Robert Poole, Peterloo: The English Uprising

Dr Leonard Baker is a Research Fellow in the History Department of the University of Bristol, whose research explores the connections between protest, customary culture, and ‘natural’ landscapes in nineteenth-century rural England. In particular, his recently completed doctoral thesis reveals how countryfolk developed a series of ‘vernacular environmental ethics’ that influenced how social, political and ecological protest was perceived, performed and punished. He has also recently published in History Workshop Journal and Romance, Revolution & Reform, and has a forthcoming article that explores effigy burning, mock executions and the ‘political culture of fire’ in South West England.