We’re delighted to welcome Robert Poole to our October meeting. He’ll talk about the radical writer and reformer, Samuel Bamford (1788-1872), best known for his prominent role in the 1819 Peterloo demonstration in Manchester and his memoirs Passages in the Life of a Radical and Early Days. He is named in Mary Barton where his poem ‘God Help the Poor’ is reproduced, which led to Elizabeth visiting his home to take him a signed copy of Tennyson’s poetry – an encounter vividly described in one of her letters. Bamford also worked with William Gaskell and Manchester Lit and Phil on the first Lancashire dialect dictionary – the dialect in Mary Barton is essentially Bamford’s. The lives of these Manchester writers are linked in other ways, through Dickens, the Carlyles, and the Preston lockout (the background to North and South). But while they shared many sentiments, the life of a working-class writer faced far more obstacles than that of Elizabeth Gaskell.

Robert Poole is a historian of 18th and 19th century Britain. He is the author of Peterloo: the English Uprising, co-author of the graphic novel Peterloo, and consultant historian to the 2019 Peterloo bicentenary commemoration in Manchester. He also writes on the cultural history of the space age, and is author of Earthrise: how man first saw the Earth. He has written, lectured and broadcast internationally and is Emeritus Professor at the School of Psychology and Humanities at the University of Central Lancashire and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Everyone is most welcome to come along, members and non-members alike. Doors open at 1pm (feel free to bring a packed lunch) and the talk will begin at 1.30pm.

Tickets are £5 for members, £6 for non-members. Simply pay on the door or book online with the button below (link coming soon – no booking fee).