chartism

chartism (1837–54) was the first attempt to build an independent political party representing the interests of the labouring and unprivileged sections of the nation. For many of its followers chartism was basically ‘a knife and fork question’. Yet its programme was a series of political demands. The link between economic ills and political representation was constantly elaborated in chartist pamphlets and oratory.

The chartists were so named because they formulated their demands in a six-point charter: universal (manhood) suffrage, annual parliaments, vote by (secret) ballot, abolition of property qualifications for MPs, payment of MPs, and equal electoral districts. The object was to make the charter the law of the land by legal, constitutional means if possible, or by force if necessary—or by a mixture of both: ‘peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must.’ Great efforts were made to collect support for a petition to the House of Commons on behalf of the charter, but on each occasion the House rejected its demands. Alternative methods were therefore advocated. There were plans for making the central body of chartist delegates, the national convention, a people's parliament which would bypass Westminster; a general strike (‘national holiday’) was attempted in August 1839; and local riots, and perhaps an abortive insurrection (the Newport rising) in November 1839, showed that ‘physical force’ might not be ruled out.

In its origins chartism was an umbrella movement which drew together many strands of radical grievance. In London and the provinces Working Men's Associations were formed in 1837, building on the remains of earlier radical reform organizations. In Birmingham, the movement at first was closely allied with middle-class radicals and currency reformers. In Leeds, Owenite socialists combined with middle-class radicals and physical-force militants to launch the Leeds Working Men's Association. In other towns of the West Riding and the industrial North local movements and grievances (including the 1834 New Poor Law) provided a basis for chartism, which was thus not so much a national movement as a series of local and regional movements, loosely federated. This posed a problem of concerted action which was never solved. Attempts to build a national organization repeatedly fell apart; and the most effective link between chartists was the widely read chartist newspaper the Northern Star.

The geography of chartism reflected the national economic and social structure. Wherever there was a substantial number of skilled artisans, especially shoemakers, printers, tailors, and cabinet-makers, a chartist organization on the lines of the Working Men's Associations was to be expected, with an emphasis on self-help, independence, and propaganda for universal suffrage. Such was the movement in London or Birmingham. But in areas where there were substantial numbers of distressed hand-loom weavers or framework-knitters (as in Lancashire, the West Riding, and the midlands) chartism assumed a fiercer visage and adopted a more strident tone, expressed in mass demonstrations and torchlight meetings on the moors.

Just as the local variations of chartism were related to the structure of the economy, so the chronology of the movement reflected the cycle of booms and slumps between 1836 and 1851. The first climax of chartism came in the winter of 1839 during a severe trade depression. In 1842 a second peak of chartist activity was reached, arising out of mass unemployment in the northern towns. The last great flare-up of chartism came in 1848, following a winter of economic recession and inspired by revolutions on the continent. In periods of relative prosperity (1843–7 and after 1848) chartism lost its mass support. It then became a movement promoting education, temperance, municipal reforms, and settlement on the land—while never losing faith that universal suffrage would some day, somehow, be won. After 1848, as a curious epilogue, a group of chartists tried to steer the movement towards socialism and the international working-class movement of Marx and Engels.

Though the chartists failed at the time to achieve their six points, they were, with the exception of annual parliaments, realized later.

John F. C. Harrison

Bibliography

Ward, J. T. , Chartism (1973).