Source A

A factory worker, quoted in the report of a Royal Commission to Parliament in 1833, said:

My hours of work at Mr Connell's mill [factory] were from a few minutes before half past five in the morning till seven at night. Half an hour for breakfast. An hour for dinner. No baggin [tea].

Cited in Shuter, Child and Taylor 1989, Skills in History, Book 2: Revolutions, Heinemann Educational, Heinemann Educational Books, Oxford, p 106.
Reproduced with permission of Reed Education Professional Publishing (Heinemann Education), Melbourne.

Source B

Charles Davies was gaoled for 'conspiracy' - that is, plotting for unlawful purposes - because he wrote about the need for changes to wages and conditions. He said the following to a prison inspector in 1840:

The great distress is the cause of our discontent - if the wages were what they ought to be, we should not hear a word about the suffrage [vote]. If the masters [employers] will only do something for the Workmen to get them the common comforts of life, we should be the most contented creatures upon earth.

Government Report on Prisons, 1840. Cited in Royle, Edward 1980, Chartism, 2nd edn, Longman UK Ltd, p 106.
Reprinted by permission of Addison Wesley, Pearson Education.

Source C

In 1843 John Lahye wrote a report in which he referred to the soup kitchens that were set up as charities to give some basic nourishment to the poor and unemployed:

The demand for soup kitchens continues ... I was lately conversing with a man, who has a wife, three sons and a daughter, all of whom except the woman were then out of work, and he informed me that being unable to sleep or rest, he went for soup one morning so early as half past one o'clock, and even then found 50 or 60 persons before him ...

I was ... acquainted with many individuals ... who had been almost without any work for periods varying from a few weeks to twelve months.

Annual Report of the Ministry of the Poor, 1843. Cited in Royle, Edward, Chartism, 2nd edn, Longman UK Ltd, pp 110-11.
Reprinted by permission of Addison Wesley, Pearson Education.

Source D

Benjamin Love of Manchester, an industrial city, describes the housing conditions of the poor:

Let the reader imagine himself introduced in to a damp cellar or dark and dirty garret [tiny upper room], where he sees as many beds as it will hold ... ranged side by side, and closely adjoining one another ... in each of these beds [are] from two to four persons, of either sex, and of all ages and characters ... the temperature of this room is at a fever heat owing to the total absence of all means of ventilation ... the bed linen is rarely changed ... These beds [are] visibly infested with all manner of vermin.

Love, Benjamin 1842, Handbook of Manchester. Cited in Pickering, Paul & Tyrell, Alex 1991, Work and Society: The Impact of the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions on Britain, Department of History, La Trobe University, Melbourne, p 30.

Source E

John Roebuck, a Member of Parliament, describes a journey through the industrial cities in 1841:

Suddenly we came to an immense cutting in the hill ... I beheld a sight I shall not quickly forget. Ashton, Stockport and half a dozen manufacturing towns were in sight ... chimneys were thrusting themselves into the sky, puffing out huge volumes of black smoke, and for miles the same horrible view met you - smoke, smoke, smoke; trees, roads, the very ground, horses, beasts, and men were black and miserable.

Life and Letters of John Arthur Roebuck, 1897. Cited in Pickering & Tyrell 1991, p 31.

The Chartists and their struggle for democracy

The Chartists were a group of people who wanted to change the arrangements of their society. They were working-class people who had been influenced by ideas coming from countries such as France and the United States of America, which had experienced revolutions. A political revolution is when the people force a ruler or government to be changed. Ordinary working people began to believe they should be included in the law-making process. Much importance was attached to people's democratic rights.

The Chartists were so named because they wrote a charter. In their charter they listed a set of changes that, if instituted, would have made Britain a democracy. They wanted to change the way Britain was governed, so that, rather than being ruled by a king and a parliament of wealthy property owners, all men could participate and have a say in the government.

The Chartists had six points in their charter:

• votes for all men
• voting by secret ballot
• any voter can stand for parliament, not just those who own property
• payment of all members of parliament
• the same number of electors in each electorate
• a general election every year.

