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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 » Tuesday, May 13
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 » 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 » |
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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.
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. 
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.