The Chronicle (South Tyneside and Durham)
Hero of the workers to be honoured
A WORKING man who was a leading voice in the fight on Tyneside for the vote is to be honoured – more than 160 years after his death.
A Newcastle City Council commemorative plaque to William Parker will be unveiled tomorrow at the Cumberland Arms pub in Byker.
William Parker was part of the Chartist movement – the first mass movement driven by the working classes after the 1832 Reform Act failed to extend the vote beyond those owning property.
The movement was supported by the Northern Star newspaper and on June 27, 1838, an estimated 70,000 people attended a political gathering on Newcastle Town Moor to hear speeches by prominent Chartists.
The plaque will be unveiled by the Lord Mayor of Newcastle at the pub, which is where Byker Buildings, where the Chartists held their meetings, once stood.
It describes Parker, who lived at Lime Street in the Ouseburn Valley, as “an outspoken critic of class inequality.”
The plaque had been called for by Tyneside historian and Ouseburn expert Mike Greatbatch.
Mike said: “Parker was an unskilled labourer competing for work in one of Tyneside’s most competitive labour markets, a lowly status that appears to have strengthened his self-belief in the justice of his words and actions, and his unwavering commitment to his fellow workers.” In 1828 Parker was working as a labourer at the Ridley glassworks in the Ouseburn.
He gave speeches in support of Chartism in Newcastle and County Durham, and was an original member of the Council of the Northern Political Union, the main focus of Tyneside’s Chartist agitation in 1838-39.
In 1838 a People’s Charter was drawn up, which had six demands:
■ All men to have the vote;
■ Voting should take place by secret ballot;
■ Parliamentary elections every year, not once every five years;
■ Constituencies should be of equal size;
■ Members of Parliament should be paid;
■ The property qualification for becoming a Member of Parliament should be abolished.
To back up the People’s Charter, in 1839 and then 1842 petitions bearing 1.3m and later 3.3m signatures were presented to Parliament, which refused to receive them.
In 1848 Parliament did debate a third petition of 5.7m signatures, but rejected it.
Parker had joined the army in 1811 and after serving in India, he was discharged. He was married at St Mary’s Church in Gateshead in 1821 and 20 years later was a widower with three daughters.
“The People’s Charter was just one of a number of causes that Parker championed over an almost 20-year period,” said Mike.
The 1838 Chartist Town Moor gathering of 70,000 people, where there were banners and bands to entertain the crowd, was described by the Northern Star as “the most splendid display of the working classes ever witnessed in England”.