Social Disorder in Britain 1750-1850

J. E. Thomas is Professor Emeritus of Adult Education at the University of Nottingham, having previously held the positions of Dean and Pro-Vice Chancellor. He is the author of numerous articles, as well as several books, including 'The House of Care: Prisons and Prisoners in England 1500-1800' (1988) and 'Britain's Last Invasion: Fishguard 1797' (2007).

'This substantial volume deals with an important aspect of British and Welsh social history which is of considerable interest. It is well-written and easy to follow, demonstrates good attention to detail, and is an enjoyable and informative read.' - Professor W. J. Morgan, UNESCO Chair of the Political Economy of Education, University of Nottingham; 'Written by an author with an established reputation for reinvestigating history, Social Disorder in Britain provides a fresh look at a well-known historical phenomenon. Thomas engages in an impressively painstaking examination of cases which serve to redress the generally accepted notion of an idyllic existence at this time. In particular, it gives a well-documented account of the peasantry in Wales. It can confidently be said that the book's attention to the significance and quantity of industries, in what is now regarded as a perennially rural Wales, is not matched by any other study of Welsh society in this period. Thomas's work documents the explosion of protest between 1750 and 1850 with sensitive judgement and charts the decline of small farmers, with the near famine, lawlessness and sedition this caused. It also offers a convincing argument that the protest in Wales had an ideological basis - garnering a wealth of detail from literary sources of the time as well as from recent scholarship.' - The Reverend Professor J. Heywood Thomas

• IntroductionChapter One: The Welsh SquirearchyChapter Two: The Peasantry of WalesChapter Three: The Explosion of ProtestChapter Four: An Intellectual Basis of Protest?Chapter Five: The Machinery of ControlChapter Six: Towards a Theocratic WalesEpilogueNotes and referencesBibliographyIndex