Chartism

The Chartist Movement to reform Parliament grew out of the demands of the working class in industrial towns for better living and working conditions, and was at its height between 1838 and 1848.

In 1836 the London Working Men’s Association was founded and in 1837 drew up a Charter of Political Demands.  The Charter was formally launched in May 1838 and work began gathering signatures for a national mass petition to parliament. The Northern Star newspaper played a key role and in the autumn there were huge rallies in Manchester and elsewhere. The first Chartist convention met in February 1839 and the petition was presented in May, but rejected. Mass meetings were dispersed by police and troops, and many leading chartists arrested.

A second petition gathered over 3 million signatures. Presented to Parliament in May 1842, it was rejected. In late summer a general strike in support of the Charter swept across Lancashire, and spread to other parts of the country. The government poured in troops and strikers were eventually forced back to work. In the aftermath the government arrested hundreds and 80 were sentenced to transportation.

Chartism declined with the period of economic expansion between 1842 to1846, but the slump in 1847 saw its revival.  In the wake of the French revolution in February 1848, a third petition was presented to Parliament on 10 April after a large meeting on Kennington Common. The government flooded London with soldiers and volunteer constables and there were scores of arrests, with the best leaders imprisoned. Chartism continued for another decade, but was a spent force.

In their book Manchester and Salford Chartists the Library's founders the Frows described Chartism as 'the adolescence of the labour movement'.   Its legacy was the growth of trade unions, co-operatives and socialist working class politics.

Explore 200 years of working class movement activism

• 1791

  Thomas Paine publishes 'Rights of man'

• 1798

  Irish Rebellion

• 1819

  Peterloo

• 1834

  Tolpuddle

• 1844

  Rochdale Pioneers

• 1848

  Kennington Common Chartist meeting

• 1867

  'Manchester Martyrs' executed

• 1868

  
  First meeting of TUC

• 1871

  Fall of the Paris Commune

• 1893

  Foundation of the Independent Labour Party

• 1906

  

  Creation of the Labour Party

• 1908

  

  Formation of the Plebs League

• 1913

  
  Cat and Mouse Act

• 1924

  
  First Labour government

• 1926

  General Strike

• 1931

  
  Red Megaphones first performance

• 1932

  Kinder Scout mass trespass

• 1936

  Spanish Civil War

• 1944

  

  Education Act

• 1945

  Nationalisation of the coal industry

• 1948

  Birth of the NHS

• 1956

  Hungarian uprising

• 1958

  Aldermaston marches and birth of CND

• 1968

  Prague Spring

• 1971

  

  Upper Clyde Shipbuilders

• 1976

  Grunwick dispute

• 1982

  

  Falklands War

• 1984

  Miners' strike

• 1990

  Nelson Mandela's  release from prison

• 1998

  

    Good Friday agreement

• 1999

  Introduction of national minimum wage

• 2001

  
  Stop the War campaign