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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 » Tuesday, March 25
A new look at Thomas Clutton Salt
by
mark
on Tue 25 Mar 2008 11:27 GMT
As part of a small-scale project to republish biographical sketches on 12 of the delegates which ... 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 » Thursday, March 20
Profile: John Frost - Newport Chartist
by
mark
on Thu 20 Mar 2008 16:00 GMT
The second in our series of profiles and sketch portraits taken ... 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 Monday, March 10
A boy named Charter
by
mark
on Mon 10 Mar 2008 15:45 GMT
After reading about the Chartist practice of naming children after political heroes in the current issue of Who Do You Think You Are? magazine, one reader got in touch today to say she now understood how her husband's great grandfather came to be called Samuel Feargus Brontere Vincent Charter Debbage.... more » Saturday, March 8
A souvenir of Chartism
by
mark
on Sat 08 Mar 2008 14:55 GMT
So I was delighted to come across a picture of WJ Linton’s membership card for the People’s Charter Union on the ... more » Friday, March 7
Who Do You Think You Are?
by
mark
on Fri 07 Mar 2008 13:05 GMT
The first, by Dr Malcolm Chase, reader in labour history at
the
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 » Thursday, March 6
Chartist riots in Trafalgar Square
by
mark
on Thu 06 Mar 2008 01:00 GMT
Today sees the 160th anniversary of the first serious disturbances in Britain associated with the Chartist resurgence of 1848. There is a page on Chartist Ancestors dealing with the Trafalgar Square riots, which escalated into three days of disturbances, with windows broken throughout the City and along Regent ... more » Tuesday, March 4
Remember 1839 in Newport
by
mark
on Tue 04 Mar 2008 09:21 GMT
 The people of Newport and communities along the Heads of the Valley Road are being invited to explore their Chartist heritage and to interpret the events of November 1839 when a Chartist uprising laid siege to the town.The event, on 12 April, is the latest in a series of ... more » Thursday, February 28
Interview: Paul Pickering on Feargus O'Connor
by
mark
on Thu 28 Feb 2008 13:59 GMT
 A new biography of Feargus O'Connor, written by Dr Paul Pickering (left), is due for publication later this spring. O'Connor was probably the single most significant figure in Chartism for more than a decade, and was the only person ever elected to Parliament specifically on a Chartist ticket.A Chartist ... more »
Techorati claim
by
mark
on Thu 28 Feb 2008 13:50 GMT
Monday, February 25
Strawberry fields for Chartists
by
mark
on Mon 25 Feb 2008 15:36 GMT
Great
Dodford was the fifth and final land colony to be settled by Chartist members
of the National Land Company. But it was also the settlement with the longest record of success. Despite a difficult start, descendants of the original tenants were still making a good living as late as ... 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 » Monday, February 18
Recognition for a Chartist pub
by
mark
on Mon 18 Feb 2008 09:33 GMT
The wonderfully named Land of Liberty, Peace and ... more » Sunday, February 17
Tuesday, February 12
Sunday, February 10
Sunday, February 3
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
Chartist cottage photographs
by
mark
on Wed 23 Jan 2008 20:08 GMT
I see that the Chartist historian Stephen Roberts (co-author, among other things, of Images of Chartism, has added some pictures ... more » 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 » Saturday, January 19
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 » |
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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.
A quite remarkable and unexpected new image has come to light of
Thomas Clutton Salt, one of the leaders of the Birmingham Political Union and a
delegate from Birmingham to the first Chartist Convention.
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.
John Frost is one of the best known figures in Chartism. His fame comes from
his ill-fated leadership of the Newport rebellion in December 1839, his
subsequent transportation to Australia, and the campaign that led eventually to
his return.
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.
Membership cards must have been issued in their thousands by
the National Charter Association and smaller Chartist organisations. But almost
none appears to have survived the past 150 years.
The current issue of the BBC's 
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.
It is strange to think that what must have been a very basic
spit-and-sawdust beerhouse when it opened to serve settlers on the Chartist
land colony at O’Connorville back in the 1840s is now considered one of 