Activities
Activity 1 Fear of Chartism
This extract comes from an article called 'Chartism and Public Order' by the historian John Golby.
It must be remembered that at the time for many people Chartism aroused very real fears. To the middle and upper classes a Chartist rebellion was more than a remote possibility. The Home Office papers contain numerous reports to the Home Secretary from anxious magistrates and Lord Lieutenants passing on rumours of Chartist insurrections. Some of the reports are well founded, others have much less justification . . . Certainly it was the fear of mob violence that did much to shape the attitudes of the authorities and of sections of the general public to the grievances of the working classes.
Nevertheless, it is important to take into account that, for a variety of reasons, fear was sometimes deliberately fostered by the authorities. They tended to blame any industrial unrest or disturbances on the Chartists, especially violent events.
Work in small groups. Read through the extract carefully. The historian makes a number of points:
- Many people genuinely feared that Chartism was a violent revolutionary organisation
- Local officials like magistrates sent alarming reports to the government (the Home Office)
- Sometimes these reports were exaggerated or selected to make the Chartists look violent and dangerous
Your task is to work through the Quotations section for this programme and try to find any evidence there to support any of the points the historian makes.
Activity 2 Chartists are respectable
From Activity 1, you have seen that Chartism had a poor reputation. Imagine it is 1848. Your task is to try to convince respectable middle class people that they do not need to fear Chartism. From the Quotations section, choose 5 extracts or images (or both) to use in a short presentation. You are trying to convince people that:
- Chartists are respectable peaceful people
- Chartism is not a violent revolutionary movement
- Chartists demands are fair and reasonable
- Chartism is a democratic movement with the support of many people
Remember that the extracts will not convince anybody on their own. You have to explain why and how each extract or image proves one of the above points about Chartism.
Activity 3 Who writes our history?
The extract below is part of a report written by some historians after a conference organised by the Society for the Study of Labour History in 1970. The report describes some of the conclusions they reached about Chartism at the conference.
April 1848 had very little, if any, effect upon the morale of the Chartists. In the next six months there was a considerable growth in the movement as a whole …
… a series of myths was created about Chartism, and in particular in 1848; these wiped the real nature and character of the Chartist movement out of the public’s mind …
The myths can be found in the Annual Register’s account of the events of 1848; in Charles Kingsley’s book Alton Locke; in the school history books from the 1850s to the end of the century; and in many more history books.
Work in groups again. Your task is to search for any evidence which supports the view that myths were created about Chartism which then continued for many years. You could search:
- your textbooks
- websites
- the Quotations
Keep a careful note of what you will find. You will need it for the next activity.
Activity 4 Conclusion
Use your work from activities 1-3, along with the quotations and web links to produce an article for the Northern Star soon after the Kennington Common meeting. The aim of your article is to show that the press do not know what they are talking about and that they are biased against the Chartists. Use quotations, cartoons or illustrations from the newspapers to demonstrate your points. You could use these headings to help you organise your article:
- How the press is against the Chartist movement
- How reports contradict one other
- Whether some newspapers are more reliable than others in the way they treat Chartism
- Why the Northern Star is the most reliable newspaper
- How future historians might see the Chartists if they only see the reports in other newspapers and not this article
© 2000 Channel Four Television Corporation
