{"id":17128,"date":"2025-05-13T08:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-13T07:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/?p=17128"},"modified":"2025-05-20T15:08:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-20T14:08:08","slug":"political-processions-protest-marches-routes-nineteenth-century","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/2025\/05\/13\/political-processions-protest-marches-routes-nineteenth-century\/","title":{"rendered":"How did the routes of political processions and protest marches evolve in London during the nineteenth century?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n


At the IHR Parliaments, Politics and People seminar on 20 May 2025, Professor Katrina Navickas<\/a> of the University of Hertfordshire will be discussing \u2018The development of political processions and protest marches in London, 1780-1939<\/a>\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The seminar takes place on 20 May 2025, between 5:30 and 6.30 p.m. It will be hosted online via Zoom. Details of how to join the discussion are available here.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Protest marches in central London today usually follow a regular route. Assembling on the Thames Embankment, they march towards Westminster Bridge, past the Houses of Parliament, to Trafalgar Square or down the Mall to Hyde Park, where a big rally is held. This route has immense political symbolism and significance, following in the footsteps of previous generations of marchers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Londoners of all political persuasions and social status witnessed or took part in processions at some point in their lives. The Lord Mayor\u2019s parade and local guild processions marked key points in the civic and religious calendar, while royal processions at coronations and jubilees developed in grandeur during the long nineteenth century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/a>
A procession for Sir Watkin Lewes following his election at the September 1781 London by-election<\/a>. After J. Nixon; \u2018An electioneering procession from the M-n [mansion] House to G-d [Guild] Hall\u2019 (1781); \u00a9 The Trustees of the British Museum<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Electoral processions to and from the hustings at Covent Garden, and the \u2018chairing of the member\u2019 around the main streets of Westminster (and on boats along the Thames in the case of Middlesex constituency), enabled popular participation in the era before the 1832 Reform Act. Many of these traditions continued as the franchise widened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, this route through central London wasn\u2019t always the same as it is today. The choice of streets and meeting places wasn\u2019t regularised until at least the 1870s. Trafalgar Square wasn\u2019t completed until the late 1840s. So before then, political gatherings assembled in various locations on the fringes of urban London such as Copenhagen Fields and St George\u2019s Fields – which were built upon by the mid-nineteenth century.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"A<\/a>
Grand National Consolidated Trades Union, Copenhagen Fields, 21 April 1834 CC Wikimedia<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Political rallies were banned in Hyde Park until members of the Reform League pulled up the railings to gain access in 1866. Ever since, protest march routes through the capital have been subject to debate and negotiation between protesters, government and police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the rise of the working-class parliamentary reform movements and trades unions from the 1790s, political processions became a central element of protest. Processions and marches were active claims by the working classes to form part of the wider body politic. Reform processions were a show of representing the \u2018people\u2019 to the public. Leaders and orators of the parliamentary reform movement employed the \u2018grand entry\u2019 into the city, in the mode not only of successful MPs after an election, but also of military leaders returning home after a victory, or with biblical allusions to Jesus Christ entering Jerusalem. \u2018See the Conquering Hero Comes\u2019 was a popular hymn played by bands at both electoral and radical processions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Holding a political procession became a fraught process of negotiation between the political group holding the procession, and various overlapping layers of power in the capital, from the magistrates to the home office and sheriff of London. Legislation aimed at the democratic reform movement further shaped the locations and routes of the protests. The 1817 Seditious Meetings Act prohibited political meetings within a mile radius of the palace of Westminster while Parliament was in session. Protest marches, therefore, tended to avoid starting, ending or stopping in this area.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"A
Report of planned route ahead of the Peterloo protest in London on 1 November 1819, Morning Herald<\/em>, 1 Nov. 1819 CC BNA<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The Westminster Reform Society advertised the route of a procession to protest against the Peterloo Massacre on 1 November 1819, starting at the Crown and Anchor on The Strand to march down Fleet Street to Finsbury Square in the City, a distance of around four kilometres. The demonstration was held while Lord Liverpool\u2019s government was pushing the \u2018Six Acts\u2019 through parliament<\/a>, including another Seditious Meetings Act that prohibited the display of political banners and ensigns at demonstrations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Procession routes, of all types of political and social composition, began to coalesce from the mid-nineteenth century into regular routes across London. The dominant direction of processions was pulled westwards as the built environment of the capital morphed, and Hyde Park became the main site for rallies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The processional geography of London further evolved as the city expanded eastwards around the docklands from the mid nineteenth century. The increasing density of population in the East End pulled the start of trades\u2019 processions to meeting sites of Mile End Waste, Stepney Green, and, after its opening, Victoria Park. Trades and unemployed marches in and out of the East End and the docklands intensified as newly formed socialist movements, most notably the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), took up street meetings and marches as key tactics during the severe economic downturn of the late 1880s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/a>
