Religion, Ideology, and Class Formation

Question 1

Ruling classes in 18th / 19th century Britain

Answer 1

• the ruling class
• nobility / peerage
• landed gentry
• rental income / country estate
• house of lords
• house of commons / property franchise (2-3%)
• the church of England
• the legal system / the black act 1723 / the bloody code
• corn laws, 1815 - 1846
• poor law reform, 1834

Question 2

The making of the English working class, 1780s - 1820s

Answer 2

• qualify of life in the industrial revolution
• artisanal resistance: English liberty, equality before the law, direct action
• English jacobins / London corresponding society / Thomas Paine
• church and king riots / the bloody code
• William cobbett and English radicalism

Question 3

Working class continued

Answer 3

• Luddites, 1811 - 1816 / swing riots 1830
• the peterloo massacre, 1819
• the six acts
• the cato street conspiracy, 1820
• “the chiliasm of despair”: Joanna southcott and Methodism
• working class vs middle class
• solidarity, collectivism, mutuality, radicalism, Methodism