ABSTRACT
First published in 1979, this book was the first, full-length study of working-class movements in London between 1800 and the beginnings of Chartism in the later 1830s. The leaders and rank and file in these movements were almost invariably artisans, and this book examines the position of the skilled artisan in politics.
Starting from the social ideals, outlook and the experience of the London artisan, Dr Prothero describes trade union, political, co-operative, educational and intellectual movements in the first forty years of the century. Setting a scene of alternating growth and contraction in trade, successive hostile governments and the increasing articulation of working-class consciousness the author shows that artisans could be no less militant, radical or anti-capitalist than other groups of working class men.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter |8 pages
Introduction
part |61 pages
Artisans in War and Peace
chapter |11 pages
The Man from Deptford
chapter |29 pages
The London Artisan
chapter |11 pages
The Apprenticeship Campaign
chapter |9 pages
The End of the Wars
part |85 pages
Post-War Radical Politics
chapter |4 pages
Prologue
chapter |22 pages
Gast the Radical
chapter |33 pages
From Palace Yard to Cato Street
chapter |24 pages
Queen Caroline
part |108 pages
Artisans in Boom and Depression
chapter |4 pages
Prologue
chapter |9 pages
The Thames Shipwrights' Provident Union
chapter |11 pages
The Combination Laws
chapter |27 pages
The ‘Trades Newspaper' and Francis Place
chapter |22 pages
The Trade in Depression
chapter |7 pages
The Benefit Societies' Campaign
chapter |26 pages
Co-Operation
part |76 pages
From Reform Crisis to Chartism