Elisha Meadows 9N
Why did the Chartists fail?
The Chartists were a group of men who met in a pub in Birmingham in 1838, to discuss organising a campaign for more parliamentary reform. There had been the ‘Great Reform Act’ in 1832, but many working class people had been disappointed as the changes had been so slight, and did not affect working class men or women at all. The Chartists campaigned for 6 things, which later became known as The Peoples Charter. They wanted all men over 21 to have the opportunity to vote, secret ballots, annual parliaments, equal constituencies, MP’s to be paid and for any man to be able to stand as a candidate. Unfortunately the Chartists failed.
One of the main reasons that the Chartists failed was because they were divided in their methods. William Lovett, Francis Place and Thomas Attwood all believed in peaceful protest; they didn’t like violence. However, the other two members, Fergus O’Connor and John Frost believed that violence would have to be used if the wanted to get their demands met by the rich and powerful men who ran parliament. The Chartists started with the peaceful method of a petition. Their first petition in July 1839, had 1.2 million signatures on it, and was over 3 miles long! However, Parliament rejected it by 235 votes to 46. So, John Frost turned to violence in November 1839. He led 1000 people armed with clubs in the Newport Rising. It very quickly turned violent and 22 men were killed when soldiers turned up, and a further 50 were injured. The rest of the supporters fled. This was another reason why the Chartists failed; they lost many of the supporters that they had been steadily gathering for the last few years. Many people didn’t want to risk losing their jobs, or even their lives. These violent acts even led to one of the founders of the Chartists, William Lovett, to leave the Chartists because he believed so strongly that violence should not be used, and was disgusted that so many people had been killed by these events.
