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1839: The Chartist Insurrection and the Newport Rising
This historical narrative presents a history of the Chartist Insurrection of 1839, from the launching of People's Charter Campaign for universal male suffrage in late-1838 to the Newport Rising in November 1839 and the ensuing campaign to save John Frost and co-leaders of the Rising from execution.
The story is told through reference to primary as well a secondary the Chartist and radical press of the time, intelligence reports, and military/government correspondence. This book doesn't just address the neglect of this important episode in Labour movement history;-more importantly it challenges us to think again about the revolutionary potential of the British Labour movement.
The story is told through reference to primary as well a secondary the Chartist and radical press of the time, intelligence reports, and military/government correspondence. This book doesn't just address the neglect of this important episode in Labour movement history;-more importantly it challenges us to think again about the revolutionary potential of the British Labour movement.
611 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 28, 2025
About the author
David Black
175 books24 followersLibrarian's note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 30, 2026
In History Today, January 2022, four historians were asked: When did Britain come closest to Revolution? Katrina Navickas, giving the most recent example - 179 years ago - wrote:
‘The year most likely to result in a revolutionary moment was 1839. Bread prices were at their highest levels since 1819. Peaceful demonstrations built up to the presentation to Parliament of the first Chartist National Petition in May, signed by over 1.2 million people. Even in more moderate centres, such as Birmingham, there was growing support for a National Convention to take ‘ulterior measures’ if the petition was rejected. The South Wales valleys fostered the greatest potential for revolution… ‘
Our book, 1839: the Chartist Insurrection (by David Black and Chris Ford), supports this view. First published in 2012 by the late, lamented (some say murdered) publisher, Unkant Books, it is now back in print, both as a BPC paperback and ebook, revised, copy-edited and with a slightly more descriptive title, 1838: the Chartist Insurrection and the Newport Rising.
As a Yuletide gift, the download of the EBOOK of 1839, is FREE from 19th to 24th of December 2025.
HERE: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FWYY1QC7
REVIEWS OF THE FIRST EDITION
Ben Watson’s blurb-on-the-back: ‘In retrieving the suppressed history of the Chartist Insurrection, David Black and Chris Ford have produced a revolutionary handbook.’
Dan La Botz, New Politics
Black and Ford have written a fast-paced, narrative history of the 1839 Insurrection, filled with thumbnail sketches of the Chartist movement’s major figures, descriptions of the most important Chartist organizations and their politics in brief, excerpts from contemporary speeches, and parliamentary debates, and wonderful descriptions of the movement’s rise, growth, and spread throughout Britain. All of this is based on the most masterful command of the sources: newspapers, parliamentary records, memoirs, private papers, and all of the secondary literature. They tell their story in the most straightforward way but at a breathtaking clip that contributes to the sense of the excitement of the movement and its culmination in the insurrection.”
Stephen Roberts, People’s Charter
I read this book in one sitting as I sheltered from the pouring rain at Bodnant Gardens in North Wales. Based on a wide range of secondary sources and easy to read, it provided a welcome way of spending a few hours whilst waiting for the weather to clear (it didn’t!). The authors tell the story of a year when they assert the conditions for a working class revolution existed... For the authors a hero of the Chartist story emerges... George Julian Harney. And rightly so: Harney should be a hero to us all.
https://thebarbarismofpureculture.co....
‘The year most likely to result in a revolutionary moment was 1839. Bread prices were at their highest levels since 1819. Peaceful demonstrations built up to the presentation to Parliament of the first Chartist National Petition in May, signed by over 1.2 million people. Even in more moderate centres, such as Birmingham, there was growing support for a National Convention to take ‘ulterior measures’ if the petition was rejected. The South Wales valleys fostered the greatest potential for revolution… ‘
Our book, 1839: the Chartist Insurrection (by David Black and Chris Ford), supports this view. First published in 2012 by the late, lamented (some say murdered) publisher, Unkant Books, it is now back in print, both as a BPC paperback and ebook, revised, copy-edited and with a slightly more descriptive title, 1838: the Chartist Insurrection and the Newport Rising.
As a Yuletide gift, the download of the EBOOK of 1839, is FREE from 19th to 24th of December 2025.
HERE: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FWYY1QC7
REVIEWS OF THE FIRST EDITION
Ben Watson’s blurb-on-the-back: ‘In retrieving the suppressed history of the Chartist Insurrection, David Black and Chris Ford have produced a revolutionary handbook.’
Dan La Botz, New Politics
Black and Ford have written a fast-paced, narrative history of the 1839 Insurrection, filled with thumbnail sketches of the Chartist movement’s major figures, descriptions of the most important Chartist organizations and their politics in brief, excerpts from contemporary speeches, and parliamentary debates, and wonderful descriptions of the movement’s rise, growth, and spread throughout Britain. All of this is based on the most masterful command of the sources: newspapers, parliamentary records, memoirs, private papers, and all of the secondary literature. They tell their story in the most straightforward way but at a breathtaking clip that contributes to the sense of the excitement of the movement and its culmination in the insurrection.”
Stephen Roberts, People’s Charter
I read this book in one sitting as I sheltered from the pouring rain at Bodnant Gardens in North Wales. Based on a wide range of secondary sources and easy to read, it provided a welcome way of spending a few hours whilst waiting for the weather to clear (it didn’t!). The authors tell the story of a year when they assert the conditions for a working class revolution existed... For the authors a hero of the Chartist story emerges... George Julian Harney. And rightly so: Harney should be a hero to us all.
https://thebarbarismofpureculture.co....
Displaying 1 of 1 review