History: Faculty Publications
Domestic Radicals: The Muswell Hill Brigade
Document Type
Contribution to Book
Publication Date
10-30-2025
Publication Title
The Ashurst Sisters: Nurturing Rebellion Across the Nineteenth Century
DOI
10.1007/978-3-032-00785-8_3
ISBN
978-3-032-00785-8
Abstract
The Ashurst family home at Muswell Hill functioned as a vibrant radical center in mid-Victorian London, hosting reformers and revolutionaries from 1836 to 1854. The “Muswell Hill Brigade” encompassed influential figures including Robert Owen, William J. Linton, William Howitt, Mary Howitt, Peter A. Taylor, Clementia Doughty Taylor, and Giuseppe Mazzini, who gathered to discuss anti-slavery, Italian unification, and political reforms. William and Elizabeth Ashurst created a domestic environment that nurtured their children’s independence while facilitating transnational activist networks, providing an example of how middle-class domestic spaces could function as political platforms, challenging the public/private divide typically associated with Victorian gender norms. This chapter explores the family’s engagement with reform movements addressing the Corn Laws, Church Rates, and Chartism, alongside their interest in alternative health practices like homeopathy, hydropathy, and mesmerism. The chapter concludes by examining Matilda Ashurst’s marriage to Joseph Biggs, a Leicester-based manufacturer, illustrating how the family’s partnerships often reinforced their activist commitments.
Recommended Citation
Belzer, Allison Scardino.
2025.
"Domestic Radicals: The Muswell Hill Brigade."
The Ashurst Sisters: Nurturing Rebellion Across the Nineteenth Century: 39-62.
doi: 10.1007/978-3-032-00785-8_3 isbn: 978-3-032-00785-8
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/history-facpubs/163
Copyright
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