The Chartists

The Chartists took their name from ‘the People’s Charter’ and developed into a mass movement in the late 1830’s and 1840’s. Millions of people signed petitions over a number of years, calling for 6 reforms to Parliament, including votes for all men over 21. Their demands seem reasonable to us and all but one have come into being, but when the Chartists’ petitions were presented to Parliament they were regarded generally as dangerous and revolutionary. Many people including Frederick Engels believed that the proletarian revolution was about to take place.

We will examine in the course the background to the establishment of the movement, how it grew and attracted support and its tactics, investigating how the authorities responded and the often savage response to individual Chartists.

The movement did not achieve the success it hoped for over the period and eventually died out, but its aims and objectives lived on and were evident in the actions of individuals and aims of a number of working class movements in the decades that followed.