Alphaspaghettical Guide to the West Midlands by Pete Millington. Reproduced with permission

Have you ever wondered who that fine old gent is, reclining with his papers on the steps of Chamberlain Square by the Central Library? Well, his name was Thomas Attwood and he lived in Birmingham over two hundred years ago.

Still none the wiser? Well read on…

Thomas Attwood was born in Halesowen on 6th October 1783. His father Matthias was a successful business man who owned coal and iron works in Halesowen and a banking firm in Birmingham. As a boy Thomas was educated at Wolverhampton Grammar School and in 1800 he went to work for his father’s bank. As a young banker Attwood was already developing an interest in politics and in 1811 he was elected high bailiff of Birmingham.

In common with many of his contemporaries in Birmingham during this era, Thomas Attwood was a man with a strong moral conscience and a commitment to equality and justice. Attwood became an active campaigner against the East India Company whose business activities in India, Attwood believed, were impacting on export trade for local business and leading to unemployment in Birmingham. It was partly Attwood’s very convincing arguments put forward to a House of Commons select committee in 1812 which convinced the government to place restrictions on the monopoly of the East India Company.

Thomas Attwood was a radical thinker who argued that Britain should have a paper currency not linked to gold stocks. His economic theories were popular in liberal thinking Birmingham where 40,000 people signed his petition to bring in currency reform. But Attwood’s theories were not so popular in London and it was this negative response from the Duke of Wellington’s government which persuaded Attwood and his allies that the House of Commons needed to become more democratic and have a wider cross-section of elected MPs. In Attwood’s day, a number of large manufacturing towns like Birmingham did not even have representation in Parliament whilst many rural areas with low populations were greatly over-represented in comparison.

Attwood decided to start a local campaign to gain fairer representation in the House of Commons. He joined with 15 similar minded men to form the Birmingham Political Union (BPU) for the Protection of Public Rights on 14th December 1829. On 25th January 1830, about 10,000 people attended the first meeting of the BPU. The crowd listened for six hours to speeches made by Attwood and other leaders of the organisation. Another meeting in May at the Beardsworth Repository in Birmingham was attended by over 80,000 people.

As the BPU started to take off, other towns around Britain began to form similar unions and for two years Attwood became one of the main leaders in the campaign for parliamentary reform. On May 7th 1832, a Great Rally was organised at Newhall Hill which attracted a crowd estimated to have been in the region of 200,000 – possibly the greatest gathering in the history of England. People marched in long columns from all over the West Midlands to hear Attwood calling for reform. When the campaign eventually proved successful, with the Reform Act of 1832, Attwood was elected with Joshua Scolefield as Birmingham’s first ever MPs.

Not satisfied with the new rights within the Reform Act, Thomas Attwood continued to campaign for further reform of Parliament and new demands were drawn up, including currency reform, household suffrage, triennial parliaments, payment of MPs, and the abolition of the property qualification. The reinvigorated BPU formed a close bond with the London Working Men’s Association in a campaign to widen the vote.

Attwood was a very important and influential man in the campaign which eventually led to the vote for all working class men. He was inspired by the Irish Catholic rights leader Daniel O’Connell and his monster rallies in Birmingham reflected those of O’Connell in Ireland. At a later stage, Attwood and O’Connell would inspire the suffragettes of Edwardian England who staged a similar campaign to obtain the vote for women. Attwood represented Birmingham in the House of Commons until 1839. He died on 6th March 1856 at Great Malvern.

So next time you are in Chamberlain Square, spare a moment to visit the reclining bronze statue designed by Sioban Coppinger and Fiona Peever in 1993 and in doing so, remember a fellow Brummie who did such great things for freedom and democracy.

Sharing Attwood’s concern about poverty and the economy, he opens:

“Spiralling inequality, chaos in the financial world and the Occupy protests force us to engage with economics. A Guide to the UK Monetary and Banking System is about money itself, a subject that has, surprisingly, received little attention and about which there is widespread misunderstanding.”

Selected extracts:

Tony Greenham, Professor Richard Werner and Andrew Jackson studied the implications of bank-created money through talking to key people in the City, including members of the Independent Commission on Banking, and referring to 500 documents from central banks and regulators.

On receiving a copy of the completed book, David Miles of the Monetary Policy Committee, Bank of England, said, ‘the way monetary economics and banking is taught in many – maybe most – universities is very misleading and what your book does is help people explain how the mechanics of the system work.’

Banks charge interest on loans, necessitating the amount of money in circulation to increase each year in order to cover this interest. The choice is either growth or recession. It was a Quaker philosopher, Kenneth Boulding, who quipped, ‘Anyone who believes in indefinite growth in anything physical, on a physically finite planet, is either mad or an economist.’

