In The Infinite City, Niall Kishtainy looks at the thinkers and activists who’ve sought to reshape the capital – and had mixed results ...

The idea that the Spenceans, less than 30 in number, genuinely conceived that they might overthrow the government was fanciful, Adolphus argued. The jury disagreed. All the accused were found guilty.

It was the first decent summer since the eruption of an Indonesian volcano three years before had tipped postwar Europe into a crisis of failed harvests, mass hunger and widespread social unrest. In ...

Although the Spenceans were a tiny group, they were considered a threat by the government. Nonetheless, on 2nd December, they were able to muster enough people to march through London, and a small ...

In Britain, Lord Liverpool’s government had suspended Habeas Corpus; Luddite organisers, revolutionary Spenceans and radical journalists had been arrested and tried (with mixed results); the Peterloo ...

1816 Spa Fields Riots – Revolutionary Spenceans rioted after a mass meeting in Islington 1830 Hyde Park – Riots for electoral reform resulted in the Duke of Wellington’s carriage being attacked and ...

He ended up in St Giles living among the destitute - lascars, Irish immigrants, fugitives - and became involved with the Spenceans: radical politicians who believed in the expropriation of land ...