The episode of the Roman Republic gained Mazzini some keen followers in the English provinces. Chartist and republican in background, these radicals were self-educated provincial workers, who embraced Mazzini's doctrine, trusting it with a passion. They expressed their feelings in the private sphere by revealing their innermost emotions in the trusted pages of a journal, or in the public sphere in the poetical compositions that they contributed to the Chartist press. Most patently they shared their emotions in mechanics' institutes, republican families, Chartist branches, in short, wherever the web of self-improvement welcomed debates on international questions.

The early support for Italy which could be found amongst provincial radicals, such as Linton, Thomas Cooper and W. E. Adams would become a deeply-rooted allegiance to Mazzini, able to empower radical followers to weather the signs of Mazzinian dissent when they manifested themselves amongst Italian republicans. Holyoake was an uncompromising Victorian Mazzinian at heart. Yet, as editor of the Reasoner, he erred towards cautious compromise, poised between cultivating affection for Mazzini among radical, working-class admirers and reassuring his wider readership, inclined to be suspicious of republican ambitions. In the years between 1849 and 1851 building bridges between opposing factions was one of Holyoake's concerns. In the light of the tensions which surfaced amongst Italian democrats following the fall of the Roman Republic his caution was justified: defections were in sight, and Mazzini's falling-out with French socialists would soon complicate the picture further.