chartists.net news

History books for Christmas 2011

mark — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 14:15:00 +0000

I have had a good look and reckon these are some of the best history books out for Christmas 2011. If you buy through the History Bookstore, Chartist Ancestors receives a small referral fee.

Books I've selected include:

Dare to Stand Alone - the story of the 19th ...

Newport Chartist Convention: 5 November

mark — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 14:08:00 +0000

This year's Newport Chartist Convention takes place on November 5 at St. Mary's Institute, Stow Hill (next to Westgate hotel building).

A Newport surgeon (Roger Morgan, re-enactor) will report on the injuries sustained in Newport on the morning of November 4th, 1839 and demonstrate how the wounded were treated. ...

Spam, spam, spam, spam...

mark — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 15:32:00 +0100

After some months of being locked out of the admin section of this blog, I have now been able to get access once again and deal with the massive build-up of spam.

Over the course of the past 24 hours I have deleted some 1,200 "comments" and a similar number ...

Chartism Day: Saturday 2 July 2011

mark — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 09:22:00 +0000

Chartism Day is being held at the Brotherton Room, University of Leeds Library, on 2 July 2011.

This distinguished annual event is being held in Leeds for the first time. There will papers on a range of current and recently completed research, and a special exhibition of Chartist materials from ...

The Northern Star has moved

mark — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 13:22:00 +0000

The online version of the Northern Star, the main Chartist newspaper and an invaluable source of information for family historians, has moved, so many of the links from Chartist Ancestors no longer work properly.

The new website address is http://ncse-viewpoint.cch.kcl.ac.uk/. I hope to get round to updating the ...

Labour movement ancestors in the North West?

mark — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 14:20:00 +0100

Are you looking for ancestors in the Greater Manchester area who had some connection with the trade unions or labour movement? Dr Wendy Bottero, an academic at the University of Manchester, would like to interview you for research she is conducting into the work of family historians.

Summarised briefly, ...

Chartist events coming up

mark — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 14:07:00 +0100

Two dates of Chartist interest (with thanks to Malcolm Chase):

Wednesday 28 July 2010, 11.00am, BBC Radio 4: a 30 minute documentary on William Cuffay, the London Chartist (and son of a St Kitts slave) transported to Van Diemans Land in 1848.

NEXT YEAR Saturday 2 July 2011, 10.00-5.00, Brotherton ...

Actor Michael Sheen opens Newport Chartist exhibition

mark — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 15:57:00 +0100

Newport-born actor Michael Sheen officially opened the Chartist exhibition at Newport Museum and Art Gallery on Wednesday 7 April 2010 (see picture below).

Speaking at the opening, Michael Sheen, said: “I was delighted to be at the opening of the exhibition and back in the city of my birth. It ...

Chartist Conference in Paris for 2010

mark — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 11:39:00 +0000

The next annual Chartist Conference will take place in Paris at The Sorbonne, between 2 - 4 July 2010.
See conference details in English. See conference details in French.

At this stage, the programme includes:

Malcolm Chase (University of Leeds), “What next for Chartist Studies?”

Greg Vargo (Columbia ...

Interview: Richard Brown on Three Rebellions

mark — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 12:05:00 +0000

Richard Brown is the author of Three Rebellions: Canada 1837-1838, South Wales 1839 and Victoria, Australia 1854, published in January 2010 and available from the Chartist Ancestors history bookstore.

Richard was a series editor for Cambridge Topics in History contributing two books Economic Revolutions in Britain, 1750-1850 and ...

Chartist newspapers go online

mark — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:13:00 +0100

Many of the most significant Chartist newspapers have now become available online to the public thanks to a British Library initiative to digitise and publish more than 2 million pages of material from 19th century newspapers.

Among the papers that can now be viewed are the Charter, Chartist, Chartist Circular, ...

Tracing your Chartist and trade union ancestors - the book

mark — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 11:08:00 +0100

I have a book coming out in the autumn. Tracing Your Labour Movement Ancestors: A Guide for Family Historians is aimed at anyone wanting to look into the trade union and labour aspects of their family history, and also has a big chunk on Chartism.

The book will be out ...

