The coronation of Queen Victoria on 28 June 1838 came so
soon after the launch of the People’s Charter that there were, as yet, no
Chartists.
Although the London Working Men’s Association had promised publication
of its new pamphlet ‘in a few weeks’ as far back as July 1837, by the time
Glasgow’s radicals held a great public meeting on 21 May the following year to
adopt the Birmingham Political Union’s latest petition, the Charter was still
not yet in print. Only over that summer and into the autumn, as the LWMA and
BPU despatched ‘missionary’ speakers around the country, and Feargus O’Connor
entered the equation with his Northern Star newspaper, did Charter and
petition come together to bring Chartism to life.
Even the word itself had not yet been coined: among its earliest
appearances in print is the Leeds Intelligencer’s report on 22 September
1838 of a huge demonstration in Palace Yard, Westminster, the previous Monday
which it dismissed as ‘a demonstration of weakness on the part of the noisy
leaders of the new political sect calling themselves “Chartists”.’
But if radical opinion still lacked its unifying name and
banner at the time of the coronation, then that certainly did not mean it
lacked a thoughts about this ‘idle and useless pageant’ or the monarchy itself.
Click here if you want to read more about ‘Chartists’ andthe coronation.
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