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RIMARY SOURCES are the bread and butter of any historian. This web site contains many primary sources. Some are part of the narrative of events, others are quotations.Those sources are not included in this list.

The pages that are devoted entirely to primary material, either text or illustrations, are listed here. This page is divided into topic areas, with the relevant primary sources listed under the appropriate heading. I hope you find the page useful. If you find errors and/or omissions, please let me know.

Complete texts

• The Letters of Junius 1768-70

• Take Your Choice by Major John Cartwright, 1776

• The Greville Diaries: Charles Grevile, 1818—1860

• Past and Present: Thomas Carlyle, 1843

• Voice from the Ranks: Sgt. Timothy Gowing, Crimean War

• The Light Cavalry Brigade in the Crimea — Extracts from the Letters and Journal of General Lord George Paget

• Diary of Services in the Crimea by Charles W Usherwood

AMERICAN AFFAIRS

• The 1763 Proclamation
• Dickinson's Farmer's Letters - Letter 1
• The Stamp Act
• The Declarations of the Stamp Act Congress 1765
• Jared Ingersoll's account of the parliamentary debates concerning the Stamp Act
• Thomas Hutchinson's account of the Boston riot, 26 August 1765
• The Boston Massacre 1770: a newspaper account
• The Boston Massacre 1770: Captain Preston's account
• The Gaspée Incident: 1772
• This link will take you to a very thorough American site about the Gaspée incident
• The Boston Tea Party: a handbill
• The Boston Tea Party: a newspaper account
• The Battle of Lexington and Concord: colonial open letter to Britain
• The Battle of Lexington and Concord: Anne Hulton's account
• The Battle of Lexington and Concord: General Gages' account
• Thomas Paine's Common Sense (will take about 2 minutes to download)
• The American Declaration of Independence (text)
• A letter written by a British soldier from Charleston, South Carolina, in the spring of 1781
• Marshall Liu Bocheng's Taboos of War
• The Treaty of Ghent, 1814

CHARTISM

• The Barnsley Manifesto - June 1838
• The People's Charter
• Attwood's speech on presenting the 1839 Charter to Parliament, 14 June 1839
• Disraeli's speech supporting the Chartists: July 1838
• The parliamentary debate on the 1842 Petition
• Opposition to universal suffrage
• The parliamentary debate on the 1848 petition
• Contemporary views of Chartism
• The trial of Samuel Holberry
• Images of Chartism, 1848
• The Trials of Lloyd and Warden
• Thomas Macaulay's speech against Chartism
• Sir Charles Napier on Chartism (see also Napier's biography)
• Sir Charles Napier on Nottingham Chartism
• New Move Chartism
• Objects of the London Democratic Association
• Richard Pilling's defence at his trial
• The procession of the 1848 Petition
• The Rotherham Handbill
• Joseph Rayner Stephens on Chartism
• Ulterior Measures
• Test pages (all primary material)
• The Newport Rising
• Splinter movements within Chartism
• The reasons and arguments behind the Chartist demands (1841)
• The Chartist Demonstration in London, 1848

CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE: READINGS

• The Letters of Junius (1768-72)
• The Greville Diaries (1818-1860)
• Principles of Population: Thomas Malthus (1798)
• Wanderings in New South Wales, Batavia, Pedir Coast, Singapore, and China; being the Journal of a Naturalist during 1832, 1833, and 1834. George Bennett, .Esq., F.L.S., Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, &c. London, 2 vols. 8vo. 1834.
• The Population of Great Britain and Ireland: Quarterly Review, Vol. LIII; February- April 1835
• A visit to Newgate from Charles Dickens, Sketches by Boz,
• Dotheboys Hall from Nicholas Nickleby: Charles Dickens (1838-9), ch. 3
• Working conditions in factories from The Life and Adventures of Michael Armstrong: Frances Trollope (1840)
• Past and Present (full text): Thomas Carlyle (1843)
• The Condition of England from Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, Book 1, Chapter 1 (1843)
• Unworking Aristocracy from Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, Book III, Chapter 8 (1843)
• Working aristocracy from Past and Present: Thomas Carlyle (1843), Book III, ch. 9.
• Lord Monmouth after the Reform Bill from Benjamin Disraeli, Coningsby, or, the New Generation, Book IV, Chapter 3 (1844)
• The New Generation: Benjamin Disraeli, Coningsby, or, the New Generation (1844)
• The Rural Town of Marney from Benjamin Disraeli, Sybil; or, the Two Nations Book 11, Chapter 3 (1845)
• The two nations from Sybil, Benjamin Disraeli (1845), Book II, ch. 5.
• Ignorance of the working classes from Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 (1845).
• Dr. Blimber's Academy from Dombey and Son: Charles Dickens (1846-8), ch. 11.
• Lowood School from Jane Eyre: Charlotte Bronte (1847) Chapter 5.
• Collective Bargaining from Mary Barton: Elizabeth Gaskell (1848), ch. 9
• Fever in Manchester from Mary Barton: Elizabeth Gaskell (1848), ch. 6.
• Women and Children in the Mines from Harriet Martineau, History of England, Book VI, Chapter 7 (1849)
• Cheap Clothes and Nasty: Charles Kingsley, 1850
• The Great Exhibition of 1851: Prince Albert's Triumph
• What I Remarked at the Exhibition: William Makepeace Thackeray, 1851
• The little watercress girl from London Labour and the London Poor: Henry Mayhew (1851), Vol I, pp. 157-8.
• A walk in a workhouse from Charles Dickens, Household Words, 25 May 1850
• A visit to the brickmakers from Bleak House: Charles Dickens (1852-3), ch. 8.
• The Mill Owner from Shirley: Charlotte Brontë
• Utilitarian education from Hard Times: Charles Dickens (1854),Chapters l and 2
• Railway Mania from Samuel Smiles, Life of George Stephenson, Chapter 31 (1857)
• From Liverpool to Manchester in 1830 from Samuel Smiles, The Life of George Stephenson, Chapter 24 (1857)
• A village workhouse in 1830 from George Eliot, Scenes of Clerical Life: "Amos Barton" Chapter 2 (1857)
• An election in the midlands (1832) from Felix Holt the Radical: George Eliot (1866), ch. 31.
• Old England Before the Reform Bill from George Eliot, Felix Holt, the Radical, Introduction (1866)
• A liberal landlord from Middlemarch: George Eliot (1870-1), ch. 39.
• Origins of the Slave Trade from WEH Lecky, A History of England in the Eighteenth Century, Volume IV, Chapter 5 (1878)

THE CORN LAWS

• Report of the Select Committee on Import Duties (6 August 1840)
• Arguments against the Corn Laws
• Cobden's Maiden Speech in Parliament, against the Corn Laws, 25 August 1841
• Prince Albert's memorandum on the Corn Laws 25 December 1845
• A Pamphlet attacking the Anti-Corn-Law League
• Village Life in the 1830s and 1840s
• Agriculture in Ireland
• Newall's Buildings, Manchester
• A Conservative attack on the Anti-Corn-Law League
• Petitions to parliament on the Corn Laws
• Corn Law Rhymes
• Lord John Russell's Edinburgh Letter
• Peel's 1841 speech on the Corn Laws
• Disraeli's explanation to his constituents of his votes in Parliament, 1842
• Thomas Carlyle's attack on the Corn Laws (1843)
• Goulburn's letter to Peel, concerning Corn Law policy - November 1845
• Peel's Cabinet Memorandum on the Corn Laws, 1 November 1845
• Sir Robert Peel's speech on the repeal of the Corn Laws: January 22, 1846
• Peel's speech on the second reading of the Bill for the Repeal of the Corn Laws (16 February 1846)
• Peel's speech on the repeal of the Corn Laws, 4 May 1846
• Peel's Corn Law speech, 15 May 1846
• Disraeli's speech on the third reading of the Bill for the Repeal of the Corn Laws: 15 May 1846
• The Duke of Wellington's speech on the repeal of the Corn Laws: 28 May 1846
• Peel's resignation speech, 1846

