The Chartists and their demands

BN Goswamy

I am here this day to support the National Petition and the People’s Charter because it demands universal suffrage, because it gives them (the people) a vote in the choice of representatives. Is it too much for those who produce all the food, all the clothing, all the luxuries of life, who fight all the battles of the country, to ask for a voice in the choice of representatives?

— M Richardson of Manchester, September 17, 1838

There are wrongs which even the grave does not bury. — Harriet Jacobs

There are agitations everywhere in the world: have been and are. Crowds gather; causes are defined; voices are raised; leaderships emerge; ‘Open Letters’ are written; petitions are drawn up; signatures are collected. But a mass movement that rocked England in the 19th century — Chartism — had a flavour all its own. One read about it in college days, even if fleetingly at that time, but echoes of it keep ringing in the ears even now. When I chanced upon, the other day, a group of images connected with it — hand-written charters, steel engravings, hastily drawn cartoons, portraits of leaders — that echo began to turn into a clang in my mind.

It all started as a working class movement for parliamentary reform. A radical leader of London, William Lovett, drew up a ‘People’s Charter’, in the form of a bill, in 1838, and demanded that Parliament pay attention to it. Everything in the Charter related to representation of the people and six issues — ‘demands’ — were raised in it.

1. Universal manhood suffrage, meaning that every adult male should have the right to vote; 2. Equal electoral districts for securing the same amount of representation by the same number of electors; 3. Vote by ballot for protecting the electors; 4. Payment to members of Parliament; 5. Abolition of property qualification for Members of Parliament, thus enabling ‘honest tradesmen and hard working men’ to serve their constituency; and 6. Annually elected Parliaments.

Seen in today’s democratic light, one almost takes for granted everything demanded in it. But, at that time, it sounded so radical: radical, because it aimed at undermining the political power that the rich and the mighty of the land wielded. They alone owned property that enabled them to stand for election; with the wealth that they had gathered, they virtually needed no payment, while the poor, the working men, the tillers of fields, hoping to get into Parliament, did; not everyone had the right to vote, these rights being confined to selected sections of society; voting in secret, then mandated, carried with it the whiff of corruption and fear; and so on.

To the surprise of everyone, the movement spread very quickly, factors other than being kept out of political power, like economic depression and unemployment, contributing to its appeal. Slowly, the movement ‘swelled to national importance’, especially when articulate and sometimes surprising leadership took over. Men like William Cuffay, a black man of ‘great eloquence and short stature’, someone who has been described as ‘loved by his own order, who knew him and appreciated his virtues, but ridiculed and denounced by a press that knew him not, and had no sympathy with his class, and banished by a government that feared him…’; and Feargus O’Connor, an Irishman who feverishly toured the length and breadth of the land, and spoke to massive audiences with great courage and conviction.

The movement rose and ebbed, and kept rising again. That in fact is the wonder of it, its enduring appeal for years and years. The Peoples’ demands were presented to Parliament repeatedly, and repeatedly they were summarily rejected. At one point, a charter carrying three million signatures was taken to Parliament, but it remained unmoved, imputing motives, pointing fingers towards the dangers of physical force, assassinating characters. William Cuffay was detained, charged and deported from the land. Feargus O’Connor was under constant threat from the lawless who could have been let loose upon it by the constabulary. That is why, in 1848, when he was senior enough to address the crowd at Kennington Common as his children, he began: “My children, you were industriously told that I would not be amongst you today. Well, I am here.” There was lusty cheering by the crowd when he said this. “I sat, on my way here, on the front seat of my carriage, and although my life was threatened if I appeared here as I now appear, my hand does not tremble!” In the same strain, and on the same ground, O’Connor pointed to a carriage next to him on which was laden a charter — reams upon reams of paper — containing, as he claimed, five million and seven hundred thousand signatures. The year was 1848. That is when France had sneezed again, and the rest of Europe had caught cold. The Chartist movement had been dipping for a while, but had risen again.

One reads, when on Chartism, that the movement was eventually ‘laughed out of existence’, because some of the signatures on the petition were discovered to have been forged. But in retrospect, that as a judgment, a verdict on the movement, is grossly unfair. For, consider how the demands of the Chartists eventually fared. Out of the six, five were conceded over a period of time. The property qualification was abolished in 1858; universal right to vote was passed in 1867; secret ballot was abolished in 1872; districts were equally distributed in 1885; and payment to Members of Parliament was passed in 1911. The demands fared like this because they were just.

Well might the Chartists have used the words of that great mystic, Rumi.

Come, come, whoever you are.

Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.

It doesn’t matter.

Ours is not a caravan of despair….