George Odger

The original print version of this article appeared in: Dictionary of Labour Biography, vol. XIII, ed. by Keith Gildart and David Howell, Basingstoke 2010, pp. 292-300.

George Odger's story is the story of radical working-class politics in the mid-Victorian era. He was born the son of a Cornish miner in Rouborough near Plymouth in 1813 (not, as sometimes suggested, in 1820). After some elementary education, which he enlarged by self-study all through his life, he took up shoemaking. During his apprenticeship he travelled through England and joined a local Chartist association, but information on this period of his life is scarce.

It is only from the time when he settled in London that the sources on his life begin to flow more freely. Odger made a quick rise in a small trade society of his craft, the West End Ladies' Shoemakers' Society. He first showed his skill as an organiser and a characteristic sense of pragmatism in 1848 to 1851, when he prevented his union from principally opposing the introduction of machinery in the trade. The occasion for his rise to a more national importance came with the builders' strike of 1859, which proved a watershed in metropolitan union politics. The strike, which found Odger taking part in delegate meetings of the London trades, inspired the creation of the London Trades Council (LTC) in 1860/61. This combination of trades in the capital soon served as a kind of 'clearing-house' (Moberg, 45) for union activities on a national scale.

Although only representing a small union of about 400 members, Odger became first chairman (May 1862), then secretary to the LTC, a position he held from August 1862 until May 1872. Afterwards, he remained on the executive until shortly before his death.

His position on the LTC made him part of the inner circle of powerful London union leaders, most of whom represented the recently established big amalgamated unions of builders, engineers, carpenters and joiners (people such as Robert Applegarth, Daniel Guile, William Randal Cremer, George Howell and William Allan). The Webbs famously dubbed this leading group a 'junta'. In this expression, they properly captured the new dynamics of union organisation, but at the same time they overestimated the coherence of the LTC's politics and neglected the continued importance of smaller trade unions. In any case, Odger belonged to the generation of union leaders who wanted to use strikes sparingly and accepted the basic principles of free trade, although they never gave up their claims to a more equitable social system, where workers would receive their "fair share" of a company's profits.

Among LTC-leaders, Odger was an exception for staying in his job with the firm of Goodyear on Leicester Square through much of his political life. With pride he pointed out that this showed a 'character for regularity' (Reynolds's Newspaper, 9 June 1872, 6) and that for his livelihood he was not dependent on union contributions. In the 1870s, Odger worked on his own, from his premises in Bloomsbury, making shoes for private individuals and occasionally shops. He augmented his income by writing and lecturing all over the country although in most cases he did not charge societies that invited him for his speeches. Very often, only his travel expenses were paid, 'sometimes something extra' (Odger's Reply, 6).

Although many sources praise Odger's first-class craftmanship in his trade, he cannot have had too much time at his disposal for a regular working life. His commitment to the trade union movement must have encroached on his working-hours quite often. Not only did he visit the lobby of the House of Commons on trade union issues, but he also represented the LTC at a number of official occasions. For example, he organised anti-slavery meetings and arranged relief to the Lancashire cotton workers during the American Civil War, and he testified before the Select Committee on the Law of Master and Servant in 1866. After some hesitation on the part of the LTC leaders, Odger also became involved in the first steps of the Trades Union Congress (TUC). The LTC did not initially support its formation in 1868, but by 1869 it had come round to cooperate, and Odger and George Howell attended the second TUC in Birmingham. By this time, Odger had become associated with the Conference of Amalgamated Trades (CAT), a body set up to accompany the dealings of the Royal Commission on Trade Unions (established in 1867) and the subsequent passage of labour legislation through Parliament. When some of the tasks of the CAT were transferred to a newly founded Parliamentary Committee of the TUC, Odger became a member of the new body and twice (1873 and 1874) acted as its vice-chairman.

Odger also was among the metropolitan union leaders who took an interest in the first attempts at establishing agricultural labourers' unions. He played a leading role in the formation of the Federal Union of Agricultural and General Labourers, which was seen as a rival organisation by Joseph Arch's National Agricultural Labourers' Union. Odger helped to organise financial support for the land labourers during the economic crisis of the early 1870s, and he assisted in working out a compromise about the division of relief funds between both organisations.

