The Chartist Movement/Chapter 12

by Mark Hovell

CHAPTER XII

THE CHARTIST REVIVAL

(1840–1841)

For six months after the trial of Frost Chartism slept. The chief leaders were imprisoned and there was no organisation to keep alive the agitation. A few of the former leaders were still active. Harney was engaged in Scotland, apparently as a paid lecturer, in the employ of the Scottish Chartists. Some activity was called forth by the organisation of petitions on behalf of Frost. There was a delegates' meeting at Birmingham in September 1839, but there is no information as to its doings except that it discussed plans for organising the movement.^[1] Three "Conventions" assembled at London, Manchester, and Nottingham in January, March, and April 1840. They were all concerned with Frost's case. The first was apparently connected with the futile outbreaks at Sheffield and elsewhere. The other two were of a milder character, though there was some bickering between the delegates, those representing the hosiery districts being still eager for violent courses.^[2] The advocates of petitioning as a means of releasing Frost were able to carry the day, James Taylor taking a leading part in the discussions.^[2] Petitions began to be extensively signed. In fact, more signatures were obtained on behalf of the three Newport victims than for the National Petition itself. Dr. Wade attended a levée on February 19, dressed in full canonicals, as etiquette required, and presented seven petitions on Frost's behalf.^[3]

During the spring of 1840, however, the Chartist world was deluged with suggestions for a reorganisation, or rather an organisation of the movement, for hitherto there had been singularly little machinery, except the Convention, for keeping together the rank and file and educating them in the principles and aims of the reformers. From this time onward the agitation took on a much sounder and more educational character. The Scots were the pioneers, though the original inspiration was due no doubt to the methods of the Anti-Corn Law League, and in a lesser degree to the London Working Men's Association.

The origin of the Scottish organisation is thus described by one of its authors: "In the autumn of 1839, when the cause of Liberty was suffering severely in England from the injudicious conduct of a number of its supporters and the persecution waged against it by an unprincipled Whig Government, who by spies and emissaries were endeavouring to excite the people to violence in order that every aspiration of freedom might be the more easily suppressed, the people of Scotland deemed it expedient to hold a great national delegate meeting for the purpose of devising a system of enlightened organisation and of suggesting such measures as might be considered necessary to promote sound and constitutional agitation in that critical period of the great movement." This meeting took place on August 15, 1839, at the Universalist Church, Glasgow. It was attended by seventy delegates, who represented fifty towns and populous places. It was recognised that the real line of advance lay in convincing public opinion, and two measures were decided upon to further this object. Firstly, paid lecturers—"missionaries"—were to be sent out to agitate in a more thorough fashion than hitherto; and secondly, a series of small tracts, or pamphlets, was to be published to give a proper view of their grievances and demands. These tracts were to form "a complete body of sound political information, embracing in its scope the cause, nature, and extent of our wrongs, the rights which civilised society owes to us, and which we inherit from our Creator; as also the appalling details of legislative misrule, the enormities which a reckless aristocracy have (sic) perpetrated on those over whom they have tyrannised, and the power which an organised nation would have in redressing its own grievances, so as to induce the people, by imbuing their minds with this knowledge, to concentrate their energies on the acquisition of their liberty." This was the origin of an excellent little publication which ran from September 1839 to October 1841, under the name of the Chartist Circular. An elective Committee of fifteen members was constituted, with the title, "Universal Suffrage Central Committee for Scotland," and so the organisation got under weigh. Harney seems to have been one of its paid lecturers, having temporarily shelved his physical force ideas. In March 1840 he was recommending English Chartists to follow suit,^[4] in a letter to the Northern Liberator.

Harney's letter is one of many which were communicated to the Chartist press about this time, all with the same object—organise, organise! They show how far the reaction from the exaggerated confidence of the previous year had gone, and suggest that there is some dim realisation of the necessity for hard spade work before the foundations of success can be laid. Harney relates how the failure of the late Convention had ruined the Chartist cause in the Border counties. He suggests a programme of organisation and systematic petitioning. He touches on a question which was to exercise many Chartist minds in the next few years—namely, the Free Trade agitation. He declares unremitting war upon it, and urges Chartists to attend Anti-Corn Law meetings in force to procure the rejection of all resolutions proposed there. His scheme of organisation includes a permanent paid central committee which shall sit at Manchester. There shall be local county leaders who will act as teachers of Chartism and as enemies of the people's enemies, especially of the priests. These men will in fact stand between people and patricians like the tribunes of the people at Rome.^[5]

R. J. Richardson from his cell at Liverpool made public a scheme of organisation—a high-falutin affair culled from the Constitution of the United States, Freemasonry, Rousseau, archaeology, and R. J. Richardson.^[6] It had all the essentials of a bad constitution. The Dumfries Chartists submitted another constitution in which an elective Convention played a part "to focus attention upon horrifying wrongs and oppressions."^[7] Robert Lowery had another scheme in which the contesting of Parliamentary seats was the chief feature. Significantly enough, Lowery will hear no more of Conventions.^[8] "Republican" wrote a series of articles in the Northern Star in support of a "permanent, secret, and irresponsible" directory, which would control the movement. He, too, will hear no more of Conventions. The old Convention was too large and heterogeneous. The members had not the necessary knowledge or integrity. All they did was to produce "puerile manifestos" and "the still more ridiculous National Holiday." Their imbecility had ruined the cause. He recommends a local organisation in small sections or classes with a county corresponding secretary and a "Great Central and Secret Directory" of seven to rule the whole. This scheme, strongly insurrectionary in aspect, "Republican" defended sturdily in the pages of the Star, complaining on one occasion that the attention of Chartists is too easily diverted from their main purpose to such things as Frost's trial and O'Connor's imprisonment.^[9]

