Conference: The Radical North, 1779-1914
- Date: Friday 29 November 2024, 09:30 – 19:00
- Location: Nexus, Discovery Way, Leeds, LS2 3AA
- Type: Conferences
- Cost: This event is planned to be free of charge
A Symposium in Memory of Professor Malcolm Chase
Northern History journal, with the support of the School of History, University of Leeds and the Social History Society, is organising a symposium to celebrate the life and work of Professor Malcolm Chase, author of many important works on British popular radicalism and labour history including Chartism: A New History (Manchester University Press, 2007) and 1820: Disorder and Stability in the United Kingdom (Manchester University Press, 2013).
Programme
09:30-10:00: Coffee and registration
10:00-10:30 Opening Address
Simon Morgan (Leeds Beckett University): Welcome and housekeeping
Julia Barrow (University of Leeds): Malcolm Chase and Northern History
Jill Liddington (University of Leeds): Malcolm Chase and the University of Leeds Extra-Mural Department
Andrea Major (University of Leeds): Malcolm Chase the University of Leeds School of History
10:30-12:00 Panel 1: Radicalism before Chartism
Callum Manchester (University of Cambridge), ‘”Moderation” and “Radicalism”: Christopher Wyvill and the Yorkshire Association’
Rachel Hammersley (Newcastle University): ‘The Making of Thomas Spence: The Radical Political Culture of late eighteenth-century Newcastle’
Harriet Gray (Newcastle University): ‘John Marshall: Radical Politics and the Print Culture of early nineteenth-century Newcastle’
Vic Clarke (independent scholar): ‘Richard Oastler and Yorkshire Political Celebrity, 1830-1847’
Chair: Simon Morgan (Leeds Beckett University)
12:00-13:00: Lunch
13:00-14:00 Roundtable: The Legacy of Malcom Chase
Katrina Navickas (University of Hertfordshire)
Robert Poole (University of Central Lancashire, emeritus)
Matthew Roberts (Sheffield Hallam University)
Chair: Joan Allen (Newcastle University)
14:00-15:30 Panel 2: Chartism and its Legacy
Christopher Day (Nottingham Trent University): ‘Unjust, tyrannical, arbitrary, and despotic’: Radical dissension from the Public Health Act 1848 and the legacies of Chartism in Clitheroe, Lancashire’
Joy Brindle (Durham University): ‘To do work for the Working Man’: the social networking of Thomas Dixon of Sunderland, 1855-80’
Henry Miller (Northumbria University): ‘The Humble Petitioners: Working People’s Petitions to Parliament after Chartism’
Andrew Walker (Rose Bruford College): ‘Representations of the later lives of Chartist activists in the Northern provincial press, 1860-1900’
Chair: Vic Clarke (independent scholar)
15:30-15:45: Break
15:45-17:15 Panel 3: After Chartism
Martin Wright (Cardiff University): ‘The “Socialist Revival” in the North: The Northumberland Miners’ Strike, 1887’
Jordan Clark (University of St Andrews): ‘The Radical Verse of the Pitmen Poets’
Tobin O’Connor (Manchester Metropolitan University): ‘The Labour Church: A Religious and Political Anomaly that Laid the Foundations for Labour Movements in 1890s Britain’
Laura Forster (University of Manchester): ‘‘Friends in the North: Reading, Rambling, and Revolutionary Fellowship’
Chair: Clare Griffifths (Cardiff University)
17:15-17:30: Break
17:30-19:00 Book Launch: Reimagining Empire in India, by Andrea Major
We will be celebrating the launch of Professor Andrea Major’s book, Reimagining Empire in India: George Thompson, Anti-Slavery Activism, and the Global Networks of British Colonial Reform, 1831-1858 (Bloomsbury 2024).
Registration
Registration will open in due course.
Blue plaque for the Northern Star
The symposium is timed to coincide with the Leeds Civic Trust’s unveiling of a blue plaque commemorating the Chartist newspaper Northern Star on Saturday 30 November. This was a cause that Malcolm had championed, and we hope that as many delegates as possible will stay on to participate in the programme of events around the unveiling.