The Making of the English Working Class

by E.P. Thompson

In the absence of national organisation, the local societies took their lead from the Radical press. It was because this press provided the very tissues without which the movement would have fallen apart, that the claim for the fullest liberty of the press was one of the foremost Radical demands. 1816–20 were, above all, years in which popular Radicalism took its style from the hand-press and the weekly periodical. This means of propaganda was in its fullest egalitarian phase. Steam-printing had scarcely made headway (commencing with The Times in 1814), and the plebeian Radical group had as easy access to the hand-press as Church or King. Transport was too slow for the national (or London) newspaper to weaken the position of the provincial press; but rapid enough to enable the weekly Political Register or Black Dwarf to maintain a running commentary on the news. The means of production of the printed page were sufficiently cheap to mean that neither capital nor advertising revenue gave much advantage; while the successful Radical periodical provided a living not only for the editor, but also for regional agents,