Contested Sites: Commemoration, Memorial and Popular Politics in Nineteenth- Century Britain (Studies in Labour History)

The Second Half Of The Nineteenth Century Witnessed A New Phenomenon In Public Monuments And Civic Ornamentation. Whereas In Former Times Public Statuary Had Customarily Been Reserved For 'warriors And Statesmen, Kings And Rulers Of Men', A New Trend Was Emerging For Towns To Commemorate Their Own Citizens. As The Subjects Immortalised In Stone And Bronze Broadened Beyond The Traditional Ruling Classes To Include Radicals And Reformers, It Necessitated A Corresponding Widening Of The Language And Understanding Of Public Statuary. Contested Sites Explores The Role Of These Commemorations In Radical Public Life In Britain. Despite Recent Advances In The Understanding Of The Importance Of Symbols In Public Discourse, Political Monuments Have Received Little Attention From Historians. This Is To Be Regretted, For Commemorations Are Statements Of Public Identity And Memory That Have Their Politics; They Are 'embedded In Complex Class, Gender And Power Relations That Determine What Is Remembered (or Forgotten)'. Examining Monuments, Plaques And Tombstones Commemorating A Variety Of Popular Movements And Reforming Individuals, The Contributions In Contested Sites Reveal The Relations That Went Into The Making Of Public Memory In Modern Britain And Its Radical Tradition. The Public Memorial Of Reform : Commemoration And Contestation / Paul A. Pickering And Alex Tyrrell -- Bearding The Tories : The Commemoration Of The Scottish Political Martyrs Of 1793-94 / Alex Tyrrell With Michael T. Davis -- A 'grand Ossification' : William Cobbett And The Commemoration Of Tom Paine / Paul A. Pickering -- Radical Banners As Sites Of Memory : The National Banner Survey / Nicholas Mansfield -- The Chartist Rites Of Passage : Commemorating Feargus O'connor / Paul A. Pickering -- Preserving The Glory For Preston : The Campo Santo Of The Preston Teetotalers / Alex Tyrrell -- Whose History Is It? : Memorialising Britain's Involvement In Slavery / Alex Tyrrell And James Walvin. Paul A. Pickering And Alex Tyrell. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. The main authors of this study were initially interested in writing the text because they believed that historians of British reform movements had devoted insufficient attention to monuments. They regarded this as a weakness in the writing of modern British history. 'The genuine heroes of the times that have been', wrote William Godwin in an Essay on Sepulchres (1809), 'were the reformers, the instructors, and improvers of their contemporaries.'