FACTORIES AND MINES

Factories

• Magistrates' resolution, 1794, to limit children's hours
• The Health and Morals of Apprentices Act, 1802
• Child labour (1807)
• A Luddite attack on a Yorkshire mill (1812)
• These links go to external primary sources on Luddites
  • "Luddites Smashing a Loom, 1812"
  • "Luddite Writings"
  • Luddites and Luddism Midlands Documents Contents
• Riots in Sheffield, 1812
• A Luddite Oath: 1812
• A 'reward' poster of the Luddite period, July 1812
• The execution of Luddites, 1813
• Sadler's speech on factory reform 1832
• Minutes of Mark Best's evidence taken before the Committee on the Factories Bill, 1833
• Samuel Coulson's evidence to the Royal Commission on Factories, 1833
• Economics of factories
• A progressive factory owner
• The Document
• "Yorkshire Slavery"
• The Factory Girl's Last Day poem by Michael Sadler
• The employment of children
• Shortage of labour in factories
• Inspectors of factories
• Long hours in factories
• The physical condition of tex26 December, 2010act.htm">Factory Act
• Hours of Labour (1836)
• A justification of the long working hours in factories (Nassau Senior)
• The Plug Plots of 1842
• Shaftesbury's speech to amend the Ten Hours' Act
• The Ten Hours Act and its Supporters
• Industrial Conditions in Manchester, 1845
• The Curse of the Factory System: John Fielden

Mines

• Public Reaction to the Disclosure of Conditions in the Coal Mines
• Contemporary Accounts of Working Conditions in the Mines
• Shaftesbury's "mines" speech
• Why parliament failed to control hours of work
• The 1842 Mines Act
• Women and Children in the Mines from Harriet Martineau, History of England, Book VI, Chapter 7 (1849)
• Conditions in the mines
• Child labour in the mines (1845)

THE FRENCH WARS

• Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (English translation)
• The Retreat from Moscow
• The Retreat to Waterloo

FOREIGN POLICY

• Castlereagh's State Paper of 1820: Minute of the Cabinet, 5 May 1820
• A letter from William Pugsley in Cawnpore to his mother, 8 November 1857

IRISH AFFAIRS

• Transcripts of the Williamite Penal Laws can be found here (University of Minnesota Law Library)
• Jonathan Swift's Modest Proposal (1729)
• George III on his attitude towards Catholic Emancipation
• The Act of Union (1801)
• Catholic Emancipation (topic page)
• The Duke of Wellington's speech on Catholic Emancipation; 1828
• Daniel O'Connell's Election Manifesto, 1828
• The County Clare Election, 1829
• Peel and Catholic Emancipation
• An Act for the Relief of His Majesty's Roman Catholic Subjects [13 April 1829]
• Catholic Emancipation Act (1829)
• The Duke of Wellington's speech on Catholic Emancipation (2 April 1829)
• Ireland in 1835: Alexis de Tocqueville
• The Year of the Great Repeal: speech of Daniel O'Connell, 14 May 1843
• Irish grievances, 1844
• The condition of the labourers in Ireland (1845)
• Agriculture in Ireland
• The famine in Skibbereen, 1846

LAW AND ORDER

• The trial of James Watson et. al. following the Spa Fields Riots (1817) N.B.this is a very long document and will take some time to load.
• The execution of Jeremiah Brandreth, etc (1817)
• The Cato Street Conspiracy (1820)
• The Royal Commission on Constabulary Forces March 1839
• Sir Robert Peel's Nine Points of policing
• Peel's proposals for a Metropolitan Police Force
• The Metropolitan Police Act, 1829
• Peel's speech on policing in London
• Police patrols
• Contemporary comments on the police
• Prison conditions
• Conditions in prisons, 1836
• Recruiting new policemen
• The reform of prisons
• A Law for the Rich and another for the Poor (The law is an ass)

