Local History & Art

Title: Radical History Walk: Don't liberate me: I'll do it myself
Client: Nottingham Contemporary 'Remember Revolution' exhibition.
Brief: Travel 20 or 30 miles from home and the people have generally in store for you some pity when they know you’re from Nottingham - Nottingham Journal, 1835. How was Nottingham Radical?
Materials: Walk and Historiography
Images: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 (Courtesy Jennie Syson)

A still from Look & Find - The Meadow Club.

A still from Look & Find - The Meadow Club.

Coal Pit Lane: The former route of Lord Middleton's coal waggons - from Wollaton to the River Trent. A reminder that coal mining in Nottinghamshire was often patronised by a Tory/Liberal elite - making working class solidarity weaker. This, among other complex reasons such as a stable home market, deeper coal seems and a diverse local economy has led to Spencerism and strike breaking during the twentieth century. In many respects the Thatcher government used these differences in local socio-economics and landscape to their own advantage during the strikes of the 1980s. It is widely believed by the NUM that the Nottinghamshire coalfield prevented the miners from wining by 'keeping the lights on' during the strike. Despite these quarrels (which continue to this day), the coal industry has all but been decimated.

P. Wyncoll, The Nottingham Labour Movement, (London, 1988).
H. Williams, 'Some comparative notes on the social structure of the Nottinghamshire coalfield', in Bulletin of Local History: East Midlands Region Vol. 14, 1979.
R. J. Waller, The Dukeries Transformed: The social and political development of the Nottinghamshire coalfield, (Oxford, 1983).
A. More, Community and Conflict in Eastwood: a study from the Nottinghamshire Coalfield before 1914, (Nottingham, 1995).
J. V. Beckett, The East Midlands from 1000 A. D., (London, 1988).
J. Holland Walker, 'An itinerary of Nottingham', in, Transactions of the Thoroton Society, 31 (1927).