Aspects of Chartism: Leeds 3

Municipal Chartism

All other avenues of practical ways of achieving the Charter had been exhausted in Leeds.  The educational, rational approach of the Leeds WMA had failed in 1838.  Physical force had met with little support and the Complete Suffrage movement collapsed.

The idea of Municipal Chartism originated in January 1840. Hobson was nominated as an Improvement Commissioner[1]. Nineteen citizens were elected annually and in 1838 and 1839 Tory Commissioners were elected. In 1840, a combination of Whigs, radicals and Chartists defeated the Tory bloc. Hobson was not elected, but another Chartist, John Jackson[2] (a Chartist corn miller) was. In 1841, the liberals’ list was carried again and in 1842, the Chartist list was carried. All nineteen members of the Improvement Commission were, according to the Northern Star, “staunch friends of the people’s cause”. In July 1842, a new one replaced the old Improvement Act. The commission was abolished and the town council implemented the Act. The Chartists would now need to elect town councillors to continue the new line of action. The qualifications needed for town councillors were lower than those for Improvement Commissioners. From 1842 to 1845, Chartists stood and were elected as Churchwardens. The Chartists prepared for the municipal elections, to have Chartists elected. In November 1842, two Chartists stood for local election but failed[3]. The Chartist cause was not helped by the Plug Plots of August, which convulsed the West Riding.  In November 1843, Hobson and Jackson were elected to Leeds council: they were outnumbered 62:2, so they could do little to affect policy. They did provide an ‘awkward squad’, though. By November 1844, there were four Chartists on the council (of 64 members) and between 1849 and 1850, seven Chartists were councillors. The Chartist label was last used in the 1853 municipal election and this represented the end of municipal Chartism in the town.

Leeds Chartists were not necessarily poor men. To stand for municipal office meant they had to be rated at £30 or £40. From 1842 it was the council that had the real power and, for a decade, Chartists either individually or as a body took part in municipal elections. In fact, the Chartists were not united and did not vote as a bloc especially on issues involving expenditure. John Jackson, a leading local Chartist, voted against a rate for drainage and a new sewerage system in 1844 but in favour of a larger courthouse and altering the market in 1845-6. George Robson[4], another Chartist, voted against Jackson on the former but supported the latter while William Brook[5] voted against Jackson on both issues. The Chartists were split on each of the six votes on the building of the town hall between January 1851 and May 1852. It was, however, Chartists who put forward some of the most important municipal innovations. Joshua Hobson pressed for the creation of a new shopping street in 1845 to include a new town hall. He, along with Robson and Brook, argued for an effective drainage system. The Chartist guardian, John Ayrey, first suggested the building of an industrial school, the only major Poor Law building project in the West Riding in the 1840s.

What gave consistency to the Leeds Chartists was their belief in democratic control. Brook favoured municipal spending when the economy was prosperous but opposed it in 1848-9 when the economy slumped and he did not want to increase his constituents’ rates. Popular involvement and control can be seen in many of the other ideas expressed by municipal Chartists. There were attempts to ensure popular participation in the 1842 Improvement Bill. In education, they favoured locally elected boards and rate-aided schools thirty years before the 1870 Elementary Education Act. They were strongly opposed to centralisation and in favour of locally controlled towns. The experience of Leeds was paralleled in other major towns. In Birmingham, Leicester, Manchester, Salford, Nottingham, and especially Sheffield Chartists became embroiled in municipal politics.  What was the impact of municipal Chartism in Leeds?

• There were never more than seven or eight Chartist councillors, although between 1843 and 1853 some 25 Chartists stood for election, eighteen with success.
• The men who stood for election on the Chartist platform were mainly shopkeepers and small tradesmen, not working class.
• They had little in the way of a distinctive Chartist policy, but spoke on specific issues. The opposed ‘arrangements’ and jobbery; they were suspicious of the police and opposed the extension of police powers and they always voted for a reduction of expenditure.
• Moderate leaders assumed leadership of Chartism in Leeds, which moved back to its traditional radicalism.

Municipal Chartism was not concerned with national issues so Leeds Chartism 1843-1848 became something of a backwater. Municipal Chartism may have proved a dead-end, as Harrison concludes. But it did provide yet another link to later political activism. In 1855, a Leeds Advanced Liberal Party was formed to unite old Radicals and Chartists under a single banner. At least eight of its fourteen founder members were old Chartists. They were to lay the foundations of the later manhood suffrage associations of the 1860s, and when the Leeds Working Men’s Parliamentary Reform Association was founded in 1860, it was to be led by the last of the Leeds Chartists.

