London Corresponding Society
The London Corresponding Society (LCS) was a federation of local reading and debating clubs that in the decade following the French Revolution agitated for the democratic reform of the British Parliament. In contrast to other reform associations of the period, it drew largely upon working men and was itself organised on a formal democratic basis.
London: London Corresponding Society: Handbill advertising a petition to the House of Commons for Parliamentary Reform
LCS speakers address the crowds at Copenhagen Fields, 1795. John Gale Jones on hustings to the left.
Society of United Irishmen
The Society of United Irishmen was a sworn association, formed in the wake of the French Revolution, to secure representative government in Ireland. Despairing of constitutional reform, and in defiance both of British Crown forces and of Irish sectarian division, in 1798 the United Irishmen instigated a republican rebellion. Their suppression was a prelude to the abolition of the Irish Parliament in Dublin and to Ireland's incorporation in a United Kingdom with Great Britain.
The United Irishmen
Bastille Day, 1792, Belfast. Volunteer companies parade "The Colours of Five Free Nations, viz.: Flag of Ireland – motto, Unite and be free. Flag of America – motto, The Asylum of Liberty. Flag of France – motto, The Nation, the Law, and the King. Flag of Poland – motto, We will support it. Flag of Great Britain – motto, Wisdom, Spirit, and Liberality." Also portraits of Franklin – motto "Where Liberty is my country", and of Mirabeau – motto, "Can the African Slave Trade, though morally wrong, be politically right".
William Drennan: "what is a country properly considered but a free constitution?"
Martha McTier, "'Tis only the Rich are alarmed, or the guilty. I am neither."
