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This book takes a fresh look at British radicalism in the first-half of the nineteenth century from the new perspective of the history of emotions. It changes the way in which we look not only at popular radicalism but also at the affective qualities of politics itself in modern Britain and beyond

This book takes a fresh look at British radicalism in the first-half of the nineteenth century from the new perspective of the history of emotions. It changes the way in which we look not only at popular radicalism but also at the affective qualities of politics itself in modern Britain and beyond.

Inventing the radical tradition -- Unfurling the radical tradition: the visual and material culture of Chartism -- History, memory and the rituals of Pantheonism -- Using and abusing the radical tradition -- The Chartists and Mister Thomas Paine -- Forging the radical tradition: Chartism, currency and Cobbett -- Richard Oastler and the Chartists -- Daniel O'Connell, Chartism and the Atlantic World.

Chartism, the British mass movement for democratic and social rights in the 1830s and 1840s, was profoundly shaped by the radical tradition from which it emerged. Yet, little attention has been paid to how Chartists saw themselves in relation to this diverse radical tradition or to the ways in which they invented their own tradition. Paine, Cobbett and other founding fathers', dead and alive, were used and in some cases abused by Chartists in their own attempts to invent a radical tradition. By drawing on new and exciting work in the fields of visual and material culture; cultures of heroism, memory and commemoration; critical heritage studies; and the history of political thought, this book explores the complex cultural work that radical heroes were made to perform.

The novelist Charlotte Brontë and the historian E.P. Thompson both claimed that the Yorkshire Luddites of the 1810s were Antinomians, descendants of the seventeenth-century radical Christian sects who claimed, as Christ's elect, that they were not bound by the (moral) law. This article follows a thread that links Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class (in which he made this claim) with his later study of William Blake, Witness against the Beast, which, far from being just an esoteric study of an esoteric figure, uncovered an antinomian tradition that linked the radicalism and protest of the 'age of reason' with the seventeenth century. In doing so, it revisits the relationship between Thompson and religion, still an underexplored aspect and too overshadowed by his polemical attacks on Methodism. Having sketched this antinomian tradition, the article then turns to Brontë's novel Shirley, which recounts the Luddism of the West Riding, and situates it in the context of Thompson's antinomian tradition, exploring why Brontë chose to present the Luddites as Antinomians. The final section tests the hypothesis of Brontë and Thompson that Luddites may have been Antinomians through a case study of Luddism in the West Riding and the place of religious enthusiasm in working-class protest and culture in the early nineteenth century.

AbstractRichard Oastler (1789–1861), the immensely popular and fiery orator who campaigned for factory reform and for the abolition of the new poor law in the 1830s and 1840s, has been relatively neglected by political historians. Few historians, however, have questioned his toryism. As this article suggests, labelling Oastler an 'ultra‐tory' or a 'church and state tory' obscures more than it reveals. There were also radical strands in Oastler's ideology. There has been a tendency among Oastler's biographers to treat him as unique. By comparing Oastler with other tories – Sadler, Southey, and the young Disraeli – as well as radicals like Cobbett, this article locates him much more securely among his contemporaries. His range of interests were much broader (and more radical) than the historiographical concentration on factory and poor law reform suggests. While there were periods when Oastler's toryism (or radicalism) was more apparent, one of the most consistent aspects of his political career was a distaste for party politics. Far from being unique or a maverick, Oastler personified the pervasive anti‐party sentiments held by the working classes, which for all the historiographical attention paid to popular radicalism and other non‐party movements still tends to get lost in narratives of the 'rise of party'.