The Plug Plots in the Leeds Area: 1842

There was much distress in the Leeds area after four years of continuing depression. A fifth of the population was pauperised; 16,000 people (of a population of 80,000) existed entirely on workhouse relief. The Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses of Leeds wrote to HM Treasury, in July 1842, “Never at any former period in our recollection has this manufacturing district experienced distress so universal, so prolonged, so exhausting and so ruinous”.

 

Date	Event
Saturday 13th August	News of turnouts of factory workers in the West Riding.
Sunday 14th August	Troop movements in Leeds
Monday 15th August	1,500 special constables were sworn in
Tuesday 16th August	Reports of riots and clashes in Halifax. A meeting of 4,000 operatives on Hunslett Moor passed resolutions in favour of the Charter
Wednesday 17th August	Turnout in villages near Leeds 6,000 operatives stopped all mills in Calverley, Stanningley, Bramley and Pudsey. They drove in the plugs at mills in Armley, Wortley, Farnley, Hunslet and Holbeck. By 5 p.m. they were in Meadow Lane, Leeds and stopped all the mils in Leeds. The Riot Act was read in Leeds and 38 men were arrested.
Thursday 18th August	Leeds was quiet except for a turn-out at coal pits at Hunslet and Middleton
Friday 19th August	The pits were visited again and 14 prisoners taken by police. A meeting took place on Hunslett Moor, which was then dispersed by police and troops.

Those arrested were given prison sentences varying between two and eighteen months. There is little evidence to show that local Chartists were responsible for the riots although they made political capital for the Charter out of them. No leading Chartist was arrested in Leeds. The Leeds riots were basically a violent reaction of unemployed operatives spurred to desperation by hunger and destitution.

Chartism in Leeds after 1842

In November 1844, the Northern Star moved from Leeds to London, removing several top-level Chartists from Leeds, including Hobson and Harney. This was indicative of the shift of Chartism from the north to the south at this time. Leeds Chartists continued to meet but new names appeared Squire Farrar, James Harris, and John Shaw. Much time and energy was spent on the land question. In May and June 1845, the first meeting connected with O’Connor’s Land Plan was held. Thirty-five members enrolled because the appeal of a new life in rural surroundings attracted the workers of industrial Leeds. Chartists were in competition with the Owenites.

In 1847, there was a severe trade depression with mass unemployment and high food prices. Things did not improve in the following year because 1848 saw unrest in Ireland and European revolutions. Conditions similar to those of 1838 and 1842 were reproduced and there was renewed activity among the Chartists. In 1848 in Leeds, Chartist meetings which had been used to discuss Land Company business were replaced by meetings addressed by George White - this time talking about the rights of man and so on. White proposed a great West Riding demonstration on Hartshead Moor: the time to get the Charter had arrived.

The Hartshead Moor meeting was held March and processions were organised from Bradford, Leeds and Halifax. Republican flags were flown and radical addresses were delivered. In March and April 1848, there was great enthusiasm for the Charter in Leeds. Huge meetings were held with between 10,000 and 15,000 in attendance, with local Chartist speakers who attempted to broaden the Chartist base by linking up with the Leeds Irish population. The Tricolour was flown, with the inscription, “Republic for France, Repeal for Ireland, the People’s Charter for England, and no surrender!”

The Leeds Times thought Leeds Chartism was being taken over by wilder, extreme Irish elements. It feared for the “good sense and moderation” of the Leeds radicals. Hobson continued to condemn physical force. By May 1848, there was a new air or desperation in the West Riding. Arming and drilling was reported in many areas and from 28^th May, sporadic violence occurred in several areas.

In Bradford[6], two thousand Chartists fought with a similar number of police, infantry, dragoons and special Constables. In Bingley, an attack was made on the police station to release Chartist prisoners. In Leeds, two hundred paraded for drill on Woodhouse Moor. JPs warned against this activity so the men went home. Of fifty-eight persons tried at York Assizes for riot and sedition in August, only one was from Leeds. The government’s policy of intimidation and arrests followed by harsh sentences, during the summer of 1848, successfully crushed the immediate threat, but did not extinguish Chartism. New ideas and personalities emerged.