However, Odger's time was not totally taken up with union affairs. He also was one of the unionists who tried to induce trade unions into political action. In the 1860s, this first of all meant to win over the unions for an agitation for suffrage extension. When a majority of LTC delegates proved hesitant to use trade councils for political action, Odger became involved in the formation of the Manhood Suffrage and Vote By Ballot Association (October 1862), an association of those unions willing to play a larger political role. He became president of this body, which merged into the Reform League in 1865.

The politicisation of the unions and the reform campaign received a decisive boost from international events. The Polish insurrection of 1863 provided the occasion for expressions of political sympathy, but it was the visit to England by the Italian hero of liberty, Giuseppe Garibaldi, that had the most stimulating effect. Although the 1864 visit (which found Odger as part of a working men delegation welcoming Garibaldi at the station) was cut short by government machinations, it inspired the foundation of two major political associations in the metropolis. First of all, the lasting enthusiasm facilitated the formation of the Reform League in 1865. This association, composed mainly of working-class reformers, reaffirmed the old Chartist demand for universal manhood suffrage. Although its aspirations were scaled down during the course of the agitation, its members counted the Reform Act of 1867 as a success of their initiative. Odger became a member of the executive committee of the Reform League and one of its principal speakers in the metropolis.

Secondly, an even more direct effect of the Garibaldi visit was the closer cooperation between British and international working-class and radical political activists. Earlier ties mainly between British and French workers now culminated in the founding of the International Working Men's Association (IWMA, First International). Odger again played a pivotal role. He was among London delegates who organised contacts to French workmen after the Paris exhibition of 1862, and in 1863 he wrote the address welcoming French delegates at an international sympathy meeting for the Polish insurrectionists in London. In September 1864, he also read the address at the inaugural meeting of the IWMA, that grew out of these international initiatives and united radical reformers from Britain, France, Germany, Italy and other countries under the banner of international solidarity. Odger was elected the president of the Central Council of the new association and held this office until it was abolished six years later.

The IWMA has acquired lasting fame as the association which was led by Karl Marx, who hoped to use its leverage for the socialist revolution he expected to start in Great Britain, the pioneer of industrialisation. One of the motives for his commitment to the association was the presence of leading British unionists on its General Council. Marx confidently expected to exert some influence over these 'workers' kings' of London. However, for Odger as for many other British trade unionists, the IWMA was not an instrument of revolution but first of all a means to prevent strike breakers from other European countries from being shipped into Great Britain during strikes and lock-outs. As Odger stated in his address to the French workmen, the IWMA also was supposed to counterpose a politics of international cooperation of peoples to the traditional foreign politics of governments and princes. Finally - and most pragmatically - for Odger and his political colleagues, the IWMA served as just one more forum for politicising the workers in the reform campaign.

Thus, when the Reform League was founded in 1865, the energy which Odger and his LTC-colleagues devoted to the IWMA slackened considerably. For a while, the association held some interest for them as an instrument to deal with George Potter, the owner of the Bee-Hive newspaper. Potter had formed a rival organisation to the Reform League, the London Working Men's Association, and lived in a complicated relationship of cooperation and conflict with the LTC. Odger and his colleagues used the IWMA for an hostile takeover-bid against the Bee-Hive. When this failed they tried to establish their own paper, which was eventually named The Commonwealth. When this paper had to be wound up in 1867, their interest in the IWMA declined rapidly. Odger formally stayed on its council, but he hardly participated in its dealings. Still, since his was a prominent name among the members of the association, he caused quite a scandal&xnbsp; when he (together with Benjamin Lucraft) resigned from its council in 1871. He justified his move as a protest against the alleged advocacy of violence in Marx's pamphlet on the Paris Commune, 'The Civil War in France', which had been issued as an official publication of the IWMA.

Although the circumstances of this resignation are somewhat dubious - apparently Odger had not actually read Marx' pamphlet when resigning -, the move fits in with earlier denounciations of violence. So Odger had explicitly disclaimed violence as a means of politics in 1867, when some remarks of his on Fenianism had been represented by parts of the press as being supportive of Irish terrorism.

