Alfred Armstrong Walton was one of the lesser-known British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 Radical

Radicals (UK)

The Radicals were a parliamentary political grouping in the United Kingdom in the early to mid 19th century, who drew on earlier ideas of radicalism and helped to transform the Whigs into the Liberal Party.-Background:...

 politicians of working-class origin in the mid-Victorian era

Victorian era

The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...

. He was a prolific author of newspaper contributions on most political and social questions of his time, with a particular interest in land and parliamentary reform.

Inheritor of Chartism

Walton became a political activist in the last years of Chartism

Chartism

Chartism was a movement for political and social reform in the United Kingdom during the mid-19th century, between 1838 and 1859. It takes its name from the People's Charter of 1838. Chartism was possibly the first mass working class labour movement in the world...

 when he tried to integrate the trade union

Trade union

A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...

s into the political campaign and when he started to advocate a scheme for home colonisation (1848–49).

Important Work

He expanded on the latter interest in his most important work, the "History of the Landed Tenures of Great Britain

Great Britain

Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

 and Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 from the Norman Conquest to the present time" which was published in 1865. With this book, he emerged as one of the most vocal spokesmen for the issue of land nationalisation.

Welsh Based Protagonist

In the 1860s, he also became a protagonist of the reform campaign. He did so from Brecon

Brecon

Brecon is a long-established market town and community in southern Powys, Mid Wales, with a population of 7,901. It was the county town of the historic county of Brecknockshire; although its role as such was eclipsed with the formation of Powys, it remains an important local centre...

 in South Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

 where he had moved at the beginning of the decade. His radical ideas made him join several important democratic societies, such as the International Working Men's Association (IWMA, First International), the Reform League

Reform League

The Reform League was established in 1865 to press for manhood suffrage and the ballot in Great Britain. It collaborated with the more moderate and middle class Reform Union and gave strong support to the abortive Reform Bill 1866 and the successful Reform Act 1867...

 and several cooperative building schemes.

Latter Years

In the 1870s he moved to London, where he spent his last years less involved in radical campaigns but still writing pamphlets and contributions to newspapers.

Further reading

J. M. Bellamy and John Saville (eds.): Dictionary of Labour Biography, vol. 10, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

: Macmillan 2000, 213-218.

D. Mares: A Radical in Wales. Alfred A. Walton and Mid-Victorian Welsh Popular Radicalism, in: Welsh History Review 21 (2002), 271-291.