Aspects of Chartism: Manchester 3

The second phase of Chartism had to begin with a reorganisation that laid more emphasis on structure and less emphasis on personalities. This took place between July 1840 and June 1841. On 20^th July 1840, a National Delegate Conference was held in Manchester with James Leach in the chair. Leach was as violent as O’Connor was. Eventually, out of a host of rival schemes, there emerged the National Charter Association. The NCA, with the same title but with varying purpose, dominated Chartism for the rest of its existence as a political force.  In August 1841, O’Connor was released from York prison and agitation immediately grew. During the autumn, O’Connor made a triumphal tour of northern England. On 27^th September, a great demonstration in O’Connor’s honour was held in Manchester. Between 2,500 and 3,000 members of Chartist Associations and Trade Unions marched in procession. It was a striking example of renewed Chartist strength, but divisions existed between the supporters of O’Connor and O’Connell - mainly Irish - because O’Connor opposed the Anti-Corn Law League and O’Connell supported it. O’Connor’s supporters arranged for the police to attend their meeting to prevent violence from O’Connell’s supporters. The curious spectacle ensued of a Chartist meeting assembling under police protection.

During the winter of 1841-42, Chartism made rapid progress as cotton operatives turned to political reform in the hope of relieving their economic distress. The north of England dominated the new Chartist movement and found important allies in the craft trade unions. Sixty-four trade union delegates attended a Chartist meeting in March 1842, which shows a revival of the combination of working-class political and industrial organisations that had been prominent in 1838-9. Donald Read noted that, “Despite this widespread support the National Petition achieved nothing. It was thrown out by parliament, and once more Chartism was left to face its own ineffectiveness. Once more cotton operatives began to despair and to realise that Chartism could not bring relief to their distress; and once more the movement went into a rapid decline”.[1]

Despair did not lead to an apathetic acceptance of distress, but to direct industrial action. At the 1842 National Convention, the second Petition was the work of the NCA and certainly displayed class hostility in the preamble. There were riots in Manchester after its rejection, followed by the Plug Plots in the summer of that year. It was a time of economic distress and almost fifteen per cent of the houses in Stockport were empty. Some wit had erected a placard that said “Stockport to let”. There were soup kitchens in Manchester. On 7^th August, a protest meeting, attended by between 8,000 and 10,000 operatives, was held on Mottram Moor against the threatened reduction in wages. They passed a resolution for the Charter and for a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work. By 9^th August, the cotton industry virtually was at a standstill and the plugs were smashed from the boilers to stop production. On 11^th August, two hundred trade delegates met in Manchester and demanded a ten-hour working day and fair wage rates for weavers and factory workers.

The strike was spontaneous, not the beginning of a planned revolution. Neither was there any causal connection between Chartism and the strikes because the strikers were more interested in work and wages than in politics. The Chartists merely exploited the situation. The problem was that they were divided. The Plug Plots suggested that the workers were not hostile to factories or industrialisation but were opposed to low wages and poor conditions. By smashing the plugs, they hindered production and thus damages their employers’ profits, to make the bosses ‘feel the pinch’ too. This was different from the handloom weavers in London who objected to machines per se. Manchester was more violent than elsewhere in Lancashire because the plight of the workers was worse. The strikes had fizzled out by the end of August, although men had been arrested and trials again were held. One such trial was that of Richard Pilling[2] at the Spring Assizes in Lancaster; others were those of Lloyd and Warden.

Chartism in Manchester never really revived after 1842 because of a revival of trade prosperity after 1843 that removed the economic stimulus for Chartism. Many operatives turned to economic action, especially the Ten-Hour movement, trade unions and anti-Poor-Law agitation. Some workingmen also began to see the value of the Anti Corn Law League following Peel’s economic reforms. The Plug Plots were overcome for several reasons.  First, the refusal of the masters to capitulate to violence. The workers had either to go back to work or to starve.  Secondly, the strategic placing of two thousand troops and six artillery regiments in the Manchester area. Sir Charles Napier was important here. He was a humanitarian and a sympathiser with the plight of the workingmen. He wanted to use his troops as a preventative force and adopted tactics such as keeping the troops moving so that there seemed to be more of them than there were. He held artillery drills in public parks so that people could see the effectiveness of the weapons and soldiers. Consequently, there were no serious disturbances in Manchester.  Finally, the effective use of the provincial police, which had been established in 1839

