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Chartism

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: British History 1750-1900

          Chartism is also an alternative term for technical analysis
          For the British socialist journal, see Chartist (magazine)

   Chartism was a movement for political and social reform in the United
   Kingdom during the mid-19th century. It takes its name from the
   People's Charter of 1838, which stipulated the six main aims of the
   movement. It was possibly the first mass working class movement in the
   world.

Origin

   Chartism followed earlier Radical movements, such as the Birmingham
   Political Union which demanded a widening of the franchise, and came
   after the passing of the Reform Act 1832, which gave the vote to a
   section of the male middle classes, but not to the " working class"
   which was then emerging from artisan and labouring classes. Many
   Radicals made speeches on the "betrayal" of the working class and the
   "sacrificing" of their "interests" by the "misconduct" of the
   government, in conjunction with this model. D.C. Moore, however, cites
   that the enfranchisement is better understood with a five tier model
   consisting of Upper, Upper and Lower Middle and Upper and Lower Working
   classes. Using this model, The Upper and Upper Middle classes had
   gained the vote after the Reform Act 1832, and it was the lower middle
   and upper working classes that joined the Chartist movement. The Lower
   working class, Moore states, were not educated sufficiently to see any
   interest in, and thus involve themselves with, the movement.

   Chartism included a wide range of organizations. Hence it can be seen
   as not so much a movement as an era in popular politics in Britain.
   Dorothy Thompson described the theme of her book The Chartists as the
   time when "thousands of working people considered that their problems
   could be solved by the political organization of the country."

   In 1838, six Members of Parliament and six working men, including
   William Lovett, (from the London Working Men's Association, set up in
   1836) formed a committee, which then published the People's Charter,
   containing the following objectives:
     * Universal suffrage for all men over the age of 21; it did not
       mention women
     * Equal-sized electoral districts
     * Voting by secret ballot
     * An end to the need for a property qualification for Parliament (so
       that constituencies could return the man of their choice, rich or
       poor)
     * Pay for members of Parliament
     * Annual election of Parliament

The first wave

   When these demands were first published in May 1838, they received a
   lukewarm response from Northern Star's Feargus O'Connor and other
   Radicals, being seen as too moderate (Thompson, 1984, p.58). But it
   soon became clear that the charter had struck a chord among common
   people. Dorothy Thompson quotes John Bates as saying:

     There were [radical] associations all over the county, but there was
     a great lack of cohesion. One wanted the ballot, another manhood
     suffrage and so on... The radicals were without unity of aim and
     method, and there was but little hope of accomplishing anything.
     When, however, the Peoples Charter was drawn up... clearly defining
     the urgent demands of the working class, we felt we had a real bond
     of union; and so transformed our Radical Association into local
     Chartist centres....

   The movement organized a convention of 50 to facilitate the
   presentation of the petition. This met in London from February 1839
   until May, when it moved to Birmingham. Though they took pains to keep
   within the law, the more radical activists were able to see it as the
   embryo of an alternative parliament (John Charlton, The Chartists p.
   19). The convention called for a number of "ulterior measures" which
   ranged from calling on their supporters to withdraw their money from
   saving banks to a call for a sacred month, in effect a general strike.
   Meetings were held around the country and in June 1839 a large petition
   was presented to the House of Commons. Parliament, by a large majority,
   voted not to even hear the petitioners.

   When the petition was refused, many advocated force as the only means
   of attaining their aims.
   Chartist Riot
   Chartist Riot

   Several outbreaks of violence ensued, leading to several arrests and
   trials. One of the leaders of the movement, John Frost, on trial for
   treason, claimed in his defense that he had toured Wales urging people
   not to break the law, although he was himself guilty of using language
   that some might interpret as being a call to arms. Frost's attitudes
   and stance, often seen as ambivalent, led another Chartist to describe
   Frost as putting 'a sword in my hand and a rope around my neck'.
   Nevertheless, Frost had placed himself in the vanguard of the Chartist
   movement by 1839. When another prominent member, Henry Vincent, was
   arrested in the summer of 1839 for making inflammatory speeches, the
   die was cast.

   Instead of the carefully plotted military rising that some had
   suspected, Frost led a column of marchers to the Westgate Hotel,
   Newport, where he initiated a confrontation. Some have suggested that
   the roots of this confrontation lay in Frost's frequent personal
   conflicts with various members of the local establishment; others, that
   Chartist leaders were expecting the Chartists to seize the town,
   preventing the mail reaching London and triggering a national uprising:
   it is generally acknowledged that Frost and other Chartist leaders did
   not agree on the course of action adopted.

   The result was a disaster in political and military terms. The hotel
   was occupied not only by the representatives of the town's merchant
   classes and the local squirearchy, but by soldiers. A brief, violent,
   and bloody battle ensued. Shots were fired by both sides, although most
   contemporaries agree that the soldiers holding the building had vastly
   superior firepower. The Chartists did manage to enter the building
   temporarily, but were forced to retreat in disarray: twenty were
   killed, another fifty wounded.

   Testimonies exist from contemporaries, such as the Yorkshire Chartist
   Ben Wilson, that Newport was to have been the signal for a national
   uprising. Instead Chartism slipped into a period of internal division
   and acrimonious debate as to the way forward.

