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Saturday, August 30
Feargus O'Connor: died 30 August 1855
by
mark
on Sat 30 Aug 2008 17:26 BST
 Feargus O’Connor was never happier in life than when at the centre of a controversy. In death, the Chartist movement’s greatest leader remained also its most disputed figure, blamed by earlier generations of historians for his bluster but now at least partially rehabilitated and admired once more.Today marks the 153rd ... more » Friday, August 1
Chartism and an Ashton under Lyne print business
by
mark
on Fri 01 Aug 2008 11:42 BST
The culture of Chartism was inextricably tied up with the development of popular print. Many leading Chartists were long-time opponents of stamp duty taxes on newspapers, and the movement spawned some remarkably successful publishing businesses. The Manchester Chartist Abel Heywood graduated from running a penny library to printing Chartist tracts ... more » Thursday, July 24
A house on the Chartist estate: £2.5 million
by
mark
on Thu 24 Jul 2008 11:08 BST
I came ... more » Monday, July 21
William Lovett: autobiography of a Chartist
by
mark
on Mon 21 Jul 2008 19:19 BST
Importantly, William Lovett also wrote and published an autobiography. The Life and Struggles of ... more » Tuesday, July 8
Chartist Ancestors visitors top 40,000 in a year
by
mark
on Tue 08 Jul 2008 13:44 BST
Nearly 40,000 people have visited Chartist Ancestors over the past 12 months. Each visitor looked on average at just over two pages and spent around 2 minutes 20 seconds on the site before moving on elsewhere. I know this because last July I signed up to Google’s Analytics service. ... more » Sunday, July 6
A British Museum perspective on Chartism
by
mark
on Sun 06 Jul 2008 16:39 BST
Neil MacGregor, director ... more » 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 » Thursday, June 19
Isaac Ickeringill: 'Notorious' Bingley Chartist
by
mark
on Thu 19 Jun 2008 12:00 BST
The name of Isaac Ickersgill appears briefly in R G Gammage’s History of the Chartist Movement. Along with a number of other Bingley men, Isaac was charged with having rescued two local Chartists from police custody in the summer of 1848. Not for the first time, however, Gammage made a ... more » Tuesday, June 17
James Watson - Chartist and campaigner for free speech
by
mark
on Tue 17 Jun 2008 09:22 BST
A veteran of the struggle of the unstamped press in the 1820s and 1830s, he became ... more » Sunday, June 8
Chartism Day 2008: rhetoric, song and the Chartist Gothic
by
mark
on Sun 08 Jun 2008 13:46 BST
 Historians from around the The conference was organised by the Society of Labour History, the Chartist Study Group and – as hosts this year – the South Wales Centre ... more » Friday, May 30
The Charter: the voice of London Chartists
by
mark
on Fri 30 May 2008 14:11 BST
A short history of The Charter and those involved with it, including a list of the members of its management committee, now appears on Chartist Ancestors. The paper’s editor was a ... 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 Friday, May 16
How to search the Northern Star for Chartist ancestors
by
mark
on Fri 16 May 2008 14:48 BST
The Northern Star was the most important Chartist newspaper of the period, and remains ... more » Tuesday, May 13
The Northern Star is now online
by
mark
on Tue 13 May 2008 14:24 BST
Go straight to the ... more »
Profile: Peter Bussey - exiled revolutionary
by
mark
on Tue 13 May 2008 11:00 BST
While the careful and politically astute artisans of the London Working Men’s Association were natural behind-the-scenes influencers of politicians and government, Bussey, a Bradford ... more » Thursday, May 8
William Lovett, born 8 May 1800
by
mark
on Thu 08 May 2008 05:00 BST
 Chartist anniversaries fall thick and fast in May. On 7 May 1839, the first Chartist petition was presented to Parliament, and today
is the birthday of William Lovett, the man who wrote the text of the People’s
Charter and served as secretary to the First Chartist Convention of 1839.
Lovett ... more » Tuesday, May 6
Profile: Robert Lowery - Newcastle Chartist
by
mark
on Tue 06 May 2008 16:00 BST
Born in 1809, he first became active in radical politics as secretary to the Newcastle Political Union during the Great Reform Act agitation of 1831 and 1832. By the time of ... more » Friday, May 2
Chartism's high tide: 2 May 1842
by
mark
on Fri 02 May 2008 15:29 BST
As I have pointed out before, there were in fact six petitions in all, but those of 1839, 1842 and 1848 were the three that Chartism is remembered ... 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 » Friday, April 18
John James Bezer and a minor Victorian scandal
by
mark
on Fri 18 Apr 2008 10:00 BST
His story apparently ends some time in 1852, when former comrades inquiring about unpaid ... more » Tuesday, April 15
200 more contributors to the Frost Defence Fund
by
mark
on Tue 15 Apr 2008 15:00 BST
The failed Chartist uprising at Newport in December 1839
came as a huge shock to many Chartists. Those who had prepared for similar
rebellions across the North of England but had been dissuaded from acting must
have been particularly affected by the bloody end to the Welsh rising.
With Frost ... more » Saturday, April 12
In search of GWM Reynolds...
by
mark
on Sat 12 Apr 2008 14:09 BST
GWM Reynolds (as he was more usually known) first achieved notoriety in the Chartist movement after taking the ... 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 » Thursday, April 3
Henry Vincent and the 'Welsh republic'
by
mark
on Thu 03 Apr 2008 09:49 BST
The move has, predictably, angered local Labour politicians, who ... more » Wednesday, April 2
Chartism and the Chartists in university archives
by
mark
on Wed 02 Apr 2008 10:39 BST
So it is good to see that Archives Hub, put together ... more » |
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The Chartist land settlement at Heronsgate has come a long
way since the 1840s. Then it was a refuge for industrial workers seeking a
cottage of their own and two or three acres to farm. Now it is one of the most sought-after
of areas for London commuters.
"We had to shut the main gates on Great Russell Street
to prevent more people from coming in. It was the first time we did that since
the Chartist riots of 1848 - although on that occasion the staff were actually
on the roof, armed with stones."
James Watson was one of the six working men whose names
appear (alongside those of six radical MPs) on the People’s Charter, and played
a prominent role in establishing free speech in this country.
The Charter had all the necessary elements to become one of
the great success stories of the radical press.
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;
Having had a little time to play around with the new online
version of the 
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.
Peter Bussey was everything the originators of the People’s
Charter disliked and feared about the mass of disgruntled and distressed
working people who flooded into Chartism.
Robert Lowery lived an extraordinarily full political life
for a man who died at just 54 years of age. 
On 2 May 1842, the second of the three great national
Chartist petitions demanding the Six Points was presented to Parliament.
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.
John James Bezer (1816-1888) was a relatively minor Chartist
figure, remembered primarily because of his incomplete 
I am delighted to report that the last resting place of the
Chartist journalist George William MacArthur Reynolds has now been added to the
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. 
Chartism appears to have become something of a hot political issue in 