The government wants banks to finance the productive sector but ‘the government has in practice no involvement in the money creation and allocation process’. It is not surprising that little of the vast sums given to banks have been loaned to small businesses, which they regard as risky. The banks have invested most of their windfall in assets such as prime property, the value of which is enhanced by Russian oligarchs.

The book discusses financial instruments that ‘are increasingly traded in a money-like fashion, moving around the world at great speed and frequency by investment banks and hedge funds’. The financial elite, joined by African dictators and corporations, have salted away £3 trillion tax-free in secret locations, many – perhaps most – of which are UK protectorates or ‘British Overseas territories’, the City of London itself being one of them. The UK loses £70 billion in tax annually. The value of trade in financial derivatives is ten times the value of all goods and services in the world. No one knows what’s going on but these activities are the cause of global instability and deprive governments of funds to help those in need.

James concluded that the present monetary and banking system is at odds with Quaker testimonies to integrity, justice, equality, community and the environment and called on Quakers to help to develop an alternative to laissez-faire capitalism that relates to real life in all its local variety, provides social welfare, and encourages cooperation, creativity, relationship and play.

A Guide to the UK Monetary and Banking System, by Josh Ryan-Collins, Tony Greenham, Richard Werner and Andrew Jackson is published by nef publications for £14.99.

The whole article, first published in The Friend, 9th December 2011, may be read here. 

Mr Bazlinton notes that the hope that the cash received would somehow translate into new bank lending has not been fulfilled, and quotes Martin Wolf: “The essence of the contemporary monetary system is creation of money, out of nothing, by private banks’ often foolish lending.” He asks:

“When is the penny going to drop with the coalition government so that a public agency is set up to direct newly-created money to productive, non-inflationary purposes? The creation of such money used for new infrastructure in particular could be issued debt-free and interest-free.

“Why on the one hand do we ask private banks to provide loan funds, at interest, for public investment, but we do not ask the government to direct some of the Bank of England’s new money, debt-free, directly into such investment?

“Our current system benefits private banks, but burdens us with taxes. Surely we are missing two great opportunities: to make money creation democratically accountable and, when used for public investment, debt-free?”

People who did not know Clive and his wife, Maggie, may learn more about their peace campaigning and life together here.  

Many readers will have met him at the annual meetings of the Bromsgrove Group, held at Barnes Close (below).

In this group photograph, Clive and his wife Maggie are 3^rd and 4^th from the left on the second row. 

Clive made great efforts to spread the monetary reform message in his own area and at meetings further afield, designing leaflets and a number of lapel badges to this end. 

In 2009 he received the first annual James Gibb Stuart Award for Services to Monetary Education “in recognition of his ceaseless activism over the past 10 years in many mediums, but especially in educating his local civic leaders and getting into the letters pages of a wide variety of newspapers and magazines”. Clive spoke briefly about the importance of educating the Trade Union movement. He expressed amazement that the Trade Unions campaign against “privatisation”, but ”they ignore the privatisation of the money supply – the biggest privatisation of them all!” 

Looking through his meticulously written letters I note one which was written after his first attendance at the Barnes Close gathering expressing appreciation of the proceedings – and the food.  Another enclosed a photocopy of a paper: Say it with Badges’, showing pictures of the eight badges he had designed and a commentary accompanying each one ending with an appeal to end the disastrous debt-based money system. 

A third letter expressed appreciation of an invitation to the 2008 Attwood Award, presented to MP Austin Mitchell at Westminster, an event which he felt ‘went well’ though he wrote: ‘my hearing impairment meant that I missed a certain amount of what was said’.  

His last missive included photocopied information about Thomas Attwood, following his visit to the award.  

As a family member, Coventry’s Colin Walker, wrote in Clive’s obituary:

Clive and Maggie served their city, their country and this world well.

Thomas Attwood’s second wife, Elizabeth http://thomasattwood.wordpress.com/2011/02/23/thomas-attwood%e2%80%99s-second-wife-elizabeth/

Thomas Attwood averts the financial crisis of 1825: http://thomasattwood.wordpress.com/thomas-attwood-a-brief-account/thomas-attwood-averts-the-financial-crisis-of-1825/

Address by James Robertson 2002: http://thomasattwood.wordpress.com/the-attwood-events-awards-2002-%e2%80%93-2009/6-james-robertson-2002/

2011 Attwood Awards to James Gibb Stuart and James Robertson: http://thomasattwood.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/2011-attwood-awards/

‘One Thousand Years of Brum’,1999

Thomas Attwood

From all over the West Midlands they’d come for this gathering of the unions on 7 May 1832. In long columns they marched to Brum, with banners aloft and bands playing them on their way.

From the looms of Coventry there traipsed ribbon weavers, from the fields of Warwickshire and Worcestershire there trudged farm labourers, and from the mines of Droitwich there tramped diggers of salt. They were joined by tens of thousands of chaps and wenches who’d strode in from the Black Country.

