when he addressed the subject as directly as he felt he could. Comparing the articulation of women’s roles in Realmah and Companions of My Solitude illustrates the broadening of Helps’ mind. In

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the earlier work, he had observed that while the roots of prostitution were multiple, it was at least partly caused by women’s weaknesses. He explained: Yes—she may be much to blame; but surely, the wiser creature, man, is more so. Seduction is such a poor transaction. There was a time, it was one of the basest times the world has ever seen, when seduction was thought a fine an clever thing; but now who does not see that to delude a woman, a creature easily to be deluded, especially through its affections, is a slight unworthy transaction and but for its dire consequences, would be ludicrous; like cheating a child at cards?61

Women were not only weak, but they could be measures of a man’s conduct (or lack of it). In Realmah, the positions were nearly reversed— the women do complement the men, but in a polygamous society their good conduct reflects upon a man’s social success. In addition, the very portrayal of a society which was as nuanced as it was progressive might well have called into question many of the neat assumptions which some mid-century thinkers might have made between domestication and Britain’s power. More importantly, perhaps, the wives of Ellesmere and Milverton are active complementary characters who amply illustrated the weaknesses of many of their husband’s arguments. In situating these characters in the dialogues which were rooted in the Apostles, Helps was making a huge concession to the changes which were afoot in British life. Realmah did not contain the homosocial qualities of the earlier Friends in Council; instead, the work offered a picture of a more diverse society and the one in which Ellesmere and Milverton lived, which was changing, if slowly. The inclusion of these characters also illustrated his growth as a writer and thinker. More important, it might be remembered that many of the little things were critical if not essential to the construction of gender in any society. Helps may not have explicitly addressed parliamentary and other public questions as deeply as Dicey (and others) might have liked, but he was sensitive to ways in which gendered realities of the nineteenth century impacted on Britain’s women and men. It might be noted that Milverton’s remark in the final conversation in Casimir Maremma connected questions involving gender to international issues—he argues that if they were consulted in the affairs of the world their impact would be positive because they have “protested against the love of war and the lust for conquest.”62 Consequently, he looked ahead and noted that as “they gain power they will become the most valuable advocates of peace.”63 All told, Realmah represents an

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unheralded response to the ideas which Ruskin had articulated in Sesame and Lilies.

Extending the Conversation of the Friends: Some Talk about Animals and Their Masters Helps’ experience with the cattle plague (see Chapter seven) almost certainly stimulated him to have the Friends visit the larger issues involved in humanity’s relationships with animals. This interest also came out of his reflections on domesticity and on early and consistent commitment to benevolence. In 1873 Helps published Some Talk about Animals and Their Masters which he dedicated to Baroness Burdett Coutts for her efforts to promote the Humane Treatment of Animals. Milverton led a discussion which explored a wide range of issues involving the treatment of animals. In addition to the obvious complaint about cruelty, the Friends discussed instructions to be given about animals, their transit, their owners and every “part of the subject that has practical importance, both as regards humanity, policy, and political economy.”64 Helps explored cruelty by arguing that its degree depends largely upon the differences in the culture of men.65 It is worth noting that Helps rejected the premise that race was a predictor of which cultures or nations would practice the greatest cruelties towards animals: “Do not look at the question as a matter of race.”66 The Friends also considered the transit of animals.67 Not surprisingly, there was the recurring rejection of the language of political economy, which Helps used to endorse the necessity of government regulation.68 Helps exploited the vocabulary associated with political economy to enquire whether animals had any kind of rights. Milverton asked: “Has not every living creature its rights?”69 He did not provide any kind of systematic basis for these rights but asserted that, “every living creature has rights … a lame horse has the right to claim that it shall not be worked,” in the same way that one man should be protected “from being ill-treated by another.”70 Milverton added that he had wanted to “state the matter in the most abstract fashion.”71 Helps had spent much of his authorial life trying to represent life apart from the domain of political economy; here he inverted it to develop an argument to secure better treatment for animals. In what might have been recognised as his characteristic fashion, Helps used the dialogue to also develop satire and make fun of some aspects of contemporary life. The treatment of animals also provided Helps with the occasion to measure both the realities of dealing with the cattle plague and

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the larger issues inherent in humanity’s treatment of animals against the broader sweep of human history. In particular, Helps assayed the veracity of human progress: The great advancement of the world throughout all ages, is to be measured by the increase of humanity and the decrease of cruelty … you may say that desolating wars still are frequent in the world; but only read the history of the former wars, and you will perceive what an immense move has been made in the direction towards humanity, even in these most barbarous transactions … Even as regards those instances of cruelty and brutality which have been mentioned in the course of our conversations, it must be admitted that some are exceptional; that others are heedless rather than intentional; and when brought before the bar of public opinion, they are universally condemned.72

Helps’ progressive view of history could easily incorporate the mass slaughter of cows, which had been necessary to contain the cattle plague. However, he went further, locating the humane treatment of animals as a necessary precondition for human development: It seems as if the main design of Providence had been to bring upon this earth a race of beings perpetually improving regards humanity. We arrogate this word to ourselves. I cannot but believe, that if we ceased to fulfill the conditions which are assumed in that word, we should be supplanted by another race. And therefore I feel, that even in this minor matter (if indeed it can be called a minor matter) of our treatment of the inferior animals associated with us, if we failed to exercise the requisite humanity, it would go hard with ourselves. The fact that our own material welfare depends much upon our treatment of the lower animals, rather seems to verify that to militate against the foregoing conclusion.73

Milverton’s speech could be viewed as uniting Darwinian conceptions of the natural world (including human evolution), with a traditional Providential view of human history. Contemporary and later readers might well have complained that this part of Some Talk about Animals and Their Masters could well have been elaborated at this point. Helps, of course, was more interested in responding to cruelty and mistreatment in his day. The dialogue contained a discourse on the “Joys of High Companionship,” which at once picked up recognisably Helpsian themes and extended them to animals. The desire for companionship is “very noticeable in domestic animals,”74 and Milverton added that if humans could “fathom the causes of their sociability, we should probably have arrived at a solution of several important questions relating to them and ourselves.”75 Helps took his readers away from animals to end the dialogue with a broader

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consideration of companionship, in which Lady Ellesmere responds to Milverton by objecting that the discussion of companionship had been inadequate because it had not explored the dynamics of men and women who “live together, and who differ upon every earthly subject.”76 Milverton’s response was ironic but not sarcastic: I said that the difference rather created pleasure than not, in companionship, and that this might even extend to difference in tastes; but that difference must not be offensive … We all know, especially you ladies, when we are making ourselves disagreeable, and so embittering companionship. There are times when a man will hear his most cherished convictions not only opposed, but ridiculed. There are other times when it is unsafe to do this. Tact, of which you women possess an almost unfair share, will easily enable you to distinguish between these times; and your large possession of this invaluable quality, tact, enables you to become at all times the most delightful companions that can be imagined to us poor men.77

Lady Ellesmere responds that her husband or the other men would begin to respond by making exceptions or “qualifications [that] will tend to deface and disfigure the fine things,” which Milverton had said about women. She ends by saying that it was: “as much as we could expect from a man.”78

Finding Major Cultural Impulses in “Little Things” Readers who followed the works which built upon the Friends in Council series might well have recognised that Dicey’s charge that Helps focused on “little things” had some merit. By the time Realmah was published, Helps could write for an audience that the Friends’ dialogues had established. Dicey might have, in fact, said more—Helps did write about small things, but he also wrote a substantial amount. As we have seen, these writings situated the key characters in a number of settings, but of greater importance they enabled Helps to engage with not only things which Dicey (and others) might regard as trivial, but also many of the significant issues of the day. Furthermore, additional research may well prove the veracity of Dicey’s claim that Helps’ had actually managed to produce a school of disciples who concentrated their work on exploring many of life’s minor issues. Given that these works enjoyed wide readership, it remains to assess their place in the mid-Victorian world. Students of modern British history remember Culture and Anarchy as a key text because, in it, Arnold engages with the behavioural values of the mass society emerging from industrialisation and the transition towards

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greater democratisation. Arnold depicts British society as a combination of “Barbarians,” “Philistines” and the “Populace,” and regarded higher culture as a remedy for the burgeoning vulgarity which scared him along with so many of his contemporaries.79 Famously, he argued that two impulses were dominant in British cultural life—Hebraism and Hellenism. Obedience and conduct shaped the Hebraism, while Hellenism was to “see things as they really are.”80 Arnold argued for the superiority of Hellenism, adding that its primary idea is “spontaneity of consciousness,” while with Hebraism the governing concept was “strictness of conscience.”81 Arnold, who identified the Saturday Review as “my old adversary,”82 believed that contemporary political life “tends to hide from us that there is anything wiser than our ordinary selves.”83 John Ruskin and John Stuart Mill, two men who hardly shared common ground, were in their respective ways also critical of developing mores. These efforts have been enshrined as touchstones of nineteenth-century thought and, accordingly, remain at once relevant to current audiences and are held to be indicative of some features of Victorianism. This chapter has sought to raise another possibility—that in developing the Friends characters, Helps (and those who followed) addressed the problem of behaviour in modern society very differently than his better known (and remembered) contemporaries. Helps disliked these realities as Arnold and Ruskin, but even though he believed culture to be a critical stimulus to moral behaviour his response represented an alternative. As Dicey himself recognised, Helps could not abandon moral interests, but neither could he compromise the assumptions that he held about social hierarchy and the organic nature of life and its realities. Examining Helps’ tenure as Clerk of the Privy Council will reveal that he drew on a liberal, progressive but also paternalistic visions of Britain’s future in order to figure out ways to meet the immediate challenges which came with the responsibilities of public administration. To study Helps is to see the mind of a government insider with a historical vision, who also gained from his conversations with critical voices such as those of Carlyle, Ruskin and George Eliot. However, Helps did not allow himself to paint or promise dramatic changes. Instead, his response was to resist the promise (or delusions) associated with massive transformation and write from the point of view of practical reason. This meant insisting upon the organic hierarchal connections between many, seemingly less important everyday realities; accordingly, it could easily mean that the little things that Dicey dismissed actually reflected much larger realities. Helps also encouraged his contemporaries to understand their roles (and obligations), but to do so with humour. The problems would come

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and they would not be solved easily, but the immediacy of human life would persist. That is, the little things were also important in themselves and required attention and mastery. Helps had eschewed the abstract discussion of political economy and showed a disinclination for the more provocative formulations of Arnold or Ruskin. Yet, he was no less in tune with his contemporaries as he was with the daily workings and requirements of government. Not surprisingly, perhaps, Helps’ works, which seem distant to us today, appealed to Britons for a number of reasons. After all, it may be that Dicey’s antagonism towards Helps stemmed from the possibility that the author of the Friends in Council had a perceptive understanding of the world of his readers, who in consciously or unconsciously enjoying “little things” were actually reflecting one of the dominant cultural impulses associated with Victorianism.

Notes 1

The Nation, May 16, 1872, 324. Ibid., 323. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid., 325. 11 Ibid., 323. 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid., 324. 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid. 24 Ernest Elmo Calkins (1868–1964), an American advertising executive, would later look back and substantiate Helps’ influence in the Saturday Review. Calkins, who was a significant figure in his own right, connected Helps to Samuel Smiles, even though there was probably little real warrant for doing so. See: Ernest Elmo 2

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Calkins, the Saturday Review, “Mr. Carnegie, Meet Professor Mathews,” the Saturday Review, December 25, 1937, 10. 25 The Spectator, April 5, 1862, 335. 26 Fraser’s Magazine, September 1858, 263–265. 27 Fraser’s Magazine, November 1858, 523–536. 28 Timothy Titcomb, Lessons in Life (Springfield, 1861). 29 Asa Briggs, Victorian Things (Gloucestershire, 2003). 30 Arthur Helps, Friends in Council, 2 vols., I, 113–114. 31 Ibid., vol. I, 11. 32 Ibid., vol. I, 12. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid., vol. I, 11. 36 Duke University. Special Collection Papers of Arthur Helps: October 1868. 37 Arthur Helps, Friends in Council, 2 vols., I, 13. 38 Ibid., vol. 1, 13. 39 Schaffer, The Administrative Factor, 40. 40 Arthur Helps, Friends in Council, 2 vols., I, 12. 41 Blackwoods, Edinburgh Magazine, vol., Oct. 1851, 382. 42 Ibid, 382. 43 Ibid. 44 Arthur Helps, Friends in Council, 2 vols., I, 78–79. 45 Ibid., 84–85. 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid., 87. 48 Ibid., 112–113. 49 Ibid., 113–115. 50 John Toth, A Man’s Place: Masculinity and the Middle Class Home in Victorian England, 125. 51 Ibid., 6. 52 Ibid., 27. 53 Carlyle quoted in E, A. Helps, 267. 54 Arthur Helps, Realmah. 55 Ibid., 9. 56 Ibid., 29. 57 Ibid., 35–36. 58 Ibid., 34. 59 Ibid., 219. 60 Ibid., 442–443. 61 Arthur Helps, Companions of My Solitude, 158. 62 Arthur Helps, Casimir Maremma, 238. 63 Ibid., 238. 64 Arthur Helps, Some Talk About Animals and Their Masters, 204. 65 Ibid., 9. 66 Ibid., 12.

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Ibid., 14–15. Ibid., 16. 69 Ibid., 44. 70 Ibid., 44–45. 71 Ibid., 46. 72 Ibid., 195–196. 73 Ibid., 197–198. 74 Ibid., 164. 75 Ibid. 76 Ibid., 207. 77 Ibid., 207–208. 78 Ibid., 208. 79 Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy, 105. 80 Ibid., 131. 81 Ibid., 132. 82 Ibid., 110. 83 Ibid., 117–118. 68

CHAPTER SEVEN SUSTAINING THE PUBLIC SPHERE: CLERK OF THE PRIVY COUNCIL In 1860 Arthur Helps was appointed to the position of Clerk of the Privy Council, and he would serve in this position for the last fifteen years of his life. Working with the Privy Council meant that he played a significant role in the daily running of the government. As a result, Helps became even better connected with the various embodiments of the midVictorian political establishment. He had turned down a Parliamentary career, but by the 1860s he was a well-known writer, historian and social reformer. During Helps’ tenure as Clerk, the Privy Council was directly involved in many areas of British life. Writing in 1860 as an Oxford undergraduate, A. V. Dicey, who would later become Helps’ most trenchant critic, evaluated the Privy Council’s current power: There are, however, many powers still exercised, nominally at least, through the Privy Council. Many of these are conferred by statute. To the Queen in Council is left the decision whether or not many acts shall be put in force; for example, on the decision of the Crown was left to depend on the question, whether the Divorce Act should be enforced. Other rights, such as those proclaiming ports, fairs, etc. come to Council at the only legal medium through which the Crown can exert its prerogatives. These powers, insignificant in themselves, clearly exhibit the position in which the Council stands. Through Privy Councillors, and through them alone, can the Monarch act; and hence the powers of the Crown are in a sense the powers of the Council. They have risen, they have flourished, they have declined, together. They are vague and undefined. They are each encircled with the halo of antiquity, and point to past greatness of which the might has departed without taking away the dignity.1

Dicey’s view of the Privy Council recognised that the institution remained relevant to his Britain. While much of his correspondence from this period does not survive, it is clear that the commitments of the Clerk increased substantially during the 1860s. Given this reality, it is evident that serving as Clerk began to

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affect Helps’ heath and outlook. Nonetheless, it is also clear that Helps continued to produce writings, many of which were relatively well received.

Helps’ Appointment In Thoughts upon Government, Helps admitted that “the British government has not, [for] several generations, distinguished itself by the way in which it has exercised the high prerogative of conferring honours.” It should be noted that Helps was Victoria’s favourite Clerk of the Council.2 When Helps was named Clerk of the Council it represented the continuation of a process of administrative consolidation. William Lennox Bathurst (s. 1830–1859) and Greville (s. 1821–1859) had served at the same time. In 1859 Bathurst has become the sole Clerk of the Council, and was also Secretary to the Board of Trade. The two Clerks were “counterparts of the permanent under-secretaries in other executive departments.”3 Henry Reeve had expected to be appointed to this post; he was certainly unhappy, if not bitter, when Helps was made Clerk. Reeve’s disenchantment was based upon merit. An unusually tall and stout man, Reeve was once described as “more at home in the clovers or the turnip-fields than in the Privy Council Office.” J. T. Delane, the editor of the Times, dubbed him “Il Pomposo.” In addition, Knox Laughton explained that Reeve’s manners had been, “formed by his mother and aunt on eighteenth-century models, and perfected in Paris among the traditions of the ancien regime, they were very different from the ‘hail fellow, well met’ fashion which Laughton believed to be common.”4 He had been appointed Clerk of Appeals (a post previously held by Thomas Davey, who died in 1837) and he proceeded to capitalise on the appointment. For example, he soon relieved Greville of most of the remaining chores connected with the operation of the Judicial Committee. Whereas Greville used to call the Committee “our court,” Reeve would claim that it was “my court.”5 Reeve would manage the Committee’s internal correspondence from 1837 onwards and he became the Committee’s first Registrar in 1853. From this point, Reeve would regard Greville as his colleague rather than his chief.6 Meanwhile, Reeve’s career continued to rise and become significant in its own right. In 1855 Brougham, the only surviving member of the triumvirate which had founded the Edinburgh Review (along with Sydney Smith [1771– 1845] and Frances [Lord] Jeffrey [1773–1850]) in 1802, persuaded Thomas Longman to appoint Reeve to its editorship.7 In May 1859 Greville resigned his Clerkship and Reeve claimed the right of succession. However, since a general election had just occurred the

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government took immediate action. Viscount Palmerston became Prime Minister on June 12. Reeve believed that his candidature was promoted by Palmerston’s Lord President, Earl Granville, but the Cabinet resolved that there should be one Clerk of the Council. Bathurst filled this role until resigning in May 1860.8 Again, Reeve would be denied promotion. In the words of P. A. Howell: “it went to that personification of urbanity and discretion Arthur Helps, who continued as Clerk until 1875 when Disraeli appointed Charles Peel.”9 Herbert Preston-Thomas has left a fairly vivid picture of the Council Office under Helps. In The Work and Play of a Government Inspector (1909), Preston-Thomas offered a nostalgic sketch of Helps as Clerk of the Privy Council. Preston-Thomas portrayed the office as relatively relaxed and reflecting the Clerk’s literary bent.10 Preston-Thomas had joined the Privy Council in 1859 when “Charles Greville had just ceased to be Clerk of the Council.”11 He remembered that Greville’s actual role had become much larger than his official set of responsibilities, as he was in “a unique position as a social and political go-between.” Preston-Thomas quoted Greville, boasting that he had had within the last few days “consultations on the most opposite subjects—men coming to be helped out of scrapes with other men’s wives, a grand bother about the Duke of Cambridge’s statue in the House of Lords, a fresh correspondence with Lady Palmerston about the Times attacking her husband, communications with Cardinal Wiseman on ecclesiastical affairs and so forth.”12 He understood Helps’ appointment to be related to the idea of giving the Privy Council “some active work in the supervision of the public health of the country.”13 Preston-Thomas added that Helps brought to the office “considerable literary fame,” and had been “recommended to Lord Palmerston by Macaulay as ‘one of the ablest men of the century’.”14 As we will see, Preston-Thomas’ memories were not entirely consistent with the ways in which Helps increasingly came to see and experience his tenure in the post. In fact, the development of the Privy Council, the subject which fascinated Dicey, had continued throughout the nineteenth century. The earlier evolution of the Privy Council, the subject of much of Dicey’s essay, remains an understudied subject. The Privy Council developed alongside royal government, with monarchs relying on it to avoid Parliament. However, in the eighteenth century its influence receded as both George I and George II left many administrative matters to their cabinets. As the cabinets became more important the Privy Council was marginalised, though not unimportant. Dicey recognised that the by the middle of the nineteenth century, the most important power of the institution was the ability (and the responsibility .

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which went with it) to issue an Order in Council. In effect, an Order in Council gave the government’s executive orders the force of law. Therefore, while the Privy Council was removed from any type of legislative or constructive governing activity, it could have significant responsibilities with the daily running of government. However, Dicey did not foresee that in 1860 the Privy Council would become much more important because of the vast social changes in Britain, which were putting pressures on many areas of government. Dicey had focused his prize-winning essay on the political and legal history of the Privy Council, but while he was an undergraduate at Oxford the institution had acquired new responsibilities in the area of public health. Profound disagreements about the General Board of Health led to the Public Health Act of 1858 which transferred the responsibilities and functions of the former to the Privy Council.15 This story has been amply told in relation to two others: the history of public health in Britain and the achievements of Sir John Simon. Historians of medicine have tended to regard the years between 1858–1871 as something of a golden age for the development of public health in Britain. The Public Health Act of 1848 reflected the challenges posed by problems such as poor sanitation and the immediate crisis caused by the outbreak of cholera. This Act had created the General Board of Health which functioned to regulate local government efforts. The Public Health Act of 1848 also created Local Boards of Health so that problems could be addressed where they might appear, and in so doing virtually guaranteed that issues which separated local and central concerns would become the sites of conflict. In addition, during the 1850s the General Board of Health became associated with Edwin Chadwick’s sanitation agenda. While Chadwick had many supporters, the opposition to his efforts was also considerable; the ultimate result of these dynamics was the Public Health Act of 1858 and with it the end to the General Board of Health. This was the situation in which John Simon, who was already a good friend of Helps, was soon hired as the Medical Officer to the Privy Council.16 The subsequent passage of the Public Health Act of 1859 merits attention as well. This Act empowered the Privy Council to be responsible for all areas involving vaccination and allowed it to launch investigations about specific problems, which, importantly, it was also empowered to solve. In addition, it stipulated that the Medical Officer should report to the Privy Council.17

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Achievements as Clerk of the Privy Council As we have seen, Helps’ appointment as Clerk was at least in part an attempt to connect the Privy Council to the improvement of public health. Between 1858 and 1871, the Privy Council helped to contribute to the achievements which led one historian to comment that it was “perhaps the greatest in the history of public health in any land.”18Anthony Wohl argued that the Privy Council’s role was, “far more active and influential than has generally been allowed.”19 Wohl has suggested that the Privy Council’s impact was wide ranging: “Judged in terms of new attitudes and advances and measured in terms of real improvements enjoyed by a growing number of Victorians, it was ‘the heroic age’ of state medicine.”20 The central role played by the Privy Council reflected the results of a number of different social, political, institutional and medical trajectories. One of the key developments was political—in June 1859 the Conservatives left office, taking with them Salisbury, who was at best indifferent to the cause of sanitation, bringing the Whigs under Palmerston into power. Earl Granville became the Lord President of the Council, while Robert Lowe became the Vice President and soon became the dominant political figure within the Council.21 By serving for fifteen years as Clerk of the Privy Council, Helps had a significant impact upon both the institution’s development and British life. Helps’ responsibility as the Clerk was to provide administrative support to the nation’s political leadership.22 However, since the Privy Council was a government office it is not possible to ascertain Helps’ precise achievements. As the Clerk, Helps was involved in a wide range of daily administrative tasks which involved the execution of many governmental responsibilities. Taken as a whole, the Privy Council was a large office and it is not possible to ascertain Helps’exact role in the decisions it made or his impact upon the ways in which many policies were implemented. Nonetheless, it is clear that he was active and vital to the office’s work for half a generation. It remains for historians of the Privy Council and other institutions of state to trace in further detail Helps’ contributions in this office than can be attempted here. Nonetheless, it is clear from the surviving correspondence that Helps was directly involved in questions involving the American civil war, public health and the reform of the civil service. The conflict in the United States was of great interest to Britain and the country’s engagement with the event almost certainly remains an understudied subject. However, Britain remained neutral and prohibited the export of arms and ammunition to either combatant. Preston-Thomas remembered these

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events, particularly the “Trent Affair” in November 1861 in which the US seized Confederate envoys from the Trent, a British vessel. The capture of the Trent and the Confederates had the effect of arousing the Council Office, in which he worked, from its usual placidity.23 In practice, the Privy Council found itself “inundated with applications for exceptions in particular cases.”24 Consequently, it became necessary to mount special investigations in which detectives had to be employed. Eventually, the envoys were freed, ending the dispute, but “our department had information as to considerable quantities of arms and ammunition which had been prepared for exportation as ‘hardware’.”25 The extent to which the American Civil War provided a challenge to the Privy Council can be gleaned from the correspondence of the “War Letter Book.”26 In essence, the Privy Council, by the mid-1860s, had become a body which successive government relied upon to carry out their writs. However, it is in the areas of public health and civil service reform that we can get a glimpse of the pressures that defined Helps’ tenure at the Privy Council. In addition, by examining—however briefly—these issues it should become clear that Helps played a critical role in the daily running of British government. Thoughts Upon Government was not one of Helps’ more successful works, but its equivocations point to the fact that he was an author with an intimate knowledge of the daily workings of ministries and other facets of state practice. In order to make Helps’ role vivid, this chapter will draw upon a number of sources to show how, as Clerk, Helps was involved in issues ranging from British policy related to the American Civil War and to public issues, especially the prevention of Yellow Fever and the eradication of rinderpest (the cattle plague) in the mid-1860s. Finally, Helps’ treatment of the state in Thoughts Upon Government will again be examined because it points to his attempts to reform the Privy Council—an unsuccessful effort which reflected not only his deep experience with the institution, but his utter exhaustion, a reality which probably contributed to his early and unexpected death in 1875.

