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Sheffield Troublemakers - Rebels and Radicals in Sheffield History
Author: David Price
ISBN: ISBN 13 : 978-1-86077-569-7
Published: 2008
To be described as a city of troublemakers might sound somewhat insulting but the sense in which it is applied to Sheffield in a new book is more likely a source of pride.
Sheffield Troublemakers chronicles the rebels and radicals over nearly 200 years of the city's history.
"The title is slightly tongue-in-cheek and it was to do with how lots of people who are viewed as troublesome are subsequently seen as reformers. It's got that kind of double meaning," says the author, David Price.
Taking as its starting point a quote from George III, who called the city "a damned bad place" because it was known as a centre for radical agitation, the book traces events up to the days of the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire in the Thatcher era of the 1980s.
"I came up to Sheffield in 1980 as part of the Manpower Services Commission and one of the things that struck me was what a radical city it was and when I retired from the civil service I wanted to find out the reasons for it and the background," explains Price. "That was how it started off really."
Having studied history at Cambridge, Price had a lifelong interest in and knowledge of the subject so was aware of some of the characters he began to research into and at the same time made unexpected discoveries.
"For me the most surprising thing was the period immediately following the French Revolution," he says.
"In the 1790s Sheffield was seen as the centre of radical agitation spreading ideas across northern cities."
A key figure at the time was Joseph Gales, founder of two newspapers, the Sheffield Register and The Patriot.
"He became increasingly radical and more extreme and refused to stop when the government started clamping down and things got so hairy for him he was forced to flee to America via Germany, leaving his pregnant wife to wind up his affairs.
"Despite her condition she was pestered by the magistrates before she was able to follow him for a new life in America."
Another significant period was around the time of the parliamentary reform act in 1832, when non-conformists and the working class were denied the right to vote granted the middle class.
"The very first election in Sheffield was a very fraught affair," says Price. "There was a huge riot and and five people were shot dead by soldiers."
Then there was Samuel Holberry, a figure commemorated by a bust in Weston Park Museum, but whose plans might have had him branded a terrorist today.
"The uprising was quelled in the nick of time because one of his cohorts turned informer but Holberry was deadly serious. They were prepared to kill magistrates and lay siege to the old town hall."
Holberry was jailed and died of consumption in prison at York at the age of 27.
Price's collection of rebels goes beyond political radicals. There was Mary Anne Rawson, an anti-slavery campaigner, artist John Ruskin, vegetarian and gay pioneer Edward Carpenter, Father Ommanney, whose adherence to Anglo-Catholic ritual at St Matthew's Church in Carver Street outraged the Protestant establishment, the Sheffield mass trespass and, more recently, countryside campaigner Ethel Haythornwaite.
Price devotes a chapter to David Blunkett, contrasting his left-wing image as leader of Sheffield City Council with his record as Home Secretary.
And generally the author questions what has happened to Sheffield's radical tradition in these days of New Labour and aspirations towards being a modern European city.