APPENDIX V THE PROFESSIONS IN THE EIGHTEENTH SOME support is given to the conclusions reached in this work by other studies of different professions in the eighteenth century. In his unpublished Fellowship dissertation on the English Parish Clergy, 1660-1800, in the Library of Trinity College, Mr P. A. Bezodis describes the development from the position in which the country clergyman was a man of no social prestige, when there was a great and almost impassable gulf fixed between him and those who occupied the high places of the Church, to the point at which, although vast economic and social differences persisted, yet all were conscious of belonging to a single professional body, and when they were more liable to be criticised for neglecting the duties of the cloth than for being socially pretentious upstarts. Dr B. M. Hamilton, in her London Ph.D. thesis dealt with the Medical Professions in the Eighteenth Century. (The results are summarised in an article in Economic History Review, 2nd series, IV.) She discerns two strands in the development among the doctors, a revolution in medical training, and a growth of professional feeling. She writes: As a result of these two movements and of the great expansion of the middle classes, by 1800 the professional scene of a hundred years before had been completely transformed: the apothecaries, once mere tradesmen and the 'servants of the physician', had become practising doctors; the surgeons had dissociated themselves from the barbers, and the 'pure' or hospital surgeon had become a specialist of high reputation; whilst the physicians, originally few in numbers and of a good social position, had received an influx of hard-working middle-class graduates from Leyden and Edinburgh. All types met in the wards of the London and provincial hospitals. Professional honour, etiquette and status were now matters of the liveliest debate, and by the end of the century a man could achieve social standing as well as reputation through his profession. In 1660 a physician was a gentlemen, while apothecaries and surgeons were mere craftsmen: by 1800 it is possible to see them all as part of the new professional classes.1 1 Econ. Hist. Rev., loc. cit. p. 141. These conclusions were underlined in Dr C. E. Newman's Fitzpatrick Lectures for 1954, which, though mainly devoted to the nineteenth century, described the growth of professional solidarity and professional societies among the physicians and apothecaries, and showed the aims and achievements of the apothecaries to be very similar to those of the attorneys. There are no comparable studies of the other professions in this period, but there are suggestive comments in such work as has been done. Technical, as opposed to, or in addition to, social qualifications, were beginning to be demanded in the army and the navy. (Cf. Norbert Elias, 'Studies in the Genesis of the Naval Profession', British Journal of Sociology, I (1950), 291–309; M. A. Lewis, England's Sea Officers (London, 1939); H. W. Richmond, "The Navy', in Johnson's England, ed. A. S. Turberville (2nd ed. Oxford, 1952), 1, 39–65; E. Robson, 'Purchase and Promotion in the British Army in the Eighteenth Century', History, XXXVI, nos. 126 and 127 (1951), 57-72; Sir John Fortescue, 'The Army', in Turberville, op. cit. 1, 66-87.) The Royal Military Academy at Woolwich was founded in 1800, and the Military School at High Wycombe in 1802, under the inspiration of the Duke of York, but these were only first steps, and the name of the Duke of York cannot be called to mind without thinking also of Mary Anne Clarke. The growth of professional feeling and of professional societies among architects was noticed by H. M. Colvin in his Biographical Dictionary of English Architects, 1660-1840 (London, 1954). 'Architecture', he wrote, 'had become a reputable and remunerative occupation which the professional man could view with favour for his son-one which no longer depended on the uncertainties of aristocratic patronage or the doubtful devices of speculative building. The architect had at last taken his place alongside the doctor and the lawyer, and it would not be long before he began to formulate his own standards of professional conduct and to create an organisation through which they could be enforced. '1 The growth of the banking profession had recently been described by Dr L. S. Pressnell in his Country Banking in the Industrial Revolution (Oxford, 1956). The works of A. S. Collins on Authorship in the Age of Johnson (London, 1927), and The Profession of Letters, 1780-1830 (London, 1928), consider the improving status 1 Colvin, op. cit. p. 15; see also p. 25. of authors. The examples of Garrick and of Reynolds did much to enhance the position of actors and artists. Many of these conclusions are summarised by Professor Edward Hughes in his article on 'The Professions in the Eighteenth Century', in Durham University Journal, new