The Chartist movement was formed in 1838 out of the earlier reform movement of the 1830’s. It consisted of the London Working Men’s Association, the Birmingham Political Union, and anti-poor law agitators. From these Radical organisations the Chartist movement’s national leaders were to come; William Lovett, a craftsman, Julian Harney, a journalist, to name a couple, and perhaps the most famous leader, Feargus O’Connor, a former Irish MP. This loose grouping then, would form the basis of the movement known as the Chartists. And what was their Charter? Well, it contained six main points:-
A Vote for Every Man twenty-one years of age and over, of sound mind and not in prison.
The Secret Ballot. To permit electors to cast their vote as they wished.
No Property Qualification for Members Of Parliament. To enable any man to be returned, regardless of personal wealth. If he won the votes, he took the seat for that constituency.
Payment of Members of Parliament. To allow any MP to serve his constituency without personal loss. Also to prevent corruption of MPs by vested interests.
Equal Electoral Constituencies. Giving equal representation to equal numbers of electors.
Annual Parliaments. To prevent wealthy candidates buying a constituency and make
MPs accountable to their electorate.
Called the People’s Charter, it was named after the Magna Carta of 1215. This new Charter was written in the style of a Parliamentary Bill, which the Radicals hoped to get passed in the House. It did contain a number of economic grievances and included a brief reference to monetary reform but its main impetus was Universal Secret Suffrage. It was designed to win rights for the people which were being denied them by the present parliamentary system. Many working people had helped campaigners for the 1832 Great Reform Bill. This had enfranchised around half a million more men – men of wealth and property. Too bad if you were a pottery turner or collier. The Whigs and Tories only wanted you if you could vote for them. The Bill had given the huge new industrial cities direct Parliamentary representation for the first time. But it hadn’t given the vote to the working men whose labour and sweat had created the new cities, and the new wealth. These working men were horrified to find that they were to get no support from the very middle classes whom they had helped to enfranchise. In the Upper House Lord Durham argued that once the bill was passed, the middle classes would be the friends and allies of the government. The Government of the day, having secured the future of the country, simply wanted now to carry on as before. This grievance was the driving force behind the Chartist movement.
Whilst it might seem odd that ordinary working men wanted the vote, and political influence, they realised that the best way in which they could improve their lives was to gain political control of the House of Commons, or at least influence it sufficiently, so that they could use that influence and power to improve conditions. They could cut taxes on bread, reduce the working week, improve wages, increase standards of living for the millions who were toiling unrecognised and unrepresented. The Chartists believed that “universal suffrage was a knife and fork question”. This was the chance to change the state of the nation forever. By the end of 1838 there were Chartists in virtually every town throughout Britain. The Birmingham Chartists had the idea of sending the House of Commons a request, in the form of a petition, asking the House to enact the People’s Charter. To enable the drawing up of this petition the Birmingham Chartists also suggested that a meeting of delegates should take place in London. In February 1839 the Chartists met at the British Coffee House, Cockspur Street, London. It took the “People’s Parliament” until May to prepare the petition of 1,280,000 signatures from around the country. That May the convention moved to Birmingham, and sat for another two months discussing what do when, as seemed certain, Parliament rejected the Charter. Here the Chartists started to break into the factions that would so characterise the movement. Two distinct groups developed, the “moral force” Chartists and the “physical force” Chartists.
The “moral force” Chartists wanted only peaceful methods of persuasion to be used, and were prepared to spend years convincing Parliament of the moral necessity for the Charter. The “physical force” Chartists were altogether more impatient. They wanted the Charter, and they wanted it now! They were so vocal and insistent in their language and actions in Birmingham that the “moral force” Chartists withdrew from the convention. With the rejection of the petition the “physical force” Chartist, Julian Harney, called for a General Strike. He believed that when the strikers could not afford food they would rise up and take it by force. A revolution would follow, and succeed. “Before the end of the year, the people shall have universal suffrage or death.” However, not all the “physical force” Chartists were in earnest. Some simply wanted to bluff the government into giving the Charter. They felt that a revolution could not really succeed as the Chartists would have to face soldiers in pitched battle, without training or proper weapons. Feargus O’Connor, the most powerful orator amongst the Chartists, and the leader of the “physical force” group even said “they would not be so foolish to bare their naked bodies to disciplined soldiers”. Still, a General Strike was decided upon. The Convention declared a General Strike or “National Holiday” for the 12th August 1839. And then lost its nerve. Many delegates had second thoughts. They had convinced themselves, in the months since they first sat, that a strike would end in “the utter subjection of the whole of the working class to the moneyed murderers of society”. The Strike was off, the time for revolution was not yet right. There were some who felt that the time was right, and in Newport, South Wales, an armed uprising took place, reluctantly led by John Frost, who had been the Convention chairman when it dissolved in September after calling off the strike. This was poorly organised, and ended in disaster, as did so many Chartist risings.
