Irish radicals added to the Chartist Ancestors Databank

I have added 143 new names to the Chartist Ancestors Databank, taking the total number of those included to 14,523.

This latest batch includes a significant number of Chartists of Irish origin, and is made up of three groups.

The Chartists on the hill: William Lovett, George Jacob Holyoake and Karl Marx in Highgate Cemetery

Highgate Cemetery must be the most famous burial ground in England. This week I paid a visit in search of William Lovett, secretary to the London Working Men’s Association, author of the People’s Charter and more besides. I visited, by chance, just a day before the anniversary of Lovett’s death on 8 August 1877, climbing Highgate Hill to get there before passing through the huge stone gatehouse to buy the £10 ticket that gave me access to the cemetery proper. 

Feargus O’Connor - last of the gentleman radicals

Feargus O’Connor permeates Chartist Ancestors as he permeated Chartism itself. The two can barely be separated. But up to now I haven’t written a biography of the all-important Chartist leader - ‘The great I AM of radicalism’, as a frustrated William Lovett dubbed him.

That has now changed, and I have managed to pull something together that tells his story, beginning with a childhood spent among a most remarkable family in Cork, and ending with his committal to a lunatic asylum in the early 1850s.

The full version of the sketch of O’Connor shown right can be found here. But I was especially pleased to discover that there are surviving portraits of his Irish nationalist uncle Arthur, eccentric father Roger, and adventurous elder brother Frank - or Francisco, as he is better known to history, quite a tale in itself.

O’Connor led a fascinating life. A family inheritance enabled him to live as an independent gentleman radical (perhaps one of the last of the breed), and for a decade he pretty much embodied Chartism, leading it on through good times and bad with unflagging energy.

Yet I must admit there is also much not to admire about him. 

You can read more about the man without whom Chartism might never have been more than a footnote in the history books at:

• Feargus O’Connor, 1794-1855 and
• The tragic death and magnificent funeral of Feargus O’Connor

Kennington 1848: the women in white bonnets, the man in the dustman's hat and the coachman

The daguerreotype images of the famous Chartist Kennington Common meeting on 10 April 1848 have fascinated historians since they first came to light in the Royal Collection in the mid-1970s. Though not the first crowd photographs, as is sometimes claimed, they are the first such pictures of a protest meeting, and they provide a real glimpse into this historic moment in time.

Professor Fabrice Bensimon, historian of the nineteenth century and a noted expert on the Chartist movement at Sorbonne Université, has spent many hours pouring over the two surviving daguerreotypes in an attempt to shed light on the people who made up the crowd. His research appears in a recent article in the Journal of Victorian Culture¹.

A slightly new look for Chartist Ancestors

You may notice that the Chartist Ancestors website has had a bit of a makeover. To be honest, I hope it isn't too noticeable as I was quite happy with the look and feel of it as it was.

However, the theme (design template) I was using is now being flagged by Wordpress as having a 'known vulnerability', so to be on the safe side I have switched to a new one.