Browse by author
Lookup NU author(s): Harriet Gray, Professor Rachel HammersleyORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND).
© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. When the Newcastle-born radical Thomas Spence moved to London in 1788 he is said to have claimed that the capital ‘was the only place where a man of talent could display his powers’. This may have been the case, but Spence had already formed his ideas–and his innovative methods for disseminating them–before he left. The unusual periodical format he deployed in Pigs’ Meat, his interest in language and linguistics, and his emphasis on making written works accessible to ordinary people, were all products of the distinctive political culture of north-east England in the late eighteenth century. Moreover, as the case of the less well-known Newcastle printer John Marshall indicates, that culture survived Spence’s departure. Like Spence, Marshall exploited the periodical format, encouraged the debate and dissemination of political ideas–including in local dialects, and sought to make such ideas accessible to the lower orders. The development of these radical ideas and methods was pioneered in north-east England meaning that some innovations that came to characterise nineteenth-century plebeian radicalism had northern roots.
Author(s): Gray H, Hammersley R
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Northern History
Year: 2025
Pages: Epub ahead of print
Online publication date: 24/12/2025
Acceptance date: 10/12/2025
Date deposited: 06/01/2026
ISSN (print): 0078-172X
ISSN (electronic): 1745-8706
Publisher: Taylor and Francis Ltd
URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/0078172X.2025.2604514
DOI: 10.1080/0078172X.2025.2604514
Altmetrics provided by Altmetric
