On 21 May 1838 an estimated 150,000 people assembled on Glasgow Green for a mass demonstration. There they witnessed the launch of the People’s Charter, a list of demands for political reform. The changes they called for included voting by secret ballot, equal-sized constituencies and, most importantly, that all men should have the vote.
The Chartist were the first national mass working-class movement. In the decade that followed, they collected six million signatures for their petitions to Parliament: all were rejected, but their campaign had a significant and lasting impact.
On 9 February 2023, BBC Radio Four’s ‘In Our Time’, presented by Melvyn Bragg, turned its focus on Chartism with input from a panel featuring:
- Joan Allen, Visiting Fellow in History at Newcastle University and Chair of the Society for the Study of Labour History;
- Emma Griffin, Professor of Modern British History at the University of East Anglia and President of the Royal Historical Society; and
- Robert Saunders, Reader in Modern British History at Queen Mary, University of London.
The programme is now available on the Radio Four website: listen online here.
The next annual Chartism Day supported by the Society for the Study of Labour History takes place in Sheffield on Saturday 17 June. More details to follow – save the date.
Society for the Study of Labour History 