The Development of the Mechanics’ Institute Movement in Britain and Beyond questions the prevailing view that mechanics’ institutes made little contribution to adult working-class education from their foundation in the 1820s to 1890. The book traces the historical development of several mechanics’ institutes across Britain and reveals that many institutes supported both male and female working-class membership before state intervention at the end of the nineteenth century resulted in the development of further education for all. This book presents evidence to suggest that the movement remained active and continued to expand until the end of the nineteenth century. Drawing on historical accounts, Walker describes the developments which shaped the movement and emphasises the institutes’ provision for scientific and technical education. He also considers the impact that the British movement had on the overseas development of mechanics’ institutes – particularly in Canada, America, Australia and New Zealand. The book concludes with a discussion of the legacy of the movement and its contribution to twentieth-century adult education. The Development of the Mechanics’ Institute Movement advances the argument that the movement made a substantial contribution to adult education for the working classes and provided a firm foundation for further education in Britain and beyond. It will appeal to academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the areas of education, history and sociology, as well as the philosophy of education, technical and vocational education, and post-compulsory education.

Marginal Notes: Social Reading and the Literal Margins offers an account of literary marginalia based on original research from a range of unique archival sources, from mid-16th-century France to early 20th-century Tasmania. Chapters examine marginal commentary from 17th-century China, 18th-century Britain, and 19th-century America, investigating the reputations, as reflected by attentive readers, of He Zhou, Pierre Bayle, Samuel Johnson, Thomas Warton, and Sir Walter Scott. The marginal writers include Jacques Gohory, Mary Astell, Hester Thrale, Herman Melville, the young daughters of the Broome family in Gloucestershire, and the patrons of the library of the Huon Mechanics’ Institute, Tasmania. Though marginalia is often proscribed and frequently hidden or overlooked, the collection reveals the enduring power of marginalia, concluding with studies of the ethics of annotation and the resurrected life of marginalia in digital environments.

This account of artisan and working-class society in its formative years, 1780 to 1832, adds an important dimension to our understanding of the nineteenth century. E.P. Thompson shows how the working class took part in its own making and re-creates the whole life experience of people who suffered loss of status and freedom, who underwent degradation and who yet created a culture and political consciousness of great vitality.