Chartist Ancestors
What did your family to in the revolution?

Millions signed the three great Chartist petitions of 1839 to 1848. Thousands were active in those years in the campaign to win the vote, secret ballots, and other democratic rights that we now take for granted.

Chartist Ancestors lists many of those who risked their freedom, and sometimes their lives, because of their participation in the Chartist cause. The names included on the site are drawn from newspapers, court records and books of the time, from later histories and other sources.

I would like to thank the many historians, researchers and the descendents of those associated with Chartism who have helped with this site since it was launched in 2003.

Mark Crail, Editor

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Chartism in the localities
Chartists in Scotland

Information here is extracted primarily from the "Chartism in Glasgow" chapter by Alexander Wilson in Chartist Studies, and from Wilson's book The Chartist Movement in Scotland. Some additional details come from R G Gammage's History of the Chartist Movement 1837 - 1854, and elsewhere.

James Adams
“Parson” Adams was the Chartist preacher at the Nelson Street Chapel and a regular speaker at public meetings in Glasgow.

He came to prominence late in 1842 when he was a Glasgow delegate to the “Unity” conference held in Birmingham jointly by the National Charter Association and Joseph Sturge's Complete Suffrage movement. In 1843 he chaired meetings of the unemployed and toasted “Feargus O'Connor, the man of the people”.

By January 1845, however, his attitude had changed and, according to Alexander Wilson, he was siding with Bronterre O'Brien and Peter McDouall (also known as M'Douall) against O'Connor and the Northern Star, which he argued was being used “to destroy talented Chartists of independent views”.

During the brief – in Scotland at least – Chartist revival of 1848, Adams was a leading figure. By now an implacable opponent of O'Connor, he was elected a delegate at a meeting in the City Hall on 24 March to the National Convention. Three days later he advocated union between the Chartists and those who wanted to repeal the Act of Union between Britain and Ireland.

Although Adams spoke at this stage of petitions as useless unless there was “something behind them” with which to put pressure on MPs, by the time of the Convention in London in April he had moderated his language.

Adams came to the Convention with a petition of 100,000 signatures, and maintained that progress was being made in building links with the middle classes and the Irish in Glasgow. When the National Assembly met a month later to discuss establishing a new organisation, however, Adams led Scottish delegates in objecting to the title of the National Charter Association and its funding, declaring that as long as it was a “Chartist Association” it would be dubbed “O'Connor's Association”.

The attack did not go down well in Glasgow, where angry Chartists recalled Adams' fellow delegate, Andrew Harley, but Adams was popular enough to survive. He was nominated for the national executive, but failed to gain election, and was instead made a commissioner for six weeks.

On 10 June 1848, Adams was back in Scotland speaking to a meeting of between 6,000 and 7,000 (a very low turnout) at Glasgow Green. Adams declared that, for his “personal convenience, recreation and amusement”, he had recently joined a society newly found in the city “for the practice of target shooting”. Adams now devoted himself to dogging the footsteps of O'Connor as he toured Scotland to speak at public meetings, and was himself hissed and groaned at when he attempted to intervene in Glasgow.

On 6 June 1850 this personal battle reached its climax when Adams attacked O'Connor so vociferously at a meeting at the City Hall that O'Connor was forced to sit down and the chair withdrew. George Ross was called to the chair, but failed to restore order; eventually he abandoned the meeting and police ushered the audience from the hall. Despite this, Adams was elected secretary of the Glasgow National Charter Association branch in March 1851 and led it into merger with a rival group. As the Chartist movement in Glasgow now gave way to the Parliamentary Reform Association, Adams continued to speak at radical meetings throughout the 1850s.

Thomas Aucott
Aucott was president of Glasgow Charter Association from 1842-44. Alexander Wilson describes him as “one of those staunch middle class Scotsmen for whom [Feargus] O'Connor frequently professed admiration”. Aucott was reluctant to admit defeat, but after the failed revival in the Chartist fortunes of autumn 1846 appears to have abandomed all hope of success.

