The Chartist Movement

Podcast Transcript

The mid-19th century saw the rise of the first mass working-class political movement in British history.

Despite being a working-class movement, they sought reforms in the British political system, not necessarily economic.

Their grievances were set out in six points, known as The People’s Charter, which was signed by millions of people.

While their demands at the time were considered radical, they probably wouldn’t raise an eyebrow today.

Learn more about the Chartist Movement and their demands on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

Before the nineteenth century, voting rights in Britain developed slowly and unevenly, shaped more by medieval custom and land ownership than by any concept of popular democracy.

In the Middle Ages, representation through Parliament emerged as a means for the crown to consult landowners, towns, and clergy. Milestones such as Magna Carta helped establish limits on royal authority but not political rights for ordinary people.

From the fourteenth century onward, the right to vote in county elections was primarily restricted to “forty shilling freeholders,” a property qualification that excluded the vast majority of the population.

By the early modern period, Parliament had become central to governance, especially after the Civil Wars and the Glorious Revolution of 1688, yet voting remained limited, unequal, and frequently corrupt, with many “rotten boroughs” having tiny electorates and large industrial towns having none at all.

As a result, on the eve of the nineteenth century, Britain possessed a powerful parliamentary system but one that represented only a small, propertied minority rather than the nation as a whole.

The Great Reform Act of 1832 was the first major overhaul of Britain’s electoral system and was designed to address its most obvious injustices without creating an actual democracy.

It abolished many of the “rotten boroughs” with tiny electorates, redistributed seats to growing industrial towns, and modestly expanded the franchise by lowering property qualifications in boroughs.

While it increased the number of voters and made representation more rational, it still excluded most working-class men and all women, leaving political power firmly in the hands of property owners.

The act mattered less for what it immediately achieved than for what it signaled, namely that Parliament could be reformed under popular pressure, opening the door to further changes later in the nineteenth century.

It was disappointment with the Great Reform Act, combined with harsh economic conditions during the “Hungry Forties,” including the depression of 1837-1842, rising unemployment, and the widely despised Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, that created an atmosphere of discontent.

Prior to this, there had been movements among British workers, such as the Luddites, but most were small, regional, or unorganized. However, by the late 1830s, the events that had unfolded were unifying workers across Britain.

There became a consensus amongst the working class that the answer to their problems lay in political reforms.

These demands for political reform were eventually codified in a document which became known as the People’s Charter. It was the People’s Charter that gave the Chartist Movement its name.

The People’s Charter was created in 1838 as an attempt to turn decades of working-class political grievance into a clear, unified program for parliamentary reform.

It was primarily drafted by William Lovett, a London-based radical associated with the Working Men’s Association, with significant input from the veteran reformer Francis Place.

Lovett and his allies believed that earlier reform movements had failed because their demands were vague or fragmented, so the goal of the Charter was to state precisely what political changes were required to make Parliament genuinely representative.

The drafting process grew out of meetings and discussions within the London Working Men’s Association, which brought together skilled workers, artisans, and radical thinkers committed to peaceful reform.

Drawing on long-standing radical traditions that stretched back to the eighteenth century, the authors distilled these ideas into six demands that addressed the core structural barriers preventing working men from political participation.

These demands were not new in themselves, but the Charter’s importance lay in presenting them together, in simple language, as a single national platform that ordinary people could understand and support.

At the time, the demands were considered to be radical, but I’m guessing most of you might find them oddly noncontroversial.

The first demand was for universal male suffrage, which sought to give all adult men the right to vote, regardless of property ownership. Chartists believed that without the vote, workers had no peaceful way to protect their wages, working conditions, or livelihoods, and that political inequality made economic exploitation inevitable.

The second demand called for a secret ballot. It was intended to protect voters from intimidation, bribery, and retaliation. Voting in early nineteenth-century Britain was public, allowing landlords, employers, and local elites to pressure voters or punish them for supporting the “wrong” candidate.

Secret ballots would allow individuals to vote according to their conscience rather than fear.

The third demand was for ?the abolition of property qualifications for members of parliament. These requirements ensured that even if working men could vote, they could not realistically be elected.

Ending them was meant to make Parliament accessible to talent and conviction rather than wealth.

The fourth demand was for payment for Members of Parliament. This aimed to open political office to people without independent wealth. Serving as an MP was unpaid, effectively restricting Parliament to the rich, who could afford to live in London and campaign without compensation.

Paying MPs would allow skilled workers and middle-class reformers to stand for office, making Parliament more socially representative.

The fifth demand was for equal electoral districts, which addressed the extreme imbalance in representation that characterized Parliament. Many industrial cities with large populations had few or no MPs, while tiny rural boroughs with handfuls of voters could send members to Parliament. This was still an issue even after the reforms of 1832.

Chartists argued that constituencies should have roughly equal populations so that each vote carried similar weight.

The sixth demand was for annual parliamentary elections. This was proposed as a way to ensure accountability. At the time, general elections were infrequent, and MPs could hold their seats for years with little oversight.

Frequent elections, Chartists believed, would keep representatives responsive to voters’ needs and reduce corruption by limiting how long MPs could ignore public opinion.

