In search of Tothill Fields Bridewell

Up in London today I thought I’d have a look at what remains of Tothill Fields Bridewell - the Westminster prison where the Chartist leader Ernest Jones was imprisoned in 1848 for sedition.

Here, just a five-minute walk from what is now Victoria Station, he and other Chartist prisoners refused to pick oakum and were put in solitary confinement on a diet of bread and water. Amid unsanitary conditions, and an outbreak of cholera in London, Jones was lucky not to share the fate of Joseph Williams and Alexander Sharp, two imprisoned Chartists who did not live to complete their sentences.

In the Tasmanian footsteps of William Cuffay

William Cuffay

The following blog post was written after a visit to Hobart in March 2020.

Twenty-first century Hobart is a magnet for cruise ships. Tourists have only to step ashore to enjoy the vibrant outdoor market at Salamanca Place, while the historic convict sites and natural wonders of Tasmania attract vast numbers of visitors.

But 170 years ago, when Tasmania was still Van Diemen’s Land, the deep natural harbour that now makes it possible for ocean liners to dock was equally attractive to those operating a rather different type of passenger shipping.

The Southern Star and the victims of political persecution

James Bronterre O'Brien established the Southern Star in 1840 to provide himself with a platform within the Chartist movement and as a counterweight to Feargus O'Connor's Northern Star.

The paper did not last long. O'Brien lacked O'Connor's charisma, and in any event there was no mass audience for such a paper in the South of England - unlike in the North, where campaigns against the New Poor Law had created a ready constituency among the spinners, weavers and factory workers.

William Cuffay's poetic gift from the Chartists

By October 1849, the London Chartist William Cuffay was already on board the convict ship the Adelaide, heading for Australia, where he would spend the rest of his life.

Cuffay had been arrested in the wake of the Orange Tree conspiracy of August 1848, found guilty at the Central Criminal Court of “treason felony” and sentenced to 14 years in exile. In fact, he would never return to England. But his comrades in the Chartist movement did not forget him.

Samuel Holberry: working class hero or terrorist?

There is a nice little profile of Samuel Holberry in the Sheffield Star, complete with a photo of a bust of the Chartist agitator, who died in York Gaol aged just 27.

There is more about the Sheffield Chartists on the Chartist Ancestors site.

And there are other entries for Samuel Holberry and his wife Mary on these pages:
Chartist prisoners 1841;
Where are they now? Chartist graves: Samuel and Mary Holberry;
Brief lives: Mary Holberry.