Chartism was a working-class movement for political reform in the United Kingdom that erupted from 1838 to 1857 and was strongest in 1839, 1842 and 1848. It took its name from the People's Charter of 1838 and was a national protest movement, with particular strongholds of support in Northern England, the East Midlands, the Staffordshire Potteries, the Black Country and the South Wales Valleys, where working people depended on single industries and were subject to wild swings in economic activity. Chartism was less strong in places, such as Bristol, that had more diversified economies. The movement was fiercely opposed by government authorities, who finally suppressed it.
Feargus Edward O'Connor was an Irish Chartist leader and advocate of the Land Plan, which sought to provide smallholdings for the labouring classes. A highly charismatic figure, O'Connor was admired for his energy and oratory, but was criticised for alleged egotism. His newspaper Northern Star (1837–1852) was widely read among workers, becoming the voice of the Chartist movement.
Ernest Charles Jones was an English poet, novelist and Chartist. Dorothy Thompson points out that Jones was born into the landed gentry, became a barrister, and left a large documentary record. "He is the best-remembered of the Chartist leaders, among the pioneers of the modern Labour movement, and a friend of both Marx and Engels."
Joseph Rayner Stephens was a Methodist minister who offended the Wesleyan Conference by his support for separating the Church of England from the State. Resigning from the Wesleyan Connection, he became free to campaign for factory reform, and against the New Poor Law. He became associated with 'physical force' Chartism and spent eighteen months in jail for his presence at an unlawful assembly and his use there of seditious language. Born in Edinburgh in 1805, he moved to Manchester when his minister father was posted there in 1819. During his religious career, he worked in a variety of places before arriving in Ashton-under-Lyne in 1832. He was the brother of the philologist George Stephens.; three of his other brothers emigrated to Southern Australia and played their parts in the early years of that colony.
George Julian Harney was a British political activist, journalist, and Chartist leader. He was also associated with Marxism, socialism, and universal suffrage.
James Bronterre O'Brien was an Irish Chartist leader, reformer and journalist.
Henry Hetherington was an English printer, bookseller, publisher and newspaper proprietor who campaigned for social justice, a free press, universal suffrage and religious freethought. Together with his close associates, William Lovett, John Cleave and James Watson, he was a leading member of numerous co-operative and radical groups, including the Owenite British Association for the Promotion of Co-operative Knowledge, the National Union of the Working Classes and the London Working Men's Association. As proprietor of The Poor Man's Guardian he played a major role in the "War of the Unstamped" and was imprisoned three times for refusing to pay newspaper stamp duty. He was a leader of the "moral force" wing of the Chartist movement and a supporter of pro-democracy movements in other countries. His name is included on the Reformers' Memorial in Kensal Green Cemetery.
The Northern Star was the newspaper of the Society of United Irishmen, which was published from 1792 until its suppression in May 1797 by a group of Monaghan militiamen.
William Cuffay was a Chartist leader in early Victorian London.
The Red Republican was a British socialist newspaper published from 22 June 1850 to 30 November 1850, after which it was renamed The Friend of the People.
Joshua Hobson (1810–1876) was a British Chartist and Tory Radical who was the first publisher of the Book of Murder, a pamphlet attacking the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act. In 1838-1844 he was the publisher of the Chartist newspaper Northern Star.
Helen Macfarlane, born Barrhead, 25 September 1818, Renfrewshire, Scotland, died Nantwich, Cheshire, England 29 March 1860, was a Scottish Chartist feminist journalist and philosopher, known for her 1850 translation into English of The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels which was published in German in 1848. Between April 1850 and December 1850, Macfarlane wrote three essays for George Julian Harney's monthly, the Democratic Review and ten articles for his weekly paper, The Red Republican. In 1851 Macfarlane "disappeared" from the political scene. Until recent research by Macfarlane's biographer David Black and BBC Radio Scotland researcher and broadcaster Louise Yeoman, very little was known for sure about her early and later life.
The Leader was a radical weekly newspaper, published in London from 1850 to 1860 at a price of 6d.
The East London Democratic Association (ELDA) was founded in January 1837 by George Julian Harney in opposition to the LWMA, later supported by James Bronterre O'Brien and Feargus O'Connor. In April 1838 ELDA was reconstituted as the London Democratic Association (LDA) with an eight-point resolution covering the Charter and more. Closely allied with the northern Chartists, by the end of 1838, the LDA had branches meeting in public houses within the City, Tower Hamlets and Southwark in addition to the regular meeting held at the Trades Hall, Bethnal Green.
John Francis Bray was a radical, chartist, writer on socialist economics, and activist in both Britain and his native America in the 19th century. He was hailed in later life as the "Benjamin Franklin" of American labor.
Robert George Gammage was a British surgeon and leading figure in Chartism in the 1830s and 1840s. He was also the author of the first history of the movement.
Robert Kemp Philp (1819–1882) was an English journalist, author, and Chartist.
Taxes on knowledge was a slogan defining an extended British campaign against duties and taxes on newspapers, their advertising content, and the paper they were printed on. The paper tax was early identified as an issue: "A tax upon Paper, is a tax upon Knowledge" is a saying attributed to Alexander Adam (1741–1809), a Scottish headmaster.
The New Moral World was an early socialist newspaper in the United Kingdom, once the national official publication of Owenism.
Thomas Martin Wheeler was a British radical activist, journalist, and insurance society manager.