Rev Patrick Brewster
Born in 1788, Brewster was the younger brother of Sir David Brewster, principal of Edinburgh University. Although, according to Alex Wilson in Chartist Studies, Brewster aspired to the chair of church history at Glasgow University, he “never rose beyond the second charge of Paisley Abbey”. Brewster was suspended for his “Seven Chartist and Military Sermons”. Wilson is dismissive of Brewster as “humourless and unromantic”, accusing him of having “merely hovered on the fringe of the movement, highly critical of the main trends”. He was, however, a more significant figure in the campaigns for total abstinence and “negro emancipation”. Brewster died in 1859.

William S Brown
A leading figure in the later phase of Glasgow Chartism, Brown was a compositor and founder member of the Glasgow Charter Association in 1842 when the more moderate Glasgow Chartists left to throw in their lot with the middle class Complete Suffrage movement. Born in 1812, Brown had been secretary of the Lanarkshire Universal Suffrage Association in 1841-42 and was well known as a Chartist preacher. He established a printing business with David Harrower and did most of the printing work required by Glasgow's Chartists. In April 1848, the two men were arrested for printing a placard headed “Threatened Revolution in London”. He emigrated to the United States in 1850, but is thought to have returned to Scotland in the 1870s (see also Chartists in America).

John Colquhoun
One of the small group of men who kept Chartism going in the quiet period from 1842-45, “Honest John Colquhoun”, as Feargus O'Connor dubbed him was known as a somewhat dull public speaker. Colquhoun favoured close ties with English Chartism, and was a supporter of O'Connor. In July 1841, he voted Tory to keep out the anti-corn law Liberals, and at the 1842 National Charter Association conference opposed the Scottish petition because it omitted repeal of the union with Ireland and abolition of the Poor Law Amendment Act. In 1843, Colquhoun led a faction favouring union with the NCA, and opposed reconciliation with the Glasgow supporters of Sturge, which would have meant the end of hostilities between the Chartists and anti-corn law campaigners. In 1846, Colquhoun joined Moir in the Registration and Election Committee, and subsequently faded out of Chartism.

John Collins

Bailie William Craig
Attended the meeting at Glasgow town hall on 10 April 1838 at which middle class reformers approved the plan of action drawn up by the Birmingham reformers and appointed a committee to organise a demonstration at which Attwood and the other Birmingham men would speak. Craig believed that the working class would play a prominent role in the cause.

Matthew Cullen
A power-loom dresser who supported William Pattison's November 1839 call to keep the Scottish Chartist organisation going as a petitioning body despite the failure of the first national petition and widespread disillusionment with the approach, Cullen served as joint chair of the Universal Suffrage Central Committee in 1839-40 and was its vice-president from 1840-42. He was a lay Chartist preacher and advocate of total abstinence, and from 1843 to 1866 was regarded as a spokesman for the working class at public meetings on political reform, trade union issues, co-operation, Poor Law reform, public baths and the abolition of slavery.

Walter Smith Currie
Secretary of the Gorbals Universal Suffrage Association. A middle-class bookseller and stationer in Nelson Street, Currie was “one of the most humorous of the Chartist speakers and poets”, according to Alexander Wilson. In 1840, Currie backed moves to form a joint-stock company which would purchase the Scottish Patriot newspaper. Capital of £1,000 was to be raised in £1 shares, payable in monthly instalments of 2s. From this scheme grew the National Printing and Publishing Company of Scotland, which lasted several years and grew to publish the Practical Mechanic and Engineers' Magazine .

Charles Don

Abram Duncan
A wood-turner, Duncan was the probably the best known operative (worker) in Glasgow politics in the 1830s, usually acting as spokesman for the trade unions. Alex Wilson notes that he coined phrases such as, “We must shake our oppressors well over the mouth of hell, but we must not let them drop in,” to summarise his viewpoint. Duncan earned a living for some years as a travelling lecturer on temperance, Chartism and political economy, and as the Chartist pastor at Arbroath before emigrating to the United States (see also his entry in Chartists in America).

