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This article examines the nature of political rivalries within organised Liberalism in the parliamentary borough of Nottingham following the Second Reform Act. Much of the existing literature on party organisation has understandably focused on the problematic relationship between Radicals and Liberals. The hypothesis of this article, however, is that to characterise disagreements within local Liberalism as a principled struggle between the moderate and Radical sections of constituency parties is not only misleading but also unrewarding in terms of determining the precise nature of local political conflicts. The relationship between moderates and Radicals in Nottingham was fluid, ambiguous and, during parliamentary elections, muddied by competing campaign strategies. Thus, this article seeks to unpack the campaign rhetoric of those who opposed organised Liberalism in Nottingham, and argues that, although party organisation may have been the subject of heated debate, there existed neither a latent hostility to the party machine nor a clear ideological divide between local moderates and Radicals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the first decade of its existence, the Social-Democratic Federation (SDF) sent London-based 'missionaries' around England, in an attempt to educate and agitate amongst the workers. Using the case studies of John Burns in Nottingham and Tom Mann in Northumberland, this article examines the extent to which these missionaries negotiated the official policies of the SDF. The discussion aims to show that when both men addressed the local workers, their arguments and proposals often contrasted sharply with previously published positions. It suggests that rather than drawing, as the existing historiography has done, from the official publications of the SDF, a new narrative of the organisation's political strategies can be established by focusing on the actions and words of the missionaries. The article also offers a re-narration of the reasons for the failure of the political strategy of the SDF. Much of the historiography of the organisation has perpetuated the explanations given by the SDF itself, namely citing the non-revolutionary nature of the British working class. In contrast, this article considers its failures by examining how the interplay of progressive forces present in the political environment of Nottingham and Northumberland curtailed the efforts of Burns and Mann. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]