The icons of popular art suggest the force and longevity of populist notions over this period. They also indicate that rather than a single populism, it is a variety or ‘family’ of populisms that should be considered, a variety in which the capacity for change and adaptation was marked. In the northern, industrial districts there was, however, a decided continuity amidst this variety and change. This was evident in a radical populism conceiving of the true England as the industrial north in struggle with Privilege. The conception of a ‘family’ of populisms was invoked in the first part of this book, on politics. There the roots of social identity were in important measure seen to lie in ideas and associations taken from politics, in particular the populist traditions of popular radicalism and the many tranformations these went through up to 1914. The controlling narrative of popular politics appears to have concerned a righteous and dispossessed ‘people’ rather than a ‘working class’. The political sphere paralleled the sphere of art here: the idea of the true, unadorned England of the north was a varient of the broader mythology of the true political nation of the excluded English.

The excluded English could be seen as the labouring English, and in this sense ‘class’ appropriations occurred, even though this was in practice rather limited.