Editing Chartism (section)

==Origin==
[[File:Benjamin Haydon - Meeting of the Birmingham Political Union.jpg|thumb|The meeting of the [[Birmingham Political Union]] on 16 May 1832, attended by 200,000]]
After the passing of the [[Reform Act 1832]], which failed to extend the vote beyond those owning property, the political leaders of the working class made speeches claiming that there had been a great act of betrayal. This sense that the working class had been betrayed by the middle class was strengthened by the actions of the [[Whigs (British political party)|Whig]] governments of the 1830s. Notably, the hated new [[Poor Law Amendment Act 1834|Poor Law Amendment]] was passed in 1834, depriving working people of [[outdoor relief]] and driving the poor into workhouses, where families were separated.<ref name=Thompson1984>Dorothy Thompson, ''The Chartists: Popular Politics in the Industrial Revolution'' (1984).</ref>{{rp|1}}

The massive wave of opposition to this measure in the north of England in the late 1830s made Chartism a mass movement. It seemed that only securing the vote for working men would change things. [[Dorothy Thompson (historian)|Dorothy Thompson]], the preeminent historian of Chartism, defines the movement as the time when "thousands of working people considered that their problems could be solved by the political organization of the country."<ref name=Thompson1984/>{{rp|1}} In 1836, the [[London Working Men's Association]] was founded by [[William Lovett]] and [[Henry Hetherington]],<ref>[https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/minute-book Minute Book of the London Working Men’s Association.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211028170127/https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/minute-book |date=28 October 2021 }} [[British Library]] 2018. Retrieved 1 April 2018.</ref> providing a platform for Chartists in the southeast. The origins of [[Chartism in Wales]] can be traced to the foundation in the autumn of 1836 of Carmarthen Working Men's Association.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title = John Frost: A Study in Chartism|last = Williams|first = David|publisher = University of Wales Press Board|year = 1939|location = Cardiff|pages = 100, 104, 107}}</ref>

===Press===
Both nationally and locally a Chartist press thrived in the form of periodicals, which were important to the movement for their news, editorials, poetry and especially in 1848, reports on international developments. They reached a huge audience.<ref>, Joan Allen and Owen R. Ashton, ''Papers for the People: A Study of the Chartist Press'' (2005).</ref> ''[[The Poor Man's Guardian]]'' in the 1830s, edited by [[Henry Hetherington]], dealt with questions of class solidarity, manhood suffrage, property, and temperance, and condemned the Reform Act 1832. The paper explored the rhetoric of violence versus nonviolence, or what its writers called moral versus physical force.<ref>Bob Breton, "Violence and the Radical Imagination", ''Victorian Periodicals Review'', Spring 2011, 44#1 pp.&nbsp;24–41.</ref>

It was succeeded as the voice of radicalism by an even more famous paper: the ''[[Northern Star (chartist newspaper)|Northern Star and Leeds General Advertiser]]''. The ''Star'' was published between 1837 and 1852, and in 1839 was the best-selling provincial newspaper in Britain, with a circulation of 50,000. Like other Chartist papers, it was often read aloud in coffeehouses, workplaces and the open air.<ref>Cris Yelland, "Speech and Writing in the Northern Star", ''Labour History Review'', Spring 2000, 65#1 pp.&nbsp;22–40.</ref> Other Chartist periodicals included the ''Northern Liberator'' (1837–40), ''English Chartist Circular'' (1841–43), and the ''Midland Counties' Illuminator'' (1841). The papers gave justifications for the demands of the People's Charter, accounts of local meetings, commentaries on education and temperance and a great deal of poetry. They also advertised upcoming meetings, typically organised by local grassroots branches, held either in public houses or their halls.<ref>{{Cite book|title = Protest and the Politics of Space and Place, 1789–1848|year = 2015|first = Katrina|last = Navickas}}</ref>

Research of the distribution of Chartist meetings in London that were advertised in the ''Northern Star'' shows that the movement was not uniformly spread across the metropolis but clustered in the West End, where a group of Chartist tailors had shops, as well as in Shoreditch in the east, and relied heavily on pubs that also supported local friendly societies.<ref>{{Cite journal|title = From Chartist Newspaper to Digital Map of Grass-roots Meetings, 1841–44: Documenting Workflows|journal = The Journal of Victorian Culture|volume = 22|issue = 2|pages = 232–247|date = 2017-03-20|doi = 10.1080/13555502.2017.1301179|first1 = Katrina|last1 = Navickas|first2 = Adam|last2 = Crymble|doi-access = free|hdl = 2299/18336|hdl-access = free}}</ref> Readers also found denunciations of [[imperialism]]—the [[First Opium War]] (1839–42) was condemned—and of the arguments of [[free trade]]rs about the civilizing and pacifying influences of free trade.<ref>Shijie Guan, "Chartism and the First Opium War", ''History Workshop'' (October 1987), Issue 24, pp.&nbsp;17–31.</ref>