radicals
,Radical reformers, 1780 - 1820
● French Revolution revives the writers in the 1790s
● Napoleonic Wars are bam in the middle (1803 - 1815)
● 1815 = second wave
Radicals
● J Priestley // Dr R Price // Thomas Paine (bestie)
● Corresponding Societies (Sheffield / London / National Convention)
● Thomas Spence // William Cobbett // John Cartwright // Hampden Clubs // Henry Hunt
● ANTI - Pitt // Lord Liverpool // Edmund Burke // Loyalists
French Revolution
● 1789 - 1799
● Watershed event, influenced by Enlightenment ideals
● Principles of liberty & equality
● Increased political awareness & stimulated intellectual debate and artistic impulses =
TEMPLATE for change
Joseph Priestley
● Radical - Gunpowder Joe
● P = practiced with instruments + wrote pamphlets
● Pro - French Revolution, democracy
● Wrote a series of pamphlets - pro- French Revolution.
● April 1791 = Counter-revolutionary "Church & King" mob attacked his home & burnt his
scientific instruments
Dr Richard Price
● Radical, praised the FR & democratic govt
● Nov 1789 = A Discourse on the Love of our Country - Sermon
● Warning to the "oppressors" to "Restore to mankind their rights"
● Glorifying view = deeply controversial = sparked…
● The Revolution Controversy pamphlet war = involved many academics, writers & poets
Thomas Paine
● Radical - Writer, political activist & revolutionary.
● 2 most influential pamphlets
Common Sense (1776) - pamphlet
● Rebellious demand for independence from Great Britain
● Response to Burke's reflections = radical literature
The Rights of Man (1791) - pamphlet
● Best-seller = 1st year, sold 200k copies
● Reached the illiterate working class via public readings in pubs & clubs (not usually involved
in political debate)
● Population density = increased the spread of ideas
● Critique of the "puppet show" of monarchy / unearned privilege & inherited wealth.
● Advocated sweeping reforms (universal manhood suffrage)
Causes of discontent / revival
● Socio-economic factors - Industrial Revolution
● Political factors - Old Corruption
● Radical leaders & the radical press
Cause - socio-economic
Agrarian -> industrial economy
● Industrialisation = inventions + rapid mechanisation
● Transformative change
● 1784, Andrew Meikle: Automated threshing machine
● Steam & water power forced factories to relocate to water sources / near coalfields
,The Factory Age (child labour)
● 1801: Industrial output increased 15 x
● Large factories employed 2000 workers at a time
● 1750 - 1800 = Threshing machine 2x farming output
● Threshing = 25% of all farm labour
Demographic change
● Population booms (economic migration to towns)
● Demographic revolution, rapid urbanisation
● Rapid production of coal/textiles sustained by exporting to overseas markets
● Mid-1800s: cotton made up 70% of all overseas exports
● Reliance on foreign trade meant the economy subject to fluctuations in markets
Growing gulf
● Wealthy factory owners + poorly paid workers = class conflict
● W-class: severe distress (long hours, dangerous)
● Cramped & unhygienic accommodation
● Bouts of seasonal/periodic unemployment
● Countryside workers threatened by new machinery
● Bad harvests = variable cost of living
● Erosion of rural societies as urbanised areas became densely populated
● Exacerbated discontent due to the squalid conditions.
● Unsustainable living costs and food shortages
Cause - political grievance, Old Corruption
Medieval seat distribution
● Newly emerging towns/cities = dense populated, no MPs (no parliamentary representation)
● Cornwall = 42 MPs / 300k population
● Lancashire = 14 MPs / 1.3m population
● Thriving towns = no right to send MPs at all
● EG - Bradford / Birmingham / Leeds / Manchester (BBLM)
Rotten boroughs
● Almost entirely depopulated areas were still entitled to send an MP to parliament.
● Old Dunwich in Suffolk = fell into the sea due to coastal erosion YET = 2 MPs
Restricted franchise
● No uniform qualification, varied wildly town-to-town
● Potwalloper = male householders with a fireplace large enough to boil a pot on.
● Corporation = ONLY the mayor & members of town
Franchise + elections
● High property qualifications ranged from £300 - £600
● Catholics, Quakers & practising Jews couldn't become MPs
● Elections = £20k = very expensive / MPs = no salary
● 1815 - 31 = Over 2/3rds of all constituencies uncontested
Corrupt practices
● Voters cast their vote in public at huge hustings
● Cooping = Kidnapping the supporters of your rivals
● Treating = Bribing voters with money or drink were common
● Political dominance of wealthy aristocrats restricted political representation.
● Cooping/treating = amplified discontent.
● Seat distribution = bound by inheritance = class divisions
Corresponding societies
● Regenergised philosophical radicalism of m-class reformers
● Growth of 'popular radicalism' post-1790s
● Democratic emphasis appeal to the lower orders.
