London Corresponding Society
| Formation | January 1792 |
|---|---|
| Purpose | Radical parliamentary reform |
| Headquarters | London |
|
Key people
|
Thomas Hardy, Joseph Gerrald, Maurice Margarot, Edward Despard |
The London Corresponding Society was a Radical organization based in London, England, with a membership consisting primarily of artisans, tradesmen, and shopkeepers. At its peak, the society boasted roughly 3,000 dues-paying members who shared the goal of reforming the British political system. Formed in 1792 by Thomas Hardy, the society's key mission was to ensure universal suffrage for British men and annual parliaments. Due to the perceived French revolutionary influence on the society and its calls for radical political change, the government of William Pitt the Younger, fearing upheaval bitterly opposed it, accusing it on two occasions of plotting to assassinate the King, and putting its key leaders on trial in 1794 for treason. However, due to the transparent falsity of the government’s claims, those leaders, including Hardy, John Thelwall, and John Horne Tooke, were all acquitted. After exerting "undue influence" on the European political climate in the last decade of the 18th century, the LCS and other organizations like it were outlawed by a 1799 Parliamentary Act, and efforts to maintain an underground organization were stymied by their outlaw status and financial troubles and mismanagement.
The European Enlightenment, American independence, and later the French Revolution reinvigorated interest in the concepts of republicanism, popular sovereignty, and self-representation in late 18th century Britain, spurring the creation of various politically motivated organizations and societies, most prominently the Society for Constitutional Information (SCI). The pamphlets published by the SCI, the increasingly popular Rights of Man by political thinker Thomas Paine, and the abundance of other political tracts inspired a shoemaker, Thomas Hardy, to found the LCS in January 1792 as a society including "all descriptions and classes of men" to carry out a "radical reform of parliament." Morever, Hardy quickly realized that the general public needed to be educated on the subject of their political rights, and the LCS's secondary aim became to provide cheap, accessible publications and open meetings to the masses. Hardy was quickly joined by founding members John Frost, Maurice Margarot and Joseph Gerrald. Other prominent members included Francis Place, Edward Marcus Despard, and Olaudah Equiano. The LCS also had branches in Manchester, Norwich, Sheffield, and , Scotland, and Ireland. Irish rebels, such as Despard, became the early left wing of the London Corresponding Society.
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