Red Antigone: The Life and World of Helen Macfarlane, by David Black (BPC Publishers, 2024)
On a spring day in 1860, parishioners at the tiny fourteenth-century church at Baddiley, deep in the heart of the Cheshire countryside, gathered for the funeral of the vicar’s wife. Helen Edwards had died after a short illness aged just 41, and was laid to rest in the churchyard at St Michael’s in a peaceful spot in the shade of a large and now quite ancient tree.
I recently spent a very enjoyable hour and a half chatting about all things Chartism with professional genealogist Natalie at Genealogy Stories. You can watch the first hour of our conversation below.
This was a completely unscripted and unplanned talk (at least on my part), so please excuse the ums and ahhs, and any stories I launched into before getting sidetracked.
In part two, which you can access through Natalie's website, we talked a little about what happened to Chartism after 1848, and rather more about some interesting Chartists, including William Cuffay and Susanna Inge.
On the whole, I am really pleased with how it came out - although there are so many things I didn't get round to talking about, and of course if I'd prepared an answer to every question I might well have looked at alternative interpretations of some events.
Natalie herself did a great job, and was very easy to talk to. Do check out Genealogy Stories where she has a growing collection of interviews along with some other great family history resources.
The French socialist Louis Blanc had been a significant figure in the provisional government of 1848. But despite having popular support for his plans to guarantee work for all, the left was a minority in government, and Blanc fled into exile after narrowly escaping arrest or worse.
Chartism Day 2016 took place at the University of Chester at the weekend, with around 50 delegates turning up for a busy programme of presentations on topics as diverse as Chartism’s relationship with the Irish Repeal movement, the impact of the Beer Act on radical meetings and an exciting new initiative using 3D animated modelling techniques to re-create Chartist processions.
What follows does not attempt to summarise the arguments of the speakers, which are in any event almost all drawn from work in progress towards full academic publication, but simply to give a flavour of the day’s talks.
Heading up to Chester for this year's Chartism Day (more of which later) I stopped off at the tiny Cheshire village of Baddiley.
Here, in the rather beautiful and peaceful surroundings of St Michael's church, is buried Helen Macfarlane - or, as it says on her gravestone, "Helen, wife of the Revd John W Edwards."