The trade depression returned in 1845 and 1847 was a terrible year. The Manchester Examiner of 15^th May 1847 reported 84,000 operatives on short time, 24,000 operatives unemployed and 77,000 operatives working full time. Also, Irish immigration had increased because of the potato famine, there was a cholera epidemic and O’Connor was touring the country selling his Land Plan.  In March 1848, rioting occurred in Manchester and attacks were made on a workhouse and several mills but this was the work of boys and youths. The Chartist leaders helped the authorities to put down the riots. In April 1848, a series of meetings was held to support the National Petition which was presented to parliament on 10^th April and on that day, nearly every Lancashire town held a meeting. After the rejection of the third petition, Chartism in Lancashire gradually declined [3].

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[1] Donald Read ‘Chartism in Manchester’, in Asa Briggs (ed.) Chartist Studies, Macmillan, 1959, page 57.

[2] For Richard Pilling (1799-1874), see Joyce Bellamy and John Saville (eds.) Dictionary of Labour Biography, volume vi, Macmillan, 1982, pages 216-223.

[3] William Henry Chadwick was born in 1829. At the age of 14 he was already an accomplished speaker and had been enrolled as a Wesleyan preacher. At the age of 19, in 1848, he was appointed as corresponding secretary of the Manchester Chartists. He continued his activity for the Charter and was one of those arrested and put on trial at Liverpool in 1848. He was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment arising out of a speech in Stevenson’s Square in which he told the crowd that they would “never be free men until they had a sword hung by their side”. Chadwick became active in the trade union movement and was one of those who assisted the cotton operatives in their efforts to raise their wages. Later he helped the agricultural workers when they were trying to form a union under the leadership of Joseph Arch. He died in 1908.

Aspects of Chartism: Manchester 2

At every stage in the rise and decline of Chartism, the class issue is paramount, aggravated usually by economic distress: this is obvious even from the 1790s. At that time, Thomas Walker and other middle class reformers set up the Manchester Constitutional Society that failed partly because of the ‘loyal opposition’ of the working classes. During the Napoleonic Wars, there was a good deal of economic depression in Manchester and the working classes began to demand political reforms as a means to socio-economic improvement. In 1817, the March of the Blanketeers took place, followed in 1819 by the Peterloo Massacre. In 1830, the Manchester Political Unions were very active and in the 1830s, Manchester had a number of active opposition groups: trade unions, the 10-Hour Movement and anti-Poor-Law agitation. These merged into Chartism. R.J. Richardson[1] was secretary to both the Manchester Operatives Trade Union and the South Lancashire Anti-Poor-Law Association in the mid-1830s. He became secretary of the new Manchester Political Union and an active Chartist in 1838. Donald Read says that, “Lancashire Chartism represented a desperate and despairing attempt by the operatives to improve the grim conditions of industrial life.”[2]

On 22^nd March 1837, a meeting in favour of all six points of the Charter was held in Stockport although the Charter was not mentioned by name. This was the first meeting in the Manchester area. It was followed in April 1837 by a meeting was held in Manchester to petition for annual general elections, a secret ballot and universal suffrage. In July 1837, after the end of official proceedings for the nomination of candidates for the general election, O’Connor and O’Brien addressed the working class remnant in favour of ‘democratic principles’ - probably the Charter. On 5^th December 1837, the Salford Reform Association passed resolves in favour of short parliaments, a secret ballot and universal suffrage. Apparently, this Association was not ultra-radical.

In 1838, two Chartist bodies were founded in Manchester: the Manchester Political Union and the Manchester Universal Suffrage Association. On 24^th September 1838, a monster meeting was held on Kersal Moor near Manchester. It was the greatest of a series of large-scale Chartist meetings held during the summer of that year and it had a dual purpose. It was intended firstly to demonstrate the strength of Chartism and secondly to elect delegates for the Chartist National Convention. As a demonstration, it was a huge success. It attracted an impressive display of speakers and delegates from all Chartist areas including the London Working Men’s Association, Birmingham, Newcastle and Leeds. John Fielden took the chair and Joseph Rayner Stephens and Feargus O’Connor were the main speakers. Various estimates of the numbers present have been made. The Manchester Guardian estimated an attendance of 30,000 but the Morning Advertiser said that 300,000 were there. Archibald Prentice, after careful calculation reckoned that the true number was 50,000.