A very characteristic scheme was recommended by O'Connor. Nothing could exhibit more clearly the inferior calibre of O'Connor's mind than this effusion. He was perhaps the only leading Chartist who was devoid alike of idealism and of statesmanship. The first essential was the foundation of a daily newspaper. Just as he later transformed Chartism into a land gamble, so now he would transform it into a newspaper syndicate, flourishing on those profits which O'Brien so heartily detested. O'Connor wants 20,000 men to subscribe 6d. a week for forty weeks.^[10] £6500 will be raised in subscriptions from readers, and £3500 he will provide himself. The paper will pay ten per cent upon the £20,000 share capital. For the first year, however, the profits will be devoted to other purposes. Twenty delegates were to sit in London from April 15 for eight weeks, receiving each £5 a week. As many lecturers would lecture, also for eight weeks, at the same rate of pay. Five prizes of £20 were to be given for essays on subjects selected by the Convention. £200 would be left in the hands of the proprietor for a defence fund, and the rest of the £2000 would be applied to miscellaneous purposes. The delegates and lecturers would be elected by show of hands and would be under the control of a "committee of review." The Convention would have a permanent Chairman and a Council of five to prepare all business for it. After a digression to show that he has spent £1140 in the people's cause, out of the profits of the Northern Star (which he later denied to exist), O'Connor concludes by showing how compact his machinery will be. The Convention will be the representative body of Chartism, the council its digestive organ, the lecturers its arteries, the people the heart, the Morning Star (the paper to be) its tongue, the committee of review its eyes, £2000 a year its food, and Universal Suffrage its only task.

That this scheme was put forward in all seriousness is indicated both by the general tenour of O'Connor's career and by the fact that it was published in the Northern Star,^[11] a few days before the great delegate meeting at Manchester which was convened for the purpose of establishing a permanent organisation of the Chartist forces. It was apparently brought under review by that meeting. O'Connor's scheme would have established more effectively that quasi-Tammany organisation which he succeeded in establishing to a lesser degree through the Northern Star. As proprietor of the two papers O'Connor would have turned the Chartist movement into an extensive machine for booming his publications. He would have had lectures, delegates, council, and committee in his pocket. He would have debased the pure currency of Lovett, O'Brien, and Benbow by this scheme, just as he did by the Land Scheme later on.

Along with these various plans of reorganisation came the revival of local bodies which had been put out of action by the débâcle of 1839. We read in April of the formation of a Metropolitan Charter Union of which Hetherington was the leading figure.^[12] It proposes the union of all Radical, Charter and similar associations into one great body, and hopes to proceed by the circulation of tracts and a penny weekly publication, by founding co-operative stores, coffee-houses, and reading-rooms. Its objects were "to keep the principles of the People's Charter prominently before the public, by means of lectures, discussions and the distribution of tracts on sound political principles, or by any other legal means which may be deemed advisable. To promote peace, union and concord amongst all the classes of people." … "To avoid all private and secret proceedings, to deprecate all violent and inflammatory language and all concealment of the views and objects of this Association." This last suggestion was a very significant comment upon the recent events. Most of the names of the Committee of this society are new. It decided, perhaps for lack of funds, not to send a delegate to the Manchester Conference in July, but did actually send Spurr, one of the old Democratic Association.^[13]

In April, too, the Northern Political Union of Newcastle was reorganised for "the attainment of Universal Suffrage by every moral and lawful means, such as petitioning Parliament, procuring the return of members to Parliament who will vote for Universal Suffrage, publishing tracts, establishing reading rooms." Weekly lectures were also delivered, Lowery being the first speaker.^[14] The Leeds Radical Association was re-established on the same lines.^[15] In Lancashire there was no little activity, and the system of lecturers was in full swing in June. In June also the West Riding Chartists were meeting by delegates in preparation for the Manchester Conference in the following month.^[16] The Carlisle Radical Association rose again.^[17] All things considered, this revival in the spring of 1840 was a remarkable tribute to the vitality of Chartism. The movement was much more localised than in 1839, but within its narrower bounds it was stronger and healthier.

On July 20 twenty-three delegates met at the "Griffin," Great Ancoats Street, Manchester, to restart the Chartist movement. Lancashire and Cheshire districts were represented by eleven of the delegates; Yorkshire had two, Wales one, Scotland one, London, Nottingham, Leicester, Loughboro', Sunderland, Carlisle, and one or two other places being also represented. Of ex-Conventionals only James Taylor, Deegan, and Smart were present. One or two names destined to be of some repute appear here for the first time. One was that of James Leach, a Manchester operative, whose forte was opposition to the Anti-Corn-Law agitation. Another was that of R. K. Philp of Bath, a man somewhat of the type of Lovett.

