Category Archives: Book Reviews

Blurb

The Nonconformist Revolution explores the evolution of dissenting thought and how Nonconformity shaped the transformation of England from a rural to an urban, industrialised society.

The foundations for the Industrial Revolution were in place from the late Middle Ages when the early development of manufacturing processes and changes in the structure of rural communities began to provide opportunities for economic and social advancement. Successive waves of Huguenot migrants and the influence of Northern European religious ideology also played an important role in this process. The Civil Wars would provide a catalyst for the dissemination of new ideas and help shape the emergence of a new English Protestantism and divergent dissident sects. The persecution which followed strengthened the Nonconformist cause, and for the early Quakers it intensified their unity and resilience, qualities which would prove to be invaluable for business.

In the years following the Restoration, Nonconformist ideas fuelled enlightened thought creating an environment for enterprise but also a desire for more radical change. Reformers seized on the plight of a working poor alienated by innovation and frustrated by false promises. The vision which was at first the spark for innovation would ignite revolution.

My Review

I received this book in 2020 from the publisher in return for an honest review. It has taken me a long time to read it. I have been reading in in bursts, a chapter or two at a time around other reviewing commitments and work.

This review is all over the place. I have just finished the book. It took me 3.5 years to read the first ten chapters (140 pages) and less than a day to read the last five (68 pages); I’m a bit confuddled.

The book covers developments from the 1300s to the 1800s, in dissenting religious groups and industrial development, and makes the argument that without the unconventional thinking and organisational support Nonconformists and ‘heretics’ provided to each other, England would not have become the driver of Industrial revolution that it was in the early 18th to late 19th century that it was. The focus is on England, the interactions between England and Continental ideas and people, England and the North American colonies, England and France (because, 1066 and all that). It doesn’t look at technology developed in any of the colonies (usually derived from indigenous or enslaved peoples’ knowledge).

There are some interesting ideas in this book:

• The author points out the complex family networks of the Midlands and northern Nonconformist families who supported each others’ business ventures and encouraged/funded new developments in ironworks, among other things. The relationships were longstanding and lucrative for many of the families. The connections went from the Tyne to the Severn, through Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham and Bristol.
• The literacy encouraged by Protestant beliefs – that people should be able to read the Bible in their own language – encouraged education in these families and that enabled people to question social structures and norms, as well as make scientific breakthroughs.
• Every group looks back to a golden age of freedom and liberty – the Peasant’s Revolt (which was more of a middling sorts revolt with villainage cannon fodder) looked back to a pre-Norman England, the Nonconformists of the 18th century valourised the Puritanism of the Republic. They never were golden ages, there were always tyrants and inequality and war.

The author doesn’t mention much about the slave trade, although some of the Nonconformist families made their money from making guns and cannons, supporting the East India Company and the slave trade. At least one person mentioned, from the 1700s, was disowned by his Quaker congregation for inheriting a gun company and supporting the slave trade. It is safe to say that without the triangular trade a lot of people wouldn’t have had the funds to support the new products produced by Wedgwood, or fund the research of Priestley and the Lunar society (amongst others). The focus of the book is so narrow that the author can’t bring these considerations into the text. I don’t know if that is a good or bad thing. She does mention the above, but briefly, with no exploration. A wider exploration of the developing empire might have added context.

The final two chapter focus heavily on Thomas Paine, his adventures in North America and France, who he knew and what he wrote. Amanda J. Thomas explores the possible developments of his radical thought from his Quaker upbringing to his return to North America in 1800 after imprisonment in France. The author connects his activities to the rise and fall of radical organisations, especially those in Sheffield, demanding governmental reform. As we all should know, the government of the time, and for decades afterwards, was very opposed to any reform, cracking down heavily, violently against anything that would put the high church gentry and the aristocracy out of control. And yet, people kept dissenting…

There were times when the book felt disjointed, as though it were a collection of essays arranged chronologically, and at other times several chapters would naturally follow from each other. This may be an artifact of the development of the book?

The writing is decent and the story is really interesting. What I think slowed me down was all the family trees (tangled shrubs in some cases) that the author felt the need to write out and share with us in the main text. I don’t think it was always necessary to getting the ideas across clearly and could possibly have be left to an appendix, along with the visual representations of the family trees.

The book has a good bibliography and indexing, notes are clearly identified and information sourced. The author has relied heavily on some sources more than others, usually those about specific families or individuals, which gives a possibly partial impression of events, but also provides interesting nuggets of information about individuals and the social and cultural dynamics of their times. I did not know that Joseph Priestley knew Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, for example, or that Benjamin Johnson was a member of the Royal Society at the same time. I knew Erasmus Darwin and Wedgwood knew each other, because of the weird family dynamics of Charles Darwin and his cousin-wife. In-bred the lot of them -the Wedgwoods, Darwins and Galtons.

So, final thoughts. Interesting ideas and social history that tries to illuminate the development of the co-occurring scientific, religious and political though that brought about the 18th and 19th century Industrial Revolution in England, and makes some attempt to put it into the wider North Atlantic context. Quite well written and extensively researched. Excellent bibliography. Could do with some editing.

Also, I noted some references that make it into Discworld.