562 Ch. 14 • The Industrial Revolution
Socialism as a symbol of hope for the working poor, about 1848.
leader of the English workers’ movement. Some workers began cooperative
stores, hoping to put aside funds to finance cooperative villages. Trade
unionism made considerable headway between 1829 and 1836. In the latter
year, the first national union, made up of spinners, was founded. Some trade
union members undertook producers’ cooperatives within their trades, but
most of these were short-lived.
The period from 1815 to 1850 was arguably the most socially turbulent
period in modern British history. Skilled workers joined with middle-class
radicals to demand political reform. William Cobbett (1763-1835) helped
galvanize radical opinion with his journal, the Political Register. Artisans and
skilled workers led massive demonstrations in 1831 and 1832, which pres
sured Commons and the House of Lords to pass the Reform Bill of 1832
(see Chapter 15). By expanding the number of those eligible to vote, the
Reform Bill temporarily diffused middle-class dissatisfaction. The continued
exclusion of working men from voting contributed to working-class con
sciousness in Britain, because in this way Parliament had legally defined
workers as a separate, inferior class. At about the same time, middle-class
and working-class support for factory reform, marked by public meetings,
petitions, and demonstrations, led to the acts of Parliament in the 1830s
limiting work hours for children and then women. Amid hardship, more
workers took to the streets in protest to demand political reform.
