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Chartism in 1848: Reflections on a Non-Revolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Henry Weisser
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The standard interpretation of 1848 in Britain is that while Continental Europe reached a turning point and failed to turn, as the famous aphorism states, Britain reached its turning point in 1832, turned, and thus avoided revolution in that year of revolutions. The British middle classes, unlike their Continental counterparts, were loyal in 1848. They enjoyed a broader franchise, some reforming legislation already passed, and commitments to various welcome changes in the future made by diverse politicians. All of this gave the British middle classes great confidence in British institutions and their own future under them, as well as the belief that their country was fortunately different from all the other nations. Without the middle classes, the Chartists could have never succeeded with any kind of insurrection. So, while the capitals of Europe echoed with sounds of musketry and cannon, Britain was at peace because her Constitution was essentially better than anything that prevailed elsewhere.

Modern historiography has done little to change this interpretation of 1848 that was first proclaimed by self-congratulatory and relieved Victorians. All the accounts stress the fortunate uniqueness of Britain and the key role of middle class loyalty. Priscilla Robertson wrote, “During the days of 1848, England stood apart, unshaken, apparently unshakable. Her reformers were already in power. …” In a recent study of the 1848 revolutions, Peter Stearns focuses on the ways the middle class abetted Continental revolutions at the same time that they were instrumental in preventing revolution in Britain. These are really restatements of Elie Halévy's classic explanation. While John Saville's treatment of 1848 differs from traditional accounts in several ways, particularly in stressing the vigor of the Chartist left's resistance after April 10, his explanation for the failure of revolution does not. He concludes that the British government could count on “whole-hearted support” much further down the social scale than could Continental governments. Moreover, despite all the newer research on political violence, crowds, and revolution, the standard interpretation of Britain's fate in 1848 remains: middle-class support for the regime was too strong while Chartist support for an insurrection was too weak.

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Research Article
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Albion , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , Spring 1981 , pp. 12 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1981

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References

1 Robertson, Priscilla, Revolutions of 1848, A Social History (Princeton, 1952), p. 405Google Scholar. See also Bury, J. P. T., “Great Britain and the Revolution of 1848,” in Fejto, François, ed., The Opening of an Era, 1848: An Historical Symposium (London, 1948), pp. 180–203.Google Scholar

2 Stearns, Peter N., 1848: The Revolutionary Tide in Europe (New York, 1974), p. 35Google Scholar. On Chartist revolutionaries he writes that they “were divided among themselves and few of them were consciously revolutionary” (p. 2). See also Sigmann, Jean, 1848: The Romantic and Democratic Revolutions in Europe (New York, 1973), pp. 21–43.Google Scholar

3 Halévy, Elie, A History of the English People in the Nineteenth Century, vol. 4, Victorian Years, 1841-1895 (London, 1951), p. 245.Google Scholar

4 Saville, John, “Chartism in the Year of Revolution, 1848,” The Modern Quarterly 8, (Winter, 1952–1953):23–34Google Scholar. See also his introduction to Gammage, R. G., History of the Chartist Movement, 1837-1854 (2nd ed.; New York, 1969), pp. 33–40, 65Google Scholar. Similar views on 1848 are in his Jones, Ernest, Chartist (London, 1952).Google Scholar

5 Rudé, George (The Crowd in History: 1730-1848 [London, 1964])Google Scholar, finds Chartism in 1848 “far less widespread” and “a less significant affair” than earlier manifestations of the movement (p. 183). See also Kramnick, Issac, “Reflections on Revolution: Definition and Explanation in Recent Scholarship,” History and Theory 11 (1972):26–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Cf. Gurr, Ted R., Why Men Rebel (Princeton, 1970), p. 155Google Scholar. Also Hagopian, Mark N., The Phenomenon of Revolution (New York, 1974).Google Scholar

6 See Braunthal, Julius, A History of the International, 2 vols. (New York and Washington, 1967), 1Google Scholar; Shoyen, A. R., The Chartist Challenge: A Portrait of George Julian Harney (London, 1958)Google Scholar, and Rothstein, Fiodor, From Chartism to Labourism, Historical Sketches of the English Working Class Movement (London, 1929)Google Scholar. A newer analysis is in the sketches of Harney and Jones in Mandel, E., Marx und Engels and die ersten proletarischen Revolutionäre (Berlin, 1965)Google Scholar, a translation of recent Soviet contributions. See also Weisser, Henry, “Chartist Internationalism, 1845-1848,” The Historical Journal 14 (1971):49–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and British Working Class Movements and Europe, 1815-1848 (Manchester, 1975), pp. 118–172.Google Scholar

7 Many semantic and philosophical problems surround the use of the word revolution, as pointed out in Issac Kramnick, “Reflections on Revolution.” There is justification in using the Chartists' simple definition because they themselves used the word in those terms.