John Fraser
Originally from Johnstone, Fraser (born 1794) was a schoolmaster who had been imprisoned but later exonerated for his part in the Radical agitation of 1819 He went to Edinburgh in 1836 and helped to found both the Edinburgh Radical Association and Edinburgh Teetotal Association. Fraser advocated hygeism and was an agent for Morison's vegetable pills. Although Fraser was not a Glasgow man, he reported the trial of the Glasgow cotton spinners for the Northern Star in January 1838, and was largely responsible for much of the early agitation for Chartism in Scotland. His influence was destroyed when he and Rev Patrick Brewster denounced the insurrectionary methods of Joseph Rayner Stephens (see Christian Chartists) and Feargus O'Connor at a meeting at Calton Hill in Edinburgh on 5 December 1838. After 1841, he and his daughters made their fortune touring Britain and the United States lecturing on medical matters (see also his entry in Chartists in America). In old age, he returned to Johnstone, and was honoured for his public services. Fraser died in 1879.

Thomas Gillespie
As secretary of the Glasgow Universal Suffrage Association, Gillespie was one of the men whose growing confidence and assiduous missionary work led to Glasgow's rise to the leadership of Scottish Chartism from 1839 onwards. In July that year, the Glasgow Chartists began publication of the Scottish Patriot. This, and Gillespie's lead in sending circulars to the principal Scottish associations asking for views about the need for a delegate conference sealed Glasgow's dominance. Later that same year, however, Gillespie and William Pattison were to fall out – ostensibly over the question of whether the Scottish Chartists should be principally a petitioning body, as Pattison wished, or should adopt other tactics. Gillespie had allies within Glasgow and elsewhere, and the quarrel led to the formation of a Glasgow Democratic Club by Gillespie's associates, led by Allan Pinkerton. The club immediately invited George Julian Harney to speak – a move from which the Glasgow Universal Suffrage Association publicly dissociated itself, and a bizarre row ensued in which Harney was accused of being a government spy.

Andrew Harley
A Glasgow delegate to the 1848 National Assembly, Andrew Harley joined other Scottish Chartists, among them James Adams, Alexander Henry and James Shirron of Aberdeen and Henry Rankine of Edinburgh, in attacking Feargus O'Connor as “a barrier to the power of the democratic party”. Harley declared that attempts to organise a national movement in Scotland had failed because of the belief that it would be under the control of “a certain individual who had done all the damage he could to the movement”. His Glasgow constituents, however, disowned him and he was recalled.

Alexander Hedderwick
Former leading figure in the Glasgow Political Union who was present at the town hall meeting on 10 April 1838 when Glasgow's radicals approved the Birmingham men's plan to petition for the Charter. James Hoey President of the Gorbals Universal Suffrage Association from 1838-40, and a strong advocate of temperance, in 1842 he joined Robert Malcolm and others in the aligning himself with Joseph Sturge and against Feargus O'Connor. He continued to play a part in Glasgow's radical politics into the 1850s.

James Jack
Secretary of the Lanarkshire Universal Suffrage Association, he resigned office along with William Pattison and Robert Malcolm in April 1841 after Feargus O'Connor and his supporters routed William Lovett and the Knowledge Chartists.

Samuel Kydd
A young shoemaker “whose exuberance and energy quickly established him as one of the most ardent O'Connorites, and one of the most effective lecturers of the Glasgow Charter Association in 1842”, according to Alexander Wilson. For a few weeks in 1845, Kydd was employed by the Glasgow Chartists as their Scottish missionary, but the movement there was in decline and Kydd moved on to other things. In 1848 and 1849 he was the mainstay of the National Charter Association and National Land Company. He later became private secretary to the factory reformer Richard Oastler, and in 1857 published a History of the Factory Movement under the pen-name Alfred. Kydd eventually became a lawyer and was called to the bar.

