The Chartist movement

The Chartist movement was the first mass movement driven by the working and middle classes. It
grew following the failure of the 1832 Reform Act to extend the vote beyond those owning property
(see table of the electorate vote

1831 England and Wales Scotland Ireland

Electorate 439,200 c. 5,000 51,000
Electorate as % of population 3.2 0.2 0.6
Number of voters who actually
74,638 594 15,860
voted
% of electorate who actually
17.0 11.9 31.1
voted
1832 England and Wales Scotland Ireland
Electorate 656,000 65,000 92,726
Electorate as % of population 4.7 2.7 1.2
Number of voters who actually
390,700 43,525 47,797
voted
% of electorate who actually
59.6 67.0 51.5
voted
From F. O’GORMAN, Voters, Patrons and Parties, Cambridge University Press, 1989, p. 179

What was the situation concerning the vote in 1831 (Electorate and Turnout)?
What happened after the Great Reform Act of 1832? Compare the electorate and the percentage of electorate who actually voted. What does it tell us about the
new voters?

Chartists' petition

In 1838 a People's Charter was drawn up for the London Working Men's Association (LWMA) by William Lovett and Francis Place, two self-educated radicals,
in consultation with other members of LWMA. The Charter had six demands:

• All men to have the vote (universal manhood suffrage)

• Voting should take place by secret ballot

• Parliamentary elections every year, not once every five years

• Constituencies should be of equal size

• Members of Parliament should be paid

• The property qualification for becoming a Member of Parliament should be abolished

Unrest

In June 1839, the Chartists' petition was presented to the House of Commons with over 1.25 million signatures. It was rejected by Parliament. This provoked
unrest which was swiftly crushed by the authorities.

A second petition was presented in May 1842, signed by over three million people but again it was rejected and further unrest and arrests followed.

Feargus O'Connor
In April 1848 a third and final petition was presented. A mass meeting on Kennington Common in
South London was organised by the Chartist movement leaders, the most influential being Feargus
O'Connor, editor of 'The Northern Star', a weekly newspaper that promoted the Chartist cause.
O'Connor was known to have connections with radical groups which advocated reform by any
means, including violence. The authorities feared disruption and military forces were on standby to
deal with any unrest. The third petition was also rejected but the anticipated unrest did not happen.
Despite the Chartist leaders' attempts to keep the movement alive, within a few years it was no
longer a driving force for reform.
Chartists' legacy
However, the Chartists' legacy was strong. By the 1850s Members of Parliament accepted that
further reform was inevitable. Further Reform Acts were passed in 1867 (almost all male
householder got the right to vote) and 1884.
By 1918, five of the Chartists' six demands had been achieved - only the stipulation that
parliamentary elections be held every year was unfulfilled.

Taylor and Mill

1. women and marriage

Unhappily Victorian marriage

Property passed to the husband
Beat their wife (cane thumb)
Lock them up for refusing sex.
Hypocrisy of loveless Victorian marriage
Comparaison to slave code ill-usage
Adultery necessary for divorce
Misery in silence
Marriage Property transaction

2. Who were they?

2 most daring critics of convention of marriage

Tortured lovers
Husband and wife
Joined authors of “on the subjection of women”
True soul mates
2 serious intellectual
Harriet: Poet,writer, unhappily married wife
John: Philosopher, MP

3. Timeline

1830 dinner party meeting

1849 Harriett’s husband died
1851 marriage of Harriett and John
1858 Harriett died of TB
1867 2nd reform Act
1869 book published
4. Ideas

Use education to enlighten

and law to protect women
Happy and equal marriage:
Renounced to his rights on her person and property
Pay equal
Vote

5. Consequence on women's movement

Powerful momentum to the movement

Argue case in parliament but vote lost
A democracy worth the name couldn’t be just for men

Women's movements for suffrage

C women’s movement to get the right to vote
The
o
nThis movement started in the 19th century. John Stuart Mill and Harriett Taylor already advocated
dthis right in their book On the Subjection of women, published by Mill in 1869. A vote was even
iinitiated by Mill, an MP, but only 73 MPs voted for it.
t
By
i the end of the 19th century, many associations were created to support the idea. The most
famous
o was the one founded in 1897 by Millicent Fawcett, the National Union of Women’s
Societies (NUWSS). Most women of the movement were middle to upper-class well-educated
n
women. The idea was to convince men by logical arguments. The main arguments were that women
shad the same duties (as paying taxes, obey the laws) than men, therefore they should also have the
same political rights, aka, the vote. This was recalling the Bill of rights of 1689 where it was said
dthat the consent of Parliament was necessary, but as they could note vote for their representatives, it
'could be considered as illegal taxation (an argument that was used by the Americans in the
Declaration
a of independence of 1776). While wealthy mistresses employed gardeners, workmen
and
c labourers who could vote, women could not, regardless of their wealth or ability. Newspapers
were created to support the idea.
h
èThe Tories were mainly against the right to vote, the liberal party was divided on the issue and the
vnew rising party, the Labour supported women’s movement to get the right to vote. As the
emovement was getting few supports, women got impatient. A new movement, nicknamed The
Suffragettes,
m was founded by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter Sylvia and Christabel. It was
the
e WSPU (Women Social Political Union), in 1903. The new cry was “deed not words”. They were
ready
n to use violence. They disrupted political meetings, chained themselves to Buckingham
Palace, broke windows, assaulted policemen, burned the house of the PM.
t
From 1908, the strategy was to get arrested, to be sent to jail and go on hunger strike to embarrass
the government. Dying in prison would badly reflect on the government as these women were well-
bred and well-educated. The government started by force-feeding them, a technic that was
denounced in newspaper as it was used usually for lunatics. In 1913, the government then passed
the Temporary Discharge for Health Act to weaken the Suffragettes. When they were too weak, they
were released and rearrested as soon as a new offense was committed. That’s why the Suffragettes
nicknamed it the “Cat and Mouse Act”.
With the outbreak of WWI, women stopped their actions and supported the war effort. Their role in
the war was rewarded by the Representation of the People Act of 1918. It gave women over 30
years ol the right to vote. 10 years later, the Equal Franchise Act gave all women the right to vote in
1928. Ironically, Emmeline Pankhurst was adopted for the general elections by the Conservative
Party, which used to be the most anti-women suffrage.