A free lecture will reveal Huddersfield’s radical past ... especially the different places where rebels met to plan their protests.

The 2017 Luddite Memorial Lecture will delve into the West Riding history from the early 19th century.

It will be given by Dr Katrina Navickas, Reader in History at the University of Hertfordshire.

She grew up in Rochdale and her most recent book, Protest and the Politics of Space and Place 1789-1948, just out in paperback, focuses on events in West Yorkshire and Lancashire.

The free lecture will be on Wednesday, April 5 at 7.30pm in the Diamond Jubilee Lecture Theatre, University of Huddersfield.

Dr Navickas said: ‘I’ve been mapping protest sites across northern England for a long time – finding out when and where people used to meet to campaign for the vote, workers’ rights, and protest against injustices. I’m interested in how political meetings differed according to their spaces – whether they were in a square, a back room of a pub or on a moor. My favourite sites in particular are in the Pennines, especially Blackstone Edge, where generations of political movements went to hold meetings.”

Dr Katrina Navickas who will be giving the 2017 Luddite Memorial Lecture at Huddersfield University

Huddersfield Local History Society chairman Cyril Pearce said Dr Navickas’ emphasis on the importance of place in the history of political radicalism in Britain reminds him of the trade unionist and political activist Ben Turner (later Sir Ben Turner and MP for Batley) who looked back on the places and spaces that he came to know well during his political campaigning.

These included Skircoat Moor, Halifax; Hunslet, Holbeck and Woodhouse moors and Vicars Croft, Leeds; Dockers Square, Bradford; Market Cross, Huddersfield; The Green, Heckmondwike; Dewsbury and Batley Market Places; Queen’s Park, Morley and the Bull Ring in Wakefield.

He added: ‘Dr Navickas will explain how these natural and man-made arenas, in spite of all manner of opposition, came to be such an important part of how popular politics was conducted in the 19th century West Riding.”

One of the main riots happened in Halifax in August 1842 which had to be quelled by soldiers. It is thought up to 20,000 people had taken part in the disorder angry at ‘new’ technology taking over their jobs.

Magistrates sent this notice to mill owners which stated: “Mill owners should furnish their workmen with arms and to give them instructions to apprehend all persons that are seen skulking about their premises and instantly seize any man who may bring an order to turn out their people and should anyone attempt to touch the plugs of their boilers if they do not instantly desist, the consequences will be fatal.”