Robert Malcolm
Born in 1781, Malcolm was owner, printer and editor of the Scottish Patriot and editor of the Scots Times . In launching the Patriot , Malcolm had the support of the trades unions and the directors of the Glasgow Universal Suffrage Association, which guaranteed him against financial loss in his first year. The paper was designed to appeal to a wide range of radical opinion, and its first statement of policy on 6 July 1839 included a 15-point programme incorporating the enactment of the Charter, reform of the House of Lords, free trade and the abolition of the corn laws, currency reform, cuts in military and naval spending, the abolition of capital punishment and reform of the Poor Law. According to Alex Wilson, Malcolm's editorial columns “epitomised many of the best features of the Glasgow movement, its patient determination to convert public opinion to its cause, its zeal for social reform, and its passion for truth and justice”. Despite the assertions of rival papers that Malcolm's Patriot was soft on physical force Chartism, the tone of the paper was one of peaceful social revolution and gradual reform. It encouraged petitioning, the promoted the Chartist churches and schools. At the end of 1840, Malcolm sold his paper to a joint stock company set up by the Universal Suffrage Central Committee for Scotland. He died in 1850.

Robert Malcolm jnr
The nephew of Robert Malcolm, he had been a medical student, but worked as a reporter for his uncle's papers, writing clerical sketches, caricaturing fanatical clergymen and describing Glasgow churches and churchyards. He also reported on – and participated in – Chartist meetings. With little of his uncle's tact and caution, Malcolm jnr became a committee member for the Glasgow Universal Suffrange Association and the Universal Suffrage Central Committee for Scotland. He was a leading platform speaker, but fell out of favour with O'Connor's supporters because of his sympathy with the corn law repeal movement and with Joseph Hume. In 1842, Malcolm jnr was appointed secretary of the third Scottish convention, but was hissed down soon after at public meetings for advocating “full, free and fair representation” rather than the familiar six points of the Charter. That same year, he and his supporters joined Joseph Sturge's Complete Suffrage Association, breaking with the core of the Chartist movement. However, he continued to be politically active. Employed by the Liberal Glasgow Chronicle and Radical Glasgow Saturday Post after the Scottish Patriot's closure, he became a champion of the repeal of the union with Ireland, and lectured on “teetotal principles”, education and morals.

Malcolm McFarlane
McFarlane was a cabinetmaker and trade unionist with “a Benthamite zeal for the ‘moral and physical education of the working classes',” according to Alex Wilson. In 1839, he had been vice-president of the Glasgow Universal Suffrage Association and in 1842 he joined Robert Malcolm jnr in the Glasgow Complete Suffrage Association, of which he also became vice-president. “He was one of the most level-headed of the Glasgow Chartists and one of the most popular of the Chartist preachers,” says Wilson.

James Moir
Born in 1806, Moir was active in the Glasgow Political Union during the Reform Act agitation of 1831, and remained prominent in the city's politics for the rest of his life. A prosperous tea merchant, Moir was, according to Alexander Wilson, “the figurehead of Glasgow Chartism. Despite a lack of original ideas and a tendency to pomposity, he was held in high esteem and was valued for his common sense. During his early years in politics, from 1831-38, Moir was part of a clique of Liberal Reformers who aimed to bring about change in Glasgow's municipal politics. He then came under the influence of a more radical group, and by 1839 was undoubtedly the leader of the city's Chartists. He was Glasgow's delegate to the first Chartist Convention of 1838 (and to later conferences), and at first supported Feargus O'Connor. He later fell out with O'Connor over Chartist participation in local government, and opposed the setting up of the National Charter Association. In 1848, Moir defeated Alexander Hastie, formerly Lord Provost and MP for Glasgow, to take a seat on the city council, on which he was to serve for the remainder of his life (with the exception of the years 1865-68). Moir served as president of the Scottish National Reform League in 1867. He later became a bailie and justice of the peace, and died in 1880.

