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

Conferences and Conventions
Scotland's Chartists baulk at widening of the 1842 petition

In October 1841, the National Charter Association decided to launch a second great petition to Parliament to test opinion in the new parliament, elected in August of that year.

During November, petition sheets were printed at the Northern Star's works in Leeds and despatched around the country. The aim this time was to collect 4 million signatures

In addition to the famous six points, the 1842 petition included a series of other “grievances. Among these were calls for:
* repeal of the Act of Union with Ireland (a deliberate ploy to woo Irish nationalists both in Ireland and in the major cities of England and Scotland, where they numbered in the tens of thousands);
* repeal of the New Poor Law; and
* freedom of assembly, the disestablishment of the Anglican Church, a pardon for the Newport prisoners, no taxation without representation, cuts in the cost of the monarchy, army and police, and reductions in working hours.

Some of these points were to prove a problem in Scotland, where the union was a sensitive issue complicated by questions of religion, and where the New Poor Law did not apply.

In January 1842, a Scottish delegate conference called by the Scottish Chartist Central Committee gathered to discuss what attitude it should take to the Charter. Sixty-one delegates were approved by the convention (jump straight to names).

First, however, delegates elected John Duncan of Dundee to the chair, and Robert Malcolm of Glasgow as secretary.

With the overwhelming support of 51 of the 58 delegates voting, and on a motion put forward by William Pattison, secretary of the steam-engine makers' union and a significant figure in Scottish Chartism, the convention also committed itself to “peaceful, legal and constitutional means” of obtaining the Charter, adding that they would “neither sanction nor support any individual or party who may advocate or adopt any other means”.

Now came the bombshell. James Jack, the delegate from Balfron in Stirlingshire moved a resolution (seconded by Robert Mackervail of Cumnock):

“That this meeting of Scottish delegates, disapprove of the petition proposed by the English executive council, and recommend to the people of Scotland the adoption of a petition for the People's Charter , without embracing any question of detail.”

The main Chartist newspaper in Scotland, The Chartist Circular, reports that “Mr Jack spoke at some length in support of this motion”, explaining that the detail he objected to “were the English Poor Law, and the question of a repeal of the Act of Union between Ireland and Great Britain”.

John McCrae of Beath, seconded by William Thomasan (Vale of Leven) moved an amendment that the national petition be adopted without alteration. In a second amendment Robert Lowery (Bonnyrigg) sought a compromise, suggesting the Scottish movement should circulate both the English petition and one of its own containing just the six points, leaving each locality to decide for itself which to support.

This compromise was defeated "by a considerable majority" and the convention was asked to decided between Jack's motin and McCrae's amendment. Voting split down the middle, with 27 votes for each.

"The votes being equal, it was agreed to decide the matter by the casting vote of the chairman. Mr Duncan here requested a short time to consider upon the vote, which, being acceded to, that gentleman retired for ten minutes, and, on returning, voted for Mr Jack's motion."

The Chartist movements of England and Scotland were now divided.

The next few weeks, however, saw confidence in the Scottish convention's position weaken. Peter McDouall, a leading Scottish member of the NCA, questioned it on procedural grounds, and asked why Scotland could not back the petition when William Lovett's National Association felt able to do so.

As a signficant number of Scottish localities also rejected the Convention's position, sometimes blaming their delegates for ignoring the instructions they had received from their constituents.

By mid February, Scotland was "effectively but not totally" behind the main petition, as Malcolm Chase explains in his Chartism: A New History.

Though the total number of signatures to the 1842 petition was 3,250,000 compared with just 1,280,000 for that of 1839, just 78,000 names were collected in Glasgow and Lanarkshire combined (compared with 80,000 for Glasgow alone three years earlier), and in Paisley, the number signing slumped from more than 15,000 to just 2,000.

Delegates to the Scottish Chartist Convention of January 1842

Find out more about Chartism on this website, or browse the Chartist Ancestors Bookshop.

More history resources

Trade union history: union family trees,
A to z listing of 5,000 UK unions and more

Everything about Chartism and the Chartists

History guides and eyewitness accounts from mytimemachine

Tribune Magazine

More about me