The first task of the delegates was to review the many plans of reorganisation and agitation which had been submitted to the Chartist public. O'Connor, Lowery, O'Brien, Richardson, Philp (who submitted a Press scheme, drawn up by W. G. Burns, intended to combat O'Connor's), Benbow (who sent a scheme too long to read), the West Riding delegates, and several anonymous individuals, including "Republican," had set forth their ideas in various schemes. Some were for no Convention, others were for annual Conventions, but nearly all recognised the importance of regular subscriptions and of the machinery to collect and administer the funds so obtained. Pamphlets, tracts, lectures, and the organisation in small local bodies were also generally agreed on, and these were embodied in the final scheme of the National Charter Association, which, with the same title, but with varying purpose, held the field for a dozen years.

The object of the National Charter Association was "to obtain a full and faithful representation of the entire people in the House of Commons, on the principles of the People's Charter." None but peaceable and constitutional means, such as petitions and public meetings, were to be adopted. Members were to be admitted on signing a declaration of adhesion to the principles of the Charter, on paying twopence for a card of membership and a weekly subscription of one penny. All members were to be registered by the Executive. The local organisation was to be in "classes" of ten, a system which had been in use since 1830 amongst London Radicals, and which was based originally on the Methodist class organisation. The class leader was to collect subscriptions. These classes were to be combined into "wards" each with a ward-collector, and the wards again into a larger unit for each town. Each large town would have a Council with Secretary and Treasurer, and each county a similar Council. The whole was to be governed by an Executive of five with Secretary and Treasurer, to be elected on January 1 each year on the nomination of the counties. The executive members were to be paid 30s. a week, and the Secretary £2.

The measures recommended to the attention of Chartists were, first, the attending of political (i.e. Anti-Corn Law) meetings to move amendments in favour of the Charter; second, sobriety; and third, the adoption of O'Brien's election plan. This plan, which was a revival of the "legislative attorney" scheme which came to grief at Peterloo, consisted in proposing Chartist candidates at every Parliamentary election, regardless of the lack of qualification and other disabilities which afflicted poor men. These were to be elected by show of hands at the meetings, and afterwards, though they would not go to the poll, be regarded by all Chartists as their true representatives. It is difficult to say what O'Brien really intended by this scheme, though an article by him on the subject^[18] suggests that an attempt might be made to constitute a rival Parliament to that at St. Stephen's, and even to uphold it by force. The Chartists later made considerable use of the opportunity which these bogus nominations offered to air their views at election times, and Harney appears to have made a very effective attack upon Palmerston at Tiverton by these means.

The Manchester Scheme was afterwards drastically revised so as to evade the vague and dangerous scope of the laws on Corresponding Societies and Conspiracy. The publishers of the Northern Star applied to Place for advice. Place certainly regarded the scheme as illegal. "The people in the North, some of them are organising on the Manchester Delegate Assembly plan, by which every man of them makes himself liable to transportation."^[19] Place had written a pamphlet on the law respecting political bodies of this description in 1831, and the Northern Star people evidently desired a copy of it. Very likely as a result of Place's advice, various changes were made. The election of local officials by their own localities was dropped, as each district thereby assumed the character of a branch, and the arrangement was therefore illegal. Instead, the Chartists in any town where Chartists reside should elect two or more members of a great General Council, out of which local secretaries and treasurers would be selected, as well as the Executive Committee. The General Council would elect these various officers. Thus nominally the suggestion of districts or branches was eliminated, and the National Charter Association assumed the character of a single undivided body with a Council of several hundred members. As all declarations not required by law were illegal, the voluntary declaration of adhesion to the principles of the Charter had to be omitted.^[20] These details will suffice to illustrate the difficulties which harassed political agitation in these times. It is a tribute both to the shrewdness of the Chartists in evading and to the scruples of the Government in administering bad laws that no prosecution under the Acts 39 Geo. III. c. 79 and 57 Geo. III. c. 19 was instituted during the Chartist agitation. The revised constitution of the Association was much more cumbrous than the original, and for various reasons did not work very well. Nevertheless even a bad constitution will help to produce results if energetically worked, and the Chartists were at least men of energy. The National Charter Association proved an efficient agitating body and succeeded for many years in recruiting new men of zeal and ability, like Thomas Cooper, Ernest Jones, George Jacob Holyoake, and William James Linton.

The new organisation got under way rather slowly. James Leach and William Tillman, both of the Manchester district, acted as chiefs of a provisional Executive Committee. In August 1840 they issued an appeal for the prompt payment of subscriptions. Local Chartist organisations were dissolved and absorbed into the new Association, but owing to the belief that the Association was illegal, this went on very slowly. By February 1841 there were only eighty "localities" registered."^[21] Another cause was operating to discourage recruiting, namely the provision that members' names should be registered. This was apparently necessary on account of the mysterious Acts of 1799 and 1817, but it aroused one Chartist to call the Association "the Attorney-General's Registration Office for Political Offenders."^[22] This was no doubt the original intention of the clause in the Acts, and it apparently aroused no little doubts in the minds of many Chartists. In the spring of 1841 the revised constitution was promulgated, and a more rapid growth followed. By December 1841 there were 282 localities,^[23] with apparently some 13,000 members. The membership is stated in April 1842 as 50,000. In the spring of 1841 the provisional Executive gave place to a regular elected Committee, consisting of MacDouall, Leach, Morgan Williams, John Campbell, George Binns, and R. K. Philp. Campbell, a Manchester man of no great ability or importance, also acted as Secretary.^[24] Abel Heywood, the well-known bookseller, of Oldham Street, Manchester, acted as Treasurer until the removal of Campbell to London in 1842 caused that office to pass to Cleave, since it was convenient for both Secretary and Treasurer to live in the same place. But the treasurership of so impecunious a body was little more than a sinecure. The growing preponderance of Manchester in the movement is a noteworthy matter and indicates a further stage of localisation.