Public Health Historians of public health have not written much about Helps (for instance Wohl does not mention him), but his role in supporting the work of the Privy Council Medical Office has almost certainly been understudied. However, it is clear that that Simon’s many achievements as Medical Officer would have been impossible had Helps opposed him. More importantly, Helps was active in supporting Simon both directly and indirectly. To begin with, Helps made it possible for Simon to have nearly

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complete autonomy in developing and expanding the Medical Office. Helps was part of the effort to build a pioneering office which was united in its purpose and later in 1861 supported making it as independent as possible.27 Less directly, the Privy Council had significant access to the construction of public opinion and so many of its members authored pieces which were sympathetic to the sanitary cause espoused by Simon. Finally, as we will see, it would be Helps who would be active in ensuring compliance with not only Orders in Council, but Public Health Acts. To understand the scope of these achievements it is worth recalling what kind of impact Simon had on public health between 1858 and 1871. Edwin Chadwick and Florence Nightingale often implied that public health was a matter of sanitation and their efforts had in themselves created significant opposition. However, as Medical Officer of the Privy Council, Simon did much more—in fact, some of it in opposition to Chadwick and his followers. It would be under the leadership of Simon, with the full backing of Helps, that the pursuit of public health would be carried forward in a new way. Simon was responsible for recognising that public health itself should be the subject of scientific study; no less importantly, the results of these scientific investigations were to lead to specific actions meant to ameliorate or improve a local malady or a specific environment. The work of the Medical Department of the Privy Council was to make the study of the nation’s health into a virtual discipline. Historians have marvelled at the team of medical investigators that Simon assembled to meet the requirements stipulated by the Public Health Act of 1859. Among the leading medical practitioners were William August Guy (1810–1885), Edward Headlam Greenhow (1814–1888), Edward Cator Seaton (1815–1880), Edward Smith (1818–1874), George Whitley (1816–1881), John Scott Burdon Sanderson, Johann Ludwig Wilhelm Thudicum (1829–1901), John Netten Radcliffe (1830–1884), John Adam Buchanan (1831–1895), William Miller Ord (1834–1902), Richard Thorne Thorne (1841–1899), William Warwick Wagstaffe (1843– 1910) and others who were regarded as talented men destined for significant achievements. As one historian noted, their “names now stand out like a galaxy of stars in the skies.”28 These men assisted Simon in his scientific studies, whose impact was invariably wide-ranging. One notable result of their work was Simon’s annual report to the Privy Council, which between 1858 and 1871 was submitted fourteen times. These documents provided unprecedented information not only about the outbreak of disease, but about the condition of many sectors of British society.

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The work of Simon and his team broadened the scope of public health, expanding the subject to include much more than disease, but to also investigate the physical condition of Britain’s peoples. The writ of the Medical Office extended far beyond the outbreak of illnesses (though this immediate task was of critical importance) and included the exploration of urban environments, the investigation of industrial materials and the examination of mortality patterns. To put all of this differently, between 1858–1871 the Privy Council Medical Office gathered a much wider range of interests and authority than had the General Board of Health. Helps was in part responsible for this expansion as he was active in seeking the causes of diseases which had industrial origins. In December 1861 he responded to a letter from the Medical Officer of Health for the parish of St. Pancras, Middlesex, which identified the death of a young woman who worked in Judd Street, Euston Road, making artificial flowers. The probable cause was thought to be sustained exposure to “Arsenite of Copper,” which was used as a colouring agent (it produced a green colour) and was already held with suspicion by medical authorities. However, the Privy Council’s involvement was to make this case the opportunity to study industrial disease.29 These investigations were multifaceted and wide-ranging. For example, in the “Fourth Report to the Privy Council” in 1861, Simon exhibited the connections between industrial diseases and manufacturing areas. In 1863 Edward Smith investigated the diets of poorer labouring classes, comparing industrial with agricultural workers; in 1865 Dr. Whitley was sent to Russia and Burdon-Sanderson to Northeast Germany to study the outbreak of epidemics. Additionally, Ord and Smith examined the predisposing cause of pulmonary tuberculosis and other lung diseases among seamstresses, tailors and printers.30 These examples reflect the fact that Helps, Simon and his office had established public health as a context to study industry’s effects on society. It might be possible to regard the Sanitation Act of 1866 as both the culmination and the fulfilment of these trends. This act of Parliament shifted even more power to the Privy Council, providing for a universal supply of water and the control of infectious diseases. More important, perhaps, it enlarged the definition of nuisance—the concept could now be applied to overcrowding, uncleanliness and the strong presence of gases, vapours, dust and other substances, which might be produced by industrial works. In addition, local authorities were required to inspect for nuisance and suppress it where it was found.31 Provision was also provided against potential inaction on the part of local authorities in cases where sewers were not constructed, or water supplied or nuisances removed.32

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Given these measures, the passage of the bill was problematic, but the outbreak of Asiatic cholera in London was a stimulus to its approval. Helps issued the Orders in Council which addressed this outbreak. On May 7, 1866 it was noted that, “a certain infectious disease, that is to say the Asiatic Cholera, is prevalent in certain foreign parts.” The Order stipulated precise instructions on how Local Authorities were to treat vessels suspected of carrying cholera.33 With the passage of the Sanitation Act, 1866 achieved, Helps wasted no time in its application. The Order in Council of August 25 proclaimed that the term Nuisance Authority had “the same meaning as in ‘The Sanitary Act, 1866’.”34 This meant that the: Master of every ship within the district of a Nuisance Authority, having on board any person affected with cholera, or the body of any person dead of cholera, or anything infected with or that has been exposed to the infection of cholera, shall, as long as the ship is within such district, moor, anchor, or place her in such position as from time to time the Nuisance Authority directs.35

In supporting Simon’s efforts, Helps had both directly and indirectly contributed to the passage of the Sanitary Act, 1866. In the early 1860s the Privy Council played a key role in the state’s attempt to limit the spread of the disease.

Meeting the Ravages of the Cattle Plague The outbreak of the cattle plague in 1865–67 has been remembered as “the most dramatic episode in nineteenth-century British agricultural history,” and proved to be a very significant challenge for both British agriculture and the government.36 Rinderpest was well known, and there had been a massive outbreak in the previous century, which between 1745 and 1757 resulted in the death of half a million cows.37 Both the causes and origins of the disease were not yet fully understood, but it is clear that contemporaries understood that it was highly contagious, and it was thought that the degree of contagion was subject to debate.38 Infected cattle had obvious symptoms: they might lose their appetites, experience fevers (and chills), convulsive breathing, nervous twitching and exhibit orificial mucous discharges.39 Infected cattle, which had been imported from Russia, were first noticed in June 1865. These cows had been purchased on June 19 at the Metropolitan Cattle Market and by the June 27 were reported to be ill. The progress of the disease proved to be rapid, spreading to Essex and Norfolk by early July. By November only four counties in England remained

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unaffected.40 This amounted to both a public health and commercial challenge. Not surprisingly, as early as September 1865, the Archbishop of Canterbury authorised a Form of Prayer, which had been ordered by the Queen, to be used in every church which would beseech God to stop the plague.41 Social protests would develop because of the economic effects of the official responses. On December 24 a riot broke out in Carlisle over the slaughter of the cattle and in other places workers went on strike because of the increased price of meat.42 Without the existence of a Ministry of Agriculture, responses to the burgeoning crisis were “directed by the Privy Council through the Clerk.”43 Even though this would prove to be the first major outbreak of rinderpest since the eighteenth century, archival evidence demonstrates that Helps had already wrestled with the crisis caused by a rapidly spreading disease. As early as 1862, Helps had to address the issue of diseased sheep, which prompted him to organise a governmental response to the problem. In all probability this was small pox and a quarantine was organised in Wiltshire. As the British Medical Journal informed its readers: “the sheep afflicted … have been put into quarantine by government; and very properly.”44 Helps subsequently threw the resources of his office into first determining how to analyse the affliction and how to prevent its spreading. Helps’ correspondence with Palmerston documents that the Privy Council became tasked with organising both a scientific enquiry as well as a governmental response. Helps wrote to Palmerston, explaining the organised effort which was being developed to meet the problems caused by the sheep disease affair.45 In a subsequent correspondence he explained that containing the sheep disease would require the coordination of local governments, the Home Office and the Privy Council. On September 23 he pointed to the quarantine in Wiltshire and informed Palmerston that magistrates in Gloucestershire had written to enquire whether an Order of Council could be obtained to apply to certain parishes.46 More interestingly, Helps related that the principal magistrate of Wiltshire had sought to find out whether inoculation “might not be prohibited by an Order of Council,” which led to the Home Office referring the question to the Privy Council.47 Helps pointed out that this raised legal issues which were related to the application of the Cattle Diseases Act.48 It should be remembered that the idea of compulsory vaccination was relatively new and not without its critics.49 Palmerston was interested in the potential of vaccination because he knew that it was being attempted on the continent; however, on September 27 Helps was pessimistic, noting that: “some evidence which the Medical officer read to me the other day seemed to give no hope of vaccination

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being of any use.”50 Events suggested otherwise as Helps reported to Palmerston a few days later. Helps forwarded the Law Officers report to Palmerston and added that it would not be “advisable to prosecute inoculators.”51 In addition, he made it clear that much work had to be done at the local level: “The appointment of Inspectors rests with the Magistrates: neither Council Office nor Home Office has anything to do with it.”52 However, he did make provisions to begin experiments, which Palmerston had suggested. Helps also forwarded the Inspector’s Report which contained positive news and observed that it was curious to note that, while the Government was consulting its Law Officers as to whether inoculation was an indictable offense, the chief Government Inspector stated that: “inoculation has completely arrested the further spread of the disease in certain flocks.”53 Finally, Helps worked to ensure that the experiments which Palmerston had advocated were well funded. To that end, he told the Prime Minister that the “experiments are to be made on a considerable scale,” which should “increase the chance of detecting whether anything can be done by Vaccination.”54 In July 1865 Helps commissioned Professor James Simonds, who had studied outbreaks of the affliction on the continent, to report on its progress in Britain. Helps, Simon and Simonds all believed that the continental experience held valuable lessons, from which they devised a series of Recommendations, which the Privy Council forwarded to the Royal Agricultural Society of England. These recommendations included: 1. Persons should abstain from buying “Store Stock” at fairs and markets, and should not buy from cattle dealers without a warranty against the disease. 2. All newly purchased cattle should be isolated for not less than 12–14 days. 3. Affected cattle should be isolated. 4. Severely affected cattle should be slaughtered and buried, and the skin placed in disinfecting fluid. 5. No other cattle should be allowed near burial places for several weeks. 6. No person in charge of sick animals should be allowed to go near healthy animals between infected and healthy cattle strictly prevented. 7. All healthy cattle be well washed and cleansed after removal from infected cattle. 8. Fodder and straw used by affected animals should be treated with lime or burned. 9. All manure in sheds or stables occupied by diseased cattle to be daily sprinkled with a disinfecting powder.

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The immediate reaction to the publication of this document was opposition and the ridicule which Helps always feared. Opposition stemmed from agricultural interests and the wider public. Elements of the medical profession were quite critical of what they perceived to be a crude remedy. The extent of the opposition so impressed Helps to the point that he told Simonds, in one of their daily meetings, that if it did not abate, they would all have to resign. Helps subsequently communicated to Disraeli that it would make no sense for the Government to take measures which, “are not to some degree warranted by public opinion.”56 The continuing spread of the cattle plague and its consequences affected these political realities. By September it was clear that these Orders were not adequate and so the Privy Council recommended the creation of a Royal Commission. This Commission would issue a number of reports on the cattle plague, but its effectiveness was certainly open to question. At roughly the same time, legislative solutions were attempted but these efforts ultimately resulted in the Cattle Diseases Prevention Act, which came into effect in February 1866. By the end of 1865 public opinion was changing. In January 1866 the Saturday Review backed the work of the Privy Council: “The movement of cattle from place to place is the grand source by which contagion is propagated. If the plague is to be arrested, that movement must be arrested.”57 Queen Victoria’s speech from the throne in February 1866 underscored the urgency of the situation, but sought to reassure her subjects that with the means now being employed the affliction would not spread. Opposition to the work of the Council (and other official efforts) continued from many sources. To cite one example, H. S. Constable wrote polemical letters which were published in the Times and a satirical pamphlet attacking the work of John Gamgee (1831–1894), who was a pioneering student of veterinary medicine and notably among the first to

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advocate both restrictions on the transportation of animals and the mass slaughter of cattle.58 Constable’s work, Observations Suggested by the Cattle Plague, about Witchcraft, Credulity, Superstition, Parliamentary Reform and Other Matters, tried to suggest parallels between those who believed in witchcraft and those veterinarians and civil servants who understood the cattle plague to be a crisis. While Gamgee was not appointed to the Veterinary Office of the Privy Council, he had published studies that had anticipated both the beginning and development of the cattle plague in Britain. More importantly, he also advocated much stronger measures than Simonds. Constable made fun of Orders in Council: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

When your cow catches a cold … don’t shut her up in a box. Don’t make her drink spirituous liquors. Don’t inoculate her in the tail. Don’t prevent her walking about if she wishes to do so. Don’t deprive her of any nourishing food or drink. Don’t bleed her. Don’t pour strong unpleasant drinks down her throat, out of a cow’s hort. 8. Don’t put her in a place where she can get no shade from the sun. 9. Don’t send for Professor Gamgee. 10. Above all, don’t cut her throat.59

Constable’s satire was part of a larger effort to resist the Orders in Council and other measures advocated by the government. Here was the kind of ridicule which Helps feared and it could be made consistent with farm interests which opposed the mass slaughter of cattle. Helps himself was the target of complaint and satire. The multiplicity of Orders issued by the Privy Council (as well as the difficulties of meeting many of them) virtually ensured more criticism. For instance, in March 1866 it was observed that the Times frequently carried new instructions from Helps: Whose words of learned length and thundering sound Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around; And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew That one small head should carry all he knew.60

The Privy Council not only drew up Orders, but developed the medical and scientific apparatus to meet the challenges posed by the rapid spread of the disease. Inspectors were appointed by the Clerk of the Council, by local magistrates under the Orders of Council, as inspectors of fairs and

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markets (appointed by a mayor and corporation) and for ports (appointed by the Board of Customs). In addition, it would fall on the Privy Council to co-ordinate the local and national efforts.61 Nevertheless, the biggest contribution that Helps made as Clerk of Council was the drawing up of Orders in Council. These Orders were wide-ranging and frequently modified. In order to trace the activity of the Privy Council, it is worth mentioning a few select instances of some of the Orders which were written and authorised to meet the challenges associated with the Cattle Plague: 24 July 1865 Order for preventing the spread of contagion and infection disease prevailing amongst the cattle of the Metropolis. 11 August 1865 Additional regulations for preventing the spread of cattle plague in London and other parts adjacent. 11 August 1865 Order for extending the provisions of Order in Council of 24th July to all parts of England and Wales. 18 August 1865 Order for extending the provisions of the Order in Council of the 11th August, with regard to cattle plague to all parts of Scotland 25 August 1865 Order which prohibits the removal of cattle from Great Britain to Ireland. 22 September 1865 Order consolidating and amending several Orders for preventing the spread of cattle plague in Great Britain. 17 March 1866 Order regulating the carriage of cattle for hire in any part of Great Britain with a view to check the spread of the cattle plague. 24 March1866 Order prohibiting the removal of cattle on any railway before the 16th of April. 16 April 1866 Order regulating the carriage of cattle per rail or boat, and for disinfecting all carriages, trucks, etc. 27 April 1866 Order regulating the removal of any cattle from any place on the River Thames or Medway to the Metropolitan cattle market, for immediate slaughter. 5 May 1866 Order for Cattle removed from the Liverpool cattle market at Stanley, to be slaughtered within 48 hours of their arrival at Birkenhead. 19 May 1866 Order for prohibiting the holding of cattle fairs, markets, etc., in the counties of Antrim, Armagh and Down in Ireland, except as directed. 19 June 1866 Order providing for the removal of cattle from the Newcastle-on-Tyne cattle market to Gateshead, for slaughter. 25 June 1866 Order for disinfecting all persons coming from Ireland who have been connected with cattle in England. 9 August 1866 Order for a Special Prayer in England and Wales (12 August), for relief from the cattle plague and protection from cholera. 12 October 1866 Order regulating the exportation of cattle from Ireland to Great Britain.

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15 October 1866 Order regulating the removal and slaughter of cattle imported from Belgium. 15 October 1866 Order that cattle imported from Friesland and Groningen to be slaughtered within twenty four hours, under the direction of the Customs. 10 November 1866 Order proclaiming regulations under the Cattle Plague Act for subjecting cattle to quarantine. 23 January 1867 Order licensing the port of Southampton for the landing of foreign cattle. 14 February 1867 Order authorising the removal of cattle to certain places from Birmingham market, for slaughter within four days of exposure to the market. 25 April 1867 Order which revokes the Orders of 17 March, 14 April, 26 May, 22 June and 31 July 1866, as to the use of railway trucks, etc. for the conveyance of cattle. 29 November 1867 Order revoking what remains in force of the Order of 24 March 1866 as to cattle from Holland.62

Ultimately, it would be during 1866 that progress against the Cattle Plague became apparent. The last case would be in September 1867, but by that time a huge number of cows had been slaughtered—at least 278,943 (and according to some estimates as many as 420,000).63 In The Work and Play of a Government Inspector, Herbert Preston Thomas, who served in the Privy Council, remembered that the experience of dealing with the cattle plague had been difficult for Helps. However, he noted that Helps had the satisfaction of making arrangements to deal with such matters in future.64 Rinderpest would return to Britain in 1872, 1873 and 1877, but in these cases the procedures developed during 1865–1867 were quickly followed by outbreaks that were easily contained.

Yellow Fever One of the instances where Helps worked actively to impose and maintain quarantine was the fight against yellow fever was in September 1865 at Swansea, which resulted from the arrival of the Hecla. This ship had yellow fever cases when it left Cuba in late July. Within six days of the ship’s arrival, yellow fever broke out in Swansea, leading to as many as twenty cases. All of these cases occurred in relation to the Hecla. Sir John Simon regarded the outbreak of yellow fever in Swansea as an example of poorly enforced quarantine.65 It is against this background that Helps’ rigor in dealing with a subsequent arrival of the disease in 1873 can be highlighted. As Clerk, Helps co-ordinated the detailed work which made the quarantine effective.

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To cite one instance, in February a ship arrived in Liverpool from Pernambuco, having experienced an outbreak of yellow fever, resulting in six fatalities. Helps wrote to the Secretary of Customs to ensure that proper procedures were implemented at Liverpool to prevent any spread of yellow fever. Helps explained: It may happen that a vessel may arrive at Liverpool, having or having had, on broad a person attacked with Yellow Fever within 10 days of the vessel’s arrival in port, or a death within 6 days of its arrival. Should such an event occur, the question would arise as to the disposal of the persons on board. Their Lordships trust that vessels will continue to arrive free from Yellow Fever: but they think it might be as well, as there is Quarantine Establishment at Liverpool, if the Officers of the Customs at that point were requested to report whether any and, if so, what buildings exist on shore (or some isolated spot) which could be used for the reception, while under quarantine of healthy persons brought by infected vessels, and also of the sick and convalescent. If possible, it would certainly be desirable, that two buildings should be provided—one of the sick and convalescent, and the other for rest of the Passengers.66

Helps added that the Privy Council would be “glad to know the terms upon which the buildings can be hired.”67 He added that if accommodation could not be obtained the Privy Council would be “glad to be informed whether the Officers of the Customs at Liverpool can suggest any other means, by which proper provision for the performance of Quarantine could be immediately made available in case of necessity.”68 Again, in September 1873 he wrote to the Secretary of the Admiralty about moving the quarantine buoys at the Motherbank in Portsmouth.69 Of course, Helps found that one of his responsibilities was coordinating the work of the Customs with local authorities. To cite one instance in 1873, the Local Authority in the parish of Wick sought to send vessels infected with cholera to Cromarty Bay, on the grounds that there was “no place where the vessels might be moored or anchored with safety in Caithness.”70 Helps explained to the Customs Secretary that the Local Authority of Wick would have to adhere to the Public Health Act of 1867. The Local Authority of Wick could not be absolved of its responsibilities: If the suggestions of the Collector of Customs at Wick were adopted, the effect would be that the Local Authority of Wick would be relieved from all responsibility and expense as the Local Authority at Inverness would have thrown upon them not only the duty of looking after the ships and the sick, but also all the expense attendant thereon.”71

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In addition, Helps reminded the Queen’s Attorney General that: The order of 28th July 1867 was framed not with a view to prevent a vessel infected with cholera from entering a port, nor to prevent healthy persons from leaving the vessel—but with a view to provide for the care of the sick by the Local Authority of the place at which the vessel might arrive, and also under the same authority to provide for the disinfection of the ship, and for the destruction or disinfection of any article which might probably be infected with cholera.72

Supervising public health meant ensuring the compliance not only of local magistrates, but the offices of key ministries. These issues played out well beyond the requirements of quarantine. One of the major functions of the Privy Council was to ensure that local authorities co-operated with its Medical Department. Royston Lambert cited the examples of Hastings and Liskeard, where the Privy Council threatened to take legal action to ensure compliance with its mandates. However, this was not the norm because the Privy Council’s dictates were followed, if grudgingly. Edward Seaton remembered that the office always prevailed: “I do not remember any case in which what the Privy Council has insisted on has been finally resisted.”73 Simon understood that the interventions by the Medical Department virtually necessitated a rethinking of governmental practices: “we have had to change their system very much indeed and to interfere in details; but they have accepted that interference and altered their modes of action.”74 Writing nearly a generation later, Wohl viewed the Privy Council as a kind of whip which pressured local authorities.75 He also noted that it generated a steady “proselytising climate favorable to the passage of further sanitary legislation.”76 Historians such as Wohl have understood that between 1860–1880 the Privy Council played a key role in the development of public health in Britain. However, they have often written as if this was accomplished purely by the medical department, without making reference to the support which it received from the Council and Helps. These examples hardly exhaust Helps’ contribution to the achievements in public health of the Privy Council. Historians such as Anthony Wohl have argued that this was a decisive moment in the history of public health in Britain. He understood that the “medical departments of the Privy Council and the Local Government Board” could “take credit for the gradual acceptance, between 1860 and 1880, of the role of central government as a supervisory power in public health.”77

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Reforming the Privy Council and Civil Service It could hardly be surprising that the dramatic and significant expansion of the Privy Council’s responsibilities put great strain upon the office. By December 1865 Helps wrote to the Treasury requesting the augmentation of salaries and its staff.78 Helps was petitioning the Treasury for greater resources. After all, he proudly informed them on June 19 that the Privy Council’s purview was wide-ranging: It is well known to the Lords of the Treasury that a large mass of executive work has been imposed by legislative enactments, upon the council office; and that, in addition to the ordinary ministerial duties of the department, it has to deal, exclusively, with matters connected with Quarantine, Guernsey, Jersey, and other Channel Island Affairs, Municipal Charters and charters to companies, proclamations and all correspondence arising out of restrictions upon the export of various articles during the War, whether Great Britain is in the position of a Belligerent, or that of a Neutral, assizes, Burials and Burial Boards, cattle diseases of all sorts. University Statues, Corner’s districts, Public health acts, Ecclesiastical schemes and Representations. Benefices, Prorogation and dissolution of Parliament, Prayers and thanksgiving, Polling Places, appointment of Sheriffs, etc. etc.79

Helps would make a similar kind of request in January 1868,80 and in February 187081 he would request compensation for duties carried out after hours. Helps complained to Salisbury about the way in which the Privy Council was experiencing an increased work load. At the beginning of 1871 he requested having temporary clerks placed on the register for employment.82 Writing in April 1871 he teased Salisbury about his “needless awe of the Privy Council.” Helps informed him that: We are most butcher-driven, dissenter-worried … tormented body in the world; that whenever Houses of Lords and Commons find any special difficulty in settling any matter, they just stick in a few words at the end of an Act, enacting that all difficulties shall be referred to the Queen in Council; and that the officers of the Privy Council are the worst paid and least honoured men in public service, considering the work they do.83

Between the requests for salary and the complaint about the work load, Helps was more than aware that the role of the state was expanding. In fact, the requests for increased clerical support matched social and commercial trends which proved to be prevalent in mid-nineteenth-century Britain.84 It would be with this frame of reference that Helps wrote Thoughts Upon Government, which reflected both the lived realities of

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working as Clerk of the Privy Council as well as his paternal and progressive view of governing Britain.