In international affairs, Odger also supported initiatives for conflict resolution without resort to violence. In 1868, he became one of the founding members of the English branch of the International League of Peace and Liberty (Bee-Hive, 11 January 1868, 1). The networks established in this context provided a useful base for the founding of the Workmen's Peace Association in 1870. Odger himself, however, by this time diverged from the line of many of his former allies; his support for the French republic that had been established in 1870 made him assist in the creation of an Anglo French Intervention Committee that called on the government to intervene in the Franco-German war in favour of the French republic (Bee-Hive, 22 October 1870, 572).

By the 1870s, Odger's career had experienced a gradual, but noticeable shift in emphasis. Although continuing his services to the trade union movement, Odger had started to concentrate his energies on politics even more than in the preceding decade. This development was caused by two events: the passing of the Reform Act in 1867 and the rise of a republican movement after 1869.

The Reform Act had an immediate effect on Odger's personal aspirations. The extension of the suffrage seemed to open the chance to have working men elected to Parliament, and Odger was determined to enter the House of Commons. During the 1868 General Elections, the Reform League served as an institutional backup for labour candidacies in cooperation with the Liberal Party. After the Reform League's dissolution in 1869, this function was taken over by the Labour Representation League (founded in November 1869). Odger was associated with this body, although relations were not always easy.

Odger's first, rather half-hearted attempt to enter Parliament came during the General Election of 1868. The Reform League had arranged for Odger to be invited to stand for Stafford, but for unknown reasons, Odger did not take up the offer. He did not even go to visit the borough.

Instead, he decided to stand for the borough of Chelsea, where working men had formed an association to support him. However, Sir Henry Hoare, a Liberal candidate competing for the same place on the Liberal ticket as Odger, refused to retire from the contest in favour of a Liberal working-class candidate. Lest the Liberal vote be divided, Odger agreed to withdraw from the contest, after a court of arbitrators had found in Hoare's favour.

During a by-election in May 1869, Odger finally did try to stand for Stafford. Again, he intended to do so as the official Liberal candidate. This time, a test ballot was taken among Liberal electors to choose from several prospective Liberal candidates. Despite encouraging signs of support, Odger narrowly lost this ballot and had to retire once again.

His most spectacular electoral contest came at a by-election at Southwark in February 1870. The City personality Sir Sydney Waterlow and Odger both intended to stand as Liberal candidates. Waterlow refused to give up his candidature; this time, Odger also persisted in his attempt, seeming to be better placed to win than Waterlow. The four-month campaign drew a lot of publicity, Odger receiving moral and financial support from well-known Liberals such as John Stuart Mill, Henry Fawcett and Charles Dilke.

On polling day, Odger indeed beat Waterlow by a clear margin (4382 to 2867 votes). But since Waterlow only had conceded to withdraw from the race two hours before polling closed, the resulting split in the Liberal vote made Colonel Beresford, the Conservative candidate, the unlikely winner of&xnbsp; the contest.

With 4686 votes Beresford came only slightly ahead of Odger. It was clear to every observer that it was Waterlow's persistence that had prevented the election to Parliament of the first working-class member. An excited public discussion ensued about the legitimacy of labour candidacies, about their possible dangers for society and about the opportunities the prospect of labour MPs offered to the country. Among Odger's supporters, disappointment with the Liberal Party ran deep, and the question grew louder whether working-class candidates should stop trying to stand as official Liberal candidates.

Odger himself felt sufficiently encouraged to quickly start on yet another contest; in March 1870, he announced his attention to stand for Bristol at a coming by-election. Again, a test ballot was taken, again Odger lost against another Liberal contender. The same happened in June 1870, after the result of the by-election had been declared void.

In terms of a parliamentary candidacy, Odger's excursion to Bristol did not produce any far-reaching results. Still, it remained notable for two reasons: First, Odger had declared his candidacy without the blessing of the LRL. When criticised for his action by the league council, Odger resigned from the executive committee in April 1870. In subsequent years, he only had a very loose connection to the LRL and its efforts to get working men into Parliament. Secondly, Odger himself now became increasingly disillusioned with the Liberal Party. Like many other working men candidates he had to find that local Liberal bodies were not inclined to adopt working men as their official candidates for Parliament, and many Liberal electors were not prepared to give them their votes when they ran for a seat. Odger himself suffered one last defeat at Southwark during the General Elections in February 1874. Again, the Liberals had refused to adopt him as their candidate; Odger in turn refused to withdraw from the contest. The result was a split in the Liberal vote, which enabled the Conservative Beresford to defend his seat in Parliament.