The matchworkers’ march against the match tax processed from Bow, East London to Parliament, 24 April 1871. W. D. Almond, ‘Procession of Match-Makers’, from Ruth and Marie: A Fascinating Story of the Nineteenth Century <\/em>(1895), 79.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The right to march was hard fought, and political movements asserted agency by claiming routes physically as well as symbolically. The period after the First World War brought new challenges and movements that again brought the right to march debates to the fore of policing and legislation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier compromises of non-interference were no longer effective. The emergence of the communist movement and violent clashes between police and the unemployed in the 1920s and 1930s continued the conflicts of the earlier decades. Culminating in the Battle of Cable Street on 4 October 1936, the provocative militant marching of Oswald Mosley\u2019s British Union of Fascists was opposed by a physical and material defence of territory by Jewish and communist communities in the East End. In response, the 1936 Public Order Act was rushed through Parliament and became law on 1 January 1937.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The legislation did not completely interfere with the popular right of assembly and protest. The tensions between protecting the freedom of passage and the liberty of assembly and free speech became inextricably entangled with issues of race, class and national politics for the rest of the twentieth century.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"A<\/a>
K. Navickas, ‘An interactive map of London processions, 1780-1980’. This map, which is a work in progress, can be viewed here<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

KN<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Katrina\u2019s seminar takes place on 20 May 2025, between 5:30 and 6.30 p.m. It will be hosted online via Zoom. Details of how to join the discussion are available here.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the IHR Parliaments, Politics and People seminar on 20 May 2025, Professor Katrina Navickas of the University of Hertfordshire will be discussing \u2018The development of political processions and protest marches in London, 1780-1939\u2019. The seminar takes place on 20 May 2025, between 5:30 and 6.30 p.m. It will be hosted online via Zoom. Details of how to join the discussion are available here. Protest marches in … Continue reading How did the routes of political processions and protest marches evolve in London during the nineteenth century?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":244848225,"featured_media":17142,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[774275561,20918757,4706867,4406049,407218,774275560,165907480],"tags":[35890,2971062,1618,576582119,793564,93139],"class_list":["post-17128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-victorian","category-18th-century-history","category-19th-century-history","category-20th-century-history","category-conferencesseminars","category-georgian","category-post-1945-history","tag-featured","tag-ihr-seminars","tag-london","tag-parliaments-politics-people-seminar","tag-political-campaigning","tag-protest"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Londonprocessions1780-1980.jpg?fit=1044%2C445&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QYNW-4sg","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":19165,"url":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/2025\/11\/26\/black-participation-in-british-politics-1750-1850\/","url_meta":{"origin":17128,"position":0},"title":"Black and Political: Reconstructing Black Participation in British Politics, 1750-1850","author":"History of Parliament","date":"November 26, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"At a special joint session of the IHR\u2019s Parliaments, Politics and People and British History in the Long 18th Century seminars on Wednesday 3 December, Dr Helen Wilson will be discussing Black participation in British Politics between 1750 and 1850. The free seminar takes place on 3 December 2025, between\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "19th Century history"","block_context":{"text":"19th Century history","link":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/category\/centuries\/19th-century-history\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/1815-catherine-despard-burial-record-760x271-1.jpg?fit=760%2C271&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/1815-catherine-despard-burial-record-760x271-1.jpg?fit=760%2C271&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/1815-catherine-despard-burial-record-760x271-1.jpg?fit=760%2C271&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/1815-catherine-despard-burial-record-760x271-1.jpg?fit=760%2C271&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":19716,"url":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/2026\/02\/10\/representations-of-women-and-sovereign-power-at-the-new-palace-of-westminster-1841-1870\/","url_meta":{"origin":17128,"position":1},"title":"‘Unobtrusive But Not Unimportant’: Representations of Women and Sovereign Power at the New Palace of Westminster, 1841-1870","author":"History of Parliament","date":"February 10, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"At the IHR Parliaments, Politics and People seminar on Tuesday 17 February,\u00a0Dr Cara Gathern of UK Parliament