MISCELLANEOUS

• The Beggar's Petition by Thomas Moss (1766)
• Debates on the slave trade: 12/ 21 May 1789
• Casabianca (aka "The Boy stood on the Burning Deck")
• From the sublime to the ridiculous: portraits of Napoleon
• The Prince Regent
• Descriptions of Peel, the man
• The Death of Sir Robert Peel
• Peel a working class hero
• Birmingham in the late eighteenth century
• Sheffield in 1724
• Sheffield in 1830
• Soldiers at the Battle of Waterloo
• Utilitarian education, from Charles Dickens, Hard Times
• The Rural Town of Marney, from Benjamin Disraeli, Sybil; or, the Two Nations Book 11, Chapter 3 (1845)
• "A Visit to Newgate" from Charles Dickens, Sketches by Boz, Scene 25 (1836)
• The campaign for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts
• The opening of the Tamworth Library and Reading Room 1841
• Town and Country: Taking Stock in 1851
• The 1851 Exhibition: A National Festival
• The 1851 Census
• Census returns, 1851, 1861, 1871

POLITICAL AFFAIRS

• The Bill of Rights (1689)
• The Act of Settlement (1701)
• Royal Marriages Act 1772
• Major John Cartwright's Take Your Choice (1776) - the document is very long.
• Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (France, 1789)
• Assessments of Lord Liverpool: contemporary and subsequent
• Assessments of Lord Castlereagh
• Assessments of Henry Addington, Viscount Sidmouth
• Assessments of Canning
• Assessments of Huskisson
• Assessments of Lord Eldon
• The government's use of spies (1817)
• The Political House that Jack Built: 1819
• The Peterloo Massacre, 1819
• A view of England in 1819
• The Masque of Anarchy (Shelley), 1819
• The Six Acts 1819
• The Queen Caroline affair (1820)
• Brougham's defence of Queen Caroline (1820) — this is a very long document.
• Castlereagh's State Paper of 1820
• The Death of Lord Liverpool, 4 December 1828 - newspaper reports
• The repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts (1828)
• Daniel O'Connell's Election Manifesto, 1828
• The County Clare Election, 1828
• Shifting the ground on Catholic Emancipation
• Peel's speech on Catholic Emancipation, 5 February 1829
• The Duke of Wellington's speech on Catholic Emancipation: 2 April 1829
• Life of Wellington (1862) - Catholic Emancipation.
• Greville on Catholic Emancipation, 1829
• Wellington's speech opposing the reform of parliament, 2 November 1830
• Lord John Russell's proposals for parliamentary reform: 1 March 1831
• The Parliamentary Debate on the introduction of the Reform Bill: 02 March 1831 ** NB this is a VERY long document and will take a while to load.
• "Reform that you may preserve" Extracts from a speech by Thomas Babbington Macaulay, 2 March 1831
• Lord Palmerston's speech in support of the Reform Bill, 3 March 1831
• Peel's speech in opposition to the Reform Bill, 3 March 1831.
• The Parliamentary Debate on the introduction of the Reform Bill: 8 March 1831 NB This is a very long document and will take some time to load.
• Prorogation of Parliament, 22 April 1831
• Peel's Speech on Parliamentary Reform: 6 July 1831
• The Bristol Reform Act riots: October 1831
• Parliamentary debate on the introduction of the Reform Bill to Parliament: 12 December 1831
• Sir Robert Inglis' speech in the Debate upon the Second Reading of the Reform of Parliament (England) Bill: 17 December 1831
• The Reform Bill: parliamentary representation from a speech made by TB Macaulay on 28 February 1832.
• Peel's Speech on the Reform Bill, 28 February 1832
• Reform after the Reform Act: a radical view
• Peel's criticism of parliamentary reform: 1832
• The Duke of Wellington and Reform: 17 May 1832
• Earl Grey and parliamentary reform: 17 May 1832
• Clumber House in a State of Defence
• Place's letter to Hobhouse 1832 (Reform Act Crisis)
• Peel's opposition to the Reform Act 1832
• Passage of the First Reform Bill from The Times (6 June 1832)
• Electoral Morality in the Reformed Era
• The Reform ministry after the Reform Act: a government defence
• The 1832 Reform Act
• Mr. Pickwick and the Eatanswill Election
• Peel's Speech on the Address in Answer to the King's Speech, 7 February 1833
• A Year at Hartlebury or The Election (1834)
• Defects in Constitutions of Municipal Corporations, according so Commissioners of 1835
• Conservative Principles
• Disraeli's assessment of Peel
• The employment of government spies
• The Tamworth Manifesto 18 December 1834
• The Conservative Party in the 1830s: a contemporary view
• Peel's defence of his acceptance of office: 24 February 1835
• Parties and politics: a Whig view (1837)
• Lord John Russell's "finality" speech: 20 November 1837
• Whigs and Liberals, 1838
• A Disillusioned Whig (1838)
• Conservative principles, 1838
• Peel's speech on the Bedchamber Crisis (1839)
• Peel on the position of Prime Minister, 1841
• Thomas Carlyle on The Condition of England (1843)
• Peel's speech on the Bank Charter Act (1844)
• An attack on Peel's policies, 1845
• Clarendon's Memorandum on the state of the Whig party, June, 1846
• Peel's accident (1850)
• The death of Sir Robert Peel, July 1850
• Peel a 'working class hero'
• Peel: a tribute (1850?)
• Disraeli's speech on the Reform Bill: 15 July 1867
• Gladstone's speech on the accomplishments of his ministry (1871)

