Annual election of Parliament

The charter had struck a chord among common people. The movement organized a convention of 50 to facilitate the presentation of the petition. This met in London from February 1839 until May when it moved to Birmingham. Though they took pains to keep within the law the more radical activists were able to see it as the embryo of an alternative parliament. The convention called for a number of "ulterior measures" which ranged from calling on their supporters to withdraw their money from saving banks to a call for a sacred month, in effect a general strike.

Meetings were held around the country and in June 1839 a large petition was presented to the House of Commons. Parliament, by a large majority, voted not to even hear the petitioners. When the petition was refused, many advocated force as the only means of attaining their aims.

Several outbreaks of violence ensued, leading to several arrests and trials. One of the leaders of the movement, John Frost, on trial for treason, claimed in his defence that he had toured Wales urging people not to break the law, although he was himself guilty of using language that some might interpret as being a call to arms. By 1839 Frost had placed himself in the vanguard of the Chartist movement. When another prominent member, Henry Vincent, was arrested in the summer of 1839 for making inflammatory speeches, the die was cast. Instead of the carefully plotted military rising that some had suspected, Frost led a column of marchers to the Westgate Hotel, Newport where he initiated a confrontation. Some have suggested that the roots of this confrontation lay in Frost's frequent personal conflicts with various members of the local establishment; others, that Chartist leaders were expecting the Chartists to seize the town, preventing the mail reaching London and triggering a national uprising: it is generally acknowledged that Frost and other Chartist leaders did not agree on the course of action adopted.

The result was a disaster in political and military terms. The hotel was occupied not only by the representatives of the town's merchant classes and the local squirearchy, but by soldiers. A brief, violent, and bloody battle ensued. Shots were fired by both sides, although most contemporaries agree that the soldiers holding the building had vastly superior firepower. The Chartists did manage to enter the building temporarily, but were forced to retreat in disarray: twenty were killed, another fifty wounded.

After that Chartism slipped into a period of internal division and heated debate as to the way forward. In early May of 1842 a further petition, of over three million signatures, was submitted which was again rejected by parliament. The Northern Star commented on the rejection: "Three and half millions have quietly, orderly, soberly, peaceably but firmly asked of their rulers to do justice; and their rulers have turned a deaf ear to that protest. Three and a half millions of people have asked permission to detail their wrongs, and enforce their claims for RIGHT, and the 'House' has resolved they should not be heard! Three and a half millions of the slave-class have holden out the olive branch of peace to the enfranchised and privileged classes and sought for a firm and compact union, on the principle of EQUALITY BEFORE THE LAW; and the enfranchised and privileged have refused to enter into a treaty! The same class is to be a slave class still. The mark and brand of inferiority is not to be removed. The assumption of inferiority is still to be maintained. The people are not to be free."

1842 led to a wave of strikes in which Chartist activists were to the fore and demands for the charter were included alongside economic demands. In 1842 workers went on strike in the Midlands, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and parts of Scotland in favour of Chartist principles. These industrial disputes were collectively known as the Plug Plot; as in many cases, protesters removed the plugs from steam boilers to prevent their use. Although the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, advocated a non-interventionalist policy, the Duke of Wellington insisted on the deployment of troops to deal with the strikers.

Several Chartist leaders, including Feargus O'Connor, George Julian Harney, and Thomas Cooper were arrested, along with nearly 1,500 others. 79 people were sentenced, with sentences ranging from 7 to 21 years. Despite this second set of arrests, Chartist activity continued. Beginning in 1843, O'Connor suggested that the land contained the solution to workers' problems. This idea evolved into the Chartist Co-Operative Land Company, later called the National Land Company. Workers would buy shares in the company, and the company would use those funds to purchase estates that would be subdivided into 2, 3, and 4 acre lots. Between 1844 and 1848, five estates were purchased, subdivided, and built on, and then settled by lucky shareholders, who were chosen by lot. Unfortunately for O'Connor, in 1848 a Select Committee was appointed to investigate the financial viability of the scheme and it was ordered to be shut down. Cottages built by the Chartist Land Company are still standing and inhabited today, in Oxfordshire and on the outskirts of London.

