Radicals, revolutionaries and misanthropes, towards a brief genealogy of public order and surveillance in Nottingham, c 1200-2012.

Abstract

The following paper examines the evolution of public order policing in the East Midlands, and in particular, focusses on Nottingham as the centre of civil unrest in the UK. The article argues, that the alignment of Nottingham’s citizenry with the thirteenth century fear of madness and witchcraft framed dissenting public discourse thus in the medieval imaginary. This particular idiom has somewhat ‘stuck’ throughout history, during the reform act riots and Luddite uprisings of the eighteen century, through to more contemporary environmental actions seen in recent years. To which end Nottingham is home to Radicals, revolutionaries and misanthropes.