5 - Military Radicals, 1790–1850

Summary

This chapter deals in detail with ‘military radicals’. These were soldiers or ex-soldiers who were political reformers in the period 1790–1850, working for a root reform of society starting with extending the right to vote. The chapter outlines the careers of many individuals and reveals their military careers and political aspirations. Starting in the 1790s, some radical officers were dismissed from the army for their sympathy with the ideals of French Revolution and a few individuals –usually Irish – fought against the British Crown. The number of military radicals peaked in the period 1815–20, which clearly relates to the mass mobilisation of the Napoleonic Wars, which swept the new working class into the conflict. Some exploration will be made of how military radicals encountered new ideas and how this relates to their military service either at home or abroad.

The strong thread of military radicalism continued into the post-Peterloo period. This involved many ex-soldiers and some serving soldiers in political reform of all sorts, as well as Owenism and Chartism. Military radicals are found in all areas of working-class radicalism, ranging from the earlier insurrectionists discussed in Chapter 4 to the later sober self-helpers of co-operation, trade unions, temperance, and factory and franchise reform. Although political activity in barracks was officially forbidden by Victorian military regulations, there is some evidence that it still went on.

Eighteenth-century military radicals

John Wilkes (1725–97) was a late eighteenth-century MP for Aylesbury and then Middlesex. He was the satirical scourge of king and court and darling of the London crowd who, unsurprisingly, served as an officer in the ‘Old Constitutional Force’; the militia. Wilkes's Lord Lieutenant advised him not to let ‘political differences of opinion which will exist betwixt you and your associates … clash with the public service’. His politics did not prevent him rising to lieutenant colonel in the Buckinghamshire Militia, where he took his duties seriously, participating in the suppression of the Gordon Riots in 1780, which probably lost him support from working-class constituents. He showed some interest in the concerns of soldiers and the specific grievances of marines officers were first aired in 1763 in Wilkes's journal, The North Briton.