The Scottish and the Manchester reorganisations were by no means the only result of the Chartist revival, but they were the two most important. Nothing is, in fact, more surprising than the variety of enterprises which sprang up during this phase of the movement, and nothing illustrates more clearly the great moral revival which Chartism engendered than the remarkable character of some of these movements. It is worth while to consider those which are associated with the names of Arthur O'Neill of Scotland and Birmingham, William Lovett of London, and Thomas Cooper of Leicester.

On the one side the moral force Chartists relied for their beliefs upon that faith in the omnipotence of human reason which was characteristic of the earlier phases of the French Revolution, and is conspicuous in the writings of Godwin and Shelley. Reason was to them an irresistible moral force. "How," asks Lovett, "can a corrupt Government withstand an enlightened people?" This was the principle on which Lovett would have based the Chartist agitation. It is the text of his pamphlet on Education and of his later book called Chartism. Lovett, however, had come to divorce his moral life from the teachings of Christianity. Arthur O'Neill, on the other hand, a young enthusiast in his early twenties, made no such distinction. The result was with Lovett, Educational Chartism; with O'Neill, "Christian Chartism"—two movements which ran on in close kinship.

The Christian Chartist movement was in some measure a protest against the exclusiveness and the Toryism of the Established Church, and against the repellent narrowness of some of the Dissenting bodies, notably of the Wesleyan Methodists.^[25] It was also partly due to a desire to base democratic principles upon the strong rock of Christian doctrine, and partly to a genuine missionary zeal, a desire to brighten the lives and minds of the poor, the ignorant, and the neglected. Christian Chartism was always accompanied by educational effort. The Church at Birmingham, the best-known and the most famous of the Chartist churches, was run on purely voluntary lines by Arthur O'Neill and John Collins, with occasional visits from Henry Vincent and others. It consisted of a political association which studied democratic thought as laid down in the works of Cobbett, Hunt, Paine, and Cartwright, and a Church whose purpose was to further temperance, morality, and knowledge. It had schools for children and for young men, and a sick club.^[26] O'Neill seems to have had no little success in the Birmingham area. He was on good terms with the working people and even with their employers. An iron-master in the district allowed him the use of a large room "which was crowded to suffocation every Sabbath afternoon from half-past two till a quarter past four." A Wesleyan minister, who was no friend to Chartism, describes O'Neill's methods thus:

O'Neill called himself a Christian Chartist and always began his discourse with a text, after the manner of a sermon; and some of our people went to hear him just to observe the proceedings and were shocked beyond description: there was unmeasured abuse of Her Majesty and the Constitution, about the public expenditure and complete radical doctrines of all kinds. They have a hymn-book of their own and affect to be a denomination of Christians. This is the way they gained converts here, by the name. There were very few political chartists here, but Christian Chartist was a name that took. It is almost blasphemy to prostitute the name of Christian to such purposes.^[27]

A Government Commissioner sent to inquire into the causes of the strike which engulfed Chartism in the Black Country in 1842, actually attended a "Christian Chartist Tea Party" at Birmingham, where O'Neill was the chief speaker. He thus reports O'Neill's sermon:

The necessity of their new Church was evident, for the true Church of Christ ought not to be split up into opposing sects: all men ought to be united in one Universal Church. Christianity should prevail in everyday life, commerce should be conducted on Christian principles and not on those of Mammon, and every other institution ought to be based on the doctrines of Christianity. Hence the Chartist Church felt it their duty to go out and move amongst the masses of the people to guide and direct them by the principles of Christianity. They felt it incumbent upon them to go out into the world, to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth. The true Christian Church could not remain aloof but must enter into the struggles of the people and guide them. The characteristic of members of a real Church was on the first day of the week to worship at their altar, on the next to go out and mingle with the masses, on the third to stand at the bar of judgment, and on the fourth perhaps to be in a dungeon. This was the case in the primitive Church and so it ought to be now.^[28]

If this sermon is the worst which the Commissioner in spite of the "pain" which his attendance caused him can report, we may safely assume that the Wesleyan minister's account is not without bias. O'Neill was an opponent of insurrectionary methods, so that the Bible did not in his hands become the explosive force which Stephens had made it. He was, however, prominent in all local industrial movements; in the strike of colliers in 1842 he was one of the men's spokesmen, thus carrying out his own precepts even to the dungeon itself.

O'Neill was not the only Christian Chartist preacher. There was a similar church at Bath where Henry Vincent was a regular preacher. Vincent had forsworn his earlier insurrectionary views and was now a devoted preacher of temperance. In fact "temperance Chartism" was in the way of becoming a regular cult until, along with Christian Chartism and "Knowledge Chartism," it came under the ban of O'Connor, to whom knowledge and temperance were alike alien. Scotland was also the seat of Christian Chartism; Paisley and Partick were flourishing centres of it. But the strength of Christian Chartism at Paisley rested not so much on the Chartist Church itself as on the ardent partisanship of one of the parish ministers of the Abbey Church. Patrick Brewster, a strenuous opponent of O'Connor and a member of the Anti-Corn-Law League, held his charge at Paisley from 1818 to 1859, and to the horror both of the Presbytery of Glasgow and of the heritors, who had appointed him, preached Chartist sermons of astonishing vehemence. Here is a paraphrase of Ecclesiastes iv. 1:

There is then one master grievance, one all-reaching, all-blasting evil: one enormous, atrocious, monstrous iniquity: one soul-blighting, heart-breaking, man-destroying, heaven-defying sin, which fills the earth with bondage and with blood, which aids the powerful and strikes the helpless, which punishes the innocent and rewards the guilty, which aggrandises the rich and robs the poor, which exalts the proud and beats down the humble, which decries truth and pleads for falsehood, which honours infamy and defames virtue, which pampers idleness and famishes industry: one GIGANTIC VILLAINY, the root and cause, the parent and protector of a thousand crimes … committing wrong and miscalling it right, committing robbery and calling it LAW, nay, in the sight of heaven, committing foul murder and calling it JUSTICE.^[29]

Many men felt like Brewster in those days. Think of the poor religious stockinger's "Let us be patient a little longer, lads. Surely God Almighty will help us soon," and the rejoinder, "Talk no more about thy Goddle Mighty; there isn't one. If there was, he wouldn't let us suffer as we do!"^[30]

The Partick Chartists ran an evening school five nights a week,^[31] whilst at Deptford there was established a "Working Men's Church," whose members were said to study the New Testament in Greek!^[32] All these institutions were run on thoroughly democratic lines. The articles of the Paisley Church provided for belief in the Scriptures, in Christ, and the Atonement; for the election of all officers, by universal suffrage and by the ballot; for the repudiation of pew-rents, and for voluntary contributions only.

This Christian Chartist movement does not seem to have struck a deep root. It was but a protest in the name of democratic Christianity against the "oppressions that are done under the sun" on behalf of those "who had no comforter," and it died away with the approach of better times. Nevertheless the efforts of Vincent, O'Neill, Collins, and the like, who leavened the mass of Chartist doctrine with some moral ideals, ought not to be neglected by the student of the movement. It is the tragedy of Chartism that it came to be controlled by one whose influence was fatal to ideals.

The movement initiated by Lovett was of a somewhat different character, and needs perhaps more notice. In the latter months of their imprisonment Lovett and Collins had been allowed, as a result of strenuous efforts on the part of their friends and themselves, better diet and the use of pens, ink, and paper. Lovett kept up a brisk correspondence^[33] with Place, defending his own conduct, and that of the Chartists generally, against the criticisms of the veteran politician.

Some of these letters are interesting enough to quote. On May 10, 1840, Place recommended the reinvigoration of the Working Men's Association, which he considered "was beyond all comparison a more important Association than any previous society of working men had ever been." It ought to be revived and extended into all parts, "but," says Place, "it may be objected that the plan of working-men's associations will be difficult—will move slowly—true, this is unfortunate, but moving a nation is a great work, it can go but slowly, it cannot be hurried." Place suggested that it was stupid not to accept less than the Charter; for partial schemes, such as the repeal of the Corn Laws, might in the long run carry them further than the measure of justice embodied even in the Charter. Lovett replied on the 19th that he had no hopes of a repeal until a thorough reform of Parliament was accomplished:

And when I remember that the agitation for the alteration of the Corn Laws did not commence till after the people were actively engaged in contending for the suffrage, and when I know that a vast number of those who talk of giving the people cheap bread, spurn the idea of giving them the suffrage, I very much doubt the sincerity of their professions. … But after the great body of the Radicals in different parts of the country have resolved to give up their various hobbies of anti-poor-laws, factory bills, wages protection laws, and various others, for the purpose of conjointly contending for the Charter, I think I should be guilty of bad faith not to follow up the great object we began with.

Lovett, curiously enough, did not agree with Place as to the value of the working-men's associations. They were too poor to be effective. They excluded all but working men and were more literary than political in character. They were seldom able to get up public meetings or to attempt anything involving expense. They had no organ. The working-men's associations were but small knots of men and inadequate to carry through a great movement.^[34] Consequently Lovett came to the conclusion that he must appeal to the middle class as well as to working people, if anything was to be accomplished. In spite of this the whole correspondence turns on the question whether the middle-class Radicals ought to come out for the Charter or the Chartists for Free Trade. Lovett was obdurate for the former, and Place for the latter.

It was in this state of mind that Place received from Lovett, some time in March 1840, a parcel containing a letter and a manuscript. The former was dated March 18, and related that both had been smuggled out of Warwick Gaol by way of a friend, as Lovett feared that the manuscript would be confiscated if despatched through the usual channels. The manuscript was a little book called Chartism, and had been written in the gaol by Lovett and Collins. In all probability Lovett wrote practically the whole of it. Lovett asked for Place's opinion on it. It was to be corrected according to his criticisms and amendments and published on the day of their liberation. Lovett adds: "I have now resolved to write a memoir of my own life; perhaps you will think this a little bit of vanity." This resolve was not carried out till 1876. Place, however, was very unfavourable towards the book written in prison, and succeeded, consciously or otherwise, in delaying the publication till some time after the release of the two Chartists.^[35]

The little work was an expansion of the tract on Education, published by the London Working Men's Association some four years before. It commences with a defence of democratic principles and an attack on the "exclusive" system then in vogue. This part is written with equal vehemence and ability. It gives vent to that throbbing and vibrating sense of injustice which is throughout characteristic of Lovett.

