Lady Insurrectionists

The freethinking women who helped ignite Chartism, the largest democratic movement of the nineteenth century

In this groundbreaking history, Judy Cox brings to life the radical voices of women who refused to be sidelined – figures such as the ‘Red-Hot Radical’ poet Eliza Cook, Quaker abolitionist Elizabeth Pease and the electrifying Chartist speaker Mary Ann Walker. Far from being passive auxiliaries, these women were insurrectionists in thought and action. They spoke from platforms and organised strikes, boycotts and petitions to demand political rights as workers, women and democrats. At a time when the vote was restricted to a privileged few, they demonstrated an irrepressible verve in demanding more.

This is a bold and necessary rewriting of British radical history. Cox dismantles the myth that feminism began with middle-class suffragists to reveal how working-class women forged a radical politics that defied the gender and social conventions of their age. Lady Insurrectionists restores these women to their rightful place at the heart of the fight for mass democracy and the People’s Charter. It details a legacy that continues to shape struggles for justice today.