Arthur O'Neil

William Pattison
Secretary of the steam-engine machine makers' union, an active opponent of the corn law and secretary of the standing committee of the Glasgow United Trades, Pattison was a constant source of ideas for the Chartist movement in Glasgow. He originated plans to launch the weekly Chartist Circular , form a Chartist joint stock printing press, establish a Chartist and tradesmen's hall. Pattison also originated organisational plans – initially favouring trade union associations, but later ensuring that Lanarkshire was organised by district. After the failure of the first Chartist petition, Pattison urged the Glasgow Chartists to continue their petitioning activities as the best legal means of continuing their agitation for democratic reform. Pattison was a firm opponent of the O'Connorite wing of Chartism. When Gillespie's Glasgow Democratic Club invited George Julian Harney to the city to lecture, Pattison told the visiting English leader that he would have waited 50 years before receiving an invitation from him.

Allen Pinkerton
Born in 1819. A supporter of Gillespie, Pinkerton withdrew from the Glasgow Universal Suffrage Association in December 1839 to form the Glasgow Democratic Club – a rallying point for the republicans and supporters of Feargus O'Connor who were impatient with the Universal Suffrage Central Committee. Pinkerton emigrated to the United States in 1842, founding the famous Pinkerton detective agency – which was to make its mark providing muscle to break strikes. During the American civil war, Pinkerton became Abraham Lincoln's bodyguard. He died in 1884. (See also his entry in Chartists in America).

James Proudfoot
Born in 1812, Proudfoot was a grain dealer who served as president of the Glasgow Universal Suffrage Association from 1838-40 and as a member of the Universal Suffrage Central Committee for Scotland from 1839-42, becoming president in 1840-42. He had supported William Pattison's November 1839 call to keep the Scottish Chartist organisation going as a petitioning body despite the failure of the first national petition and widespread disillusionment with the approach. Proudfoot emigrated to the United States in 1844 (see also Chartists in America).

John Roger

George Ross

Duncan Sherrington

James Smith

Dr John Taylor

William Thomson
Alexander Wilson describes Thomson as “a fine example of the talent to be found amongst the working classes of Scotland”. From Westmuir, he had been a shepherd, hand-loom weaver, trade unionist, co-operator and weaver – and although he was primarily a functionary who said little on matters of policy, he was to become one of the most important figures in Scotland's Chartism. Thomson had been general secretary of the General Protecting Union of the Handloom Weavers of Scotland, and was editor of the Weavers Journal from October 1835 to April 1837. He later became general secretary of Scottish Chartism from the inception of the Universal Suffrage Central Committee for Scotland from August 1839 until six months after its demise in January 1842, and from September 1839 to July 1842 edited the Chartist Circular . Thomson seldom spoke at public meetings, took little part in debates within the central committee, and declined to go as delegate to conferences or demonstrations in England. In 1842, Thomson was one of a number of prominent Glasgow Chartists who finally broke with Feargus O'Connor to join the Complete Suffrage movement.

James Turner
Born in 1768, Turner was a tobacco merchant and long-time supporter of radical causes. He had provided a field on his land near St Rollox for a meeting in October 1816 that turned into the largest gathering in the West of Scotland during the radical agitation of 1816-19. It fell to Turner, described by Alex Wilson as “the most highly esteemed of the Glasgow reformers” to chair the meeting at Glasgow Green on 21 May 1838 at which the campaign for the first Chartist petition was launched. Turner remained active in radical causes, and in September 1852, after the Scottish Chartist movement had subsided, was again found chairing a meeting of the Glasgow Reform Association which adopted a programme of household suffrage, triennial parliaments, and votes by ballot. Wilson notes that the only differences between this event and the meetings of 1833-36 were the addition of the call for equal electoral districts – and the fact that the meeting was composed mainly of workers. Turner died in 1858.

Mr Ure

Dr Walker

Robert Wallace

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