The programme for Chartism Day 2026 is now live. What is Chartism Day? 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 … Continue reading Chartism Day 2026 Programme
Tickets for Chartism Day 2026 are now available. This year’s event takes place on Saturday 19 September at Friends Meeting House, Warwick, and is open to all. Among the topics covered in this year’s conference will be talks on: We will also be discussing the Chartist Lives of the radical vicar of Warwick, Rev Arthur Wade, and the Chartist missionary, John Mason. There will also … Continue reading Chartism Day 2026 Registration
Author: Peter GurneyThis is the abstract of an article published in Labour History Review (2026), 91, (1). Read this article. I would like to begin this lecture with a few autobiographical reflections. John Halstead would not have minded, I think, because one of his many admirable qualities was that he gave you the feeling that he was always genuinely interested in what you had to say, not only about … Continue reading The Chartist Revolution
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 … Continue reading Chartism Day 2026: venue, date and call for papers
Three new books offer insights into the lives of Chartist activists. Feargus O’Connor: Repealer, Chartist, and icon of Plebian Melodrama, by Huw Griffiths (paperback, 330pp) is a meticulously researched and detailed new biography of the Chartist leader which seeks to appraise the life of ‘the most famous Irishman of his generation to remain all but forgotten and unheralded in his own country’, to deconstruct ‘the … Continue reading All Chartists great and small: three new books
In our continuing series on places in labour history, Mark Crail visits a rural churchyard to pay his respects to the first translator of the Communist Manifesto. Drive along the narrow country lanes of Cheshire for far enough that you begin to question whether your satnav is working properly and you will eventually come across St Michael’s Church in the small, scattered settlement of Baddiley. … Continue reading Baddiley churchyard: a place in labour history
Academic and independent historians, Chartist enthusiasts and the Chartism curious gathered in Huddersfield for the annual Chartism Day event, the latest in a series of conferences that first ran in 1993. With centuries of history as a site of working-class radicalism from Luddism to Owenite socialism and beyond, Huddersfield proved to be the ideal venue for Chartism Day 2025. Taking place at Heritage Quay, a … Continue reading Chartism Day 2025 report: landscape and the crowd, emancipation and revolution
Chartism Day 2025 will take place on Saturday, 6 September at Heritage Quay, University of Huddersfield. Book your ticket now on Eventbrite PAPERSProfessor Peter Gurney: The Chartist Revolution: an argumentDr Joan Allen Daniel O’Connell, the Chartists and contested understandings of the language of emancipation, 1819-1840Dr Dave Steele: The Powerful Crowd: reputational power and Chartist meetingsProfessor Stephen Milner: Pre-modern Italy and the working class: the renaissance … Continue reading Chartism Day 2025: book now
Liberal interpretations of the Chartist movement continue to dominate the views of historians and of general society, Professor Peter Gurney argued in delivering the Society’s fourth annual John Halstead Memorial Lecture at the John Rylands Library in Manchester in June. Setting out to challenge the dominance of liberal readings which commonly argued that those Chartist demands which had proved feasible had eventually found their way … Continue reading The Chartist Revolution: a challenge to liberalism and market capitalism
Professor Peter Gurney will deliver the Society for the Study of Labour History’s annual John Halstead Memorial Lecture at the John Rylands Library, Manchester, on Saturday 14 June 2025. All welcome. Booking essential as places are strictly limited. Reserve your place. Continue reading Lecture: The Chartist Revolution – book now
Society for the Study of Labour History 