The Bradlaugh Riot in Northampton Market Square, 1874
When the results of the 1874 election were read out in Northampton’s Market Square a riot broke out. Supporters of the radical atheist candidate Charles Bradlaugh shouted ‘Fixed result, re-count!’ and started brawling with followers of the other candidates, the Conservative Pickering Phipps and the Liberal Charles Gilpin. Eventually the Lord Mayor read the Riot Act and soldiers fired shots over the heads of the crowd to disperse them.
Bradlaugh was a founding member of the National Secular Society, which under the banner of ‘challenging religious privilege’, campaigned for the disestablishment of the Church of England; the withdrawal of state subsidies to religious schools; the end of tax exemptions for churches and the abolition of the blasphemy law. Bradlaugh’s support was particularly strong amongst the working class, which in Northampton included many shoemakers.
The concertina was invented by Charles Wheatstone in 1829, and towards the end of the century had become sufficiently inexpensive to make it popular with working people. It was one of a new group of free-reed instrument, which included the accordion and the harmonica.
