| Description |
xiii, 255 pages : illustrations, 1 facsimile, portraits ; 23 cm |
| Contents |
Preface v - - Author's Note ix - - 1 Kenealy 1 - - 2 The Tichborne Cause 28 - - 3 Kenealy Rides the Wave 55 - - 4 Kenealy in Decline 92 - - 5 Other Supporters of the Cause in Britain 116 - - 6 The Tichborne Case and Cause in Australia 142 - - 7 The Populist Factor 163 - - 8 Kenealy After Death 198 - - Notes 223 - - Bibliography 237 - - Index 247 |
| Summary |
The story is remarkable. It began in 1854 with the disappearance of one Roger Tichborne, heir to an English baronetcy. Eleven years later a butcher from Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, a man of splendid grossness, claimed to be the missing Roger. the claim ultimately failed, but not before a mass movement had developed in its support. Popular feeling was expressed in ballads and burlesques. The Claimant's face appeared on dinner sets and clay pipes, and his figure in Madame Tussaud's waxworks. The leader of the 'Tichborne cause' was E. V. H. Kenealy, 'a man more extraordinary than significant, but significant enough'. Born of modest background in Ireland, Kenealy possessed some talent as a writer but had to succumb to a lawyer's routine. Always he hungered for fame, both as a politician and as a Messiah. Frutration dogged him until he became counsel for the Claimant and, for a time, the focus of attention for a nation. Emotion, irrationality, even fanaticism - characteristics of both the movement and its leader - grew into a style which Dr Roe describes as 'populist'. In developing this concept he surveys recent writing both on Britain of that and grassroots political behaviour more generally. He concludes that Victorian Britain was more turbulent than is generally granted by historians, and that much political activity seeks expression of feeling rather than the securing of particular results. Dr Roe's concern is scholarly, but the ease and wit with which he assembles the far-flung, frequently incongruous details of this fantastic story will enthrall the general reader |
| Notes |
Includes index |
| Bibliography |
Bibliography: pages 237-246 |
| Notes |
Also issued online |
| Subject |
Doughty-Tichborne, Roger Charles, 1829-1854.
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Kenealy, Edward Vaughan, 1819-1880.
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Orton, Arthur, 1834-1898.
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Tichborne, Roger Charles Doughty., Sir
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Tichborne family
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Impostors and imposture -- Great Britain.
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Populism.
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Trials (Impostors and imposture) -- Great Britain.
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Dyslexia.
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| Genre/Form |
Essays.
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Biographies.
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| LC no. |
75307494 |
| ISBN |
0522840574 |
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