Radical Reformer Groups

• Success of the American and French Revolutions caused politcal interest in working classes

• LCS founded in 1792 by the shoemaker Thomas Hardy, supported by skilled London craftsmen

• Promoted universal suffrage and annual parliaments

• Their methods were peaceful; they wanted to petition parliament rather than organise potentially violent demonstrations

• Membership was never limited to any particular class

• Pitt believed that the LCS had the potential to become a military body

• Government spies infiltrated the LCS meetings, but reported that they were working within the law

• Thomas Spence, unhappy with the moderate stance of the meetings in early 1816, organised a mass meeting in east London, hoping it could lead to rioting

• Henry Hunt addressed a group of 10,000, the largest crowd in Lodnon since the 1780 anti-Catholic Gordon Riots

• Hunt wanted to present a petition to the Prince Regent, to urge him to reform parliament.

• He came close to suggesting the use of physical force if demands were not met

• Before the second meeting, a Spenceans stirred up the crowd and they left the meeting, looted gunsmiths and set off to seize the Tower of London and the Royal exchange

• The trial of the ringleaders in 1817 exposed the use of government informers and spies 

• In early 1817, revolutionary activists in Pentridge discussed plans for an insurrection

• A man who called himself Oliver told them that radicals were planning an uprising in London on the 9th of June- however, Oliver was a government provacateur who fed them false information from the government and purposey led them to do illegal and treasonable activities

• On June 9th, 300 men marched towards Nottingham, where they were intercepted by a regiment of soldiers- 80 men were arrested

• Brandreth and two others were hanged and beheaded in public

• Radical activity in Manchester fluctuated with economic conditions- the downturn of the textiles industry in 1818 caused mass meetings and demand for parliamentary reform

• There was a meeting in St Peter's Fields at which there were 80,000 men, women and children

• Groups carried banners calling for annual parliaments and universal suffrage

• Henry Hunt addressed the crowd

• The Yeomanry tried to ride through the crowd to arrest Hunt, but the sheer density of the crowd caused the men and horses to panic

• There were 500 injured and 11 dead

• This caused widespread public revulsion

Government Response

• Pitt relied on local magistrates to maintain order intowns and cities
• Government used a large network of spies 
• Due to war with France, government needed to promote national unity
• Political education of the working class had increased

Extent of radical success

• Noncomformist groups set up Sunday schools to increase literacy, meaning that families could access newspapers and pamphlets promoting the cause
• Working people were beginning to organise themselves into trade unions

Failures of British radicalism

• No national figures were able or prepared to take up positions of leadership
• Reformers were split between those who wanted peaceful actions and those who wanted to use physical force

• Pitt's government suspended habaes corpus, meaning that the government had time to prepare a case against the accused

• The government feared the LCS due to its message reaching a large and sympathic audience 

• When the trials against the leaders took place in 1794, the governemnt couldn't present a good case against them

• They accused the leaders of planning to assassinate the King to have them convicted for treason, but the evidence was flimsy and largely fictional

• All defendants were aquitted

Treason Act 1795

• Made it an offence to kill or harm the King

• Also defined treason as any intention to 'intimidate or overawe either Houses or either House of Parliament

Seditious Meetings Act 1795

• Restricted the size of public meetings to 50 people

• Effectively outlawed large outdoor public meetings which thousands of people would attend

• Radical activity did diminish

• Another name of the Seditious Meetings Act 1817, built on the 1795 measures

• Justices of the Peace were given the power to attend to attend public meetings and could disperse it if they considered it unlawful 

• Societies in which you had to swear an oath were banned outright

• Succeeded in their aim of quelling unrest in the short term, but the terms lapsed in 1818 and radical activities sprang up again

Unlawful Drilling Act- banned unlawful military style drilling

Seizure of Arms Act- empowered magistrates to enter any property where arms                                      may have been being stored

Misendemours Act- reduced the ability for someone to be granted bail

Seditious Meetings Prevention Act- Revived the terms of the 1795 and 1817 acts

Criminal Libel Act- introduced penalty for transportation of libellious writings

Newspapers and Stamp Duties Act- more publications had the pay the stamp duty, and the price of this rose significantly

• Thomas Paine wrote The Rights of Man in response to Edmund Burke's Refelctions on the Revolution in France

• Written in an accessible style, reaching a large audience in Britain and France

• declared that all men should have equal social and political rights since they were all born equal in the eyes of God

• In 1792, a royal proclamation was made against 'wicked and seditious writings which have been printed, published an industriously dispersed' 

• This was seen as directed at Thomas Paine, who left for France

• First one formed in London after 1812 and was an exclusive affair with high membership rates

• They believed that the only rememedy for social ills was parliamentary reform

• Regional Hampden Clubs were formed, which had a membership of one penny a week and was therefore far more open

• They wanted universal suffrage and annual parliaments, and wanted to petition the government for them

• Local authorities used little to no excuse to arrest them

• They were often released, months later, with no charge

• This stopped the Hampden clubs from working effectively after 1817

• established Cobbett's Political Register, which became a leading source of impartial news- by 1805, the Register had a circulation of 4000

• He went to prison for seditious libel in 1810, but in 1812 upon his release he continued writing and the Register flourished

• So that working class people could afford it, he issued a single sheet of the Register for just 2p so that people wouldn't have to pay the high newspaper duty

• He supported the political opinions of his class until he was imprisoned for defying the orders of his commander, where he met some radicals

• By 1810 he had gained a reputation as a brilliant orator

• His influences were seen most prominently at Spa Fields and Peterloo

• He was seen as a champion of the people and their interests