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Society for Constitutional Information | |
|---|---|
| Leader | John Horne Tooke |
| Founder | John Cartwright |
| Founded | 1780 |
| Dissolved | October 1794 |
| Preceded by | Bill of Rights Society |
| Headquarters | Sheffield |
| Ideology | Radicalism Reformism Abolitionism |
| Political position | Left-wing |
| National affiliation | Radicals |
The Society for Constitutional Information was a British activist group founded in 1780 by Major John Cartwright, to promote parliamentary reform. [1]
It was an organisation of social reformers, many of whom were drawn from the rational dissenting community, dedicated to publishing political tracts aimed at educating fellow citizens on their lost ancient liberties. It promoted the work of Thomas Paine and other campaigners for parliamentary reform. Most members of the Society for Constitutional Information were also opposed to the slave trade. [2] It was particularly strong in Sheffield.
The Society flourished until 1783, but thereafter made little headway. The organization actively promoted Thomas Paine's Rights of Man and other radical publications, and under the leadership of John Horne Tooke collaborated with other reform societies, metropolitan and provincial, such as the London Corresponding Society, with which it met in 1794 to discuss a further national convention as well as producing many pamphlets and periodicals. After the government repression and 1794 Treason Trials in October, in which the leaders were acquitted, the society ceased to meet.
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The London Corresponding Society (LCS) was a federation of local reading and debating clubs that in the decade following the French Revolution agitated for the democratic reform of the British Parliament. In contrast to other reform associations of the period, it drew largely upon working men and was itself organised on a formal democratic basis.
The Society of the Friends of the People was an organisation in Great Britain that was focused on advocating for parliamentary reform. It was founded by the Whig Party in 1792.
Jeremiah Joyce (1763–1816) was an English Unitarian minister and writer. He achieved notoriety as one of the group of political activists arrested in May 1794.
Thomas Spence was an English Radical and advocate of the common ownership of land and a democratic equality of the sexes. Spence was one of the leading revolutionaries of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He was born in poverty and died the same way, after long periods of imprisonment, in 1814.
Sir Francis Burdett, 5th Baronet was a British politician and Member of Parliament who gained notoriety as a proponent of universal male suffrage, equal electoral districts, vote by ballot, and annual parliaments. His commitment to reform resulted in legal proceedings and brief confinement to the Tower of London. In his later years he appeared reconciled to the very limited provisions of the 1832 Reform Act. He was the godfather of Francisco Burdett O'Connor, one of the famed Libertadores of the Spanish American wars of independence.
John Cartwright was an English naval officer, Nottinghamshire militia major and prominent campaigner for parliamentary reform. He subsequently became known as the Father of Reform. His younger brother Edmund Cartwright became famous as the inventor of the power loom.
Maurice Margarot (1745–1815) is most notable for being one of the founding members of the London Corresponding Society, a radical society demanding parliamentary reform in the late eighteenth century.
John Thelwall was a radical British orator, writer, political reformer, journalist, poet, elocutionist and speech therapist.
Joseph Gerrald was a political reformer, one of the "Scottish Martyrs". He worked with the London Corresponding Society and the Society for Constitutional Information and also wrote an influential letter, A Convention the Only Means of Saving Us from Ruin. He was arrested for his radical views and convicted of sedition in 1794. Subsequently, he was deported to Sydney, where he died from tuberculosis in 1796.
The 1794 Treason Trials, arranged by the administration of William Pitt, were intended to cripple the British radical movement of the 1790s. Over thirty radicals were arrested; three were tried for high treason: Thomas Hardy, John Horne Tooke and John Thelwall. In a repudiation of the government's policies, they were acquitted by three separate juries in November 1794 to public rejoicing. The treason trials were an extension of the sedition trials of 1792 and 1793 against parliamentary reformers in both England and Scotland.
The Sheffield Iris was an early weekly newspaper published on Tuesdays in Sheffield, England.
William Skirving was one of the five Scottish Martyrs for Liberty. Active in the cause of universal franchise and other reforms inspired by the French Revolution, they were convicted of sedition in 1793–94, and sentenced to transportation to New South Wales.
The Hampden Clubs were political campaigning and debating societies formed in England in the early 19th century as part of the Radical Movement. They were particularly concentrated in the Midlands and the northern counties, and were closely associated with the popular movements for social and political reform that arose in the years following the end of the Napoleonic Wars. They were forced underground, and eventually disbanded in the face of legislation and pressure from the authorities.
Thomas Hinton Burley Oldfield (1755–1822) was an English political reformer, parliamentary historian and antiquary. His major work, The Representative History, has been called "a domesday book of corruption".
John Frost (1750–1842) was an English radical and republican, known as the secretary of the London Corresponding Society.
Felix Vaughan was an English barrister, known for his role as defence counsel in the treason trials of the 1790s.
Thomas Walker (1749–1817) was an English cotton merchant and political radical.
Lewis Disney Fytche, originally Lewis Disney, often known after his marriage as Disney Fytche, was an English radical and landowner.
Basil William Douglas, Lord Daer FRSE (1763-1794) was a Scottish nobleman who, in his short life, developed a reputation as an agricultural improver and an advocate of parliamentary reform. He was an active member of, among other radical societies, the "Friends of the People". He is one of the small group of people to whom Robert Burns dedicated poetry.
John Baxter (1756-1845?), was a radical British writer and silversmith, living in St Leonards parish, Shoreditch during the 1790s and until at least 1817. He is noteworthy as chairman of the London Corresponding Society in 1794 and as one of the twelve indicted during the 1794 Treason Trials. He also compiled and published ‘’A new and impartial history of England’’ in 1796.