On the Elland Female Radical Association and the demography of women in Chartism

Dorothy Thompson was the first historian to write about Elland’s Female Radical Association, but the story of them rolling the local poor law commissioners in the snow before sending them on their way has ensured them at least a mention in pretty much every subsequent account of women in Chartism ever written.

I have now added an article on them to the website which focuses on their opposition to the New Poor Law, and their run-ins not just with the unfortunate poor law guardians but with the London press.

The article also seeks to add to some of the previously published biographical information on the three women at the head of Elland Female Radical Association whose names are known to us. I’m especially pleased to have done this as one of them, Mary Grassby, was my four-times-great aunt.

Writing about the Elland women reminds me that Dr Judy Cox delivered a fascinating and very well received paper on the gender politics of Chartism at this year’s Chartism Day which prompted an interesting audience question about how Chartism among women might vary depending on issues of location, local industries and so on.

I don’t think anyone has yet addressed this properly and I suspect a lack of information might make a definitive answer difficult, but as more research on Chartist women emerges over time, it is something to which historians might wish to turn their attention.

For now, I would just point out that the three Chartist women’s organisations I know a little about are each made up of leading members who have much in common with each other, but that the leaderships of these organisations significantly different from place to place.

The three leading figures in Elland are all married with children and in their late 30s or early 40s, with two of the three having husbands who are also involved in radicalism. At least two of the three have husbands working in jobs that required hand craftsmanship - a basket maker and a cobbler, though it is not obvious what paid work if any the women did in the 1830s. Mary Grassby would later (in the 1861 census) declare her occupation as basket maker, so this may have been a shared family trade.

The three identifiable leaders of the City of London Female Charter Association in contrast are all in their early 20s and unmarried with no known family connection to radicalism. Though all three are clearly working class, I have only been able to find an occupation for one, Susanna Inge, who was a finisher in the fur trade, and probably worked from home.

I also have some data on the twelve women who constituted the committee of the Carlisle Female Radical Association. Although I have not yet written about them, I can say that they appear to be more diverse in age and marital status, and while some are clearly local, a significant number have migrated from Scotland or Ireland. Most also appear to be working in the town’s power-driven mills.

All this, of course, is just demographics, and there remains a whole unexplored issue of differences in the political theory and practice that such differences might entail

More about Elland Female Radical Association

More about Women in Chartism.