The Papers of the London Corresponding Society 1792–1799, first published in 1983, consists of eighteenth-century documents which trace the history of an early working-class reform society organized by a shoemaker and three of his friends. 'Annual Parliaments and Universal Suffrage' was their slogan and their goal. To achieve this reform they believed they must first educate the people to know what their rights were and how to exercise them. So popular were they that over 10,000 men paid to join the Society and over 100,000 people attended their open air meetings. Such numbers alarmed the government, especially since spies reported talk or arming and revolution, of assassinating Pitt and shooting 'royal game'. Unlike many groups which set out to demand their political or social rights, but which scattered as soon as they encountered opposition, the Corresponding Society met openly for over six years despite harassment by police magistrates, interference from press gangs, vilification i
The Papers of the London Corresponding Society 1792–1799, first published in 1983, consists of eighteenth-century documents which trace the history of an early working-class reform society organized by a shoemaker and three of his friends. 'Annual Parliaments and Universal Suffrage' was their slogan and their goal. To achieve this reform they believed they must first educate the people to know what their rights were and how to exercise them. So popular were they that over 10,000 men paid to join the Society and over 100,000 people attended their open air meetings. Such numbers alarmed the government, especially since spies reported talk or arming and revolution, of assassinating Pitt and shooting 'royal game'. Unlike many groups which set out to demand their political or social rights, but which scattered as soon as they encountered opposition, the Corresponding Society met openly for over six years despite harassment by police magistrates, interference from press gangs, vilification i
Francis Place's autobiography presents a vivid and readable account of the early life of one of the best-known radical reformers of the early 19th century. The publication of Place's manuscript for the first time in book form is a landmark in the expanding field of studies in artisan self-consciousness of the pre-Victorian era. The book will be of obvious value to those interested in the origins of the Reform Movement and especially of the controversial reform group, the London Corresponding society. In his description of the rise and fall of the LCS and of the men who composed it and other reform groups. Place brings to life the human feelings and failings of the working-class democratic movement, and his own lifelong attempts to 'promote the welfare of the working class'.