● Common in unrepresented towns, centralised around Sheffield
● Slogan = that our membership be unlimited = low fees
, ● Pamphlets, meetings, correspondence with France
Aims
● Spread democratic propaganda / sell the Rights of Man / educate ordinary people via
press/speakers/ meetings
● Parliamentary reform, universal suffrage, annual parliaments
Sheffield Corresponding Society (1st one)
● Dec 1791
● 1790 = Sheffield population grew rapidly to 25k
● 1792 = Over 2k members (largest CS)
● Rotten boroughs & old corruption laid fertile ground for radical ideas
● Missionaries organised societies in Leeds, Birmingham & Coventry (LBC)
● 1793 = 10k Sheffielders signed a petition for reform
London Corresponding Society - 1792
● Established by Thomas Hardy
● Mostly skilled working men
● Weekly meetings - informed men of their rights
Activism
● Universal manhood suffrage, secret ballet & payment of MPs
● Communication with LC's in Northern towns
● Nov 1793 = reform petition gained 6k signatures
National Convention of Corresponding Societies
● Dec 1792
● Edinburgh
● Delegates & friends of the CS's in Scotland
● Leaders arrested after the 1792 & 1793 conventions
Second + Third British Convention - Oct to Nov 1793
● Edinburgh, support for a manifesto & the FR
● G Margarot & T Muir = 14yrs transportation for sedition
Thomas SpeNce (radical)
● Argued for land Nationalisation
● 1793 - Pigs Meat Periodical = huge success
● May 1794 = Arrested & imprisoned, arrested in 1801 for the sale of seditious material
Died in 1816 → Speancean Philanthropic Society
● Radical & used physical force
William Cobbett
● Parliamentary reform & criticised the govt
Political register & the 2 penny trash
● 1802 - Political Register → 1806 = 4k weekly circulation
● 1812 = Campaigned against taxes & govt censorship
● 1816 = 2 penny trash, 200k copies in 2 months
● 1817 = Most widely read newspaper among the w-classes
Pitt's suppression in the 1790s
● Loyalist backlash + Burke
● Pitt's Reign of Terror
Loyalist backlash
● Fear and challenge - seditious material suggested radicalism was growing
● Seen as unpatriotic and dangerous - the propertied classes defended govt
● Public opinion increasingly critical of radicals
,Radical reformers, 1780 - 1820
● French Revolution revives the writers in the 1790s
● Napoleonic Wars are bam in the middle (1803 - 1815)
● 1815 = second wave
Radicals
● J Priestley // Dr R Price // Thomas Paine (bestie)
● Corresponding Societies (Sheffield / London / National Convention)
● Thomas Spence // William Cobbett // John Cartwright // Hampden Clubs // Henry Hunt
● ANTI - Pitt // Lord Liverpool // Edmund Burke // Loyalists
French Revolution
● 1789 - 1799
● Watershed event, influenced by Enlightenment ideals
● Principles of liberty & equality
● Increased political awareness & stimulated intellectual debate and artistic impulses =
TEMPLATE for change
Joseph Priestley
● Radical - Gunpowder Joe
● P = practiced with instruments + wrote pamphlets
● Pro - French Revolution, democracy
● Wrote a series of pamphlets - pro- French Revolution.
● April 1791 = Counter-revolutionary "Church & King" mob attacked his home & burnt his
scientific instruments
Dr Richard Price
● Radical, praised the FR & democratic govt
● Nov 1789 = A Discourse on the Love of our Country - Sermon
● Warning to the "oppressors" to "Restore to mankind their rights"
● Glorifying view = deeply controversial = sparked…
● The Revolution Controversy pamphlet war = involved many academics, writers & poets
Thomas Paine
● Radical - Writer, political activist & revolutionary.
● 2 most influential pamphlets
Common Sense (1776) - pamphlet
● Rebellious demand for independence from Great Britain
● Response to Burke's reflections = radical literature
The Rights of Man (1791) - pamphlet
● Best-seller = 1st year, sold 200k copies
● Reached the illiterate working class via public readings in pubs & clubs (not usually involved
in political debate)
● Population density = increased the spread of ideas
● Critique of the "puppet show" of monarchy / unearned privilege & inherited wealth.
