Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Chartist Movement

Starting point is 00:00:00 The mid-19th century saw the rise of the first mass working-class political movement in British history. Despite being a working-class movement, they sought reforms in the British political system, not necessarily economic reforms. Their grievances were set out in six points, known as the People's Charter, which was signed by millions of people. While their demands at the time were considered radical, they probably wouldn't even raise an eyebrow today. Learn more about the Chartist movement and their demands on this episode of Everything Everywhere.

Starting point is 00:00:30 Daily. Fear is the virus is trending on TikTok. Vaccines are poison. Then your yoga teacher says that sex traffic children are being sacrificed by satanic liberals, but it's all okay. The great awakening is coming. Every week on Conspirality Podcast, we explore the fever dreams that suck friends, family, and wellness gurus down the right-wing cult spiral in a search for salvation. Before the 19th century, voting rights in Britain developed slowly and unevenly, shaped more by medieval custom and landownership than by any concept of popular democracy. In the Middle Ages, representation through Parliament emerged as a means for the Crown to consult landowners, towns, and clergy.

Starting point is 00:01:34 Milestones such as the Magna Carta helped establish limits on royal authority, but not political rights for ordinary people. From the 14th century onward, the right to vote in county elections was primarily restricted to 40-shilling freeholders, a property qualification that excluded the vast majority of the population. By the early modern period, Parliament had become central to governance, especially after the civil wars and the glorious revolution of 1688. Yet voting remained limited, unequal and frequently corrupt, with many rotten boroughs having tiny electorates and large industrial towns having none at all. As a result, on the even the 19th century, Britain possessed a...

Starting point is 00:02:16 powerful parliamentary system, but one that represented only a small property minority rather than the nation as a whole. The Great Reform Act of 1832 was the first major overhaul of Britain's electoral system and was designed to address its most obvious injustices without creating an actual democracy. It abolished many of the rotten boroughs with tiny electorates, redistributed seats to growing industrial towns, and modestly expanded the franchise by lowering property qualifications in boroughs. While it increased the number of voters and made representation more rational, it still excluded most working-class men and women, leaving political power firmly in the hands of property owners. The act mattered less for what it immediately achieved than for what it signaled,

Starting point is 00:03:03 namely that Parliament could be reformed under popular pressure, opening the door to further changes later in the 19th century. It was disappointment with the Great Reform Act, combined with harsh economic conditions during the hungry 40s, including the Depression of 1837 to 1842, rising unemployment, and the widely despised Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 that created an atmosphere of discontent. Prior to this, there had been movements among British workers, such as the Luddites, but they were mostly small, regional, or unorganized. However, by the late 1830s, the events that had unfolded were unifying workers across. Britain. There became a consensus among the working class that the answer to their problems lay in political reforms. These demands for political reform were eventually codified in a document

Starting point is 00:03:55 which became known as the People's Charter. It was the People's Charter that gave the Chartist movement its name. The People's Charter was created in 1838 as an attempt to turn decades of working class political grievance into a clear, unified program for parliamentary reform. It was primarily drafted by William Lovett, a London-based radical associated with the Working Men's Association, with significant input from the veteran reformer Francis Place. Lovett and his allies believe that earlier reform movements had failed because their demands were vague or fragmented. So the goal of the charter was to state precisely what political changes were required to make Parliament genuinely representative.

Starting point is 00:04:39 The drafting process grew out of meetings and discussions within the London Working Men's Association, which brought together skilled workers, artisans, and radical thinkers committed to peaceful reform. Drawing on long-standing radical traditions that stretched back to the 18th century, the authors distilled these ideas into six demands that address the core structural barriers preventing working men from political participation. These demands were not new in themselves, but the Charter's importance lay in presenting them together, in simple language, as a single national platform that ordinary people could understand and support. At the time, the demands were considered to be radical, but I'm guessing that most of you might find them to be oddly non-controversial.

Starting point is 00:05:25 The first demand was for universal male suffrage, which sought to give all adult men the right to vote regardless of property ownership. Chartists believe that without the vote, workers had no peaceful way to protect their wages, working conditions, or livelihoods, and that political inequality made economic exploitation inevitable. The second demand called for a secret ballot. It was intended to protect voters from intimidation, bribery, and retaliation. Voting in early 19th century Britain was public,

Starting point is 00:05:54 allowing landlords, employers, and local elites to pressure voters or punish them for supporting the wrong candidate. Secret ballots would allow individuals to vote according to their conscience rather than fear. The third demand was for the abolition of property requirements for members of parliament. These requirements ensured that even if working men could vote, they could not realistically be elected. Ending them was meant to make Parliament accessible to talent and conviction rather than wealth and property. The fourth demand was for payment for members of Parliament. This aimed to open political office to people without independent wealth.

Starting point is 00:06:31 Serving as an MP was unpaid, effectively restricting Parliament to the rich, who could afford to live in London and campaign without compensation. Paying MPs would allow skilled workers and middle-class reformers to stand for office, making Parliament more socially representative. The fifth demand was for equal electoral districts, which addressed the extreme imbalance and representation that characterized Parliament. Many industrial cities with large populations had few or no MPs, while tiny rural boroughs with a handful of voters could send members to Parliament. This was still an issue even after the reforms of 1832. Chartists argued that constituencies should have roughly equal population so that each vote carried similar weight. And the sixth demand was for annual parliamentary elections. This was proposed as a way to ensure accountability. At the time, general elections were infrequent and

Starting point is 00:07:23 MPs could hold their seat for years with little oversight. Frequent elections, the Chartist believed, would help keep representatives responsive to voters' needs and reduce corruption by limiting how long MPs could ignore public opinion. The movement, quickly gained momentum through a combination of mass meetings, petitions, and a radical press. Chartist newspapers like the Northern Star, edited by the charismatic Irish order Fergus O'Connor, became enormously popular, with circulation figures that rivaled mainstream publications. The movement organized mass demonstrations that brought tens of thousands of people together in displays of working-class solidarity, alarming the authorities.

