This chapter argues that instead of being a quiet gap between the noise of the post-Waterloo period and the rise of Chartism, the 1830s has its own under-examined, violently radical character. I concentrate on William Benbow and Francis Macerone, who produced inciting revolutionary works including Grand National Holiday and Defensive Instructions for the People, which pointed to the 1830s being a time of class conflict. During the 1820s, Benbow produced cheap editions of poetry for the working classes. However, Grand National Holiday was designed to promote a general strike that would lead to revolution. Colonel Francis Macerone, a revolutionary ultra-radical, created works that would be banned today, such as Defensive Instructions for the People. This pamphlet shows amateurs how to make pikes, bullets, incendiary devices, and bombs, as well as ways to engage in street-fighting against soldiers. I argue that Benbow and Macerone are central figures in pre-Chartist 1830s radicalism and examine the revolutionary early 1830s through their works published on the eve of the Reform Bill.

This chapter focusses on the early years of the first Mechanics’ classes, instituted at the beginning of the nineteenth century. These classes were formed out of well-meaning paternalism, aimed at educating, and reforming, disenfranchised labouring class people. Institutional leadership quickly dictated what was suitable, or not, for the men and women who became members of these institutes. Denied agency in what they read and discussed, members agitated for more say. Some split to form their own institutes, as in Glasgow in 1823 and Manchester in 1829. These new institutions, led by members, enabled the concerns of working-class communities on industrial pollution, breadth of education, and aspirations for goods, to emerge as subjects for discussion. Mechanics’ institutions therefore became places where political engagement, denied by an unreformed parliament and the Six Acts, took place. This is evidenced in the content of the new unstamped Mechanics’ magazines that were closely tied to Mechanics’ Institutes. These institutes were faced with much conservative opposition, particularly from the established church, fearing radicalism. Indeed, some mechanics were involved in publishing details on how to make bombs and bullets on the eve of the Reform Bill in 1831.