Backgrou

Chartist- Introduction

Key Questions
1) What caused working people to protest so vigorously and so consistently for political change?
2) What did Chartists believe?
3) Was Chartist just a movement of economically depressed workers?
4) Was Chartist a national movement?
5) Can Chartist be seen as expression of working class solidarity?
6) Was Chartist a failure?

Key Ideas
1) Ideas for Chartist not new- Paine "Rights of Man", 1815-20, mass platform and post war radicalism, Henry Hunt.
2) Chartism's strength fluctuated- peaks 1838-9, 1841-2, and 1848.
3) Genuinely national movement- although stronger in some areas than others.
4) Chartist alarmed authorities- government's response measured- avoided creating martyrs.
5) Number of plans made for general uprising- for some Chartist revolutionary.
6) Chartist capable of uniting large numbers of working people in support of democracy.

What was the Peoples Charter?

1) Vote for all adult males- over 21.
2) Payment for MP's.
3) Each constituency- same size
4) Secret ballot
5) No property qualifications- MP's should be required to have property.
6) General elections once a year.
Peoples Charter
• Formed by London Working Men's Association- May 1838- William Lovett worked with Francis Place and Joseph Roebuck

Eric Evans- "It was a highly political document: none of its terms had to do with wages, conditions of work or the economy."

• Reflected priorities of informed and literate artisan radicals who had been parliamentary reformers for at least generation.
• Can be seen as a commentary on OLD CORRUPTION- a criticism of system built up in 18th century by which landowners used wealth and power to get their way- after 1832 evidence landowners paid close attention to how tenants voted.
• Payment of MP's way of ensuring working men could afford to sit in parliament and also way of reducing influence of landowners.
• Aimed to increase influence of "productive classes" and reduce "non...