Heritage Collections, will be discussing\u00a0representations of women and sovereign power at the New Palace of Westminster, 1841-1870. The seminar takes place on 17 February 2026, between 5:30 and 6:30 p.m. It is fully\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "19th Century history"","block_context":{"text":"19th Century history","link":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/category\/centuries\/19th-century-history\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"A statue of a queen on a throne with two women to either side","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/OR-WOA-S088-Victoria-Statue-Gibson-622x862-featured.png?fit=615%2C337&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/OR-WOA-S088-Victoria-Statue-Gibson-622x862-featured.png?fit=615%2C337&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/OR-WOA-S088-Victoria-Statue-Gibson-622x862-featured.png?fit=615%2C337&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":12868,"url":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/2024\/03\/05\/political-identity-of-inhabitant\/","url_meta":{"origin":17128,"position":2},"title":"The political identity of ‘inhabitant’ in early nineteenth-century England","author":"History of Parliament","date":"March 5, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Ahead of next Tuesday\u2019s Parliaments, Politics and People seminar, we hear from Mary O\u2019Connor of Somerville College, University of Oxford. On 12 March she will discuss the political identity of 'inhabitant' in early nineteenth-century England The seminar takes place on 12 March 2024, between 5:30 and 6.30 p.m. It is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Georgian Lords"","block_context":{"text":"Georgian Lords","link":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/category\/sections\/georgian-lords\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/object-h-t-at-the-levee-or-the-polishd-courtier-1830-bm.jpeg?fit=1200%2C821&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/object-h-t-at-the-levee-or-the-polishd-courtier-1830-bm.jpeg?fit=1200%2C821&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/object-h-t-at-the-levee-or-the-polishd-courtier-1830-bm.jpeg?fit=1200%2C821&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/object-h-t-at-the-levee-or-the-polishd-courtier-1830-bm.jpeg?fit=1200%2C821&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/object-h-t-at-the-levee-or-the-polishd-courtier-1830-bm.jpeg?fit=1200%2C821&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6485,"url":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/2021\/01\/12\/chartist-pantheon-of-heroes\/","url_meta":{"origin":17128,"position":3},"title":"Romantic Memory: Forgetting, Remembering and Feeling in the Chartist Pantheon of Heroes, c.1790\u20131840","author":"History of Parliament","date":"January 12, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Ahead of Tuesday\u2019s\u00a0Virtual IHR\u00a0Parliaments, Politics and People seminar,\u00a0we hear from Dr Matthew Roberts, the author of\u00a0Chartism, Commemoration and the Cult of the Radical Hero (2020). He will be responding to your questions about his research on the politics of memory in the Chartist movement between 5:15 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Conferences, Seminars and Events"","block_context":{"text":"Conferences, Seminars and Events","link":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/category\/topics\/conferencesseminars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/1.peoplescharter.png?fit=916%2C612&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/1.peoplescharter.png?fit=916%2C612&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/1.peoplescharter.png?fit=916%2C612&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/1.peoplescharter.png?fit=916%2C612&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":528,"url":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/2013\/12\/03\/stephen-the-great-and-identity-in-the-balkans\/","url_meta":{"origin":17128,"position":4},"title":"Parliaments, Politics and People Seminar: Stephen the Great and identity in the Balkans","author":"Emma Peplow","date":"December 3, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Our last \u2018Parliaments, politics and people\u2019 seminar travelled far from the British parliament to the Balkans, as Dr Jonathan Eagles spoke on \u2018Stephen the Great and the Moldovan election crisis of 2009\u2019. Dr Eagles\u2019s recent book, \u2018Stephen the Great and Balkan Nationalism: Moldova and Eastern European History\u2019 looks at the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Medieval"","block_context":{"text":"Medieval","link":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/category\/periods\/medieval-history\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1108,"url":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/2015\/11\/19\/parliament-ordinances\/","url_meta":{"origin":17128,"position":5},"title":"Parliaments, Politics and People seminar: Victoria Anker, ‘Parliament Ordinances and Remonstrances: legislative attacks on executive authority in the early 1640s’","author":"History of Parliament","date":"November 19, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"At the second \u2018Parliaments, Politics and People\u2019 seminar of the term Victoria Anker, from the University of Edinburgh, spoke on 'Parliament Ordinances and Remonstrances: legislative attacks on executive authority in the early 1640s.' Here she gives us an overview of her paper... Whilst the language and rhetoric of speakers in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Conferences, Seminars and Events"","block_context":{"text":"Conferences, Seminars and Events","link":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/category\/topics\/conferencesseminars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/244848225"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17128"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17174,"href":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17128\/revisions\/17174"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}