Chartism's high tide - 2 May 1842

On 2 May 1842, the second of the three great national Chartist petitions demanding the Six Points was presented to Parliament.

As I have pointed out before, there were in fact six petitions in all, but those of 1839, 1842 and 1848 were the three that Chartism is remembered for, and there is good reason to draw a veil over the final post-1848 attempts to mobilise popular opinion.

In May 1842, however, Chartism was at its peak. The second petition ran to 3,315,752 names, was six miles long and weighed in at a massive six hundredweight (or 305kg).

The petition was carried to the Houses of Parliament on the shoulders of 16 trade union delegates, and was so large that the doors to the House of Commons had to be dismantled for it to enter the chamber.

Thomas SlingsbyDuncombe, the great radical MP and friend of the Chartist movement presented the petition. But his motion for the petitioners to be heard at the bar of the House was defeated by 287 votes to just 49.

You can read more about all six Chartist petitions here.

Life of Thomas Slingsby Duncombe

Thomas Slingsby Duncombe was an unlikely ally of the Chartist cause. With a well-publicised reputation as a lover of the theatre, gaming and women, he became known during his long tenure as MP for Finsbury as "the handsomest and best-dressed man in the house".

Yet the "dandy demagogue" was also the man who presented the second Chartist petition of 1842 to Parliament, sought the release of John Frost and other Chartists imprisoned for their part in the Newport rebellion, and helped underwrite the ill-fated Chartist land plan.

When Disraeli wrote Sybil: or The Two Nations, it was to Duncombe that he turned for information on Chartism. And it was Duncombe who chaired the Labour Parliament of 1845 and continued to support the development of trades unions thereafter for many years.

Duncombe's contribution to the political life of the 19^th century has been rather neglected until now. But the good news is that a biography, to be titled Radical Dandy: The Curiously Forgotten Political Life of Thomas Slingsby Duncombe, may now help to rectify that.

The book is being written Stephen Duncombe, a distant relative and associate professor at the Gallatin School of New York University. It is being published by the University of California Press – though no date is yet given for it to appear.

Stephen Duncombe has set up a website giving more information about the project, including an outline of the eight chapters; there is also a good short biography of Thomas Slingsby Duncombe on Wikipedia.