The 1880s witnessed the emergence of three socialist organisations in England: the Social-Democratic Federation (SDF), the Socialist League and the Fabian Society. In London and throughout various other provincial urban centres in England, these three groups attempted to educate and agitate amongst the workers, leading historians to identity this period as witnessing a ‘revival of socialism’. Through their activism, the fledging socialist groups interacted not only with each other, but also with organised Liberalism. Significantly, in their official publications, they were antagonistic towards each other and frequently blamed an intransigent, organised Liberalism for holding back the rise of socialism. This picture was subsequently entrenched by the autobiographies of socialist activists who depicted themselves as heroic pioneers fighting against the nefarious leaders of local Liberalism. For example, Henry Snell, a member of the SDF who later became a Labour MP, wrote that ‘Liberalism’ in the 1880s ‘was still regarded as an audacious political enterprise’ and ‘the working-class vote was a sacred preserve into which no Socialist poacher should be allowed to put his unclean feet’. Although a number of innovative studies have highlighted the ways in which the identities of socialist organisations were created by contemporaries,4 the historiography of Britain's first socialist organisations, particularly the SDF, remains wedded to their official publications and autobiographies.

The aim of this chapter is to overcome this defect. It argues that we need to rethink not only the way in which England's fledging socialist organisations interacted with each other and official Liberalism, but also the reasons why socialist activists failed to convert working-class Liberal supporters to their cause. In order to do this, this chapter offers a new analysis for understanding the ‘revival of socialism’ in England in the 1880s. Rather than relying on the positions printed in the socialist organisations’ own journals, this new narrative draws from the speeches made by socialist activists when they campaigned at the grass-roots level. When one refocuses from how socialists theorised in their own publications to what was said when they directly addressed the public, it becomes clear that activists were willing to negotiate the official policies of their respective organisations in a bid to win working-class support. This was particularly the case in an electoral contest when a socialist candidate challenged the nominee of a Liberal caucus.