Reforming the Practices of Government Sir Arthur Helps’ interest in government and politics was deep rooted and widely informed. As we have seen, Helps had declined the chance to have a parliamentary career and financial circumstances led him to serve as Privy Council Clerk. It would be in this context that Helps wrote Thoughts Upon Government, which now appears as a rather unexceptional series of remarks about some of the practices of public administration. Nonetheless, it should be pointed out that Sir Michael Sadler viewed Helps (along with James Kay-Shuttleworth and Chadwick) as significant, arguing that he was one of the creators of the new Civil Service.85 It is also clear that Helps was writing to improve the quality of government and doing so in an age when the quest for democratisation and the doctrines of political economy remained ascendant. Thoughts Upon Government has not been remembered as an influential text, but it has been explored by students of public administration. In The Administrative Factor, Bernard Schaffer exhibited Helps as a significant if neglected figure in the history of administration. He regarded Helps as a figure who helped to explore the realities and problems of ministerial administration. Schaffer regarded the Ministerial Department as a Victorian invention which, “emerged in the mid-Victorian years.”86 Accordingly, Helps, along with Fitzjames Stephen, would be one of a group of writers who regarded the machinery of the government after 1867 as being on the defensive.87 Schaffer recognised that Helps was not a critic, but wrote incisively about his stance towards British society. Helps, in his view, exhibited a serene confidence because he believed that the “British people were easy to govern under a constitutional monarchy.”88 In fact, Helps worried not about the rise of bureaucracy, but having too little government, and Schaffer ultimately thought that Helps possessed a forward-looking attitude.89 With “Sir Arthur Helps and the Art of Administration,” Schaffer provided the only sustained look at Helps’ ideas about ministerial practices. He summarised his assessment by suggesting that Helps argued for official independence and that this was part of the starting point for the discovery of the idea of the separateness of administration.90 However, “the language for expressing the idea had to be created: there was as yet no word for administration, or civil service or, indeed, minister.”91 Schaffer situated Helps into a longer tradition of writing, arguing that he was of the

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“best examples of the highly significant nineteenth-century writers in the long tradition of reason of state and mirrors for princes.”92 In practice, it meant that Helps “turned his mind as far as the vocabulary would allow him not to politics (rising to public office and the extension of the state) but to its administrative agents.”93 Writing with mid-century organisational theory as a frame of reference, Schaffer argued that Helps was concerned about the manner in which organisations developed intelligence and, more broadly, the capacity for leadership. This also meant that his interest in the secure originating mind in organisation led him to develop a deep interest in the functions and limitations of committees and councils.94 Furthermore, Helps understood that government ought to be active because it had the burden of action and therefore required not only the generation of intelligence, but the creation of effective leadership.95 Helps certainly regarded government as an active and necessary force in a society which was continuing to experience changes caused by modernisation. Schaffer had it right when he saw that Helps had produced a consistent position (demonstrated in both the Friends in Council and Thoughts Upon Government) which was paternalist, but did not expect much change: “he was something less than a social engineer.”96 In addition, he saw that public administration was a force against vulgarity which might be equated with private individual or collective interests.97 Schaffer’s reading of Helps was a sensitive one, but it might have been better conceived to acknowledge that Helps’ ideas about government came also from his disinclination to see the doctrines of political economy become dominant and from his own experience as an early Apostle. Thoughts Upon Government made explicit its connections with Henry Taylor’s “The Statesmen,” which Helps called an admirable work.98 However, Helps also articulated a much wider agenda and one which began by asserting the need to address the issues which he associated with the importance of political economy. He explained that it would be important to reconcile the dictates of political economy with the tasks of civil government.99 Thoughts Upon Government, instead, would be an insider view in the tradition of Henry Taylor’s The Statesmen (1836) written a generation earlier. Helps did believe that Britain was a relatively easy country to govern. The British people were cautious and tolerant of minorities. Helps rejected the identification of popular sovereignty as an absolute, but he noted that it was important: “the voice of the people, when it is made intelligible, is greatly respected by us, and is looked at—not in a religious, but in a business-like kind of way.”100 He also informed his readers that there was

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very little envy in Britain,101 but also a horror of “pressing any doctrine to its extreme.”102 The British people love compromise and making “incomplete and unscientific arrangements,” that, “often embody the soundest practical wisdom.”103 Some of his remarks may well reflect the impact of the Franco-Prussian War and the end of the Paris Commune, but they are obviously consistent with the dialogues which comprise the various incarnations of Friends in Council. In any event, it meant that government ministers could work without trepidation.104 Given this basic security, it was incumbent upon those in the practice of government to try to determine the best ways to recruit and develop talent. With these ends in mind, Helps was critical of the assumption that competitive examinations were the best way to identify talent. The reliance upon the practice was, “a bringing back of the world to the schools,” even if it had the advantages of preventing “jobbery” and encourages education.105 Helps argued, however, that educational qualifications are not necessarily good indicators of who will function well in government. Instead, the conduct of business frequently requires the opposite qualities. Helps elaborated that often men of very limited education have demonstrated the “most remarkable competency for the conduct of business.”106 He asserted that one of the things which marked these capacities was decisiveness which was a quality almost certainly not acquired by formal education. However, education was important for those who would become statesmen. At the same time, Helps also believed that the process of change might well require a modification of leadership skills. Those who would play a leading role in public affairs would have to adaptive: The troubles of the world are also continually taking new aspects. Nothing, therefore, is more needed in public Offices, than that should be at least a few men of originating minds who perceive and recognise the changes in human affairs, and are perpetually on the watch to making the respective offices capable of coping with the changes of thought, of opinion, or of the action in the outer world. Such men must be looked out for, by methods very different from those which are present in vogue.107

Recruiting both civil servants and leaders, then, demanded methods different from competitive examinations. Readers of Thoughts Upon Government might have been frustrated by the author’s inability to articulate a more decisive alternative. Instead, he advocated the use of personal interviews and other forms of knowledge which might be available regarding the person’s skills and character.

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Helps was no less interested in sustaining the motivation and commitment of civil servants. Consequently, he regarded the granting of honours to be a serious matter for the proper running of government. Helps addressed this issue as a critic, but used fables to make his argument. He observed that honours are normally conferred because of a person’s age, wealth, popularity or due to political expedience. However, honours should be used to improve the functioning of government. In other words, it would be better if “an honour should not only be a recognition of past services,” but should also provide, “increased weight and influence to a man, who will continue to be of service to the State.”108 The organisation of ministerial government was another interest of Helps. Not surprisingly, he addressed the utility of councils, commissions and boards labelling them aids to government. He believed that some governmental issues could benefit from the use of councils; he understood their utility in terms of collective intelligence. Here, Helps actually preached the benefits of councils for policy-making: He who knows how to make good use of them, and how, as much as possible, to avoid a certain wickedness and dilatoriness inherent in them, will show forth one of the greatest merits which a statesman can possess. He cannot see and listen to the whole world; but by making use of councils, he may attain to something of a cosmopolitan view, or, at any rate, may learn the views, wishes, and opinions of large bodies of his fellow-men.109

Readers of Friends in Council would have realised that for Helps the dialogues aimed at exhibiting the complexity of leading issues. With respect to the Privy Council, Helps had to be cautious in his assessment, but argued that it had been neglected by constitutional historians. The institution was nearly devoid of party politics, because most of its issues were not those which might divide British polities. Helps, thinking almost certainly of the Orders in Council, explained that the Privy Council was especially valuable in times of emergency. Again, Helps sought to improve the body by increasing the number of “men of tried capacity among the permanent officers of government.”110 At the same time, Helps thought that it would make sense to add “eminent men from our Colonies,” including those “who have distinguished themselves in colonial administration as civil servants of the Crown.”111 Helps’ understanding of the organisation of government also looks progressive. In fact, it was in his articulation of organisations that Helps rejected some of the stronger impulses of the age. To begin with, Helps repudiated racial superiority as the basis for organisational power, which

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he labelled a “delusion.”112 This included rejecting the notion that Germany (in the wake of the Franco-Prussian War) possessed superior organisational ability. Instead, he argued that, “skill in organisation does not belong especially to any race … success could be misleading: when any nation at a crisis of its fortunes, manifests great organising skill, it is the consequence of individuals blessed with the possession of such skill, being brought into positions of great power and sway.”113 At the same time, Helps’ interest in attracting the most able men actually led him to undermine the idea of the heroic. Great leaders were not merely a product but conscious choices made by organisations. These decisions reflected another practical strength—namely the ability to recognise talent. He observed that in a crisis there is a call for an outstanding leader: In great crises you constantly hear such words as these: “Oh, that there was such a man! What a difference one man would make!” But it is forgotten that there must be the wise to choose the man; for the greatest man finds difficulty in choosing himself and putting himself forward.114

He noted that, frequently, those men with significant organisational capacities were not particularly adept at acquiring knowledge, but instead were “somewhat indolent and thoughtful.”115 Helps’ readers may well have wished for specific examples to back up such claims, but the contradiction which it furnished merit gained by competitive examination would have been as evident as it may have been appealing. Helps connected the discussion of organisations to some of the political challenges which faced governments in the nineteenth century. Writing as an insider and as someone who worked easily with both of the main political parties, Helps’ exploration of national interest might appear to be vague and incomplete. However, these assumptions and ideas framed his thought about the public position of government and administration. It should be pointed out that Helps’ vision was paternalistic and progressive, but it also betrayed anxiety about the future course of modernity. The discussion at the conclusion of Thoughts upon Government may have lacked specifics, but it still revealed that the author was uncomfortable with some of the forces which were becoming more prominent. Helps regarded the democratic movement as a noble effort but unsettling because it had the potential to dominate the “highest forms of culture and well-being.”116 In addition, “it tends to raise, politically speaking, the lowest class of subjects,”117 but those who make policy should be “very careful not to make the movement a destructive, instead of a constructive one.”118 Helps acknowledged that Britain had dangerous

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classes, and that, “a State cannot be called prosperous, which contains a very large body in such a condition as I have just described.”119 Yet, he did not take the next step and connect this reality to electoral politics. Instead, Helps assumed a hierarchical view of public or community life in which the existence of a well-defined and clearly articulated social order guaranteed high standards for individual life. National prosperity, a theme which Ruskin had exploited, consisted in “combining the highest culture—which must always be connected with privilege—with a due consideration for the lowest section of the community, which for ever deserves, and will amply repay, our utmost regard for its well-being.”120 Helps warned that efforts to raise living standards could prove to be destructive: If we could only raise the lowest by the depression of the highest; and it would be unwise to ignore the danger, always to be apprehended and guarded against, of the tendency to the lower the highest development of a nation, by an ill-considered destruction of means, opportunities, and privileges, which would in no way promote the grand object of raising the lowest class to a state of political efficiency, and of unenvious and hopeful well-being.121

He rejected the views of historical decline articulated by figures such as Gibbon when he asserted that the true cause of national decline came not from the consumption of luxury or barbarian hordes, but from demoralisation.122 That is, the downfall of nations stemmed from “the exhaustion of hope and purpose,” which Helps explained was an exhaustion “to which bad Government must very greatly contribute.”123 The role of government—made manifest by the delivery of effective public administration—then went beyond solving contemporary problems. Instead, Helps conceptualised government as an asset which grew through a nation’s history. The Paris Commune had made an impression on Helps as he articulated the dangers associated with mob-government, which in even a brief amount of time, “put back for generations the hand upon the dial of civilisation.”124 As a result, the requirements of government and policy were clear: There is not anything we should more attend to than counteracting the prevalence of those mischievous ideas and theories which tend to the decomposition of a State—a thing so hard to re-compose, the result of so much patience, of so much endurance and, upon the whole, of such magnanimity, for no great State was ever built up without the toil, selfsacrifice, and renunciation of many noble persons, in many generations.125

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Helps had situated the functions of government into both the new ideational world created by political economy and into the more immediate political context which was shaped by concerns about profound economic inequalities, democratisation and the rise and fall of the Paris Commune. Yet, Schaffer’s observation that Helps was “a stranger to his time in being prepared to criticise the responsible ministerial department,” had merit because he had also exhibited a sustained interest in understanding the ways in which government functioned (or failed to function) as an organisation.126 All of this was in line with the multiple perspectives which Helps had developed in the Friends in Council series; he could criticise the inner workings of the government of which he was a part, while arguing for its centrality in national life.

The Career of a Committed Civil Servant: Helps Exhausted The increased importance and work load of the Privy Council taxed Helps and probably all of the office’s other employees. The pressures of the Privy Council wore Helps down steadily. As early as October 1865, Palmerston wrote to Gladstone that he was concerned about the Clerk of the Privy Council: I have this Morning received the inclosed from an eminent Physician of Southampton. The Report he makes of the Health of Helps and of the State of the Council office Establishment seems to me to require immediate and effective action—I have therefore written to Helps positively to forbid his going to Balmoral and it seems that his Second in Command Harrison is also knocked down by excessive work and as the limited Establishment of the Council office is clearly too small & weak for the daily work pouring upon it, by Reason of these Cattle, Sheep & Pig Diseases together with a threatening of the Extension to Horses … I have also told Helps that as Head of the Government I authorise him to take without any Delay such steps as may be necessary to procure additional assistance for his Office while this great influx of daily Business continues to press upon it, and I have desired him to write officially to the Treasury to state the Case and ask for the property Authority but not to delay getting the assistance.127

In a subsequent piece of correspondence, Palmerston informed Gladstone that Helps had complied, but it would become clear that eventually these additional resources would not be adequate for the many tasks at hand.128 The combination of the collapse of Helps’ financial position and his attempts to remedy the situation by publishing proved to be enervating. Both Helps’ surviving correspondence and the impressions

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of many of his friends leave the impression of an exhausted and possibly depressed civil servant. The surviving correspondence between Helps and Ripon reveals the price which the former paid for working under sustained stress. Having dealt with the problems posed by the American Civil War, the cattle plague and other challenges to public health, Helps was rightly perceived to be one of the most knowledgeable people in the British government. Writing in October 1869 he confessed: I am very tired + very unwell (my heart aches so much) but I cannot , absolutely cannot, and will not take any holiday just yet … You see I am so terribly well known in the world that all manner of things are brought to me in the first instance, which have anything to do with this office. But the sharing them off + explaining them to people take time. That is why I want to retire to the mind where I should not be so much molested. As it is, whenever any fellow here or in the colonies has any public musings, he says to himself “I will write to Arthur Helps: he is Clerk of the Council: he must know all about it”… You see it might be said, Helps is so much worked, not so much because he is Clerk of the Council but because he is Helps; and, having the ill-owned reputation that he has (ill-owned for himself) he is consulted about all manner of things.129

Writing a little more than two weeks later the self-pitying tone and lament were the same: You forget the difference between you and me, which difference is much in your favour. You have many qualifications which could enable you to gain your living. You are an excellent man of business, something of a naturalist, and a first-rate shot. But when I am turned out. Or squeezed out, of the Council Office, I have only little power of writing (the merit of which is much exaggerated) to depend upon; and, therefore, I am naturally very anxious not to be supposed to fail in that. When the world sees a letter, with my signature appended to it, which is ill-expressed, it exclaims, with the usual good nature of the lords, “Ah he is failing in the only thing in which he could pretend to any merit. Did you see the letter wrote the other day—something about Endowed Schools—Dreadful stuff! But the poor wretch has long been overworked; and is now becoming partially idiotic, I believe”… I cannot afford that they should say these things.130

Helps’ low mood seemed to be sustained throughout the month. As Herbert Preston-Thomas had once observed Helps could lapse into verse and in his correspondence with Ripon he included a poem about the Privy Council:

Sustaining the Public Sphere: Clerk of the Privy Council Not undue haste the Privy Council knows, But when it promises to go, it goes Like writing, or indeed a house of fire, As fast as can the fastest man desire. DeGrey is rapid; Forster is now slow; And ee’n poor Helps can ‘go the pace’, you know. That last—named is a ‘screw;’ but even ‘screws’ Besides, he knows his predecessor’s fame, Charles Greville’s most justly-honoured name So racing animals, and world emulate The swiftness Greville never would abate When Captain Donelly makes his report The time will not be long, but short, The Privy Council wisdom will decide Whether the men of Romney shall abide Sans Aldermen, sans Mayor, or have a charter Which, some might say, they’re fools for seeking after131

Writing in his journal, on April 12, 1873, Charles Eliot Norton recorded: Last Tuesday evening Helps dined with us. I have not seen him during this stay of ours in London. He has grown sadder and more worn and tired in the last four years. His nature is one to which Fate should have been kindly and gentle, and she has treated him as if he were her stepson. Life has been a disappointment to him; at many points wishes have failed of accomplishment, and hopes have deceived him. A sensitive man, he is in a position which he feels is given him as if it were out of charity, and he has to accept favours as condescensions which are due to him on equal terms. He has great social gifts and culture, but on Tuesday the effort to be pleasant was plain, and the stimulus of society was not enough to make him bright. And yet for moments he flashed up into his old wonted animation, and talked not only pleasantly, with delicate perception and freshness of obeservation, but also with a nice though slender vein of humour. He told one or two stories after his wont … Every language (said Helps) has its own awkwardnesses; the English certainly very many. Take for instance our use of “that,”--four or five “thats perhaps in succession as when the member in the House of Commons got up angrily and said, “I must declare that that that, that that honourable gentleman has just used, is extremely offensive to me.” After dinner Helps and I had a quiet talk, over the fire, in my study, with a cigar. We talked of the broken and disordered times and thoughts of men. We are, he said it was his conviction, the saddest and most to be pitied generation the world has ever known; not the less so for being in some respects the most seemingly prosperous, and the lightest minded. The burden of daily life to a sensitive man. We have compelled the forces of nature to serve us, but their service is ruining us,--we are not strong enough to meet the demands they make on us. Hard fortune tells ill on such a

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The picture of the dejected Helps is corroborated by a number of sources. Helps would visit Disraeli at Hughendon Manor and write to Ripon that he was grateful that a carriage would be provided to follow their walk: “This is very considerate of him, for doubtless he does so on my account.”133 Overworked, tired and probable constant financial pressure had just about broken Sir Arthur Helps.

The Realisation of Effective Administrative Leadership The appointment of Clerk of the Privy Council proved to be one of the decisive events of Helps’ life and career. Nearly a generation earlier, Helps had worried that the practices of government could be rigid, but his own experience of the situation in which the Privy Council found itself proved be as challenging as it had been dynamic. Between 1860 and 1875, Helps served six governments and played a pivotal role in their administration. His work ran from the American Civil War to the cattle plague, with many less dramatic matters in between. These experiences doubtless took their toll and led him to critically and insightfully reflect on the challenges of governing the modern state. As we will see in the next chapter, serving as Clerk also brought him into close contact with Queen Victoria. This relationship would allow him to have a wide impact upon both the monarchy and the way it would be understood and appreciated by the British public.

Notes 1

A.V. Dicey, “The Privy Council: the Arnold Prize Essay” (Oxford, 1860), 69. P. A. Howell, The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council 1833–1876, 126. 3 Ibid., 159. 4 Ibid., 164. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid., 165. 7 Ibid., 163. 8 Ibid., 166. 9 Ibid. 10 Herbert Preston Thomas, The Work and Play of a Government Inspector (London, 1909), 13. 11 Ibid., 3. 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid., 5. 14 Ibid. 2

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Fraser C. Brockington, Public Health in the Nineteenth Century, 193. Royston Lambert, Sir John Simon 1816–1904 and English Social Administration , 487. 17 For more on this topic see: Lambert, 279–283. 18 Fraser C. Brockington, Public Health in the Nineteenth Century, 192. 19 Anthony S. Wohl, Endangered Lives: Public Health in Victorian Britain (London, 1983), 153. 20 Ibid., 155. 21 Royston Lambert, Sir John Simon 1816–1904 and English Social Administration, 276–277. 22 Ibid., 311. 23 Hubert Preston Thomas, The Work and Play of a Government Inspector, 20. 24 Ibid., 20. 25 Ibid., 21. 26 PRO.PC 7/10 27 See Lambert’s discussion, especially, 314 and 328. 28 Fraser C. Brockington, Public Health in the Nineteenth Century, 201–202. 29 Ibid., 214. 30 W. M. Frazer, A History of English Public Health 1834–1939, 90–99. 31 Ibid., 233. 32 W. M. Frazer, A History of English Public Health 1834–1939, 110. 33 PRO.CUST 149/1. 34 PRO.CUST 149/1. 35 PRO.CUST 149/1. 36 John R. Fisher, “Cattle Plagues Past and Present: The Mystery Mad Cow Disease,” Journal of Contemporary History 33 (2) (1998): 215. 37 Arvel B. Erickson, Agricultural History 35 (2) (1961): 102. 38 Ibid., 94. 39 Ibid. 40 C. A. Spinage, Cattle Plague: A History, 163–165. 41 Ibid., 389–390. 42 Ibid., 312. 43 Ibid., 180. 44 British Medical Journal, September 20, 1862. 45 PRO.PC 7/12/f. 292. 46 PRO.PC 7/12/f. 291. 47 PRO.PC 7/12/f. 291. 48 PRO.PC 7/12/f. 292. 49 Anthony Wohl has argued that the anti-vaccination movement developed in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. For more on this topic see Wohl, Endangered Lives: Public Health in Victorian Britain, 132–134. 50 PRO.PC 7/12/f. 298. 51 PRO.PC 7/12/f. 304. 52 PRO.PC 7/12/f. 304. 53 PRO.PC 7/12/f. 304–305 16

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PRO.PC 7/12/f. 307. C. A. Spinage, The Cattle Plague: A History, 167. 56 Ibid., 167. 57 Ibid., 181. 58 Patricia Hunter, Veterinary Medicine: A Guide to Historical Sources, 216. 59 C.A. Spinage, The Cattle Plague: A History, 184. 60 Ibid., 298. 61 Ibid., 175. 62 Ibid., 709–716. 63 Ibid., 185. 64 Hubert Preston Thomas, The Work and Play of a Government Inspector, 23. 65 W.M. Frazer, A History of English Public Health 1834–1939, 96. 66 PRO.PC 7/23/ no.25663, f. 45. 67 PRO.PC 7/23/ no.25663, f. 45–6. 68 PRO.PC 7/23/ no.25663, f. 46. 69 PC 7/23/no. 26607 ff. 282-283. 70 PRO. PC 7/23/ no. 26696/f. 286. 71 PRO. PC/7/23/ no.26696/f. 287. 72 PRO. PC/7/23/no. 26893/f. 336. 73 Royston Lambert, Sir John Simon 1816-1904 and English Social Administration, 442. 74 Ibid., 442. 75 Anthony S. Wohl, Endangered Lives: Public Health in Victorian Britain, 157. 76 Ibid., 157. 77 Ibid., 164. 78 PRO.PC/7/15. 79 PRO. ED/35/1 PC7/ 16 f. 111. 80 PRO. PC7/17. 81 PRO. PC/7/19. 82 PRO. PC 7/20. 83 Add 43540 f. 143–145 84 Liza Picard, Victorian London: The Tale of a City 1840–1870, 95–97. 85 Bernard Schaffer, The Administrative Factor, 30. 86 Ibid., 3. 87 Ibid., 20. 88 Ibid., 21. 89 Ibid. 90 Ibid., 26 91 Ibid., 27. 92 Ibid. 93 Ibid. 94 Ibid., 36. 95 Ibid., 40. 96 Ibid., 31. 97 Ibid. 55

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Arthur Helps, Some Thoughts Upon Government, 133. Ibid., 3. 100 Ibid., 14. 101 Ibid., 16. 102 Ibid., 17. 103 Ibid., 18. 104 Ibid. 105 Ibid., 63. 106 Ibid., 65. 107 Ibid., 71–72. 108 Ibid., 92. 109 Ibid., 105–106. 110 Ibid., 113. 111 Ibid. 112 Ibid., 115. 113 Ibid., 116. 114 Ibid., 124. 115 Ibid., 122. 116 Ibid., 214. 117 Ibid. 118 Ibid., 215. 119 Ibid., 218. 120 Ibid., 218–219. 121 Ibid., p. 219. 122 Ibid., p. 220. 123 Ibid., p. 220. 124 Ibid., p. 230. 125 Ibid., pp. 230-231. 126 Bernard Schaffer, The Administrative Factor, 32. 127 Philip Guedalla, Gladstone and Palmerston, 347-348. 128 Ibid., p. 348. 129 Add.43.539 f. 129-132. 130 Add.43.539 f. 135-136 131 Add 43.539 f. 147 132 Charles Eliot Norton,The Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, vol. 1, 471-473. 133 Add. 43540 f. 256-259 99

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CHAPTER EIGHT PRESENTING QUEEN VICTORIA Sir Arthur Helps played a key role in the public presentation of the monarchy between 1860–1875. Helps appears to have welcomed the appointment as Clerk of the Privy Council,1 and it was in this position that he became responsible for the administration of a number of government functions, but more importantly he had privileged access to Victoria and Albert. However, the death of the latter proved to be the basis for Helps’ sustained interaction with the former. He was soon called upon to be part of the larger effort that the mourning Queen made to enshrine Albert’s memory before the British public. Given the success which Helps experienced in these endeavours, he became an important part of the on going attempts to present the monarchy’s public face to an increasingly disquieted Britain. At the same time, one of the consequences of the end of empire, and the settlement of the Cold War, has been the historical reassessment of British institutions, including the monarchy. Scholars have shed more than a decent amount of ink analysing the development and status of the monarchy in modern Britain. Those seeking to trace the success or the transformations of the monarchy have focused on Queen Victoria as a decisive figure. In addition, the term “Victorian” is often deployed as a shorthand term for people living in nineteenth-century Britain, or used to connote a particular composition of culture; given these realities, it has further motivated scholars to see if the actual historical person is suitable for these cultural associations. Students of Victoria have long acknowledged that despite the fact that the Golden and Diamond Jubilees have become icons for the memory of both the Queen’s popularity and British imperialism, the course of her sixty four year reign was defined by very different realities. Most importantly, it was by no means inevitable that the monarchy would make a successful transition to modernity. That is, it would have been evident to observers throughout the nineteenth century before the monarchy became a successful—let alone essential—feature of British life that it must first overcome the formidable obstacles which lay in its path.

