. - Pioneer of Tow--Planning-
James Silk Buckingham, 1786-1855: a Social Biography.
By Ralph E. Turner. (Williams and Norgate. 21s.)
As we look back today over the history of the nineteenth 1 century nothing astonishes us more than the indifference with' which an age of reform watched the growth of ugly, dirty and '-disordered towns. The state of Manchester and Leeds in
• 1840 would have given the impression of a stagnant or desponding society. Yet the age was an age of confidence, ' vigour and ambition. Unhappily all its reforming spirit went into other things, and each set of reformers believed ; that his own special reform, the extension of the franchise or the repeal of the Corn Laws or whatever it Might be, would .; bring the millennium. So a brisk and energetic people tolerated conditions in their cities and their city life which would have outraged the dignity of any self-respecting citizen of the Roman Empire.
There were, of course, a few critics of this complacency, and .'one of them was in the House of Commons. This was James Silk Buckingham, M.P. for Sheffield from 1832 for five years. Buckingham has had to wait a long time for a biography, but Professor Turner's careful and intimate study comes at a time when his special cause seems much more important than it . j seemed, either in his own day or for a long time after his death. This book is the first biography of a man remarkably ! interesting, both for his ideas and his adventures. It is of great value for the understanding of certain phases, both • t of the history of our domestic reform movement and for that t of an exciting chapter in the development of the government of India.
If Buckingham had had no political ideas of his own, his t life of itself would have been interesting enough. The son of a farmer in Cornwall who had retired from the merchant ; service, he went to sea at 10, spent some months at that age
; in a Spanish prison, and for the next twenty years travelled t all about the world, having a stern fight with a pirate when in command of a ship and finally leaving the sea when ordered to take up slaves at .Zanzibar. He put before the great Mehemet Ali a scheme for encouraging trade between India and Egypt by organizing a regular service between Bombay and Suez with connexions with Alexandria by caravan. He had two most interesting conversations with him, and Mehemet jAli's objections to the plan of a Suez canal, one of many topics ! they discussed, were pertinent and piquant.
t• Should I not be sharpening the knife by which my own throat
: was to be cut ? No, I rp will never be guilty of this folly at least, dant wait until I hear that your countrymen have been cured of i this propensity of taking what does not belong to them, and justifying the theft by alleging that the plundered parties are the happier for their change of masters, before I give my 7sanction to any canal between the two seas."
After this life of travel, in which he used his eyes and mind ; to good purpose, Buckingham settled for some years in India, 'where he founded and conducted a successful paper. As a keen reformer-he was soon in. conflict with authority; but the
wGovernor-General, Lord Hastings, was a man of liberal mind, ith strong views about the freedom of the Press, and so long as he was in ollice Buckingham escaped. • On his retirement 'Buckingham was expelled by the. Acting Governor-General, and his paper suppressed. For a good part of his life Buckingham was engaged in an effort to obtain compensa. - tion for this treatment. He had support, first from a (powerful House of ComMons Committee, which unanimously k recommended his claim, and then, when the company refused to listen, from private persons of influence, who raised a large !subscription for him. At the head of the Committee was the great reforming Governor-General, Lord William Bentinck, who had abolished suttee and carried other reforms, which
!Buckingham had recommended in his paper. - , • ). Fortunately Buckingham was a man of immense energy, and
.1tthe struggle for his rights, which would have absorbed most men, left him with ample vitality for public causes. He threw !himself into politics in the widest sense and rivalled Cobbett and Owen, with each of whom he had certain affinities, as a :writer and a lecturer. He founded in successionIthe-Oriental I.Herald, the Sphynx, and the Athenaeum. He lectured all over
the country and in the United States. His success as a
lectirrer, preaching advanced ideas-on India, the-Colonies and7f atatistieal : averages ? It does not seem possible to accept education, prompted the Manchester Guardian to suggest that - Grant's- distinction and it is cardinal to his argument. ii Seat be found for him, and he was elected for Sheffield to the Reforinallouse of Commons. His career was cut short by the failure of his claims for compensation, but he used his five years there-to press almost single-handed for the planning of towns and town life. This Was not - only -m eresii, for - he was an active and far-sighted advbeate of a-- conatilietive peace policy, and be took up temperance with great""Vigour. But his special and original contribution consisted in hiS plea for attacking the squalor and the bleak life of the indUStrial towns. Country was changing into town at a rapid rate ; there was no Public Health Act on the statute book ; a town had no power to provide itself with parks, playgrounds, libraries or any amenities except by obtaining a special Act of Parliament. It has often been remarked of this age that it had a great deal of romantic ardour, expressed in its literature and its spirit of adventure, but that noneof this ardour went into its social life. The age read Walter Scott and let Manchester and Leeds become what they became. The special interest of Buckingham is that he was a romantic who let his romanticpaind play on these problems. As a boy he wrote a play about an Asiatic tragedy ; his romantic temperament took him to the sea and made him a great traveller. Wherever he was, in Egypt, India, Palestine, Persia, he saw before him much more than the immediate scene ; he looked back into history and studied custom, religion, manners and Method of life and government. So educated and so inspired, he pictured what English towns might be if a little imagination were used in providing them with the kind of life that in other days had been supposed to distinguish the civilized from the uncivilized. He deserves the gratitude of a nation which has suffered fatally from the neglect
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