Online History course: Radical Manchester in the C19th
Sarah Parker Remond
I will be teaching 10 week course this autumn, starting on the evening of Tuesday 28th September, conducted via Zoom.
This course will be an introduction to the radical political ideas and movements in Manchester in the C19th. Manchester and the surrounding district was at the centre of the upheavals of the Industrial Revolution which gave birth to a number of important radical working class social and political movements.
The course will include the following:
1. The Radicals of the 1790s. Inspired by the radical political ideas outlined by Thomas Paine in his hugely popular book The Rights of Man groups of radicals emerged in 1792 calling for reform of the Constitution, including universal suffrage. They came under sustained legal attack by the government.
2. The Luddites. In 1812 groups of workers in Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire and Lancashire attacked the machinery they saw as taking away their work. There were also outbreaks of food rioting. The government responded by sending thousands of troops into the North. In the trials that followed many were imprisoned, while some Luddites and rioters were hanged.
3. Peterloo. On 16th August 1819 armed cavalry and soldiers attacked a peaceful meeting in Manchester held to call for the reform of Parliament, resulting in at least 18 deaths and hundreds of injuries.
4. Richard Carlile and the Manchester Republicans of the 1820s. Inspired by ideas in Carlile’s publication The Republican (which he edited from prison), groups met in Manchester to support Carlile, discuss radical politics and hold dinners to celebrate Thomas Paine’s birthday.
5. Owenite Socialism. From the late 1820s groups of working women and men set up Co-operative Societies. inspired by the ideas of Robert Owen. They began to call themselves “Socialists.”
6. The Anti-Poor Law Agitation/ Factory Reform/1832 Reform Act. In the 1830s there were campaigns against the punitive Poor Law amendment of 1834 which set up Workhouses; for a limit on the excessive working hours in factories; and for the reform of Parliament.
7. Chartism. Chartism was a mass movement, at its height between 1838 and 1848, which called for the implementation of the People’s Charter whose proposals included universal suffrage, secret ballots and payment of MPs. The movement organised three mass petitions to Parliament which were rejected. Instead the government responded with mass arrests and prison for many of the leaders.
8. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in Manchester. Frederick Engels worked in the family firm – Ermen and Engels – in Manchester for 20 years, sending money to support Karl Marx and his family in London whilst Marx worked on Capital. Marx visited Engels in Manchester on a number of occasions.
9. Black radicals in Manchester. We will look at the visits of black Americans camapigning against slavery such as as Henry Brown, Frederick Douglas, Charles Lennox Remond and Sarah Parker Remond.
10. The Irish in Manchester. There was substantial migration from Ireland which led to the establishment of an Irish community in the New Cross and St Michael’s area. The Irish took part in trade unionism and Chartism, as well as organising movements for the independence of Ireland such as Fenianism.
The course consist of a weekly lecture by myself followed by a discussion amongst course members. I will be providing handouts and suggestions for further reading and a guide to online resources.
The cost of the course will be £60 payable in advance. It will take place in the evening starting in the autumn. To book a place or for more information, please email me : redflagwalks@gmail.com
About me
I have been researching and writing about radical history of Manchester for many years and have an MA in History of Manchester. My published work includes:
Never Counted Out! the Story of Len Johnson, Manchester’s Black Boxing Hero and Communist (1992)
”The Wearing of the Green, ” a political history of the Irish in Manchester (2000)
Up Then Brave Women : Manchester’s Radical Women 1819-1918 (2012)
For the sake of the women who are to come after”: Manchester’s Radical Women 1915 to 1945 (2019)
In 2020 I took part in this BBC Sport item on Len Johnson (filmed in my back garden !)
Michael Herbert
Red Flag Walks 