POLITICAL CARTOONS

• Take Your Choice — 1776
• Evacuation before Resignation — 21 May 1782
• The Contrast — 1792
• The Promis'd Horrors of the French Invasion — 1796
• London Corresponding Society alarm'd" — 1798
• The Stratagem, alias The French Bug-a-bo, or John Bull turned Scrub — 1 January 1799
• "Plumb Pudding in Danger", early 1805
• Johny McCree in the Dumps — 12 April 1805
• Popular indignation - or - John Bull in a Rage — 26 April 1805
• "Peter and Paul Expell'd from Paradise" — December 1806
• The Ghost of a Rotten Borough appearing on the Hustings of Covent Garden — 17 May 1807
• A Grand Manoeuvre: Napoleon goes to Elba — April 1814
• The Game Laws — 1816
• A Law for the Rich and another for the Poor
• The Royal Shambles — August 1816
• Spa Fields Riots — 2 December 1816
• "Liberty Suspended" — March 1817
• The government's use of spies — July 1817
• The Political House that Jack Built — 1819
• The Peterloo Massacre, 16 August 1819: primary sources
• A Radical Reformer — 1819
• The Six Acts — 1819
• The Queen Caroline Affair — contemporary comment 1820
• The Cato Street Conspiracy — 23 February 1820
• Cato Street Conspiracy: contemporary sources — February 1820
• Coriolanus addressing the Plebeians (1820)
• 'Monster Soup' - 1828
• The March of Bricks and Mortar — 1829
• Cartoons of Catholic Emancipation — 1829
• See-Dan — May 1829
• The Head Master turning out the Incorrigibles — May 1831
• The Sick Goose and the Council of Health (patent medicines)
• Salus Populi Suprema Lex — 1832
• The Newport Rising — 4 November 1839
• The Procession of the 1842 Chartist Petition
• An Anti-corn-Law League membership card — after 1842
• Public Health: no waste disposal
• Public Health: open sewers
• Capital and Labour —1843
• The Home of the Rick burner 1844
• Images of the Irish Famine
• "Bubbles" - a contemporary comment on sweat shops — 1845.
• Papa Cobden taking Master Robert a Free Trade walk - 1846
• The Rising Generation - in Parliament — 1847
• The Procession of the 1848 Chartist Petition
• Images of Chartism — 1848
• The Water that John Drinks — 1849
• You are requested not to speak to the man at the wheel — August 1854
• The last of the Brudenells and the destruction of the Light Brigade 24 October 1854
• Food adulteration — 14 August 1855
• The Dirty Doorstep — 1855
• Uniform Stupidity — 1856
• Patient heroes — 1856
• An evening party at Sevastopol — 1856
• The British beehive — 1867
• The Seven Dials district of London — 1872

POOR RELIEF

• A Village Workhouse in 1830 from George Eliot, Scenes of Clerical Life: "Amos Barton" Chapter 2 (1857)
• The Andover Workhouse scandal, 1845-6
• The Huddersfield Workhouse scandal
• Printed attacks on the Poor Law Amendment Act
• The Book of Murder
• Plans of Workhouses
• Principles of a sound system of Poor Relief
• Deterrence as a weapon against those seeking poor relief
• A typical workhouse diet
• English Charity: Quarterly Review Vol. LIII, February-April 1835 (John Murray, London, 1835), pp. 473-539. This is a very long document and may take some time to down-load.

