Chartism has at its core the idea that you can represent the people, all of the people, by giving the vote just to men. It makes it very vulnerable on somebody else's earnings reliably and sharing their earnings. So there's a real vulnerability in that system. But I think it's hard ramifications for the position that women were beginning to find for themselves. By about 1842-43, those groups are disappearing. Men are starting to meet in public houses as well. Once they're driven off the streets into indoor meetings, that makes it very difficult for women to attend. We didn't say enough about the conjunction, or not real conjunction between the trade union and Chartism. Did
On 21 May 1838 an estimated 150,000 people assembled on Glasgow Green for a mass demonstration. There they witnessed the launch of the People’s Charter, a list of demands for political reform. The changes they called for included voting by secret ballot, equal-sized constituencies and, most importantly, that all men should have the vote.
The Chartists, as they came to be known, were the first national mass working-class movement. In the decade that followed, they collected six million signatures for their Petitions to Parliament: all were rejected, but their campaign had a significant and lasting impact.
With
Joan Allen
Visiting Fellow in History at Newcastle University and Chair of the Society for the Study of Labour History
Emma Griffin
Professor of Modern British History at the University of East Anglia and President of the Royal Historical Society
and
Robert Saunders
Reader in Modern British History at Queen Mary, University of London.
The image above shows a Chartist mass meeting on Kennington Common in London in April 1848.