There were manufacturers of tubes from Wednesbury, lock makers from Willenhall and saddlers from Walsall. There were hardware workers from West Bromwich, nailers from Dudley and fashioners of metal from Smethwick. And there were puddlers from Bilston, chain makers from Cradley Heath and colliers from Cannock.

As these determined folk poured into Birmingham they were met by a tide of Brummies sweeping out from each street and yard. It seemed that every trade in the town was represented, from button makers and pin workers to smiths and jewellers, and from engineers and minters to gun makers and brass workers.

It was the greatest gathering in Brum’s history. No. It was more than that. It was the greatest gathering in the history of England. There they were all assembled, over 200,000 men, women and children packed into that natural bowl flanked by Summer Hill, Newhall Hill and Easy Hill. Many were ragged and barefoot, others were well-clothed and shod but the differences between them mattered not. For the bond that joined them overrode all distinctions of status. The poor and the well off, the able-bodied and the halt, the young and the old had all come together with one intent: to press for reform.

United they cried out for all men to have the vote. United they shouted out for each industrial town to be given its own Member of Parliament. United they called out for the ending of rule by a few and for the coming of democracy.

Think of it. Birmingham had a population of 150,000. It was one of the biggest and most important towns in the kingdom. Its wares were renowned throughout the world. Its workers were famed for their craft and prowess. And its industrial pioneers had been crucial in thrusting Britain into international pre-eminence. Yet Brum did not have its own MP. It had no-one elected specifically to represent the town’s interest. More than that, the great majority of Brummies did not have the vote, with the franchise restricted as it was to a wealthy elite.

This democratic host was determined to change things. The air was rent by clamours for liberty and then it began to quieten as everyone’s eyes were drawn to a carriage which pushed its way down from Great Charles Street. When the vehicle reached the spot where The Parade now joins Camden Street and George Street a trumpet sounded and a hush fell upon the huge crowd. A man stood up on the cart and was greeted with thunderous applause. It was Thomas Attwood, the Halesowen-born banker who headed the Birmingham Political Union and who was the acknowledged leader of the reform movement in Britain. He raised his hands and began to speak. Each person fell silent and strained forward to hear him, and as if they were precious gifts those in the front ranks passed his words to their fellows further back.

Attwood called out to them, ‘Would you be the slaves of borough mongers or would you rather not die!’ With one voice the people cleft the skies, roaring out ‘All! All!’ They clasped on to each and every word of the speech which followed and acclaimed Attwood when he urged them to struggle for their aims through, ‘Peace, Law and Order’. When he was ended, he and all the reformers uncovered their heads and with their faces turned upwards towards God they pledged collectively that, ‘In unbroken faith, through every trial and privation, we devote ourselves and our children to our country’s cause’.

Unable to withstand the pressure for reform that was now boiling up nationally, within weeks a Parliament dominated by landowners passed the Great Reform Act. At last Birmingham and other manufacturing towns like Manchester gained two MPs – but the hopes of the democratic movement were not fully realised for only middle-class men were given the vote. It would not be until 1918 that all adult working-class men would be enfranchised and it would not be until 1929 that all adult women would have the same right. Still, a partial victory had been gained in 1832 and through their own efforts the people had pushed open if only a little the door towards liberty.

Unsurprisingly, in the first election which followed the Great Reform Act the electors of Birmingham sent Thomas Attwood to Parliament. He held the post until forced to resign through ill health in 1839. His last prominent action in the House of Commons was to present a petition which had been collected by the Chartists, campaigners fighting for the vote to be given to working men. Bolstered by support from the newly-enfranchised middle class, a parliament still controlled by the aristocracy and the gentry rejected the petition.

Attwood himself retired into private life and died aged 73 on 6 March 1856. Three years later a statue of him was unveiled in Birmingham. Originally placed at the top end of Stephenson Street facing up to what would become Corporation Street, it stands now in a park off the Highgate Road in Sparkbrook. This site is close to Attwood’s home at The Larches, now recalled in Larches Street – although he also had a house in Harborne. Today there is another statue of him in Chamberlain Square, behind the Town Hall. Sculpted by Siobhan Coppinger and unveiled in January 1993, it has Attwood reclining and surrounded by tablets which record his desire for peaceful reform.

Before he died he had expressed a wish to be buried on Newhall Hill so as to be close to the Brummies who had supported him so loyally. The new statue at least makes sure that he is remembered in the heart of the city for which he strove so hard. It is all the more appropriate given that there is no street called after him. For a short time in the 1830s, Wellington Street was named Attwood Street – a wise choice given that the Duke of Wellington was a vehement opponent of reform. But soon after, that route became Pershore Street. This shift was encouraged by the fact that the street ran into the Pershore Road, which had been a footpath until it was turnpiked in 1825 Perhaps it is meet that Thomas Attwood’s fight for democratic rights should be recognised once again in a street recalling him.#

Those interested in the history of Birmingham may go to Carl’s website:
http://carlchinnsbrum.com

Notes from the report follow. To read it in full click here. 

