Nation of Petitioners - Petitions and Petitioning in the United Kingdom, 17801918

Between 1780 and 1918, over one million petitions from across the four nations were sent to the House of Commons. This first study of the nineteenth-century heyday of petitioning explores the central role of petitions in reshaping the political culture of the United Kingdom, as well as the history of modern British politics.

List of contents

Introduction; Part I. Petitions: 1. Petitions to the House of Commons I: scale and trends; 2. Petitions to the House of Commons II: issues; 3. Subscriptional cultures and petitionary documents; Part II. Petitioners: 4. The right to petition; 5. Petitioners I: collective identities; 6. Petitioners II: petitioning communities; Part III. Petitioning: 7. The practice of petitioning; 8. Mass petitioning; 9. Petitioning and representation; 10. Petitioning and political culture in an age of democratisation; Conclusion; Select bibliography; Index.

About the author

Henry J. Miller is Associate Professor (Research) at Durham University. He has published widely on the political culture of modern Britain, and led projects on petitions funded by the AHRC and Leverhulme Trust. His first book, Politics Personified: Portraiture, Caricature, and Visual Culture in Britain, 1830–1880, was published in 2015 by Manchester University Press. He is co-editor of Petitions and Petitioning in Europe and North America: From the Late Medieval Period to the Present, which will be published by Oxford University Press for the British Academy.

Product details

• Authors: Henry J. Miller, Henry J. (Durham University) Miller
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 28.02.2025
• EAN: 9781009054522
• ISBN: 978-1-0-0905452-2
• No. of pages: 312
• Series: Modern British Histories
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > General, dictionaries; 19th century, c 1800 to c 1899, Political structures: democracy, British & Irish history, United Kingdom, Great Britain, HISTORY / Europe / Great Britain / General, Social and cultural history, Elections and referenda / suffrage, Political activism / Political engagement