Chartism And The Chartists In Manchester And Salford

In 1845 Frederick Engels wrote that 'Manchester is the seat of the most powerful unions, the central point of Chartism, the place which numbers the most Socialists'. There have been many local studies of the Chartist struggle for democratic political reform, but there is no major study of the movement in the Manchester-Salford conurbation, its most important provincial centre. This book brings an innovative approach to an exploration of aspects of the Chartist experience in the 'shock city' of the industrial revolution.

In 1845 Frederick Engels wrote that 'Manchester is the seat of the most powerful unions, the central point of Chartism, the place which numbers the most Socialists'. There have been many local studies of the Chartist struggle for democratic political reform, but there is no major study of the movement in the Manchester-Salford conurbation, its most important provincial centre. This book brings an innovative approach to an exploration of aspects of the Chartist experience in the 'shock city' of the industrial revolution.

Biographical studies of: Peter Murray Mcdouall (1814-1854) -- The Reverend Henry Solly (1813-1903) -- William Stephen Villiers Sankey (1793-1860) -- The Reverend Benjamin Parsons (1797-1855) -- The Reverend James Scholefield (1790-1855) -- Richard Bagnall Reed (1831-1908).

General Charles James Napier was sent to confront the tens of thousands of Chartist protestors marching through the cities of the North of England in the late 1830s. A well-known leftist who agreed with the Chartist demands for democracy, Napier managed to keep the peace. In South Asia, the same man would later provoke a war and conquer Sind. In this first-ever scholarly biography of Napier, Edward Beasley asks how the conventional depictions of the man as a peacemaker in England and a warmonger in Asia can be reconciled. Employing deep archival research and close readings of Napier's published books (ignored by prior scholars), this well-written volume demonstrates that Napier was a liberal imperialist who believed that if freedom was right for the people of England it was right for the people of Sind -- even if "freedom" had to be imposed by military force. Napier also confronted the messy aftermath of Western conquest, carrying out nation-building with mixed success, trying to end the honour killing of women, and eventually discovering the limits of imperial interference.

First published in 1999. For the first time since their appearance in Chartist newspapers these two major radical narratives are reprinted in a single volume. The Political Pilgrim’s Progress combines Utopian politics with Bunyanesque satire to tell the story of the journey of Radical and his family from the City of Plunder to the City of Reform. Sunshine and Shadow is the only serialized novel to have been published in the Northern Star. It brings together fictional biography and historical chronicle to form the first truly working-class novel. Both texts offer a unique insight into the literary achievements of the Chartist movement, and will be a valuable and entertaining source for scholars of radical politics. The texts are fully annotated, and the editor also provides an introduction to each story and a bibliography of recent scholarship.

Chartism, the mass movement for democratic rights, dominated British domestic politics in the late 1830s and 1840s. It mobilised over three million supporters at its height. Few modern European social movements, certainly in Britain, have captured the attention of posterity to quite the extent it has done. Encompassing moments of great drama, it is one of the very rare points in British history where it is legitimate to speculate how close the country came to revolution. It is also pivotal to debates around continuity and change in Victorian Britain, gender, language and identity. Chartism: A New History is the only book to offer in-depth coverage of the entire chronological spread (1838-58) of this pivotal movement and to consider its rich and varied history in full. Based throughout on original research (including newly discovered material) this is a vivid and compelling narrative of a movement which mobilised three million people at its height. The author deftly intertwines analysis and narrative, interspersing his chapters with short ‘Chartist Lives’, relating the intimate and personal to the realm of the social and political. This book will become essential reading for anyone with an interest in early Victorian Britain, specialists, students and general readers alike.

Annotation A succinct history of the Chartist movement, the first fully national struggle of working people to improve their conditions of work.