The black catalogue of recorded crimes which all history develops, joined to the glaring and oppressive acts of every day's experience, must convince every reflective mind that irresponsible power, vested in one man or in a class of men, is the fruitful source of every crime. For men so circumstanced, having no curb to the desires which power and dominion occasion, pursue an intoxicating and expensive career, regardless of the toiling beings who, under the forms of law, are robbed to support their insatiable extravagance. The objects of their cruelty may lift up their voices in vain against their oppressors, for their moral faculties having lost the wholesome check of public opinion; they become callous to the supplications of their victims.^[36]

Incidentally Lovett gives his views upon the resort to force.

We maintain that the people have the same right to employ similar means to regain their liberties, as have been used to enslave them. … And, however we may regret, we are not disposed to condemn the confident reliance many of our brethren placed on their physical resources, nor complain of the strong feelings they manifested against us and all who differed in opinion from them. We are now satisfied that many of them experience more acute sufferings, and daily witness more scenes of wretchedness than sudden death can possibly inflict, or battle strife disclose to them.^[37]

Lovett now proceeded to outline his scheme for a "new organisation of the people," which is what he conceives Chartism to be. This organisation is contained in the "Proposed Plan, Rules, and Regulations of an Association to be entitled 'The National Association of the United Kingdom for Promoting the Political and Social Improvement of the People.'" The objects of the Association were tenfold. First, "to unite in one general body persons of all CREEDS, CLASSES, and OPINIONS who are desirous to promote the political and social improvement of the people"; second, "to create and extend an enlightened public opinion in favour of the People's Charter and by every just means to secure its enactment so that the industrious classes may be placed in possession of the franchise, the most important step to all political and social reformation." The third object was to erect Public Halls and Schools for the people wherever necessary. There were to be Infant, Preparatory, and High Schools; the halls were to be used also for Public Lectures, Readings, Discussions, Musical Evenings, and Dancing. Each school was to have playgrounds for both sexes, gardens, baths, a museum, and a laboratory. The establishment of Normal Schools, of Agricultural Schools, the creation of travelling libraries, the publication of tracts and pamphlets, the presentation of prizes for essays on education, the employment of missionaries, and the discovery of legal means whereby the members may be able to control the Association in a democratic fashion are the remaining objects of this Association.^[38] A vast system of education on a purely voluntary basis was the object of Lovett's speculations.

The funds for the scheme were to be raised by voluntary contributions. Suppose, says Lovett, that everybody who signed the National Petition would subscribe one penny a week. This would give an income of £256,600 a year, devoted to the following purposes:

Building of 80 schools or halls at £3000 each⁠	£240,000
710 travelling libraries at £20 each	14,200
20,000 tracts per week at 15s. per 1000	780
4 missionaries at £200 per year	800
Printing, postage, salaries, etc.	700
Surplus	120
	£256,600

No provision is made for the upkeep and staffing of the schools.

Lovett now proceeds to explain the advantages of the scheme. A people so organised "would not use its energies in meeting and petitioning: it would not year after year be only engaged in the task of inducing corruption to purify itself: but it would be gradually accumulating means of instruction and amusement, and in devising sources of refined enjoyment to which the millions are strangers: it would be industriously employed in politically, intellectually and morally training fathers, mothers and children to know their rights and perform their duties: and with a people so trained, exclusive power, corruption and injustice would soon cease to have an existence."^[39] He repudiates the notion that he agrees with those who say the people are too ignorant to be entrusted with the franchise. The franchise, in fact, would be the best means of education. Nevertheless an unenlightened electorate would never realise the full social consequences of its enfranchisement without education, which is, therefore, necessary to ensure complete freedom.^[40] Lovett's thesis is this: the people ought to share completely in making the laws by which they are governed. They have even the right to use force to recover the liberties of which they have been deprived by force, but unless they are educated they will never realise the benefits which they seek to extort by their valour. By education and organisation they will become possessed of a moral force which no exclusive governing body can resist, and by their enlightenment they will use to the fullest extent and to the best effect the liberties they have won.

After a short dissertation upon the enfranchisement of women, a doctrine of which Lovett and some of his followers remained convinced champions,^[41] Lovett plunges with evident satisfaction (for he was a born pedagogue) into a description of the kind of education he will have in his schools. It is crammed with knowledge and ideas. Lovett read nearly all the important English books on education and such of the German writers as were accessible in translations; Combe, Pestalozzi, Wilderspin, Hodgskin, Dr. Southwood Smith all appear in the footnotes. Every aspect of education is treated, and much emphasis is laid upon the importance of hygiene, physical training, playgrounds, and gardens, as might be expected in the days of the Public Health Agitation. This little book may well be recommended to all students of English education. Hatred of State control of education, belief in the Lancasterian organisation, and thoroughgoing secularism are other features of the scheme.^[42]

Such was the scheme on which Place's opinion was requested. Place had outlived much of the enthusiasm which characterised his earlier attachment to the cause of education, for he was already in his seventieth year. He criticised the scheme as impracticable. He preferred the scheme outlined in the Address on Education published in 1837. The chief difference between the two schemes was that the former presupposed a grant from Government for the building of schools, whilst the second was entirely voluntary. Lovett replied that he was convinced that the people had a greater disposition to support the scheme than Place believed, and if it were once started the country would rally round it. Place, however, returned to the charge and called the scheme a "Chartist popedom"; he said it was "sectarian" as it was purely Chartist—which was of course exactly what it was intended to be. The Charter, says Place, would not be obtained within a quarter of a century, and so he returns to his old thesis, urging Lovett to support the agitation for the Repeal of the Corn Laws, which was more immediately necessary and practicable. Place can find no language strong enough to describe his contempt for the Convention of 1839 and for the "Big O's" of the North, in fact for the whole movement since May 8, 1838. The whole correspondence between the class-conscious and very sensitive enthusiast and the wire-pulling old politician is very instructive. The upshot was that Lovett published the work in spite of Place and felt some bitterness at the delay which the latter had caused.