series, XIII, ii (1952), 46-55, and the part played by the professions in one part of England is described in chapter III of his book North Country Life in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1952). These studies suggest certain significant similarities, but there are important differences, due to the differing natures of the various professions. Only in the case of the legal and medical professions did the actual ability to perform certain professional functions have a very significant effect on the rewards which were obtained; only in these cases was there an accepted body of technical knowledge which would make it possible for professional ability to be tested— and even here the opportunity was not fully exploited. The other professions-the army, the navy, the church-were more naturally spheres in which the patronage system worked, and increased. None of those who practised in these fields were under the necessity of the doctors and the lawyers of attracting clients by their individual qualities. In all three cases a certain number of vacancies existed, so that it was natural that in these professions men were appointed to certain places, than that they carved out careers for themselves. But there were signs that even here the position was changing, and that new conceptions of the duties of such men, as well as the new needs of society-such influences as that of Wesley on the idea of a clergyman, and the urgent needs of the Napoleonic wars on the military profession, are of importance-are pointing in the general direction of professional advancement on the basis of proved ability alone. That professional men should also be gentlemen had been clearly enough accepted in the cases of the army and the navy: the story here is of the process by which it ceases to be the only qualification insisted on. In the case of the clergy the process is in some ways reversed—the clergy come to aspire to gentility, and gentility in a clergyman comes to be insisted on by patrons and by society, perhaps to the neglect of professional qualifications and aptitudes.1 1 Theological colleges for the training of clergymen were founded in 1839 at Chichester, in 1840 at Wells, and in 1854 at Cuddesdon, but some concern was felt about the matter before this. See W. O. Chadwick, The Founding of Cuddesdon (Oxford, 1954). '1 Commenting on William Hutton's assertion in 1780 that 'Every man has his future in his own hands', Professor Ashton has said: "That, it is needless to say, has never been true, or even half true; but anyone who looks closely at English society in the mid- and late eighteenth century will understand how it was possible for it to be said, for at this time vertical mobility had reached a degree higher than that of any earlier, or perhaps of any succeeding age. The professions were important factors in this 'vertical mobility', and one of the main ways in which the old society with its emphasis on 'status' was broken down. Professor Pares has suggested that 'The enormous growth of the organised professions (is) perhaps the greatest change in the whole of modern history',2 and Professor Woodward has spoken of the professional classes of mid-Victorian England as 'perhaps the most important new social phenomenon of the age'.3 The professions are important in two ways, for, apart from serving as a sort of social ladder, they are examples of social organisations in which individual merit must necessarily count for more than inherited status, and their history is, therefore, doubly important for understanding the differences between eighteenth and nineteenth-century England. 1 T. S. Ashton, The Industrial Revolution (Oxford, 1949), p. 17. 2 R. Pares, George III and the Politicians (Oxford, 1953), pp. 16-17. 3 E. L. Woodward, '1851 and the Visibility of Progress', in Ideas and Beliefs of the Victorians (London, 1949), p. 61. 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ANON. The Young Lawyer's Recreation: Being a collection of several pleasant passages and customs in the law (1694). ANON. Observations on the Dilatory and Expensive Proceedings in the Court of Chancery in relation to the Bill now depending in the House of Commons, for lessening the Number of Attorneys and Solicitors, and regulating their practice, etc., together with some methods of redressing the same (1701). ANON. True Picture of an ill practiser of the Law. In a dialogue between a sollicitor and his intended client (1703). AN ATTORNEY. Proposals Humbly Offered to the Parliament for remedying the great charge and delay of Suits of Law and in Equity (1707). ANON. An Essay in Praise of Knavery (1723). ANON. The Pettifogger, a satire in hudibrastick verse, displaying the various frauds, deceits and knavish practices of the pettifogging counsellors, attornies, solicitors and clerks, in and about London and Westminster, and all market towns in England, with characters of the chief of them (1723). |