Description
Book SynopsisThis new collection of essays based upon a conference at the University of Huddersfield, generously supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, explores the links between Richard Oastlers extraordinarily influential campaign against child labour in Yorkshire after 1830 and the remarkably successful campaign to abolish the transatlantic slave trade led by Yorkshire MP William Wilberforce before 1807. With contributions from D. Colin Dews, Dr John Halstead, Dr John A. Hargreaves, Dr Janette Martin, Professor Edward Royle and Professor James Walvin, it evaluates the distinctively Yorkshire context of both movements and offers a re-assessment of Oastlers contribution to their success. It reveals how Oastlers associations with both evangelical Anglicanism and Nonconformity, especially Methodism, stimulated and sustained his involvement in the ten-hour factory movement and examines the role of the regional press, local grass-roots organisation and Oastlers powerful oratory in helping to secure a successful outcome to the campaign. In a foreword, the Revd Dr Inderjit Bhogal, a leading figure in both the regional and national commemoration of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in 2007, commends this wide-ranging historical study with its broad perspective as an important contribution to making us all more informed on the whole theme of slavery today.
Table of ContentsForeword; Preface; Acknowledgements; List of illustrations; Introduction: 'Victims of slavery even on the threshold of our homes'; William Wilberforce, Yorkshire and the campaign to end transatlantic slavery 1787-1838; Richard Oastler: the Methodist background, 1789-1838; The Huddersfield Short Time Committee and its radical associations, c.1820-1876; Oastler's Yorkshire Slavery campaign in 1830-32; 'Oastler is welcome': Richard Oastler's triumphant return to Huddersfield, 1844; Treading on the edge of revolution?' Richard Oastler (1789-1861): a reassessment; Notes on contributors; Index.
