The Chartist Movement 1838 - 1848

Page 3 of 6

• 1. The 1848 Petition
• 2. Demonstration in London
• 3. The Chartist story
• 4. A national movement
• 5. Chartist legacy
• 6. Find out more
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The Chartist story

In the lead up to the events of 1848, the People's Charter was published - in May 1838 - as a draft parliamentary bill. It contained six points: manhood suffrage; the ballot; abolition of property qualifications for MPs; payment of MPs; equal electoral districts; and annual elections. Thousands of working people had rallied together on the basis of this charter, and hundreds of them had gone to prison for their beliefs.

William Lovett was instrumental in drawing up this new document of long-established radical demands. He had been an active metropolitan radical at the time of the Reform Bill crisis of 1831-2, when the middle class but not the working class had been admitted into the parliamentary system. This was seen as a betrayal of a large section of society, and created some of the resentment that led to Chartism.

The draconian New Poor Law of 1834 amounted to an attack on the working class, and helped this new movement of protest to gain massive support in the north of England. There were other injustices, including the treatment of trade unionists, to fuel the fires that turned people into Chartists.

'The draconian New Poor Law of 1834 amounted to an attack on the working class...'

The origins of Chartism were complex. For Lovett, peaceful persuasion by respectable working men - 'moral force' - was the best way to win the Charter. This strategy clashed with that of Feargus O'Connor. Self confident and energetic, O'Connor was a charismatic demagogue, who used mass meetings and the widely read 'Northern Star' to unite the forces of the working class behind him. His popularity was immense; the Chartists named their children after him and he himself was known as the 'Lion of Freedom'.

O'Connor may have implied support for 'physical force', but only a very small number of Chartists were genuine insurrectionists. John Frost was transported after leading a rising in Newport, in November 1839, in which 22 Chartists were shot dead by soldiers; Robert Peddie was sentenced to three years with hard labour after his involvement in an attempted Chartist rising in Bradford in January 1840.

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Published: 2002-05-01