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Criticism of the monarchy was not new in 1837 when Victoria took the throne; but the pressures associated with the reform meant that the institution would need to be legitimated on new grounds. The frequent attacks—whether from working or middle class ranks—often contrasted royal indulgence with incidences of national poverty.2 These criticisms would increase with some of Albert’s activities and later with the behaviour of the Prince of Wales. The emergence of republicanism, which after 1848 drew strength from ideas and developments on the continent, implied that the very idea of the monarchy—let alone the particular ruler—was now open to challenge. Republicans could never be considered a strong force in British politics but the development of organisations such as the National Republican League, the Land and Labour League and the International Republican League signified that antimonarchical ideas were alive and well in nineteenth-century Britain. More particularly, both Albert’s background and activities drew critical attention. This was especially the case in 1853–1854 when he was linked (rather unfairly) with Britain’s poor conduct in the Crimean War. Albert’s early death and Victoria’s subsequent period of seclusion produced even deeper and louder attacks on the monarchy. Generally, both the conduct of the Royal family and the larger issues involving governance ensured that the status of the monarchy as an institution in British life would be contested. Therefore, when subsequent generations remembered the Jubilees or used the term Victorian, for a range of associations with the nineteenth century, they have often done so without adequately comprehending the reality that the situation of the monarchy for much of the nineteenth century was neither static nor obvious.3 Helps’ role in the presentation of the monarchy was one that functioned at several levels. As we will see, he had access to the Queen and helped schedule her meetings with key personages. More famously, Helps played a decisive part in the 1860s and early 1870s in establishing the monarchy’s public face. Along the way Helps befriended the Queen, with the latter reading his books and enjoying his company. The position here is that Helps capitalised on royal publications to stabilise the monarchy’s public appearance. That is, Helps was far more than a functionary or editor—at a time when criticism of the monarchy was growing, he encouraged the development of royal publications in order to make Victoria and her world accessible to his contemporaries. Yet, this presentation of Helps’ influences on the Queen does not end with a simple recovery of his services rendered. Instead, by tracing these connections it should be possible to suggest another conclusion—namely that Helps was working to create a conception of monarchy and public which we might label

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Queen Victorianism; that is, a public sphere which at once assumed a basic unity of subjects and their sovereign, and which referred back to a hierarchical society with a benevolent and fundamentally moral monarch at the top of that hierarchy. Looking further ahead, it might even be possible to postulate that Helps’ tenure as Clerk of the Privy Council came at a pivotal time for Victoria’s reign and, as we will see, his contribution towards the making the monarchy’s public face enabled him to help construct a precursor to the twentieth century’s cult of personality, which involved getting the men and women who make up mass societies to identify with their rulers.

Remaking Prince Albert Helps’ initial contribution towards the presentation of the monarchy came during the first phase of Victoria’s efforts to preserve the memory of Albert. In the early 1860s the Prince Consort’s reputation was not entirely positive. The very fact that Albert was German meant that he had been suspect in some quarters, and over the next two decades his involvement in British life produced a number of controversies. Notably, while Albert opened the Exhibition of 1851 to great fanfare, his commitment to it meant that he was seen as the embodiment of free trade, thereby alienating protectionists. Again, during the Crimean War, the fact that Albert held the rank of Field Marshal virtually ensured that his reputation suffered when British military leadership was called into question.4 Possibly the most vivid expression of these sentiments was the publication of the pamphlet Prince Albert: Why is he unpopular? (1854); more absurd were the charges that Albert was a Russian agent.5 Albert’s well-known conflict with Palmerston was understood by some to reflect the tensions inherent in the former’s internationalism and the latter’s nationalism.6 More generally, it is easily overlooked that the idea that the crown would not be directly implicated in party politics was not a universally held assumption at midcentury. Indeed, the view of crown above politics—articulated by Walter Bagehot among others—was possibly not even favoured by the full spectrum of British society. Therefore, Albert’s public activities posed a potential challenge to the delicate constitutional balance which many believed had been so artfully achieved and maintained by British politicians and their monarchs. Some feared that Albert sought to impose some type of Anglo-German despotism; accordingly one of the meanings of the term “Germanism” in the middle of the century referred to Albert’s political ambitions to enhance the crown’s power.7

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Despite these realities, Victoria spared little effort in producing a range of memorials to Albert. It should be pointed out that these memorials would themselves serve as inspirations for other entities within the British world to collectively remember the Prince Consort. However, in the early 1860s it was probably not possible to foresee that by the end of the century there would be provinces, lakes, museums, concert halls and other items named after Albert. The earliest memorials to Albert would take a number of shapes— William Theed was commissioned to produce a sculpture, Joseph Noel Paton was invited to paint a large picture of the Prince Consort and his family.8 Helps’ first major service for the Queen fit into these early efforts to preserve Albert’s memory. Helps edited an early edition of Albert’s speeches and provided a character sketch of the deceased prince. Victoria was immensely pleased with Helps’ work and, as a result, the Queen came to view him with increasing favour. In June 1862 he met with Victoria to publish a second edition of Albert’s speeches. Victoria recorded in her journal: “His admiration for my beloved husband is unbounded.”9 In August, Helps spent several days at Balmoral working with Victoria on the sketch of Albert. The Queen wrote to her daughter, Victoria, the Crown Princess of Prussia, that Helps had read his proposed preface to “beloved Papa’s Speeches,” and she was happy because Helps had written “most beautifully,” adding that “I talked a great deal with him about beloved Papa and made him alter several of the points.” Victoria added: “now I think it is perfect.”10 In many ways the meeting of Helps with this task was perfect. Albert was the embodiment of many of the things which Helps had championed. The Prince had worked tirelessly to improve the lives of many people in British society. He also possessed a progressive outlook and displayed great public character. Albert’s liberalism was equally congruent with the hierarchical understanding of society which Helps had assumed (and implicitly endorsed) in The Claims of Labour. For Helps, developing the collection of Albert’s speeches would have been a labour of love, and one which would have been attractive because it enabled him to become better connected to Victoria. It should be pointed out that Helps had long understood the importance of both Albert and the monarchy for Britain’s development. In the first Friends in Council series, Milverton read an essay on Government, and then defended his ideas by explaining to his friend: Ellesmere. Yes, I have some dim notion. You told us you would have a state conscience.

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Chapter Eight Milverton. Yes, but this does not, of necessity, declare that a state much hold certain theological tenets and enforce them by bayonets, test acts, or other extreme modes of reasoning. As a landowner, in the government of a private estate on which persons of different religions dwell together, may govern equitably, without at the same time ceasing to uphold his own opinions by fair means, so may a state. But, at any rate, if the idea of a state is not to convey a distinct intellectual being it has a distinct moral being. It should give us the idea of the best man of that day and differs from the law, is in it possessing personality. It is not an immovable scientific apparatus, but represents flesh and blood, and is flesh and blood. A good executive officer feels in all he does that he is fulfilling a part, however small, of the functions of a creature that has rights and duties. He will not defraud it, nor suffer it to defraud others. A monarchy helps to keep this personality before us. The idea of a conscience belonging to bodies of men has been ridiculed—and no wonder, considering what we have known men do in their collective capacity throughout all ages. But it means simply this, that duties follow power.11

At this point Helps may have already been referring to the Prince Consort, but in any case it should be clear that he was interested in articulating a role for both monarchy and government in the modern British nation. Given Helps’ ability to portray character, the result was predictable— the Queen was more than impressed with the sketch of the Prince Consort. Of Helps’ admirable preface, the Queen wrote that it “overcame me much.”12 When the book was published in December 1862 Victoria inscribed copies to her children as she was impressed by the “sketch by Mr. Helps, of his beautiful character.” Helps’ apparently selfless work on the volume seems to have raised his standing with the monarch as well, the Queen noting that while Helps “spoke with such gratitude & satisfaction of the … success of his book,” he would “not pen his name.”13 The sketch of Albert in The Principal Speeches and Addresses of His Royal Highness the Prince Consort (1862) was at once personally sensitive and politically astute.14 To begin with, Helps must have pleased the Queen when he noted that the speeches would interest a large circle of readers15 because of the Prince Consort’s connections to the three great branches of human endeavour.16 Helps painted a tender picture of Albert, separating his sketch from the “many portraits of the Prince Consort which possess considerable merit,”17 but observing that, “still there is something about almost every countenance which no portrait can adequately convey.”18 Albert possessed a gentle and tender mind which reflected his Germanic heritage. Helps tried to turn this into an advantage, observing that the Prince had a high degree of that “gentleness, that softness, and that

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romantic nature, which belong to his race and his nation, and which make them very pleasant to live with.”19 The Prince had a quality of “childlike simplicity,” which was characteristic of “most men of genius,” leading them to have a “playfulness” about them. More obviously, Albert had a “noble presence”20: His carriage was erect: his figure betokened strength and activity; and his demeanour was dignified. He had a staid, earnest, thoughtful look when he was in a grave mood; but when he smiled (and this is what no portrait can tell of a man) his whole countenance was irradiated with pleasure; and there was a pleasant sound and a heartiness about his laugh which will not soon be forgotten by those who were wont to hear it. He was very handsome as a young man; but, as often happened with thoughtful men who go through a good deal, his face grew to be a finer face than the early portraits of him promised; and his countenance never assumed a nobler aspect, nor had more real beauty in it, than in the last year or two of his life….character is written in the countenance, however difficult it may be to decipher; and in the Prince’s face there were none of those fatal lines which indicate craft or insincerity, greed or sensuality; but all was clear, open, pure-minded, and honest. Marks of thought, of care, of studiousness, were there; but they were accompanied by signs of a soul at peace with itself, and which was troubled chiefly by its love for others, and its solicitude for their welfare.21

In addition, the Prince Consort possessed “extreme quickness”22 of intellect, deep sincerity, the ability to tolerate criticism and he “delighted in wit and humor.”23Albert was a man who possessed a great “love of freedom in its deepest sense,” making him “even more English than the English themselves.”24 While the Prince Consort had an unusually strong sense of duty he also owned the gift of “supreme common sense” and comprehended the “beauty of usefulness.”25 He was a man of wide sympathy—he was concerned for all classes of the British public and took particular enjoyment in the achievements of other people. Albert was able to identify and embrace the leading forces of his day as he appreciated the merits of deep drainage and steam power.26 Again, Albert had the foresight to apply the resources of chemistry to practical agriculture, which meant that British farming would become more productive. Not surprisingly, Helps reminded his readers that Albert followed these interests with great energy and to the point of weakening his health. Nonetheless, his sense of duty (to the Queen) was stronger than his desire for power: If he had been a sovereign prince, in a moment of peril, had adopted a form of constitution which was opposed to his inclination or his judgment, he would have abided by it strictly when quiet times came; and the change, if

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Chapter Eight change there was to be, must have come from the other parties to the contract, and not from him. He was too great a man to wish to rule, if the power was to be purchased by anything having the reality, or even the semblance, or dishonour. It is not too much to say, that, if he had been placed in the position of Washington, he could have played the part of Washington, taking what honour and power his fellow-citizens were pleased to give him, and not asking, or scheming, for any more. He must have sympathised much with the late Duke of Wellington, whose main idea seemed to be to get through life justly and creditably, taking the full measure of responsibility put upon him and not seeking to have his soul burdened with any more. Such men are absolutely of a different order of mind from the commonplace seekers after power and self-glorification.27

Indeed, one of Albert’s salient character traits was his unselfish and chivalrous devotion to his “Consort-Sovereign and to his adopted country.”28 Helps went further, explaining that Albert was a patriot29 and that the controversial speech which Albert had made in 1855 at Trinity House reflected his great desire during the stress of war to gain support for the Government and “unity of resolve amongst the people.”30 Helps asked: Why does he dwell upon the power of despotism? Not that he delights to praise despotism, but that he wishes us to see that we have an antagonist whose power we must not venture to underrate. Why does he speak of “constitutional government “being under a heavy trial’? Not that, for a moment, he seeks to decry constitutional government; but because he loves it, is devoted to it, partakes that trial which he points out, and seeks only to consolidate free government that it may maintain its pre-eminence.31

In other words, Albert had been misunderstood by those who saw him as working to strengthen the hand of the monarchy; instead, he was speaking to warn his contemporaries of the dangers associated with absolute royal rule in Russia. Helps carried this political theme forward in the section of the work entitled “The Office of Commander-In-Chief,” in which he included an unpublished memo that Albert had written nearly twelve years earlier.32 Helps insisted on the inclusion of the document because it demonstrated Albert’s disinterested approach to his role as consort.33 Indeed, in Helps’ hands Albert appears to anticipate the kind of limited monarchy which Walter Bagehot would later describe. This document went to Albert’s character as well because it showed that he had acted from an “instinct of goodness cultivated by chivalry,” because the document contained Albert’s thoughts upon a proposal that the Duke of Wellington had made to the Prince Commander of the British Army.34 Helps cited Albert’s concerns on constitutional policy in the memo dated April 6, 1850: “I said to him

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[Wellington] that I must consider my position as a whole, which was that of the consort and confidential adviser and assistant of a female sovereign.”35 Albert added that the issue was whether: “I should not weaken my means of attending to all parts of the constitutional position alike—political, social, and moral—if I devoted myself to a special branch … I was afraid this would be the consequence of my becoming Commander-in-Chief.”36 Helps included the reply to Wellington which was written two days later: “I have come to the conclusion that my decision ought entirely and solely be guided by the consideration, whether it would interfere with, or assist, my position of Consort of the Sovereign, and the performance of the duties which this position imposes upon me.”37 Helps carried Albert further with the latter adding that he declined the position because his duty (as a consort) “requires that the husband should entirely sink his own individual existence in that of his wife.”38 The picture, then, which came out of this unpublished (and presumably unknown memo) was of a dutiful reluctant Albert—hardly the figure with which defenders of the British constitution sought to restore the monarchy’s political power. Ultimately, the more significant political point concerned what Helps did not say about Albert. Having portrayed his sensitive character—which was apparently improved by his Germanic identity—and illustrated that Albert saw constitutional principles as duties to be followed, Helps made no mention of party politics. The Albert of Speeches and Addresses of the Prince Consort was seemingly interested in everything but party politics. Art, the uses of art, the condition of the working class, industry, commerce and agriculture were all represented in Helps’ writing, but reference to party politics or political leaders—with the exception of Wellington—were nonexistent. The political implication was not that Albert was internationalist or a free trader or a German, but rather that the monarchy was above politics. The connections between the British people and royalty, to make the point differently, existed on the basis of constitution, culture, hierarchy, duties and shared outlooks. Helps’ Albert was one which was now safe for all of Britain to mourn and memorialise. Not surprisingly, the Queen now envisioned that Helps would be the appropriate person to write the official biography of Albert. In early 1863 she noted that she and General Grey “feel together” that Helps would be the best person to write about “dearest Albert.”39 Helps appears to have spent parts of 1863 and 1864 working on the biography. Victoria was involved in the planning stages of what was intended to be part of the monumental apparatus which would preserve Albert’s memory. She used meetings of the Privy Council to discuss the “precious life” with Helps.40

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As the end of 1864 approached, Victoria was satisfied with Helps’ progress in writing the biography of Albert. She noted that, “Meantime the beloved Life is getting on. Oh! how every fresh letter of dearest Albert’s unfolds his beautiful, perfect spirit.”41 Helps appears to have worked on the project in 1865 without facing any serious obstacles. At the beginning of 1866 Victoria met with Helps and Norman MacLeod (1812–1872) to go over the “precious life,”42 and this conversation was without incident. Writing in response to a letter written by the Queen on February 22, 1866, Helps told Victoria that, “the Memoir is greatly improved; + that the additions which your Majesty has made are excellent.”43 In fact, the editorial process gave Helps a chance to demonstrate his sympathy for Victoria’s loss as his comment on the death of Sir Charles Phipps led him to reflect that: “Death has been very busy amongst all those who were most devoted to Your Majesty’s person + to Your Majesty’s service.”44 However, by the second half of 1866 it became apparent that Helps might not be able to complete the monumental life of the Prince Consort. In August, Helps had discussed the subject at length with Victoria and by September he had brought Theodore Martin (1816–1919) into the project.45 It also appears that Froude may well have been consulted.46 Whether Helps understood that this was the end of his chance to write the magisterial work for the Queen is unclear. As late as mid-August Helps met with Victoria and “talked … again on the subject of the beloved Life.”47 Martin’s inclusion was the result of the “the difficulties connected with it.”48 These hurdles almost certainly involved Helps’ responsibilities at the Privy Council and the collapse of his estate. Martin’s introduction would ultimately culminate in the five volume Life of the Prince Consort (1874–1880) which gave the Queen the official monument which she had desired Helps write. Martin explained in the dedication that the work was “most unexpectedly pressed upon me,” but made no explicit reference to Helps.49 Martin’s reluctance to credit Helps probably came at the insistence of the latter. Not only were the circumstances embarrassing, but the author of The Claims of Labour and Friends in Council preferred anonymity when possible. Nonetheless, despite the fact that Helps remained overworked and unmentioned, he was somewhat active in the biography of Albert. Martin showed the penultimate proofs of the first volume to Helps, who was relatively satisfied with the product. Helps informed Martin that it was very well done, and what he “was sure of from the first is that the almost indescribable thing, good taste … pervades it.”50

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The Prince Consort’s reputation was hardly a static one. By the early 1870s the hagiography—both official and unofficial—had become challenged by a number of sources. In addition, in light of the unpopularity of the Queen’s withdrawal from public life, the publication of Baron Stockmar’s papers in 1872 meant that a slightly less favourable view of Albert was put before British readers. It would be Helps who wrote to Martin to make sure that the biography addressed these character issues. Noting that the portrait of Albert’s character was “very severe,” Helps urged Martin to challenge Stockmar’s version of the young Prince: The view that Baron Stockmar gives of the Prince’s character is very severe; and, if I were you, I would point that out more strongly than you do. Imagine any young man’s character—that of any young man we know—being put into the Stockmar crucible: what would it come out like? I am afraid of people saying—“Ah, yes there were the germs noticed by Stockmar, of those defects which he perceived in later life” Not that they did perceive any thing of the kind, until it was suggested to them by Stockmar’s fearful investigation of character.51

Helps added that there was nothing in Martin’s volume “which our Royal Mistress can be otherwise than much pleased ‘gratified with’.”52 Martin appears to have heeded Helps’ suggestion as his narrative gently called Stockmar’s standards of evaluation into question.53

The 1865 Memorials Scholars who have focused upon civic public-ness have emphasised that one of the ways in which Victoria and Albert defined the modern conception of royal duties was by their involvement in events such as local civic engagements.54 The combination of events attended by the monarch (or members of her family) and the news coverage of them resulted in the royal “domination of the public sphere.”55 More important, perhaps, the use of civic ceremonies was a way of connecting the monarchy to the much broader populace, including that large majority omitted from the political reforms of the 1830s. As John Plunkett has argued, it was precisely these types of practices which led to the development of a royal populism. In other words, by participating in civic events, making visits and taking tours, the monarchy was able to produce royal news in such a way as to manufacture a connection between the monarchy and the larger populace.56 To put this differently, whenever there was news about Victoria and Albert it was framed by accounts or images of the larger British public. When the Queen and Prince Consort visited Liverpool in

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1851, the London Illustrated News reported the event as one attended by large crowds. The image of Victoria and Albert with the people might well go some way towards legitimating the monarchy. It should be pointed out that this could be seen vividly with royal tours. The tours were, in fact, two way events—Victoria and Albert would announce their intention to visit a destination and, then, local leaders would devote a great deal of energy and resources to ensure that the event was successful. Normally, banners, grandstands, triumphal arches and illuminations could be seen as well as the widespread participation in the event. These visits were seen as very important for their locales—Victoria opened the Leeds Town Hall in 1852 and found that for the first time in their history, civic robes were worn by members of the corporation. Again, in 1851 the rivalry between Liverpool and Manchester played out in a competition to see which city could have the more elaborate celebration of the royal visit. Manchester spent between £100,000 and £150,000 on the visit, which included gathering together 80,000 local Sunday school scholars to sing the national anthem to Victoria in Peel Park.57 Another dimension—one which the author of The Claims of Labour would surely approved—was the active involvement of the monarchy in charitable causes. Frank Prochaska has explored this theme in Royal Bounty, which depicted the fact that Victoria was the patron to some one hundred and fifty causes, three times as many as George IV. The total effect was to create a welfare monarchy which was actively involved in supporting the lives of its subjects. Therefore, the redefinition of the monarchy—which historians have agreed to be one of Victoria’s achievements—had a number of different dimensions.58 From 1862, this pattern was also useful in finding ways to help memorialise Albert. Towards the end of 1865 the Illustrated London News carried an account of the creation of the Royal Albert Infirmary in Bishops-Waltham, Hampshire.59 This event was not particularly notable by itself, but it was part of the much larger move to create memorials to Albert in various parts of Britain and the empire. Royal Albert Hall and the Victoria and Albert Museum were the most prominent parts of this enterprise. The Royal Albert Infirmary was to be funded by the profits from Speeches and Addresses of the Prince Consort, an arrangement which was organised by Helps. The ceremony in August 1864 was led by Prince Leopold who was eleven at the time and “was permitted by her Majesty to perform the ceremony under the guidance of Mr. Arthur Helps,” who it was explained was the “well-known essayist and historian, Clerk of the Privy Council” and who was the “proprietor of some estates at Bishop-Waltham.” The

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Illustrated London News recorded the opening of the institution (including the unveiling of a statue of Albert) in November 1865 noting that the event would be attended by Prince Arthur, the Princesses Helena and Louisa, and many local officials including the mayor of Southampton. The party also included Lady Caroline Barrington, Lady August Stanley, Major-General Seymour and Colonel Ponsonby.60 With considerable fanfare, Helps escorted the Prince and Princesses to his house at Vernon Hill: The streets were decorated with flags and evergreen and the church bells were ringing merrily. Having taken luncheon, the Royal Party went at two o’clock, to the infirmary, here a large assembly was expecting their appearance. The Prince and Princesses, being welcomed with hearty cheering, seemed much pleased with their reception, and bowed repeatedly to the bystanders. They then alighted, and, escorted by Mr. Helps, walked to within a short distance of the porch facing the statue, which was veiled with the Royal standard.61

The climax of the event was the presentation of Albert’s statue: The Mayor and officials having been introduced, Mr. Deacon, the town clerk, of Southampton, read an address, which stated “that the statue of the great and good Prince, now inseparably connected with the Royal Albert Infirmary, is the gift of Alderman Perkins, one of the members of our corporation—a corporation always conspicuous in its admiration of the distinguished part which the Prince Consort took in the welfare of this great country.” This address having been presented and graciously received, the Right Rev. Bishop of Winchester read a prayer composed for the occasion. When the Bishop had ceased the Royal standard was drawn away from the front of the building, and the fine statute was revealed with a flourish of trumpets.62

This minor event, which might appear nearly cinematic today, included an appeal for additional funds to support the Infirmary: Their Royal Highnesses were then conducted over the infirmary, and after closely examining all the various arrangements, they drove to the old abbey barn, which had been very tastefully decorated as a concert-room— it having been determined to give a concert in aid of the funds of the infirmary, which was admirably executed under the guidance of Mr. Alexander Roland. Miss Helen Faucit (Mrs Theodore Martin) then read three scenes from Shakespeare’s “Merchant of Venice.” The room was crowded; and, as the tickets were sold at high prices, the funds of the new infirmary must have been greatly augmented by the proceeds. Escorted by the troop of Mounted Rifles, their Royal Highnesses drove back to the station and returned to Windsor by a special train.63

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This memorial project, which was local in nature, involved a wide section of the Hampshire community. Developing Albert’s memory, then, provided the occasions for connecting—possibly reconnecting—the monarchy with its broader public. Beyond local examples, it seems clear that Helps had a decisive impact upon the 1865 memorials. Henry Ponsonby, who served has Victoria’s private secretary between 1870–1895, recalled that Helps had guaranteed the success of some of the 1865 Memorials. He recorded in his diary that “Helps [was] the chief man who managed everything.”64 Helps had played a critical, if little remembered, role in the preservation of Albert’s memory. He had published his speeches, organised his biography and supported the more general efforts of the Queen to sustain the Prince Consort’s presence. However, Helps would play a greater role when he would bring forth Victoria’s own words as a way not only to memorialise Albert but to refashion the monarchy’s public face.

