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The agitation promptly went underground once more. We may once again try to follow its history in the West Riding. Throughout the summer of 1801 meetings continued, mainly at night; Batley, Ossett, and Saddleworth are added to the list of centres. At Halifax, in July 1801, some kind of delegate com…

Between Despard and Brandreth there stretches the illegal tradition. It is a tradition which will never be rescued from its obscurity. But we may approach it from three directions: first, from considering some surviving evidence as to the ‘underground’ between 1800 and 1802; second, from some criti…

The process of industrialization is necessarily painful. It must involve the erosion of traditional patterns of life. But it was carried through with exceptional violence in Britain. It was unrelieved by any sense of national participation in communal effort, such as is found in countries undergoin…

[...] The Irish were, a Catholic priest admitted in 1836, ‘more prone to take part in trades unions, combinations and secret societies than the English’. ‘They are the talkers and ring-leaders on all occasions,’ claimed another witness. Engels saw the ‘passionate, mercurial Irish temperament’ as th…

These Irish were neither stupid nor barbarians. Mayhew often remarked upon their generosity, their ‘powers of speech and quickness of apprehension’. They adhered to a different value-system than that of the English artisan; and in shocking English proprieties one feels that they often enjoyed thems…