Twenty-two Chartists were killed by soldiers, and the remaining rioters fled. The ringleaders were rounded up, and Frost, who was fifty-six at the time, was sentenced to death. This was commuted to transportation for life. He was the first of the Chartist Martyrs. As we shall soon see, the Potteries were to produce its own Chartist Martyr in the troubles to come. In July the House of Commons, elected by less than five percent of the people of Britain, rejected the first petition and the Charter by 237 votes to 48. Still, twenty percent of the House had supported the Bill. The Chartists continued to work for the Charter, both peaceably and by force. A further two petitions were to be presented to Parliament, one in 1842 and another in 1848. All were rejected. In the second petition, presented in May 1842, over three million signatures had been collected. T.S.Duncombe, MP, presented the Chartist address to the House. The voting was 287 against the Charter, just 51 for. This time support for the Charter in the House was only eighteen percent. In the third petition, presented in April 1848, five million, seven hundred thousand signatures were collected. The House of Commons, surprised by the size of the petition, appointed a commission to look into it. The commission quickly reported that there were less than two million genuine signatures, and the rest were either fictitious or fatuous. Names ranged from Victoria Rex, and The Duke of Wellington, to Flatnose. Some writers have suggested that these “false” signatures proved the Chartists were frauds. But it should be remembered that the use of pseudonyms such as Punch or The Duke of Wellington should not automatically be equated with forgery. The parliamentary clerks had misread a traditional popular means of expression. Subscription lists to radical periodicals and “victim funds” had for years abounded with such names, which nevertheless represented genuine people who either wanted to keep their identities private, for example from their employers, or who wished to make fun of the authorities. Further doubt was cast upon some of the signatures because they were written in one hand. But again it should be remembered that Chartism appealed to the thirty percent of society who could not even sign their own name. There was no intent of forgery in that. The third petition was never actually voted upon, but it was put to the House in July 1849 by Feargus O’Connor. Only 15 votes were in favour. The movement was to continue until at least 1858 but it was no longer effective in promoting its aims. By 1868 though, workers were to find a new national voice, one which could achieve a decent and just living for honest men – the Trades Union Congress. But that is a separate story, one which could not have happened without Chartism – the greatest and saddest of all the working class movements in the mid nineteenth century.
Two contrasting contemporary views of Feargus O’Connor. One as the firebrand demagogue and the other as the statesman-like political leader.
Here, for our purposes, we go back to August 1838 and the formation of the Potteries Political Union. Feargus O’Connor, the great national Chartist leader visited the area and made a speech at a meeting of the Union in November, when over five thousand people were present. All the names which were to become important in local Chartism were present, including William Ellis, John Richards, and Joseph Capper. O’Connor addressed that rally in Hanley with the following words, “You have about 130 master potters who annually share about one million’s worth of your labour. Now, £250,000 would be more than ample for risk and speculation, and the remaining £750,000 would make you independent of the three Devil Kings of Somerset House.” The three Devil Kings referred to were the three Poor Law Commissioners in London. O’Connor was a most impressive speaker and he created an enthusiasm in local people which had never been seen before in the area. It was decided at this time to elect a delegate to the first Chartist convention due to be held in the February of the next year. John Richards was nominated and chosen to represent the Potteries. The meeting continued for some five hours, with Joseph Capper closing it and calling for torchlight meetings and a Sacred Week. Sacred Weeks were Chartist rhetoric for strikes. Afterwards, a dinner was held for about one hundred and twenty Chartists at the Sea Lion Hotel. This type of social event was very common with the Chartists. Tea parties, dances, and dinners were the acceptable face of Chartism. For the next few years local Chartists were widely tolerated by the authorities, and local paid-up membership neared one thousand. Popular support was even greater by 1842, when ten thousand signatures were collected for the 1842 petition. By July 1842, following another visit from O’Connor, there were eight separate National Charter Associations in North Staffordshire. Revolutionary activity can be seen from the many reports of guns and pikes being sold, secret meetings, and even in some areas suggestions of night-time drilling with arms, preparing for the war to come. Other activity can be seen from the large quantities of radical newspapers and books being sold. One of the most popular items was a drink called “The Chartist Beverage”, distributed by local teetotal Chartists, who bought quantities of up-to one hundred and twenty pounds a week of it from Thomas Cooper. The beverage was in fact a coffee substitute, as real coffee was too expensive for the ordinary working man.
