Michael Herbert (Red Flag Walks) has announced an eight week course covering the history of radical women in Britain between 1819 and 1918.

The course will run online via Zoom each Sunday for eight weeks at 2:00pm, beginning on Sunday 11 October and ending on Sunday 29 November. The course will cover the following themes:

Female Reform Societies and the 1819 Peterloo Massacre:

In the summer of 1819, many women formed the Female Reform Societies which called for the reform of Parliament and issued addresses to the wider public. Many women were present on the field of Peterloo in Manchester on August 16 1819, and were among the dead and injured.

Women Republicans in the 1820s:

The involvement of women in the Republican movement during the 1820s. The movement was inspired by the political writings of Richard Carlile, who was jailed for three years alongside his wife and sister.

Women and Owenite Socialism:

Women were active participants and lecturers in the socialist movement of the 1830s. Inspired by the radical ideas of Robert Owen, a number of women such as Eliza Martin also promoted atheistic causes.

Women and the campaign against slavery:

Many women and Female Societies campaigned for the abolition of slavery in the British Empire. Following the abolition of slavery in 1833, many British women campaigned in solidarity with their counterparts in the United States, until its abolition in 1865.

Women and the Chartist movement, 1838-1848:

Chartism was a mass movement which called for the wholesale reform of the entire political system. Women were active participants and campaigners across various Chartist societies.

Votes for women, 1866-1928:

The final theme of the course addresses the long campaign for the right to vote for women, which began with a petition to Parliament in 1866 and lasted for sixty years until the 1928 Act. The session will cover both constitutional suffragists in the National Society for Women’s Suffrage as well as more militant women involved in both the Women’s Social and Political Union, and Women’s Freedom League.

To book a place on the course, please email Michael Herbert: redflagwalks@gmail.com or contact him via telephone at 07551301244

Price – £50.00 (payable in advance)

For more information:

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Michael Herbert is a freelance historian who has lived in Manchester since 1973. His previously published work includes: ‘The Wearing of the Green’; a political history of the Irish in Manchester; For the sake of the women who are to come after: Manchester Radical Women: 1914 to 1945; and ‘Things are not always what they seem’ : the writing and politics of Malcolm Hulke.

Earlier this year, we covered Michael’s and Bernadette Hyland’s new book on the Manchester trade union organiser, Mary Quaile.