BARRICADES PROJECT

The Carbonari (from 'charcoal burners' - an allusion to an imagined historical conection to charcoal burners in the German Forests who united against brigands and robbers by developing secret signs by which one's 'friends' could make themselves known, and who were subsequently credited with collective acts both of preventing crimes and of forcing the abandonment of cruel and unjust law) were secret societies in Italy that formed initially in opposition to Napoleon (with the encouragement of the British and the Austrians in the early 1800s as a way of undermining French influence).  They probably had antecedents in societies in France, Germany and the Low Countries in the eighteenth century. In Italy they grew under French rule and were re-enforced when the Vienna settlement made Italy subject to Austrian influence. The societies then  became the seedbed for reformers from across the political spectrum, demanding independence.  They recruited wider liberal support after the collapse of the short-lived republics of 1820 in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and Piedmont. They were also influenced by Jacobin and egalitarian ideas. The lower orders of Italian society were resolutely anti-French  and made their grievances felt through traditional forms of rexpression, such as rioting. But for the more educated and wealthier parts sectors of society these secret societies offered a new form of commitment and expression. In the initial developments in the 1800 and 1810s, the carboneria  was strong in the South of the region, the fidadelfia  and the adelfi were more northern, often in the early years influnced by more Jacobin elements.  In central Italy, the guelfia were more developed.  But in the wake of Napoleon's defeat in Russia, there was an expansion of activity and these groups often interpenetrated - the adelfi, for example, bringing an emphasis on smaller cells and greater sectrecy.  They remained an important element in Italy into the 1830s, but were largely discreited by the uprisings in the early 1830s, and became displaced by Mazzini's 'Giovini Italia' - which turned against th idea of French support and sought the involvement of a new generation, untarnished by the struggles of the past.  The societies were marked by oath taking, rituals of admission, links to freemasonry, and a hierarchy of inclusion which had a number of gradations - with people serving their apprenticeships in junior orders and gradually and successively being inducted into the most secret and arcane  reaches of the order.The carbonari model, with oath-taking and various rituals (and often links to freemasonry) were also influential in France, Spain, Greece and elsewhere.  Their spread was doubtless facilitated by Italian members of these societies taking refuge (especially after the revolts of 1820) in Spain and then in France.

William Cobbett (1763-1835) was a distinctively English political actor, who defies easy classification. He was in turn, a soldier; a polemicist (under the pseudonym Peter Porcupine) in America in the 1790s, writing against radicalism and Paine; a publisher in London and an apologist for William Pitt and the Tory government; a chronicler and recorder of Parliamentary proceedings in Cobbett's Parliamentary Debates (1803-4); the owner of the Political Register a successful weekly paper that sold widely to ordinary working people from 1802 until 1835; an associate of Major John Cartwright, Sir Francis Burdett and other reformers; a prisoner of the state for his denunciation of the use of flogging of members of the militia by Hanoverian troops; a sufficient risk to political order that, in 1817, the government offers him £10,000 to retire from politics; a self-appointed guardian of the radical legacy of Paine (whom he had once denounced) by bringing Paine's bones back to England in 1819, where they were promptly mislaid; a parliamentary candidate in Coventry in 1820; a defender of the farming interest following his own troubles as a seedsman and nurseryman and an advocate for rural sports and amusements; a candidate in Preston in 1826; a long awaited electoral victor in the General Election of 1832 when he was elected for Oldham, by which he was re-elected in 1835, shortly before his death. Cobbett was one of the country's most successful publicists, but his imprudence and restless disposition meant that his many of his publishing and farming ventures rarely succeeded for long. From 1805 he increasingly became a thorn in the side of governments, and a resolute advocate for political reform - albeit, largely with the aim of pre-empting the dangers of revolution. He was an extremely effective communicator, in person and in print, and was one of the most popular writers of his generation. His Rural Rides (1821-26) gave a powerful portrait of English rural life, coupled with swingeing attacks on landlords, middlemen, corn dealers, and the swelling spread of the 'Great Wen' of London into the English countryside. And he captures perfectly some of the less familiar strands of English radicalism as it developed in the late 1810s and the 1820s. He became a convinced Painite, but coupled this with a belief in a strong agrarian society, and saw in the developing urban expansion a corruption of the British character which he feared would prove fatal. He was an advocate of freedom of the press, but was not prepared to challenge the government directly by joining the ranks of the unstamped press, and continued to sell his Political Register as stamped, even though it dramatically inhibited its circulation. Cobbett was in many respects a reactionary. He retained from his Anti-Jacobin propaganda of the 1790s a hatred of Jacobin egalitarian principles, but he also distrusted the powers of government that had been raised against that threat only, as he saw it, to be deployed to the cost of ordinary men and women and the established ways of the country.  He had little interest in industry but came to be concerned for the industrial working classes and their poverty as a result of his political tours of the Northern counties.  He was against machines and sympathised with those who turned on them in the Luddite riots of the 1810s. And he contributed a strand of thinking to radicalism that emphasised the potential for a self-sustaining community in which agricultural production played a major part, and in which ordinary people lived fuller, less exploited lives.  Chartism's concern with land and its distribution to the people, shared this bucolic admiration for the independent producer rooted in the soil of the community.

