Chartism Day 2026 will take place at Friends Meeting House, Warwick on Saturday 19 September. Please add the date to your diary. Further details including information on how to register will be published here nearer the date.

Call for papers

The Chartism Day Conferences were launched at the University of Birmingham in September 1995 by the renowned Chartist historian Dorothy Thompson (1923–2011). Apart from the disruption caused by the Covid pandemic, the annual meetings, which are endorsed by the Society for the Study of Labour History [SSLH], have been held in a variety of locations in England, Wales, Ireland and France every year since, bringing together senior academics, junior scholars and members of the wider public who all share a common interest in the history of the Chartist movement. As well as a strong contingent of labour historians, Chartism Day draws together a broad cross-section of academics from the diverse fields of the arts and humanities. It is this interchange between scholars working in an interdisciplinary environment that gives the event its distinctively dynamic and productive character.

Our next conference will be held in Warwick. We are inviting proposals on any aspect of Chartism, including:

• Radicalism and Political Reform
• Class and Chartism
• Women’s Participation in Chartism
• Chartist Leaders and Activists
• The Chartist Press
• Chartism and Material Culture
• Associational Life in the Age of the Chartists
• Radical Agrarianism and the Land Plan
• International Perspectives
• Local and Regional Approaches
• The New Poor Law (1834) and the Chartist Agenda
• Biographical Studies

Presenters can choose to deliver full length papers (30 minutes) or contribute a short paper (15 minutes) for our regular ‘Chartist Lives’ feature which offers biographical sketches of individual Chartists. Short papers may also analyse a relevant document or artefact. In both instances we are calling for abstracts of around 300 words to be submitted by Monday, 27 April 2026.

Please send prepared abstracts to Joan Allen (joan.allen@ncl.ac.uk) and Richard Allen (richard.allen@ncl.ac.uk).

Download the call for papers in PDF format.