‘Unite and Be Free’: The Historical Archaeology of British Political Radicalism, 1815-1822

The late 1810s saw waves of political radicalism. Reformers protested and petitioned for voting rights and parliamentary reform, whilst some extremists sought insurrection and revolution. Within mass platform meetings, societies, and movements, material culture and space were important mechanisms in expressing, signalling, and constructing radical identities. This thesis studies these identities through their material and spatial outputs through utilising thematic analysis and exploring several key events: important mass platform meetings, female reform societies, the imprisonments of Henry Hunt and Samuel Bamford, and the Cato Street Conspiracy execution. It argues that radicalism associated itself with open, public, and urban space, however, 1820 saw the contraction of space to the scaffold and prison cell. Material culture was instrumental in making and infusing spaces and landscapes with radicalism through its emblematic and totemic qualities. As well as examining radicalism, the thesis contributes to archaeology more generally. Its methodological approach promotes the study of events, demonstrating how the archaeological analysis of the short-term is possible and illuminating. Through using thematic analysis, the thesis adopts an interdisciplinary stance, utilising material culture, documents, and visual sources. As a subdiscipline, it is in its early stages yet there is great potential to examine historical movements, events, and moments that can help us understand inequalities and protest in contemporary experiences. This is the driving force of the thesis: to tell radical stories that resonate with today.