Plan: origin People's Charter of 1838 The first wave 1842: Chartism's biggest petition and 'the General Strike' The mid-Forties Chartism and Christianity the 1848 petition Legacy References Chartism

The mid-Forties
Despite this second set of arrests, Chartist activity continued. Beginning in 1843, O'Connor suggested that the land contained the solution to workers' problems. This idea evolved into the Chartist Co-Operative Land Company, later called the National Land Company. Workers would buy shares in the company, and the company would use those funds to purchase estates that would be subdivided into 2, 3, and 4 acre (8,000, 12,400 and 16,000 m²) lots. Between 1844 and 1848, five estates were purchased, subdivided, and built on, and then settled by lucky shareholders, who were chosen by lot. Unfortunately for O'Connor, in 1848 a Select Committee was appointed to investigate the financial viability of the scheme, and it was ordered that it be shut down. Cottages built by the Chartist Land Company are still standing and inhabited today in Oxfordshire, Worcestershire, Gloucestershire and on the outskirts of London. Rosedene, a Chartist cottage in Dodford, Worcestershire, is owned and maintained by the National Trust, and is open to visitors by appointment.
The Chartists also stood on forty occasions in general elections, starting with a by-election in Ayrshire in 1838. There were concerted campaigns in the election of 1841 and election of 1847, when O'Connor was elected for Nottingham. More commonly, Chartist candidates participated in the open meetings, called hustings, that were the first stage of an election. They frequently won the show of hands at the hustings, but then withdrew from the poll to expose the deeply undemocratic nature of the electoral system. This is what Harney did in a widely reported challenge against Lord Palmerston in Tiverton, Devon in 1847. The last Chartist challenge at a parliamentary poll took place at Ripon in 1859.
Chartism and Christianity
During this period the Christian churches in Britain held "that it was 'wrong for a Christian to meddle in political matters....All of the denominations were particularly careful to disavow any political affiliation and he who was the least concerned with the 'affairs of this world' was considered the most saintly and worthy of emulation." This was at odds with many Christian Chartists for whom Christianity was "above all practical, something that must be carried into every walk of life. Furthermore there was no possibility of divorcing it from political science." Rev. William Hill wrote in the Northern Star "We are commanded…to love our neighbors as ourselves…this command is universal in its application, whether as friend, Christian or citizen. A man may be devout as a Christian…but if as a citizen he claims rights for himself he refuses to confer upon others, he fails to fulfill the precept of Christ". The conflicts between these two views led many like Rev.Joseph Barker to see Britain’s churches as pointless. "I have no faith in church organizations," he explained. "I believe it my duty to be a man; to live and move in the world at large; to battle with evil wherever I see it, and to aim at the annihilation of all corrupt institutions and at the establishment of all good, and generous, and useful institutions in their places." To further this idea some Christian Chartist Churches were formed where Christianity and radical politics were combined and considered inseparable. Pamphlets made the point and vast audiences came to hear lectures upon the same themes by the likes of Rev. J.R. Stephens who was highly influential in the movement. Political preachers thus came into prominence
The Chartists were especially harsh on the Church of England for unequal distribution of the state funds it received resulting in some bishops and higher dignitaries having grossly larger incomes than other clergy. This state of affairs led some Chartists to question the very idea of a state sponsored church, leading them to call for an absolute separation of church and state.^[
Facing severe prosecution in 1839 Chartists took to attending services at churches they held in contempt to display their numerical strength and express their dissatisfaction. Often they would forewarn the preacher and demand that he preach from texts they believed supported their cause, such as 2 Thessalonians 3:10 and 2 Timothy 2:6. In response the set upon ministers would often preach the need to focus on things spiritual and not material, and of meekness and obedience to authority citing such works as Romans 13:1-7 and 1 Peter 2:13-17.
The 1848 petition

Poster advertising the Great Chartist Meeting.
With Europe ablaze in the Revolutions of 1848, the time seemed at hand to revive the movement, focusing on moral suasion, petitions and mass meetings. The result was a failure--opponents showed that many of the signatures on the petitions were forged, and the mass meetings petered out. Chartism faded away, with the main thrust of work class mobilization moving toward the trade union movement.
On 10 April 1848, a new Chartist Convention organised a mass meeting on Kennington Common, which would form a procession to present another petition to Parliament. The estimate of the number of attendees varies depending on the source (O'Connor said 300,000; the government, 15,000; The Observer newspaper suggested 50,000). Historians say 150,000. The government was well aware that the Chartists had no intention of staging an uprising. However, there were fears that a revolution would start spontaneously and the authorities were intent upon a large-scale display of force both to counter this threat and if possible stamp out Chartism in a year of revolutions across continental Europe. 100,000 special constables were recruited to bolster the police force. In any case, the meeting was peaceful. However the military had threatened to intervene if the Chartists made any attempt to cross the Thames.
In a separate incident, rioters in Manchester attempted to storm the hated workhouse. A pitched battle resulted with Chartists fighting the police, eventually the mob was broken up, but rioters roamed the streets of Manchester for three days.
In Bingley, Yorkshire, a group of ‘physical force’ Chartists led by Isaac Ickeringill were involved in a huge fracas at the local magistrates court and later prosecuted for rescuing two of their compatriots from the police.
The original plan of the Chartists, if the petition was ignored, was to create a separate national assembly and press the Queen to dissolve parliament until the charter was introduced into law. However the Chartists were plagued with indecision, and the national assembly eventually dissolved itself, claiming lack of support.
The petition O'Connor presented to Parliament was claimed to have only 1,957,496 signatures – far short of the 5,706,000 he had stated and many of which were discovered to be forgeries (some of the false signatories included Queen Victoria, Mr Punch and 'Pugnose'). But many people were illiterate, and did not know how to write their own signatures. Though O'Connor mishandled the defence of the petition in the House of Commons, Chartism survived the episode. The high-point of its threat to the establishment in 1848 came not in on April 10 but in June.^[ The banning of public meetings, and new legislation on sedition and treason (rushed through Parliament immediately after April 10) drove a significant number of Chartists (including the black Londoner, William Cuffay) to prepare an uprising in August.
O'Connor has been accused of destroying the credibility of Chartism. This was a common theme in histories of the movement until the 1970s. Since the 1980s, however, historians (notably Dorothy Thompson) have emphasised the indispensable contribution O'Connor made to Chartism. Further, she argues that the causes of the movement's decline are too complex to be blamed on one man. Historians have recently shown interest in Chartism after 1848: the final National Convention, for example was held in 1858.
Legacy

Plaque commemorating Samuel Holberryin Sheffield's Peace Gardens