After being elected with a majority in the House of Commons, Charles Grey, the second Lord Grey, introduced a bill for Parliamentary Reform. The Bill went through the required readings in the Commons and was passed to the House of Lords, where it was defeated on 8 October 1831. The result produced rioting in several towns - especially Bristol (see Bristol Riots 1831), but also Nottingham (where the Duke of Newcastle's Nottingham Castle was burned), Derby (where the jail was attacked), and Birmingham (where disturbances necessitated the calling out of the resident Scots Greys cavalry regiment). There were lesser riots in London, Exeter, Yeovil, Leicester, Bath and Worcester. The riots indicate a dramatic level of discontent - so much so, that it has been claimed that it was the closest Britain had yet come to revolution. The riots were mainly targeted to the people and property of those seen as most resistant to the proposals for reform. See Steve Poole, 'Some Examples Should Be Made": Prosecuting Reform Bill Rioters in 1831-32, in M. T. Davis et al (eds.), Political Trials in the Age of Revolutions (London, Palgrave/Macmillan, 2019), pp. 237-261.

William Benbow (c. 1784-1864), a sometime shoemaker, non-conformist preacher, and reformer, was involved in political agitation between 1817 and 1820, and again during the Reform Act agitations in 1830-32, and then in the early years of the Chartist movement. His distinctive contribution to that movement was a pamphlet he published entitled 'Grand National Holiday, and Congress of the Productive Classes' (London, 1832). This introduced a new potential tactic into the repertoire of radical strategies . Benbow's idea was that, through unity of thought and action, the working classes could 'move mountains of injustice, oppression, misery and want.' He called for a holiday - or holy day - so that they could 'legislate for all mankind':  'the constitution drawn ip during our holiday, shall place every human being on the same footing. Equal rights, equal liberties, equal enjoyments, equal toil, equal respect, equal share of production: this is the object of our holy day - of our sacred day, - of our festival.'The holiday was to be a withdrawal of labour for a month long, during which, 'by our consultations, deliberations, discussions, holiday and congress, endeavour to establish the happiness if the immense majority of the human race, of that far largest portion called the working classes.'  It would need preparation -involving the formation of committees of management in local communities to promote the scheme and the necessary arrangements.  Food for the first week would have to be laid in, and subsequent weeks would be procured from funds controlled by local bodies, such as vestries, overseers and justices; it would take place in the summer, when the weather was clement, so there would be no need for people to be producing clothing; and the wealthy would be asked for contributions - and when they refuse the representations of 100 persons, then a 1,000 shall be sent, and more til they contribute.At the same time, a National Congress would be held, with representatives from all communities, whose object would be to reform society - from the crown of our head to the sole of our foot.'Benbow's pamphlet was extremely popular in 1832 and it was influential in 1839,when the Chartist General Convention considered calling a 'sacred month.'The identification of the Grand National Holiday with the General Strike, is misleading, as Prothero has argued: it is not an idea tied to unionism, or to socialism, but it grows out of a tradition of conventionism, reaffirmed in the writings of Thomas Paine and the practices of the corresponding societies in 1793-4, and again in 1817 (in the coordination of returns from the Hampden Clubs).  And while he calls on the working classes, the most prominent part of his rhetoric concerns the broader 'people.'At the same time, Benbow was a 'physical force' reformer - with an often violent rhetoric to accompany his enthusaism for arming and drilling that accompanied his involvement in the opposition movements of 18176 and 1817, and were evident again in the agitation for electoral reform in 1830-32.In 1839 his project was discussed and adopted by the Chartist Convention and Benbow invested his energies touring the North and calling for the national holiday. In August he was arrested, and shortly after the Convention lost its nerve and abandoned the scheme.   He was eventually sentenced to 16 months in prison and his moment had effectively passed.  He ceased to be active in the Chartist movement (although he remained a target for cartoonists - as in one from Punch in 1848), and it is believed that he emigrated with his family to Australia in the 1850s.See Iorwerth Prothero, 'William Benbow and the Concept of the 'General Strike', Past and Present May 1974, 63, pp. 132-71.