On 10 April 1848, Feargus O'Connor organised a mass meeting on Kennington Common, which would form a procession to present another petition to Parliament. The number of attendees varies depending on the source (O'Connor estimated 300,000; the government, 15,000; The Sunday Observer suggested 50,000 was more accurate). According to John Charlton the government was well aware that the Chartists had no intention of staging an uprising as they had established an extensive network of spies. The government did however organize a very large show of force, as 8,000 soldiers were in London that day, along with 150,000 special constables. In any case, the meeting was peaceful. However the military had threatened to intervene if the Chartists made any attempt to cross the Thames.

In a separate incident, rioters in Manchester attempted to storm the hated workhouse. A pitched battle resulted with Chartists fighting the police, eventually the mob was broken up, but rioters roamed the streets of Manchester for three days.

The original plan of the Chartists, if the petition was ignored, was to create a separate national assembly and press the Queen to dissolve parliament until the charter was introduced into law. However the Chartists were plagued with indecision, and the national assembly eventually dissolved itself claiming it had a lack of support.

Although the Chartist movement itself petered out, its aims were taken on by others. There followed some fragmentory social reforms, such as setting up Public Health Comissions and inspecting sanitation in the factory workers’ blocks. Adam Smith, fearing the intellectually debilitating impact of the division of labour, tried to mitigate it by state education; education was considered as prophylactic against revolution and was encouraged through a system of new, cheap ways of teaching – monitorial systems of Lancaster and Bell, where senior pupils learned lessons by rote and then instucted their juniors.

The parliamentary Radicals joined with the Whigs and anti-protectionist Tory Peelites to form the Liberal Party by 1859. Eventually the Liberal William Ewart Gladstone introduced a modest bill for parliamentary reform which was defeated by both Tories and reform Liberals, forcing the government to resign. The new Tory government decided to take the credit for the reform. As a minority government they had to accept radical amendments, and Benjamin Disraeli's Reform Act of 1867 almost doubled the electorate, giving the vote even to working men.

Chartism was also an important influence in the British colonies. In 1854 Chartist demands were put forward by the miners at the Eureka Stockade on the gold fields at Victoria, Australia in 1854. Within one year of the military crushing of the Eureka revolt, all the demands, except annual parliaments, had been met.

Industial Revolution, Chartism, social conditions feedback tasks. Note: the questions are meant to provide kind of a rough plan for your examination answer; you are welcome to rearrange them in a more suitable way.

1. Who introduced the term ‘industrial Revolution’? What does it mean?

2. Enumerate causes of industrial revolution taking place in GB first; refer them to: a) economic;

b) political;

c) geopolitical;

d) social groups. Which causes should be considered primary? Which explanations sound strange or ‘non-scientific’?

3. Write out all inventions which gave impetus to industrial Revolution in GB.

4. Why are the names of Richard arkwright, James Watt, Abraham Darby, John Macadam important for the period?

5. Speak about Luddites as a phenomenon: did their movement have any hope? Was there anything like that in Russia?

6. Comment upon social conditions: changes in the structure of society, life of the poor, family relations.

7. How did Karl Marx interpret the industrialization process? Is his theory entirely wrong or are there any valid items?

8. Name objectives of chartism; which of their demands were realized in years to come?

9. Sum up Chartism movement; why do you think it never led to a national uprising?

10. Which PM fulfilled (or started to) chartists’ demands?

11. Learn the glossary: manual labour, machine manufacture, internal combustion engine, surplus population, cottage industry, accumulation of capital, weaving, mandatory, the steam engine, smelting, spinning machines, looms, artisans, flax, yarn, shuttle, entrepreneurs, seam of coal, pit, adit, pig iron, cast iron, blast furnace, toll, stage coach, strike action, riot police, repeal, theory of value, means of industrial production, franchise, a call to arms, to learn by rote.