Following the sad loss of our friend Chris Richardson in 2020, this website will continue to be maintained for the foreseeable future, but will no longer be updated. Please keep an eye on the blog/website of the People’s Histreh group instead.

You can now download a free and unabbridged version of the book from the People’s Histreh website.

A reprint of the paperback version will be available in early summer 2021, please see blog/website of the People’s Histreh group for details.

You can now also read Chris’ 2007 pamphlet The Co-operative Movement in Greater Nottingham – A Journey Towards Political Representation in the Digital Library of The Sparrows’ Nest Library and Archive.

In the bookshops from January 2016, a new edition of ‘A City of Light …’ that includes a Postcript to chapter 4, incorporating the content of ‘The Lost Missionary’ pamphlet published in the summer of 2015.

Author Christopher Richardson said ‘The book was due for its fourth reprint so I decided to make a few small changes to the text, remove the remaining typographical errors, change and add a few photos, and include the content of the recent pamphlet on Henry Layland Knight. The price is going up just 1p to a round figure of £8.’

Copies can be ordered – postage and packing free in December and January to UK addresses – from this web site from mid-December 2015. Mention this offer in your email when ordering.

A Kindle version of the second edition will be available in January at the same price of £2.99

Henry Knight was an Owenite Social Missionary and his early life was recorded in Chapter 4 of ‘A Cityof Light …’. Now there is a short booklet about Henry’s life in America after the dissolution of the socialist community in Ridott, Illinois, in 1844. From Salford to San Francisco, via Yorkshire, Leicester and Nottingham.

Henry Knight was one of the few Social Missionaries who emigrated. Emigration was not generally favoured by the Owenite socialists. This emigration was an attempt to create a community based on the ideas of Robert Owen. It lasted 2 years. Until now the fate of the emigrants has been thought lost. Now most of the emigrants have been accounted for.

The booklet is available for £2.50 incl p&p from the author, Christopher Richardson. Email acityoflight@phonecoop.coop if you would like a copy posted to you.

Published June 2015. 24pp.

See the list of Nottingham women members of the National Land Company in the ‘What’s New’ pages.

The Seasonal Special Offer.

Thirteen copies of ‘A City of Light: Socialism, Chartism and Co-operation – Nottingham 1844’ were sold through through the Seasonal Special Offer which closed on 31st December.

The donations to local history societies from these sales were:

T MacLennan       Notts and Derbyshire Labour History          £2.50
S Roberts                                    –       ”       –                                 £2.50
A Mellors                                    –       ”       –                                 £2.50
J Grigg                                        –        ”       –                                 £2.50
P Hand                                       –       ”       –                                  £2.50
S Newens                                   –        ”       –                                 £2.50
W Jackson            Lenton Local History Society                          £2.50
M Roberts                                –       ”       –                                    £4.00
Anon (via C Voisey)                  –       ”       –                                   £2.50
C Burrows                                   –       ”       –                                 £2.50
C Kirk                                           –       ”       –                                £2.50
M Johnson            People’s Histreh                                           £2.50
C Hay                   Nottingham Women’s History Group          £2.50

Book: A City of Light…
A book about Nottingham Socialism, Nottingham Chartism, Nottingham Co-operatives and Co-operation, and Nottingham Poor Law campaigns, Nottingham church rate campaigns, and Nottingham radicalism in the mid-nineteenth century. If this sounds excessively Nottingham, it’s merely to get the necessary ‘tags’ set up to make it easier to search and find these Nottingham references on the internet.

Following the series of events since June 2013 we want to thank everyone who came to the events and all those who helped to organise them. And, of course,  we send a big thank you to all those who have bought the book, which at October 2014 stands at just over 320 of you.

But it doesn’t end there. Since the book was published, further research has uncovered a lttle more of the mystery of the Democratic Chapel and its location, and additional photographs have been obtained. These you will find in the ‘What’s New’ pages. The  ‘Events’ pages have been completely revised and brought up to date with new illustrations.

Excerpts from Chapters 9 and 10 relating to the Democratic Chapel and the Operatives’ Hall Society:

‘When the Nottingham Working Men’s Association was set up it met in the Chartist room “at the end of Halifax Place” and it was there that NWMA meetings were held during 1838, and to which the Nottingham Female Political Union moved their meetings in January 1839 …

Excerpts from Chapter 12 relating to the Birthplace of Co-operation, and the influence of Newcastle Chartism on Co-operation in Nottingham:

‘Some of the earliest co-operative endeavours had their roots in the friendly societies, and friendly societies were often a screen behind which working people combined to protect their livelihoods … These practices were evident in the Ayrshire village of Fenwick from 1761 …

Excerpts from Chapter 6 relating to the persecution of Susannah Wright:

‘Susannah was a native of Nottingham, the daughter of Sarah and Robert Godber who lived in Kid Street, near the foot of Goosegate. Her father was a …