In our continuing series on places in labour history, Keith Flett revisits the contested site of the Peterloo Massacre. The Manchester Free Trade Hall was built on the site of the 1819 Peterloo Massacre, its address being Peter Street. Constructed on land given by Richard Cobden it was designed to mark the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 and was completed in 1856. While … Continue reading Manchester Free Trade Hall: a place in labour history
In our continuing series on places in labour history, Mark Crail visits a rural churchyard to pay his respects to the first translator of the Communist Manifesto. Drive along the narrow country lanes of Cheshire for far enough that you begin to question whether your satnav is working properly and you will eventually come across St Michael’s Church in the small, scattered settlement of Baddiley. … Continue reading Baddiley churchyard: a place in labour history
Academic and independent historians, Chartist enthusiasts and the Chartism curious gathered in Huddersfield for the annual Chartism Day event, the latest in a series of conferences that first ran in 1993. With centuries of history as a site of working-class radicalism from Luddism to Owenite socialism and beyond, Huddersfield proved to be the ideal venue for Chartism Day 2025. Taking place at Heritage Quay, a … Continue reading Chartism Day 2025 report: landscape and the crowd, emancipation and revolution
Liberal interpretations of the Chartist movement continue to dominate the views of historians and of general society, Professor Peter Gurney argued in delivering the Society’s fourth annual John Halstead Memorial Lecture at the John Rylands Library in Manchester in June. Setting out to challenge the dominance of liberal readings which commonly argued that those Chartist demands which had proved feasible had eventually found their way … Continue reading The Chartist Revolution: a challenge to liberalism and market capitalism
In the sixth of our series on meetings with figures from labour history, Vic Clarke encounters the Chartist leader, MP and newspaper proprietor Feargus O’Connor. Any collective effort is bound to include a clash of personalities, and self-proclaimed ‘people’s friend’ Feargus O’Connor certainly came to clashes in the Chartist movement. A surprisingly understudied figure, O’Connor’s charismatic and bombastic editorials, or ‘letters’ to his readers in … Continue reading Class Encounters: Feargus O’Connor, Chartist leader
In the fifth of our series on meetings with figures from labour history, Mike Mecham encounters the ‘peasant poet’ John Clare. For Malcolm Chase 1820 was a pivotal political year for Britain and Ireland. It also saw the publication of the first, and most successful, collection of poems by John Clare (1793-1864), selling more copies than his stable-mate John Keats. The ‘Peasant Poet’ was then … Continue reading Class Encounters: John Clare, poet
In the third of our series on meetings with figures from labour history, Mark Crail encounters George Julian Harney, editor of the Northern Star and Red Republican. On a bitterly cold Christmas Day 1840, George Julian Harney walked eighteen miles across North-East Scotland from Elgin to Keith in the hope of reviving the town’s Chartist Association. But when he got there, no lecture room could … Continue reading Class Encounters: George Julian Harney, Chartist journalist
In the second of our series on meetings with figures from labour history, Janette Martin encounters her namesake, the Owenite lecturer Emma Martin I would most like to meet Emma Martin (1812-1851), the feisty woman who escaped an unhappy marriage to earn a living as an itinerant Owenite lecturer while bringing up her three young daughters. Emma was born in Bristol to a lower middle-class … Continue reading Class Encounters: Emma Martin, Owenite lecturer
If you could meet one person from labour history, who would it be? We asked labour historians to tell us who they would invite for a cup of tea, a pint at the pub or even Christmas Dinner. In the first of a new series, Joe Stanley encounters miners’ union activist John Auty I first encountered John Auty when he was named ‘Paymaster General’ of … Continue reading Class Encounters: John Auty, miners’ trade union activist
One hundred and eighty years after was published in Leeds for the final time, the Chartist Northern Star newspaper now has a blue plaque in the heart of the city marking its importance as a voice of working-class radicalism. Unveiled by Shirley Chase, whose late husband, the Chartist historian Professor Malcolm Chase, long sought to have the paper commemorated in the city where it was … Continue reading Northern Star shines in Leeds once more
Society for the Study of Labour History 