ABSTRACT
The correspondence of William Wilberforce in this period re-fers often to the disturbed state of the times. Christopher Wyvill told him of the uneasiness and sense of impending danger felt by propertied people in Durham. Neither Wilberforce nor Wyvill had been averse to agitating their own causes among their own kind, the upper middle class and the gentry. In March 1792 the Manchester Constitutional Society sent to the SCI resolutions thanking Paine for his “excellent and practicable plans” for achieving great social improvements. The Sheffield Society prospered and grew. By mid-March it claimed two thousand members, organized in the first instance into two hundred tythings. John Horne Tooke presented it to the meeting of the SCI which resolved, without permission from Hardy and with lordly condescension, to send out the address for publication. The Sheffield Society was an inspiration to the neighborhood.