● Advocated sweeping reforms (universal manhood suffrage)
Causes of discontent / revival
● Socio-economic factors - Industrial Revolution
● Political factors - Old Corruption
● Radical leaders & the radical press
Cause - socio-economic
Agrarian -> industrial economy
● Industrialisation = inventions + rapid mechanisation
● Transformative change
● 1784, Andrew Meikle: Automated threshing machine
● Steam & water power forced factories to relocate to water sources / near coalfields
,The Factory Age (child labour)
● 1801: Industrial output increased 15 x
● Large factories employed 2000 workers at a time
● 1750 - 1800 = Threshing machine 2x farming output
● Threshing = 25% of all farm labour
Demographic change
● Population booms (economic migration to towns)
● Demographic revolution, rapid urbanisation
● Rapid production of coal/textiles sustained by exporting to overseas markets
● Mid-1800s: cotton made up 70% of all overseas exports
● Reliance on foreign trade meant the economy subject to fluctuations in markets
Growing gulf
● Wealthy factory owners + poorly paid workers = class conflict
● W-class: severe distress (long hours, dangerous)
● Cramped & unhygienic accommodation
● Bouts of seasonal/periodic unemployment
● Countryside workers threatened by new machinery
● Bad harvests = variable cost of living
● Erosion of rural societies as urbanised areas became densely populated
● Exacerbated discontent due to the squalid conditions.
● Unsustainable living costs and food shortages
Cause - political grievance, Old Corruption
Medieval seat distribution
● Newly emerging towns/cities = dense populated, no MPs (no parliamentary representation)
● Cornwall = 42 MPs / 300k population
● Lancashire = 14 MPs / 1.3m population
● Thriving towns = no right to send MPs at all
● EG - Bradford / Birmingham / Leeds / Manchester (BBLM)
Rotten boroughs
● Almost entirely depopulated areas were still entitled to send an MP to parliament.
● Old Dunwich in Suffolk = fell into the sea due to coastal erosion YET = 2 MPs
Restricted franchise
● No uniform qualification, varied wildly town-to-town
● Potwalloper = male householders with a fireplace large enough to boil a pot on.
● Corporation = ONLY the mayor & members of town
Franchise + elections
● High property qualifications ranged from £300 - £600
● Catholics, Quakers & practising Jews couldn't become MPs
● Elections = £20k = very expensive / MPs = no salary
● 1815 - 31 = Over 2/3rds of all constituencies uncontested
Corrupt practices
● Voters cast their vote in public at huge hustings
● Cooping = Kidnapping the supporters of your rivals
● Treating = Bribing voters with money or drink were common
● Political dominance of wealthy aristocrats restricted political representation.
● Cooping/treating = amplified discontent.
● Seat distribution = bound by inheritance = class divisions
Corresponding societies
● Regenergised philosophical radicalism of m-class reformers
● Growth of 'popular radicalism' post-1790s
● Democratic emphasis appeal to the lower orders.
● Common in unrepresented towns, centralised around Sheffield
● Slogan = that our membership be unlimited = low fees
, ● Pamphlets, meetings, correspondence with France
Aims
● Spread democratic propaganda / sell the Rights of Man / educate ordinary people via
press/speakers/ meetings
● Parliamentary reform, universal suffrage, annual parliaments
Sheffield Corresponding Society (1st one)
● Dec 1791
● 1790 = Sheffield population grew rapidly to 25k
● 1792 = Over 2k members (largest CS)
● Rotten boroughs & old corruption laid fertile ground for radical ideas
● Missionaries organised societies in Leeds, Birmingham & Coventry (LBC)
● 1793 = 10k Sheffielders signed a petition for reform
London Corresponding Society - 1792
● Established by Thomas Hardy
● Mostly skilled working men
● Weekly meetings - informed men of their rights
Activism
● Universal manhood suffrage, secret ballet & payment of MPs
● Communication with LC's in Northern towns
● Nov 1793 = reform petition gained 6k signatures
National Convention of Corresponding Societies
● Dec 1792
● Edinburgh
● Delegates & friends of the CS's in Scotland
● Leaders arrested after the 1792 & 1793 conventions
Second + Third British Convention - Oct to Nov 1793
● Edinburgh, support for a manifesto & the FR
● G Margarot & T Muir = 14yrs transportation for sedition
Thomas SpeNce (radical)
● Argued for land Nationalisation
● 1793 - Pigs Meat Periodical = huge success
● May 1794 = Arrested & imprisoned, arrested in 1801 for the sale of seditious material
Died in 1816 → Speancean Philanthropic Society
● Radical & used physical force
William Cobbett
● Parliamentary reform & criticised the govt
Political register & the 2 penny trash
● 1802 - Political Register → 1806 = 4k weekly circulation
● 1812 = Campaigned against taxes & govt censorship
● 1816 = 2 penny trash, 200k copies in 2 months
● 1817 = Most widely read newspaper among the w-classes
Pitt's suppression in the 1790s
● Loyalist backlash + Burke
● Pitt's Reign of Terror
Loyalist backlash
● Fear and challenge - seditious material suggested radicalism was growing
● Seen as unpatriotic and dangerous - the propertied classes defended govt
● Public opinion increasingly critical of radicals
