Popular Politics in Nineteenth Century England provides an accessible introduction to the culture of English popular politics between 1815 and 1900, the period from Luddism to the New Liberalism. This is an area that has attracted great historical interest and has undergone fundamental revision in the last two decades. Did the industrial revolution create the working class movement or was liberalism (which transcended class divisions) the key mode of political argument? Rohan McWilliam brings this central debate up to date for students of Nineteenth Century British History. He assesses popular ideology in relation to the state, the nation, gender and the nature of party formation, and reveals a much richer social history emerging in the light of recent historiographical developments.

A comprehensible and accessible portrait of the various 'languages' which shaped public life in nineteenth century Britain, covering key themes such as governance, statesmanship, patriotism, economics, religion, democracy, women's suffrage, Ireland and India.

Victorian Britain is often described as an age of dawning democracy and as an exemplar of the modern Liberal state; yet a hereditary monarchy, a hereditary House of Lords, and an established Anglican Church survived as influential aspects of national public life with traditional elites assuming redefined roles. After 1832, constitutional notions of 'mixed government' gradually gave way to the orthodoxy of 'parliamentary government', shaping the function and nature of political parties in Westminster and the constituencies, as well as the relations between them. Following the 1867-8 Reform Acts, national political parties began to replace the premises of 'parliamentary government'. The subsequent emergence of a mass male electorate in the 1880s and 1890s prompted politicians to adopt new language and methods by which to appeal to voters, while enduring public values associated with morality, community and evocations of the past continued to shape Britain's distinctive political culture. This gave a particularly conservative trajectory to the nation's entry into the twentieth century. This study of British political culture from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century examines the public values that informed perceptions of the constitution, electoral activity, party partisanship, and political organization. Its exploration of Victorian views of status, power, and authority as revealed in political language, speeches, and writing, as well as theology, literature, and science, shows how the development of moral communities rooted in readings of the past enabled politicians to manage far-reaching change. This presents a new over-arching perspective on the constitutional and political transformations of the Victorian age.

A Companion to Nineteenth-Century Britain presents 33 essaysby expert scholars on all the major aspects of the political,social, economic and cultural history of Britain during the lateGeorgian and Victorian eras. Truly British, rather than English, in scope. Pays attention to the experiences of women as well as ofmen. Illustrated with maps and charts. Includes guides to further reading.

Explores the central role of petitions in reshaping the political culture of the United Kingdom in their nineteenth-century heyday.

A critical introduction to the mass political movements that came of age in urban England between the Great Reform Act of 1832 and the start of World War One. Roberts provides a guide to the new approaches to topics such as Chartism, parliamentary reform, Gladstonian Liberalism, popular Conservatism and the independent Labour movement.

This lively and accessible book reappraises the often complex relationship between British monarchs and some of their more troublesome subjects in the 'age of revolutions'. By exposing a rationale behind the efforts of the mad and the politically disaffected to intrude upon, assault or pester kings and queens from George III to Victoria, the author casts new light upon the contested languages of constitutionalism, contract theory and the rights of petition. The Hanoverian dynasty sought security from republicanism during the 1790s by reinventing itself as an affable, domestic, flexible and solicitous institution. But majesty and approachability were to prove uneasy bedfellows, and popular frustrations over unanswered petitions could provoke serious personal moments of crisis. In its detailed reconstruction of the mentalities of such unsuccessful and forgotten Royal 'assassins' as Margaret Nicholson, James Hadfield and Dennis Collins, this unique and pioneering study of monarchical history from below will interest the specialist and general reader alike, and provoke fresh controversy over the viability of monarchies in the modern world.

Understanding the Victorians paints a vivid portrait of an era of dramatic change, combining broad survey with close analysis and introducing students to the critical debates on the nineteenth century taking place among historians today. The volume encompasses all of Great Britain and Ireland over the whole of the Victorian period and gives prominence to social and cultural topics alongside politics and economics and emphasizes class, gender, and racial and imperial positioning as constitutive of human relations. This third edition is fully updated with new chapters on emotion and on Britain’s relationship with Europe as well as added discussions of architecture, technology, and the visual arts. Attention to the current concerns and priorities of professional historians also enables readers to engage with today’s historical debates. Starting with the Queen Caroline Affair in 1820 and coming up to the start of World War I in 1914, thematic chapters explore the topics of space, politics, Europe, the empire, the economy, consumption, class, leisure, gender, the monarchy, the law, arts and entertainment, sexuality, religion, and science. With a clear introduction outlining the key themes of the period, a detailed timeline, and suggestions for further reading and relevant internet resources, this is the ideal companion for all students of the nineteenth century. Discover more from Susie by exploring our forthcoming Routledge Historical resource on British Society, edited by Susie L. Steinbach and Martin Hewitt. Find out more about our Routledge Historical resources by visiting https://www.routledgehistoricalresources.com.

This book takes a fresh look at the progressive interventions of writers in the nineteenth century. From Cobbett to Dickens and George Eliot, and including a host of lesser known figures – popular novelists, poets, journalists, political activists – writers shared a commitment to exploring the potential of literature as a medium in which to imagine new and better worlds. The essays in this volume ask how we should understand these interventions and what are their legacies in the twentieth and twenty first centuries? Inspired by the work of the radical literary scholar, the late Sally Ledger, this volume provides a commentary on the political traditions that underpin the literature of this complex period, and examines the interpretive methods that are needed to understand them. This timely book contributes to our appreciation of the radical traditions that underpin our literary past.

A language of party?; 6.