Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- 1 INTRODUCTION
- 2 PETITIONS AND COPYRIGHT
- 3 CRITICS IN PARLIAMENT
- 4 CRITICS IN THE BOOK TRADE I: PRINT WORKERS AND THEIR ALLIES
- 5 CRITICS IN THE BOOK TRADE II: PUBLISHING AND PUBLISHERS
- 6 THE CAMPAIGN IN THE DAILY PRESS
- 7 AUTHORS AND THE BEGINNINGS OF AUTHORS' ORGANISATIONS
- 8 THE MAKING OF THE CASE FOR THE BILL
- 9 CONCLUSION
- Appendix I Chronology of the bills
- Appendix II Successive versions of the bill
- Appendix III The Copyright Act 1842
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - CRITICS IN PARLIAMENT
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- 1 INTRODUCTION
- 2 PETITIONS AND COPYRIGHT
- 3 CRITICS IN PARLIAMENT
- 4 CRITICS IN THE BOOK TRADE I: PRINT WORKERS AND THEIR ALLIES
- 5 CRITICS IN THE BOOK TRADE II: PUBLISHING AND PUBLISHERS
- 6 THE CAMPAIGN IN THE DAILY PRESS
- 7 AUTHORS AND THE BEGINNINGS OF AUTHORS' ORGANISATIONS
- 8 THE MAKING OF THE CASE FOR THE BILL
- 9 CONCLUSION
- Appendix I Chronology of the bills
- Appendix II Successive versions of the bill
- Appendix III The Copyright Act 1842
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
THE RADICAL NEXUS
Talfourd faced considerable and diverse opposition within parliament. In a time when party discipline was not strong, and on a superficially non-political issue, such as copyright, members were in principle free to vote as they wished. Nevertheless, some subgroups are apparent, particularly the radicals, but also the law officers, as well as some high-profile individuals.
The most vociferous voices against the bill were those of Joseph Hume, Henry Warburton and Thomas Wakley. Politically, all three were radicals, as was Grote, also an opponent. Henry Ward, Edward Baines and Edward Strutt, who also spoke strongly against an extension of copyright, were liberals with some radical sympathies. All of them presented many petitions, and were essential in the orchestration of the mass petitioning effort. Important though the radical inheritance was, it would be incomplete and misleading to explain their stance as an inevitable one given the ‘radical’ label. It is rather in the individual interests of these men that the roots of the radical opposition to copyright are revealed.
The war against the unstamped press, waged first by Viscount Sidmouth and the Tories, but maintained by the Whigs, represented a deliberate attempt to prevent the dissemination of radical political opinions. This was only partially successful, and the explosion of radical frustration during the Reform Bill crisis brought mounting popular protest and disorder in the early 1830s.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Literary Copyright Reform in Early Victorian EnglandThe Framing of the 1842 Copyright Act, pp. 40 - 67Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999