The Great Charter
The hopes of working people for a fairer society were demonstrated in a huge meeting on 10 April 1848, which saw the last presentation of the People’s Charter.
The Charter was published by the London Working Men’s Association but had widespread support across the country with Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow and North Wales particularly militant. There were six demands: universal suffrage for men; a secret ballot; payment for MPs; equal electoral districts; no property qualification for MPs; and annual parliaments.
Bad harvests had brought unrest – not only in Britain, but throughout Europe. Chartist sympathisers read about the actions of foreign revolutionaries in the Chartist press, notably the Northern
Star. Its founder was Feargus O’Connor, MP for Nottingham, one of the most popular Chartist orators. The issue of moral versus physical force was much discussed; as the slogan had it: ‘Peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must.’
The Chartist Convention called for a mass meeting on Lambeth’s Kennington Common. Earlier petitions had been rejected by Parliament, but the new one was expected to have five million signatures. It was thought to be irresistible and tens of thousands (perhaps as many as 150,000) gathered to take the petition to Parliament.
The authorities had recruited 100,000 special constables to boost the police force. The commander in chief of the army, the Duke of Wellington, brought troops to London, which perturbed the demonstrators with their memories of the Peterloo Massacre. Heavy rain further dampened the radicals’ spirit.
A procession to Parliament to deliver the petition had been planned but was declared illegal. Instead O’Connor took the petition to Westminster in three cabs. Criticised by more radical colleagues, he had probably averted a bloodbath.
A Parliamentary committee declared there were only two million signatures on the petition and there were several bogus ones, such as ‘Mr Punch’, which were used to discredit the charter.
The Chartists’ demands were realistic, but it would be 70 years before all had been met (excepting annual parliaments, which ceased to be a political objective).