Lovett was released on July 25, 1840. A great ovation was arranged for the two prisoners at Birmingham, and the plan of the National Charter Association was to be made public on this occasion. Lovett, however, declined to attend on the plea of ill-health, and Collins received the honour alone. James Leach spoke as temporary chairman of the new Association, and voiced the enthusiasm with which the new organisation had been conceived. Lovett went to Cornwall, but attended a dinner in his honour at the White Conduit House in London on August 3. After refusing the offer by Samuel Smiles of a good appointment on the staff of the Leeds Times, he settled down in London, where he started a book shop in Tottenham Court Road, and floated his National Association Scheme. The National Association was inaugurated in the spring of 1841, when an address was published and circulated throughout the country as in the case of the London Working Men's Association. A large number of Chartists expressed their approval by signing the address—a step which caused them many pangs. The first meeting took place in November when a London branch of the National Association was started; Hetherington became Secretary; Vincent, Cleave, Watson, Mitchell, and Moore rallied round their old leaders. C. H. Neesom and R. Spurr, old opponents of Lovett and former advocates of insurrection, now joined hands with him. J. H. Parry, a barrister (afterwards Serjeant Parry) and a great advocate of women's enfranchisement, joined also, as did W. J. Linton, the artist and poet, who left interesting reminiscences of Lovett, Watson, and others. The National Association repudiated entirely the O'Brienite attitude towards the middle class, and the Chartist policy of spoiling Anti-Corn Law meetings. In 1842 it acquired a disused chapel in Holborn, renovated it at a cost of £1000, and so opened the first hall of Lovett's dreams. It was unfortunately the only one, and lasted but seven years. For reasons which will be given later, this movement obtained no root in the Chartist soil, and Lovett gradually drifted into that educational work in which his heart was, and so found a rest from political excitement.

The life of Thomas Cooper of Leicester, called "the Chartist"^[43] (1805–1892), was in every way remarkable. The son of poor parents, robbed early of his father, Cooper passed rapidly through the varied rôles of shoemaker, teacher, musician, Wesleyan local preacher, newspaper reporter, Chartist lecturer and leader, Chartist prisoner, outcast and poet, teacher of morals and politics (a more educated though less forceful Cobbett), secularist, convert, anti-secularist, dying at the great age of eighty-seven. The mere recital gives a clue to the character of Cooper—an impulsive man but intensely loyal where his convictions or sympathies were enlisted—a hero-worshipper apt to turn iconoclast.

Cooper's career is an extremely interesting example of how Chartists were made. He was an entirely self-taught man. He acquired an incredible amount of learning under the most disadvantageous circumstances. Latin, French, Greek, Mathematics, Music, English Literature (especially that stand-by of the humble reader, The Pilgrim's Progress)—all came alike to him. Radical notions he acquired from some trade unionists of his acquaintance, though such ideas were beyond doubt the common possession of all the reflecting members of the working classes. Like most self-taught people, Cooper lacked that balance of judgment which comes largely by contact with other minds, and he was apt to act hastily upon half-truths. He also had no little opinion of himself, as a glance at his autobiography will show. A brilliant but impulsive intellect, Cooper flared up suddenly in the Chartist world, and as suddenly disappeared. But in the years 1841–42 there was no leader so successful as he.

Whilst acting as reporter for a Leicester paper, Cooper was requested near the beginning of 1841 to report a Chartist meeting in the town. It was to be addressed by John Mason, a shoemaker of Birmingham. It is remarkable how many shoemakers failed to stick to their lasts in those days; Collins, Benbow, Cooper, Mason, Cardo are all cases in point. Cooper found some twenty ragged men in the room when he arrived, but the place quickly filled up with men and women, all equally poor and ragged. The speeches were sensible and temperate, and they told Cooper nothing new. On leaving the meeting, however, his attention was drawn to the clatter of the knitting-frames—and that at an hour approaching midnight. Inquiries revealed to him the fearful poverty which drove starving men and women to toil at such a time for such wages—less than a penny an hour. The crying injustice of the frame-rent system completed his conversion.^[44] From that day he was a Chartist, and his Chartism grew more vehement daily. In our days revelations of this sort would at once produce an agitation for the reform of the frame-rent system, and it is very significant of the passionate and unpractical temper of those times that Cooper seems never to have thought of any such thing. The opposition which such a campaign would have to meet, and the poverty and recklessness of the poor employees themselves would have rendered its successful conduct all but hopeless. To men so situated as these stockingers (who had proved their own helplessness in many a futile strike) the Charter had become a kind of charm or fetish, through which every evil would be exorcised, and every social wrong be avenged. In the year 1841 every poor man with a real grievance tended to become a Chartist. Chartism was the grand, all-containing Cave of Adullam for men who were too poor to build up their own barriers against economic oppression.

