From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Chartism[1] was a working-class movement for political reform in the United Kingdom that lasted from 1838 to 1857 and was strongest in 1839, 1842 and 1848. It took its name from the People’s Charter of 1838[2] 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.[3] The movement was fiercely opposed by government authorities, who finally suppressed it.
Support for the movement was at its highest when petitions signed by millions of working people were presented to the House of Commons. The strategy employed was to use the scale of support which these petitions and the accompanying mass meetings demonstrated to put pressure on politicians to concede universal manhood suffrage. Chartism thus relied on constitutional methods to secure its aims, though some became involved in insurrectionary activities, notably in South Wales and in Yorkshire.[citation needed]
The People’s Charter called for six reforms[4] to make the political system more democratic:
- A vote for every man aged twenty-one years and above, of sound mind, and not undergoing punishment for a crime.
- The secret ballot to protect the elector in the exercise of his vote.
- No property qualification for Members of Parliament (MPs), to allow the constituencies to return the man of their choice.
- Payment of Members, enabling tradesmen, working men, or other persons of modest means to leave or interrupt their livelihood to attend to the interests of the nation.
- Equal constituencies, securing the same amount of representation for the same number of electors, instead of allowing less populous constituencies to have as much or more weight than larger ones.
- Annual parliamentary elections, thus presenting the most effectual check to bribery and intimidation, since no purse could buy a constituency under a system of universal manhood suffrage in every twelve months.
Eventually, after Chartism died out, Britain adopted all but the last of these six reforms. Chartists saw themselves fighting against political corruption and for democracy in an industrial society, but attracted support beyond the radical political groups for economic reasons, such as opposing wage cuts and unemployment.[5][6]
Origin
After the passing of the Reform Act 1832, which failed to extend the vote beyond those owning property, the political leaders of the working class made speeches claiming that there had been a great act of betrayal. This sense that the working class had been betrayed by the middle class was strengthened by the actions of the Whig governments of the 1830s. Notably, the hated new Poor Law Amendment was passed in 1834, depriving working people of outdoor relief and driving the poor into workhouses, where families were separated.[7]: 1
The massive wave of opposition to this measure in the north of England in the late 1830s made Chartism a mass movement. It seemed that only securing the vote for working men would change things. Dorothy Thompson, the preeminent historian of Chartism, defines the movement as the time when “thousands of working people considered that their problems could be solved by the political organization of the country.”[7]: 1 In 1836, the London Working Men’s Association was founded by William Lovett and Henry Hetherington,[8] providing a platform for Chartists in the southeast. The origins of Chartism in Wales can be traced to the foundation in the autumn of 1836 of Carmarthen Working Men’s Association.[9]
The English Industrial Revolution is one of the most important processes in contemporary history, resulting in a gradual but profound series of changes at all levels. Technological innovations enabled the introduction of machinery—which replaced human labor— and gave rise to the factory system, as well as the consolidation of industrial capitalism.
