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Approaches to the Chartist Movement: Feargus O'Connor and Chartist Strategy*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2017

Thomas Milton Kemnitz
Thomas Milton Kemnitz*
Affiliation:
University of New Hampshire
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Extract

In recent years, historians have departed from narrative histories to seek new approaches to the Chartist movement. Professor Asa Briggs has opened up an important avenue in emphasizing local studies of the movement. He has been concerned to place the Chartists in the perspective of local politics and class relations. Chartist Studies was the first result of his approach, and several other short essays have appeared subsequently. In the next few years, we can look for some substantial analyses of the movement from a local perspective. David Goodway is working on Chartism in London and Professor William Maehl is working on the Newcastle area in the Northeast. I have done a study of class relations and Chartism in Brighton, and James Epstein is working on Feargus O'Connor's relations with three Chartist communities. Epstein's work involves comparative area studies and points the way toward broadening local studies with the possibility of some very illuminating results. However, we must be careful that we do not get so caught up in local studies that they totally dominate our thinking.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 5 , Issue 1: Special Issue: Violence and Social Control , Spring 1973 , pp. 67 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1973

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Footnotes

*

Paper read to the New England meeting of the Conference on British Studies, May 1973.

References

1 Briggs, Asa, ed., Chartist Studies (London, 1959)Google Scholar; Cannon, John, The Chartists in Bristol (Bristol, 1964)Google Scholar; Golby, J. M., “Public Order and Private Unrest: A Study of the 1842 Riots in Shropshire,” University of Birmingham Historical Journal, XI (1968): 157–169 Google Scholar; Jones, D. J. V., “Welsh Chartism,” Bulletin of the Society for the Study of Labour History, 23 (1971): 18–20 Google Scholar; Peacock, A. J., Bradford Chartism: 1838-1840 (York, 1969)Google Scholar; Prothero, lowerth, “Chartism in London,” Past & Present, 44 (1969):73–105 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Prothero, lowerth, “London Chartism and the Trades,” Economic History Review, XXIV, No. 2 (1971):202-19CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rowe, D. J., “Chartism and the Spitalfields Silk-weavers,” Economic History Review 2d.Ser., XX, No. 3 (1967):482–493 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “The Failure of London Chartism,,” Historical Journal, XI (1968):472-487;“The London Working Men's Association and the ‘People's Charter’,” Past & Present, 36 (April, 1967):73-86; “Some Aspects of Chartism on Tyneside,” International Review of Social History, XVI, No. 1 (1971):17-39; Wyncoll, Peter, Nottingham Chartism (Nottingham, 1968)Google Scholar.

2 Alexander Wilson has published The Chartism Movement in Scotland (Manchester, 1970) based on work begun in the 1950s. Goodway and Maehl have given a hint of their work in David Goodway, “Chartism in London,” Bulletin of the Society for the Study of Labour History, 20 (1970): 13-16; Maehl, William H., “Chartist Disturbances in Northeastern England, 1839,” International Review of Social History, VIII, No. 3 (1963):389–414 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 R. G. Gammage, Chartist leader turned historian of the movement, set the tradition for historians: “The cause of the Charter was, however, espoused by advocates of two different schools. The first consisted of those who contended that the people's rights must be secured by moral means alone. The other was composed of the more determined, who could not conceive that the ruling class would bow to anything short of physical force….” (History of the Chartist Movement: 1837-1854, 2nd ed., reprinted, [New York, 1969], p. 83.) Lately, historians have become less satisfied with the use of the moral-physical force dichotomy. To take one example from the most recent American Historical Review, Joseph C. D'Orozio wrote in a review, “Ambiguities are exposed that invite a re-evaluation of the moral force/physical force distinction.” LXXVIII, No. 1 (1973):103.

