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

How to...
Make the most of your visit to an archive or records office

Research your trade union ancestors

Find Chartist records in the National Archives

© Mark Crail

Chartism in the localities
John Fielden and the Todmorden Chartists

While debate raged in the Chartist movement over the question of alliances with middle class reformers, in the lancashire town of Todmorden. one of the most prominent supporters of the movement was both the largest employer in the locality and an MP.

John Fielden, third son of Joshua Fielden, had built up the Fielden Brothers business with his brothers, making it one of the largest textile companies in Britain, and operating 684 power mills. Since his election as a Radical MP for Oldham in 1832 and the death of William Cobbett in 1835, he had also become one of the most stalwart supporters of reform in Parliament.

Fielden's main interest was in factory reform, and he was to pilot the Ten Hours Bill through the House of Commons in 1847, but he had supported the Chartist cause from the start, and chaired the giant Peep Green meeting on Hartshead Moor in October 1838 that was said to have attracted a quarter of a million people.

W G Gammage in his History of the Chartist Movement 1837-1854, says of Fielden:

"No man, according to his powers, had been a more strenuous opponent of the new Poor Law; and against the police system he had taken an equally decided stand; but what most gained for him the heartfelt affection of the working class, was the position which he, a rich manufacturer, had taken as the unqualified denouncer of factory oppression."

He adds that Fielden "had everywhere declared himself to be an advocate of universal suffrage", and concludes with a glowing: "The sun has seldom shone over a better man than John Fielden."

Though Fielden's involvement can only have made life easier for the factory workers and others in Todmorden who backed the Chartist cause, however, the movement there involved more than the greath philanthropic capitalist and his family.

The following table is taken from John Fielden's Todmorden (Tygerfoot Press 1994) by Linda Croft, and was compiled by her from the Northern Star and Halifax Guardian for the years 1838-50.

Here is a key to the activities listed in the table below.

a Arrested
b Selling Chartist Blacking
d Elected Delegate to meeting or conference
h Chartist meeting held at his House
k Named in Northern Star
l Selling Chartist Literature
m Taking active part in Meeting
n Nominee for Chartist General Council
o Officeholder
p Proposed as delegate
s Sent contribution to Chartist funds

WMA Actively involved in working men's association
NLC Subscriber to National Land Company
TPU Committee member of Todmorden Political Union
SV Member of Select Vestry
APL Active in anti-poor law agitation
TH Active in ten hours movement
CM Actively promoted co-operative movement

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