The Rhetoric and Impact of the Early Chartist Press 1837-1842 (2014)

8/13/2019 The Rhetoric and Impact of the Early Chartist Press 1837-1842 (2014)

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THE RHETORIC AND IMPACT OF THE

EARLY CHARTIST PRESS 1837-1842

ROWAN BURROWS

University I.D: 1265449301

Submitted in fulfillment for the December 2013

degree of MA in History by Research

at the University of Warwick


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Dedication

To the memory of Margaret Haigh, a loving Grandmother, and to Jonathan

Harrison-Tew, a dearly missed friend.


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Contents

Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................. 4

Summary .................................................................................................................................. 5

Introduction and Literature Review ......................................................................................... 6

Chapter 1: The Taxes on Knowledge. ..................................................................................... 24

Chapter 2: Oratory Journalism and the Mass Platform in the Chartist Press ........................ 40

Chapter 3: Letters and Original Correspondence in the Chartist Press............................... 61

Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 80

Bibliography ........................................................................................................................... 86


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Acknowledgements

A debt of gratitude must firstly be paid to the University of Warwick, various libraries and

academic institutions whose records and facilities made this work possible. Special note

goes to the Peoples Museum of Manchester and the online archive managed by the British

Museum.

I wish to express my thanks to Dr. Sarah Richardson for her support throughout this

research. Her academic insight and support made the process of study enjoyable and

without her this thesis would not have been possible.

I would also like to thank my family and my friends whose advice and assistance

throughout the study proved invaluable, and who also provided a soundboard for ideas and

encouragement when I needed it most.


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Introduction and Literature Review

The aim of this research is to investigate the rhetorical technique of the early Chartist

press, and to use this insight to ascertain what the primary effects of Chartist journalism

were. I intend to show that the world of the Chartist periodical was deeply ingrained within

the wider movement, and that Chartist journalists were keenly aware of the need for a

strong and vibrant press connected with its readers. I also wish to connect the world of the

Chartist press to its direct predecessor, the war against the taxes on knowledge, a

movement responsible for creating a literature culture amongst the British working class.

Ultimately, I intend to bridge the gap between the literary studies prominent since the

linguistic turn of the 1980s and the social histories predominant in earlier decades. By

doing so, I believe that it is possible to analyse Chartist language and journalistic technique

in conjunction with an appreciation of the wider movement, in order to create an accurate

picture of the culture surrounding Chartist newspapers.

In order fully to investigate Chartism and its press and journalists, one needs to gain an

appreciation of the historiography of both Chartism and the development of the

mainstream and radical press in the nineteenth century. Although the radical and popular

press have not been very heavily studied thus far, Chartism holds a rich vein of

historiography stretching right back to the very early years of its birth. An assessment of

how historians have so far studied the topic is vital for a successful and coherent thesis in

the area of Chartism and radicalism during the mid-nineteenth century.

The first real history of Chartism was in fact produced while the movement was still

thriving. Thomas Carlyle wrote Chartism in 1841, after the first Peoples Charter was

submitted to parliament and during a period of reflection in the movement following the


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his intimate knowledge of many prominent figures enabled him to give first-hand accounts

vital to later historians looking at the period. However, he was inflicted with extremely

strong bias against certain individuals. Most important of these was his sustained assault

on OConnor.4His consistently unflatteringevaluation of OConnor served to distort

historical perceptions of him for many years, and as such the accounts he gives of key

events must be considered carefully due to his obvious prejudices.5This includes his

notable derision of the Land Plan, which also influenced a long line of historians right up

to the 1950s, nearly all damning it as a utopian gesture which distracted Chartism from its

central cause of political reform.

6

Despite these negative aspects of the Gammages

account, it nevertheless remains an important contemporary document in the study of the

movement with much to offer to scholars, and especially contains valuable insight into the

latter years of the movement.

Gammages negative view of the Land Plan continued to have an impact on the histories of

the movement, such as that written by Mark Hovell: The Chartist Movement. Hovell was a

serving soldier in the First World War, and the conflict served to interrupt his studies. He

was to die in the war in 1916 and it was left to T. F. Tout to complete his work on his behalf,

finally publishing the study in 1925.7Hovells study took a broadly similar line to that of

Carlyle, placing Chartism as part of a longer term tradition of radicalism in Britain stretching

back to the Commonwealthmen of the seventeenth century. Indeed he writes extensively

about the debates about the right to vote of the 1640s, and the question of manhood or

property suffrage.8These events of the seventeenth century, for Hovell, mark the early

genesis of ideas that would later lead to the Peoples Charter. However, he was

unsympathetic of the Chartists themselves and notably singles out the violent and more

4Ashton et al. The Chartist Movement, p. 341.

5R. G. Gammage and John Saville, The History of the Chartist Movement(New York, 1969), p. 29.

6

Gammage and Saville, History of the Chartist Movement,p. 48.7Mark Hovell and T. F. Tout, The Chartist Movement (Manchester, 1925) pp. v-xxxvii.

8Hovell and Tout, The Chartist Movement,pp. 4-5.


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malevolent factors within the movement. He writes that during the days of the

campaigning for the first petition, the chances of success by peaceful agitation were made

to seem very remote by contemporary reports by those advocating violence.9This is also

indicative of the weight Hovell places on the moral force versus physical force conflict

which would act like a crutch for future research for many years, with numerous historians

intimating that the divide was truly black and white. More recent research has put this view

to rest, and the social and geographic history of the 1960s onwards has painted a picture of

this conflict as being far more nuanced than Hovell himself presented. The unsympathetic

picture of Chartist agitators put forward by Hovell has been summarised by Owen R.

