Perhaps it's worth posting:

Lest we forget

Britain has always celebrated its regal and military history. But where are the monuments and plaques to our heritage of revolution and dissent? And which radical events should be commemorated? We want readers to send in their suggestions. Here, the historian Tristram Hunt launches a G2 campaign with his nominations

Tristram Hunt
Monday July 24, 2006


Guardian

Earlier this summer, a friend of mine visited Newport. With its out-of-town sprawl and post-industrial problems, the old flannel town is not necessarily at the top of the tourist trail. But the place does have some history. There is Newport Castle and, more interestingly, the Westgate Hotel.

It was from here in 1839 that a 5,000 strong Chartist rising, campaigning for suffrage and parliamentary reform, was suppressed by soldiers opening fire on a crowd of banner-carrying protesters. Within the annals of Welsh, labour and British democratic history, it should stand as a national landmark; one of the great battles in the struggle for the vote. But those who want to see this historic site are in for a disappointment. For the famous bullet-holes in the hotel pillars are now hidden behind the doors of a nightclub playing "party house". "You can see them," my friend was told by a well-informed local, "but you'll have to wait until the evening and pay to go into the club."

It is a tale of historic neglect being repeated around the country. This week the BBC relaunches its Restoration series. Once again, Griff Rhys Jones will scour the country exposing our decaying heritage and urging viewers to vote to restore their favourite ruin. And the emphasis this time is specifically on rural sites in village communities. According to Rhys Jones, "I am sure we all have a private view of England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, and I bet it involves a village and a deserted road with a cottage in the foreground and green fields swelling in the rear."

But there is another story of Britain's heritage which this picture-postcard take on the past is studiously ignoring. While Restoration Village shores up rural pastiche - complete with dry-stone walls and a warm, feudal glow of noblesse oblige - Britain's more exciting, more radical heritage is once again being by-passed in the search for funds and fame.

For the BBC's idea of England (and it does already feel a strongly Anglocentric process) merely conforms to the traditional, dominant narrative of our island heritage. And this summer, we want to counter it with a true record of Britain's ignored, decaying and under-resourced radical heritage. While Restoration Village can tour the rectories and gatehouses of olde England, we want to celebrate the insurrectionary meeting places, non-conformist chapels and martyrs' memorials of the people's history.

For generations, such recognition of the radical past would have been second nature within the progressive left, and a roll-call of historic struggles won and lost provided the inspirational hinterland for generations of activists. The early Chartists, campaigning for male suffrage and an end to political corruption, saw themselves within a continuum of popular struggle stretching back to John Bull and the Peasants' Revolt. The Puritan struggle against the autocratic King Charles I - "the good old cause" - similarly provided the moral inspiration for radicals throughout the 19th century. "I judge a man by one thing," the Edwardian Liberal Isaac Foot was wont to ask: "Which side would he have liked his ancestors to fight on at Marston Moor?" It was widely assumed one was a Roundhead or a Cavalier before being a Tory or a Liberal.

In the 20th century, past struggles remained a vital spur for progressive politics. Hugh Dalton, Labour chancellor and celebrated "Red Rambler", was driven by the history of enclosures and land rights in his campaign for national parks and conservation; Neil Kinnock's politics were clearly a product of south Wales socialism. More broadly, the scholarship of EP Thompson, the Levellers' Day meeting at Burford and the radical reinterpretations offered by such groups as the History Workshop Journal pointed to the broad cultural role of history on the left.

Tony Blair - the only Labour leader never to pay homage to the Durham miners' gala - has displayed an altogether less reverential approach to the past. Rightly regarding the Labour party as too prone to wallow in its history of glorious failure, his mantra of modernisation has displayed an often arrogant impatience with the lessons of history. His hubristic aside to the US Congress during the early phases of the Iraqi war that "a study of history provides so little instruction for our present day" seemed only to confirm such fears.

But Blair is not alone. The stories, monuments and myths that traditionally linked progressives with their heroic past have steadily retreated from public consciousness. This amounts to something akin to a loss of collective memory. And so it should come as no surprise that we have difficulty rallying any broader, popular enthusiasm for our political process when we lack an appreciation of our democratic heritage.

