Local History & Art

Title: Radical History Walk: Don't liberate me: I'll do it myself
Client: Nottingham Contemporary 'Remember Revolution' exhibition.
Brief: Travel 20 or 30 miles from home and the people have generally in store for you some pity when they know you’re from Nottingham - Nottingham Journal, 1835. How was Nottingham Radical?
Materials: Walk and Historiography
Images: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 (Courtesy Jennie Syson)

A still from Look & Find - The Meadow Club.

A still from Look & Find - The Meadow Club.

Nottingham Castle: The Duke of Newcastle's mansion was attacked by Reform Bill rioters in 1831 - a protest against the staunch Tory's anti reform measures. The Reform Bill saught to increase political representation for the urban poor at a time when 1/4 of Nottinghamshire was owned by the aristocracy and less than 3% of the national population was allowed to vote. The burning of Nottingham Castle by the rioters has been decribed by John Beckett as, 'a symbol of aristocratic power defeated'. Almost fifty years later the burnt shell was converted into the first municipal museum of art outside of London, as subsequent reform acts and the extension of the borough's boundary had increased the town's municipal might.

R. A. Preston, 'Nottingham and the Reform Bill Rioters of 1831: New Perspectives', in The Transactions of the Thoroton Society, Vol. 77.
J. V. Beckett, 'Aristocrats and Electoral Control in the East Midlands, 1660 - 1914', in Midland History, Vo. 18. (1993).