Petitioning, strikes and an end to unity - Chartism in 1842

The year of the second Chartist petition was one of frantic activity for the whole Chartist movement.

Between the start of 1842 and the beginning of May, when the petition was presented, activists up and down the country collected an enormous 3,315,752 names. At more than six miles long, the petition could only be taken into the House of Commons by removing the doors.

Despite the best efforts of its handful of parliamentary supporters, the petition’s demands were once again rejected by MPs.

But as the movement began to regroup and gather its forces for a renewed campaign, they were overtaken by events in the Midlands and North West of England, where employers were intent on driving down wages in response to a slump in the economy.

That summer, tens of thousands of workers walked out, and in Lancashire those on strike marched from mill to mill calling out those still at work and shutting down the boilers that supplied their machinery with power.

As the unrest spread, those on strike coupled their economic demands for an end to pay cuts with political demands for the Charter.

At the peak of the disturbances, the Queen was called on to issue a proclamation warning that those guilty of closing down “Mines, Mills, Manufactories, and other Places” by force would be punished, and promising a reward of £50 for anyone aiding their arrest.

A copy of that proclamation is shown above.

Things did not go well. Feargus O’Connor and other leaders were suspicious of calls to place themselves at the head of the strike, fearing that it had been provoked by the mill owners, whose own agenda was for repeal of the corn laws. As a result, they failed to provide the necessary political leadership.

In due course, most of those on strike were effectively starved back to work – and the crackdown began. Hundreds of men and women were arrested for offences ranging from riot to assault, and many were transported or imprisoned.

The National Charter Association also fell foul of the law, with Feargus O’Connor and 58 others who had been at an NCA conference in Manchester at the height of the disturbances put on trial for sedition and other serious offences.

In the event, political common sense prevailed at the highest levels, most of the Chartist leaders were found not guilty, while those who were found guilty were never sentenced.

One more momentous event awaited Chartism that year. Relationships between the more working class and radical National Charter Association and the moderate middle-class reformers of the Complete Suffrage Union had long been strained.

But a "unity conference" called that December and intended to patch up their differences ended in acrimony and a final split between the two factions. For better or worse, and whatever the social origins of its leaders, Chartism was now an almost exclusively working class movement.