Chartism: Fergus O'Connor

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Zoe Thaxter

To what extent was Fergus O’Connor a force for good as a leader of the Chartist Movement?

     The leadership of Fergus O’Connor can be debated as he did do a lot for the causes of the Chartist Movement; however considering as him as ‘a force for good’ can be debated because did his achievements actually have any good consequences within them or was his tactics too extreme for certain Chartist supporters.

     There are two sides to Fergus O’Connor and many historians and other Chartist leaders have both criticised and praised him for his efforts during the Chartist Movement. One of O’Connor’s most used tactic was to use physical violence to achieve the six points of the Charter; however not all Chartists agreed with this method as many preferred peaceful protests and petitions. O’Connor was very popular with skilled workers and was highly critical of other leaders that did not want to use violence. There is one historian, George Julian Harney, that did maintain some respect for Fergus, praising his for his tolerance of others’ views towards him and his willingness to have those views expressed in his own newspaper ,  Harney concluded that if O’Connor was metaphorically ‘thrown overboard, we might go further and fare worse’. This shows that O’Connor’s leadership was praised and his efforts were recognised by others.

     Even though Harney was very praising of O’Connor others weren’t so charitable, especially those who considered themselves from the ‘thinking’, artisan end of Chartism were especially critical of the way in which O’Connor manipulated crowds to satisfy his own leadership ambitions.  One Chartist Robert Lowery who was impressed by the local leadership shown by Augustus Beaumont and was clearly influenced by his opinion of O’Connor. One source written by Lowery in a passage in ‘the Life of a Temperance Lecture’ (1856-97) said that despite the face that O’Connor is becoming popular, he has not got any reasoning behind his words and has no plans for the future of Chartists, also it is stated that he is vain and cannot be trusted, ‘’became popular… He was no reasoner, saw no deeper that the surface of things…’’.  Another source that also gives a negative view of O’Connor is a letter from Harney to Friedrich Engles in 1846, this letter stated that by using physical force is more likely to bring harm instead of good, however when he calls for physical force they agree but don’t do it. ‘’to attempt a ‘physical –force’ agitation at the present time would be productive of no good but on the contrary of some evil.’’ Despite the fact that this source was a letter from Harney and is critical of O’Connor and has praised him once before for his tolerance of others, Harney did not agree with the use of psychical violence to achieve the six points.    

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     Fergus O’Connor was the leading editor of the ‘Northern Star’; the Northern Star was a weekly newspaper that supported the reform of Parliament, the newspaper was a great success and by the spring of 1839 was selling over 48,000 copies a week. Despite the massive success of the newspaper O’Connor still got into trouble for publishing seditious prints, because of this O’Connor was sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment regardless of this O’Connor still managed to edit his newspaper from his prison cell. This can portray O’Connor in two different lights; the first being that he was a powerful ...

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