   In early May 1842, a further petition, of over three million
   signatures, was submitted, which was again rejected by parliament. The
   Northern Star commented on the rejection:

     Three and half millions have quietly, orderly, soberly, peaceably
     but firmly asked of their rulers to do justice; and their rulers
     have turned a deaf ear to that protest. Three and a half millions of
     people have asked permission to detail their wrongs, and enforce
     their claims for RIGHT, and the 'House' has resolved they should not
     be heard! Three and a half millions of the slave-class have holden
     out the olive branch of peace to the enfranchised and privileged
     classes and sought for a firm and compact union, on the principle of
     EQUALITY BEFORE THE LAW; and the enfranchised and privileged have
     refused to enter into a treaty! The same class is to be a slave
     class still. The mark and brand of inferiority is not to be removed.
     The assumption of inferiority is still to be maintained. The people
     are not to be free.

   The depression of 1841– 1842 led to a wave of strikes in which Chartist
   activists were in the forefront, and demands for the charter were
   included alongside economic demands. In 1842, workers went on strike in
   the Midlands, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and parts of Scotland in favour of
   Chartist principles. These industrial disputes were collectively known
   as the Plug Plot; as in many cases, protesters removed the plugs from
   steam boilers to prevent their use. Although the Prime Minister, Sir
   Robert Peel, advocated a non- interventionalist policy, the Duke of
   Wellington insisted on the deployment of troops to deal with the
   strikers. Several Chartist leaders, including Feargus O'Connor, George
   Julian Harney, and Thomas Cooper were arrested, along with nearly 1,500
   others. 79 people were sentenced, with sentences ranging from 7 to 21
   years.

   Despite this second set of arrests, Chartist activity continued.
   Beginning in 1843, O'Connor suggested that the land contained the
   solution to workers' problems. This idea evolved into the Chartist
   Co-Operative Land Company, later called the National Land Company.
   Workers would buy shares in the company, and the company would use
   those funds to purchase estates that would be subdivided into 2, 3, and
   4 acre (8,000, 12,400 and 16,000 m²) lots. Between 1844 and 1848, five
   estates were purchased, subdivided, and built on, and then settled by
   lucky shareholders, who were chosen by lot. Unfortunately for O'Connor,
   in 1848 a Select Committee was appointed to investigate the financial
   viability of the scheme, and it was ordered to shut down. Cottages
   built by the Chartist Land Company are still standing and inhabited
   today in Oxfordshire, Worcestershire and on the outskirts of London.
   Rosedene, a Chartist cottage in Dodford, Worcestershire, is owned and
   maintained by the National Trust, and is open to visitors by
   appointment.

   The Chartists also stood in general elections, from the election of
   1841 to the election of 1859, and O'Connor was elected in the general
   election of 1847. Harney stood for Election against Lord Palmerston in
   Tiverton, Devon in 1847.

The 1848 petition

   The Great Chartist Meeting on Kennington Common
   The Great Chartist Meeting on Kennington Common

   On 10 April 1848, Feargus O'Connor organised a mass meeting on
   Kennington Common, which would form a procession to present another
   petition to Parliament. The number of attendees varies depending on the
   source (O'Connor estimated 300,000; the government, 15,000; The Sunday
   Observer suggested 50,000 was more accurate). According to John
   Charlton the government was well aware that the Chartists had no
   intention of staging an uprising as they had established an extensive
   network of spies. The government did however organize a very large show
   of force, as 8,000 soldiers were in London that day, along with 150,000
   special constables. In any case, the meeting was peaceful. However the
   military had threatened to intervene if the Chartists made any attempt
   to cross the Thames.

   In a separate incident, rioters in Manchester attempted to storm the
   hated workhouse. A pitched battle resulted with Chartists fighting the
   police, eventually the mob was broken up, but rioters roamed the
   streets of Manchester for three days. strokos

   The original plan of the Chartists, if the petition was ignored, was to
   create a separate national assembly and press the Queen to dissolve
   parliament until the charter was introduced into law. However the
   Chartists were plagued with indecision, and the national assembly
   eventually dissolved itself claiming lack of support.

   The petition O'Connor presented to Parliament was claimed to have only
   1,957,496 signatures – far short of the 5,706,000 O'Connor had stated
   and many of which were discovered to be forgeries (some of the false
   signatories included Queen Victoria). However, O'Connor argued that
   many people were illiterate, and did not know how to write their own
   signatures, and so had to copy someone elses. Despite this, O'Connor
   has been accused of destroying the credibility of Chartism, but the
   movement continued strongly for some months afterwards before it
   petered out.

Legacy

   Although the Chartist movement itself petered out, its aims were taken
   on by others. Middle class parliamentary Radicals continued to press
   for universal franchise, and were joined by some supporters of the
   Anti-Corn Law League, with John Bright and the Reform League agitating
   in the country for change. The parliamentary Radicals joined with the
   Whigs and anti-protectionist Tory Peelites to form the Liberal Party by
   1859. Eventually the Liberal William Ewart Gladstone introduced a
   modest bill for parliamentary reform which was defeated by both Tories
   and reform Liberals, forcing the government to resign. The new Tory
   government decided to take the credit for the reform. As a minority
   government they had to accept radical amendments, and Benjamin
   Disraeli's Reform Act of 1867 almost doubled the electorate, giving the
   vote even to working men. In addition, the secret ballot was
   introduced, through the Ballot Act of 1872. Only the last of the
   Chartist aims – annual Parliaments – now remains unfulfilled, although
   the difficulty and feasibility in implementing such a measure means
   that it is very unlikely to be fulfilled.

   Chartism was also an important influence in the British colonies. In
   1854 Chartist demands were put forward by the miners at the Eureka
   Stockade on the gold fields at Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. Within
   one year of the military crushing of the Eureka revolt, all the
   demands, except annual parliaments, had been met.

   By early 2006 most of the enclosure of Kennington Common, then being
   used as housing, had been demolished. See St Agnes Place
   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartism"
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   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
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