Three Rebellions

Three Rebellions considers the context, causes, consequences and commemoration of three major popular disturbances in the British Empire during the early years of Queen Victoria's long reign. In the Canadas during 1837 and 1838, at Newport in South Wales in 1839 and at the Eureka Stockade in Ballarat, Victoria in Australia in 1854 thousands of largely working people took up arms against the forces of colonial rule and oppression. What linked these three events was a popular form of constitutionalism, linked to British radicalism and especially to Chartism that sought constitutional and democratic change but which was denied by colonial oligarchies that sought to retain political power in their own hands. The rebellions each failed when faced by the overwhelming force of the colonial state but, although they were defeated militarily, each played a significant role in the emergence of more responsive and responsible government. Today, the losers are better remembered than those who defeated them in 1837-1838, 1839 and 1854. The first edition of Three Rebellions was completed in 2008 and finally published in early 2010. In the intervening years I have continued to grapple with the issues raised in the original volume publishing more detailed discussion of the rebellions in Britain, Canada and Australia. I have also delved further into newspapers from Britain, Canada and Australia and have added further references to them. The result is a very different, more succinct book. The major difference between the first and second editions is that I have significantly reduced the length of the work by taking out the foreward, relevant in 2009 but not today, and the chapters that dealt with the links between the three rebellions and how the rebellions have been remembered and commemorated. My reason for doing this-other than making the work tighter-is that I have included revised versions of these chapters in my Chartism: A Global History and other essays, published earlier this year. Review of First edition: 'It is always important to see comparative history, not least for the crucial counterfactual light it sheds on explanations, and Richard Brown's well-written and insightful work is particularly valuable because it brings together three rebellions hitherto treated in isolation and, in doing so, casts considerable light on each of them. Brown's scholarship is first rate and he ably demonstrates his case that there is a common theme of popular constitutionalism, one that was linked to British radicalism, specifically Chartism. As such, this book offers an instructive insight on the tensions to which the British empire was subject and the requirements, alongside careful management, for the use of force. The latter theme is important also for military historians, notably of Britain, as many have underplayed this element. A first-rate study that is to be followed by another on subsequent rebellions.' Professor Jeremy Black