Samuel Bamford's lost years part 1: the 1820s

Samuel Bamford (1788-1872) is not only one of Lancashire’s most famous sons but also one of England’s greatest writers. In 1816-20 he was one of the leading lights of Lancashire’s radical reform movement, and was imprisoned several times. He was one of the local organisers of the rally at St Peter's Fields in Manchester in August 1819 that was the occasion of the Peterloo massacre, and his courtroom defence of himself and his cause alongside Orator Hunt brought him fame and celebrity. Even as he served a year in Lincoln gaol, his songs and verses celebrated and rallied the reform movement. Later, in the Chartist years of 1839-48, he published two volumes of autobiography, Passages in the Life of a Radical and Early Days, which between them covered his life up to his release from gaol in 1821. They constitute not only one of the most important historical sources for the period but also some of its finest writing.