In the long run, Odger's perseverance - like that of other working-class candidates, such as Alfred A. Walton - led to some rethinking inside the Liberal Party and prepared the way for the Lib-lab alliances of the 1880s. But in the short run, Odger's repeated candidacies drew heavy criticism from popular radicals eager to remain on good terms with the Liberals, such as the LRL-leadership. They claimed that Odger's repeated attempts to stand for parliament revealed the self-serving character of a person only interested in rising from the working class and in improving his own position in life. But this was not true. Odger was deeply convinced that each social class could only be adequately represented in Parliament by members from their own order. In an essay in the Contemporary Review he also repudiated any charge of fostering class war; instead, his candidacies were meant to complement the existing representation of the upper and middle classes by a fair share of representatives from the working class (Odger, Working Man in Parliament, 104). Moreover, Odger argued that his candidatures facilitated the establishment of local political associations which would be 'ready for an opportunity' (Bee-Hive, 9 April 1870, 120) to run labour candidates in subsequent elections. The most successful associations emerging from his initiatives were the Southwark Radical Club and the Eleusis Club in Chelsea, which provided a link between the metropolitan radicalism of the 1860s and the 1880s.

In his days, Odger was known as an inspiring orator, and he has long been recognised as a central personality in the formation period of mid-Victorian British trade unionism. At the same time, he has often been criticised for a certain lack of patience in systematic organisational work. He may indeed have been active at too many fronts, thus seeming unreliable at times and prone to shifting his energies to new initiatives too quickly. In general, however, this perspective on Odger misrepresents his achievements by focussing narrowly on success or failure in establishing political or union institutions. Rather it is in his handling of the wider public sphere that Odger's style of politics came into its own. Recent research has highlighted the importance of communication for the inner workings of reforming movements and for their impact on the wider political public. In this perspective, Odger's contribution can hardly be exaggerated. Together with very few other people from the popular radical movement, such as Charles Bradlaugh, and almost as a singular case as far as members from the working class are concerned, he managed to become a household name in mid-Victorian Britain and maintained this position over a considerable number of years. It was radical leaders such as Odger whose names and whose speeches defined for many people what radicalism meant to them. It was names such as Odger's which to his supporters guaranteed the validity and relevance of radical initiatives. It is very telling to find a worker from Dorset join the International for the sole reason 'that any society must be good to which the name of Odger was attached' (IWMA Minutes of 11 May 1869, vol. 3, 99). Odger may have had to rely on the organising talent of people such as George Howell who managed to keep organisations such as the Reform League going, but it was Odger who appealed to a mass-following in the first place and who became a symbol for the aspirations, expectations and - in the case of his opponents - fears that were associated with radical working-class politics. These characteristics emerged in full form during the republican campaign of the early 1870s.

The campaign had originated in criticism of the high cost to the public of the royal Civil List and of extra payments to the Queen's children. Such complaints had been raised with increasing impatience after the Queen's withdrawal from public life after the death of Prince Albert in 1861. But it was only in 1871 that anti-monarchism turned into full-scale demands for a republic on British soil. The proclamation of the French republic acted as an inspiration for British radicals with republican leanings, and popular republicans felt much encouraged by the radical MP Sir Charles Dilke, who expressed his sympathy with the idea of a republic in a speech in Newcastle in November 1871. Odger was one of the most active lecturers travelling metropolitan clubland and the country with speeches elucidating the advantages of a republican form of government. In March 1871, it was he who called the first public meeting in London in order to discuss 'what form of Republic would best suit the country' (Bee-Hive, 25 March 1871, 4). Although the initiative in organising the republican movement into more stable institutional forms soon passed to Charles Bradlaugh and John de Morgan, Odger remained before the public as one of the most prominent 'republicans' well into 1873, when the movement petered out.

This commitment was not without dangers for Odger himself. It had taken Odger years to be accepted as a respectable face of popular working-class politics. Republicanism, however, was not accepted by society as a respectable form of political work. Demands for abolishing the monarchy always remained a fringe affair among popular radicals, despite the short-lived surge of a republican mass-movement. Odger's dive into republicanism has therefore been presented as a hasty reaction to his disillusionment with the Liberals, or even - in the view of Odger's colleague George Howell - as resulting from 'a tinge of madness' (Howell to Edmond Beales, 10 April 1871, Howell Collection, Letter Book).

