Mark Crail
@markcrail
Chartism and other #C19th stuff, chartistancestors.co.uk. Author of Tracing Your Labour Movement Ancestors and Chartist Lives, EC member @sslh.bsky.social. Science fiction reader.
*Time to register* Chartism Day 2026, Warwick, Saturday 19 September All welcome www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/chartism-d...
“Anglo Saxon Christians” reburied in the churchyard at Banstead, Surrey in the 1990s. I gather from a local archaeologist who worked on the dig that there was little if any evidence they were Christians, but the vicar at the time decided they ought to be.
G W M Reynolds, journalist, author of penny dreadful fiction and Chartist, born #OnThisDay 23 July 1814.
Without Feargus O’Connor, there would almost certainly have been no great radical Chartist movement. Born #OnThisDay 18 July 1794, his is one of 42 stories told in Chartist Lives www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0G3Q7PR7Y
Of course, the real problem is that Ed Miliband is such a net zero extremist
Henry Clubb - Chartist, vegetarian, pacifist, anti-slavery veteran of the American civil war, founder of utopian communities - was born #OnThisDay 21 June 1827. His is one of 42 stories told in Chartist Lives www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0G3Q7PR7Y
Can anyone help identify the address? It is likely to be a London address of the late 1840s/early 1850s. #handwriting
Royal assent to the Reform Act #OnThisDay 7 June 1832 gave some northern towns representation in Parliament for the first time. The Act’s limitation of the franchise to the middle classes and the Whig government’s refusal to go further led in part to the emergence of Chartism later in the decade.
#Chartism #C19th “Come forth in your MAJESTIC MYRIADS”.Thousands of Chartists gather on Kersal Moor near Manchester #OnThisDay 25 May 1839. The bill poster advertising the “grand moral demonstration” is amazing!
#C19th #Chartism William Hill, the first editor of the Northern Star newspaper, died #OnThisDay 17 May 1867. His somewhat controversial story is one of 42 told in Chartist Lives (now in paperback, hardback and kindle) www.amazon.co.uk/Chartist-Liv...
Visited Athelhampton House near Dorchester today. Wonderful Tudor mansion and gardens that I was previously unaware of. No pictures allowed inside, which is a shame, but the gardens (and River Piddle) are very photogenic.
#Chartism #C19th #History The great Chartist orator Henry Vincent was born #OnThisDay 10 May 1813. His story is told in my book Chartist Lives www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0G3Q7PR7Y
#Chartism The Second Petition for the People’s Charter, with 3,317,702 signatures, was taken to Parliament in procession #OnThisDay 2 May 1842 www.chartistancestors.co.uk/presenting-t...
#Chartism #C19th Is this really George Julian Harney? It’s such a bizarre portrait. The suggestion is that it was taken during his years in the United States, and the inscription on the back seems to show that it was sent to Jane Cowen, daughter of the Newcastle radical MP Joseph Cowen. It’s on eBay
Chartist Lives is currently for sale on eBay at more than £14. So this is a reminder that you can get more #Chartism in your life (and who doesn’t need that) for just £9.99 from the link below 👇 www.amazon.co.uk/Chartist-Liv...
This in the old parliament house in Canberra - now the museum of Australian democracy.
Australia’s old and new parliaments in Canberra (green for the lower house, red for the senate). The original 1920s building has some lovely art deco features, but its modern replacement is just beautiful in its clean lines and Australian colours and materials.
So you’re in the Australian outback, 400km from the nearest seaport and you stop for a cold drink. What do you expect to find? A 90m long submarine, of course!
Astonishingly clear view of the stars in rural Australia this evening. Only needed a phone to take these.
Chartist Lives - now out in hardback, paperback and ebook formats. #Chartism #C19th #BritishHistory 🗃️ www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0G3Q7PR7Y
If you ever wondered what the radical lawyer Henry Brougham, Whig Lord Chancellor at the time of the 1832 Reform Act, looked like, here’s his death mask, now on display at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery
Memorial to the first English settlers to arrive in what became Hobart Town, between October 1803 and the end of 1804. The Palawa people had already been there for 40,000 years, but were forced off their lands, hunted, killed and exiled.
‘Footsteps’. Statues at Franklin Wharf, Hobart, commemorating the 13,000 women transported to Van Diemen’s Land, and the 2,000 children they brought with them, 1803-53 #C19th
Port Arthur penal colony. Transported Newport Chartist John Frost served for a time as clerk in the commandant’s office. Young Ireland leader William Smith O’Brian later lived in the house shown here.