Now more than ever we need to refit progressives' memories by using our existing heritage infrastructure to celebrate our radical and democratic inheritance - as much as we do our military and regal history. And this means understanding the uncomfortable, riotous, non-conformist past, from the printers of Clerkenwell, who raised the Red Flag to celebrate the 1871 Paris Commune, to the Rebecca Rioters, protesting against tolls and tithes in 1840s Wales, to the communists of Glasgow's 1919 Battle of George Square. It means celebrating the individual heroes - from radical pamphleteer Thomas Paine and feminist philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft to Battersea mayor and Pan-African Congress leader John Archer - along with the social and cultural struggles they inspired. Britain is littered with these hidden sites (deftly described as "radical laylines" in Peter Ackroyd's London), but they are falling ever further from view.

For despite major advances over the past 10 years in opening up popular understandings of "heritage", the radical inheritance is still not nearly as represented as it could and should be. For the most part, it is the cathedrals and castles - as well as the rectories and gatehouses - which continue to reign. Meanwhile our streetscapes are dominated by second-rate imperial generals and equine statues of Victoria and Albert. Outside the Athenaeum in London's clubland, the exploits of Sir Colin Campbell in crushing the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny are duly celebrated. But there is no hint that in 1936 the Jarrow Hunger Marchers made their way past Campbell's monument on the way to Hyde Park - and from the steps of the Reform Club they were pelted with breadrolls. These imperial or royal statues should not be removed, but rather countered with a different pantheon from Britain's past.

But it is more than just a question of the symbolism of the streets. Along with the monuments, museums and heritage sites come the funds for more sophisticated and engaging levels of interpretation, all telling a particular story of Britain and its histories. As Nick Mansfield of the People's History Museum in Manchester puts it: "In the past, conservation planners and architectural historians have concentrated on protecting buildings of artistic value or those associated with 'great men' and their achievements. Sites associated with the labour movement or the history of working people have been largely overlooked." He goes on to list the myriad sites of labour and popular history at risk from neglect and devoid of proper interpretation: from model villages to mission huts and halls to public houses, friendly societies, church buildings, places of recreation and sites of specific historic significance.

So few of these stories are being told in an effective or exciting manner. For the history of British radicalism does not have to be a dull tale of delegations, composite motions and drizzly marches. Rather, the story of the battle for the vote - spearheaded by vast meetings of the Chartists on Kersal Moor - or a free press, female suffrage, trade union rights, religious equality, and anti-colonialism can be a gripping, popular story when told intelligently. If only we exerted the same energy into the tale of British democratic and radical history as we do the history of torture and waxworks. As historian Dan Plesch has asked: "Why not a London Dungeon of the democratic past?"

But we should not make the mistake of limiting this legacy simply to the left. For this is a constituent part of our national heritage - not just of sectarian or party political interest. By properly conserving and celebrating these monuments, we can help reposition this past more fundamentally within the broader British narrative. Rather than ghettoising the radical and dissenting elements of our island story, we must push them centre stage alongside Churchill and Blenheim, Chatsworth and the Devonshires, Elizabeth I and Tilbury. For is not the latter location a wonderful example of Britain's multi-layered history: a site where Queen Elizabeth celebrated England as an empire (ruled heart and stomach by a woman), and where the empire came back to England on the decks of Windrush? And why isn't it celebrated as richly as are the pioneers who set sail from Plymouth?

Yet it is vital that this history is explored through the built environment. It is not enough to talk, as Gordon Brown sometimes does, simply of values and ideals. To inspire people about their history, we need the fabric of history - the streetscapes, buildings and landscapes - to transport us back to the passions of the past.

As such, we have much to learn from the United States' approach. In museums, displays and Liberty Trails across Washington, Boston and Philadelphia, the republic's radical heritage is evocatively celebrated. Of course, their national narrative of rebellion and revolution lends itself more easily to this heroic tale. But surely Britain is home to the mother of parliaments? And surely we too have a powerful story to tell of regicide, revolution, dissent and the struggle for democratic self-government? Yet so pusillanimous are we in championing this past that we have left it up to the Americans to fund the monument to the Magna Carta at Runneymede.

