ABSTRACT
In 1848, the year of the European revolutions and the great Chartist demonstration, George Jacob Holyoake was editing the Reasoner from London and helping William Lovett set up the society of ‘Friends of All Nations League’ at the John Street Institution. The uprisings in Italy, Poland, Austria, and most of all France, had a profound effect on him and exposed him to new ideas and strategies: ‘He began to realise that England was part of the map of Europe, and that the dream of revolution as a short-cut to the golden age was not quite ended.’1 Inspired by these events, Robert Buchanan and Lloyd Jones started a weekly paper called The Spirit of
the Age in the summer of 1848. Thoroughly Owenite in tone, it gave space to the ideas and practices of continental, and especially French, socialism. Holyoake edited it from November until its demise in March 1849.
