Radical Spaces

Venues of Popular Politics in London 1790-1845

Christina Parolin

• Publisher: ANU Press
• Year: 2010
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781921862014
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Early Modern History
• Index: History

RADICAL SPACES explores the rise of popular radicalism in London between 1790 and 1845 through key sites of radical assembly: the prison, the tavern and the radical theatre. Access to spaces in which to meet, agitate and debate provided those excluded from the formal arenas of the political nation-the great majority of the population-a crucial voice in the public sphere. RADICAL SPACES utilises both textual and visual public records, private correspondence and the secret service reports from the files of the Home Office to shed new light on the rise of plebeian radicalism in the metropolis. It brings the gendered nature of such sites to the fore, finding women where none were thought to gather, and reveals that despite the diversity in these spaces, there existed a dynamic and symbiotic relationship between radical culture and the sites in which it operated. These venues were both shaped by and helped to shape the political identity of a generation of radical men and women who envisioned a new social and political order for Britain.

Table of contents

• Preliminary
• Acknowledgments
• Illustrations
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1. ‘Honourable House of Blasphemers’: the radical public of Newgate in the early nineteenth century
• 2. ‘Bastilles of despotism’: radical resistance in the Coldbath Fields House of Correction, 1798–1830
• 3. The ‘She-Champion of Impiety’: female radicalism and political crime in early nineteenth-century England
• 4. Radicalism and reform at the ‘Gate of Pandemonium’: the Crown and Anchor tavern in visual culture, 1790–1820
• 5. ‘Fresh Crown and Anchor sentiments’: radical reform in the Strand, 1817–1847
• 6. ‘Temple of Knowledge and Reason’: culture and politics at 3 Blackfriars Road, Surrey
• 7. ‘Bitten with the Rotunda notions’: audience, identity and communication 1830–1832
• 8. ‘Pythoness of the Temple’: Eliza Sharples and the gendered public of the Rotunda
• 9. Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index