The movement quickly gained momentum through a combination of mass meetings, petitions, and a radical press. Chartist newspapers like the Northern Star, edited by the charismatic Irish orator Feargus O’Connor, became enormously popular, with circulation figures that rivaled mainstream publications.

The movement organized massive demonstrations that brought tens of thousands of people together in displays of working-class solidarity, alarming the authorities. In 1839, the first great petition was presented to Parliament, containing 1.28 million signatures, though Parliament rejected it decisively by 235 votes to 46.

Chartism was never a monolithic movement but rather contained significant internal tensions between different strategies and philosophies. The “moral force” Chartists, associated with figures like William Lovett, believed in peaceful agitation, education, and rational persuasion.

They organized lectures, established reading rooms, and promoted self-improvement as a means to demonstrate working-class fitness for political participation.

By contrast, the “physical force” Chartists, influenced by O’Connor and others, advocated for more militant tactics and were willing to threaten or use violence if necessary to achieve their aims.

This division would plague the movement throughout its existence, with debates over tactics often overshadowing the fundamental unity of purpose.

The movement experienced three major waves of activity, each marked by the presentation of a monster petition to Parliament.

After the rejection of the first petition in 1839, frustration led to the Newport Rising in Wales that November, when several thousand Chartists marched on the town, resulting in a confrontation with soldiers that left more than twenty demonstrators dead.

The leaders were sentenced to death, but their sentences were later commuted to transportation to Australia. This violent episode damaged the movement’s reputation but demonstrated just how serious its supporters were.

The second petition, presented in 1842 during another economic downturn, was even larger, reportedly containing over three million signatures. Parliament again rejected it overwhelmingly.

This rejection sparked the “Plug Plot” riots, in which workers in the industrial north removed plugs from steam engine boilers to halt production, effectively initiating a general strike. The government responded with mass arrests and the transportation of leaders to Australia, temporarily crushing the movement’s momentum.

The final great petition came in 1848, a year of revolutions across Europe that seemed to promise dramatic change.

The Chartists organized a massive demonstration on Kennington Common in London, planning to march on Parliament with their petition, which they claimed contained nearly six million signatures.

The government, fearing revolution similar to those that had engulfed continental Europe, mobilized troops and special constables. The demonstration, while large, was ultimately peaceful, and the march to Parliament was called off.

When the petition was examined, it was found to contain fewer than two million signatures, many of them fraudulent, including supposed signatures from Queen Victoria and the Duke of Wellington.

This humiliation effectively marked the end of Chartism as a mass movement.

The movement gradually dissipated after 1848 for several reasons. Economic conditions improved in the 1850s, reducing some of the desperation that had fueled Chartist agitation. The movement’s leadership was divided and demoralized by repeated failures.

Many working people began to focus their energies on trade unions and cooperative societies rather than political reform. The middle classes, initially sympathetic to some Chartist demands, had been frightened by the revolutionary events of 1848 in Europe and withdrew their support.

While Chartism as a movement failed, the ideas they fought for didn’t die with them. In fact, you might have noticed that their six radical demands didn’t seem very radical at all. Pretty much every democratic country in the world has adopted all of these points, and in most cases has gone even further.

Over the next several decades, five of the six demands were implemented by the Parliament.

Property qualifications for MPs were abolished in 1858.

The secret ballot was introduced in 1872.

Electoral districts were gradually equalized through reform acts later in the 19th century.

MPs began receiving payment in 1911.

Universal male suffrage was effectively achieved by 1918, with full voting rights extended to women in 1928.

The only thing that wasn’t implemented was annual elections for parliament, which occur at most every five years, which is still much better than what it used to be. Nonetheless, the principle of regular electoral accountability became firmly established.

While Chartism itself failed as a movement, the impact of Chartism on British society was profound. It normalized the idea that working people had a legitimate claim to political participation and helped create a lasting culture of popular protest, organization, and political education.

Many Chartists went on to become leaders in trade unionism and municipal reform movements.

The movement also forced the British state to confront the risks of exclusion and repression, encouraging a more gradual and inclusive path of reform compared to the violent revolutions seen elsewhere in Europe.

Internationally, Chartism resonated beyond Britain’s borders. It influenced democratic and labor movements in Ireland, Australia, and North America, particularly among British emigrants who carried Chartist ideas with them.

The Chartists aren’t very well known today, but they were a profoundly influential movement in mid-19th-century Britain. Even if their name isn’t common knowledge, their ideals have become a part of almost every democracy in the world.

The Executive Producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The Associate Producers are Austin Oetken and Cameron Kieffer.

Today’s review comes from listener Freddy 3201 on Apple Podcasts in the United States. They Write:

Great show!

My brother is obsessed with this show, and I enjoy listening to it on long car rides and on the way to restaurants. He’s also in the completionist club, and I only hope I can listen to all the episodes.

By the way, do you have any episodes on Dungeons and Dragons?

Thanks, Freddy! I hope you will soon join your brother in the completionist club. You know what they say: the family that completes together……eats together?

As of today, I have not done an episode on Dungeons and Dragons. For that matter, I have not done episodes on either dungeons or dragons.

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