Joseph Barker[7] of Bramley, Leeds was the son of a Wesleyan preacher. He was a self-educated man who became a Wesleyan Methodist preacher himself. His religious progress was downwards: Methodist, Quaker, Unitarian and then secularist. In 1848, Barker was helped by Unitarian friends to set up a print shop at Wortley where he published cheap reprints and began publishing The People, most of which he wrote himself. He published three volumes in all, covering 1848-51. It declared itself republican and ultra-democratic, and attempted to adapt Chartism to new needs and conditions. It emphasised the need for some general union of all reformers and represented the old idea of “the Charter and something more”. His republican ideas came from the 1848 Revolutions but more importantly, The People emphasised the need for some general union of all reformers.

Chartism in Leeds 1848-1853 represented a coming together of reformers from several fields of popular endeavour:

• Chartism plus the social content of nonconformity
• Owenite Socialism
• The Land Company
• Temperance
• Trade unionism
• Co-operative shops

The name ‘Chartist’ came to mean one who favoured a policy of independent working-class radicalism, tied neither to middle-class Liberals nor to Radicals. In 1853, the last Chartist councillors (R M Carter[8] and John Williamson[9]) were elected. After this, Chartists stood as Radicals and/or Liberals. Chartism as an organised movement ended but revived in 1855 as the Leeds Advanced Liberal Party. Of the fourteen originators, eight were ex-Chartists and three more were ex-Owenites. Their programme included the six points of the Charter and municipal reform. In 1860, the last of the Leeds Chartists founded the Leeds Working Men’s Parliamentary Reform Association.

Conclusions

Chartism in Leeds as a powerful force suffered for several reasons.

• O’Connor was not based in Leeds to establish firm control.
• The woollen industry was not so badly affected by depression as cotton, and there was as yet little ‘class’ hostility in Leeds.
• There was a strong alliance in Leeds with the Tory radicals through organisations such as the Anti Corn Law League, the Ten-Hour movement, trade unionism and anti-Poor Law agitation. The factory reformers tended to be Tory protectionists who wanted to protect the Corn Laws.
• The Leeds ‘fustian jackets’ had little sympathy with the Lancashire cotton operatives; they were textile rivals, after all.

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[1] Brian Barber ‘Municipal government in Leeds 1835-1914’, in Derek Fraser (ed.) Municipal reform and the industrial city, Leicester University Press, 1982, pages 61-110 provides a valuable context for ‘municipal Chartism’.

[2] The first successful candidate put forward by the Leeds Chartists at a municipal election, Jackson was elected an Improvement Commissioner in 1840 as part of a bloc of Whigs, Radicals and Chartists formed to defeat the Tories. Jackson, a corn miller from Holbeck, was successfully re-elected in 1841. He was to be elected a Leeds town councillor for the Holbeck ward in 1843, one of the first two successful candidates (with Hobson). Jackson lost his seat to the Liberals in 1846 and failed to regain it the following year.

[3] William Barron was a member of the committee established to organise the first Chartist attempt to win seats on Leeds town council in November 1842, and one of two unsuccessful candidates (with Hobson). Barron was a tailor and draper, and treasurer of the Leeds Charter Association.

[4] Elected as a Chartist candidate to Leeds town council in West Ward in 1844, he retained his seat in the election of 1847. Robson was a butcher.

[5] Secretary of Leeds Charter Association and of the committee established to organise the first Chartist attempt to win seats on Leeds town council. William Brook was a tobacconist and tea dealer in Kirkgate, who later set up a small nail-making business in Swinegate. He was elected as a Chartist candidate to the council in 1844 for Holbeck ward and retained his seat in the 1847 election.

[6] On disturbances in Bradford see, D.G. Wright The Chartist Risings in Bradford, Bradford, 1987.

[7] Joseph Barker (1806-75) is considered in Joseph O. Baylen and Norbert J. Grossman (eds.) Biographical Dictionary of Modern British Radicals since 1770, volume 2: 1830-1870, Brighton, 1984, pages 38-41. He was elected to Leeds town council as a Chartist candidate either in 1848 or 1849, along with his brother Benjamin. Barker was born in 1806 at Wortley, near Leeds. He was a wool-spinner and Methodist preacher and supported ‘moral force’ Chartism, the temperance movement and was an Abolitionist. He was the author of The People (Wortley, 1848-51) and The Liberators (Wortley, 1852-53). Barker left Britain for Boston, Mass., and Omaha, Nebraska in 1851, to join farmer-brother. He was in the United States between 1851 and 1860, and again from 1865 to his death in 1875 in Nebraska.

[8] Robert Meek Carter was elected as a Chartist candidate to Leeds town council in 1850, and successfully re-elected in 1853, on the last occasion on which Chartist candidates stood. Carter was a coal merchant and co-operative pioneer.

