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Tuesday, June 24
The Northern Star: a Chartist newspaper in numbers
by
mark
on Tue 24 Jun 2008 14:01 BST
 Throughout 1841 and 1842, anyone reading the Northern Star would have come across the name of its proprietor, Feargus O’Connor, an average of 40 times in each weekly issue.Over the course of the 15 years from 1838 to 1852 during which O’Connor owned and ran the paper, his name ... more »
Cooper and O'Neill: the Chartist prisoners
by
mark
on Tue 24 Jun 2008 13:37 BST
Stephen Roberts’ new book on Thomas Cooper and Arthur O’Neill is being launched at the Birmingham & Midland Institute in Birmingham city centre on Saturday 13 September.
The book, titled The Chartist Prisoners, focuses on the lifelong friendship between Cooper and O’Neill formed when they shared a cell in Stafford ... more » Friday, May 23
Profile: John Skevington - Leicestershire Chartist
by
mark
on Fri 23 May 2008 15:00 BST
The series ends here because this is the point at which The Charter newspaper drew to ... more » Wednesday, May 21
Profile: Henry Hetherington – radical publisher
by
mark
on Wed 21 May 2008 10:00 BST
He would later go on ... more » Sunday, May 18
Some history reading for the summer...
by
mark
on Sun 18 May 2008 15:18 BST
Amazon is currently having a sale, so if you're looking for something to read now – or to put aside for your summer holidays, it's worth checking out their cut-price history books. When I last looked, they had Tuesday, May 13
The Northern Star is now online
by
mark
on Tue 13 May 2008 14:24 BST
Go straight to the ... more » Thursday, May 1
Profile: Thomas Rayner Smart - veteran Chartist patriot
by
mark
on Thu 01 May 2008 13:00 BST
While representing Loughborough and Leicester at the convention, Smart was profiled by The Charter newspaper. Both the profile and ... more » Tuesday, April 29
Profile: William Villiers Sankey, Chartist aristocrat
by
mark
on Tue 29 Apr 2008 13:16 BST
While representing Edinburgh at the convention, Sankey was profiled by The Charter newspaper... more » Thursday, April 24
Northern Star: Chartist newspaper online
by
mark
on Thu 24 Apr 2008 19:00 BST
The three-year Nineteenth Century Serials Edition project will culminate on that day ... more » Tuesday, April 22
Chartism and the Labour Parliament of 1854
by
mark
on Tue 22 Apr 2008 12:14 BST
There is no clear date at which Chartism came to an end. For many, the disappointments ... more » Sunday, April 20
Chartists.net: beware of spoof emails
by
mark
on Sun 20 Apr 2008 17:53 BST
Please note that the chartists.net domain name is never used to send outgoing email. If, over the past few days, you have received email apparently from “buttress@chartists.net”, then I can assure you that it did not originate from this website. In short, you have been the subject of an email ... more » Sunday, April 6
Profile: Peter McDouall - Chartist hero
by
mark
on Sun 06 Apr 2008 11:59 BST
Gaoled twice, losing a daughter during one period of imprisonment due to the terrible conditions suffered by his family, and dying at ... more » Sunday, March 30
Profile: Dr Matthew Fletcher - convention delegate
by
mark
on Sun 30 Mar 2008 14:43 BST
While serving as a delegate, he was profiled by The Charter newspaper. Both the profile and the sketch portrait ... more » Friday, March 28
Profile: Robert Knox - convention delegate
by
mark
on Fri 28 Mar 2008 11:00 GMT
That profile, and the sketch portrait of Knox that appeared in the same paper, now appears on Chartist Ancestors ... more » Thursday, March 27
More Chartist histories and autobiographies
by
mark
on Thu 27 Mar 2008 15:00 GMT
Google Books and other services are increasingly providing free access to the full text of important but now out-of-copyright books written by and ... more » Sunday, March 23
Profile: William Lovett - author of the People's Charter
by
mark
on Sun 23 Mar 2008 13:00 GMT
The third in our series of profiles and portraits of delegates ... more » Tuesday, March 18
Profile: Birmingham Chartist Thomas Clutton Salt
by
mark
on Tue 18 Mar 2008 12:05 GMT
The Charter newspaper, published by William Lovett, secretary to the Convention and ... more » Friday, March 14
300 children named Charter
by
mark
on Fri 14 Mar 2008 19:15 GMT
Their names join the hundreds already listed who were ... more » Thursday, March 13
1,000 backers for John Frost
by
mark
on Thu 13 Mar 2008 01:00 GMT
Most Chartists were taken wholly by surprise by the Friday, March 7
Chartism's great class divide
by
mark
on Fri 07 Mar 2008 01:00 GMT
This page has been on the site for some years, but lacked around 100 names. Happily, I have now been able ... more » Friday, February 22
A radical cause after Chartism
by
mark
on Fri 22 Feb 2008 16:26 GMT
I have now added a page to Chartist ... more » Tuesday, February 12
Thursday, January 31
45 Scottish women Chartists
by
mark
on Thu 31 Jan 2008 13:57 GMT
A database of 45 women who were active in the Chartist
