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Iowerth Prothero, Artisans and Politics In Early Nineteenth-Century London: John Gast and His Times. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979. 418 pp.

When John Gast, shipwright of Deptford, entered the world of underground radical politics in 1818, he often figured in informers' reports to the Home Office. However, while his co-conspirators were merely referred to as "Watson," "Blandford," "Thistlewood," he often appeared in such reports as "Mr. Gast." Able to quote Locke, Pope or Virgil as readily as the Bible, the "man from Deptford" clearly stood out. Self-educated, articulate, highly disciplined, skilled in his craft, there was something special about John Gast, something which commanded respect. From his first experience as a workers' delegate in the great shipyards of Portsmouth in 1797, through nearly forty years as the spokesman of the shipwrights of the Thames, his fellow workers entrusted him with the responsibility of representing their interests. In the great strikes of 1802 and 1825, the apprenticeship campaign and benefit societies' campaign, the struggle to repeal the combination laws, Gast came forward as the shipwrights' leader. His range of activities was truly remarkable: dissenting preacher, deist lecturer, publican, trade union leader, cooperator, political organiser, radical orator, perennial advocate of inter-trades associations and initiatives, one of the founders of the world's first trades journal. Gast was active in the group that planned the Cato Street conspiracy and played a prominent part in the Queen Caroline agitation, the National Union of the Working Classes and the London Working Men's Association which drew up the famous "People's Charter." There was very little radical activity taking place in the nation's capital in which Gast was not directly involved.