Event 10: How Revolutionary Were the Chartists?

Event 10: How revolutionary were the Chartists?

Who were the Chartists?

The Chartists were a movement of people who campaigned for working class men to get the vote.

What happened to the Chartists?

After the Reform Act of 1832 failed to give the vote to working class men, some radicals formed a new organisation to demand a ‘Peoples Charter’. This called for:

Votes for all men over 21 except lunatics and prisoners
A secret ballot to stop bribes buying votes
No property qualification for MPs – you should be able to stand as an MP whether you were rich or poor
Payment for MPs – this would mean working class men, not just the rich would be able to be MPs
Equal constituencies – the areas in which people voted should be roughly the same size.
Elections for Parliament should be held once a year

The supporters of the Charter were called Chartists. In May 1839, the Chartists collected one and a half million signatures for a monster petition. It demanded Parliament accepted the Charter. Parliament rejected the Petition. Again in 1842, Parliament rejected a second petition of three and a quarter million signatures and, in1848, a third petition of two million.

How did the government react to the Chartists?

The government was very alarmed. In 1848, revolution once again swept Europe. King Louis-Philippe of France was overthrown and replaced with a Republic. There were revolutions in many other European countries. The Chartists hoped to organise a mass march of 500,000 people to present their petition to Parliament. The government acted quickly. A march on Parliament was banned. The Duke of Wellington mounted cannons on London's bridges, the Tower of London was stuffed with ammunition and ten thousand troops were kept in reserve. 200,000 special constables were recruited to control the expected crowds. Extreme Chartists, who believed in using physical force, were arrested and transported to Australia.

How widespread was support for the Chartists?

The Chartists were most popular when times got harder in the 1830's and the early 1840's. They got a lot of working class support and some middle class support but this varied in different parts of the country. In better times, Chartists lost out. There is some doubt over how many of the signatures in the great petitions were actually genuine; for example, in the 1848 petition, both the Queen's and the Duke of Wellington's signatures were forged. Even at the height of their popularity, the Chartists were not strong enough to organise themselves properly at national level and, in 1848, the government locked up their extreme leaders. Even when the Chartists seemed to pose the greatest threat of revolution in 1848, the 500,000 people expected to help present the petition turned out to be only 20,000. The crowds who watched the procession did so peacefully. There was no danger of the special constables or Wellington's soldiers joining the Chartism. As times got better again after 1848, Chartists faded away.