For three days at the end of October 1831, the city of Bristol witnessed a series of extensive  riots - as significant as the Gordon riots in 1780  or the Church and King Riots in Birmingham in 1791.  The Bristol riots were closely connected to the tense atmosphere associated with the attempt by the Whigs to introduce a measure of Parliamentary reform. The political atmosphere in Britain was increasingly tense as the topic of reform divided the population and the political elite.  Under the established franchise only 5% of people in England and Wales were able to vote as eligibility depended on the wealth of an individual (owning land worth 40-shillings or more), although in a very few areas (such as Westminster) it was more widely distributed, and in others (such as the ‘rotten boroughs’) more severely curtailed. In Bristol, out of a population of 104,000 men, only 6,000 could vote, rendering the remaining citizens powerless. Moreover, Bristol was controlled by the City Corporation which consisted of a handful of wealthy men who accomplished little, save for the protection of their entrenched interests. With the proposal of The Great Reform Act in 1830, the lower and middle classes began to call for greater political rights creating an increasingly contentious political climate. Thus, when the Recorder of Bristol Sir Charles Wetherell stood up in parliament and declared that the people of Bristol did not desire any parliamentary reform, Bristolians were furious. When Wetherell arrived at Bristol on the 29th of October 1831, they let their feelings be known by chasing Wetherell into the Mansion House followed by the outbreak of a full-scale riot. Wetherell had to escape across the rooftops but the crowd was further angered when the constables arrested some rioters. The confrontation continued for three days as Mansion House and the Bishop’s Palace were attacked, prisoners from Bridewell Gaols were released, and several more locations around the city were set alight. The rioting turned to parties at Queen’s Square where the mob proceeded to get drunk and loot local properties. Despite the Riot Act having been read, the constables, guards and dragoons failed to act due to the lack of definitive orders. On the 31st of October, the Dragoons finally cleared the square after instructions from the mayor. A Special Commission was set for January 1832 which tried many rioters and Mayor Pinney for his negligence (although he was eventually acquitted). Following a petition (receiving 100,000 signatures) seeking mercy for the 31 rioters sentenced to death, only four were hung. The Great Reform Act was finally passed in 1832 followed by the Municipal Corporations Act eliminating rotten boroughs (boroughs with a small electorate making them susceptible to control by a patron giving said patron unrepresentative influence in the House of Commons). Many historians place the Bristol Riots of 1831 as a pivotal event in success of parliamentary reform the following year.

On 28th November 1840 the Teetotal pledge was published in the Northern Star. It was written by Henry Vincent and was important in initiating the 'New Move' within the Chartist movement whereby many began to emphasise the importance of individual self-help and moral improvement as an essential precondition to realising the Charter. This resulted in the formation of several organisations to promote such ideas, especially in Scotland and the North of England. This can be seen in the article above from the Scottish paper ‘The Chartist Circular.’ The article praises the Teetotal Pledge as an ‘interesting and philanthropic address’ and, in solidarity with the pledge, also condemns the ‘pernicious use of inebriating drinks’ on the ‘physical, moral, and political wellbeing’ of the working classes. The article then proceeds to implore its readers to ‘dedicate this year [1841] to total abstinence,’ in order to further promote the chartist cause. 101 Scottish Chartists signed the pledge which can be seen at the bottom of the article.

