Samuel Bamford

Bamford was one of five children born to Daniel Bamford (a muslin weaver and part-time teacher, and later master of the Salford workhouse), and his wife, Hannah. He was baptised on 11 April 1788 at St Leonard's Church, Middleton. After his father withdrew him from Manchester Grammar School, Bamford became a weaver and then a warehouseman in Manchester. Exposure to Homer's Iliad and to the poems of John Milton influenced Bamford to begin writing poetry himself. On 24 June 1810, he married Jemema (or Jemima) Sheppard, who he called 'Mima', at the Collegiate Church of St Mary, St Denys and St George, in Manchester, now known as Manchester Cathedral. Bamford and Mima had at least one child, born outside of wedlock. The "sweet infant, just of age to begin noticing things," was kept a secret and revealed to him the day after the couple married. According to Emma Griffin, Bamford and Mima's daughter, Ann, was six months old at the time and had been baptised in January 1810 under Jemima Sheppard's name. Griffin also notes that Bamford had another child out of wedlock to a "Yorkshire lass". In 1851 or thereabouts, Bamford obtained a situation as a messenger for the Inland Revenue at Somerset House, but soon returned to weaving. The 1861 England Census records that Samuel, as a "public reader and agent" resided with Jemina in Hall Street, Manchester.

Bamford's radical political beliefs led him to be heavily involved in resistance to the British government and to witness to several important historical events relating to working-class advocacy and public defiance.

In 1817 he was remanded in jail to the New Bailey Prison in Salford on suspicion of high treason, on account of his political activities. From there he was taken to London and examined before the Privy Council, presided over by Lord Sidmouth as Home Secretary. After promising future good behaviour, Bamford was released and allowed to return to his cottage at Middleton with his wife Jemima. In August 1819, he led a group from Middleton to St Peter's Fields for a meeting that pressed for parliamentary reform and repeal of the Corn Laws. There they witnessed the Peterloo Massacre, and Bamford was arrested and charged with treason. Although there was no evidence shown that either he or any of his group had been involved in the violence, he was found guilty of inciting a riot and sentenced to a year in Lincoln prison. The massacre had a deep impact on Bamford, convincing him that state power always succeeded against radical militancy. He came to be seen as a voice for radical reform, but opposed to activism involving physical force. Bamford responded to the claim that his political group had used violence to pursue their reforming ends, in Passages in the Life of a Radical and Early Days (1840–1844), "It was not until we became infested by spies, incendiaries, and their dupes – distracting, misleading, and betraying – that physical force was mentioned amongst us. After that our moral power waned, and what we gained by the accession of demagogues, we lost by their criminal violence, and the estrangement of real friends."