ABSTRACT
Reynolds’s Newspaper, founded in 1850 by George W.M. Reynolds in the aftermath of the last great Chartist demonstrations of 1848, was a radical newspaper in the tradition of earlier Chartist newspapers, most notably the Northern Star.1 As with the Northern Star, reading Reynolds’s Newspaper was in itself an act of political expression.2 The context, however, was different. In the decades following the ‘end’ of the Chartist era, Reynolds’s Newspaper stood alone as the most popular and stable radical weekly, espousing radicalism and reform with every issue.3 As such,
Reynolds’s Newspaper acted as a national focus for radicals; it was essentially a national ‘meeting in print’ for Chartists and other radicals in the decades following the last great Chartist demonstrations. Reynolds himself assumed a leading role in the Chartist action of 1848, and would take a leading rhetorical position in the national radical community his newspaper helped keep alive.
