many of their fellow-townsmen and former faithful followers. A Reform Association was set up in 1836 with this object. It quickly developed into something more. Instead of seeking merely to relieve the local distress, the leaders determined to devise a remedy for the general evil. It was not far to seek. Thomas Attwood (1783–1856), the Birmingham banker, had long possessed an infallible plan, and his colleagues easily became true believers. Here is his diagnosis and his remedy. The cause of distress is the dearness of food and the dearness of money. The landlords pass laws to make food dear and the money lords pass laws to make money dear. The result is great distress which drives people to the workhouse. But the relentless cruelty of the dominant classes pursues them here also and converts their place of refuge into a horrible dungeon. To crown all, the tyrants have established a Police Force to repress all protests and to nip sedition in the bud.[1] What was the remedy? Obviously the repeal of the Corn Laws and the Money Laws, but especially the latter. Peel's Act of 1819, which authorised the return to gold payments and the "restriction" of the currency, must be repealed, and proper measures must be taken to regulate the currency according to the state of trade. The great panacea was the "expansion" of the currency by the issue of more paper money. As blood to the body so currency to trade: more blood better health. Paper money would increase business, destroy unemployment, increase wages, decrease debts, in fact make everybody happy.
Being a banker Attwood could pose as an authority, and he had long gathered round him a body of fervent disciples who had fought the glorious campaign of 1830–32 under his leadership. Among these were R. K. Douglas, who urged his views in the Birmingham Journal; T. C. Salt, a lamp manufacturer[2] employing one hundred men, and a man of considerable influence amongst working people; Benjamin Hadley, an alderman, and a churchwarden of the Parish Church; George Edmonds, a solicitor, a guardian of the poor, and a convinced Radical; George Frederick Muntz, who made a fortune by the manufacture of a metallic compound known as "Muntz metal"; P. H. Muntz, also a man of finance; and Joshua Scholefield, who with Attwood himself represented the borough of Birmingham in Parliament. The working-class wing of the party was led by John Collins, a shoemaker