GLASGOW

Half of the people who came along to the second Glasgow MeetUp were new faces who had not been to the first event back in July..

Ben Dyson spoke for around an hour, talking about the group’s latest activities and taking questions. He read out a response from the Treasury related to our reform. The response suggested that such a reform would “reduce the amount of credit available”. It was noted that this is an interesting response because a few years ago the response from the Treasury, regarding this same reform was that it would “create runaway inflation” (the exact opposite!).

He pointed out that the new book, “Where Does Money Come From?”- several copies of which were sold at the MeetUp – was the first book which educated everybody about how exactly money was created in the UK and has already been adopted as a course text at a London University, and that he would like to see a module in a finance course, based around the content of the book. Positive Money would also like to create a “Teachers Pack” based around the material.

EDINBURGH

Ben spoke at an “Ethical Finance Round Table Discussion” which had been organised jointly by the Islamic Finance Council and one of Edinburgh’s top banking and finance legal firms. This lasted for 2 hours, and the essence of the Positive Money proposals was described.

During the discussion it was pointed out that Positive Money reform could lead, in time, to a positive cultural change. We would move from our present “borrow and spend” culture, to a “save and spend” culture. This would lead to more economic stability in the long term.

After the Round Table, Ben was taken to the MeetUp venue, at the Royal Scots Club, where a 2 hour interview had been arranged with one of Scotland’s top financial journalists

Ben emphasised that our solution is not for the “government” to create money. Rather it is for an independent and transparent public institution, which is democratically accountable to Parliament (not to the government) to create money. 

Notes in the Bank of England (Creation of Currency) Bill, say, “Losing their present privilege of creating money will bring the commercial banks into line with ordinary private-sector businesses that are not given their raw materials as a free gift.” By closing down the source of this easy money, we ensure that the economy will become more stable. There will be less liability placed on the head of the taxpayer. Speculation on unproductive activity will decrease because the money will not be available for such speculation, and mega-incomes will decrease in line with this restriction.

The James Gibb Stuart Trust, which facilitated Ben’s Scottish visit, is a registered charity working to “Reduce Debt by Educating about Banking”. It aims to provide expertise and assistance to those individuals, groups and activities which, in the opinion of the Directors, are helping to promote its charitable Objects.

As she writes, the Money Reform Party, founded in 2005, is far from being a household name, and it is expected that, as soon as the issue of money reform becomes widely known and understood by the general public, its policy will be appropriated by one or more of the major parties. Then the purpose of the MRP will have been fulfilled.

Canterbury and Whitstable have been the location of much of Anne’s money-related activities even before the MRP was founded. In 1994, she co-founded the Canterbury LETSystem, a community currency scheme, which ran for several years, and she is currently a director and volunteer with the District of Canterbury Credit Union Ltd.

In the MRP website she asks:

If you have ever wondered why the world is in the state it is in; why the environment is being destroyed, why the first world has so much and yet is in debt, the third world has so little and is also in debt. Then this site is for you.

How many times have we been told that this school, or that hospital can’t be built unless we raise taxes? Or you perhaps you can’t afford to take a cut in wage, to take the job you really want, because you have a mortgage and rising debts that you took out, to get money in order to support yourself and your family. Isn’t it odd that we buy products that during their manufacture have destroyed forests, polluted seas and contaminated the air we breathe because we can’t afford to pay for the better alternative.

Money is at the heart of all our lives. It is time to understand what money is and how it works.

She concludes:

Please read the information on this site. It is imperative that we understand the true cause of our world’s problems so that we can solve them.

By understanding how money really works you will be joining a growing movement of socially and environmentally conscious people who want to make a positive difference to our world and our own financial well being.

So said the nef co-authors of a book launched at a University of Southampton conference on 29th September in Winchester. Described as filling “a gap in the fields of economics, money, banking, finance and credit”, it draws on over 500 original documents from the Bank of England and other banking authorities. 

It was written by Professor Richard Werner, Chair in International Banking, Southampton University, Andrew Jackson of Positive Money, Josh Ryan-Collins and Tony Greenham of the New Economics Foundation. 

Professor Charles Goodhart, formerly a member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee and emeritus professor [banking and finance] at the London School of Economics, wrote the foreword and says: “this is the most comprehensive and authoritative guide to how money is created ever published, and reveals that most of the textbooks are very much out of date”. 

The cover, contents and foreword of “Where does Money come from?” can be downloaded from nef’s website.  

To buy it, go to http://www.positivemoney.org.uk/where-does-money-come-from-book/