Memory through Fiction: Realmah As we saw in chapter six, Helps published Realmah as a novel discussed by the characters who populated the Friends in Council writings. At the heart of Helps’ work was the story of Realmah—an energetic minor noble who because of his great energy and unusual intelligence came to save, influence and ultimately run his lake society. Realmah had three prescribed wives: one who came from common origins, a second who could be considered the housekeeper, and one that he married out of affection. However, at the very centre of the story lay a romance—Realmah falls in love with the Ainah, his first wife, who later dies. One of the central themes of Realmah’s life, then, is grief. Helps makes it clear that Realmah’s bereavement defined his existence, but that he learned to keep the inner pain hidden. The author offered observations about bereavement which were again at once sensitive to the Queen, but also relevant to her broader public: It has often been noticed how, in civilised life, routine goes on, whatever suffering, or sorrow, or shame, or bereavement may have befallen. Dinner is not put aside because there is death in the house. There was the same thing at that period of the world’s history; and Realmah had to conform to the inevitable routine of life. At such times men move about, as it were, in a mist--, however, causing trouble and confusion only to themselves; for they may seem to others to see very clearly, and to do their work well. The sufferer has not only to appear upon the stage of action, whatever that may be, and to act his part tolerably; but he has to continue to act, when off the

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stage and behind the scenes, and only ceases to act when he is quite alone. Moreover, the usual supports are gone. Even that most clinging of human frailties and follies, vanity, gives way before profound sorrow and bereavement; and, in their presence, it has been known that a very vain man has lost his vanity, and all the comfort and sustainment that it used to bring with it. An ambition, especially if it be of the higher kind, embracing the good of others, may survive the shock: and thus it was with Realmah … of the many miseries of greatness, and not perhaps the least, is that neither its joys nor its sorrows can be private. To this was added in Realmah’s case an especial necessity to conceal the magnitude of his grief, and to behave as if it were only a small loss that he had suffered.65

The tension that Realmah experienced between private grief and public responsibility would have been easily recognised by his readers. However, in eliciting their sympathies he was also putting the Queen’s seclusion into perspective. In typical Helpsian fashion, the characters debating the novel also argued for the virtues of private life, including the little things. Milverton, with echoes of the disregard for political economy, noted that: “if half the thought which is given to obscure questions in theology or metaphysics had been given to the question of making men more comfortable by building better habitations for them [the world would be more] endurable.”66 More importantly, this observation was applied to the relationship between private and public: The same error is to be found in those men who live for the outer world instead of for home. This brings me naturally to the subject of ostentation, the direst enemy of comfort … as the doing of things because others do them, whether you like them or not, whether they are suitable or not, to you or your means … I will call it imitation, and say that imitation is the direst enemy of comfort. Women, I am sorry to say, are greatly to blame in this matter … women are the only real and sound Conservatives, or rather Tories, in the world; and one great end that we shall gain from their education, if ever a better education is given to them, is this, that we shall much less conventionalism to contend with.67

Helps was more emphatic about these domestic virtues—many of which could be identified with Victoria. He elaborated: What should be done inside a house to make it a happy home. Of course, the great danger, the pressing danger, of domestic life is its familiarity— mark you, there is immense pleasure in this familiarity, but I think we might have all the pleasure without the mischief … Never scold for little things and for things in which there is no intention to do wrong: people don’t mean to break glass or china, or to spill the grease … Never ridicule

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Chapter Eight other people’s tastes, especially the tastes of those who live with you … Cultivate the great art of leaving people alone even those whom you think you have a great right to direct in the minutest particular … Domestic comfort is the very core of happy life. Now what perfection it would be if, in domestic life, the courtesy and civility which strangers show to us were combined with affection and the absence of restraint which belong to domesticity!68

These discussions, which reflect ideas articulated in The Claims of Labour and other writings, tied Realmah to a discussion upon public obligations and private life. For our purposes, here Realmah proved to be one way in which Helps sought to address the monarchy’s situation in the 1860s. That is, Realmah—a figure who in many ways matched Albert— proved to be a vigorous ruler who was intimately involved in the lives of his subjects.

Public Relations: The monarchy in the Media It is probably more than a coincidence that Realmah began with a complaint about newspapers. Helps warned that publicity could be unreasonable and damaging because it happens with increasing speed: There comes out a flaming attack against some poor man, based upon certain statements. In a day or two, the man generally contradicts some of these statements, and apparently with truth. But the mischief has been done … there seems to be a likelihood of publicity increasing greatly, an immense amount of discomfort will be caused, both to public and to private individuals, by rash and injurious publications.69

These themes were more completely illuminated in Thoughts Upon Government. Referring to a government department’s challenges in dealing with the press, Helps explained that a department consists of: … a political officer, in one or the other Houses of Parliament. To aid him there is a political Under-Secretary, a chief clerk, and, perhaps, four or five senior clerks. As a general rule, all of these men are men of ability above the average. Moreover, they have the advantage of a large command of information; but they are very busy men, and they have very little time to spare for defending that they have to do.70

In contrast, Helps understood that the press had the “cleverest writers of the day,” and could therefore wield great power.71 At the same time, the men who worked for the ministry were “under great restraint.”72 He

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concluded that the relationship between the press and the ministry—or the royal family—ought to be governed by a few key considerations: The public keeping in mind that the government Office, which is subject to hostile criticism, may have a great deal to say for itself, but which it cannot say—or cannot say it then and there—should endeavor to reserve final opinion on the matter in question, whatever that might be … the press keeping in mind the advantage which it has over the government Office, in regard to the conditions before mentioned, should endeavor not to employ that advantage ungenerously … the government Office, when it can with propriety do so, should disclose, at an early date, those facts, motives, and objects, respecting which it feeds, that if the public knew, the public would probably be on its side … this could not be done in any government where the proceedings are of a sinister kind; but the Government of this country is so honestly administered, and with so much care for the public welfare, that it could often afford to act in this open and candid manner.73

With many of these considerations in mind, it is now evident that Helps played a vital role in presenting the image of the monarchy in the national media. For example, Helps worked with John Thaddeus Delane (1817– 1879), editor of The Times, to ensure favourable coverage of the royal family in the paper.74 Delane and Helps would discuss information for articles about the Prince of Wales.75 The surviving correspondence (Delane’s letters to Helps) reveals that the two men collaborated to prepare for press coverage of public events involving the Queen and other members of the royal family.76 Ponsonby was concerned about the way in which some newspapers were covering royal expenditures. Writing to Helps from Windsor he worried about the exposure the monarchy faced over public expenditures.77 In fact, Helps and Ponsonby both courted journalists so as to make sure that the royal family received favourable treatment, explaining that he had developed some expectations for dealing with newspapers. Helps told Ponsonby that he could get stories placed in both The Telegraph and The Times. The Telegraph required “a little bit of news,” while the latter needed “Social Entertainment.”78 However, Helps also explained that the press was not always friendly to the monarchy.79 As Ponsonby noted in 1874: Helps came to see me first about the press. He says that he can sometimes get things put into the Telegraph and perhaps into The Times. The former it is to be (done?) with by a little of news being (given?) it and the latter by Social Entertainment. But to do both are impossible … but the press will be more friendly to them than to us. Helps then went on about Mrs Millais. He says there is a very strong feeling about her not being admired at court

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Chapter Eight among artists and Mr. Millais himself is most occupied about it. Helps says The Queen refused to receive her because she was a divorced woman. But she was not. It was a nullity of marriage. But I said I think there may be a disagreeable feeling about a woman who though fully justified—could bring such a case before the Court. “But she didn’t” replied Helps, her father … saw the coldness that existed between his daughter and Ruskin and got at the facts in a roundabout way—then insisted on dissolving the marriage. I told Helps it was impossible for any man to discuss the subject with The Queen. But that some woman might explain it all—would the Duchess of Sutherland do? Yes, I said I thought she might write to Lady Ely a letter which could be shown, but she ought to tell the whole facts and impress the importance of not allowing Mrs M—or her children—to be under false imputation. Helps always agrees. That is his weak point.80

Helps may have worked effectively by avoiding conflict. Yet, it is clear that he was engaged in a wide variety of projects. Helps could be valuable to the Queen by finding out how the monarchy was itself being understood by its subjects. To cite one example, the Prince of Wales’ illness in late 1871 captured national attention. Indeed, the event might be considered proof that the monarchy was having significant success in generating popular support. Awaiting news on the condition of the Prince became something of a national obsession and Helps was keen to learn as much as possible about the way the event was understood beyond Windsor. Halifax wrote to Helps informing him about the practice in churches, pausing at the name of the Prince and Princess during prayers. More interestingly, Helps’ daughter in law—Catherine Stone—provided him with an account of the wait for news: I must tell you with what thrilling interest, our Queen’s noble letter was listened to by a crowded congregation in our Village Church yesterday. My brother, the Rev. John Hayley received the newspaper late Saturday night, so it had not been read in the parish. He began,--I hold in my hand a letter our beloved Queen has written to you. Yes, to each one of you who live in our scattered villages, as well as to all her subjects in the crowded towns. Our Queen knows how much you have all felt for her, and the Princess of Wales. She still desires your prayers for the complete restoration of health of our Prince. You may imagine the breathless attention with which the letter was heard. When I came from London after that never to be forgotten Sunday Dec. 10. When we heard Dean Stanley’s telegram read to 5,000 people of St. Paul’s school, I was afraid we should hear less frequently, but I found, though our Station is four miles distant, the parishioners had arranged to send three and four times a day for intelligence and the little Station was crowded every night with grooms waiting to carry the latest news to all parts of the neighbourhood.81

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Stone elaborated that these are “only some facts among a thousand which might be accounted.”82 Of course Helps had numerous contacts— from all parts of the Victorian establishment—to enable him to understand the ways in which the monarchy was being understood. Helps almost certainly played a role in organising the Great Thanksgiving. In any event, Helps saw a number of public relations opportunities, some of which were unrealised. Towards the end of 1874 he envisioned a history of Windsor, which would be an illustrated volume that might complement Leaves. The history of Windsor would be another vehicle to present the monarchy favourably and he looked in vain for an author. Neither the Dean nor Ponsonby believed that he was capable of writing the book which Helps envisioned. Ponsonby informed his wife that both he and the Dean refused, because “he cannot paint scenery in words. No more than can I.”83

The Highland Journal: Domesticating Victoria Helps understood that Albert’s life and legacy was also an opportunity to respond to some of the political problems confronting the monarchy in the mid-1860s. Given Helps’ contacts and outlook, it was nearly inevitable that he would be sensitive to the growing criticism of the monarchy. The Queen‘s biographers have understood that Helps played a key role in the publication84 of both Speeches and Addresses of the Prince Consort and Leaves From the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands, but they have often underestimated the significance of Helps’ contributions. Many of these scholars have traced Helps’ role as both advocate and editor; not only did the Clerk of the Privy Council worry about the Queen’s grammar and expression, but he supported Victoria’s desire to publish the journal over the objections of her family. Indeed, it would be Helps who seems to have sensed that the book would not only be appealing to Britons, but useful as a way of legitimating the monarchy. We have seen that in producing Speeches and Addresses of the Prince Consort, Helps had worked closely with Victoria to ensure that Albert’s character be skilfully displayed; with the Leaves From the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands, the agenda would be very different. The Queen initially thought that it would make a nice private book—a potential source of both entertainment and commemoration for the Royal Family. Many members of the Royal Family were less enthusiastic about the project than the Queen. Their discontent stemmed from the prospect of the widespread reading of Victoria’s once private diaries.85 In contrast, a number of people around the Queen thought that wider circulation might

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be desirable, but it was Helps who understood that Leaves could be a public relations coup. While there were some around Victoria who were supportive, it was Helps who motivated Victoria to overcome family objections, particularly from Thomas Martin and General Gray, and put the book together. Martin wrote to Gray that it was Helps who was insistent about the publication of the Queens’s journal: Any interference on my part with Mr. Helps about the Journal is a matter of no small delicacy. My first opinion, expressed when it was shown to me this time last year, was so decidedly adverse to the publication, that the subject has scarcely ever been alluded to by him since. His own opinion, I know is a very strong one, that the Journal has merits, irrespective of mere gossiping considerations, which will make his publication welcome to the public and honourable to H. M.—and therein of course lies the main difficulty. I do not think these merits outweigh the rise … his sensitiveness that makes me chary in dealing with the larger question, whether the Journal should be published at all. I have pressed the grave nature of his responsibility—for on him the ultimate responsibility will rest should the publication do harm.86

Smith, who would later boast about the success of Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands, also had significant reservations which he communicated to General Grey. The latter reported to Helps about his conversation with Smith: “He had very grave doubts as to the expediency of publishing the Journal,” because it would interfere with the publication of the first part of Martin’s multivolume biography.87 Smith warned Gray that, “it should be most carefully considered whether the effects might not be weakened if the Public could say they had too much of the private thoughts of the Sovereign.”88 By the mid-1860s Helps was in a position to influence the Queen. He had already proved himself adept at portraying the monarchy’s public face. In fact, it was almost certainly this earlier editorial process in which Helps worked on Speeches and Addresses of the Prince Consort which brought him close to her. The picture that we get is one in which Helps had demonstrated remarkable patience in dealing with both Victoria’s lamentations and her specific ideas about the manuscript. Helps complained to his friend Delane that he was required to “restrain the outbursts of affection of a most loving woman.”89 Smith & Elder’s publisher, George Smith (1824–1901), experienced the editorial process directly:

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Nearly every morning, when I arrived in my office, I found a letter marked “private and confidential” in Mr. Arthur Helps’ fine handwriting. The letter almost invariably ran “Can you come and see me for a few minutes: important.” I had, of course, to go to the Privy Council Office, and hold an anxious and lengthy discussion with Mr. Helps on some question--often of grammar or literary form, in connection with Her Majesty’s book. Ought a particular verb, for example, to be in the present or past tense? Mr. Helps’ loyal anxiety on behalf of the Queen’s book dulled his sense of humor; it made him anxious to the point of distress about trifles which the Queen herself would have dismissed as indifferent.90

Despite the fact that Victoria would “battle stoutly about a single sentence,” she clearly valued his advice.91 Finally, as we have already observed, Helps’ success as a publicist for the Queen survived him as he recruited Theodore Martin, a figure whose fictional equivalent could be found in the Friends in Council series, to write a complete life of Albert.92 Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, once denigrated by Lytton Strachey as “the monumental work,”93 would eventually be completed in 1880 (the first volume being published in 1874), five years after Helps died. With considerable difficulty, then, Helps had gained a level of intimacy with the Queen; by the mid-1860s he could expect that in some situations Victoria might allow his ideas to prevail. Helps understood Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands to be a vehicle for the presentation of the monarchy’s public image. It is instructive to examine the volume’s preface because in it Helps understood that it would have broad appeal to her Majesty’s subjects who had “always shown a sincere and ready sympathy with the personal joys and sorrows of their Sovereign.”94 The appeal of the volume would reflect the attraction of domesticity because readers would discover how the Queen’s “rare moments of leisure were passed in her Highland home, when every joy was heightened, and every care and sorrow diminished, by the loving companionship of the Prince Consort.”95 Helps had prevailed over objections to the publication of Leaves, not simply to please the Queen but because of the volume’s utility. He understood that the picture of private life and domestic bliss would do much to improve the Queen’s popularity. Victoria wrote proudly to the Crown Princess: I am sorry I could not send you my book before it was published, but I could not, as they only came to hand on Thursday night … It has been most affectionately, warmly received by the public and you will be gratified and touched by the articles in The Times and Daily Telegraph. Good Mr. Helps says “It is a new bond of union” between me and my

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The successful publication of Leaves meant that the new bond of union quickly became a reality. While the work first appeared privately in 1867, Helps saw to it that Smith & Elder published a second edition in 1868. Leaves From the Journal of Our Life In the Highlands quickly sold twenty thousand copies, making it the bestseller for 1868.97 In addition, this new bond of union earned more than four thousand pounds in royalties, which gave Victoria the opportunity to turn over the volume’s profits to charities.98 This new bond of union meant that the vivid portrayal of Victoria’s private daily domestic life could be something which the vast majority of the British people might identify with. That is, Leaves might be a very useful vehicle for representing the monarchy in favourable terms, and the frequently removed Victoria would now be accessible in a way that her predecessors had never been. It might do well to remember, as well, that Victoria was frequently associated with domesticity—an ideal which many of her subjects readily embraced.99 In addition, the images of the royal family were wholesome ones as they would now be made vivid without a hint of the domestic scandals which had defined the monarchy in the era of George IV and William IV, or even the Prince of Wales. In short, Leaves enshrined domestication and, in so doing, used it to strengthen the Queen’s popularity. Helps seemed to have grasped that while the British public was uncomfortable with the Queen’s seclusion, it would be avid readers of her published journals. Helps appeared to foresee that Britons would find a new set of images in the pages of Leaves with which they could identify. After all, from reading the journal Helps knew that the public would discover that the Queen had many of the same tastes as her subjects. Victoria’s published diary reveals that she had a sentimental attachment to picturesque landscapes, dancing and the crowds which came out to greet her. The domestic side of Victoria and Albert’s life was also amply documented; from the picnics in the Highlands to her preparations for her daughter Victoria’s wedding, the Queen’s attention to the daily life of her family would have been recognisable to the British public. In addition, the picture which emerges of John Brown from Leaves is only that of a loyal servant. Leaves also revealed that Britain’s Queen had a playful side, taking especial joy from being able to travel in parts of Scotland in disguise. She was happy that her subjects eventually found that she and Albert had been in the party which visited their villages. Aside from her domestic life, Leaves contained explicit references to Victoria’s piety and

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her ability to have a common touch with her subjects, the diary revealing her visit to an eighty-six year old Scotswoman whom she met in her travels. Therefore, in seeking to have Victoria’s diary published, Helps envisioned something approaching the repositioning of the Queen’s image before the British public. Helps’ introduction made clear that Leaves was not an overtly political document. Instead, he had taken great risks because he believed that Leaves would be a useful book for the monarchy. Again, drawing on the language of home and family Helps explained that: These notes, besides indicating that peculiar memory for persons, and that recognition of personal attachment … illustrate, in a striking manner, the Patriarchal feeling (if one may apply such a word as “patriarchal” to a lady) which is so strong in the present occupant of the Throne. Perhaps there is no person in these realms who takes a more deep and abiding interest in the welfare of the household committed to his charge than our gracious Queen does in hers, or who feels more keenly what are the reciprocal duties of masters and servants.100

The life presented in Leaves was the Queen’s, but the presentation of it was vintage Helps. The stress on the reciprocal moral obligations and the domestic metaphors came easily to the author of The Claims of Labour and Friends in Council. In addition, the monarchy would be placed safely above both party politics and narrow economic self-interests: Nor does any one wish more ardently than her Majesty, that there should be no abrupt severance of class from class, but rather a gradual blending together of all classes,--caused by a full community of interests, a constant interchange of good offices, and a kindly respect felt and expressed by each class to all its brethren in the great brotherhood that forms a nation.101

Leaves was popular because it capitalised on the sentimental, reverential view of the royal family which had existed long before Albert’s death. More than anything else, it enabled Britons to find ways to identify with their sovereign while remaining distant from her. In actuality, the very fact that Victoria’s personal life was idealised fuelled “the desire for more intimate insights into what was taking place behind the curtains of Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle.”102 It was, after all, the little things with which they could empathise. Maybe not surprisingly, Charles Kingsley reviewed the work in Fraser’s Magazine and connected it to Martin’s The Early Years of the Prince Consort. He found that these works were important because they demonstrated that Victoria was willing to show herself to her subjects. In addition, he stressed the importance of

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Leaves because it could be tied to the genealogy of the English Gothic constitution.103 Kingsley’s review was almost certainly not representative, but what the work did was pave the way for people in Britain to experience the everydayness of Victoria.104 In other words, Victoria might remain in seclusion, but the words and stories about her amounted to a common tongue.