Odger's views on economic and social questions seemed to support this impression of a sudden shift into political extremism. Although broadly supportive of Free Trade, Odger had started to advocate the nationalisation of the land as a remedy to economic and social distress. Odger set out his views in an article in the Contemporary Review in 1871, thus contributing to the 'respectable' discussion of the land question that was going on among middle-class radicals such as John Stuart Mill in the late 1860s. But he also cooperated with the Land and Labour League (LLL), a working-class body set up in Holborn and the East End in 1869 to advocate a nationalisation of the land. Although Odger - like many members of the LLL - called for a redistribution of the land only after giving full compensation to the present owners (Odger, Land Question, 30), the activities of the LLL were widely construed as an anticipation of social revolution. George Howell was aghast at finding Odger collaborating with activists whose 'wild conduct' he had complained of as early as 1869 (Howell diary, 12 December 1869, Howell Collection).

Seen from the viewpoint of mainstream popular radicalism and the non-radical public, Odger had become associated with extreme forms of radicalism that threatened to destroy his image of respectability. Many historians have adopted this view. But it certainly was not Odger's own perspective. For him, republicanism was a respectable topic of political discussion. Consequently, he disapproved of republican forms of symbolic expression that might invite charges of revolutionism, such as displaying Jacobin caps of liberty and red banners, which alluded to the French Revolution and socialism. These forms of expression became particularly precarious during the months of the Paris Commune, whose (alleged or real) excesses were accusingly pointed at English republicans by the press and Conservative politicians. Odger's solution to this dilemma was his attempt to keep the republican movement as 'con­formable and tasteful to English feeling and aspirations' as possible (Bee-Hive, 25 March 1871, 4). Odger - as well as Charles Bradlaugh - studiously avoided any rhetoric that might be construed as being seditious, and he kept close contact to middle-class radicals with republican sympathies, such as Charles Dilke, Henry Fawcett or P. A. Taylor. It also was at this point that Odger resigned from the General Council of the IWMA which had publicly taken the side of the Commune.

The republican movement itself suffered from the political strategy of its leadership. By reining in the more irrespectable forms of expression that were an inevitable facet of mass politics, Odger and Bradlaugh unwillingly contributed to a loss of enthusiasm and thus may have hastened the demise of the republican mass movement. Yet despite all political caution, Odger himself was to suffer the damaging effects of being associated with republicanism in a staunchly monarchist society. In 1873, Odger brought a libel case against the editor of a satirical magazine, the London Figaro. In several articles, it had called Odger a 'demagogue' and accused him of criminalising the masses, for example by allegedly calling on his supporters to break into the houses of the rich and empty their wine-cellars. Odger lost his case, not least due to the fact that the magazine's lawyer succeeded in presenting him as a seditious, dangerous criminal because of his avowed republicanism (Odger's Reply, 4). Only parts of the expenses for the trial were covered by testimonials presented to Odger by his supporters in acknowledgment of his services to reforming causes (National Reformer, 10 November 1872, 300; Bee-Hive, 21 October 1876, 7). Up to the end of his life, that was increasingly clouded by ill health, Odger lived in precarious financial circumstances.

