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View Article  Edward Truelove's Chartist bookshop

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, ...   more »

View Article  Feargus O'Connor: died 30 August 1855
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 »
View Article  William Lovett: autobiography of a Chartist

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 ...   more »

View Article  Cooper and O'Neill: the Chartist prisoners
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 »
View Article  Isaac Ickeringill: 'Notorious' Bingley Chartist

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 »

View Article  James Watson - Chartist and campaigner for free speech

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.

A veteran of the struggle of the unstamped press in the 1820s and 1830s, he became ...   more »

View Article  Profile: John Skevington - Leicestershire Chartist

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.

The series ends here because this is the point at which The Charter newspaper drew to ...   more »

View Article  Profile: Henry Hetherington – radical publisher

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.

He would later go on ...   more »

View Article  Profile: Peter Bussey - exiled revolutionary

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 ...   more »

View Article  William Lovett, born 8 May 1800
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 »

View Article  Profile: Robert Lowery - Newcastle Chartist

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 ...   more »

View Article  Profile: Thomas Rayner Smart - veteran Chartist patriot

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 ...   more »

View Article  Profile: William Villiers Sankey, Chartist aristocrat

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...   more »

View Article  John James Bezer and a minor Victorian scandal

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 ...   more »

View Article  200 more contributors to the Frost Defence Fund
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 »

View Article  In search of GWM Reynolds...

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 ...   more »

View Article  Profile: Peter McDouall - Chartist hero

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 ...   more »

View Article  Henry Vincent and the 'Welsh republic'

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 ...   more »

View Article  Chartism and the Chartists in university archives

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 ...   more »

View Article  Profile: Dr Matthew Fletcher - convention delegate

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 ...   more »

View Article  Profile: Robert Knox - convention delegate

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 »

View Article  More Chartist histories and autobiographies

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 ...   more »

View Article  A new look at Thomas Clutton Salt

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 ...   more »

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

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 ...   more »

View Article  Profile: John Frost - Newport Chartist

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 ...   more »

View Article  Profile: Birmingham Chartist Thomas Clutton Salt

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 ...   more »

View Article  300 children named Charter

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 ...   more »

View Article  1,000 backers for John Frost

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 ...   more »

View Article  A boy named Charter

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 »

View Article  A souvenir of Chartism

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 ...   more »

MEET THE EDITOR
Hello and welcome to chartists.net news. My name is Mark Crail, and I set up Chartist Ancestors back in 2003. I have been building it up ever since with the help of many very kind individuals who have provided both information and advice. This blog aims to highlight new additions to the site and developments in the wider world of Chartist studies. I hope you find it and the main site both informative and enjoyable.

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