Helps as Councillor and Friend to the Queen Without going into the details of this subject, a few examples gleaned from these scholars illustrate that Helps was important to Victoria. Least obviously, as Clerk of the Privy Council Helps functioned as a go-between or trouble-shooter. Stanley Weintraub gives us a surviving example of the thankless tasks which were often handed to Helps, when the author of Friends in Council was asked to make a lengthy and complicated memo from Gladstone into something intelligible.105 Again, Odo Russell contacted Helps in January 1872 about the procedures (and rituals) for his appointment to the Privy Council.106 More awkwardly, but also more significantly, it would be the Clerk of the Privy Council who would be asked to communicate Victoria’s displeasure over the publication of the multivolume edition of Charles Greville’s (1794–1865) diaries, which appeared in 1874. Greville, who became Clerk of the Privy Council in 1821, proved to be one of the greatest political and royal diarists of the nineteenth century. These diaries provided an intimate look at over forty years of British politics as they recorded in fine detail and vivid colour many of the secret or at least private transactions of a number of significant figures who helped to shape British public life between 1817– 1860. Since many of the portraits which Greville drew were not flattering ones, the publication of the diaries sent shock waves through the highest circles of British government and society. Helps again crossed paths with Henry Reeve, who was at once the editor of the Edinburgh Review and the man Greville had entrusted to the posthumous preparation of his works; in this instance it was Helps’ mission to communicate that Victoria believed that the diaries were degrading to royalty.107 If Victoria’s biographers have understudied Helps, it seems clear that his contemporaries grasped that he had prized access to the Queen. For instance, publishers knew that Helps had Victoria’s ear—George Smith called him Her Majesty’s literary adviser.108 The publisher of SmithElder’s assessment seems to have been shared by Frederick Greenwood, who attempted to use Helps to champion the cause of the novelist Charles Reade. Greenwood approached Helps to get the Queen interested in

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Reade’s A Hero and Martyr. While Helps had believed that the Queen might be greatly interested in Reade’s work, Greenwood had to acknowledge that Victoria’s reaction to A Hero and Martyr was slightly incredulous.109 Lastly, the image of Helps as valuable go-between was buttressed by his role in bringing his friend Charles Dickens to meet the Queen, who was interested in some of the details of the novelist’s recent trip to the United States.110 More importantly, while Helps may have been deemed valuable as a conduit to the Queen, Victoria’s biographers have neglected the fact that he also became her friend. The surviving correspondence indicates that the monarch sometimes made unusual requests—after Napoleon III died in 1873, the Queen wrote to Helps to see if the press could be kept from publishing the intimate details of the death.111 While Helps never attained the level of intimacy which made other men around the widowed Queen infamous, he clearly was more than an editor. Victoria read not only Helps’ improvements to the memorials, but many of his literary works. In 1872 Prince Leopold explained to Helps that: “The Queen desires me to say that she is reading your book and is interested in it, and would have mentioned this in her last letter,”112 but was distracted by other matters. Victoria also read Ivan De Biron.113 In addition, Victoria regarded Helps as possessing wide-reaching influence. Writing to her daughter, Victoria was then the Crown Princess of Prussia (and sometimes called “little Vicky”), and visiting in 1868 she explained: “Mr. Helps is a Whig, but very fond of and fair about many of the other party. He was Lord Carlisle’s great friend, also Lord Granville’s and he knows an immense number of influential people of all kinds and positions.” The Crown Princess of Prussia may not have liked Helps, but Victoria added: “To me personally he has been most kind and I shall ever be grateful for it.”114 More importantly, while Helps may have been deemed valuable as a conduit to the Queen, Victoria’s biographers have neglected the fact that he also became her friend. Helps told Gladstone that after: the Prince Consort’s death, the Queen made occasion to see me very frequently and to treat me with confidence. I became, in fact, as much as one can become, a friend of the Sovereign’s. My whole object has been, in that capacity to be of use to Her, and, in a humble way, to the Government, whoever might be in power—to make things go smoothly if I could.115

Helps used his shared experience in the Privy Council to better his relations with Victoria. While much of this correspondence does not survive, it is clear that Helps liked to push the Queen into seeing him as a

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special ear. Writing from the Privy Council Office in December 1868, Helps first acknowledged the priority of his Majesty’s wishes: Mr. Helps presents his humble duty to Your Majesty. He will not fail to obey Your Majesty’s commands as speedingly as possible about the memorandum of yesterday’s proceedings. The preface of business is so great upon at present that he fears he may not be able to write it before Sunday; but he will if he can. It will require an hour or two; and the interruptions from morning till night are just at present so frequent, that he finds it a great difficulty to get an hour or two to himself. The new Ministry seemed, as Shakespeare says, to be “shut up in marvellous content with Your Majesty’s graciousness”; and it struck Mr. Helps that Mr. Bright was particularly pleased, though he said but little. The above, of course, is for Your Majesty’s most private ear. Mr. Helps is delighted to think that he was of any, if but the slightest use & comfort to your Majesty on such a trying occasion.116

In this case Helps made himself useful by analysing the Council meetings’ dynamics, and probably the whole point was that this would be for the Queen’s most private ear.

The Crisis of 1871 The Queen’s biographers have acknowledged that the late summer of 1871 was difficult for Victoria. Stanley Weintraub went further, claiming that in August 1871 the Queen’s health was in much greater jeopardy than the British public realised.117 In fact, Weintraub observed that the information about the illness was puzzlingly thin, with the evidence suggesting that there had been a cover-up.118 Had Weintraub studied the surviving correspondence which Helps had with his friend Lord Ripon he would have had more evidence to support his contentions. Helps’ letters reveal that at the very least the state of the Queen’s health was a private crisis for the Gladstone government and the monarchy. The summer of 1871 proved to be progressively difficult for Victoria. Even before the summer commenced, events in France proved to be unsettling. The visit of the former Napoleon III in March would have brought home to the Queen the fragility of royal power in some parts of Europe. Closer to Windsor, she was already unhappy about Gladstone’s government. More directly, the vote in Parliament for a dowry for Princess Louise bothered her, particularly as it became connected to a question about funds drawn from the Civil List. Earlier in the year there had been a

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debate about the grant for Prince Arthur, which was made when he attained his majority.119 Gladstone had managed both the bill for Arthur’s annuity (which passed on August 1), but the opposition to the bill renewed criticism of the crown. Victoria’s seclusion and the cost of the monarchy were among the criticisms articulated in the summer of 1871.120 Gladstone, among others, became concerned that the handling of public money could undermine the monarchy’s moral position. The Saturday Review actually criticised the liberal leadership for petty economy.121 More importantly, perhaps, the issue of the dowry in particular strengthened republican arguments; these questions would find their most forceful expression in a pamphlet which came out a couple of months later, entitled “What does she do with it?” (1871). Radicals were able to use these separate events as ways to raise unpleasant questions about the management and handling of the crown’s finances. As William Kuhn has observed, these radicals capitalised on the Queen’s deep unpopularity (from the extended period of seclusion) by raising the less controversial issue of the use of public money.122 In August, Gladstone requested that the Queen delay her annual trip north in order to prorogue the session of Parliament. If she refused to do this, the logical conclusion would be the necessity of having the Privy Council meet at Balmoral.123 She became very angry, claiming that staying at Windsor (and not going north) would actually endanger her health. All of this sent Gladstone into despair as he informed his wife about an “extra Cabinet today almost entirely about the difficulties of the Queen’s determination to go northwards with too little regard to the prorogation and the public business.”124 Observing that the Queen’s health was deplorable, Gladstone noted a day later that “the conduct of the Queen, however, has been my great trouble. It weighs upon me like a nightmare.”125 At one point Victoria even threatened to abdicate, claiming that she did not want the heavy burden which might be given to other hands.126 Without going further in this direction, the Queen did not back down on going to Balmoral, leaving Gladstone to tell his wife that the Queen “acts off her own hook.”127 To Ponsonby he wrote that “we have done all we can. She will decide. Of course, if challenged, I shall take responsibility. But this shield will not wear very long.”128 Scholars have tended to underplay the significance of these exchanges—Victoria’s own illness in the summer of August 1871 was in effect superseded by the Prince of Wales’ in December. However, Helps’ correspondence with Lord Ripon sheds a bit more light on the incident. On August 2, writing from the Privy Council Office, Helps confided in Ripon that he was to inform Lord Granville that it was

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necessary to explain that the Queen was very uncomfortable. He added that “the Queen wishes Mr. Gladstone, in answer to a question to be put by someone, to state the Queen’s total inability to reside in London.” He concluded that the Queen’s desire might be staved off.129 Helps wrote again from Osborne House a week later, when the situation had clearly deteriorated: The Queen is in a state of excitement and tribulations such as I have never seen her before. She cried; she sobbed; she was, in the highest degree, hysterical, when I saw her yesterday; and today she is really very unwell. What she threatens to do now, I am certain she really means. It is not the present question alone—namely as to the time of her journey to Balmoral—which disturbs her. It is the feeling that her movements are always to be controlled—that “the Sovereign” is being dictated to in every way and by everybody—that she is comparatively friendless, and is not supposed by those who should support her; that nobody seems to believe, or, at any rate, to act to speak as if they believed, that her state of health is what it is; that the world is thoroughly ungrateful to her; that she has always striven to do her duty and will strive to do it; but that she wishes she were dead.130

Helps elaborated that more was involved than the Queen’s physical illness: “I endeavour, in the foregoing paragraph, to give you a notion of what she thinks and feels from her point of view and feeling.”131 His familiarity with the situation enabled him to add: “I could write much more; but it would not perhaps, very prudent to put what I should have to say in writing: and, besides, I have said enough to convey to you the state of things. I see I have put ‘confidential’ at the head of this letter; but the confidentiality is left to your discretion and decision.”132 The situation at Osborne was clearly worrying, as Helps concluded: “I am so thankful that the Lord Chancellor is coming today.”133 It should be pointed out that Sir William Jenner, the Queen’s physician, privately believed that she might have only about twenty-four hours to live. On August 17, Victoria went to Balmoral, even though her worst day was August 20, and two days later she could claim that she had never been so ill.134 Helps’ discretion here was probably considerable. What Gladstone, Ponsonby and others connected with what the court were witnessing amounted to a serious physical illness accompanied by a deteriorating mental condition. The Queen was almost certainly not suicidal, but probably unable to function. What the Queen “threatens to do now,” almost certainly referred to the trip north to Balmoral. Yet, in stating a preference for being dead, feeling isolated and controlled, it seems

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probable that she had reached a very fragile state of mind. A little more than two weeks later (August 24, 1871) with the Queen now at Balmoral, Helps again wrote that: “it was very strange to hear the Queen, usually so clear in speech and so emphatic, giving forth her views and wishes in feeble tones—and almost in a whisper. I think that it would not be ill taken if you were to write to her about her illness.”135 Exploring Helps’ correspondence with Ripon shows that this incident was marked by symptoms which might be consistent with clinical depression. In addition, while it seems clear that this state had persisted for several weeks, the Queen actually was ill for nearly three months.136 The Queen’s illness in the summer of 1871, then, amounted to much more than a question of prorogation of a serious nature as it not only drained her but also affected her outlook. By mid-September the Court Circular was able to announce that the Queen’s illness had indeed been serious. However, the work of Weintraub and the surviving correspondence between Helps and Ripon reveals that this delicate situation—coming at a time of intense republican pressures—involved more than the minor illness which had been represented. Rather, Victoria’s illness in the summer of 1871 was almost certainly perceived as a crisis which might stir the very foundations of the British monarchy.

Helps’ Death Given their friendship and joint authorial work, the Queen’s profound grief at the news of the unexpected death of Helps in 1875 reveals that he was far more important to her than a well-regarded official. Victoria had followed the news of Helps’ decline and was greatly worried about it.137 She also complained that for thirteen years he had made a huge contribution.138 While Victoria’s distress at Helps’ death was not nearly as great as that which she experienced when John Brown died eight years later, it is clear that she felt that this was a significant loss. Theodore Martin records that at the news of Helps’ death he was summoned to Buckingham Palace: I … found the Queen in tears, and moved to a degree that was distressing to witness. She had lost in him not only a valuable official, but a friend to whom she had for years trusted for counsel in times of personal distress or difficulty.139

Disraeli confirmed that Helps’ death made a profound impression on Victoria: “The Queen is much distressed about Helps. She says she is more isolated and scarcely a friend left.”140 Even more telling are Victoria’s own

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words. Helps had been her confidential friend for thirteen years,141 and writing to Helps’ daughter, Alice, the Queen complained before mourning: “What can I say! my tears are falling fast?” Victoria explained: I can hardly command any words. I cld. not think that there was no hope tho’ after receiving your Telegram I felt the danger was extreme! I will not only speak of what I have lost! You know it well enough! I ought only to think of you & your Mother & Brothers & Sisters & you will excuse self appearing in this letter wh. is far more genuine than the Expression of deepest sympathy! But I have experienced during the last 13 years too much kindness & too great devotion to me, not to feel overpowered with this sudden blow wh. deprives me of so much help & friendship. God’s will be done!142

If this letter suggests that Helps became increasingly important after Albert’s death, it also illustrates that his relationship with the Queen was significant. A second letter to Alice reveals that this relationship included discussion and the exchange of ideas. She informed Alice that she had finished Ivan de Biron: [and] read with a sad interest & which I much admire! How I wish I could have told him this! How I am vexed I had no time to read it before & how often I recognise his in it his feelings, & views & what true, fine sentiments it contains. I thought I cld. hear his fine kind voice!143

While we will probably never know the full extent of Victoria’s reading, the fact that she read Ivan de Biron, which was not one of Helps’ more celebrated works, suggests that it is possible, if not likely, that she had read many of the Friends in Council series.144

“Queen Victorianism” as part of the Helpsian Public Sphere Assessing Queen Victoria’s place in modern British culture and history will undoubtedly remain a concern for scholars. Given the length (sixtyfour years) of the reign, easy generalisations about it should be resisted. Nonetheless, scholars have recognised that the reign might be best understood in terms of phases. The earliest part before Victoria marries Albert; the next two decades when the monarchy was defined largely by the Queen and Prince Consort; the subsequent period between Albert’s death in 1861 and the proclamation of the Queen as the Empress of India—a period which includes the Jubilees and ends in her death in 1901. The renewed interest in Queen Victoria, and Victorianism, has made the

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recovery of Helps’ role even more urgent. Scholarship published in the 1990s has changed the landscape for the study of the monarch in nineteenth-century Britain. In particular, Dorothy Thompson, Adrienne Munich and Margaret Homans have broken new ground; taken together, they have revealed that despite the fact that the nineteenth century bears her name, Victoria has proved to be an underrated historical figure.145 Not only did Victoria play a pivotal role in establishing many of the norms and habits associated with nineteenth-century life, but she came to serve as an icon who performed cultural work for her age.146 That is, the representations of Victoria were important not only for men and women in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but they also remain relatively underused avenues for scholars who seek to understand Victorianism. One of the achievements of this growing body of scholarship has been to illustrate that there were many Victorias during her long reign; Dorothy Thompson argued that by making it easier for the middle-classes to identify with the Queen, Victoria strengthened the monarchy; Adrienne Munich argued that Victoria was a cultural icon who played an active role in the shaping of British life; finally, Margaret Homans asserted that even Victoria’s absence from public life (for which she was widely criticised) contributed to her power and influence in her culture. Like Victoria’s biographers, most of these scholars have given Helps relatively little attention.147 The Queen’s biographers have understood Helps to play a small but, at times, critical role in the successful publication of Victoria’s various memorials to Albert. Typically, as we have observed, Helps appears as an advocate for publication, an editor and even something of a taskmaster. While the publication of Speeches and Addresses of the Prince Consort and Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands has long interested students of Victoria, much of the discussion related to Helps has been driven by an attempt to uncover the extant of the Queen’s state of mind, true intentions and actual authorship. Therefore, despite the fact that Helps clearly played a critical role in nurturing these publications, students of Victoria’s reign have not shown any additional, substantive interest in his relationship with the Queen. In fact, many of these scholars have appeared to miss or be unaware of the value of John R. DeBruyn’s detailed articles which explore this neglected relationship.148 For our purposes, it is significant that Arthur Helps was influential between 1860–1875—the period which almost precisely corresponds with the time between Albert’s death and Victoria’s rebirth as Empress. Helps served Victoria at a problematic time when both Republican opposition was most intense and when the Queen practiced a sustained seclusion. At the same time, the

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years in which Helps worked with the Queen were not particularly fortuitous for royalty. While the events of 1848 had receded, republican ideas and the events which followed the Franco-Prussian War meant that many European monarchies recognised the insecurities of their positions. More generally, not only was the monarchy’s constitutional position not settled, but Britain itself experienced a profound debate over enfranchisement, which culminated in the Reform Bill of 1867. We have seen that Helps’ most obvious efforts were directed towards defining the public face of the monarchy. Serving the Queen in the 1860s inevitably meant making the Prince Consort the subject of national heritage; unfortunately, it also involved dealing with Victoria’s long and increasingly unpopular absence from the public. Yet, this period of Victoria’s reign proved to be significant as scholars have noted that, in that period, the “constitutional criticisms of the Crown were infrequent.”149 Additionally, this was the period when the monarchy traded influence for power.150 Just as Helps’ introduction to Speeches and Addresses of the Prince Consort proved to be at once sensitive to the Queen’s needs and politically astute, so his handling of the monarchy’s public face during the 1860s balanced Victoria’s fragile emotional state and importance of presenting the institution to the British nation. It is clear that Helps exerted significant influence on the public presentation of the monarchy, as he was far more important than a friend of the Queen, go-between or copy-editor. Indeed, a comparison with the public face and official conduct of Victoria and Helps’ writings, which we have seen were deemed significant during the 1850s and 1860s, reveals some striking affinities. Many of the monarchy’s public acts, now the subject of renewed scholarly interest, were consistent with Helpsian doctrines. Readers of The Friends in Council would not find Helps directly arguing that Victoria’s withdrawal from public duty was desirable. However, they would read about a positive vision of private life. The chief arguments of Ellesmere and Milverton were important, but they were not all that Helps offered his readers. The Friends in Council portrayed a very positive vision of private, middle class life. Unlike social critics, such as Ruskin, for whom private life was defined by consumption and the abuse of wealth, for Helps private life was about civic self-awareness, the development of character and the responsible use of the intellect. Helps, then, was well ahead of Matthew Arnold, who famously looked askance at doing what one likes. During a period in which Victoria chose to remain within the walls of Windsor Castle, Balmoral Palace or Osborne House, Helps was busy

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representing private life as something which could be virtuous. In addition, the Helpsian figures debated the issues as Victoria would—away from any type of public, but quite aware of the many ramifications of individual policy decisions. That is, the Friends might remain in the country or travel as a group, but their attention was to wider, public questions. To be sure, Friends in Council was successful long before Helps came to be Clerk of the Privy Council or before Albert’s death in 1861. However, given the proximity of Helps to Victoria, it seems at least plausible that the former could write with the latter’s public and private needs in mind. In addition, surviving evidence indicates that Helps sought to shield the Queen from unwanted public demands. Henry Ponsonby’s memorandum on “Queen Seclusion” reveals that Helps worked to restrict access to Victoria: Helps and I agreed that there did not appear to be any necessity for troubling the Queen now upon what would be expected of her next year, but that in the circumstances it was of great importance she should not go to Balmoral till after the Prorogation … The Queen knowing my opinion did not enter into the matter any further with me, but communicated her views through Helps--a proceeding which some of the Ministers resented as he was an unauthorised channel … Gladstone telegraphed again later but I could only give him the same answer--which I did with regret. All this time the communications from the Queen had been made through Helps to me from Jenner who told me she was without anyone to help her.151

While we do not have Helps’ memos from the 1860s, it seems clear that as late as 1871 he worked to confirm many of Victoria’s impulses towards privacy. The picture that we have, then, is Helps, Victoria’s trusted servant and distinguished advocate for virtues of private life, ascendant during the period of her reign in which she remained largely in seclusion. The point is not that Helps encouraged Victoria to remain in private, but rather to open up the possibility that he did much to vindicate her position. In addition to buttressing the Queen’s position with her public, Helps also played another role—he used his writings to appeal to Victoria, trying to urge her to adopt a more direct public role. In other words, Realmah offered a role model of a grief-stricken ruler who drew upon his bereavement to become even more active in governing a nation. Helps would have probably preferred to see the monarch doing more things in public as her husband had, but knowing the Queen as well as he did meant he understood the advantages in allowing her to remain secluded. Basically, Helps grasped that Leaves was a unique opportunity for the sovereign to communicate with the larger public. Victoria could remain in

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seclusion, publish her journal and probably increase her popularity. Helps almost certainly recognised that Victoria had been relatively popular earlier in her reign. In fact, Victoria had been regarded as a populist because she had refrained from pageantry.152 More importantly, he might have understood that the Queen had long been identified with domestic virtues. Helps, who had argued for “the supreme importance of little things,” seems to have recognised that the way forward for the Queen was to disconnect the monarch from explicit political questions or party loyalties, and instead use the everyday experiences of Victoria (and Albert) as the basis from which the royal family could become popular and therefore implicitly, at least, powerful. He could, after all, tell his readers that the combination of Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort and Leaves would enable a future historian to “fully describe the reign of Victoria, and justly to appreciate the private life of a Sovereign whose public life will enter so largely into the annals of the nineteenth century.”153 To look further forward, Helps recognised that the public, which makes up critical aspects of modern societies—or at least British society—would endorse a leader (in this case a monarch) with whom it could identify. As we have seen, Helps dispensed with the abstract doctrines of political economy in favour of the glories of domestic life. Between 1860–1875, the monarchy tended to avoid constitutional questions and party politics and often direct contact with the British public. Yet, Victoria’s popularity soared in 1876 when Disraeli brought her back as Empress of India. Quite possibly, Helps would have forestalled this development had he been alive, but the more important point, in any event, is that his careful work with the public during the preceding fifteen years had made the probability of success for such a restoration much more likely. In essence, Helps had played a role—possibly the key role—in developing an early cult of personality around Victoria. Britain would be ruled by a distant Queen— above simple politics and legal issues—with whom its subjects could identify and easily venerate. Exploiting privacy (seclusion) with carefully controlled images of domestic life had been the’ bond of union’ Helps had foreseen, and with it one of the most important instruments used by the modern British monarchy had been born.

Notes 1

John DeBruyn, “Sir Arthur Helps and the Royal Connection: 1,” John Rylands University Library. 2 Richard Williams, The Contentious Crown Public Discussion of the British Monarchy in the Reign of Queen Victoria, 27. 3 Ibid., 15-30.

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Ibid., 15. Ibid., 105–106. 6 Ibid., 108. 7 Ibid., 164. 8 Elizabeth Darby and Nicola Smith, The Cult of the Prince Consort, 13–15. 9 RA/VIC/MAIN/QVJ/1862: Jun 24 10 Roger Fulford (ed.), Dearest Mama: Letters between Queen Victoria and the Crown Princess of Prussia 1861–1864 (London, Evans Brothers: 1968), 99–100. 11 Arthur Helps, Friends in Council (London, 1847), reprinted 1888, 79. 12 RA/VICMAIN/QVJ/1862: 31 August. 13 RA/VIC/MAIN/QVJ/1862: 19 December. 14 Arthur Helps (ed.), The Principal Speeches and Addresses of His Royal Highness the Prince Consort (London, 1862). 15 Ibid., 11. 16 Ibid., 14–15. 17 Ibid., 31. 18 Ibid., 51. 19 Ibid., 56. 20 Ibid., 31. 21 Ibid., 31–32. 22 Ibid., 33. 23 Ibid., 34. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid., 16. 26 Ibid., 51. 27 Ibid., 34–35. 28 Ibid., 37. 29 Ibid., 27. 30 Ibid. 31 Ibid., 27–28. 32 It should be pointed out that Greville criticised Albert for a number of military appointments which were made after Wellington’s death. Greville complained that Albert had “made himself the Heir,” which he believed to be “ridiculous as well as odious.” Weintraub notes that Greville had no knowledge of Albert’s refusal to become Commander in Chief of the army. See Weintraub, Uncrowned King The Life of Prince Albert, 272–274. 33 VIC/MAIN/QVJ 1862:9 Nov. 12. 34 Arthur Helps (ed.), The Principal Speeches and Addresses of His Royal Highness the Prince Consort, 65. 35 Ibid., 74. 36 Ibid., 74–75. 37 Ibid., 76. 38 Ibid., 77. 39 (RA/VIC/MAIN/QVJ/1863: 30 January). 40 (RA/VIC/MAIN/QVJ/1864: February 3). 5

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(RA/VIC/MAIN/QVJ/1864: 7 December). (RA/VIC/MAIN/QVJ/1866: 4 January). 43 (RA/VIC/MAIN/C/78/11). 44 (RA/VIC/MAIN/C/78/11). 45 (RA/VIC/MAIN/QVJ/ 1866: 17 August). 46 Duke University, Helps Papers: the letter is dated from 1867. 47 (RA/VIC/MAIN/QVJ/ 1866: 17 August). 48 (RA/VIC/MAIN/QVJ/ 1866: 14 September) . 49 Theodore Martin, Queen Victoria As I Knew Her, p. v. 50 (RA/VIC/MAIN/Z/505/1). 51 (RA/VIC/MAIN/Z/505/1). 52 (RA/VIC/MAIN/Z/505/1). 53 Theodore Martin, Queen Victoria As I Knew Her, 18 and 33–34. 54 John Plunkett, Queen Victoria: First Media Monarch, 13. 55 Ibid., 14. 56 Ibid., 13–17. 57 Ibid., 43–44. 58 Frank Prochaska, Royal Bounty. 59 (RA QM/PRIV/cc56/187-188). 60 (RA QM/PRIV/cc56/188). 61 (RA QM/PRIV/cc56/187). 62 (RA QM/PRIV/cc56/187). 63 (RA QM/PRIV/cc56/187). 64 William M. Kuhn, Henry and Mary Ponsonby, 101. Kuhn cites Henry Ponsonby’s diary. 65 Arthur Helps, Realmah, 235–236. 66 Ibid., 461. 67 Ibid., 461–462. 68 Ibid., 462–463. 69 Ibid., 472. 70 Arthur Helps, Thoughts Upon Government, 174. 71 Ibid. 72 Ibid. 73 Ibid., 175–176. 74 (RA/VIC/MAIN/W/80/9). 75 (RA/VIC/MAIN/Z/449/93). 76 Duke University. Helps Papers: 11 July 1871. 77 Duke University. Helps Papers: 1 October 1874. 78 (RA/VIC/ADDA36/829). 79 (RA/VIC/ADDA36/829). 80 (RA/VIC/ADDA36/829). 81 (RA/VIC/MAIN/Z/451/73). 82 (RA/VIC/MAIN/Z/451/73). 83 (VIC/ADDA36/849). 42