[9] John Williamson was elected as a Chartist candidate to Leeds town council in 1853, the last occasion on which Chartist candidates stood. Williamson was a greengrocer.

Aspects of Chartism: Leeds 2

The first phase, 1837-39

Leeds Chartism stood out from that of other towns in the West Riding of Yorkshire for its moderation, and its success in contesting municipal elections. For more than a decade, Chartist candidates fought and won elections to the town’s Improvement Commission and subsequently to the town council itself. But what pushed the working class radicals of Leeds down such a route while just a few miles up the road the Bradford and Sheffield Chartists were preparing for armed insurrection?   J.F.C. Harrison argued in Chartist Studies that this wholly different approach could be accounted for by three factors. The history of middle class radicalism in the town which gave middle class sympathisers an alternative home, and gave them the strength to stand apart from the Chartists.  The different types of employment on offer to people locally in the woollen industry, where the economic distress of the late 1830s and early 1840s was not as keenly felt as in the cotton industry.  The relocation, by Feargus O’Connor of his Northern Star newspaper from Leeds to London, depriving the town of some of its key activists and moving the centre of gravity away from what had always been a key centre of the movement.

On 23^rd September 1837, the first meeting of the Leeds WMA took place, following the meeting on Woodhouse Moor in late August. Bray, the treasurer, gave the address. The Leeds WMA contented itself throughout with lectures, addresses and the occasional protest meeting in an attempt to gloss over the divisions in the leadership. This failed in January 1838 at a meeting of the Leeds WMA where the speakers were Augustus Hardin Beaumont[1] (later briefly the editor of the Northern Liberator), O’Connor, Dr. John Taylor[2] and Sharman Crawford, MP. Their differences became apparent very quickly. Beaumont declared himself a physical force man and was received with groans. He then denounced “the dulcet tones of the very moderate Radicalism of Leeds”.

During the winter of 1837-38, militants were strengthened by four things.  There was a struggle against the new Poor Law in the West Riding. The Commissioners had arrived in northern England late in 1836 to set up Unions even though the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act actually was intended to solve the problems of agrarian, rural poverty that mainly was found in the south.  The trial of the Glasgow cotton spinners whose strike leaders were sentenced to transportation.  There was a general trade depression.  Finally, the Northern Star turned out to be a phenomenal success.

The Northern Star is Leeds’s claim to Chartist fame. It began as a Barnsley paper for working men, advocating the abolition of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act and a renewal of the Trade Union and Ten-Hour movements but was taken over by O’Connor and moved to Leeds in 1837. Within four months of its establishment, it was selling 10,000 copies a week. The idea of a popular newspaper for the West Riding came from Joshua Hobson and William Hill. Hill, the son of a Barnsley handloom weaver, became a teacher, phrenologist and then pastor of Hull’s New Jerusalem Church. O’Connor had the money to start the Northern Star in Leeds. The paper was important because it made the most powerful Chartist voice available to local Chartism. The paper gave detailed reports of any radical meetings anywhere in Yorkshire and became an institution of working class gatherings. It was widely read and public readings extended its audience considerably. It was socially educative and directed attention to burning social issues.  It gave Feargus O’Connor a personal dominance over Chartism in the north. His followers had press backing and physical force dominated the Leeds WMA.

By May 1838, the Leeds WMA was no longer appropriate for the agitation wanted by O’Connor. Bray and the Owenites dropped out of the Association in 1838 and Nicoll died of tuberculosis in December 1838. In addition, the Leeds Times, under its new editor, became critical of O’Connor. In June 1838, the Great Northern Union replaced the Leeds WMA. Its inaugural meeting was held on Hunslett Moor; the speakers were O’Connor, White, Rider, and John Collins from Birmingham. They spoke for outright measures: physical force. O’Connor hoped that the GNU would unite all the reform associations in the area. The national Chartist movement directed its efforts towards electing delegates to the national Convention after August 1838 and the GNU organised meetings in support of the Charter throughout the West Riding.  On 15^th October 1838, a monster meeting was held on Hartshead Moor, Leeds. The site was chosen because it was equidistant from all the main towns in the West Riding and was a natural amphitheatre able to hold large numbers. It was set up like a fair; food and drink were available and families attended. People came from Bradford, Huddersfield and Halifax in thousands, each group with its band playing and banners flying. Two hundred attended from Leeds. The people elected O’Connor, Rider and Lawrence Pitkeithly[3] as the West Riding delegates to the National Convention. Physical force was popular with West Riding Chartists.