8 Harney to Engels, Mar. 30, 1846, in Hack, Frank Gees and Black, Renée Métivier, eds., The Harney Papers (Assen, 1969), p. 240.Google Scholar

9 See the Northern Star of Mar. 4, 1848; Manchester Guardian, Mar. 11, 1848. For the Paris visit see Northern Star of Mar. 18, 1848, and Mar. 25, 1848; and Schoyen, , The Chartist Challenge, pp. 158–9Google Scholar. For the Fraternal Democrats response to the French Revolution of 1848 see Frost, Thomas, Forty Years' Recollections, Literary and Political (London, 1880), pp. 127–8.Google Scholar

10 Northern Star, Mar. 4, 1848, Mar. 18, 1848, Mar. 25, 1848. Harney became fearful of a bourgeois conspiracy early. His enthusiastic speech at a banquet of French Republicans is reported in the Northern Star, Apr. 8, 1848; but before the June Days he was disappointed with French republicanism because so few workers had been returned after elections. (Northern Star, May 27,1848, June 10, 1848, June 17, 1848). The June Days brought him into a phase of red republicanism that was much celebrated thereafter by Marxist writers, see e. g., the Northern Star, July 18, 1848. Criticism of Harney's influence frequently appeared in the Weekly Dispatch: “He has been barking and snarling for years; and while his vocation brings in the needful, he will continue to yelp until the crack of doom” (Apr. 16, 1848). See also Apr. 2, 1848, and Apr. 9, 1848. Feargus O'Connor feared that Harney might make the newspaper “a foreign journal altogether,” because so much space was being taken by matters in which the English people “take not the slightest interest” (Feargus O'Connor to George Julian Harney, n. d., attributed to early 1848, in Black, and Black, , The Harney Papers, p. 62.Google Scholar)

11 Northern Star, Mar. 4, 1848.

12 Northern Star, Mar. 18, 1848.

13 Northern Star, July 1, 1848.

14 Northern Star, Mar. 4, 1848.

15 Northern Star, Mar. 11, 1848. Visiting Irish deputations asked for aid but did not get it.

16 See Northern Star, Mar. 25, 1848, Apr. 1, 1848. In one address the demand to “strike to the dust intriguers and assassins” appears, but it was offered to the French Provisional government in protest over the abolition of capital punishment in France.

17 These views were often presented to justify Continental revolutions to moral force Chartists. Mazzini was noted for this approach. See the “Address of the Council of the People's International League” (Cowen Collection, Item A8, Newcastle-upon-Tyne Public Library), pp. 10-11; The People's Press, Aug. 2, 1847, p. 212Google Scholar; Northern Star, Mar. 28, 1846; for O'Brien's, Bronterre views, see the National Reformer and Manx Weekly Review of Home and Foreign Affairs, Mar. 13, 1847, p. 8.Google Scholar

18 In March a new council had to be elected. Schapper and Bauer, important members, were gone by then (Northern Star, Mar. 25, 1848).

19 The Times was in favor of it, out of concern over the “unusual number of good citizens from a powerful military republic within sight of these shores” (Apr. 12, 1848). The Morning Chronicle described these fears as “chimerical [sic]” (May 3,1848). Chartists protested against it in their National Convention, Northern Star, Apr. 15, 1848, and the radical Weekly Dispatch, June 18, 1848, regarded it as a dangerous instrument of repression.

20 Parliamentary Debates, 3rd Ser., 98 (1848):138Google Scholar. Mather, F. C., Public Order in the Age of the Chartists (New York, 1967), p. 33Google Scholar, places stress on the importance on Young Ireland in bringing about this act. The government could have drawn it up to apply solely to Ireland if it wished, in a manner similar to the coercion bills. See also, Schoyen, , The Chartist Challenge, p. 173.Google Scholar

21 A Collection of Public General Statutes, 11 Vict. Cap. 20, pp. 205-208. Aliens resident for over three years and diplomatic households were excluded from the operation of the act.

22 Northern Star, May 6, 1848; Apr. 22, 1848; also the remarks of a Chartist named Lightowler in the Bradford Observer, Apr. 27, 1848.

23 Democratic Review of British and Foreign Politics, History and Literature, Nov. 1849, p. 201Google Scholar; Rothstein, , From Chartism to Labourism, pp. 143–44Google Scholar; Northern Star, May 27, 1848.