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Helps and Albert had been friends before the former’s appointment to the Privy Council. The friendship involved active patronage on Albert’s part. For example, the Prince Consort had been active at Vernon Hill in what would prove to be Helps’ disastrous attempt at developing a clay factory which would experiment with progressive labour practices. See also: Reginald Pound, Albert, 308. 85 Stanley Weintraub, Victoria, 383. 86 John DeBruyn, “Sir Arthur Helps and the Royal Connection: 1,” 73–74. 87 Ibid., 74. 88 Ibid. 89 Helps is cited in Giles St. Aubyn, Queen Victoria, 350. 90 Leonard Huxley, The House of Smith Elder: Printed for Private Circulation, 148–149. 91 St. Aubyn, 350. It is also worth noting that if the editorial work created a bond between the Queen and the author of Friends in Council, her daughter Victoria drew a different conclusion as she “thought Helps a groveling toady,” 350. 92 Duff, Victoria in the Highlands, 11. 93 Lytton Strachey, Queen Victoria, 316. 94 Arthur Helps (ed.). Leaves from the Journal of the Highlands from 1848–1861, ix. 95 Ibid., ix. 96 Victoria to the Crown Princess of Prussia. The letter is dated January 11, 1868. Cited in Rodger Fulford (ed.), Your Dear Letter: Private Correspondence of Queen Victoria and the German Crown Princess 1865–1871, 169. 97 David Duff, Victoria and the Highlands, 13. 98 Stanley Weintraub, Victoria, 383. 99 John Tosh, Man’s Place: Masculinity and the Middle Class Home in Victorian England, 50. 100 Arthur Helps (ed.). Leaves from the Journal of the Highlands from 1848–1861, xi–xii. 101 Ibid., xii. 102 John Plunkett, Queen Victoria: First Media Monarch, 213. 103 Ibid., 141–142. 104 Ibid., 143. 105 Weintraub, 405–406. 106 Duke University. Helps Papers: January 30, 1872. 107 It is worth noting that Reeve’s clever reply did not please the Queen. Reeve denied that the monarchy was degraded because: “it elevates it, by contrast it offers between the present and the defunct state of affairs” (cited in Weintraub, 411). In addition, Victoria also asked Disraeli to censure the diary as “totally unreliable.” Always tactful, Disraeli admitted that the publication of the Greville Memoirs was not wise (Weintraub, 411). 108 Jenifer Glynn, Prince of Publishers, 181. 109 The episode is cited from Malcolm Elwin, Charles Reade: A Biography (London, 1931), 278. 110 Victoria recorded her meeting with Dickens:

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I saw Mr. Helps (Clerk of the Privy Council) this evening at half past six, who brought and introduced Mr. Dickens, the celebrated author. He is very agreeable, with a pleasant voice and manner. He talked of his latest works, of America, the strangeness of the people there, of the division of classes in England, which he hoped would get better in time. He felt sure that it would come gradually. Cited in Christopher Hibbert(ed.), Queen Victoria in Her Letters and Journals, 218. The brackets are almost certainly Hibbert’s. For a detailed exposition of this encounter see: John R. DeBruyn, “Helps and the Royal Connection,” The Bulletin of The John Rylands University Library 66 (2) (1984): 149–152. 111 John DeBruyn, “Sir Arthur Helps and the Royal Connection II,” Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library 6 (2) (1984): 165. 112 Duke University. Helps Papers: February 11, 1872. 113 DeBruyn, 174. 114 Victoria to Victoria, the Crown Princess of Prussia, November 22, 1868. The letter is cited in Rodger Fulford (ed.), Your Dear Letter: Private Correspondence of Queen Victoria and the Crown Princess of Prussia 1865–1871, 212. 115 John DeBruyn, Sir Arthur Helps and the Royal Connection: 1, 59–60. 116 (RA/VIC/MAIN/C/32/176). 117 The combination of a severe throat inflammation and an underarm abscess led Weintraub to speculate that the Queen suffered from a staphylococcus infection that had spread to the soft tissue behind the throat. He noted further that her doctors did not employ the term “quinsy”—possibly because that would have been a “frightening diagnosis” because it was a term which connoted a medical emergency. In any case, he claimed that “she was toxic” and had a “lifethreatening” illness. For a more complete discussion see: Stanley Weintraub, Victoria, 363–369. 118 Ibid., 364. 119 Richard Williams, The Contentious Crown Public Discussion of the British Monarchy in the Reign of Queen Victoria, 45. 120 See: Stanley Weintraub, Victoria, 360–361. 121 William M. Kuhn, “Ceremony and Politics: The British Monarchy, 1871– 1872,” Journal of British Studies 26 (1987): 144. 122 Ibid., 137–138. 123 Ibid., 149. 124 Ibid. 125 Ibid. 126 Stanley, Weintraub, Victoria, 363. 127 William M. Kuhn, “Ceremony and Politics: The British Monarchy, 1871– 1872,” 149 128 Ibid. 129 Add. 43540 f. 147. 130 Add. 43540 f. 149–151. 131 Ibid. 132 Ibid.

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Ibid. Stanley Weintraub, Victoria, 365–366. 135 Add. 43540 f. 157–158. 136 Stanley Weintraub, Victoria, 364. 137 VIC/MAIN/QVJ/1875: 4–7 March 4. 138 VIC/MAIN/Y/49 . 139 Theodore Martin, Queen Victoria as I Knew Her, 107. It is worth noting that she wrote to Martin directly about the death of Helps: “It is more than a month since the Queen last saw him--& to think she should never see him again!! Victoria to Theodore Martin. The letter is dated March 7, 1875. Cited in DeBruyn, 174. 140 Benjamin Disraeli to Lady Bradford. The letter is dated March 8, 1875. Cited in The Letters of Disraeli to Lady Chesterfield and Lady Bradford (edited by the Marquis of Zetland), vol. 1, 278. 141 VIC/MAIN/B/65/6. 142 Victoria cited in DeBruyn, 174. The actual letter is dated March 7, 1875. 143 Victoria the Alice Helps. The letter is dated May 16, 1875. Cited in DeBruyn, 174. 144 To get some understanding of Victoria’s childhood reading see: Gail Turley Houston, “Reading and Writing Victoria: the Conduct Book and the Legal Constitution of Female Sovereignty,” in Remaking Queen Victoria, 159–181. 145 Margaret Homans, Royal Representations: Queen Victoria and British Culture, 1837–1876 (Chicago and London, 1998); Adrienne Munich, Queen Victoria’s Secrets (New York, 1996) and Dorothy Thompson, Queen Victoria: The Woman, The Monarchy, and The People (New York, 1990). 146 Adrienne Munich, Queen Victoria’s Secrets, 2. 147 For example, in Remaking Queen Victoria, Helps does not merit a single mention. The same can be said for Dorothy Thompson’s Queen Victoria, but her comment about “Fabian and liberal traditions” within the royal household could be construed as a tacit recognition of Helps’ presence. However, Adrienne Munich mentions Helps once in Queen Victoria’s Secrets, but it is Margaret Homans who does discuss the authorship of Leaves in terms of “Victoria and Helps.” See 137– 138 and 148–149. 148 John R. Debruyn, “Sir Arthur Helps and the Royal Connection” in two parts, Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 66 (1) (1983): 54– 87 and 66; (2) (1984): 141–176. 149 Richard Williams, The Contentious Crown Public Discussion of the British Monarchy in the Reign of Queen Victoria, 122. 150 Ibid., 116. 151 Henry Ponsonby’s memo is cited in: Arthur Ponsonby, Henry Ponsonby: Queen Victoria’s Private Secretary, 73–75. 152 Richard Williams, The Contentious Crown Public Discussion of the British Monarchy in the Reign of Queen Victoria, 26. 153 Arthur Helps (ed.). Leaves from the Journal of the Highlands from 1848–1861, xiv. 134

CHAPTER NINE CONCLUSION: A MAN OF TWO LIVES While Sir Arthur Helps’ death came as a surprise to his contemporaries, it may not have been a complete surprise to those who knew him well. Helps’ was overworked, tired, possibly depressed, and probably seemed beyond his best years. The obituary in the Atheneaum noted that Helps had been, “severely tired from time to time by external circumstances,” and hinted that despite the fact that he was an “indefatigable worker,” he did not have the constitution for all of the stresses he faced.1 Nonetheless, the publication’s readers were reminded that Helps had worked as a writer and a civil servant, making him similar to Charles Lamb who had been a “man of two lives.” Furthermore, the obituary writer observed that a “complete catalogue of his writings would prove to be a large one,” and “some of the most interesting—however, in his own estimation, imperfect—of them have fallen altogether out of notice.”2 This undoubtedly included Thoughts on the Cloister and the Crowd, a work which pointed to both aspects of the two lives—one private and moral, and the other public and requiring commitment. Yet, it was precisely in the struggle with these dualities that some of Helps’ most fruitful insights had been developed. As noted earlier, it appears that Helps’ family followed his instructions and destroyed the vast bulk of his private papers and resisted the efforts of those who might write his biography. Although Helps’ passing was duly commemorated, it could hardly be said that this event was understood to be a major loss to either public letters or the governance of the country. Impressive tributes were available, but they did not reflect a commitment to locate Helps as one of the key figures of his generation. Furthermore, while Helps had been widely read, there was an absence of interest in keeping his writings before the public. He had written history, but he was not a creature of the university, and therefore his works on the Americas would not benefit from having either trained a number of scholars to build upon his work or colleagues who would try to ensure that his vision of the past be made more permanent. With respect to his scholarship on the Spanish conquest, Helps had sensed the importance of the event for the

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beginnings of modern racism, but despite the works of David Livingstone (and others) many Britons did not hold slavery to be as significant an issue as they had at mid-century. More broadly, Helps had identified himself with a number of important causes, but precisely because he had attempted to present all or many sides of these policy issues, he left a body of work which hardly appealed to select interests as in any way essential or critical. Finally and not surprisingly, Helps chose not to pen a memoir or autobiography and, as a result, there would be no reason to remember him in relation to some of the bigger events of the middle of the century. Therefore, by the second half of 1875, Helps was well on his way to the oblivion which he had requested. He would still be read in a number of unconnected circumstances, but there would be no real attempt in the nineteenth century to explore his publications or ideas. His writings would appear in different guises for more than two generations, but there would not be any attempt to collect, collate or even gather them as a body of work. This task, which might be more fruitful than expected, continues to await scholars. Assessing Helps, however, requires far more than the recovery and organisation of his writings because it commands that this body of work become contextualised by both the events of his life and also the time in which he lived. This study has sought to offer a beginning to this larger process and it is the position here that the academic exploration of Helps’ writings could well produce new insights not only into his ideas, but also those of Victorian Britain. One of the striking things about Helps is that he was a popular writer in his day, and yet subsequent generations have not found him as appealing. To some extent, this reflects his choice of subject matter and the necessity each age has to produce its own literary figures. Yet, it also means that recovering Helps’ ideas may offer new vistas into the world of the midnineteenth century. Why did the Victorians keep reading Helps? This answer remains to be determined, but read him they did. The writer for the also Athenaeum did not fully understand this: The world is so much accustomed to associate learning with dullness, that many of Sir Arthur Helps’s most loving and constant readers will be much surprised to find the former of these qualities attributed to him as they would the latter.3

In any event, it is clear that many Victorians, especially those in the middle of the nineteenth century, read the Friends in Council as they did Thackeray, Dickens, Carlyle, Ruskin, Charles Kingsley, George Eliot and other authors who remain actively studied generations later.

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The issues which Helps repeatedly addressed, after all, were some of the chief concerns of his day. Both the realities and ideas associated with political economy were of immense significance in the first half of the nineteenth century; the attempt to liberate discourses from the abstract nature of political economy probably remains understudied. Nonetheless, it should be clear that Helps was hardly alone in attempting to translate some of these ideas into a broader public conversation. John Ruskin’s Unto This Last would become an iconic text for those thinkers and activists who sought to evade the complicated discussions which fell under the heading of political economy. Yet, it is quite possible that Ruskin’s text (as well as those of other authors) contained Helpsian inspirations. At the heart of Helps’ ideas was the assumption that knowledge itself was organically linked. He rejected the atomistic individualism not only of economists, but of doctrines and discourses. Politics, economics, history, society, philosophy and science were all interconnected and had to be understood as such. This was hardly a new idea, but Helps connected it to another assumption—namely, that how a person might regard these impersonal discourses actually reflected definitive aspects of their character. The reliance and articulation of ideas reflected character and moral outlook. More importantly, perhaps, a person’s character brought with it a series of moral obligations. That meant that the performance of character took place in multiple and disparate settings. In other words, “little things” were not actually insignificant or trivial because they inevitably reflected much bigger things. To read Helps correctly is to be alert to the fact that daily life—as he explained in print or confided to Norton—carried with it great burdens. Helps did not live to see the rise of continental social theory which raised the spectre of the inherently problematic status of humanity in modern, rational society. Instead, he believed that modern society constituted a great series of challenges to the realisation of human development. Accordingly, the Friends characters demonstrated the connections between a public sphere defined by its political and social issues, behavioural expectations, and private individual lives and outlooks. Helps assumed that public and private were compatible—but not easily so; in fact, to read the Friends between the lines, is to sense a bewildering number and type of moral tensions. Of even greater significance, Helps’ vision of modern persons struggling to balance the obligations of the public sphere with private lives was decisively tendered by his wisdom. The man of two lives did more than work and write—he aimed to harmonise individual private life with public service. Helps’ originality was to do this not by making policy or

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publishing didactic treatises, but by emphasising quiet humanity. That is, Helps emphasised humour, wit, satire and the cultivation of mutual selfunderstanding. Ellesmere, Milverton, Dunsford and others were held up to be seen because so many men and women could probably either identify with them or recognised someone whom they knew. To laugh at these figures was also to laugh with them, and to read their discourses was also to become informed, and to witness their tirades in the drawing rooms was to find resemblances in the mental life of many well-educated Britons. Ultimately, this was a compassionate message because it was based upon satire, wit, humour, pity, but also respect. Because ethical obligations were great, the message which came through so many of the dialogues associated with Friends in Council was that even though Britain’s public questions were of huge importance, the health of its society could best be achieved by the cultivation of a wiser humanity. That is, meeting the challenges of the day would be difficult and we might expect people to not fully understand the world in which they live and act upon. Helps did not preach to his contemporaries, but sought to exhibit a wise approach to public affairs which would be valuable. Therefore, the development of this study has been guided not merely to recover Helps’ position within the Victorian world, but by the idea that his writings may have mattered, or at the very least be a useful collection of sources for those scholars who might wish to investigate mid-century “mentalities.” At the same time, it is clear from the surviving correspondence that Sir Arthur Helps did have a wide grasp of the world in which he lived. When he created dialogues for Milverton, Dunsford and Ellesmere, he was doing so with intimate knowledge of many contemporary issues. It bears repeating that Helps had also played a pivotal role in the making of official policy. He had been active in debates about Chartism, housing, sanitation, making government more responsive, finding solutions to social problems and many other immediate issues. The man of two lives had shaped government administration, but in his published works he also sought to define the ways in which his contemporaries might regard it. What those who wrote the highly favourable obituaries almost certainly did not realise was that Helps had played a key role in the repositioning and reformulation of the modern monarchy. At a critical time after the death of the Prince Consort, it had been Helps who had understood the value of Victoria’s journal, while also supporting her desire for privacy. Helps never tried to create Victorianism, but there was surely a consistency between his advocacy of the monarchy (and its role in British society), and the voices which populated his writings as they celebrated

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the many virtues of domesticity. W. L. Burn, who studied the midVictorian generation of which Helps was a part, recognised that his value stemmed from providing a critical voice which could still offer a “wealth of commonplace advice.”4 Ultimately, it reflected a vision with which subsequent generations might not grasp or just as readily dismiss—a social world which was clearly defined by hierarchy, but tempered by progressive liberalism. Helps may have frustrated the likes of Dicey because he seemed to be interested in trivial and seemingly unimportant things. Yet, what Helps provided to his contemporaries was the possibility that the issues which they faced were manageable and, more importantly, in an age dominated by massive change, he offered reassurance that radical transformations were neither necessary nor desirable. It is probably impossible to determine Helps’ full importance (as it is with most historical figures), but it might be worth recalling that, more than a generation after his death, the revolt against Victorianism was an attempt to question and ultimately replace the conventions of a bygone world. In evaluating Helps, it seems possible that he was one of those critical nineteenth-century figures who by both his work and writings did much to sew things now seen as disparate (and often unrelated or even contradictory) into a meaningful whole; accordingly, exploring his thought might even now make it possible for us to better understand the culture which was later called “Victorian.”

Notes 1

The Athenaeum, March 13, 1872. Ibid. 3 Ibid. 4 W. L. Burn, The Age of Equipoise, 45. 2

BIBLIOGRAPHY The Major Publications of Sir Arthur Helps Primary Sources Helps, Arthur, Brevia (1871) —. Casimir Maremma (1870) —. Catherine Douglas; a Tragedy (1843) —. The Claims of Labour (1845) —. Companions of My Solitude (1851) —. Conquerors of the New World and Their Bondsmen (1848–1852) —. Fruits of Leisure (1852) —. Conversations on War and General Culture (1871) —. Essays Written in the Intervals of Business (1841) —. Friends in Council (1847–1859) —. Ivan de Biron; or, Life at the Russian Court in the Middle of the Last Century (1874) —. Life and Labours of Mr. Thomas Brassey (1872) —. Organization in Daily Life: An Essay (1862) —. Oulita the Serf (1858) —. The Principal Speeches and Addresses of His Royal Highness the Prince Consort (1862) —. Realmah (1868) (Boston, 1869) —. Some Talk about Animals and Their Masters (1873) —. Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd (1835) —. Thoughts upon Government (1872) —. Social Pressure (1875) Helps, E.A., The Correspondence of Sir Arthur Helps, K.C.B., D.C.L. (London, 1917) Queen Victoria, Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands (London, 1868)

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Arthur Helps: Works Cited Arthur Helps. Essays Written in the Intervals of Business. London: W. Pickering, 1841. —. The Claims of Labour. London: William Pickering, 1845. —. The Spanish Conquest in America and its Relation to the History of Slavery and to the Government of Colonies. New York: Harper and Row, 1856–57. —. Realmah. London: R. Clay Sons & Taylor, 1868. —. Companions of My Solitude. London: Smith & Elder, 1869. —. The Life of Pizarro: With Some Account of His Associates in the Conquest of Peru. London: Bell and Daldy, 1869. —. Casimir Maremma. London: Bell and Daldy, 1870. —. Brevia: Short Essays and Aphorisms. London: Bell and Daldy, 1871. —. Friends in Council, 2 vols. New York: Frederick A Stokes+Brother, 1888. —. Some Thoughts Upon Government. London: Bell & Daldy, 1872. —. Some Talk About Animals and Their Masters. London: Strahan & Co., 1873. —. Thoughts on the Cloister and the Crowd. Glasgow: Wilson & McCormick, 1883. —. (ed.). The Principal Speeches and Addresses of His Royal Highness the Prince Consort. London, 1862. Queen Victoria. Leaves From the Journal of Our Life in the Highland. London: Smith Elder, 1868.

Archival Materials Beinecke Library, Yale University British Library Duke University Library. Special Collections, Helps Papers Pierpont Morgan Library Public Record Office (Kew) Royal Archives, Windsor Trinity College, Cambridge University

Newspapers and Periodicals Bently’s Miscellany Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine British Medical Journal Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal

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Edinburgh Review Fraser’s Magazine Macmillan’s Magazine The Athenaeum The Nation The Spectator The Times Saturday Review

Additional Primary Materials Arnold, Matthew. Culture and Anarchy. London, 1869. Burd, Van Akin. The Winnington Letters. Cambridge, Belknap Press, 1969. Cook, E.T. and Alexander Wedderburn (eds). The Works of John Ruskin, 39 vols. London: George Allen, 1903–1912. Fulford, Roger (ed.). Dearest Mama: Letters between Queen Victoria and the Crown Princess of Prussia 1861–1864. London: Evans Brothers, 1968. James, John Angell. The Family Monitor or A Help to Domestic Happiness. Boston, 1830. O’ Grady, Jean and Robson, John M. (eds.). The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, 33 vols. Toronto, 1963–1991. Norton, Charles Eliot. Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, 2 vols.. Boston, 1913.

Secondary Literature Allen, Peter. The Cambridge Apostles: The Early Years. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978. Anonymous, Some Recollections of Jean Ingelow and her Early Friends. London: Wells Gardner, Darton & Co., 1901. Bevington, Merle Mowbray. The Saturday Review 1855–1868. New York: Columbia University Press, 1941 (Reprinted New York: AMS Press, Inc 1966). Briggs, Asa. Victorian People: A Reassessment of Persons and Themes, 1851–1867. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1975. —. Victorian Things. Gloucestershire: Stroud, 2003. Brockington, C. Fraser. Public Health in the Nineteenth Century. Edinburgh and London: E &S Livingstone, 1965.

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Guedalla, Philip. Gladstone and Palmerston. New York and London: Harper and Brothers, 1928. Haight, Gordon. George Eliot: A Biography. New York: Penguin Books, 1968. Hewitt, Martin (ed.). An Age of Equipoise? Reassessing Mid-Victorian Britain. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000. Heyck, T. W. The Transformation of Intellectual Life in Victorian England. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1982. Hilton, Boyd. The Age of Atonement: The Influence of Evangelicalism on Social and Economic Thought 1785–1865. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. Hilton, Tim. John Ruskin: The Early Years 1819–1859. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1985. —. John Ruskin: The Later Years. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000. Homans, Margaret. Royal Representations: Queen Victoria and British Culture 1837–1876. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1998. Hoppen, Theodore K. The Mid-Victorian Generation 1846–1886. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Howell, P. A. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council 1833–1876. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979. Hunt, John Dixon. The Wider Sea: A Life of John Ruskin. London: Vintage, 1982. Hunt, Tristam. Building Jerusalem. London: Phoenix Books, 2004. Hunter, Pamela. Veterinary Medicine: A Guide to Historical Sources. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004. Jones, H. S. Victorian Political Thought. London and Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 2000. Kuhn, William M. “Ceremony and Politics: The British Monarchy, 18711872.” Journal of British Studies 26 (April 1987). Kuhn, William H. Henry & Mary Ponsonby: Life at the Court of Queen Victoria. London: Duckworth, 2003. Lambert, Royston. Sir John Simon 1816–1904 and English Social Administration. London: Macgibbon & Kee 1963. Lambert, Tim. “A Brief History of Bishops Waltham.” http://www. localhistories.org/waltham.html Lubenow, W. C. The Cambridge Apostles, 1820–1914: Liberalism, Imagination, and Friendship in British Intellectual and Professional Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

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Markus, Julia, J. Anthony Froude The Last Undiscovered Great Victorian. New York and London: Scribner, 2005. Martin, Theodore. Queen Victoria as I Knew Her. Edinburgh and London: Blackwood, 1901. Matthew, Colin. The Nineteenth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Maurice, Frederick. The Life of Frederick Dennison Maurice. New York: Charles Scribners and Sons, 1884. Melada, Ivan. Guns for Sale: War and Capitalism in English Literature, 1851–1939. Jefferson, North Carolina and London: McFarland, 1983. Morrow, John. Thomas Carlyle. London and New York: Hambledon Continuum, 2006. Munich, Adrienne. Queen Victoria’s Secrets. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996. Picard, Liza. Victorian London: The Tale of a City 1840–1870. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2005. Ponsonby, Arthur. Henry Ponsonby: Queen Victoria’s Private Secretary. New York: Macmillan, 1943. Plunkett, John. Queen Victoria: First Media Monarch. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Preston-Thomas, Herbert. The Work and Play of A Government Inspector. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1909. Prochaska, Frank. Royal Bounty. New Haven: Yale University Press 1995. Roberts, F. David, The Social Conscience of the Early Victorians. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002. Rothblatt, Sheldon. The Revolution of the Dons: Cambridge and Society in Victorian England. London: Faber and Faber, 1968. Schaffer, Bernard. The Administrative Factor: Papers in Organization, Politics and Development. London: Frank Cass and Company Limited, 1973. Spinage, C.A. Cattle Plague: A History. New York: Kluwer Academic/ Plenum Publishers, 2003. Thompson, Dorothy. Queen Victoria: The Woman, The Monarchy, and The People. New York: Pantheon Books, 1990. Toth, John. A Man’s Place: Masculinity and the Middle Class Home in Victorian England. London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. Weinreb, Ben and Hibbert, Christopher. The London Encyclopedia. London: Macmillan, 1983.

