What was Chartism and why did it fail

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Kennington Common 1848 Illustrated London News

What was Chartism and why did it fail?

By

Linsey Misik


Chartism: ‘The principles and practices of a party of political reformers, chiefly workingmen, active in England from 1838 to 1848’.  This was working class vocalizing their grievances of poor pay and working conditions with the purpose of achieving representation in the government. Relatively easy to sum up in a sentence but does not encompass the true Chartist. It can be difficult to understand the plight of others and as all historians know, hard to give an un-biased view on a specific time in history. The initial historians such as Mark Hovell, saw Chartism as an attempt to shake the equilibrium of the establishment by the uncivilized working class or a ‘howl for hunger’. Other historians viewed the movement as a revolutionary change to create a democratic society where ‘the people are the source of all power’.

In which format you choose to translate Chartism it does define how we look at its failures. At the end of ten years the movement achieved none of its initial demands and therefore could be deemed a failure but is it a fair estimation of the movement as a whole.  The members organised meetings and published newspapers which exposed their plight to the nation and united the working-class people. If the movement was digested by the ruling class and it halted their idea of complacency then the Chartist movement equates to some success in planting seed in the government minds.  

The 1830’s and 40’s were decades of change and with new found industries came pressures that all capitalists societies operate on with the boom and slump market.  The movement was most effective was in times of economic hardship – the slump. Although only six percent of England and Wales worked in factories it still affected other parts of society and made a difference from the price of corn being the only variable the cost of living. If there was no demand for the products in the factory it inevitably meant that workers would be laid-off which caused extreme distress to families relying on their wages for sustenance. This was exasperated by the new Poor Law Amendment (1834) based on the Benthamite philosophy that ‘women and men sought pleasure and avoided plan’ which the government interpreted to planning the poor house to incorporate an unbearable environment proving to be as uncomfortable as possible to force the unemployed to find work.  As short-term unemployment was a living reality in their society it was disastrous act for many local communities.

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Unsatisfied, the working classes began to act independently through the sounding board of a number of radical groups inspired by Thomas Paine an author and revolutionary radical. One example is the short-lived Hampton Clubs (around 1816) who wanted universal suffrage. Other movements included the trade unions such as the Grand National Consolidated Trade Union and the co-operative founded by Robert Owen a Welsh Socialite that was based on equality for society.  William Cobbett and Henry Hetherington authors of the Political Register and Poor man’s Guardian work was key in displaying a nationwide method of reaching the masses by a weekly ...

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