Producing, Performing and Curating Radicalism: How was radical material culture produced, used and curated in early 19th century Britain?

Material culture was an important part of how radicals and parliamentary reformers performed and constructed their politics in the early 19th century. Banners, flags and liberty caps were frequently used to express political ideas as well as form group identities in mass platform meetings. There are interesting questions surrounding the production and curation of these objects. Who was making them? What materials were being used? Which objects were reused and why? This paper will provide preliminary ideas on what answers there may be for these questions as well as highlighting different directions the research may go. Memory, heritage and identity will be key themes within the discussion as they allow for reflection on why this materiality mattered to radicals and reformers. 

Caitlin Kitchener is Lecturer in Historical Archaeology at the University of York. Her PhD examined the material culture and landscapes of post-Napoleonic War radicalism, considering a range of different spatial contexts (mass platform meetings, prisons and executions). Recent publications include work on how female reformers in 1819 performed and constructed a feminine radicalism as well as how their gender was perceived by those outside the reform movement in the article 'Sisters of the Earth: The Landscapes, Radical Identities and Performances of Female Reformers in 1819' in Journal for Eighteenth‐Century Studies. She is also interested in how visual culture can be analysed to understand how space was imagined and represented, with a recent article 'Cato Street Conspiracy and Consuming Crime: How Radical Politics Fed into the Public's Passion for Violent Media Coverage' in Parliamentary History investigating the rich visual depictions of a quotidian space linked to treason.