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Williams, Richard. The Contentious Crown: Public Discussion of the British Monarchy in the Reign of Queen Victoria. Aldershot, Ashgate: 1997. Wilson, Ben. The Making of Victorian Values Decency & Dissent in Britain 1789–1837. New York: Penguin Group, 2007. Wohl, Anthony S. Endangered Lives: Public Health in Victorian Britain. London: J. M. Dent and Son, 1983.

INDEX Abibah (city in Realmah), 145, 147 Activism, 68-71, 75, 80-87, 88-89, 89-91 Addison, Joseph 3 Ainah (character in Realmah), 147, 148, 202 Albert, Prince Consort, 8, 14, 89, 95,190-202, 209-211, 213, 218224, 231 Althrop, Lord, 50 American Civil War, 122-123, 163164, 184, 186 Anster (friend of Helps), 50 Archbishop of Canterubry, 168 Arnold, Matthew, 64, 154-156, 220; Culture and Anarchy, 154 Arthur, Prince, 215 Asiatic cholera, 167 Association for Building Houses for the Poor, 85 Atheneaum, 228-229

Blakesly, 29 Blanc, Louis, 82 Blennerhasset, John 30 Blennerhassett, Elizabeth, 30 Board of Health, 85-87, 162 Boyd, A.K.H. B., 129-131 Briggs, Asa, 17 Bright, John, 214 British Medical Journal, 168 Brougham, 160 Brown, John, 210, 217 Buchanan, John Adam, 165 Buckingham Palace, 211-217 Buller, Charles, 29 Burckhardt, Jacob, 122 Burdon-Sanderson, 166 Burn, W.L., 232 Burrow, J.W., 123 Butterfield, Herbert, 123 Burdon-Sanderson, 166 Byron, 14

Bagehot, Walter, 91, 192, 196 Bain, Alexander, 4 Balham Hill, 8 Balmoral, 183, 193, 215-217, 220 Barrington, Lady Caroline, 201 bathing, 58 Bathurst, William, 160 Battersea, 59-60 Belgravia, 59 Bence-Jones, D., 14 Birmingham, 173 Bishops Waltham, 9, 89-90, 200 Bishops Waltham Clay Company, 89, 90 Bismarck, Otto von, 131 Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 24, 132

Calkins, Ernest Elmo, 156 Cambridge, 5, 8, 26, 30, 86, 123 Cardinal Wiseman, 161 Caribbean, 110, 111-117 Carlisle, Lord, 12, 213 Carlyle, Thomas, 1-2, 5, 9, 17, 20, 51-52, 60, 62-63, 70-71, 97, 102, 120-121, 123, 155, 229; Chartism, 51; Past and Present, 51; Cattle Plague Crisis: cattle plague, 14-15, 152-153, 164, 167, 172-173, 183-184; Cattle Diseases Act, 168; Cattle Prevention Act, 170; Constable, H.S., 170-171; Liverpool, 173, 199-200;

Sir Arthur Helps and the Making of Victorianism Metropolitan Cattle Market, 167, 172, Orders in Council 14, 62, 165, 167-168, 171172, 180 Cazenove, John Herschel, 30 Chadwick, Edwin, 50, 52, 55, 59, 75, 87, Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal, 3, 22 Charles V, 100 Charleston, 94-114 Chartism, 20, 51, 75-81, 83, 91 Chester Square, 9 Chili, 117 cholera, 13, 83-87, 91, 167, 174-175 Christian Humanism and Social Ideas, 20, 31, 35, 38, 54, 56, 6064, 71, 81, 83 Cicero, 6, 132 civil service reform, 163, 176 Clark, W.G., 9 clerisy, 69 Clerk of the Council, 159-163, 171, 177, 183-184, 186, 190, 192, 207, 212, 221 Cole, G.D.H., 92 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 55, 69 Collingwood, R.G., 95 ‘condition of England question’, 123 Coniston, 10 Connington, John, 80 Copenhagen, 34 copper poisoning, 166 Corn Laws, 20, 133, 139, 140 Cornhill’s Magazine, 4 Court Circular, 217 Coutts, Baroness Burdett, 152 Crimean War, 192 Crisis of 1871, 214 Cuba, 173 Cubitt, Thomas 59 Dante 5 Darwin, Charles, 98; Darwinian, 153

241

Davey, Thomas, 160 de Leon Pinelo, Antonio, 95 de Pluggenet, Hugo de, 8 DeBruyn, John R., 17, 23, 25, 84, 85, 87, 92, 219, 226 Delane, John Thaddeus, 160, 205, 208 Department of Public Health, 59-60 Derby, 13 Diamond Jubilee, 190 Dicey, A.V., 20, 128-132, 142, 151, 154-162, 232 Dickens, Charles, 54. 57, 85, 86, 141, 213, 225, 229 Disraeli, Benjamin, 1, 13, 17, 161, 170, 186, 217, 222, 225, 227 Divorce and Matrimonial Act, 149 Dominicans, 112 Doyle, Richard and Charles, 9 Dublin Castle, 34 Duke of Wellingon, 17, 86, 196197, 223 Duke University, 17 Dunsford (character in Realmah), 134-135, 137-141, 231 Ebrington, Lord, 85-86 Ecclesiasticus, 4 Edinburgh Quarterly, 14 Edinburgh Review, 52, 76, 160, 212 Eliot, George, 1, 15, 155, 229 Ellesmere (character), 90, 92, 134146, 150-151, 193, 220 Ellesmere, Lady, 146, 154 Ely, Lady, 206 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 2, 9, 12, 22 Epictetus, 4 Essay on the Principle of Population, 53 Essex, 167 Forster, W.E., 2, 14, 185 Franco-Prussian War, 131, 179, 181, 220 Fraser’s Magazine, 4, 12, 94, 132, 211

242 Freeman, E.A., 123 Froude, James Anthony, 1, 17-19, 94, 104, 123, 135, 198 Fuller, Captain Edward, 30 Fuller, Elizabeth, 30 Fuller, Thomas, 30-31 Gamgee, John 170-171 Gaskell, Elizabeth, 4 Gaskell, Marianne, 4 General Board of Health, 162, 166 George I, 161 George II, 161 George IV, 200, 210 Gibbon, 182 Gladstone, 13, 17, 183, 212-216, 221 Godolphin, Sir Arthur, 145 Golden Jubilee, 190 Gomara, 98 Good Words, 4 Granville, Earl, 161, 163 Granville, Lord, 14, 85, 215 Gratian, 4 Great Exhibition of 1851, 20, 192 Greenhow, Edward Headlam, 165 Greenwood, Frederick, 4, 212-213 Greg, Samuel 54 Greg, W.R., 75 Greville, Charles, 160-161, 185, 212, 223 Grey, General Charles, 197, 208 Guy, William August, 80, 165 Halifax, 206 Hampshire, 9, 202 Handloom Weavers Report of 1841 Hard Times, 57 Hare William, 26; Guesses at Truth by Two Brothers, 26 Hare, Julius, 26; Guesses at Truth by Two Brothers, 26 Harness, Rev., 14 Harrison, 183 Harrowby, Lord Health Fund for London, 85-88, 93

Index Health of Towns Commission, 55 Health of Towns Report, 58-60 Hecla, 173 Hegel, 4 Helena, Princess, 201 Helps, Alice, 6, 218 Helps, Arthur: authorial development, 34-47; biographical considerations and information, 6-8, 26-35, 50-52, 75-81, 83-91, 93-96, 123-124, 159-162, 173-175, 176-177, 183-186, 190-192, 200-202, 205-207, 207-212, 212-214, 216, 217-218; biographical sketch, 8-19; 1830s, 31-34; 1840s, 34-36, 50-52, 52-55, 71, 75-80, 8083; 1850s; 10-13, 83-87, 8889, 92-93; 1860s, 13-15, 8991, 144-145, 159-163, 167175; 1870s, 15-16, 128-133, 190; Cambridge, 29-30; Cambridge, Apostles, 1, 8, 10, 16, 19, 24, 29, 54, 86, 134, 151; cattle plague crisis, 167-173; clay business, 14, 89-91; Clerk of the Council, 159-163, 171, 177, 183-184, 186, 190, 192, 207, 212, 221; civil service reform, 176177; commemoration of Albert, 196-202; critics of Helps, 26-28, 122-123, 124, 128-133; Eton, 8, 26-29; death, 6, 16, 123, 217-218, 228; discontentment with the doctrines associated with ‘political economy’, 44, 5051, 53, 64, 76, 79, 152, 178, 183, 203; domesticity as a key concern, 33-34, 39-43, 60-62 (in connection with public housing); 65-68, 128133, 133-142, 144-146, 146-

Sir Arthur Helps and the Making of Victorianism 156; 202-203, 207-212; family matters, 6, 8-9, 14, 28, 30-31, 89-91, 206-207; exhausted from work, 183186; financial hardship, 14, 89-91; friendship with Victoria, 212-222 (crisis of 1871, 215-217); gender questions in his works, 33, 142-144, 146-152; historical outlook and practice, 95100, 121-123, 123-125; ideas about leadership, 33, 44-46, 176-183, 186; ‘little things’, 128-156, 230; on business practices, 44; public relations for the monarchy, 204-207, 207217; quarantine for yellow fever, 173-175; reactions to industrial and urban conditions, 10, 12, 15, 5255, 56-60, 71, 75-80, 83-86, 123, 125; reform of government practice, 177185; reputation in Victorian Britain, 20-22, 94-95, 128133; subsequent reputation, 1-6, 123, 156-157, 228-232; Vernon Hill, 9-10, 15, 51, 89-91, 201; youth and promise, 26-28, 28-34 Arthur Helps’ Writings: Brevia: Short Essays and Aphorisms, 22; Casimir Maremma, 7, 46, 125, 151; Catherine Douglas, 46, 47; Companions of My Solitude, 10, 11, 41, 55, 57, 64, 94; Conquerors of the New World and Their Bondsmen, 7, 10, Essays Written in the Intervals of Business, 26, 34-47, 41, 44, 45; Friends in Council, 2, 4-5, 7, 9-12, 16, 19, 57, 71, 82, 88, 94, 96,

243

125, 128-129, 132-136, 142, 146, 151, 154, 156, 178180, 183, 193, 198, 202, 209, 211-212, 218, 220, 229-231; Henry the Second, 46, 51; Ivan de Biron, 46, 213, 218; Organization in Daily Life ,7, 143; Oulita the Serf, 132; Politics for the People, 80-83, 91; Realmah, 21, 29, 33, 46, 64, 90, 128, 144, 146-148, 150, 151, 154, 202, 204, 221; The Claims of Labour, 2, 9, 34, 11, 50-56, 58, 60-65, 69- 70 , 72,75-76, 79, 81, 83, 8889, 90-91, 94, 129, 133, 144, 193, 198, 200, 204, 211; The Life and Labours of Mr. Thomas Brassey, 7; The Life of Columbus, 124; The Life of Hernando Cortes, 9; Realmah, 21, 29, 33, 46, 64, 90, 128, 144, 146-148, 150, 151, 154, 202, 204, 221; Some Talk About Animals and Their Masters, 7, 39, 152, 153; Social Pressure, 2, 7; ‘Some Thoughts for the Summer’,13, 83, 87; Spanish Conquest in America, 10, 46, 94, 98, 121, 123, 124, 125; Thoughts on the Cloister and the Crowd, 4, 7, 26-27, 31-34, 46, 88, 91, 228; Thoughts Upon Government, 7, 17, 33, 43, 51, 69, 128, 160, 164, 176179, 181, 204 Edited works: Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands, 14, 207, 209, 210-212, 219, 221; The Principal Speeches

244 and Addresses of His Royal Highness the Prince Consort, 194, 197, 200, 207, 219-220 Helps, E.A., 7-9, 14, 16, 23 24-25, 48-49, 89-90 Helps, Thomas Williams, 8, 24, 28, 50, 86 Herbert, George, 5 Herrera, 98 Higman, J.P., 29, 47 Hilton, Boyd, 21 Hilton, Tim, 25 Holland, 173 Holland, Josiah, 132 Homans, Margaret, 219, 227 Home Office, 168-169 Hooker, Sir Joseph, 15 Horace, 141 Howard, Charles, 86, 92 Howell, P.A., 161 Hughendon Manor, 186 Hughes, Thomas, 2, 80 Hullah, John, 5, 80 Hunt, John Dixon, 25 Illustrated London News, 201 individual character and individualism , 31-32, 36-37, 43, 46-47, 54, 63 Ingelow, Jean, 14 International Republican League, 191 Isabella, 97 James, John Angell, 39-41, 43, 47; The Family Monitor or a Help to Domestic Happiness, 37 Jeffery, Francis, 160 Jenner, William, 216 Jones, Richard, 30 Jones, H.S., 50 Jose de Oviedo Y Banos, 95 Kant, Immanuel, 4 Kay-Shuttleworth, James, 177

Index Keate, John, 28 Kew Gardens, 15, 90 Kierkegaard, Soren, 87 Kingsley, Charles, 1, 4, 9, 30, 7980, 86, 211-212, 229 Kuhn, William, 215 La Rochefoucauld, Francois de, 11, 26 Lady Palmerston, 161 Lamb, Charles, 228 Lambert, Royston, 175 Land and Labour League, 191 Laughton, Knox, 160 Laws of Burgos, 112 Leeds Town Hall, 200 Leopold, Prince, 90, 200, 213 Lessons in Life, 132 Lewes, George, 1, 9, 10, 15 Life of the Prince Consort, 198, 209, 222 Lisbon, 101, 110 Livingstone, David, 229 London, 14, 17, 25, 51, 59, 166-167 London and Westminster Review, 26 Longman, Thomas, 160 Longman’s Magazine, 132 Lord John Russell, 13 Louisa, Princess, 201, 214 Lowe, Robert, 163 Ludlow, John, 80-81 Lyon, 51 Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 5, 29, 44, 94, 123, 161 MacLeod, Norman 198 Macmillan’s Magazine, 2, 4, 144 Madrid, 10, 96, 110, 116,124 Malthus, Thomas, 53, 98, 137 Manchester School, 79 Manchester, 200 Marah, 147 Marcus Aurelius, 4 Markus, 18

Sir Arthur Helps and the Making of Victorianism Married Women’s Property Act of 1882, 149 Married Women’s Property Acts of 1870, 49 Martin, Theodore, 9, 198-199, 201, 208-209, 211, 217,222, 227 Martineau, Harriet, 50, 114; Illustrations of Political Economy, 50 Maurice, Frederick Denison, 1, 29, 51, 79-83, 85; The Kingdom of Christ, 51 Maynooth Grant, 88 Melbourne, Lord, 8, 30 mid-Victorian period, 19,20-21, 154, 177, 229 Mill, Harriet Taylor, 149; The Enfranchisement of Women, 149 Mill, John Stuart, 5, 26, 27, 52,-54, 56-57, 64, 69,142, 149, 155; On Liberty, 55, 64, 69, 142; On the Subjection of Women, 149 Mill, John Stuart, 5, 26, 27, 52,-54, 56-57, 64, 69,142, 149, 155 Millman, Henry Hart, 177-118 Milnes, Richard Monckton, 2, 29 Milverton (character in Realmah) 90, 134-142, 146-147, 149, 151152, 154, 193-194, 203, 220 , 231 Ministry of Agriculture, 168 Miss Milverton, 146 Molesworth, Sir William, 87 Monteagle Lord , 8, 13, 30, 85 Morpeth, Lord, 8, 85 Morris, William, 60, 62 Mrs Millais (Effie Gray), 205-206 Munich, Adrienne, 219, 227 Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 5, 29, 44, 94, 123, 161 Napier, Macvey, 52 Napoleon III, 213-214 Nation, 128 National Republican League, 191 Nightingale, Florence, 165

245

Norfolk, 167 Northbrook. Lord, 6 Norton, Charles Eliot, 12, 185, 230 Nuisance Authority, 167 Nuisances Removal Act, 87 Officers of the Customs, 174 Ord, William Miller, 165-166 Osborne House, 216, 220 Oswald Spengler, 7 Owen, Robert, 60, 95 Oxford, 7, 159, 162 Pall Mall Gazette, 4 Palmerston, 1, 5, 87, 93, 161, 163, 168-169 Paris Commune, 179, 182-183 Parliament, 59-60 Pascal, 26 Paton, Noel, 193 Peel, Charles, 161 Perkins, Sir Frederick, 90 Phelps, Robert, 9, 30, 88 Philip van Artevelde, 51 Phipps, Sir Charles, 198 picturesque, 114 Pimlico, 59 Plato, 6 Plucknett, Ann Frisquett Plunkett, John, 199 Ponsonby, Henry, 201-202, 205, 215, 216, 221 Prescott, William H., 96, 122 Preston-Thomas, Herbert, 161, 163, 173, 184; The Work and Play of a Government Inspector, 161, 173 Prince Albert: Why is he unpopular?, 192 Prince of Wales, Albert Edward (later Edward VII), 16, 191, 205-206, 210, 215 Princess of Wales, Alexandra 206 Privy Council (office), 160, 183, 209, 214-215

246 Privy Council, 1,5, 8, 13-15, 17, 91, 155, 159, 161-163, 169, 175, 180, 198, 212-213, 215 Prochaska, Frank, 200 Proverbs, 4 Pryme, George 30 Public crusade 68 Public duty 67-68 Public Health Act of 1848, 162 Public Health Act of 1858, 162 Public Health Act of 1859, 165 Public Health Act of 1867, 174 Punch, 85 quarantine, 173-174 Quarterly Review, 4, 76 Queen Victorianism, 192, 218 Radcliffe, John Netten, 165 Ranke, 118 Reade, Charles, 212-213 Realmah (character in Realmah), 144-150, 202-204 Reeve, Henry, 14, 160, 212, 225 Reform Bill of 1867, 220 Regius Professorship of History, 5, 30, 123 Remesal, 98 Report of the Health of Towns Commission, 71 Report on Bethnal Green and Whitechapel, 52 Republicanism, 219 Riccardo, David 79 Rinderpest (see cattle plague), 167, 173 Rintoul Robert Stephen, 86 Ripon, Lord (George Frederick Samuel Robinson), 1, 14, 17, 184, 186, 214-215, 217 Roberts, F. David, 17 Robertson, William, 96, 122 Rouen, 51 Royal Agricultural Society of England, 169 Royal Albert Infirmary, 201

Index Royal Bounty, 200 Royal Family, 207 Rusk, Ralph L., 22 Ruskin, John James, 23 Ruskin, John, 1, 17, 20, 23, 25, 5557, 60, 62, 65, 69-70, 80, 85, 90, 95, 97, 99, 120-122, 134, 142, 145-146, 149-150, 152, 155156, 182, 220, 229-230; Fors Clavigera, 71; “Queen of the Air”, 149; Sesame and Lilies, 146, 152; The Crown of Wild Olive, 71; The Political Economy of Art, 71; The Seven Lamps of Architecture, 56, 62, 71; The Stones of Venice, 65, 97, 116; The Two Paths, 150; Unto This Last, 70-71, 230 Russell, Odo, 212 Sadler, Sir Michael, 177 Salisbury, Lord, 14, 163, 176 Sanderson, John Scott Burdon, 165166 Sanitary Act, 1866, 167 Sanitary Reform, 80 Sanitation Act of 1866 Saturday Review (The), 3, 5, 6, 123, 124, 129, 132, 155, 156, 170, 215 Schaffer, Bernard, 17, 25, 136, 177178, 183 Scott, Sir Walter, 63, 70 Scribner’s Magazine, 132 Seaton, Edward Cator, 165, 175 Sedgwick, Adam, 30 Select Committee in 1841 on Building Regulations, 52 Seymour, Major-General, 201 Shakespeare, 201, 214 Sheviri (tribe in Realmah), 145-147 Simon, Sir John, 17, 75, 84, 87, 162-167, 169, 173, 175 Simond, James 169-170

Sir Arthur Helps and the Making of Victorianism slavery, 10, 12, 96- 98, 100, 105, 106, 108, 110-117, 121-122, 124-125, 136, 140, 142 Smiles, Samuel, 17, 156 Smith & Elder, 208, 210, 212 Smith Southwood, 56, 86 Smith, Edward, 165-166 Smith, George, 212 Smith, Sydney, 160 Smoke Prohibition, 59 Smyth, William, 30 Soulsby, Lucy 4 Southampton, 173, 183, 201 Spanish Conquest of the New World: Albuquerque, 109; Aztecs, 117119, 121, 145; Azurara, 97; Bobadilla, 111 Benzoni, Jerome 114-115; Columbus, Christopher, 97, 100, 102, 105-106; Cortes, Hernando, 97, 114, 120, 122; Diaz del Castillo, Bernal, 95; encomiendas, 98, 100, 107, 111-112, 115; Guatemalans, 117 Hispaniola, 107-108, 111-113; human sacrifice, 119, 121; indigenous populations and depopulation, 104- 105, 108-110, 113, 117, 125; imperialism and conquest (discussed directly), 46, 94, 100, 121, 123, 124 Incas, 102; Las Casas, 95, 9798, 100, 102-103, 109, 112; Mexico, 110, 117-119; New Spain (Spanish empire), 100, 115, 116; New World, 94, 97-98, 100, 102, 104105, 107, 117, 121-122; Nicuesa, 102, 104; Ojeda, 102, 104; Ovando, Nicolas, 102, 107, 111; Peru, 110, Peter Martyr d’ Anghiera; 95, Peter Martyr, 108;

247

Portuguese motivations for expansion, 101-102, 110, 117; Pizarro, 122; repartimiento, 107, 109 111; slavery 96-98, 100, 101, 105-108, 110-117, 122-125, 136, 140; Spanish atrocities, 103, 104, 106, 116; Vasco Nunez, 102, 104; Vieyra, 100, 98; Ximenes, 100 Spring-Rice, Stephen, 29-30, 85, 92 St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, 8 Staffordshire, 15 Stanley, 15th Early of Derby, 85-88, 92 Stanley, Dean, 206 Stanley, Lady August,201 Stephen, Fitzjames, 3, 4, 177 Stockmar, Baron (Christian Friedrich) 199 Stone, Catherine, 206 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 13; Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 12, 94 Strachey, Edward, 80 Stubbs, William, 123 Sutherland, Duchess, 206 Swansea, 173 Sydney Sussex College, Cambridge, 30, 88 Talora (character in Realmah), 149 Tavistock Square, 59 Taylor, Henry, 4, 26, 51, 178 Taylor, Tom, 85 Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, 29 Thackeray, William Makepeace, 229 The Times, 2, 150, 160-161, 171, 205, 209 The Correspondence of Sir Arthur Helps, K.C.B., D.C.L., 7 The Daily Telegraph, 205, 209 The Family Monitor or a Help to Domestic Happiness, 37 The London Illustrated News, 200 The Royal Albert Infirmary, 200

248 The Spectator, 4, 7, 80, 86, 94, 122, 131 The Statesmen, 51, 178 The Early Years of the Prince Consort, 211 Theed, William, 193 Thompson, Dorothy, 219, 227 Thompson, William Hepworth, 29 Thorne, Richard Thorne, 165 Thudicum, Johan Ludwig Wilhelm, 165 Timothy Titcomb’, 129 132 Toynbee, Joseph, 85 Trench, Richard Chenevix, 4, 29, 80 Trent Affair, 164 Trinity College, Cambridge, 8, 29, 48, 86 vaccination, 162, 169 Varnah (character in Realmah), 147149 Victoria, Crown Princess of Prussia, 193, 213 Victoria, Queen, 1, 5-6, 8,14-17, 60, 90, 144, 170, 186, 190-191, 193-195, 197-199, 202-203,

Index 205, 207-219, 221-222, 225226, 231 Victorianism, 19, 21-22, 154-156, 191-192, 218-222, 231-232 W.L. Bathurst, 13 Wagstaffe William Warwick, 165 Washington, George, 196 Weintraub, Stanley, 212, 214, 223, 226 Whatley, Rev. Richard, 80 Whewell, William, 3, 30 Whitley, George, 165-166 Wick, 173-174 William IV, 210 Wilson, Ben 50 Windsor Archive, 17 Windsor Castle, 205-207, 211, 214215, 220 wisdom, 35, 38 Wohl, Anthony, 163, 175 Woolner, Thomas, 9 Wordsworth, William, 5 Working Men’s College, 75 Yellow Fever, 164, 173-174