Newspapers in the 18th century had to be 'stamped' - they needed to be marked to establish that they had paid the duty which all vehicles for news were required to pay. The Stamp Act of 1712 (a time of heightened political controversy) taxed all newspapers @ 2 pence per sheet and required the lodging of copies and the identification of printers. The tax doubled in 1757. Following Peterloo, the Government passed the Six Acts,  one of which the scope of publications liable for stamp duty to papers publishing opinion rather than just news, and required newspaper publishers to post a bond against their good conduct.  This set the stage for a series of confrontations between publishers of material aimed at a wide popular audience, which the Stamp  duty made unaffordable, and the government.  In the 1820s, but espcially the early 1830s, a mass press defied the Stamp duty, with a range of popular newspapers appearing until they were prosecuted, and publishers and printers were jailed. Over 500 illegal journals were published between 1830 and 1836.  Among the most famous were:William Carpenter,'s Political Letters and Pamphlets (1830); Henry Hethrington's The Poor Man's Guardian (1831); and  The Working Man's Friend and Political Magazine (1831-2).A number of key Chartists, such as Hetherington, George Julian Harney and others earned their political laurels by spending time in jail for publishing and cirulating unstamped papers. In 1836, the government reduced the stamp duty to 1 penny, which both broke the back of the unstamped opposition by reducing the penal rate, while successfully ensuring that mass circulation papers directed at a very popular audience would still be a luxury for their intended readers. The freedom of the press was both secured and withheld - and it remained an issue for many in the Chartist movement, becoming a central plank, for example, of the East London Democratic Association.

Thomas Attwood (1783-1856) was the son of a successful Birmingham businessman, who cut his teeth arguing against East India Company monopolies and went on to become a powerful advocate for monetary reform. His lack of success led to his advocacy of political reform and he played an important role in the the creation and then leadership of the Birmingham Political Union, which held its first meeting in April 1829, and was formally established in January 1830, at a meeting of some 10,000 people chaired by the old radical MP Sir Francis Burdett. The organisation campaigned for shorter Parliaments, payment for MPs and the removal of the property qualification, and the extension of the vote to all those paying direct or indirect taxes. The Union became a model for many others throughout the country. as momentum gathered for the 1832 Reform Act - following which Attwood and his deputy at the BPU, Joshua Scholefield, were returned to Parliament. Attwood revived the Union in 1837 in an attempt to achieve further Parliamentary reform, and the organisation began working closely with the London Working Men's Association, which were similarly moderate in their views. Despite concern at more radical elements in the movement Attwood presented the first Chartist petition to Parliament in 1839.

The East London Democratic Association was founded in January 1837 (on the centennial of Thomas Paine's birth). It announced that: The object of this Association is to promote the Moral and Political condition of the Working Classes by disseminating the principles propagated by that great philosopher and redeemer of mankind, the Immortal ‘THOMAS PAINE’. It was founded by a group of men, some of whom had been active in 1830-32, but also including a number of younger men, such as George Julian Harney who had been part of the campaign for an unstamped press. While not ideologically distinct initially from the London Working Men's Association, the ELDA widened the scope of its concerns following the Irish radical (and LWMA member) Daniel O'Connell's denunciation of trade union activism subsequent to the arrest of members of the Glasgow cotton spinners union. In response, the ELDA emphasised its roots in the proletariat of the city and widened its concerns to include social equality, the free press, and an eight-hour working day. In doing so it effectively secured wider support than the LWMA across the city. In August 1838, the Association dropped the 'East' - becoming the London Democratic Association. Its more radical stance was evident when the first Chartist meeting discussed 'means'. Members of the ELDA were prominent in pointing to the limits of 'moral force' and arguing for recourse to physical force to protect their communities and to increase their bargaining power. In 1839 a Women's London Democratic Association was founded by a number of women linked to the LDA. George Julian Harney 1817-1897 was a major figure in political and social reform movements from the 1830s. Having intended a career at sea, he became an assistant in LWMA member Henry Hethrington's print shop, and was imprisoned on three occasions for selling the unstamped Black Dwarf. He grew impatient with the LWMA and became associated with the more radical ideas of William Benbow, James Bronterre O'Brien, and Feargus O'Connor, and collaborated with others in the setting up of the ELDA.Harney became the editor of the Northern Star, the main Chartist paper in 1843, and persuaded both Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels to contribute to the paper.  His developing socialism led to disagreements with Feargus O'Connor, who forced his resignation from the Star.  He set up his own paper, the Red Republican, arguing for socialism and internationalism. The Red Roublican  published the first English translation of the Communist Manifesto in 1850.

