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Date
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Event
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Topics
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| Details |
1780 |
Until now, only landowners and tenants--freeholders with 40 shillings per annum or more--are allowed to vote, and voting takes place in open poll books. Major Cartwright founds the Society for Constitutional Information, one of the first of the "radical societies" that agitated for voting and parliamentary reform; he publishes Give Us Our Rights, insisting that poor men should be allowed to vote. Christopher Wyvill and the Yorkshire Association lead the fight against Parliament. A committee in the Commons passes Dunning's resolution: "That the power of the Crown . . . ought to be diminished" (Parliament's typical reaction to pressure for electoral reform--blame the
king). |
*Parliamentary Reform
*Radicalism |
| Details |
June 2, 1780 - June 8, 1780 |
The Gordon Riots: Parliament passes a Roman Catholic relief measure; for days, London is at the mercy of a mob and destruction is widespread. This event "nips the association movement [for Parliamentary reform] in the bud." |
*Parliamentary Reform
*Radicalism |
| Details |
1782 |
Gilbert's Act established outdoor poor relief. |
*Radicalism
*Poor Law |
| Details |
1794 |
Joseph Priestley emigrates to the U.S. in order to escape political persecution. |
*Radicalism |
| Details |
Feb 6, 1796 |
John Binns and John Gale Jones, missionary delegates from the London Corresponding Society, are sent to rural reform societies to explain how to evade and not challenge the "Gagging Acts" or "Two Bills." |
*Radicalism
*The Two Bills |
| Details |
Mar 11, 1796 |
John Binns and John Gale Jones are arrested and imprisoned in Birmingham; Francis Place is sent to defend them; they will be tried for violating the "Two Bills" (for the government and the radicals, a test case). Binns is acquitted in Aug. 1800, but Jones is convicted of sedition in April 1799, although never sentenced. The cost of defending them, bail, and the missions themselves contribute to downfall of the London Corresponding Society. |
*Radicalism
*The Two Bills |
| Details |
1797 |
Tax on English newspapers (including cheap, topical journals) is increased to repress radical publications. |
*Radicalism |
| Details |
Mar 1797 |
By spring, Francis Place and John Ashley (moderates) have dissociated themselves from the more extreme London Corresponding Society. |
*Radicalism |
| Details |
July 1797 - Aug 1797 |
Radical leader of the Society for Constitutional Information, John Thelwall, visits W. Wordsworth and Coleridge at Nether Stowey, and they act suspiciously enough (nightly "reconnaissances" and asking questions about navigating a river to the sea) to alarm servants and neighbors during the wartime scare of invasion from France. The government Home Office sends an informer in mid August (15th-16th) to investigate. |
*Radicalism |
| Details |
July 1797 - Aug 1797 |
W. Wordsworth's presence at Nether Stowey after John Thelwall's visit almost causes riots. (See also.)
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*Radicalism |
| Details |
July 31, 1797 |
London Corresponding Society holds an illegal mass meeting at St. Pancras. Some 4,000 constables and soldiers (6,000-8,000 held in reserve) force the crowd to disperse; six speakers (Ben Binns, Fergussonk Galloway, Barrow, Stuckey, and Hodgson) are arrested, but the Grand Jury dismisses charges against them. |
*Radicalism |
| Details |
1798 - 1799 |
Prosecution and imprisonment of Joseph Johnson, the radical printer and bookseller, and Gilbert Wakefield; Fox calls it "a death Blow to the liberty of the press." |
*Radicalism |
| Details |
Nov 1811 - 1815 |
Luddite uprisings (machine breaking) in the Midlands against the weaving frames: groups of workmen who rebelled against the increased mechanization of textile production by destroying the new machinery. The government fears a revolutionary conspiracy and makes damaging property or taking Luddite oaths capital offences. |
*Radicalism |
| Details |
1812 |
Reform: A bill against the Luddites prescribes capital punishment for frame-breaking; Byron's
first speech in the House of Lords opposes the bill. |
*Parlimentary Reform
*Radicalism |
| Details |
1818 |
Radical publisher Richard Carlile tried and imprisoned. |
*Radicalism |
| Details |
1834 |
Reform Movement: Lord Lyndhurst declares Poor Man's Guardian not a newspaper and thus legal. |
*Parliamentary Reform
*Radicalism
*Poor Law |