chartists.net news

The Northern Star is now online

mark — Tue, 13 May 2008 14:24:38 +0100

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.

Go straight to the ...

Profile: Peter Bussey - exiled revolutionary

mark — Tue, 13 May 2008 11:00:00 +0100

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.

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 ...

William Lovett, born 8 May 1800

mark — Thu, 08 May 2008 05:00:00 +0100

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 ...

Profile: Robert Lowery - Newcastle Chartist

mark — Tue, 06 May 2008 16:00:00 +0100

Robert Lowery lived an extraordinarily full political life for a man who died at just 54 years of age.

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 ...

Chartism's high tide: 2 May 1842

mark — Fri, 02 May 2008 15:29:11 +0100

On 2 May 1842, the second of the three great national Chartist petitions demanding the Six Points was presented to Parliament.

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 ...

Profile: Thomas Rayner Smart - veteran Chartist patriot

mark — Thu, 01 May 2008 13:00:00 +0100

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.

While representing Loughborough and Leicester at the convention, Smart was profiled by The Charter newspaper. Both the profile and ...

Profile: William Villiers Sankey, Chartist aristocrat

mark — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 13:16:40 +0100

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.

While representing Edinburgh at the convention, Sankey was profiled by The Charter newspaper...

Northern Star: Chartist newspaper online

mark — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 19:00:00 +0100

The single most important source for anyone looking for a Chartist ancestor goes online on Tuesday 13 May, when a free, publicly available and fully searchable run of the Northern Star newspaper is due to be released online.

The three-year Nineteenth Century Serials Edition project will culminate on that day ...

Chartism and the Labour Parliament of 1854

mark — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 12:14:36 +0100

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.

There is no clear date at which Chartism came to an end. For many, the disappointments ...

Chartists.net: beware of spoof emails

mark — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 17:53:08 +0100

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 ...

John James Bezer and a minor Victorian scandal

mark — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 10:00:00 +0100

John James Bezer (1816-1888) was a relatively minor Chartist figure, remembered primarily because of his incomplete Autobiography of One of the Chartist Rebels of 1848, published in instalments during 1851 in the Christian Socialist newspaper.

His story apparently ends some time in 1852, when former comrades inquiring about unpaid ...

200 more contributors to the Frost Defence Fund

mark — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 15:00:00 +0100

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 ...

In search of GWM Reynolds...

mark — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 14:09:11 +0100

I am delighted to report that the last resting place of the Chartist journalist George William MacArthur Reynolds has now been added to the Where are they now? page on Chartist Ancestors.

GWM Reynolds (as he was more usually known) first achieved notoriety in the Chartist movement after taking the ...

Profile: Peter McDouall - Chartist hero

mark — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 11:59:26 +0100

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.

Gaoled twice, losing a daughter during one period of imprisonment due to the terrible conditions suffered by his family, and dying at ...

Henry Vincent and the 'Welsh republic'

mark — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 09:49:06 +0100

Chartism appears to have become something of a hot political issue in Wales, where Plaid Cymru MP Adam Price has laid claim to the Chartist legacy, invoking the Chartist orator Henry Vincent as an early advocate of Welsh independence.

The move has, predictably, angered local Labour politicians, who ...

Chartism and the Chartists in university archives

mark — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 10:39:34 +0100

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 Archives Hub, put together ...

Profile: Dr Matthew Fletcher - convention delegate

mark — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 14:43:13 +0100

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.

While serving as a delegate, he was profiled by The Charter newspaper. Both the profile and the sketch portrait ...

Profile: Robert Knox - convention delegate

mark — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 11:00:00 +0000

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.

That profile, and the sketch portrait of Knox that appeared in the same paper, now appears on Chartist Ancestors ...

More Chartist histories and autobiographies

mark — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 15:00:00 +0000

More and more resources are becoming available online for those who want to study Chartism or find out more about their family’s history in the Chartist movement.

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 ...

A new look at Thomas Clutton Salt

mark — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:27:22 +0000

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.

As part of a small-scale project to republish biographical sketches on 12 of the delegates which ...

Profile: William Lovett - author of the People's Charter

mark — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 13:00:00 +0000

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 third in our series of profiles and portraits of delegates ...

Profile: John Frost - Newport Chartist

mark — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:00:00 +0000

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 second in our series of profiles and sketch portraits taken ...

Profile: Birmingham Chartist Thomas Clutton Salt

mark — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 12:05:02 +0000

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.

The Charter newspaper, published by William Lovett, secretary to the Convention and ...

300 children named Charter

mark — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 19:15:32 +0000

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.

Their names join the hundreds already listed who were ...

1,000 backers for John Frost

mark — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 01:00:00 +0000

Around 1,000 Chartist contributors to the Frost Defence Fund are now named in a page on Chartist Ancestors.

Most Chartists were taken wholly by surprise by the Newport rebellion (pictured left) and were shocked by its bloody failure. Its leader, John Frost, was, after all, among the least likely of ...

A boy named Charter

mark — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 15:45:17 +0000

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....

A souvenir of Chartism

mark — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 14:55:31 +0000

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.

So I was delighted to come across a picture of WJ Linton’s membership card for the People’s Charter Union on the ...

Who Do You Think You Are?

mark — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 13:05:36 +0000

The current issue of the BBC's Who Do You Think You Are? family history magazine has two excellent articles on Chartism and the Chartists.

The first, by Dr Malcolm Chase, reader in labour history at the University of Leeds and author of, among many other things, Chartism: A New History...

Chartism's great class divide

mark — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 01:00:00 +0000

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.

This page has been on the site for some years, but lacked around 100 names. Happily, I have now been able ...

Chartist riots in Trafalgar Square

mark — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 01:00:00 +0000

Today sees the 160^th 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 ...