Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
The English republican movement of the late 1860s and early 1870s has received meagre notice in standard historical accounts of the Victorian period. If viewed as no more than a notorious episode of the time English republicanism perhaps deserved no better; but, if considered as a persistent element of the radical tradition dating from the 1790s, coming to climax and then anti-climax in the 1870s, it merited more than mere passing attention. It has never been the subject of a single substantial historical work, and given that it was so inextricably bound up with other elements of nineteenth-century radicalism, perhaps it never will. Nevertheless, it has been accorded more than passing reference in the work of Royle, Gossman, Hardie and Harrison.
1 A half-page is devoted to it in Seaman, L. C. B., Victorian England: aspects of English and imperial history, 1837–1901 (London, 1973), p. 444Google Scholar; a paragraph on the Queen's unpopularity in Ensor, R. C. K., England, 1870–1914 (1st edn, London, 1936), p. 26Google Scholar; two lines in Webb, R. K., Modern England, from the eighteenth century to the present (2nd edn, London, 1971), p. 343Google Scholar; and the merest hint in Young, G. M., Victorian England, portrait of an age (1st edn, London, 1936), p. 113Google Scholar. It is not mentioned at all in, among others, Trevelyan, G. M., British history in the nineteenth century and after (2nd edn, reprint, London, 1962)Google Scholar; Halévy, E. (ed.), History of the English people in the nineteenth century, vol. 4Google Scholar, Victorian years, 1841–1895, part ii, by R. B. McCallum (1st edn, London,1951)Google Scholar; Wood, A., Nineteenth century Britain, 1815–1914 (London, 1960)Google Scholar; Best, G., Mid-Victorian Britain, 1851–1875 (London, 1971).Google Scholar
2 Royle, E., Radicals, secularists and republicans: popular freethought in Britain, 1866–1915 (Manchester, 1980), pp. 198–206Google Scholar; Gossman, N.J., ‘Republicanism in nineteenth century England’, International Review of Social History, vii (1962), 47–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hardie, F., The political influence of Queen Victoria, 1861–1901 (1st edn, reprint, London, 1963)', pp. 214–20Google Scholar; Harrison, R., Before the socialists: studies in labour and politics, 1861–1881 (London, 1965), pp. 210–46.Google Scholar
3 Red Republican, 6 July 1850.
4 Gossman, ‘Republicanism’, p. 55.
5 Ibid. p. 54.
6 Ibid. p. 50.
7 Hardie, Political influence, p. 215.
8 Ibid.
9 Bradlaugh, C., The Impeachment of the House of Brunswick (6th edn, London, 1877), p. 99.Google Scholar
10 Hardie, Political influence, p. 214.
11 Ibid. p. 220.
12 Collins, H. and Abramsky, C., Karl Marx and the British labour movement: years of the First International (London, 1965), pp. 276–8.Google Scholar
13 Harrison, Before the socialists, p. 215.
14 Reynolds's Newspaper, 6 Jan. 1867.
15 Ibid. 20, 27 Jan., 17 Feb., 18 Mar., 7 Apr. 1867.
16 Ibid. 27 Oct. 1867.
17 Ibid. 30 Aug. 1867. This is the earliest mention of the U.P.L. by name.
18 Ibid. 18, 25 Oct. 1868, 30 Jan. 1870.
19 National Reformer, 20 June 1869. Hereafter cited as N.R.
20 N.R., 4 July 1869; Reynolds's Newspaper, 11 July 1869.
21 Reynolds's Newspaper, 11 July 1869; N.R., 11 July 1869.
22 N.R., 4 July 1869. The contribution is signed ‘Socialist’.
23 Reynolds's Newspaper, 9 Aug. 1869.
24 N.R., 29 Aug. 1869.
25 Ibid. 3, 24 Oct., 5 Dec. 1869, 30 Jan., 13 Mar., 15 May, 12 June, 3, 10 July 1870.
26 Bonner, H. Bradlaugh, Charles Bradlaugh, a record of his life and work (2 vols. London, 1894)Google Scholar; Tribe, D., President Charles Bradlaugh, M.P. (London, 1971).Google Scholar
27 Something neither Tribe nor Royle brings out.
28 N.R., 9 May 1869.
29 Bristol Daily Post, 19 July 1869.
30 N.R., 12 Sept. 1869.
31 Ibid. 18 Sept. 1870.
32 The Times, 26 Sept. 1870; The Republican, Feb. 1871; Eastern Post, 14 Jan. 1871.
33 Birmingham Morning News, 15 Feb. 1871; N.R., 22 Jan., 5 Feb. 1871.
34 N.R., 29 Jan. 1871.
35 Hardie, Political influence, p. 224; Gossman, ‘Republicanism’, p. 54.
36 N.R., 12, 26 Feb. 1871.
37 Ibid. 2 Apr. 1871.
38 Ibid. 19 Mar. 1871.
39 Soutter, F. W., Fights for freedom, the story of my life (London, 1925), pp. 117–18.Google Scholar
40 North Wilts Herald, 1 Apr. 1871.
41 Morning Advertiser, 20 June 1871.
42 N.R., 23, 30 July, 6, 20, 27 Aug., 3, 10, 17, 24 Sept., 1, 8, 22 Oct., 10 Dec. 1871.
43 204 Hansard, 3 s, cols 119, 146 (10 Feb. 1871), 174–5 (13 Feb. 1871), 359–60 (16 Feb. 1871).
