I arrived in Newcastle upon Tyne in August 2007. On exploratory walks around the City I found many 19th Century buildings and imposing looking bridges crossing the river Tyne. There was a monument to Earl Grey as well and, as I continued to explore, I came across place names notably Eldon Place and Eldon Square. For some reason Eldon rang a bell, it did not send me on a Wikipedia search but I did ask one or two locals who were unable to shed any light.
Some months later, however, watching a TV series presented by the historian Simon Schama, the programme concerned the Romantics, and who should turn up – Percy Byshe Shelley. Simon called him the first punk rocker and I will go along with that, but, Shelley was a revolutionary and after the Peterloo massacre in August 1819 he composed a political poem, “The Masque of Anarchy”. It was then the penny dropped. Eldon was the man who was Lord Chancellor at that time and as Shelley writes
Next came fraud and he had on
Like Eldon an ermined gown
His big tears, for he wept well
Turned to millstones as they well
In the poem he is one of three Ministers of the Crown who are slated by Shelley, they were, Castlereagh, Sidmouth, Eldon, an unholy trinity! Later in the work the three are joined by Anarchy and Shelley uses the Book of Revelation to compare and contrast the three ministers and Anarchy with the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. Simon Schama describes it as weaponising poetry
And he wore a kingly crown
And in his grasp a sceptre shone
On his brow this mark I saw
I am God and King and Law
Heavy stuff! So who was this Lord Eldon commemorated in Newcastle City centre?
Lord Eldon
He was born John Scott in 1751 the son of a rich Newcastle coal owner. He married into a rich banking family and this enabled him to buy a seat in the House of Commons. It was at this time that the aristocracy and monarchy were running scared that, post French Revolution, insurrection could spread to England. So Prime Minister Pitt turned to repression to foil the reformers who wanted an end to the corrupt system that was then the House of Commons. He looked for people who could dismiss principle and scruple and John Scott, along with Sidmouth and Castlereagh, ticked all the boxes. What is that horrible modern word? Outsourcing! In other words getting somebody else to do your dirty work. Well, Pitt was ahead of his time!
In 1794 Scott was made Attorney General and pushed through a Habeus Corpus suspension Act, it stopped a right to be released from prison, or even to be brought to trial. He did not stop there, he forced through a treasonable practices and seditious meetings Act in 1795. Protest was no longer allowed. He developed these “ideas” into a concept of collective treason so people could be found guilty against the monarch if they complained about the price of corn and this, of course, made bread the reserve of the well off. These “good works” brought him promotion and in 1799 he became Lord Chief Justice of England and Lord Eldon of Durham. Now all this stuff is in the public domain and, I suppose, any researcher could tell us it is far easier to dig the dirt on a politician that to find something complimentary to say but, in the case of Lord Eldon, after his death in January 1838, some of his obituaries were brutal. A journalist, George Wingrove Cook, observed ” Posterity will probably pass a severe judgement upon the memory of this statesman” another, John Wade, noted, “There is no absurdity in law, no intolerance in church government, no arbitrary state measure of which he is not the surly, furious and bigoted advocate”. However, he did conceive some new form of equity in which he described equity as a “settled set of fixed principles almost as uniform as those of common law”. I do not understand that and I know little of the practice of law but I do understand that Lord Eldon’s statement on law has led to people’s, below the monied classes, having access to law.
So John Scott – Lord Eldon – When all is said and done during his life there was an enemy at England’s door and that enemy was Bonaparte’s vision of meritocracy government by people selected on merit and this appalled the aristocracy and monarchy. Lord Eldon was a man of his time who along with Robert Stewart (Viscount Castlereagh), Henry Addington (Viscount Sidmouth), men who were anti catholic emancipation, pro slavery, defended their class with an almost. righteous zeal and if there was any democratic process involved in their selection then it was a democracy devoid of conscience.
Does anything really change? We can look to our world today, I do not need to name names, they are called opportunists and populists today and a little over 200 years ago Percy Byshe Shelley, the angry young man, understood, didn’t he just!
Rise like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number
Shake you chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you
Yes are many - they are few.
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