movement in Women played a big part in Chartism. Although none of the Chartist petitions called for women to be given the vote, up to 20% of those adding their names in some parts of the country were women. They also organised themselves in Female Chartist
Associations – some 23 of which are known to have existed in Yet this is an enormously hard subject to research. There has been no major new work on Scottish Chartism since the start of the 1970s, and academic study of women's part in Chartist agitation is still less well served. I am therefore indebted and grateful to Sue John, who
researched and compiled the database of Women Chartists in Tuesday, January 29
Glasgow delegate conference, 1839
by
mark
on Tue 29 Jan 2008 12:44 GMT
The Great Meeting of Scottish Delegates which took place in Glasgow from 14 to 16 August 1839 marked a turning ... more » Friday, January 25
Ruth Frow 1922-2008
by
mark
on Fri 25 Jan 2008 21:02 GMT
Wednesday, January 23
Sunday, January 20
More teetotal Chartist names
by
mark
on Sun 20 Jan 2008 15:19 GMT
The names of signatories to Henry Vincent’s teetotal Chartist address of 1840 have been added to the Teetotal Chartism page ... more » Wednesday, January 16
Putting Chartism on the map
by
mark
on Wed 16 Jan 2008 20:25 GMT
I have added a feature called Chartism on the Map to the Chartist Ancestors home page. It’s also shown below... more » Tuesday, January 15
Chartist list up to 5,000 names
by
mark
on Tue 15 Jan 2008 11:15 GMT
The list of Chartist Land Company subscribers in Ashton under Lyne, Audenshaw and Duckinfield has leapt up from 168 to ... more » Saturday, January 5
John Arnott and the 1867 Reform Act
by
mark
on Sat 05 Jan 2008 14:42 GMT
In his lifetime, John Arnott was one of the best-known and well-liked figures in London Chartism. A shoemaker by trade, ... more » |
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Our current series of Chartist portraits finishes with John
Skevington, the working class radical leader from Leicestershire who
represented both Derby and his home town of Loughborough in the First Chartist
Convention of 1839.
Henry Hetherington was the hero of the campaign for an
unstamped press – the radical protest movement which defied the law to publish
news and political opinion while refusing to pay a newspaper tax which put most
publications out of the reach of working people.
for £3.60;
A free and fully searchable edition of the Northern Star is
now available online. Although still officially in a beta (test) version, you
can find this important Chartist newspaper on the Nineteenth Century Serials Edition website along with a
number of other papers from the period.
Thomas Rayner Smart was a largely self-taught working man
whose scruffy greatcoat and battered hat marked him out from the generality of
middle-class delegates to the First Chartist Convention of 1839.
William Villiers Sankey came from aristocratic stock. The son of an Irish volunteer and Member of Parliament, he moved among the political elite of his day. Yet he also served as a delegate to the First Chartist Convention of 1839.
The Labour Parliament of 1854 was one of the last
significant Chartist gatherings. A page on the Labour Parliament which also
lists the 40 delegates who attended has now been added to Chartist Ancestors.
Peter Murray McDouall, a Scottish-born doctors radicalised
by his exposure to factory conditions in industrial Lancashire, was one of the
most significant figures in Chartism for a decade. 
Dr Matthew Fletcher came to the First Chartist Convention of
1839 with a record of opposition to the New Poor Law then being imposed on the
country by the Whig government.
Robert Knox must have been one of the youngest delegates to
the First Chartist Convention of 1839. He was just 24 years old when his
profile appeared in The Charter newspaper.
William Lovett was without doubt the Father of the People’s
Charter. He had been a founder member of the London Working Men’s Association,
and of radical bodies before that, and was a natural choice to draft its
political platform.
The General Convention of the Industrious Classes in 1839 set
an unprecedented challenge to the undemocratic House of Commons, and there was enormous
interest in the delegates elected to it by mass meetings held all over the
country.
In the years following publication of the People’s Charter,
nearly 300 parents gave their children the first or middle name Charter. The
children’s names, the registration districts and quarter-years in which they
were born have now been added to Chartist Ancestors.
Around 1,000 
There is now a page on Chartist Ancestors listing some 400 delegates
to a joint conference of the National Charter Association and Complete Suffrage
Union, held in December 1842.
The disappearance of Chartism as a mass movement and bitter
internal battles over the future of the movement dispersed Chartists in all
sorts of directions. But the continuing interest of some in international
politics provided several opportunities for ad hoc radical activities.