The London Working Men's Association was founded in the Summer of 1836 by William Lovett (1800-1877 - a former cabinet maker who became politically active in the reform movement in 1831/2); Henry Hethrington (1792-1849, a printer and publisher and co-founder in 1831 of the National Union of the Working Classes; James Watson (1799-1874 - a publisher and similarly a co-founder of the NUWC in 1831); and John Cleave (b c 1790 - a former sailor turned printer). Following the disappointment with the Impact of the 1832 Reform Act, the group met in the early summer of 1836 and issued a brochure in June setting out th rules of the association. The objects of the association were: 1 To draw into one bond of Unity the intelligent and influential portion of the working classes in town and country; 2 To seek by every legal means to place all classes of society in possession of their equal, political, and social rights; 3 To devise every possible means, and to use every exertion, to remove those cruel laws that prevent the free circulation of thought through the medium of a cheap and honest press; 4 To promote, by all available means, the education of the rising generation, and the extirpation of those systems which tend to future slavery; 5 To collect every kind of information appertaining to the interests of the working classes in particular, and society in general, especially statistics regarding the wages of labour, the habits and condition of the labourer, and all those causes that mainly contribute to the present state of things; 6 To meet and communicate with each other for the purpose of digesting the information acquired, and to mature such plans as they believe will conduce in practice to the well-being of the working classes; 7 To publish their views and sentiments in such form and manner as shall best serve to create a moral, reflecting, yet energetic public opinion, so as eventually to lead to a gradual improvement in the condition of the working classes, without violence or commotion; 8 To form a library of reference and useful information; to maintain a place where they can associate for mental improvement, and where their brethren from the country can meet with kindred minds actuated by one great motive—that of benefiting politically, socially, and morally, the useful classes. Though the persons forming this Association will be at all times disposed to co-operate with all those who seek to promote the happiness of the multitude, yet being convinced, from experience, that the division of interests in the various classes, in the present state of things, is too often destructive of that union of sentiment which is essential to the prosecution of any great object, that they have resolved to confine their members, as far as practicable, to the working classes. But as there are great differences of opinion as to where the line should be drawn which separates the working classes from the other portions of society, they leave to the members themselves to determine whether the candidate proposed is eligible to become a member.In the Minute Book of the Association, for 18 October 1836, a set of resolutions were recorded including a demand for political reform to ensure that the country would be governed justly:'To this end are wanted, Universal Suffrage, the Protection of the Ballot, Annual Parliaments, Equal representation, and no propoerty qualification for Members.'These are five of the six principles later adopted in the People's Charter.The LWMA was an elitist and respectable body. It had a membership fee of a shilling per month, and members had to be 'persons of good moral character among the working classes.'  Honorary members, not from the working classes, were also created as a way of linking to the more traditional political elite.  And this was not a mass membership organisation: there were only 291 full members at the organisations strongest, and it say its activism as involving publication and communication with the elite, rather than being orientated to mass mobilisation.

The Chartist movement is seen as starting with the publication of 'The People's Charter' in 1838 , but many of its components were of longstanding, both in the form of political and trade union organisations, and in the principles that it became fundamentally associated with:  Universal male suffrage Annual Parliaments  Secret ballot Equal electoral districts Payment for MPs The abolition of property qualifications for Parliamentary candidates Each of these can be found together in a pamphlet, published by Major John Cartwright in his The Legislative Rights of the Commonalty Vindicated, or Take your Choice! (London, 1777). The setting out of these principles in the London Working Men's pamphlet 'The People's Charter' (1838) gave the growing movement both a manifesto and an identity.Cartwright (1740-1824) was a leading figure in movements for Parliamentary reform from the 1770s until his death, and he stuck to his principles throughout his life becoming, if anything, more radical later in life as the government proved increasingly intransigent.  He founded the Society for Constitutional Information in 1780, which became a major organisation in the 1790s reform movement; and was the instigator of the Hampden reform clubs in 1812, which fed into many of the post war popular movements.  He fought campaigns to be elected to Parliament on many occasions, and was unsuccessful every time. At the age of 80,  in 1820, he was found guilty of sedition and fined £100 He was a country gentleman and ex-naval officer.