Of course, numerous centres do exist to commemorate our alternative past - from the Tolpuddle Museum in Dorset to the Battle of Cable Street mural and plaque in London. But far too many of those locations and monuments are either neglected, dated or unknown. And it is just as applicable for the recent past as well: where are the public landmarks and explanations of the Aldermaston marches, the Greenham Common camps, even the Newbury by-pass protests?

This summer, we want to revive that radical heritage by listing all the great sites of Britain which are being sold short by their councils or communities. Alongside the villages of Restoration, we want to tell another story of British history and, in the process, make sure we preserve and popularise our enervating, explosive, radical past.

St Peter's Fields, Manchester Scene of the 1819 'Peterloo massacre'

On August 16, 60,000 workers, artisans, journeymen and radicals congregated on St Peter's Fields on the edges of fast-industrialising Manchester to demand adult male suffrage and a repeal of the Corn Law price-fixing cartel. Workers had realised that without political power they would never reap the riches of industrialisation. The meeting represented a dangerous challenge to the political and economic monopoly of the landed aristocracy.

With the French Revolution at the back of their minds, magistrates had long been fearful of such gatherings and quickly read the Riot Act (the origin of the phrase), demanding an immediate dispersal. When the crowd failed to move, local officers tried to arrest the lead speakers and called in assistance from the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry along with the 15th Hussars. Inexperienced, scared, possibly drunk, the armed cavalrymen turned their sabres on the crowd, killing 11 and maiming hundreds.

In mocking reference to the Battle of Waterloo four years earlier, the massacre soon gained the sobriquet "Peterloo". The event galvanised support for parliamentary reform as well as leading to a consolidation of progressive working-class and middle-class opinion against the ruling aristocracy.

Later in the century, Manchester liberals erected the Free Trade Hall on part of St Peter's Fields and with it a small commemoration of the event. But today that heritage is forgotten. The Free Trade Hall is now an Edwardian Radisson hotel, carrying an unobtrusive plaque on the outside, while the area around the site lacks any fitting signage or symbol of Peterloo.

This September, the Labour party conference will be held on part of St Peter's Fields (at the GMEX arena). What better moment to record and properly commemorate the events of 1819, their historic significance and their role within the Labour movement?

The National Covenant, Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh Site of one of the most important documents in British history

In 1638, Scotland's leading nobles gathered at Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh, to sign the National Covenant. The document would prove to be one of the sparks of the civil wars of the 1640s, leading to the trial and execution of a king and the creation of a republic.

Furious at King Charles I's quasi-Catholic reforms to the supremely Puritan Scottish church along with his autocratic interventions in political affairs, by the late 1630s Scotland's nobles were ready to rebel. They came together in a Covenant - a religious contract that bound the signatories to resist those who had sinned against God. Drafted by the Fife minister Alexander Henderson and Presbyterian lawyer Archibald Johnston, it committed the Covenanters to the "defence and preservation ... of the true religion". Even if that meant the "foul aspersions of rebellion" being cast upon them.

The Covenant was a new form of political organisation that justified armed resistance in God's name. It was a tool of revolution that would come to be imitated over the centuries - not least in America. In the short term, the Covenant led to the Covenanters' or Bishops' wars between Scotland and England and then the English civil war itself.

Today, a copy of the Covenant still exists at Greyfriars - hidden behind a back staircase at the far end. There is no signage or explanation of its revolutionary role in British history. In America, the Covenant would be the centrepiece of a heritage park. Languishing in Edinburgh, it is all but forgotten.

Epsom Downs Racecourse, Surrey Site of the martyrdom of Emily Wilding Davison in the cause of female suffrage

Derby Day remains one of the signal points of the English summer season. With its royal patronage, morning suits and socially gradated enclosures, it is a celebration of a certain element of English heritage. But on June 4 1913, Epsom Downs racecourse was witness to a very different type of history.

Emily Davison was among the most militant of suffragettes demanding votes for women. She had given up her teaching job to work full-time for the movement, had thrown rocks at Lloyd George and burned postboxes. When she refused force-feeding in Strangeways by blockading herself in her cell, a prison guard pushed a hose into the room and nearly drowned her.

As the Derby got under way, she crossed on to the course carrying a banner of the Women's Social and Political Union. She then attempted to grab the bridle of Anmer - a horse owned by King George V - and was knocked unconscious. She never recovered.

