Abstract

This collection offers the first detailed investigation of politics in nineteenth-century London. Charting the capital's course from a stronghold of radicalism in 1800 to a fortress of Conservatism a century later, it reclaims London's place at the heart of the nation's political life. The contributors argue that for all the prominence of provincial agitations for free trade and religious liberty, London continued to define the political nation. All provincial movements sought to conquer the capital, yet London remained a tough nut to crack. It had its own political priorities. The contributors explore its unique political microclimate, its traditions of electoral independence and political policing, its Whiggery and its Radicalism, the Conservatism of its poor and their enthusiasm for Empire. By establishing the tension between provincial and metropolitan political agendas, this volume thus offers a major challenge to existing interpretations of nineteenth-century British history.