In North Staffordshire there was also an active Women’s Chartist Movement. They had their own meetings; and were known as the Female National Charter Association of Upper Hanley and Smallthorne. The main appeal of the women’s movement was to persuade men that women were equally deserving of the vote. Much the same arguments were put forward for women receiving the vote as for men. Their most prominent moment locally was on the visit of Feargus O’Connor to the Potteries. About three hundred of them, along with a band, marched through Lane End to Hanley, each carrying a white wand. Feargus O’Connor spoke of his visit as a “glorious gathering”.
Throughout this period the Chartists had been gaining strength and growing in opposition to the Poor Laws and the Tory gentry. Chartists began to encourage men to apply for poor relief, making the system virtually unworkable. In late July 1842, the Burslem and Stoke workhouses were receiving four to five hundred new applications for assistance each day. The Trustees began to complain of Chartist involvement. Though only some of this could be due to Chartist encouragement, much was undoubtedly due to real need. In early August, Capper, Ellis and Richards addressed crowds in Hanley whilst processions of men on outdoor relief marched past. By the summer of 1842 which saw the Potteries in the grip of the worst trade depression of the nineteenth century. And suddenly the Chartists offered hope and opportunity. The Chartists felt that now was the time to give working men the chance to run their own lives. They believed that if they could develop influence then they would be able to affect foreign policy, which determined export trade, the life blood of the new cities, and force masters to pay fair wages and ensure ongoing work. They could do away with the poor houses and all the social stigmas that 1840’s Britain subjected them to. Best of all, as they saw it, for the first time the people who created the wealth could actually share in it.
The Chartist troubles in North Staffordshire were to grow out of straightforward industrial unrest. It was the beginning of July, 1842. 300 colliers at Mr Sparrow’s pits in Longton had been on strike for several weeks now. Their grievance, like so many strikes of the period, was that they felt they could not live on reduced wages. Mr Sparrow was trying to cut them from 3s7d a day to just 3s. He had a legal requirement to give two week’s notice of this reduction, but chose instead simply to attempt to impose it at once. Sparrow could afford the lock out. Coal prices had dropped, wages were to his mind too high, and a lock out at least stopped the wage bill. Prices would get better again in due course; in the mean time it was to be lower wages, or no wages. He was in no rush to settle. This attitude was a common problem for working men at the time. It seemed that they were at the mercy of an economy they could not influence, with masters who would exploit them at any opportunity and they were left feeling the only way to affect change was by their own militancy.
By the middle of July the Staffordshire Advertiser was reporting that “lawless mobs, chiefly colliers, have been going about the district forcibly stopping the men from work at the numerous collieries with which it abounds and creating much terror in the public mind by their unlawful proceedings”. The style of this reporting shows no wrong on the part of the mine owner, Mr Sparrow, just that the colliers were an unruly rabble. There was much press coverage trying to show that many working people had no time for strikers. There was perhaps some truth in this, in that wages were so low that few could afford the loss of earnings from coming out on strike, or suffering in a lock out. Lord Granville’s works at Shelton became embroiled in the trouble. He had ordered his agent to cut wages by 6d a day. He had seen his opportunity to drive wages down, and seized it. The men came out. A meeting in Hanley decided that the strike should become general. With intimidation and violence the colliers succeeded in spreading the strike.