Labour History Review focus on Chartism

mark — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 10:00:00 +0100

The latest issue of the Labour History Review is given over entirely to a series of articles on Chartism, and is well worth getting hold of if you can.

Some of the best known academics in the field of Chartist studies (some of whom appear elsewhere on Chartist Ancestors) have ...

Edward Truelove's Chartist bookshop

mark — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 18:04:00 +0000

Edward Truelove's bookshop in John Street must have been a familiar haunt for many London Chartists.

If ever there were Chartist fundraising or social events in the capital, Truelove's shop was sure to be listed in the Northern Star as one of the principal outlets for ticket sales. In addition, ...

Who framed Samuel Holberry?

mark — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 10:28:00 +0000

Untitled Document

Samuel Holberry died in gaol, a Chartist martyr, his health broken by two years of imprisonment after he was found guilty of seditious conspiracy. But was he really planning an armed uprising that would seize control of Sheffield and spark insurrection across the north of England?

Up to ...

The poetry of Chartism analysed

mark — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 10:02:00 +0000

More than 1,000 poems appeared in the pages of the Northern Star, the principal Chartist newspaper, from its launch in 1838 to closure in 1852. This body of work, possibly constituting the most widely read collection of poetry in the Victorian era, is now examined in a new book, titled ...

170th anniversary of the Newport Chartist rising

mark — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 17:01:00 +0000

A series of events to mark the 170th anniversary of the Chartist rising at Newport in South Wales begins on Saturday 18 April with events in Merthyr Tudfel market square.

Events continue through the year and on into January 2010 - the 170th anniversary of the day on which the ...

Chartism: A New History - some views

mark — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 14:21:00 +0000

If ever I am asked to recommend a single book about Chartism and the Chartists, I suggest Malcolm Chase's Chartism: A New History.

Published in 2007, it is the first significant overview of the Chartist movement to be published in many years, and is in addition both eminently helpful ...

Chartist Circular: the voice of Scottish Chartism

mark — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 09:23:00 +0000

The Chartist Circular was among the most important and certainly one of the longest-lived of the many newspapers that sprang out of Chartism in Scotland.

Launched in September 1839 by the former handloom weaver and co-operator William Thomson, the paper was published weekly “from the steam press of W & ...

Chartist commemorative events in Newport

mark — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 08:50:00 +0100

A month of activities to mark the anniversary of the Chartist uprising in Newport, South Wales, begins this week with a lecture at Merthyr Tydfil library followed by a guided walk and coach tour, plays and other events.

Thousands of men from across south Wales marched on Newport on 4 ...

Chartist Ancestors calendar for 2009

mark — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 18:00:00 +0100

If you would like a Chartist Ancestors calendar for 2009, you can now get one simply by clicking this link. This year's calendar, which shows all 12 months on a single side of A4, includes a picture of a medallion issued to mark Feargus O'Connor's release from prison, and ...

Mark Hovell and The Chartist Movement

mark — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 10:45:00 +0100

It has been claimed that between 1854 and 1916, “not a single book of permanent value on the history of Chartism had been published in England”.

This is certainly going too far: the autobiographies and memoirs published by Thomas Cooper (1872), George Jacob Holyoake (1892) and W E Adams (1903) ...

Feargus O'Connor: died 30 August 1855

mark — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 17:26:00 +0100

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 ...

Chartism and an Ashton under Lyne print business

mark — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 11:42:00 +0100

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 ...

A house on the Chartist estate: £2.5 million

mark — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 11:08:00 +0100

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.

I came ...

William Lovett: autobiography of a Chartist

mark — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:19:00 +0100

William Lovett occupies a pivotal place in the history of Chartism. He drafted the People’s Charter, was secretary to the London Working Men’s Association, and subsequently served as secretary to the first Chartist Convention of 1839.

Importantly, William Lovett also wrote and published an autobiography. The Life and Struggles of ...

Chartist Ancestors visitors top 40,000 in a year

mark — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 13:44:00 +0100

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. ...

A British Museum perspective on Chartism

mark — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 16:39:00 +0100

"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."

Neil MacGregor, director ...

The Northern Star: a Chartist newspaper in numbers

mark — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 14:01:00 +0100

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 ...

Cooper and O'Neill: the Chartist prisoners

mark — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 13:37:00 +0100

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 ...