In the winter of 1838-1839, vast torchlight meetings were held; speeches and schemes became more violent and inflammatory. Even ‘moderate’ Leeds managed a 3,000 strong meeting on St. Peter’s Hill in February 1839 to hear George White speak. In 1839, the O’Connorites tried to set the pace of Leeds Chartism and Leeds had no movement to rival O’Connor’s pre-eminence. Also, Leeds was central to the area and there was a good deal of material to work on in the West Riding. Manchester was of little use to O’Connor because the Anti-Corn Law League was a rival to Chartism. The O’Connorites did not get the support they hoped for, and criticised the luke-warmness of Leeds men. 1^st April 1839 was Easter Monday. O’Connor, Hill, White, Rider and Dr Taylor addressed an open-air meeting in Leeds. There was much emphasis on physical force. White said he “was not so much a radical as a revolutionist [and] they would never get anything until they were able to take it by force”. Rider said, “The citadel of corruption cannot be taken by paper bullets. There is a crew ... called physical force men who are trying for something more than argument. It is this that makes the Whigs and Tories tremble”. He urged men to arm and do more than petition. Rider believed that the petition would do little good, so he resigned from the National Convention. He then tried to retake his seat and was thrown out.

On 21^st May 1839, another meeting was held on Hartshead Moor (then known as Peep Green), and it was a model of peaceful organisation. No liquor was sold and the meeting was opened with prayers. Bronterre O’Brien said that the people were determined to have the Charter, “peaceably if they could, and forcibly if they must”. Also in May, Leeds’ magistrates enrolled special constables and assembled the yeomanry cavalry ‘in case’ there was trouble, although the town proverbially was peaceful. Chartist leaders feared arrest because this was happening to other leaders elsewhere. By this time, physical force men dominated the Leeds Northern Union: Rider, White, Jones and Charles Connor. Joseph Jones was a shoemaker and chair of the Leeds Northern Union; Connor was an Irishman who said he was a ‘revolutionist’ and condemned the “sham radicalism” of the Leeds Times. The talk now was of ‘ulterior measures’ to secure the Charter: withdrawal of cash from the banks, abstention from all taxable luxury goods, exclusive dealing and the ‘national holiday’

In this atmosphere of rising tension, White was arrested in August for extortion by threats. He had been appointed by the Great Northern Union to collect subscriptions for the ‘National Rent in Leeds. He visited shopkeepers and traders with two books, a subscription book and a “Black Book”. If no cash was forthcoming, the trader’s name was written in the “Black Book” and ‘hints’ were dropped concerning bloodshed. The magistrates committed him to the York Assizes in April 1840 and he was refused bail. White verbally attacked “Whig justice” from the dock and got his bail. He was free in Leeds during the winter of 1839-40 and was active in the Chartist movement. The winter 1839-1840 saw the end of the first period of Chartism in the West Riding with a series of risings in Sheffield, Bradford and Dewsbury. The familiar pattern of unemployment, police spies and clashes with soldiers and subsequent arrests was to be found. In Leeds there was no rising.

In March 1840, White was sentenced to six months in prison and served a particularly rigorous sentence of hard labour, rigid discipline and no visitors. He became ill and fell off the treadmill twice. On his release from Wakefield gaol, White went to Birmingham as the correspondent for the Northern Star. In May 1840, Feargus O’Connor was sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment for seditious libel. The collapse of the physical force wing was virtually complete and the Leeds Northern Union quietly disappeared.

The Chartist revival, 1840-41

The Chartist revival in Leeds was different from elsewhere. New leaders, a new policy and new methods were evident. More significant was the new form of organisation. The reformed movement was called the Leeds Radical Universal Suffrage Association. Membership was open to all wanting the Charter and using moral and lawful methods. The entrance fee was 2d and 1d per week in subscriptions and the Association used the Methodist ‘class’ idea for every twenty members. Officers were elected by ballot every two months. There is nothing new here: it was a revival of pre-Chartist radicalism and was very moderate. The physical force men lost all influence. By July 1840, the Leeds RUSA was flourishing and even Jones and O’Connor were allowed to join. In the autumn of that year, its name was changed to the Leeds branch of the National Charter Association. This was only a change of name, however: its policies and personnel remained the same. The new temper of Chartism is reflected in the direction of Chartist energies in Leeds: a variety of societies were set up with Chartist backing.  These included: Leeds Total Abstinence Charter Association (January 1841); Hounslow Union Sunday School, conducted by teetotallers and Chartists; Leeds Charter Debating Society; lectures, addresses and discussions replaced processions and demonstrations; and public speaking was practised on Sunday afternoons.