George Odger died on 4 March 1877, leaving a wife, two sons and a daughter. His burial on Brompton cemetery was attended by a large crowd of people, and addresses were given at the grave by the radical MP Henry Fawcett and the Comtist professor Edmund Spenser Beesly. The participants in the funeral included representatives from many working-class and radical organisations as well as politicians and writers, among them John Stuart Mill's step-daughter Helen Taylor. The attendance at the burial of people from different political persuasions can be seen as an indication that any interpretation dividing Odger's career into a 'Liberal' and an 'extreme' phase cannot be sustained. Even when advocating ideas outside the mainstream of Victorian radicalism, Odger never appealed to 'roughs', and he never sought to overthrow the existing social and political system by force. Neither did he move to a revolutionary 'left', nor did he ever advocate a war between classes. On the other hand, although he always kept his contacts to Liberal radicals in Parliament, his relationship towards the party was ambivalent. When the Liberal Party did not fulfil its promise to support labour candidates, Odger risked collisions with the party machines to defend radical and working-class interests from an independent standpoint. His aloofness from party affinities, both parliamentary and popular parties, was based on his direct appeal to the people, where he enjoyed a large personal following that could grow at times into mass support. Politically, this implied a certain volatility in his support, but Odger's course was neither 'madness' nor 'egotism', as George Howell claimed. Odger's politics and his unionism was founded on the firm belief in the sovereignty of the people. If he took this idea beyond received boundaries of popular politics, into the spheres of republicanism and land nationalisation, this was no turning away from a claim to respectable politics but mainly a strategic choice that differed from the perspective of many of his colleagues. In at least one respect, however, Odger's style of politics may be seen as referring back into the past rather than into the future: His claim to independence and his reliance on mass support were reminiscent of traditional platform politics; by underestimating the growing importance of well-organised party machines, Odger's independence limited his chances of success in the changing political environment after the Reform Act of 1867.

Writings:
Mr. Odger's Speech, Delivered to the Council of the Reform League in Explanation and Defence of Certain Remarks Made by Him on the Subject of Fenianism [1868].
'The Employment of Criminals', The Contemporary Review 15 (1870) 463-478.
'The Working Man in Parliament', The Contemporary Review 16 (1870) 102-123.
'The Land Question', The Contemporary Review 18 (1871) 23-42.
Republicanism versus Monarchy (Odger's Monthly Pamphlets on Current Events, vol. 1) (1872).
Crimes of English Monarchs (Odger's Monthly Pamphlets on Current Events, vol. 2) (1872).
Odger's Reply to the Attorney General with a Full Report of the Trial [1873].
Further contributions to journals and newspapers, esp. The Bee-Hive, Northampton Radical, etc.