The bands of men visited virtually every mine and iron works in the district, stopping engines, and pulling plugs from boilers. This was the action which in Lancashire was to be known as The Plug Plot. This type of activity was being repeated throughout Britain. Of course, these strikes resulted in a lack of coal. The kilns in the potbanks could not be fired. The pottery workers were unable to work as a result, and they joined the ranks of unemployed in the area. However, they were fairly willing to join the turn-outs, having received support from colliers in their two great disputes in 1834 and 1836. Still, it was reported that the mobs were spreading the strike and forcing even agricultural workers to join the strike. By this time there were some five thousand workers on strike, and many more simply could not work for lack of coal. Men and their families were literally beginning to starve to death from wages so low they could not afford to buy bread. The miners decided that this was the moment to turn the tide in their direction. The Committee of Operative Colliers decided to demand a pay-rise, an eight hour day, free coal, to be paid in cash, and that five nights’ work should be paid as six days. These were bold requests, coming in the middle of the worst depression of the century, with little incentive for the employers to settle. The local magistrates panicked, called out the yeomanry, and bombarded the Home Office with demands for troops. As a result of these requests, troops of infantry were moved from Newcastle to the Hanley race course. This military pressure, added to the now lengthy strike, began to weaken the will of the striking miners and by the beginning of August a partial return to work was underway, with the colliery owners promising to look at the men’s grievances. It is not hard to imagine hungry men, after striking for several weeks, being enticed back to work. The wandering bands of men, demanding money with threats of violence, began to disperse. They were to find the colliery owners’ word untrustworthy, and it would in fact take some years more before miners were able to get worthwhile concessions from the masters.
The authorities hoped it was all over. They were wrong. There were to be more disturbances that summer. On Saturday 6th August there was a new turn out at two pits and trouble in Burslem. Three men, miners, begging for money and food, using a box in Burslem market, were arrested for vagrancy, and were locked up under Burslem Town Hall. As word spread of this, miners from the area decided to free the men. At around midnight a crowd of two hundred attacked the lock up, freeing the three miners, and others incarcerated with them. They broke the windows of the police superintendent’s house and various buildings were damaged. One of the mob, George Colclough, known locally as Cogsey Nelly, along with a companion, climbed the Town Hall tower and broke the illuminated dial of the clock. The hearts of the Burslem Market Trustees, who were immensely proud of their new clock, with its illuminated, transparent face put up a reward of £20 for the capture of those responsible. The Staffordshire Advertiser for the 13th August reported “The perpetrators of these wanton outrages are believed to consist principally of the more disaffected turn-out colliers, instigated, there is but little doubt, by the Chartists”. The miners seem to have had the courage of their convictions, for the same report goes on to say that when troops who had arrived a day later left the area, a mob of one hundred and fifty went immediately to the police station and demanded the return of the box the men had been using. They then continued soliciting contributions from the inhabitants of the town.
The Chartist involvement in these troubles had been quite subtle. They provided men to spy on the military, as in the case of Edward Sale who was caught at the race course camp. They provided speakers at rallies and meetings, and John Richards, whom we shall hear more about, was the signatory of their public appeal for support. Potteries Chartists travelled to talk at meetings through the whole area and the lead shown by the miners in North Staffordshire was followed throughout the West Midlands and North. In particular, Shropshire and Cheshire fell under the influence of the orators. Strikes were taking place throughout the country at this time, and the Chartists saw their opportunity to call for a National Holiday. The anniversary of the Peterloo Massacre, August 16th, 1819, was approaching. Here was a tremendous opportunity for getting publicity and attention. Industrial unrest was certainly not a new event in any of the modern cities and towns but, practically for the first time, this was an organised attempt to mobilise the working classes against the property owning classes. Chartist ‘missionaries’ were instructed to go out and talk to the workers in the industrial cities and towns of the North and Midlands. And so the missionaries started to offer working men and to some degree women, “the vote and more to eat” and the chance to stop “dying to live”. This attitude of support for ordinary working people was to give the Chartists great popular appeal. That appeal was to be mingled with violence in 1842!
Thomas Cooper
From a woodcut published by Dr. Gammage
potteriesmartyrs 