24 The loss of their usual meeting place was reported in the Northern Star, Apr. 29, 1848. The Sept. 30, 1848 issue included Harney's complaints about unspecified “unfavorable circumstances” and the “impossibility of obtaining a public room” for their anniversary. When the Fraternal Democrats were asked to contribute to a defense fund for newly imprisoned Chartists in June, they were urged to do as individuals because “circumstances do not admit of our contributing as an organized body” (Northern Star, June 17, 1848).

25 Weekly Dispatch, Apr. 16, Apr. 30, Aug. 20, 1848. See also The Times, Apr. 10, 1848; Parl. Deb. 3rd Ser. 98 (1848):135–138.Google Scholar

26 Police report, Aug. 14, 1848, H. O. 45/2410, Part 2, London. Also Sir W. Maude to Sir George Grey, Mar. 26, 1845, H. O. 45/2410 Part 1 A, K; Mark to Sir George Grey, June n. d. (1848), H. O. 45/2410, Part2, London.

27 Colonel Rowan to General Bowles, n. d., Royal Archives, J68/2. Use of the Royal Archives was due to the gracious permission of her Majesty the Queen. The Home Office was very interested in the activities of a Frenchman calling himself M. de St. Hilarie: Henry Waddington to the Major of Manchester, July 22, 1848; Henry Waddington to the Mayor of Bristol, July 22 and July 27,1848; H. O. 41/19.

28 W. W. Weston to Sir George Grey, H. O. 45/2410, Part 2, London.

29 The outletters of the Home Office Papers, H. O. 41/19, contain anxious letters about Irish conspiracies. See in particular H. Waddington to the Mayor of Liverpool, July 13, 1848; Waddington to the Mayor of Liverpool, Sept. 23, 25, 26, 1848. Scattered references express concern over Irish conspiracies in the Lord John Russell Papers, P. R. O. 30/22 7B. Magistrates' reports to the Home Office depict the Irish poised for simultaneous outbreaks in England and Ireland. J. P. Tempest to Sir George Grey, July 24, 1848; Bradford Magistrates to Sir George Grey, May 26, 1848, H. O. 45/2410, Part 4, AB-AC. Inflammatory remarks from the United Irishman were read in the House of Commons Parl. Deb. 3rd Ser., 97 (1848):26Google Scholar. Mather, , Public Order in the Age of the Chartists, p. 194Google Scholar, says that membership in the Irish Repeal Club of 1848 “implied participation in subscription for arms and the study of street warfare.”

30 Northern Star, Apr. 29, May 6, 1848. Also, O'Higgens, Rachel, “Irish Influence in the Chartist Movement, Past and Present 20 (November, 1961):86–87.Google Scholar

31 The Morning Chronicle of Apr. 3, 1848.

32 Macclesfield Courier, May 20, 1848. See the report of a Chartist mission to the Council of the Irish Confederation as presented to the Chartist National Assembly in the Northern Star, May 6, 1848. Criticism of fraternization was expressed in “The Chartists of Britain and the Repealers of Ireland,” Tait's Edinburgh Magazine 15, no. 173 (1848):295–300.Google Scholar

33 Weekly Dispatch, Apr. 2, Apr. 9, June 11, 1848; The Times, Apr. 10, 1848, p. 4.Google Scholar

34 For example, reports in the Weekly Dispatch, Aug. 20, 1848. Mayor of Birmingham to Dennis Le Marchant, Apr. 12, 1848, H. O. 2410, Part 3, B-Z.

35 Weekly Dispatch, Apr. 2, 1848; The Times, Apr. 10, 1848, p. 3Google Scholar, quoting the Liverpool Albion. See also the speech of Dixon, William reported in the Weekly Dispatch, Apr. 2, 1848Google Scholar; the Manchester Guardian, Mar. 29, 1848.

36 For Ireland in the year of revolutions, Duffy, Charles Gavan, Four Years of Irish History, 1845-1849, A Sequel to “Young Ireland,” (London, Paris and New York, 1883).Google Scholar

37 Weekly Dispatch, June 4, June 11, 1848.

38 The State Trials, New Series, vol. 6 and 7 (1848)Google Scholar, show many accusations of this nature For Ernest Jones' remarks, see vol. 6, p. 783, and the Weekly Dispatch, Aug. 6, 1848.

