Chartism Day has now been in existence for two or three times as long as Chartism itself was around (depending on how you define being around). But every year brings new research and fresh ideas. This year’s event, which took place at the University of Reading at the weekend was no exception.
I have now written a full report (with photos) for the Society for the Study of Labour History website. You can read it here.
Robert LeBlond was a leading member of the National Charter Association in its final days, and an important link with middle class reform organisations. But his real interest was in secularism - still a quite shocking idea for many people.
LeBlond supported the secularist cause with the wealth generated by his print business, and promised to do more. But then things went badly wrong for him.
Although a little-known figure in the history of Chartism, I’ve been researching his life story - and, thanks to his three times great granddaughter and her assiduous work on family history, have even been able to include a photograph with the biography I’ve put together for Chartist Ancestors.
I have added 143 new names to the Chartist Ancestors Databank, taking the total number of those included to 14,523.
This latest batch includes a significant number of Chartists of Irish origin, and is made up of three groups.
Feargus O’Connor permeates Chartist Ancestors as he permeated Chartism itself. The two can barely be separated. But up to now I haven’t written a biography of the all-important Chartist leader - ‘The great I AM of radicalism’, as a frustrated William Lovett dubbed him.
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That has now changed, and I have managed to pull something together that tells his story, beginning with a childhood spent among a most remarkable family in Cork, and ending with his committal to a lunatic asylum in the early 1850s.
The full version of the sketch of O’Connor shown right can be found here. But I was especially pleased to discover that there are surviving portraits of his Irish nationalist uncle Arthur, eccentric father Roger, and adventurous elder brother Frank - or Francisco, as he is better known to history, quite a tale in itself.
O’Connor led a fascinating life. A family inheritance enabled him to live as an independent gentleman radical (perhaps one of the last of the breed), and for a decade he pretty much embodied Chartism, leading it on through good times and bad with unflagging energy.
Yet I must admit there is also much not to admire about him.
You can read more about the man without whom Chartism might never have been more than a footnote in the history books at:
