The producer politics of British pro-Confederate support: Sheffield during the American Civil War

Abstract

This article re-examines Transatlantic popular responses to the American Civil War, using the underexplored pro-Confederate movement in the metal-producing town of Sheffield. Export interests to the Southern states were central to the Sheffield movement, which spanned society, incorporating eminent figures, various manufacturers, and acquiring popular appeal. This article advances historiography on British pro-Confederacy, transcending debates around cotton imports, to instead examine the producer-side politics of inland manufacturing districts. It unearths rich socio-cultural connections between industrial Britain and the US South, revealing how complex Transatlantic attitudes to race and slavery influenced provincial economy and society beyond British emancipation in 1838.

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Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Gardner, T.
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	© The Author(s) 2026. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Keywords:	British pro-Confederacy; American Civil War; Transatlantic commerce; Producer politics; Racial slavery
Dates:	Accepted: 8 October 2026 Published (online): 29 October 2026 Published: 29 October 2026
Institution:	The University of Sheffield
Academic Units:	The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Sheffield) > School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities
Date Deposited:	11 Nov 2026 10:09
Last Modified:	11 Nov 2026 10:09
Status:	Published
Publisher:	Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Refereed:	Yes
Identification Number:	10.1057/s42738-026-00179-5
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:247793

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The producer politics of British pro-Confederate support: Sheffield during the American Civil War

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