Chartism Bibliography: General Works

The introductory section contains general works in which Chartism plays an important part, bibliographical references for those who want to follow up particular issues and a short list of books of documents (some with commentaries; others without).

General surveys

Edward Royle and James Walvin English Radicals and Reformers 1760-1848, Brighton, 1982, John Stevenson Popular Disturbances in England 1700-1870, Longman, 1979. E.H. Hunt British Labour History 1815-1914, Weidenfeld, 1981, J.T. Ward (ed.) Popular Movements 1830-1850, Macmillan, 1970, D.G. Wright Popular Radicalism: The Working Class Experience 1780-1880, Longman, 1988 and his documentary Democracy and Reform 1815-1885, Longman, 1970 contain useful material on Chartism. Malcolm Thomis and P. Holt Threats of Revolution in Britain 1789-1848, London, 1974 is valuable on the revolutionary impact of Chartism. S.H. Palmer Police & Protest in England and Ireland 1780-1850, Cambridge University Press, 1988 is a vast study containing some illuminating ideas and information. Richard Price Labour in British Society, London, 1986 is a major interpretative study and should be contrasted with two books by John Belchem Industrialisation and the Working Class, London, 1990 and Popular Radicalism in the Nineteenth Century, Macmillan, 1996 and Rohan McWilliam Popular Politics in Nineteenth-Century England, Routledge, 1998. John Archer Social Unrest and Popular Protest in England 1780-1840, Cambridge University Press, 2000 is an invaluable historiographical synthesis of recent work. Clive Behagg Politics and Production in the Early Nineteenth Century, Routledge, 1990 is a valuable study of Birmingham. David Eastwood Government and Community in the English Provinces 1700-1870, Macmillan, 1997 is an essential study on a neglected issue.

Bibliographical and reference materials

Selective bibliographies for this period include David Nicholls Nineteenth Century Britain 1815-1914, London, 1978 and J.L. Altholz Victorian England 1837-1901, Cambridge University Press, 1970. More detail can be found in L.M. Brown and I.R. Christie Bibliography of British History 1789-1851, Oxford University Press, 1977, H.J. Hanham Bibliography of British History 1851-1914, Oxford University Press, 1976 and W.H. Chaloner and R.C. Richardson Bibliography of British Economic and Social History, Manchester, 1984, 2nd ed., 1998. Joyce Bellamy and John Saville (eds.) Dictionary of Labour Biography, eleven volumes, Macmillan, 1972-2006 is a mine of biographical information. The Dictionary of National Biography (DNB), though old, is still worth consulting and is now on CD-ROM. Its replacement The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 is published in sixty volumes replacing and extending the original Victorian DNB: it contains far more of value on the Chartists.

J.F.C. Harrison and D. Thompson (eds.) Bibliography of the Chartism Movement 1837-1976, Brighton 1977 and Owen Ashton, Robert Fyson and Stephen Roberts (eds.) The Chartist Movement: A New Annotated Bibliography, London, 1995 are complementary bibliographical studies. These are essential for anyone wanting detailed bibliographical references to primary and secondary sources. Edward Royle ‘Reading History: Chartism’, History Today, (December 1985) is a valuable shorter listing and should be read in relation to Hugh Cunningham ‘The Nature of Chartism’, Modern History Review, volume 1, (1990) and Eric Evans ‘Chartism revisited’, History Review, volume 33, (1999).

Source collections

G.D.H. Cole and A.W. Filson (eds.) British Working Class Movements 1789-1875 Macmillan, 1957 is the best documentary collection. See also J.T. Ward and W.H. Fraser Workers and Employers, Macmillan, 1980. Edward Royle Chartism, 3rd. ed., Longman, 1996, Dorothy Thompson (ed.) The Early Chartists, Macmillan, 1972, F.C. Mather (ed.) Chartism and Society, Bell, 1980 are the standard documentary studies. Richard Brown and Christopher Daniels The Chartists, Macmillan, 1985 and Joe Kidd Chartists and Chartism, London, 1992 are simpler . Gregory Claeys (ed.) The Chartist Movement in Britain 1838-1850, six volumes, Pickering & Chatto, 2001 contains extensive primary material much of it not readily available elsewhere.