Activity 3: Chartist speeches

3a Following are some speeches made at an imaginary Chartist meeting held in the north of England in 1842. The speakers are not actual people although they are representative of people living at the time. Your teacher will organise your class into groups of five students. Each group is to be allocated one Chartist speech. Read the speech allocated to your group and answer the questions that follow it.

3b The group should practise reading the speech aloud. Make sure you are familiar with the speech and that you help each other to understand the ideas.

3c Select a member of the group to read the speech to the rest of the class. Read with feeling and passion. The speakers are talking about things that really mattered in their lives. List the key ideas of each of the speeches as they are delivered.

Arthur Taylor, journalist for the newspaper the Northern Star, the most important Chartist newspaper

Fellow countrymen,

Let us no longer tolerate a situation where we are denied the right to have a say in our own lives. We, the working class, slave all day long, working 14 to 16 hours a day in factories and coal mines and the like, and we receive a miserable pittance in return for our labours. This wage is barely sufficient to house, clothe and feed our families. Frequently must we watch our flesh and blood, our beloved, weak and hungry from lack of nourishment. Many of you no doubt have no choice but to submit your own children to work in these conditions six days a week so that the family may eke out a living from the few shillings it can earn.

There is something very wrong with a society when the law makers in parliament spend hours discussing and debating the horror of slavery in the Americas whilst at home in their own country the working class are 'free' only to toil each and every day in foul conditions with no say, no vote, no option but to endure and to go to an early grave, white slaves in their own land.

I say our problems can only be dealt with if we are given the right to vote.

Archibald Adams, button maker

I agree wholeheartedly with the views of my esteemed friend of the Northern Star. However, merely giving men the vote is not enough. The vote is an important step in the right direction but it will not guarantee democracy. There are still ways we can be excluded from having our concerns heard.

It is a well-known fact that much manipulation occurs with the size of electorates. We all know or have heard of examples where there is one member of parliament representing the interests of 21,000 voters. Meanwhile in another part of the country a mere 700 elect another member to look after them in the parliament. Where is the justice in that? The voters in the larger electorate are not getting a fair deal. Each of their votes is worth next to nothing beside those of the privileged people who live in the 700 electorate. We must insist there are the same number of people in each electorate. The future of democracy depends upon it.

Source G

Pursue the course of peaceful agitation - press forward your great cause under the watchwords of Peace, Law, Order ...

From an essay in The Chartist newspaper, 1839. Cited in Royle, Edward 1980, Chartism, 2nd edn, Longman UK Ltd, p 98.
Reprinted by permission of Addison Wesley, Pearson Education.

Source H

The events of 1842 illustrate the point: 'Better to die by the sword than die of hunger, shouted Marsden in the hot, starving summer of that year, 'and if we are to be butchered, why not commence the bloody work at once?'

The weavers of Yorkshire and Lancashire and the miners of the Midlands took him at his word. They stormed food shops and workhouses, set fire to police stations ...

Jones, David 1975, Chartism and the Chartists, Allen Lane, Penguin Books, London, 1975, p 154.

Source I

Sir Charles Napier was a military commander responsible for keeping order in a part of Britain where the government feared an outbreak of violence by Chartists.

After receiving an anonymous letter with a chartist plan he reported in a journal that the Chartists were 'Poor creatures, their threats of attack are miserable' and that they had no weapons and 'no money, no discipline, no skilful leaders'.

Royle, Edward 1980, Chartism, 2nd edn, Longman UK Ltd, p 104.
Reprinted by permission of Addison Wesley, Pearson Education.

Source J

Dr Peter McDouall, a Chartist leader, gave the following description of his lecture tour in 1842:

I lectured in a barn ... I lectured in the Town Hall ... I delivered two lectures, in a coach maker's shop ... At Kettering I lectured twice, and attended a very large tea party, given by the ladies ...

Jones, David 1975, Chartism and the Chartists, Allen Lane, Penguin Books, London 1975, p 107.

Source K

This slogan was displayed on banners carried in Chartist marches and demonstrations:

'Cease work until the charter becomes the law of the land.'