• Joseph Fielden's opposition to the Poor Law Amendment Act, 1836-8

• The state of the Huddersfield Union (April 1838)
• The "good old system" of poor relief
• The burdens and evils associated with the old Poor Laws
• Poor Houses before 1834
• The New Poor Law, 14 August 1834
• The reduction in poor relief in Northumberland after 1834
• Unpopularity of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act
• The Workhouse: contemporary illustrations
• Workhouse rules
• Justifying giving of outdoor relief
• Thomas Carlyle's attack on the workhouse (1843)
• A Walk in a Workhouse from Charles Dickens, Household Words, 25 May 1850.
  

PUBLIC HEALTH

• Bad housing
• Burials (Chadwick's Sanitary Report and Engels)
• Inadequate Cleansing
• Inadequate waste disposal
• Bad drainage and poor water supplies
• The use of food adulteration
• The Moral and Physical Condition of the Working Classes in Manchester (1832)
• Overcrowding
• Lack of recreational facilities in towns
• Resistance to the Poor Law Board's orders
• A Glasgow court
• Manchester in 1844
• Slums in Manchester from Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 ( 1845)
• Open sewers
• Extracts from Edwin Chadwick's Sanitary Report
• Slums in Manchester from Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 ( 1845)
• A cholera poster
• The march of the bricks and mortar
  

RAILWAYS

• The benefits of railways
• Demolition of houses for railway building
• Railway accidents
• The opening of the Stockton-Darlington railway line, 1825
• A first journey by rail
• Passenger accommodation
• The Rainhill Trials, 1829
• The results of the railway revolution
• Easier travel for the working classes
• The death of William Huskisson
• "No peace for the dead"
• From Liverpool to Manchester in 1830, from Samuel Smiles, The Life of George Stephenson, Chapter 24 (1857)
• The 1842 Railway Act
• The 1844 Railway Act
• Railway Mania from Samuel Smiles,Life of George Stephenson, Chapter 31 (1857)

RELIGION

• The Thirty-nine Articles of the Anglican faith
• The Anglican Catechism of 1662
• The campaign for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts
• Daniel O'Connell's Election Manifesto, 1828
• The Duke of Wellington's speeches on the Repeal of the Test and Corporations Acts, 1824-8
• The House of Commons Debate on the Repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts, 18 February 1828
• Catholic Emancipation: topic page. The primary sources are listed on the topic page.
• Life of Wellington (1862) — Catholic Emancipation
• An Indignant Dissenter: Baptist Magazine (3 ser.), xxv-597-600 (December 1833)
• Dissenting Agitation Continued: Baptist Magazine, xxvi. 255 (June 1834)
• An Indignant Anglican: British Magazine, vi.273-8 (September 1834) Correspondence
• The Ecclesiastical Commission of 1835: Peel Memoirs, ii-72-5
• Tracts for the Times: Tract 1 (1833) John Henry, Cardinal Newman
• The Whig Educational Scheme of 1839
• Anglican Views on National Education
• A Dissenting Protest against Anglican Claims: 1840
• Sir James Graham's Factory Education Scheme, 1843
• National Education: The Failure of a Policy

RURAL LIFE

• The condition of the labourers in Ireland (1845)
• Agriculture in Ireland
• Thomas Carlyle on the Condition of England Question
• The Destruction of the Rural Economy, 1825
• Report of the Poor Law Commissioners on the agricultural disturbances of 1830
• The Rural War, 1830
• Old England Before the Reform Bill from George Eliot, Felix Holt, the Radical, Introduction (1866)
  

TRADE UNIONS

• The Document
• The Tolpuddle Martyrs
• George Loveless' account of the events of 1834: the Tolpuddle Martyrs
• The Grand National Consolidated Trade Union