ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the early period of the factory agitation and its significance for the development of the Christian radical programme. It traces the varieties of Christian radicalism inspiring the movement for factory reform, and shows how the character of such reform emerged from Christian radical debate. The chapter discusses the Tory radicals and Christian radicals as if they were a single entity. Charles J. Blomfield, John Bird Sumner, and others charted a path for Christian defiance to the laws of political economy. The generation after Waterloo witnessed the emergence of a popular, working-class political economy. Inordinately long working hours and adverse conditions provoked a common comparison between factory and colonial slavery. C. J. Grant’s caricature of Henry Brougham in a patrol boat with ‘black slaves’ and ‘white slaves’ provided poignant commentary. The advocates for the emancipation of slaves in the colonies overlapped with those seeking relief for factory workers.
