Radical Sheffield
Radical Sheffield, by Radical Poster Collective 2025
Members of the Collective have been active in Sheffield for almost half a century, and taken a keen interest in the early history of radical movements in the area. The city, like most industrial cities across the country, has a rich radical history - taking part in working class struggles, including the campaign for the People's Charter, the founding of radical Trade Unions and collective direct action, and the establishment of early Marxist, Socialist and Anarchist political organisations.
The poster is based on a nineteenth century map of Sheffield with key places of interest in Sheffield’s rich radical history marked with numbered red dots. Some of the places on the map remain pretty much as they were at the time, while some have completely changed, with some streets no longer existing. It’s really important to us to keep the memory of those places and the people who were active in them alive and real.
The poster includes brief descriptions of four key periods in Sheffield’s radical history, spanning most of the 19th Century, and some of the people involved in them: Samuel Holberry and the Sheffield Chartists; William Broadhead and the Sheffield Outrages; Edward Carpenter and the Sheffield Socialists; Dr John Creaghe and the Sheffield Anarchists.
The text includes the key to the red dots on the map. The stories provide a snapshot of the specific events they describe but also weave a trail through time as ideas developed and evolved – reacting to the conditions of the time: from Chartism and the reaction to its failure to make any impact on the rich loafers in Parliament, through militant trade unionism, revolutionary socialism and ultimately the split between parliamentary and non-parliamentary radical politics – which was happening right across the country at that time.
The poster goes well with the book written by one of our Collective members (and available from here) - The Red Flag of Anarchy: A History of Socialism and Anarchism in Sheffield, 1874-1900
The Radical Poster Collective is dedicated to making good quality classic radical posters available at an affordable price.
Our posters are either digitally cleaned up to remove tears or stains etc, or completely recreated to be as close as possible to the original.
This poster is our own design.
Printed on good quality 170gm poster paper.
The size is A3 (approximately 297mm by 420mm).
Please note that there may be some variation in the colour of the on-screen image and the actual item received. This is subject to the brightness and contrast of your screen settings etc.
All posters are dispatched securely in cardboard poster tubes to protect them.
Postage is only charged once for 1-4 posters (postage is free for 5 posters or more within the UK).
For non-UK orders, any customs duties are to be paid by the buyer.
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