For the rest of 1838, regular meetings were held throughout the area; many by torchlight. These processions and meetings alarmed the middle-classes by their violent speeches and threats. The physical force element predominated, although evidence suggests that they alienated many of the working classes. By spring 1839, Chartism had lost much of its unorganised support. Chartist leaders had also begun to quarrel among themselves. On 6^th May 1839, a special meeting of the North of England delegates had to be called to revive the spirit of union within Chartist ranks. It became a rally of the physical force element that went on to look at ‘ulterior measures’. Those in attendance virtually repudiated the National Petition, even before parliament rejected it. The threat of physical violence surfaced. The Manchester Guardian of 24^th April had already reported that William Benbow said, “Every man and every boy of twelve years of age should have a stiletto a cubit long, to run into the guts of any who should attempt to oppose them.”

25^th May 1839 was Whit Saturday. There is evidence from this second Kersal Moor meeting to suggest the decline of Chartism. Extremists in charge of the Manchester Political Union had high hope for the meeting and about 30,000 attended - many for the horse races afterwards. The Chartists turned their attention to planning a ‘National Holiday’ (a general strike).

On 25^th June 1839, a delegate meeting was held in Rochdale, which decided to create a better organisation. This demonstrated the weakness of Chartism. Many delegates were arrested in July and August and few were left to organise the “National Holiday” intended for August. The plan was abandoned by the National Convention but was attempted by some men in Bolton. Some local Chartist leaders tried to achieve a strike and forced some factories to close. This shows what limited support they had. If the operatives had supported Chartism, they would not have gone to work in the first place. Handloom weavers supported Chartism long after the factory workers gave up. These were the poorest and most distressed of the working population of Lancashire and were more prepared to adopt desperate measures. By September 1839, the Chartists themselves were admitting failure. Apathy was widespread among the factory workers. In November, the Newport Rising took place. The Lancashire leaders may have also planned similar risings but they failed from lack of support. Donald Read says, “The comparative failure of the second Kersal Moor meeting the collapse of the National Holiday and the apathetic local response to the Newport Rising all showed how rapidly the Chartism position had declined in 1839. The first phase of the Chartist movement in Lancashire was almost over. The final blow came in the spring of 1840 when most of the Chartist leaders were imprisoned. The Chartist organisation was concentrated in the person of the leaders; without them it collapsed.”[3]

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[1] On Reginald Jones Richardson (1803-?) see, Joseph O. Baylen and Norbert J. Grossman (eds.) Biographical Dictionary of Modern British Radicals since 1770, volume 2: 1830-1870, Brighton, 1984, pages 433-435. Born in 1803, R.J. Richardson was a master joiner from Salford. He also kept a bookshop. When he was 23 he took part in demonstrations against the introduction of power looms. Eleven years later, he was secretary of the South Lancashire Anti-Poor Law Association and the flowing year, in September 1838, he was the chief organiser of the Kersal Moor meeting. When the carpenters contributed union funds to build Carpenters’ Hall in Manchester, Richardson acted as one of the trustees for the money. He was a man of more than usual education and he was an avid reader all his life. He wrote a pamphlet in prison called The Rights of Women in which he strongly advocated female suffrage. In April 1838, Richardson issued a placard calling a meeting at which the Manchester Political Union was formed. This became the Manchester section of the National Charter Association. In 1838, Richardson was the Manchester delegate to the National Convention but was replaced by Christopher Dean. He was one of the active trade unionists as secretary of the Operatives Trade Union who took the cause of the charter to the organised workers. He was an advocate of physical force and was arrested on a charge of seditious conspiracy in 1839. He was sentenced to nine months in Lancaster Castle. On his release, he went to Scotland to work as editor of the Dundee Chronicle, a Chartist paper. He died in 1861.

[2] Donald Read ‘Chartism in Manchester’, in Asa Briggs (ed.) Chartist Studies, Macmillan, 1959, page 42.

[3] Donald Read ‘Chartism in Manchester’, in Asa Briggs (ed.) Chartist Studies, Macmillan, 1959, page 50.