Academic
institutions have been gathering up archives dealing with Chartism for many decades.
But working out what exists where can be a problem – not least because Chartism
is just a small aspect of many of these collections.
So it is
good to see that the Archives Hub, put together by a consortium of research libraries
with the aim of describing the various archives held by
Some of the
collections it describes are reasonably well known. William Lovett’s papers at
the
Others,
however, may be less well known to many people.
Sir
Archibald Alison was himself an historian. But as Sheriff of Lanarkshire, he
was also involved in suppressing Chartist unrest and strikes over a 20 year
period. There are 22 volumes of his papers in Edinburgh University Library.
Similarly, Lieutenant
General Thomas Marten was called out of retirement in 1839 to take charge of
the Royal Dragoons and suppress Chartist riots in
On the pro-Chartist
side, Thomas Allsop was a wealthy merchant and supporter of Feargus O’Connor,
providing him with the necessary property qualification when he contested the
Allsop’s
papers, consisting of letters from Bronterre O’Brien, Feargus O’Connor and
Richard Oastler are in the British Library of Political and Economic Science.
Previous
Archives Hub Collections of the Month can be seen here.