39 Ward, J. T., Chartism (London, 1973), p. 199.Google Scholar

40 The upsurge in Chartist activity is undeniable, as many sources clearly indicate. Consider the sheer bulk of Home Office Papers: the bundle of in-letters for 1847, H. O. 45/1826 contains but five items pertaining to Chartists, while several large boxes of in-letters exist for 1848 under H. O. 45/2410. George Howell's manuscript autobiography in the Howell Collection, Bishopsgate Institute, London, describes intense political discussion in his boyhood workshop brought on by the French Revolution of 1848. Lord Ashley wrote of his concern that this event was “a common and exciting topic among the working people.” Lord Ashley to Anson, Apr. 22, 1848, RA C56/48. Also W. Maudie to Sir George Grey, Mar. 26, 1848, H. O. 45/2410, Part la.

41 For samples of these addresses, Northern Star, Mar. 11, Mar. 18, and Apr. 1, 1848. Macclesfield Courier and Herald, Apr. 8, 1848; Manchester Guardian, Mar. 11, Mar. 15, 1848; Aris's Birmingham Gazette, Mar. 20, 1848.

42 Glasgow Examiner, Mar. 11,1848, also the Morning Chronicle, Mar. 10, 1848. Harney drew comment for being tricked out in a red scarf with a tricolor ribband across his breast. For examples of French trappings, see the Leeds Mercury, Apr. 8, 1848; The Times, Apr. 11, 1848; Bradford Observer, May 25, 1848; Northern Star, Apr. 29, 1848; Reports of Inspector Mayne, Apr. 10, 1848, H. O. 45/2410, Part 2, London.

43 Northern Star, Mar. 18, 1848. The Chartist delegates to the French Provisional Government returned with the same messagge: “Let every British Chartist observe that the Charter is the basis on which they have formed their government.”

44 The Northern Star often concluded editorials with the words “France Has a Republic, England Must Have the Charter!” Harney declared that “the French with three days work have obtained the Charter and something more” (ibid., Mar. 25, 1848).

45 Northern Star, Mar. 4, Mar. 18, Mar. 25, Apr. 1, 1848. Also the Speeches reported in the Morning Chronicle, Apr. 5, 1848; Macclesfleld Courier and Herald, Apr. 15, 1848.

46 Northern Star, Apr. 8, 1848.

47 Address of the Somerstown Chartists, Northern Star, Mar. 4, 1848. See a letter from Mackay, John H., Northern Star, Mar. 25, 1848Google Scholar. There was a discussion of a National Guard at a camp meeting at Middleton, reported in the Manchester Guardian, May 17, 1848.

48 See Jones', Ernest address, “Soldier and Citizen. To the Oppressed of Either Class,” Northern Star, Apr. 1, 1848Google Scholar, and a speech reported, ibid., Apr. 8, 1848. For other comments, Manchester Guardian, June 3,1848, the Weekly Dispatch, June 11, 1848; Earl of Malmesbury, Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, 2 vols. (London, 1884), 1:224.Google Scholar

49 Weekly Dispatch, Apr. 9, 1848.

50 Macclesfield Courier, May 20, 1848. Manchester Guardian, Mar. 15, 1848 (the speaker was James Leach). Also see ibid., Apr. 8, 1848; Bradford Observer, Mar. 16, 1848; Northern Star, 1977), p. 116.Google ScholarPubMed

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52 Jones, David, Chartism and the Chartists (London and New York, 1975), p. 153.Google Scholar

53 Introduction to Gammage, R. G., History of the Chartist Movement, 1837-1854 (Second ed.; New York, 1969), pp. 33–39.Google Scholar

54 Why Men Rebel (Princeton, 1970), pp. 98, 238.Google ScholarPubMed

55 Thomis, and Holt, , Threats of Revolution in Britain, p. 101.Google Scholar

56 Lovett, Jones, Watson, Hetherington, G. J. Holyoake, W. J. Linton and Thomas Cooper all joined the People's Charter Union in 1848, which was an organization firmly dedicated to the use of moral force (H. O. 45/2410, Part 2, London). Cooper, Thomas, The Life of Thomas Cooper, Written By Himself (2nd ed.: London, 1872), p. 311Google Scholar. Plummer, Alfred, Bronterre: A Political Biography of Bronterre O'Brien (London, 1971), pp. 191–192.Google Scholar

57 John Taylor was dead; Richard Oastler and J. R. Stephens were quiescent in 1848. Both had experienced imprisonment prior to 1848. For a statement of Joseph Rayner Stephens on Chartism in 1848, see the Ashton Chronicle, May 17, 1848; for Oastler, see ibid., May 5, 1848.

