A database of 45 women who were active in the Chartist movement in Scotland has now been added to Chartist Ancestors. Here is the page.
Women played a big part in Chartism. Although none of the Chartist petitions called for women to be given the vote, up to 20% of those adding their names in some parts of the country were women.
They also organised themselves in Female Chartist Associations – some 23 of which are known to have existed in Scotland alone, as well as taking part in an enormously wide range of other activities, from the domestic to the public political sphere.
Yet this is an enormously hard subject to research. There has been no major new work on Scottish Chartism since the start of the 1970s, and academic study of women's part in Chartist agitation is still less well served.
I am therefore indebted and grateful to Sue John, who researched and compiled the database of Women Chartists in Scotland and kindly permitted its publication on Chartist Ancestors.
