Why did the Northern Star turn against Benjamin Disraeli? What part did women really play in Chartism? Was political union with middle-class reformers always doomed to fail?

UPDATE: Chartism Day 2024 has now taken place. Read our report here.

Speakers will address these and other questions at Chartism Day 2024 at the University of Reading on Saturday 7 September. The event is open to all, and in addition to the papers set out in the programme will include opportunities to network with historians of the Chartist movement.

Registration is open online, and we would request that anyone planning to be there should let us know in advance using the Eventbrite form. Full details of the speakers and abstracts of their papers are available on the booking page.

If you have any questions before registering, please email us.

Register for Chartism Day 2024.

Programme and speakers
Introduction and welcome Dorothy Thompson remembered	Prof David Stack Dr Joan Allen
An unusual Chartist: Rev Humphrey Price	Dr Len Smith
The Hawksworth family, Feargus O’Connor and the Snig’s End Settlement	Stephen Hawksworth
Q&A Session
Break
Chartism, workers’ bodies and disability	Dr Matthew Roberts
The real James Vernon couldn’t stand up – recovering the life of a disabled poet and Chartist	Prof Simon Morgan
From ‘Hen-Chartists’ to ‘Lady Insurrectionists’: Rethinking the gender politics of Chartism	Dr Judy Cox
Mary Fildes	Prof Robert Poole
Q&A Session
Lunch Break
Three beers for the Charter	Mark Crail
Helen MacFarlane: Scottish connections The Translator, the Hobgoblin, and the Making of the English Manifesto	David Black Sam Miller
Liberty, Equality and Rights in the National Complete Suffrage Union	Huw Ryochi Davies
Q&A Session
Break
John Hanson: ‘a most astonishing man’   A Volcano by the Sea: The Life of William Woodward, 1811-1901	Dr John Sanders Dominic Barron-Carter
Some Passages in the Life of a [Tory] Radical? Disraeli and the Chartists	Prof Mike Sanders, keynote speaker
Q&A Session
Final remarks	Dr Joan Allen, Dr Richard Allen