The Leeds Charter Association reported that the meetings, “get ever more respectable, are better conducted, less uproarious, and partake more of the reasoning and intellectual qualities”. The Leeds Chartists failed to get a mass following either because of, or in spite of their policy. Leeds Chartists remained a small group of able, intelligent enthusiasts: a general staff without an army. They were unable to ally themselves with moderate traditional radicalism or with the middle-classes. Neither the extreme nor the moderate Chartists could ally with the middle-classes because there was no common ground between them.  In January 1839, Samuel Smiles[4] became the editor of the Leeds Times, which then took a distinct turn to the right. Under Nicoll, it had identified with Chartism in principle but this ended in mid-1840. Smiles became secretary of the Leeds Parliamentary Reform Association that advocated household suffrage. The paper also abandoned support of the Short-Time Committees in favour of the Anti Corn Law League.

Leeds Chartists feared competition from the Anti-Corn Law League in the winter of 1838-39 so they ‘captured’ or broke up Anti-Corn Law League meetings. There was no real objection to the repeal of the Corn Laws; the Chartists merely feared a rival group. From early 1841, opposition to the Anti Corn Law League revived, because the Chartists said the anti-Corn Law agitation was an attempt to shelve the struggle for the Charter. Apparently, this was plausible because the Anti Corn Law League in Leeds declared for household suffrage. The Anti-Corn Law League tried to win working-class support and militant Chartists attempted to prevent it, trying hard to discredit the Anti Corn Law League and middle-class radicals, especially the “pigmy doctor”, Smiles.  In 1841, the Conservatives under Peel won the general election, thus strengthening the case for a middle and working class alliance for repeal of the Corn Laws and fiscal reform. The Chartists had opposed the Whigs and let the Tories in, but militant Chartism in the West Riding was primarily a struggle against the middle class, making an alliance impossible. The obstacle was over universal suffrage. The middle-classes and Chartists all saw that political democracy eventually would lead to social democracy. If co-operation was to be achieved, it would not be in national politics. In Leeds, the opening for co-operation was found in local government.

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[1] Augustus Hardin Beaumont (1798-1838) is the subject of a short biography in Joseph O. Baylen and Norbert J. Grossman (eds.) Biographical Dictionary of Modern British Radicals since 1770, volume 2: 1830-1870, Brighton, 1984, pages 46-48.

[2] Dr John Taylor (1805-42) can be examined in Joseph O. Baylen and Norbert J. Grossman (eds.) Biographical Dictionary of Modern British Radicals since 1770, volume 2: 1830-1870, Brighton, 1984, pages 495-497.

[3] Lawrence Pitkeithly (1800?-1858) is examined in Joseph O. Baylen and Norbert J. Grossman (eds.) Biographical Dictionary of Modern British Radicals since 1770, volume 2: 1830-1870, Brighton, 1984, pages 411-412. Pitkeithly was born in 1801 in Huddersfield. He was a weaver and ‘physical force’ Chartist following his work in Ten Hours Movement. He became a delegate to National Chartist Association meeting in Manchester. July 1840. He wrote to Dr. John Smyles (relative of Samuel Smiles), a former radical resident in Rochester, NY, about prospects in America, leaving Britain in 1842 for New York, contacted Bussey (and Devyr?) and SmyIes, but moved on to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He wrote articles on his trip in Northern Star but returned home in 1843. Pitkeithly died in Manchester in 1858.

[4] On Samuel Smiles (1812-1904), see Joseph O. Baylen and Norbert J. Grossman (eds.) Biographical Dictionary of Modern British Radicals since 1770, volume 2: 1830-1870, Brighton, 1984, pages 455-460. Alexander Tyrell ‘Class Consciousness in Early Victorian Britain: Samuel Smiles, Leeds Politics and the Self-Help Creed’, in Journal of British Studies, volume ix, (1970), pages 102-115 is more specific. Smiles was the editor of the Leeds Times from 1839. He condemned the government for using force to put down Chartism, but dissociated himself from physical force Chartists. Smiles proclaimed himself a Chartist in principle, and regarded the movement as principally “a knowledge agitation”, but few Chartists were prepared to work with him. Smiles later dropped even this dalliance, becoming secretary of the Leeds Parliamentary Reform Association, which advocated household suffrage, and moving his paper to the right by abandoning its support for shorter factory working hours.