4 For Salt, sec the Birmingham Journal, 3 Nov. 1838, p, 3; 24 Nov. 1838, p. 2; for Douglas, sec ibid., 3 Nov. 1X38, p. 3; 10 Nov. 1838, p. 6; Lovett expressed his opinions very clearly in a meeting reported in Sun, 21 Dec. 1838, pp. 1-2, reprinted in the Northern Star. 29 Dec. 1838, p. 8. John Fraser founded the True Scotsman which was the main pillar in Scotland of the moral-force point of view. He was partially responsible for the Gallon Hill demonstration of December, 1838, which passed a number of moral-force resolutions (for which see the Birmingham Journal, I 5 Dec. 1 838, pp. 2 & 3; the issue of the True Scotsman which would have reported the meeting—8 Dec. 1838—does not seem to have survived). For the position of the other Chartist newspapers, see Thomas Milton KemnitZ, “Chartist Newspaper Editors,” Victorian Periodicals Newsletter, V, No. 18 (Dec, 1972): 1-11. For Duncan's position, see the True Scotsman, 24 Nov. 1838, p. 1;1 Dec. 1838, p. I.

5 Moral-force strategy is discussed in the Birmingham Journal, 20 Jan. 1838, pp. 6-7; 24 Feb. 1838, pp. 1 & 5; 17 March 1838, p. 5; 12 May 1838, p. 5; 19 May 1838, p. 5; 16 June 1838, pp. 4 & 7; and 14 July 1838, p. 7.

6 The Cumnock Working Men's Association saw other advantages from O'Connor's sort of ambiguity, without relating it to intimidation: “That this Association is further of opinion that a declaration by Scotland, either for or against physical force, may have a tendency to injure the general cause; to declare in favour, may induce the Government, and furnish them with a pretext for suppressing (if they dare) the meetings ot the people, as being illegal, and to declare against, in a public manner, may embolden them to treat the moral efforts of the people with scorn and contempt; and no longer deterred by a dread of the physical behind the moral, they may attack the masses lawfully and constitutionally assembled, and bludgeon them as at Calthorpc-street, or sabre them as they did at Peterloo.” Northern Star, 1 Dec. 1838, p. 5.

7 Brighton Patriot, 25 Sept. 1838, p. 3. At a meeting at Preston, he said: “Why, then will they not fire upon the people as they did at Peterloo? Because of the wadding of the first cannon would set fire to Preston. This is not threatening language, this is soothing language, this is throwing the wet blanket over the fire, and this is to prevent the Whigs from firing the first shot.” Northern Star, 10 Nov. 1838, p. 6.

8 Brighton Patriot, 25 Sept. 1838, p. 3; see also the Northern Star, 28 July 1838, p. 6; 10 Nov. 1838, p. 6.

9 See Thomas Milton Kemnitz and Fleurange Jacques, “J. R. Stephens and the Chartist Movement,” forthcoming in the International Review of Social History.

10 Brighton Patriot, 25 Sept. 1838, p. 3.

11 Northern Star. 30 June 1838, p. 8.

12 Ibid., 30 June 1838, p. 8.

13 For Harney, see Schoyen, A. R., The Chartist Challenge: A Portrait of George Julian Harney (London, 1958), pp. 28–97 Google Scholar. For Dr. John Taylor see ibid., pp. 89-94 and also his letter to William Lovett in four parts in which he details his part in the planned uprising and also mentions Peter Bussey as “our fat friend,” in Lovett's volumes of Papers Relating to Working Men's Associations in the Birmingham Reference Library.

14 Hovell, Mark, The Chartist Movement (Manchester, 1963), pp. 149, 155Google Scholar.

15 Douglas in Birmingham Journal, 17 Nov. 1838, p. 4; Duncan in True Scotsman, 24 Nov. 1838, p. 1.

16 See Brighton Patriot, 25 Sept. 1838, p. 3; Northern Star, 15 Dec. 1838, p. 8; 22 Dec. 1838, p. 8 (also in Sun, 19 Dec. 1838, p. 1).

17 Northern Star, 3 Nov. 1838, p. 4.

18 Wyncoll, P., Nottingham Chartism, p. 19 Google Scholar.