As Emmeline Pankhurst wrote: "Emily Davison clung to her conviction that one great tragedy, the deliberate throwing into the breach of a human life, would put an end to the intolerable torture of women." In 1918, women finally got the vote.

Epsom racecourse is now one of Greater London's premier events and social centres. But you will look in vain for any recognition of Davison, her role within the suffragettes, or the broader meaning of that moment.

Cardiff race riots, 1919 Scene of the first credible declaration of black British identity

In June 1919 the black communities of London and other seaports such as Cardiff faced an explosion of race riots. Their response was to defend themselves vigorously, and, when offered repatriation, to reply that they were British citizens.

The black reaction to those events was to define the multiracial nature of cities such as Cardiff for the next century. Later generations of black activists and liberal campaigners were to draw on their experience in outlining the unique type and content of Britain's present-day multiculturalism. If black Britain has a history, then the Cardiff race riots were one of its most important events.

The anti-black riots that spread through British ports that spring were associated with the demobilisation of the armed forces after the first world war, a period of economic crisis in which black populations became the scapegoats. In Newport on June 6 white mobs wrecked so many properties that, according to the South Wales Argus, the city looked as if it had suffered an air raid. The riots were at their most virulent in Cardiff. By June 11 they had developed into a series of organised attacks in the centre of the city and, in particular, on Bute Town, where most of the black population lived. Hotels and lodging houses were besieged by mobs led by "colonial" (Australian) soldiers armed with rifles, who presented themselves as leaders of the action.

The bulk of the black population rejected repatriation, insisting on their right to stay and be treated as equal citizens. In later years, the black seaport communities became the base of anti-colonial agitation in Britain, supporting African activists such as Kwame Nkrumah and Jomo Kenyatta.

Today, Cardiff boasts repeatedly about its diverse identity, but there is no official memorial or indeed memory of what was arguably the most important series of events in the establishment of the city's multiracial population. The dock areas in Cardiff and Newport are now the sites of extensive refurbishment and gentrification. What better time to remember June 1919, and the struggles that marked one of the most notable passages in the difficult birth of Britain's multicultural identity?

Kennington Park, London Scene of the Chartists' monster rally in 1848

Kennington Common (now Park) had long been a London site central to popular and democratic heritage. In contrast to the rarefied royal parks of central London, or the romantic heaths of Hampstead and Richmond, Kennington was the place of executions, rallies and demonstrations.

In 1848, the leaders of the Chartists chose the site for a mass rally prior to handing in their petition demanding votes for male adults over 21, annual parliaments, salaried MPs, and secret ballots. It was a demand for the dismantling of the ancien regime of patronage and property.

The April 10 rally marks one of the greatest public meetings of Victorian Britain's most celebrated national labour movement. Under the leadership of Feargus O'Connor, they now claimed a five million-strong petition demanding the right to vote. Their plan was to deliver the petition to parliament and transform class politics.

It is often taught that the rally was a damp squib (with only 15,000 attending) and was doomed to fail. But, at the time, the authorities feared revolution was in the offing. As Paris, Vienna and Berlin had succumbed to the spirit of 1848, it was widely assumed that London would be next. All possible precautions were taken, with tens of thousands of troops being mobilised and even the Duke of Wellington being dusted off from retirement.

But the forces of reaction were too strong for the Chartists. Their campaign stumbled and, amid personal and factional divides during the 1850s, lost support. Yet 1848 was a vital moment in British history - one of the few moments when the British establishment thought revolution was in the air.

But there is no sign of it at Kennington. In a swift reaction to the events of April 10, the people's common was turned into a royal park. As Kennington historian Stefan Szczelkun puts it, "This was a colonisation of working-class political space which carried a prophetic symbolism." Today there exists a plaque to Prince Albert but no monument to the rally or history of Chartism.

What are your radical moments in British history?

These five stories are suggestions to get you started ... but what have we forgotten? Send your nominations to g2@guardian.co.uk, or G2, 119 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3ER, or join the debate online at blogs.guardian.co.uk/news. In September we will compile a shortlist of five and ask you to vote on which moment in history we should commemorate.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006