The Radicals were a parliamentary political grouping in the United Kingdom in the early to mid 19th century, who helped to transform the Whigs into the Liberal Party.
Background
The Radical movement arose in the early 19th century to support parliamentary reform with additional aims including Catholic emancipation and free trade. Working class and middle class "Popular radicals" agitated to assert rights as well as relieving distress, while middle class "Philosophic radicals" strongly supported parliamentary reform, but were generally hostile to the arguments and tactics of the "popular radicals".
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Formation of the Liberal Party
The parliamentary radicals were distinctly middle class; their radicalism consisted in opposition to the political dominance and economic interests of the traditional British elites, rather than to any affinity to socialism.
The Radicals joined with the Whigs and the anti-protectionist Tory Peelites to form the Liberal Party by 1859.
Parliamentary reform
Demand for parliamentary reform increased by 1864 with agitation from John Bright and the Reform League. The Liberal William Ewart Gladstone introduced a modest bill which was defeated by both Tories and reform Liberals, forcing the government to resign. Benjamin Disraeli took office, and the new minority Tory government introduced the Reform Act of 1867 which almost doubled the electorate, giving the vote even to working men.
In fiction
In the steampunk novel The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, the "Industrial Radicals" led by Lord Byron have organised the British Empire as a meritocratic industrial society organised by steam driven computers developed from Babbage's difference engine and analytical engine.