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English Radical History @englishradical.bsky.social · Jul 31

The Communist Party of Great Britain was founded #OnThisDay 1920.

Formed by the merger of several small Marxist parties, the CPGB would go on to become the largest communist party in Britain, with 60,000 members at its peak in 1945.

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English Radical History @englishradical.bsky.social · Jul 30

The Independent Labour Party, an influential socialist organisation and co-founder of the Labour Party, disaffiliated from Labour #OTD 1932.

Nye Bevan described the disaffiliation as a decision to remain "pure, but impotent." In just 3 years the ILP lost 75% of its members.

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English Radical History @englishradical.bsky.social · Jul 29

William Wilberforce, a leader of the campaign to abolish the British slave trade, died #OnThisDay 1833.

Despite his abolitionist stance on slavery, Wilberforce was accused by William Cobbett of never having done "one single act in favour of the labourers of this country."

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English Radical History @englishradical.bsky.social · Jul 28

Louisa Garrett Anderson, surgeon and militant suffragette, was born #OnThisDay 1873.

On the outbreak of WW1, Anderson founded the Women’s Hospital Corps and set up a hospital in London to treat wounded soldiers, where she served as chief surgeon.

English Radical History @englishradical.bsky.social · Jul 27

"Surely the time was coming when the law, which was the representative of the organised will of the people, would declare that workers should no longer work for less than they could live upon."

Clementina Black, writer, feminist and trade unionist, was born #OnThisDay 1853.

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English Radical History @englishradical.bsky.social · Jul 27

"The people are the fountain of all power, honour, trust and distinction." John Thelwall, radical journalist and writer, was born in Covent Garden, London #OnThisDay 1764.
Thelwall supported the ideals of the French Revolution and sought similar political reforms in Britain.

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English Radical History @englishradical.bsky.social · Jul 27

"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."

Thomas Paine, 1795.

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English Radical History @englishradical.bsky.social · Jul 26

#OnThisDay 1858: Lionel de Rothschild, banker and philanthropist, became the first practising Jew to sit as an MP in the House of Commons.

Rothschild took his seat just 3 days after the Jews Relief Act, which removed previous barriers to Jews entering Parliament, took effect.

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English Radical History @englishradical.bsky.social · Jul 26

Lionel de Rothschild, banker and philanthropist, became the first practising Jew to sit as an MP in the House of Commons #OnThisDay 1858.

Rothschild took his seat just 3 days after the Jews Relief Act, which removed previous barriers to Jews entering Parliament, took effect.

English Radical History @englishradical.bsky.social · Jul 26

Common Wealth, a socialist party which stood for common ownership, morality in politics and ‘vital democracy’, was formed #OTD 1942.

Famous members included playwright J. B. Priestley, Spanish Civil War veteran Tom Wintringham and Liberal-turned-socialist Sir Richard Acland.

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English Radical History @englishradical.bsky.social · Jul 25

"We form ourselves into a Society for the melioration of the unhappy children of Africa..."

Lucy Townsend, founder of the first Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society, was born in Birmingham #OnThisDay 1781. Townsend’s organisation became the model for similar organisations in the USA.

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English Radical History @englishradical.bsky.social · Jul 24

Ira Aldridge, actor and playwright, was born in New York #OnThisDay 1807.

Faced with persistent racial discrimination in the US, Aldridge emigrated in 1824 to England, where he became the UK’s first black Shakespearean actor. He was later appointed manager of Coventry Theatre.

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English Radical History @englishradical.bsky.social · Jul 23

"Most of the fights for the maintenance of freedom of speech and freedom to print were fought for by people on the Left, not by the Right."

Michael Foot, Labour Party leader 1980-83, was born #OTD 1913. Foot began his career as a journalist on Tribune and the Evening Standard.

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English Radical History @englishradical.bsky.social · Jul 23

Jessica Mitford, author, died in California #OnThisDay 1996.

Unlike her sisters Unity and Diana, both of whom joined the British Union of Fascists, Jessica was an adherent of communism who was involved in several U.S. civil rights campaigns in the 1950s and 1960s.

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English Radical History @englishradical.bsky.social · Jul 23

Skirmishes broke out in London #OnThisDay 1866 after supporters of the Reform League clashed with police outside Hyde Park.

Protestors had hoped to meet to demonstrate their support for manhood suffrage, but the park’s gates were closed after the meeting was declared illegal.

English Radical History @englishradical.bsky.social · Jul 23

"Reynolds’s Weekly News will be devoted to the cause of freedom & in the interests of the enslaved masses. In its political sentiment it will be thoroughly democratic..."

G. W. M. Reynolds, founder of the most popular radical paper of the post-Chartist era, was born #OTD 1814.

English Radical History @englishradical.bsky.social · Jul 23

"I think the House of Lords ought to be abolished and I don't think the best way for me to abolish it is to go there myself."

Michael Foot, born #OnThisDay 1913, explaining his decision to decline a peerage after retiring from the House of Commons in 1992.

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English Radical History @englishradical.bsky.social · Jul 21

The Colne Valley Labour Union, the first labour party organised on the basis of a parliamentary constituency, was formed #OnThisDay 1891.

The Union stunned the political world in 1907 when its candidate, the socialist Victor Grayson, won a by-election contest.

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English Radical History @englishradical.bsky.social · Jul 21

Joseph Gales, journalist, publisher and Mayor of Raleigh, North Carolina, died #OnThisDay 1841.

Born in Eckington, Derbyshire, Gales advocated religious tolerance, Parliamentary reform and the abolition of slavery. He left England in the 1790s out of fear for his safety.

English Radical History @englishradical.bsky.social · Jul 21

#OnThisDay 1931: MPs voted down a bill, introduced by Labour MP Archibald Church, which would have paved the way for the compulsory sterilisation of "mental defectives."
Similar laws were passed in the early 1930s in the U.S. and, with the most terrible consequences, in Germany.

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English Radical History @englishradical.bsky.social · Jul 20

"SHARPEN the sickle! The fields are white, ‘Tis the time of the harvest at last…"

The Eastern Counties Agricultural Labourers and Small Holders Union, which later became the National Union of Agricultural and Allied Workers, was formed in North Walsham, Norfolk #OnThisDay 1906.

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English Radical History @englishradical.bsky.social · Jul 20

"The cultivation of flowers and trees is a civic duty." Ada Salter, social reformer, environmentalist and Quaker, was born #OnThisDay 1866.

Salter became President of the Women’s Labour League in 1914 and the first woman mayor in London in 1922.

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English Radical History @englishradical.bsky.social · Jul 20

"Join with us to exterminate tyranny and foul oppression from the face of our native country..."

The Manchester Female Reform Society, which aimed to spread democratic ideals among women, was formed #OnThisDay 1819, just one month before the Peterloo massacre.

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English Radical History @englishradical.bsky.social · Jul 20

The National Charter Association, a national political organization of Chartists, was founded in Manchester #OnThisDay 1840.

The historian Dorothy Thompson later described it as "the first nationally organised party of the working class to exist in the world."

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English Radical History @englishradical.bsky.social · Jul 19

#OnThisDay 1919: Ex-servicemen unhappy with unemployment and other grievances rioted and burnt down Luton Town Hall.

During the riot, people dragged pianos into the streets and began singing and dancing to ‘Keep the home fires burning’.

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