300 children named Charter

In the years following publication of the People’s Charter, nearly 300 parents gave their children the first or middle name Charter. The children’s names, the registration districts and quarter-years in which they were born have now been added to Chartist Ancestors.

Their names join the hundreds already listed who were named after Chartist heroes including William Lovett, John Frost, Henry Vincent and Ernest Jones – taking the total number of Chartist Children on the site to 1,643. There is a full list of them here.

Along with those named Charter, I have included children called Charters, which seemed close enough to suggest a link to the core document of Chartism (and for which I could think of no other explanation). But I have excluded Charteris and Charterisc as rather less likely radical names.

While working on the entries, a line from a 1959 Tony Hancock comedy episode suddenly sprang to mind: “Does Magna Carta mean nothing to you? Did she die in vain?” a deluded Hancock asked the jury in Twelve Angry Men.

How important would a document have to be before you used it as the basis of your child’s name? I did search the FreeBMD website, but found not a single child called Magna Carta since registration began in 1837. There were a few named Magna, but sadly none with the surname Carter.

The picture, showing working class home life shortly after the Chartist period (in 1861) is from the Illustrated Times and appeared in Eric Hobsbawm's The Age of Capital 1848-1875.

A boy named Charter

After reading about the Chartist practice of naming children after political heroes in the current issue of Who Do You Think You Are? magazine, one reader got in touch today to say she now understood how her husband's great grandfather came to be called Samuel Feargus Brontere Vincent Charter Debbage.

Young Mr Debbage was born on 1 January 1841 in West Wymer, Norwich, and must in later life have been grateful for the first name Samuel. My great great great grandfather saddled one of his children with the first name Garibaldi.

But the name also prompted me to carry out another quick search of the Free BMD website. I have often come across Chartist children named after Feargus O'Connor, William Lovett and in particular Henry Vincent. There are 1,399 of them on Chartist Ancestors. But Charter was a new one on me.

FreeBMD came up with:
* Charter Jackson Smith (born in Leeds in the September 1841 quarter);
* Charter Henty (Hollinbourne, September 1844);
* Charter Rodgers (Ely, September 1846);
* Charter Talbot (Newark, March 1849);
* Charter Reeve (St Ives, June 1850); and
* Charter Meeks (N Witchford, March 1854).

From then there through to 1924 there were a further 26 children named Charter or Charters (along with 268 who have Charter or Charters as a middle name).

In the few cases where it is possible to tell, almost all those with Charter as a first name seem to have been male (though curiously not those who have it as a middle name) – leaving me to wonder how parents decided that Charter was a boy's name.

But none is quite as magnificent a tribute to Chartism as Samuel (after Bamford, maybe) Feargus (O'Connor) Brontere (O'Brien) (Henry) Vincent (People's) Charter Debbage.

1,399 Chartist children named

Chartists would often name their children after their radical heroes. For many family historians, the sudden arrival in the clan of a Feargus or even a John Frost born some time after 1837 may provide the first inkling of their ancestors’ political leanings.

The Chartist Ancestors website now lists no fewer than 1,399 children whose names appear to be borrowed from a leader of the Chartist movement. The list includes 111 Feargus O’Connors (with a further 68 having these as middle names), 230 John Frosts and 673 Henry Vincents.

Less commonly, there are 26 William Lovetts, while the popularity of Ernest Jones stretches on until the eve of the first world war, by which time he had acquired a total of 263 namesakes, the bulk of them born around the time of his death in 1869.

The extensive list published on Chartist Ancestors today and taken from birth registrations is new, but Chartist Ancestors first attempted this exercise in April 2003. At that point it was possible to find far fewer names. This is a substantial update.

The phenomenon of radical naming has been studied by historians. In his book Chartism and the Chartists in Manchester and Salford, Paul A Pickering includes the following passage:

"Many chartist historians have taken the opportunity of making a light-hearted reference to the onerous burden placed on youngsters who were given names such as Feargus O'Connor Frost O'Brien McDouall Hunt Taylor and John Frost Feargus Bronterre Paine Smith, without going on to afford the practice much detailed attention. The Chartists themselves undoubtedly saw the humorous side of radical naming. The Brown Street Chartists, for example, wrote to Queen Victoria recommending that she name her new-born child after Feargus O'Connor, and when she did not reply two branch members named their child Regina Feargus Smith."

Nor is Chartist Ancestors alone in having tried to quantify the phenomenon. Malcolm Chase, in Chartism: A New History, identified “myriad children given ‘Feargus’ as a first name”, of whom there were 316 in the 1851 census, 46 further having ‘O’Connor as a middle name.

Putting the figures in context, he points out that there are just seven English-born men in the 1851 census whose birth dates pre-date 1837 and the Charter.

Read more about what it was like to grow up in a Chartist household or go straight to the list of 1,399 Chartist children.