Starting point is 00:08:02 In 1839, the first great petition was presented to Parliament, containing 1.28 million signatures, though Parliament rejected it decisively by 235 votes to 46. Chartism was never a monolithic movement, but rather contained significant internal tensions between different strategies and philosophies. The moral force chartists associated with figures like William Lovett believed in peaceful agitation, education, and rational persuasion. They organized lectures, establish reading rooms, and promoted self-improvement as a means to demonstrate working-class fitness for political participation. By contrast, the physical force Chartis, influenced by O'Connor and others, advocated for more militant tactics and were willing to

Starting point is 00:08:47 threaten or use violence if necessary to achieve their aims. This division would plague the movement throughout its existence, with debates over tactics often overshadowing the fundamental purpose of the organization. The movement experienced three major waves of activity, each marked by the presentation of of a monster petition to Parliament. After the rejection of the first petition in 1839, frustration led to the Newport Rising in Wales that November, when several thousand Chartists marched on the town, resulting in a confrontation with soldiers

Starting point is 00:09:20 that left more than 20 demonstrators dead. The leaders of the uprising were sentenced to death, but their sentences were later commuted to transportation to Australia. This violent episode damaged the movement's reputation, but demonstrated just how serious its supporters were. The second petition presented in 1842 during another economic downturn was even larger, reportedly containing over 3 million signatures. Parliament again rejected it overwhelmingly.

Starting point is 00:09:48 This rejection sparked the plug-plot riots, in which workers in the Industrial North removed plugs from steam engine boilers to halt production, effectively initiating a general strike. The government responded with mass arrests and the transportation of leaders to Australia, temporarily crushing the movement's momentum. The final great petition came in 1848, a year of revolutions across Europe that seemed to promise dramatic change. The Chartists organized a massive demonstration on Kensington Common in London, planning to march on Parliament with their petition, which they claimed contained nearly

Starting point is 00:10:23 six million signatures. The government, fearing revolution similar to those that had engulfed continental Europe, mobilized troops and special constables. The demonstration, while large, was ultimately peaceful and the march to parliament was called off. When the petition was examined, it was found to contain no fewer than two million signatures, with many of them fraudulent, including supposed signatures from Queen Victoria and the Duke of Wellington. This humiliation effectively marked the end of Chartism as a mass movement. The movement gradually dissipated after 1848 for several reasons. Economic conditions improved in the 1850s, reducing some of the desperation that had fueled chartist agitation. The movement's least,

Starting point is 00:11:05 leadership was divided and demoralized by repeated failures. Many working people began to focus our energies on trade unions and cooperative societies rather than political reform. The middle classes, initially sympathetic to some of the chartist demands, had been frightened by the revolutionary events of 1848 in Europe and withdrew their support. While chartism as a movement failed, the ideas that they fought for didn't die with them. In fact, you might have noticed that the six radical demands didn't seem very radical at all. Pretty much every democratic country in the world has adopted all of these points and in most cases have gone even further.

Starting point is 00:11:45 Over the next several decades in Britain, five of the six demands were implemented by Parliament. Property qualifications for MPs was abolished in 1858. The secret ballot was introduced in 1872. Electoral districts were gradually equalized to reform acts. later in the 19th century. MPs began receiving payment in 1911. Universal male suffrage was effectively achieved by 1918, with full voting rights extended to women in 1928. The only thing that wasn't implemented was annual elections for Parliament, which occur at most every five years,

Starting point is 00:12:22 which is still much better than what it used to be. Nonetheless, the principle of regular electoral accountability became firmly established. While chartism itself failedism, movement. The impact of chartism on British society was profound. It normalized the idea that working people had a legitimate claim to political participation and created a lasting culture of popular protest, organization, and political education. Many Chartists went on to become leaders in trade unionism and municipal reform movements. The movement also forced the British state to confront the risks of exclusion and repression, encouraging a more gradual and inclusive path of reform compared to the violent revolutions seen elsewhere in Europe.

Starting point is 00:13:04 Internationally, chartism resonated beyond Britain's borders. It influenced democratic and labor movements in Ireland, Australia, and North America, particularly among British immigrants who carried chartist ideas with them. The chartists aren't very well known today, but they were a profoundly influential movement in mid-19th century Britain. And even if their name isn't common knowledge, their ideals have become a part of almost ever. every democratic society in the world.

Starting point is 00:13:37 The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Otkin and Cameron Kiefer. Today's review comes from listener Freddie 301 on Apple Podcasts in the United States. They write, Great show. My brother is obsessed with this show, and I enjoy listening to it on long car rides and on the way to restaurants. He's also in the Completionist Club,

Starting point is 00:13:58 and I only hope that I can listen to all the episodes. By the way, have you done any episodes on Dungeons and Dragons? Well, thanks, Freddie. I hope that you soon will be joining your brother in the Completionist Club. You know what they say? The family that completes together, the eats together? And also, as of today, I have not done an episode on Dungeons and Dragons. And for that matter, I have not done episodes on either Dungeons or Dragons.

Starting point is 00:14:25 Remember, if you leave a review or send me a boostogram, you two can have it read on the show.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Chartist Movement

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