So Cooper became a Chartist. His conversion was quickly followed by the loss of his situation, and he thenceforward devoted himself wholly to the cause of the stockingers. He ran several newspapers in succession, conducted innumerable meetings, and rapidly acquired an immense following which he proceeded to organise. He took a large hall of meeting, and christened his flock the "Shaksperean Association of Leicester Chartists." By the summer of 1842 he claimed 2500 members.^[45] He divided them up into classes, which went under such names as the "Andrew Marvell," "Algernon Sydney," "John Hampden" class. He devised a kind of uniform, gave to his adherents a pseudo-military organisation, and proudly bore the title of "Shaksperean General." Is it too far a cry to assume that Cooper was the originator of ideas afterwards developed by William Booth at Nottingham? By these means—the magic of uniform and badges—Cooper developed a really ferocious esprit de corps amongst his followers, who idolised him. But he was not content with demonstrations. He took pains to give his disciples education in an adult school, and amusement of the right sort. Cooper has preserved for us some Chartist hymns and songs of no little merit which were composed by himself and some of his Shakespereans. Through the comparatively prosperous days of 1841 (there was a temporary revival of trade) Cooper kept his following in hand. He kept their minds occupied, prevented them from brooding, interested them in recreative pursuits. A by-election provided excitement; visits from various noted Chartists afforded variety, and in general Cooper succeeded in brightening and cheering the lives of many who would otherwise have fallen victims to despair. He believed and taught his followers to believe in the vague and vain promises of O'Connor that the Charter would yet be carried.^[46] Even this hope did not, however, remove the feeling of desperation which began to grow during the terrible months of 1842, when starvation knocked at every stockinger's door with greater insistence than ever. The poor folk gradually got out of hand; Cooper was equally carried away by the scenes of terror and suffering, and was hurried into the catastrophe which in August ruined Chartism for the second time.^[47]

Thus the great movement got once more under weigh. With new men and new methods, Chartism made great progress during 1840 and 1841. The new organisation tended towards much greater efficiency. It separated the wheat from the chaff, those who applauded at meetings from those who worked and subscribed for the cause. One sign of this greater efficiency is the fact that a petition on behalf of Frost, handed in in May 1841, received over two million signatures, far more than the National Petition of 1839. Lecturers were hard at work. Local newspapers again sprang up—such as those published by Cooper in Leicester, by Philp at Bath, by Beesley for North Lancashire, by Cleave in London, and by the Scottish Chartists. Physical force was for the time being abandoned; efforts were concentrated upon gaining steady adherents, and upon preventing the spread of the Anti-Corn Law campaign. In August 1841 O'Connor was released from York Gaol, six weeks before his time, and a process of disruption at once began, and did not cease until it had reduced the Chartist body to a fanatical sect of unreasoning O'Connor-worshippers.

1. Northern Liberator, October 6, 1839.
2. Northern Star, January 10, 1840; February 8, 1840; February 15, 1840; Marcb 14, 1840; March 21, 1840.
3. Southern Star, February 23, 1840.
4. Northern Liberator, March 21, 1840.
5. Ibid. March 21, 1840.
6. Northern Star, June 20, 1840.
7. Ibid. April 25, 1840.
8. Ibid. May 2, 1840; May 16, 1840.
9. Northern Star, May 9, 1840; May 30, 1840; June 20, 1840.
10. It is significant of the incoherence of O'Connor's mind that he allots only £5000 of capital to these weekly subscribers at a later stage of his article.
11. July 18, 1840. O'Connor actually appointed persons to collect subscriptions for the paper.
12. Northern Liberator, May 2, 1840.
13. Northern Star, June 20, 1840; August 29, 1840.
14. Northern Liberator, April 11, 1840.
15. Ibid. May 2, 1840.
16. Northern Star, June 27, 1840.
17. Northern Liberator, April 4, 1840.
18. Southern Star, February 23, 1840.
19. Place Collection, Hendon, vol. 55, p. 710.
20. Northern Star, February 27, 1841; March 6, 1841.
21. Northern Star, December 4, 1841.
22. Northern Liberator, November 28, 1840.
23. Northern Star, December 11, 1841.
24. Ibid. June 7, 1841, gives the number of votes recorded for each, ranging from 3795 to MacDouall to 1130 for Philp.
25. For Christian Chartism see H. U. Faulkner, Chartism and the Churches in Columbia University Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law, vol. lxxiii. 3, 1916.
26. Northern Star, August 28, 1841.
27. Parliamentary Papers, 1843, xiii. p. cxxxii.
28. P. cxxxiii.
29. P. Brewster, The Seven Chartist and Other Military Discourses libelled by the Marquis of Abercorn and Other Heritors of the Abbey Parish, Sermon I. (Paisley, 1842.) Brewster was a younger brother of Sir David Brewster, the famous physicist.
30. The Life of Thomas Cooper, p. 173.
31. Northern Star, September 26, 1840.
32. Ibid. October 30 1841.
33. See volume 55 of Place Collection at Hendon, pp. 348, 538, 546, 550, etc.
34. Letter of May 19, 1840.
35. Lovett, Life and Struggles, p. 236.
36. Chartism, 1840, p. 4.
37. P. 21.
38. Pp. 24 et seq.
39. P. 47.
40. Pp. 55-60.
41. Pp. 61-2.
42. Pp. 63 et seq.
43. The Life of Thomas Cooper, 1872.
44. The Life of Thomas Cooper, p. 179.
45. Northern Star, July 23, 1842.
46. The Life of Thomas Cooper, p. 179.
47. Pp. 173 et seq.