ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the different ways in which diverse British radicals—republican revolutionaries, advocates of constitutional reform, agitators for universal suffrage, workplace organisers and freethinkers—used or were motivated by the ancient Greeks and Romans between the American and French revolutions. Tom Paine's irreverence towards classical antiquity scandalised some of his contemporaries and has ever since been misunderstood by scholars who only read his most famous writings. The People’s Charter demanded universal male suffrage, secret ballots, annual parliaments, pay for MPs and abolition of property qualifications to stand for election and equal electoral districts. Thomas Cooper was not only committed to universal male suffrage and agitation on behalf of the poor, but on an international level he was opposed to imperialism.