58 Many anti-revolutionary pronouncements of Robert Owen appeared in the Northern Star in 1848. David Caute cites Owen's role in 1848 in The Left in Europe Since 1789 (London, 1971), p. 37Google Scholar. Typical of Trade Union sentiment are the remarks of the chairman of a meeting of the aggregate trades of the metropolis, “That the workmen could obtain all they desired by argument and constitutional means alone,” (Weekly Dispatch, Apr. 30, 1848). Also the address of the National Association of United Trades, Northern Star, Apr. 8, 1848.

59 The symptoms reported in Donald Read and Glasgow, Eric, Feargus O'Connor, Irishman and Chartist (Arnold, 1961), pp. 140–143Google Scholar seem to point to the ravages of the bottle and the spirochete. Gamage, R. G., History of the Chartist Movement, 1837-1854, Introduction by Saville, John, p. 65.Google Scholar

60 Northern Star, Feb. 26, 1848.

61 Parl. Deb., 3rd ser., 98 (1848):16.Google Scholar

62 See the Northern Star, Apr. 8, May 6, May 13, June 17, July 15, 1848. For his involvement with foreign affairs before 1848, see Weisser, Henry, “The Role of Feargus O'Connor in Chartist Internationalism,” The Rocky Mountain Social Science Journal (Apr. 1969):82–90.Google Scholar

63 Jones, David, Chartism (London and New York, 1975), p. 150.Google Scholar

64 Morning Chronicle, Apr. 3, 1848.

65 Northern Star, Apr. 8, 1848; see also Weekly Dispatch, Mar. 13, 1848. The Times, Apr. 10, 1848, p. 4.Google Scholar

66 Sir G. Grey to Lord John Russell, Apr. 9, 1848, Lord John Russell Papers, PRO 30/22 7B.

67 Northern Star, Apr. 8, 1848.

68 Northern Star, Apr. 29, July 1, 1848. Jones was sentenced for a seditious speech in late May, but the subject which produced incriminatory statements was Ireland, not international revolution (see State Trials, n. s., vol. 6, pp. 783–830Google Scholar).

69 Northern Star, July 1, 1848 (letter from Ernest Jones). For Feargus O'Connor's comparison of conditions in England to the June Days, see the Northern Star, Sept. 9, 1848.

70 Weekly Dispatch, July 2, 1848. French examples also taught the government how to suppress popular risings more easily according to the issue of Aug. 20, 1848 (see also Apr. 30, 1848). Bradford Observer, Sept. 14, 1848; Staffordshire Mercury, Apr. 15, 1848.

71 Anon. (A Fellow Labourer), “What the Chartists Are. A Letter to English Working Men” (London: Thomas Bosworth, 1848)Google Scholar. The question was also raised in Parliament: Parl. Deb. 3rd Ser., 97 (1848):336–338Google Scholar. Typical comments on the explusion are in the Morning Chronicle, Mar. 9, 1848, and Staffordshire Mercury, Apr. 8 and Apr. 15, 1848.

72 Parl. Deb. 3rd Ser. 97 (1848)Google Scholar (various O'Connor speeches).

73 Northern Star, Apr. 29, 1848. Weekly Dispatch, Apr. 30, 1848; Northern Star, Feb. 26, Apr. 29, July 1, 1848.

74 Lovett, William, “Justice Safer than Expediency: An Appeal to the Middle Classes on the Question of Suffrage” (1848), p. 5.Google Scholar

75 The Weekly Dispatch decried “the noisy braggarts who are always blustering for a fight” as a “very small minority of those who adhere to the Charter” (May 7, 1848). See also the Leeds Mercury, Apr. 8, 1848, for another middle class view. A handbill from the Bradford Chartist Council (H. O. 45/2420, Part 4, AB-AC), expresses relief that the violent elements had done no damage. Also, Weekly Dispatch, Apr. 16, 1848, quoting O'Connor.

76 Leeds Mercury, Apr. 8, 1848.

77 Manchester Guardian, Apr. 12, 1848, and Morning Chronicle, Apr. 13, 1848. See also ibid., Feb. 29, Apr. 7, 1848; Lloyd's Weekly London Newspaper, Mar. 26, 1848; Weekly Dispatch, Mar. 19, Apr. 23, 1848; Liverpool Journal, Mar. 18, 1848; Leeds Times, Mar. 1848; Newcastle Chronicle, Apr. 14, 1848; and Walpole, Spencer, The Life of Lord John Russell, 2 vols. (London, 1889), 1:70.Google Scholar

78 Northern Star, Apr. 1, 1848, also July 15, 1848, Cf. The Times editorial of July 19, 1848, p. 5.