Harney was imprisoned three times (twice in London, at Coldbath Fields Prison and the Borough Compter, and once in Derby Gaol) for selling unstamped newspapers.

The government of Lord Castlereagh, of notorious memory, was the author of the laws against the press, but the Whigs, who had strenuously opposed their enactment, were now the parties to enforce them.

"’[3] This experience had clearly radicalised Harney and his defiant and irascible tone in the fight against Taxes on Knowledge is unmistakable, it led to him receiving a severe punishment of a fine of £20 or six months’ imprisonment.

Although he was initially a member of the London Working Men's Association he became impatient with the organisation's failure to make much progress in the efforts to obtain universal suffrage.

He published a translation in 1836 of the Italian writer Philippe Buonarroti's History of Babeuf's Conspiracy for Equality, as well as a revisionist reading of the "Life & Character of Maximilian Robespierre" (London, 1837).

Soon afterwards Harney became convinced of William Benbow's theory that a Grand National Holiday (a General strike) would result in an uprising and a change in the political system.

Harney attended the first National Convention of the Chartists that met on Monday, 4 February 1839, at the British Coffee House, 27, Cockspur Street, London.

A. R. Schoyen has given a wonderful example (from 1839) of the perceived seditious nature in some of Harney's speeches: "Our Country may be compared to a bedstead full of nasty, filthy, crawling Aristocratic and Shopocratic bugs.

"on 13th August 1839, George Julian Harney wrote from Warwick Gaol saying that he could not obtain bail and had no funds to pay the expenses of lawyers and witnesses.

When, two days later, bail had been found and he was released, he could not return to London as he was still ‘completely pennyless"[10] When he appeared at Birmingham Assizes the grand jury refused to indict him of sedition or any other charge.

[11] After his acquittal he spent almost a year in Scotland, and in September 1840 married Mary Cameron, of Mauchline, Ayrshire, "'tall, beautiful, and of high spirit' (Holyoake) and the daughter of a radical weaver.

Tristram Hunt describes him during this period: George Julian Harney, Chartism's enfant terrible ... was firmly on the radical side of the movement, advocating the use of physical force and enjoying riling his conservative comrades by flaunting the red cap of liberty at public meetings.

In and out of jail, endlessly feuding with fellow Chartists, and ultimately expelled from the party, the Robespierre-admiring Harney remained convinced that insurrection was the surest route to achieve the demands of the charter.

A tall, handsome young man, with a countenance of almost boyish youthfulness, whose English, in spite of his German birth and education, was even then remarkable for its accuracy.

With the help of his friend, Ernest Charles Jones, Harney attempted to use his paper to educate his working class readers about socialism and proletarian internationalism.

In 1847 Harney stood as the Chartist candidate against Lord Palmerston for the seat of Tiverton, an event described by Engels in an article for La Reforme thus: "It will be recalled that at the last elections Mr. Harney, editor-in-chief of the Northern Star, was put forward as the Chartist candidate for Tiverton, a borough which is represented in Parliament by Lord Palmerston, the Foreign Secretary.

For example, the opposition to Lord Morpeth[21] in 1841 gave Harney the opportunity of speaking at such towns as Leeds, Huddersfield, Bradford, Dewsbury, Wakefield.

The translation was done by Helen Macfarlane, a journalist, socialist and feminist of the time, who wrote for the Red Republican under the pseudonym Howard Morton.

Harney's second wife, Marie Métivier (née Le Sueur), was the widow of James Metivier, a prosperous shop keeper and temperance leader in Jersey.

"[29] After a brief editorship of the antislavery newspaper The Commonwealth (1862-96),[30] Harney obtained a post in the Massachusetts State House as a clerk in the Document Room.

Even in this settled position Harney continued to study and meet American poets such as John Greenleaf Whittier, politicians, and old Chartist friends who had also moved to the United States.

Harney continued in his post as clerk for over a decade, making extended trips back to England until 1888 when he finally returned to live at Richmond-on-Thames.

"[34] During the prominent secularist Charles Bradlaugh’s first lecture tour of the USA in 1873, Harney and Wendell Phillips had been his guide showing him around Boston.

"[36] A letter of Harney's to the editor of the Weekly Chronicle written from Richmond-on-Thames on August 3, 1891, defended his friend Holyoake's use of the term "Jingo".

[37] On 4 February 1893 Engels wrote to Harney to suggest that instead of his contributions to the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle, owned by his friend Joseph Cowen, he find an appropriate publisher and write a history of Chartism.

Fergus O’Connor; Frost;[40] Joseph Cowen; Oastler,[41] the Factory King; “Knife and Fork” Stephens,[42] the physical force man, who spent eighteen months in Chester Castle; W. J. Linton,[43] engraver and Chartist; Harney himself (he is even now a delightful bit of a beau in his way, as scrupulously dressed and groomed as ever), as a Yankee, with a moustache only, instead of the present venerable beard ; Lovett, who drew up the People's Charter; Frederick Engels and Karl Marx, very fitly side by side (Harney had the high honour of their friendship); “Ironsides” Adams,[44] of the Newcastle Chronicle.

Between the windows and the door, Magna Charta, Darwin, Ruskin, Sidney, Chaucer, Raleigh, De Stael, Mary Wollstonecroft, together with a bust of Shakespeare again.