Sources: (1) MSS: Bishopsgate Institute, London (Howell Collection): Howell correspondence (includes letters by Odger), Howell's diaries, Reform League minute books, material on Labour Representation League; material on London Trades Council; ibid. (Bradlaugh Papers): Letters to Charles Bradlaugh (1872); British Library, London (Dilke Papers): Letters to Sir Charles Dilke (1871/72, Add MS 43909); Bodleian Library, Oxford (Harcourt Papers): Letter to Sir William Harcourt (21.7.1871; dep. 203, fol. 69); Yale University Library (Jerrold/Smith Autograph Collection): Letter to Adolphe Smith (undated); Trades Union Congress Library, London: Minute book of the London Trades Council; British Library of Political and Economic Science, London (Broadhurst Collection): Labour Representation League minute book (1873-1878); ibid. (Webb Collection): Minute book of the Conference of Amalgamated Trades; Public Record Office, Kew Gardens, London: BT 31/1161/2475c Industrial Newspaper Company. (2) Other contemporary sources: Biographies: The Bee-Hive (14 February 1874) 3; [Anon.], The Life and Labours of George Odger. Reprinted from Saint Crispin, The Boot and Shoemakers' Journal (1877); George Standring, 'The Biography of George Odger', The Republican (February 1883) 465/466; Walter Harry Green Armytage, 'George Odger (1820-1877). A Founder of the British Labour Movement', University of Toronto Quarterly 17 (1948) 68-75; D. R. Moberg, 'George Odger and the English Working-Class Movement 1860-1877' (London PhD 1953); Fred Marc Leventhal, 'George Odger', New Dictionary of National Biography. Portrait: The Bee-Hive (14 February 1874) 3; caricature: London Figaro (17 December 1873) 1. Most information on Odger can be found in the radical press, such as The Bee-Hive Newspaper, Reynolds's Newspaper, Commonwealth, Republican or National Reformer; because of his involvement with the IWMA and his repeated attempts for Parliament, Odger's activities at particular points in his career were covered both by the national and the relevant local press. Additional primary sources: Report of Conference on the Law of Masters and Workmen under their Contract of Service. Held in London on 30^th and 31^st May, and 1^st and 2^nd June, 1864 (Glasgow, 1864); Mr. Potter and the London Trades' Council [1865]; Report of the Various Proceedings Taken by the London Trades' Council and the Conference of Amalgamated Trades, in Reference to the Royal Commission on Trades' Unions, and Other Subjects in Connection Therewith (1867); Chelsea Election. Mr. Odger's Candidature. Report and Balance Sheet of the Council of the Borough of Chelsea Working Men's Parliamentary Electoral Association, acting as Mr. Odger's Committee (1868); C. E. Maurice, 'The Working Men's Parliamentary Association', The Contemporary Review 11 (1869) 53-59; James Yeates, The Franco-German War: A Letter to Mr. George Odger and the French Sympathizers among the Working Classes. By One of Their Own Order [1871]; John Stuart Mill, Autobiography (1873); The Federal Union of Agricultural and General Labourers. Report (1874); L. E. Mins (ed.), Founding of the First International. A Documentary Record (New York, 1937); Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Werke, ed. by Institut fuer Marxismus-Leninismus beim ZK der SED (Berlin, 1956-1968) (esp. vols. with correspondence); J. Freymond (ed.), La Première Internationale. Recueil de documents, vols. 1-2 (Geneva, 1962); The General Council of the First International - Minutes (1864-1872), ed. by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the C.C., C.P.S.U., 5 vols. (Moscow and London [1963-1968]); John Breuilly, Gottfried Niedhart, Antony D. Taylor (eds.), The Era of the Reform League: English Labour and Radical Politics 1857-1872. Documents Selected by Gustav Mayer (1995). (3) Additional sources: Beatrice Webb / Sidney Webb, The History of Trade Unionism (1894); George Howell, Labour Legislation, Labour Movements and Labour Leaders (1902); Arthur Wilfrid Humphrey, A History of Labour Representation (1912); Francis William Soutter, Recollections of a Labour Pioneer (1923); Francis William Soutter, Fights for Freedom. The Story of My Life (1925); Carl F. Brand, 'The Conversion of the British Trade-Unions to Political Action', The American Historical Review 30 (1925) 251-270; Frances Elma Gillespie, Labor and Politics in England, 1850-1867 (Durham, 1927); William Kaye Lamb, 'British Labour and Parliament, 1865-93' (London PhD 1933); Simon MacCoby, English Radicalism 1853-1886 (1938); George Douglas Howard Cole, British Working Class Politics 1832-1914 (1941); Aldon D. Bell, 'The Reform League, from its Origins to the Passing into Law of the Reform Act of 1867' (Oxford DPhil 1960); Stephen Coltham, 'George Potter, the Junta, and the Bee-Hive', International Review of Social History 9/10 (1964/65) 391-432, 23-65; Henry Collins / Chimen Abramsky, Karl Marx and the British Labour Movement. Years of the First International (1965); Royden Harrison, Before the Socialists. Studies in Labour and Politics 1861-1881 (1965); Fred Marc Leventhal, Respectable Radical: George Howell and Victorian Working Class Politics (1971); William Hamish Fraser, Trade Unions and Society. The Struggle for Acceptance 1850-1880 (1974); Keith Robinson, 'Karl Marx, the International Working Men's Association, and London Radicalism, 1864-1872' (Manchester PhD 1976); Fergus d'Arcy, 'Charles Bradlaugh and the World of Popular Radicalism, 1833-1891' (Hull PhD 1978); Eric Sager, 'The Working-Class Peace Movement in Victorian England', Histoire Sociale - Social History 12 (1979) 122-144; Antony D. Taylor, 'Modes of Political Expression and Working-Class Radicalism 1848-1874: The London and Manchester Examples' (PhD Manchester 1992); Eugenio Biagini, Liberty, Retrenchment and Reform. Popular Liberalism in the Age of Gladstone, 1860-1880 (Cambridge, 1992); Margot Finn, After Chartism. Class and Nation in English Radical Politics 1848-1874 (Cambridge, 1993); Detlev Mares, 'Die englischen Publikationsorgane der IAA. Zum Kontext der politischen Tätigkeit von Karl Marx, MEGA-Studien 2 (1998) 24-48; Antony D. Taylor, 'Down with the Crown'. British Anti-monarchism and Debates about Royalty since 1790 (London, 1999); Detlev Mares, Auf der Suche nach dem 'wahren' Liberalismus. Demokratische Bewegung und liberale Politik im viktorianischen England (Berlin, 2002).