William Lovett was the Secretary of the London Working Men's Association and the key author of the 'People's Charter.' When the first Chartist Convbention met in London in February 1839, Lovett was elected as its secretary. When the Convention moved to Birmingham in May the police tried to stop supporters meeting in Birmingham's Bull Ring, using heavy handed methods. When placards were produced by the convention deploring the activities of the police and accusing them of excessive and illegitimate force, Lovett (as Secretary) and John Collins (who had taken the placards to the printer) were arrested and sentenced to a year in prison for seditious libel - a charge that did not require that what they claimed was untrue, only that it was likely to bring the authorities into disrepute. On his release in July 1840, Lovett retired from politics but, with Collins and Henry Vincent, formed the National Association for Promoting the Political and Social Improvement of the People - an organisation devoted to the education of working people aimed at helping them to better themselves. The organisation lasted until 1857. Lovett's later life was spent as an impoverished bookseller.

Lord Somerset, a seasoned member of Parliament since 1816 wrote to the Duke of Wellington to inform him of the “false colour” the government papers were using to portray the events of the Bristol Riot of 1831. Lord Somerset mentioned that upon Sir Wetherell’s arrival there was some disorder but no violence. Instead of dying down, this mischief continued until stone throwing engendered outright violence between the constables and rioters. Lord Somerset emphazised that both the Recorder and the Mayor delayed the reading of the Riot Act despite pressure to do so by the Magistrates. He then proceeded to place the majority of the blame for the intensity and damage of the riots on the inadequate response to the protestors by Lieutenant-Colonel Brereton. Although initially clearing out the rioters, the next day when Mansion House was being looted and destroyed, Brereton sent the 14th Dragoon out of the city leaving it completely in the hands of the rioters from Sunday to Monday. Brereton had claimed that his troops were tired from 'shaking hands' with the rioters on Saturday and putting them back in the city would ensure their lives would be “needlessly and uselessly sacrificed”. As a consequence, the constables who had previously declared a readiness to act if supported by the military declined to risk their lives upon hearing of Brereton’s retreat. The damage done to the city from Saturday to Monday was estimated upwards of 300,000l. Lord Somerset mentioned that he had heard the intensity of the atrocities during the riot had generated an “anti-bill effect” (i.e., anti-reform bill) among respectable persons. Once Major Beckwith (commanding officer of the 14th) received an express calling for his assistance, he arrived on Monday with the very same troops that Colonel Brereton had argued were too tired from shaking hands. They quickly dispersed of the rioters within two hours reducing the city to the authority of civil power once again. Lord Somerset claimed that everyone with whom he had conversed was convinced that more rigour on the part of the mayor and “less indisposition” on the part of Brereton to obey instructions “would have saved nearly the whole damage, and the loss of some 100 or 150 persons killed”. This information is vital in helping answer two concerns previously stated in other sources. This letter helps explain the lack of action against the rioters by civil force. It also provides further clarity on the number of people who lost their lives during the Bristol Riot. Most importantly, it confirms the attempts of the government to mask the actual extent to the atrocities committed in Bristol over this notorious weekend.

The Bristol Gazette was a newspaper published in Bristol from 1767 until 1872. These extracts from the Bristol Gazette on the 3rd of November 1831 describe the destruction of the New Goal, Bridewell, Bishops Palace, the Mansion House and upwards of 40 houses in Queen Square caused by the fires lit by the rioters. The Gazette explained the build up of anger to and detestation of Sir Charles Wetherell (the Recorder) for his opposition to the reform bill. However, it mentions that most political figures in the city never expected these feelings to be manifested in violence. Sensing this build up of discontent, a number of special constables from different wards volunteered their services and other individuals were hired for the day the Recorder was due to arrive in the city. After Sir Wetherell was attacked with stones during his address, the constables charged into the crowd and apprehended various individuals using “their staves without mercy”. The Gazette contends that had the constables not acted in this manner, no further disturbances would have taken place. The crowd consisting “wholly…of boys and striplings, persons evidently without stated employment” proceeded to retaliate by charging the constables and beating them severely causing them to retreat. Thus, the collapse of resistance encouraged the mob to become more daring, resorting to “extremities”. Despite the reading of the Riot Act, the rioters continued to manifest “undisputed control”. The destruction of the Mansion House forced Sir Wetherell to escape over the roofs of houses. Emboldened by liquor acquired from the wine cellar, the rioters proceeded to sack several other places. The special constables could offer no resistance. The Gazette claims that there was no explanation for the inaction of the soldiers that it saw as leading to the sacking of the city in a “cool and deliberate” manner. By Monday, the military had arrived and cleared the streets; those who did not retreat were immediately pursued and attacked, causing severe injuries. Total damage was estimated by political figures at between £400,000 and £800,000. The authors of the Gazette shared similar sentiments to Harriett Arbuthnot who thought that “a very great number must have lost their lives, of which we can obtain no account”. These extracts from the Bristol Gazette help us understand the extent of the damage, reporting an appalling sight of the city blazing in all directions during the riots. The Gazette also epmphasised the collapse of resistance to the Bristol riot which explains why the gathering of an angry mob became rapidly transformed into one of the most destructive riots in British history.

