Social Disorder in Britain, 1750–1850

This is a book impressive in scope and ambition, and provocative in its conclusions. Covering the critical decades during which Wales made the transition from being a predominantly rural economy to one that was both highly urbanised and industrialised, J.E. Thomas’s study explores some of the reasons that underpinned the various outbreaks of riot and protest which characterised parts of the country in these transitional years. Much of this ground is, of course, extremely well traversed within Welsh historiography; Thomas’s claim to originality lies in the fresh interpretation of the period which he offers. Much of the existing literature has tended to see a thread of Welsh political radicalism emerging in the aftermaths of the American and French Revolutions. Its main focus has been held to be the ranks of radical dissent, with agitation bubbling over in such disturbances as the Merthyr Rising in 1831, the Rebecca Riots or the Newport Chartist rising in 1839, before becoming channelled into the Liberal Party which came to champion the interests of a more politicised nonconformity in the second half of the nineteenth century. By contrast, Thomas argues that radical political ideas barely had a chance to effect real change in Wales, stifled as they were by a political class that utilised both force (in the form of the militia) and ‘more subtle and complex’ phenomena (p. 8) to reinforce the conservative status quo

Archaeology · Dissent · Economic history · Gentry · Historiography · Nonconformity · Political economy · Political radicalism · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Status quo · Welsh · Historical Studies of British Isles · History · Law · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity · Scottish History and National Identity