A new look at Thomas Clutton Salt

A quite remarkable and unexpected new image has come to light of Thomas Clutton Salt, one of the leaders of the Birmingham Political Union and a delegate from Birmingham to the first Chartist Convention.

As part of a small-scale project to republish biographical sketches on 12 of the delegates which first appeared in The Charter newspaper in 1839, I added a page on Thomas Clutton Salt to Chartist Ancestors last week.

Over the Easter weekend, Todd Longstaffe-Gowan got in touch to say that his T. Knox & T. Longstaffe-Gowan Collection had bought the medallion shown below at Bermondsey Market in London back in 1992 for £20, simply because it was an exquisite piece of 19^th century sculpture.

Although the medallion had the inscription “T. Clutton Salt” to the right of the sitter’s collar, it was not at all clear whether this was the artist or the sitter. With the appearance of the Chartist Ancestors piece on Thomas Clutton Salt, all became clear.

The medallion is a gilt-bronze relief, 170mm in diameter, and appears to be from around the same era as the Convention sketch. As Todd points out, Salt’s lamp manufactory would have been capable of producing this sort of high-quality bronze, so perhaps it was made in his own works.

Although Salt ceased to be active in Chartism after 1839, he had played a leading role in the Birmingham Political Union, both in support of the 1832 Reform Bill and subsequently in the early days of Chartist agitation.

Carlos Flick in his 1978 book The Birmingham Political Union and the Movements for Reform in Britain 1830-1839 says of Salt:

"He was widely regarded as a good-hearted man, and his espousal of the causes of the lower classes seemingly was more genuine than was that of the other ‘currency’ leaders, whose bent was aristocratic. He was loquacious, and although his voice was thin and his reasoning often poor, he spoke at every opportunity."

The 1851 census shows Salt aged 60  and living at Bay Cottage, Garbett Street, in Birmingham, with his sister Elizabeth, children John Clutton Salt (aged 24), Ann Maria (17), Charlotte Elizabeth (16), and a cook and housemaid. It describes him as "master lamp manu. employing 80".

I believe he died in 1859, but this is based on an entry in the deaths index rather than sight of a death certificate. Incidentally, there was a Thomas Salt of the same era who became chairman of Lloyds Bank, but this appears to be a quite different man.

I am immensely grateful to Todd Longstaffe-Gowan for getting in touch and for the permission of the T. Knox & T. Longstaffe-Gowan Collection to reproduce the medallion here.

Image: T. Knox & T. Longstaffe-Gowan Collection, London

Birmingham Chartist Thomas Clutton Salt

The General Convention of the Industrious Classes in 1839 set an unprecedented challenge to the undemocratic House of Commons, and there was enormous interest in the delegates elected to it by mass meetings held all over the country.

The Charter newspaper, published by William Lovett, secretary to the Convention and a leading light of the London Working Men’s Association, responded with a series of sketch portraits and profiles of 12 of the most prominent delegates.

Both the sketch and the text of the first of those profiles now appears on a page devoted to Thomas Clutton Salt, a founder of the Birmingham Political Union and Birmingham delegate to the Convention.

Salt was typical of the Birmingham men who had originated the petition and who represented it within the Chartism of 1839.

A lamp manufacturer (his factory had 100 or more employees) and currency reformer, he had been a stalwart campaigner for the relief of the poor and destitute during the hard economic times of the 1830s, but saw the demand for the vote as secondary to other concerns.

He was, however, apparently deeply committed to involving women in political campaigns, organising at least one mass meeting of Birmingham women, despite the concern this caused among his colleagues.

In common with the other middle-class leaders of the Birmingham Political Union, Salt withdrew from the Convention and from the Chartist cause once peaceful petitioning gave way to confrontation.

The Birmingham Political Union itself did not last much beyond its leaders’ withdrawal from the Convention, and Salt returned to the management of his factory and to the cause of currency reform – giving evidence to a House of Commons committee in 1847.

Read more about Thomas Clutton Salt.