This poster promotes a ball, at the Sheffield socialist ‘Hall of Science’ celebrating the Marriage of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1840. It gives an insight into socialist culture in the 1840’s; a culture which contested and subverted social norms. Halls of Science were the focal point of the socialist movement, there were two dozen such halls in operation by 1832. The Sheffield Hall of Science opened in 1839 ‘for the exposition of their [socialist] views’ according to a local newspaper report. Activities organised by the Halls included debates, speeches, tea parties and days out. These recreational activities ran alongside, and sometimes overlapped with, a significant educational impetus – halls of Science organised on lectures and held classes. Both uses of the Hall can be seen in the poster. The poster promises a night of dancing, punctuated by a brief talk by a socialist orator and a longer talk by the same orator, Mr Hollick, later in the week. Frederick Hollick was a high profile ‘socialist missionary,’ who defended the Owenite approach to marriage in several public debates and later published a popular sex manual in America. Both talks address ‘marriage and divorce,’ by 1840 one of the key issues engulfing the Owenite social movement. The early-mid 19th century was a period of sexual transition. A nascent ‘Victorian’ model of marriage was emerging which restricted female agency and challenged the validity of open or fluid relationships – relatively common in some working-class communities. During a series of lectures in 1835 Owen had attacked this system, calling for civil marriages and easier access to divorce. Although these critiques were not uncommon in radical circles, he also called for more radical reforms advocating free unions and the use of contraception. These proposals were vehemently condemned in the press. One report asserted ‘Owen’s proposals require us to break up house, to tear asunder our household ties, and to put to death the strongest and dearest affections of our hearts.’ The ‘marriage issue’ undermined the socialist’s credibility in the eyes of many although it also stimulated interest. In 1840 over 5000 tickets were sold for a debate between Owen and a member of the clergy about marriage – many more had to be turned away. Crowds were often lively and could turn against establishment figures. The marriage debate is also significant as it formed a key split between Owenites and Chartists; a split which weakened political dissent in this period even though membership of the two organisations often overlapped. The fact that the Owenites were holding a ball ‘to celebrate’ a royal marriage attests to the underlying mix in the socialist movement of the 1840’s of orthodoxy coupled with radicalism (especially in connection with Owen’s views on marriage). While the movement seemed to be expanding, Owenism was under increasing pressure, beset by internal tensions and external conflicts, and with their flagship communitarian settlement, ‘Queenwood’, struggling to survive. The ball may well have been an opportunity to illustrate the ‘normality’ of socialism in the face of these problems – engaging with a key national social event. However, the failure of Queenwood in 1845 stimulated a collapse of Owenism. By 1850 the Sheffield Hall of Science was no longer in socialist hands and the movement had almost completely fizzled out.

