An Indissoluble Unity: considering the relationship between outward influences and the design of Birmingham’s radical newspapers 1815-36
Andrea Lloyd
Funded: Midlands4Cities, Art & Humanities Research Council
Supervisors: Dr Caroline Archer-Parré, Dr Richard Gaunt
Birmingham is Britain’s most historically important centre of printing outside London, yet its newspaper heritage is unappreciated and under-researched. With the 300th anniversary of Birmingham’s first newspaper approaching, this study is a timely step towards understanding the historical significance of early newspaper print culture in the region. This research will explore radical newspapers through the lens of their design—typography, layout, illustration, format, and paper—in order to determine how external factors affected their appearance and what their design can reveal about the political and social backgrounds in which they were published.
It will build on what Aldous Huxley described as the ‘indissoluble unity’ between ‘inward and outward, substance and form’. Presentation affects perception, yet, despite its link with content, the visual elements of the radical newspaper are unexplored. Is it possible to determine a specific visual language in Birmingham’s early nineteenth century radical press, as has been identified in the twentieth-century underground press? The importance of place and space to Birmingham’s print culture has been established – did the circumstances of the radical newspapers’ creation alter their appearance in any way?
Studies on radical print culture show shifts in format or content can be traced to changing economic and political conditions. For example, the government’s campaign against the unstamped forced newspaper publishers to employ strategies and innovations to avoid taxation, prompting local radical George Edmonds to call his Weekly Recorder a pamphlet. How did the clandestine nature of the radical titles translate into their design and production?
While there are several studies on the history of radicalism in Birmingham, references to radical newspapers are incidental. This study elaborates on previous research and links it directly to the region’s print culture and the professional, social and political networks integral to Birmingham’s newspaper industry.