44 Ibid. cols 359–60 (16 Feb. 1871).
45 Ibid. col. 371 (16 Feb. 1871).
46 208 Hansard, 3 s, cols 570–90 (31 July 1871).
47 Jenkins, R., Sir Charles Dilke, a Victorian tragedy (London, 1958), pp. 69–73.Google Scholar
48 210 Hansard, 3 s, cols 251–2, 290–1, 317 (19 Mar. 1872).
49 N.R., 27 Oct. 1872.
50 Ibid. 25 Sept. 1870; The Times, 26 Sept. 1870; The Echo, 11 Jan. 1871.
51 Harrison, F., ‘The revolution of the Commune’, Fortnightly Review, n.s., ix, May 1871, 556–79Google Scholar; ‘The fall of the Commune’, Fortnightly Review, n.s., x, Aug. 1871, 129–55.Google Scholar
52 N.R., 24 Dec. 1871.
53 Ibid. 8 Oct. 1865.
54 Ibid. 8 Jan. 1871, 10 Mar. 1872.
55 Minutes of the General Council of the I.W.M.A., 28 Mar. 1871.
56 Ibid. 20 June 1871.
57 N.R., 16 July 1871.
58 Eastern Post, 9 Sept. 1871.
59 Ibid. 23 Sept. 1871.
60 N.R., 8 Oct. 1871.
61 Evening Standard, 14 Dec. 1871; Minutes of the General Council, 6 Feb. 1872. Maltman Barry told the General Council at its meeting on 6 February that he had been responsible for sending in such reports to the press.
62 The Republican, 1 Aug. 1871.
63 Eastern Post, 26 Oct. 1872; N.R., 3 Nov. 1872.
64 International Herald, 9, 30 Nov. 1872.
65 N.R., 1 Dec. 1872.
66 International Herald, 7 Dec. 1872.
67 Ibid. 4 Jan. 1873; Birmingham Morning News, 12 Apr. 1873.
68 N.R., 8 Dec. 1872.
69 J. B. Coleridge and G. Jessel to Attorney-General, 17 Dec. 1872, Home Office Registered Papers, Public Record Office, 45//.
70 N.R., 8, 15 Dec. 1872; International Herald, 18 Jan., 8 Feb. 1873.
71 International Herald, 15 Mar. 1873.
72 N.R., 16 Mar. 1873.
73 Ibid. 4 May 1873.
74 Ibid. 13 Apr., 4 May 1873.
75 Birmingham Daily Post, 12 May 1873.
76 Ibid.
77 N.R., 18 May 1873.
78 Ibid.
79 Leeds Mercury, 13 May 1873.
80 Birmingham Daily Post, 14 May 1873.
81 International Herald, 24 May 1873.
82 Ibid. 7 June 1873.
83 N.R., 3 Aug. 1873.
84 Ibid. 10 Aug. 1873.
85 Daily Telegraph, 4 Aug. 1873; Evening Standard, 4 Aug. 1873; Daily News, 4 Aug. 1873.
86 N.R., 10 Aug. 1873.
87 Gossman, ‘Republicanism’, p. 58.
88 Home Office Registered Papers, P.R.O., 45//.
89 Ibid., R. H. Hodgson to Secretary of State, Home Office, 14 Nov. 1873, 45///.
90 Ibid., A. F. O. Liddell, Home Office, to D. McNeill, Chief Constable, West Riding Constabulary, Wakefield, 17 Nov. 1873, 45///.
91 Ibid., John Gray to A. F. O. Liddell, 9 Dec. 1873, 45///.
92 Ibid., J. B. Coleridge and G. Jessel to Attorney-General, 17 Dec. 1872, 45//.
93 N.R., 26 May 1872.
94 Ibid. 30 July, 13 Aug. 1871.
95 The Republican, 1 Nov. 1870.
96 Ibid. Mar. 1871.
97 Ibid. 15 May 1871.
98 Ibid. 19 Aug. 1871.
99 Minutes of the General Council, 16 Apr. 1872; Eastern Post, 20 Apr. 1872.
100 N.R., 28 Apr. 1872.
101 Ibid. 6 Apr. 1873.
102 Ibid.
103 Ibid. 15 Sept. 1872.
104 Collins and Abramsky, Karl Marx, pp. 276–8.
105 N.R., 16 Dec. 1877.