New Lanark 1818 Robert Owen is a key figure in the story of British protest and contention between 1815 and 1850. Owen challenged the status quo through the promotion of social reform, by challenging key social institutions including marriage, by attempting to build a General Union, and through experimentation with socialist communities. In 1800 Owen became manager (and part owner) of New Lanark Mill. He was already a successful industrialist and active in promoting social reform. The mill, just to the South of Glasgow, had previously been run along ‘conventional’ lines. Under Owen New Lanark became the testing ground for a variety of reforms. Owen immediately sought to improve the condition of his workers - hoping to make them happier and more productive. Progress was initially slow. He faced resistance from some of the work force, but once they were ‘won over’ the pace of reform increased. Owen based his initiatives on his conviction that societal conditions were the crucial factor in shaping individual character. While adults were relatively fixed in their ways, children could be moulded through formal education and experiences ‘at home.’ The emphasis on juvenile education was deeply imbedded in New Lanark. Owen sought to send children to school from the age of three and he refused to allow those under 10 to work (and he discouraged work until the age of 12). In 1816 Owen opened an ‘institute for the formation of character’ a building which provided conventional education alongside lessons in singing and dancing. By night it offered a range of classes for adults and social events. Other reforms at New Lanark included the creation of a sickness fund, the banning of alcohol and the opening of a cooperative store selling high quality produce at reduced prices. Owen also created a system of workers councils to settle disputes and shape policy – with representatives drawn from divisions of the village. By 1818 New Lanark was extremely successful: profits had nearly doubled since 1799 and visitors came from around the country to inspect the mill and observe Owen’s philosophy in action. Winning’s painting was commissioned by Owen in 1818 and used on export labels - pasted onto packages of cotton. Winning was a resident of New Lanark and taught in the local school. The painting depicts new Lanark as modern, innovative, clean and efficient. Wide walkways and imposing bright buildings sit harmoniously alongside rolling countryside – a far cry from the ‘satanic Mills’ immortalised by Blake. In 1825 Owen sold New Lanark and left Britain for America. New Lanark is significant because of the practical critique it offered of the social relations of his time (even if Owens philosophy remained paternalistic), and for its role in providing Owen with a platform for his socialist agenda. In 1813 Owen published a series essays entitled ‘A New view of Society’ and in 1820 he produced a report for the county of Lanark outlining potential solutions to unemployment. In these texts Owen outlined his philosophical position and called for far reaching reforms: asserting that communitarian settlements of between 500 and 2500 provided an alternative to urbanisation, condemning the ‘marriage system’ and encouraging a greater emphasis on education. These ideas attracted notable vocal support (and dissent) and helped constitute ‘Owenism’ – a social moment significant across the period.

This colourful illustration of costumes of the Paris carnival from 1830 bears French and German descriptions. The characters depicted stem from various European carnival or dramatic characters: The harlequin from the Italian commedia dell'arte, Hanswurst from Germany, Don Quichotte from Spain or Madame Angot from France. It highlights the rich European cultural background Hanswurst, the key character in Rhenish carnival, stems from. Furthermore, it emphasises the deep cultural connections that facilitated political engagement and politicisation through carnival in Germany from the 1820s onwards.

In 1827 the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III demanded that any form of carnival celebration, especially the associational organisation shall be banned and prevented from happening. The Carnival festivities of the Rhinelander were incomprehensible to the King and many of his officials in Berlin, although his sons had taken part in the Cologne and Koblenz festivities a couple of times since 1823. The king’s decree however took some time to be published officially as administrative officials in the Rhineprovince held back, which meant a lot of carnival celebrations went ahead. This misunderstanding also lead to a revision of the decree. Rural carnival was fully prohibited, however those cities that could prove a history of carnival previous to French occupation in 1790s were allowed to continue with their celebrations. Many of the Rhenish cities like Cologne, Düsseldorf, Koblenz were able to provide such proof. Bonn, a newly made university city, was not allowed to continue its carnival festivities due to fear of students’ subversiveness and political instrumentalisation of the assemblies. Pictorial parallels existed between the carnival journal of Cologne and Koblenz, highlighting how carnival practices as well as imagery spread across the Rhineland. The covers depict a Mercury-fool clad in harlequin-like dress greeting the reader. This may also allude to the fool bringing not only news but also the truth in the season where the world was turned upside down. The journals share similarities in content as well, reporting on weekly events and committee decisions but also publishing essays and poems on wine, song and the Rhine, which were typical topics for songs and narratives of masquerade processions and assemblies. This dialogue of illustrations and carnival practices suggests a seemingly united front of Rhinelanders, which must have been perceived as dangerous and subversive behaviour by Prussian officials in Berlin, who had little understanding of Rhenish culture and people and still suspected French influence there.