Spring 2009 Programme
Date: Monday 8th June
Venue: St. Mary Redcliffe Scout Hut, next to the entrance to Redcliffe caves. Opposite the Thekla and the Severn Shed.
Time: 7:30pm
Price: Donation
Speaker: Peter Clark
On the 200th anniversary of Paine’s death, Peter Clark explains the contemporary importance of his writings that were so influential in the revolutionary ferment of the late 18th Century. Paine redefined the nature of political discourse with his ground-breaking views on human rights, democracy, the open society, racial equality, women's rights and the welfare state. Clark questions why this great British thinker is fêted in France and the United States yet remains a prophet without fortune in his native land.
A writer and Middle East cultural consultant Peter edited The Lefties Guide to Britain (2005) and is an expert on the radical history of East Anglia.
An oil painting of Thomas Paine by Auguste Millière (1880), after an engraving by William Sharp, after a portrait by George Romney (1792)
In Fashion before Ease; or, A good Constitution sacrificed for a Fantastick Form (1793), James Gillray caricatured Paine tightening the stays of Britannia; protruding from his coat pocket is a measuring tape inscribed "Rights of Man".
"The Age of Reason; or, the World turned Topsy-turvy
exemplified in Paine's Works!" by George Cruikshank, 1819.
