This book, the first full-length study of metropolitan Chartism, provides extensive new material for the 1840s and establishes the regional and national importance of the London movement throughout this decade. After an opening section which considers the economic and social structure of early-Victorian London, and provides an occupational breakdown of Chartists, Dr Goodway turns to the three main components of the metropolitan movement: its organized form; the crowd; and the trades. The development of London Chartism is correlated to economic fluctuations, and, after the nationally significant failure of London to respond in 1838-9, 1842 is seen as a peak in terms of conventional organization, and 1848 as the high point of turbulence and revolutionary potential. The section concludes with an exposition of the insurrectionary plans of 1848.

Working- and middle-class radical politics in England from the fall of Chartism in 1848 to the 1870s.

Chartism, the mass movement for democratic rights, dominated British domestic politics in the late 1830s and 1840s. It mobilised over three million supporters at its height. Few modern European social movements, certainly in Britain, have captured the attention of posterity to quite the extent it has done. Encompassing moments of great drama, it is one of the very rare points in British history where it is legitimate to speculate how close the country came to revolution. It is also pivotal to debates around continuity and change in Victorian Britain, gender, language and identity. Chartism: A New History is the only book to offer in-depth coverage of the entire chronological spread (1838-58) of this pivotal movement and to consider its rich and varied history in full. Based throughout on original research (including newly discovered material) this is a vivid and compelling narrative of a movement which mobilised three million people at its height. The author deftly intertwines analysis and narrative, interspersing his chapters with short ‘Chartist Lives’, relating the intimate and personal to the realm of the social and political. This book will become essential reading for anyone with an interest in early Victorian Britain, specialists, students and general readers alike.

Chartism was the first time ever that British workers fixed their eyes on the seizure of political power: in 1839, 1842 and again in 1848. In this struggle, they conducted a class war that at different times involved general strikes, battles with the state, mass demonstrations and even armed insurrection. They forged weapons, illegally drilled their forces, and armed themselves in preparation for seizing the reins of government. Such were the early revolutionary traditions of the British working class, deliberately buried beneath a mountain of falsehoods and distortions. This book sees Chartism as an essential part of our history from which we must draw the key lessons for today.

A study of the British state's confrontation with Chartism and Irish nationalism in 1848.

This is the first collection of essays on Chartism by leading social historian Dorothy Thompson, whose work radically transformed the way in which Chartism is understood. Reclaiming Chartism as a fully-blown working-class movement, Thompson intertwines her penetrating analyses of class with ground-breaking research uncovering the role played by women in the movement. Throughout her essays, Thompson strikes a delicate balance between down-to-the-ground accounts of local uprisings, snappy portraits of high-profile Chartist figures as well as rank-and-file men and women, and more theoretical, polemical interventions. Of particular historical and political significance is the previously unpublished substantial essay co-authored by Dorothy and Edward Thompson, a superb piece of local historical research by two social historians then on the brink of notable careers.