Michael Mason’s review of new books on Francis Place and London’s radical underworld in the first half of the 19th century raises a number of interesting points, not all of which are satisfactorily answered. First, on the role of Francis Place. He was someone who sought to influence behind the scenes, and was therefore rarely to the fore in the public prints: but he was equally someone who left a very large archive, and whose role, for this reason, may be overestimated. Certainly Mason seems to feel that Place’s view on respectability should be taken, almost, as a benchmark against which to measure more wayward elements. Secondly, on the question of respectability itself. Here Mason does see the difficulty in imputing the artisanal view of respectability propounded by Place, which may, or may not, have been held by the developing working class. The point that should be made is that while Place may have hoped that his view of respectability might win out in radical working-class circles, as perhaps it did, to a degree, after 1848, in such circles the concept had quite a different context and rather different ends. For example, radicals fought a long battle to have their own halls and meeting-rooms separate from the public house. Why? Because they thought temperance the solution to their ills? In a few cases, maybe, but more frequently for the very basic reason that drunks could not effect political organisation.
Finally, on the question of the relationship beteen pornography and radicalism. There seem to be two traditions, one leading from Place, to birth control and feminism, which lasted into this century. The other tied in with the fact that being unrespectable radicals might handle all kinds of disreputable material, political or otherwise. But what, may one ask, did the female radicals of the period, covered so well in Barbara Taylor’s Eve and the New Jerusalem, think of all this? If McCalman tells us, Mason makes no mention of it. Either way, it seems rather important that someone should tell us.
Keith Flett
London N17
London Review of Books 29th September 1988
Original Review:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v10/n15/michael-mason/rogue-socialists
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