Ashton:

(Hovell believed that) the adoption of Chartism by disorganised and mindless

labourers of the industrial districts took it out of the logic of political development

and into the realm of mob violence.10

The political developmenthe is referring to is the long line of English radicalism. Hovell

believed that Chartism started from an organic evolutionary beginning, but was derailed by

the extent of its mass support amongst the uneducated working class. Individuals such as

OConnor added to this culture of mob violence in his eyes, and as such it was destined to

fail.

The 1930s and 1940s saw a decline in writing regarding Chartist history, with relatively few

published works recorded.11

Most of what was written was moving towards general

accounts of radicalism across the nineteenth century, linking Chartism with earlier radical

movements as Hovell had done. In addition to this was a rise in biographies of influential

Chartists. Most significant of these was the collection of biographies published in 1941 by

9Hovell and Tout, The Chartist Movement,p. 126.

10

Ashton, et al. The Chartist Movement, pp. xii-xxii.11Dorothy Thompson and J.F.C. Harrison, Bibliography of the Chartist Movement1837-1976

(London, 1978).


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G. D. H. Cole, Chartist Portraits. This aimed to tell the story of Chartism through twelve

biographies. Although the research within the collection was strong, Cole offered no new

strand of historical opinion. For example, his view of OConnor stood broadly in line with

that of Hovell and Gammage, stating that he was a disastrous leader.12

Therefore,

although the 1930s and 1940s brought about a degree of historical development, the

largely biographical nature of research did little to challenge the hegemony of opinion

created by Hovell in 1918.

Following the end of the Second World War and the rise of social history led to Chartist

history reaching a new popularity in academic research. The crucial genesis of such

research was the collection of essays published in 1959 by Asa Briggs. Chartist Studies was

a collated collection of local studies based on Chartist activities, and sought to re-establish

the local nature of Chartist protest. They also sought to place individuals within their

particular localities and thus generate a more complete overall picture than previous

national based histories had given. This style of history also taught us that while Chartism

was a broadly national movement, it developed at vastly different rates in various parts of

the country, and that the local roots of the national movement are central in explaining the

overall nature of Chartism.13

The decade following this study gave rise to many local studies

of Chartism. Also of influence in this period was E. P. Thompson, whose seminal work the

Making of the English Working Class, gave a thorough explanation of how the working class

gained a class consciousness separate to that of their employers between 1780 and

1832.14

This discussion was subsequently used to explain the rise of Chartist agitation

following the Great Reform Act of 1832.

12

G. D. H. Cole Chartist Portraits (London, 1941).13John Walton, Chartism: Lancaster Pamphlets (London, 1999) p. 3.

14E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (London, 1968).


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The work of E. P. Thompson was to influence historians for the rest of the 1960s and

beyond, especially in the realm of Chartist history. However, it would be E. P. Thompsons

wife, Dorothy, among others, who would invigorate studies for the next 20 years. Despite

the success and importance of local studies, there was a criticism that the historiography of

the movement had got too localby the 1980s.15

Central to Dorothy Thompsons view of

Chartist history (other than a need to move away from local studies) was the need to

rehabilitate Feargus OConnor, who she felt had been unfairly discredited by historians

since Gammage. In 1982, James Epstein, under Thompsons advice and supervision,

published a thorough biography of OConnor seeking to rehabilitate his reputation. He

states in his introduction that:

OConnor had fallen uncomfortably between the two traditions of working class

history, that of labour reformism and orthodox Marxismboth of which failed, to

varying degrees, to deal with Chartism on its own terms.16

He later stated that it was necessary to reopen debate into one of Britainsmost

important radical leaders.17

Dorothy Thompson herself reasserted this in her 1984 book

The Chartists, depicting OConnor as being at the heart of the national campaign. Central to

the thesis in The Chartists was that Chartism was a movement with class at its heart; that

the ordinary people within Chartism were vital and also that women played a key role in

the function of protest.18

The role of women in a predominantly male movement would

later be studied by Barbara Taylor, Joan Scott, Catherine Hall and later Jutta Schwartzkopf.

Additionally, Thompson produced in The Chartists, what is arguably the defining study of

the demographics of Chartism. Eschewing traditional approaches focusing on Chartist

15Dorothy Thompson and James Epstein, The Chartist Experience: Studies in Working Class

Radicalism and Culture 1830 1869(London, 1982), p. 1.16

James Epstein The Lion of Freedom (London, 1982), pp. 2-317

Epstein, Lion of Freedom,p. 6.18Stephen Roberts, Memories of Dottie: Dorothy Thompson 1923-2011 (Obituary), Labour History

Review, 76:2 (2011) p. 166.


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leaders, Thompson instead used population figures and other statistics to build a picture of

where Chartist support came from. The complete account given was vital to later research,

and remains a key source of information for Chartist historians. Information such as

working practices and which trades provided most support are especially useful.

A key factor in research in Chartism, and nineteenth-century radicalism in general has been

analysis of class. While this had been touched upon by earlier historians, E. P. Thompson

emphasised the idea that in fact the working class had been present at their own making,

and that conscious political enlightenment had given birth to a working class culture in the

early nineteenth century. Inspired by Marxist principles, he saw this as being a natural

consequence of the displacing of the working class from the control of their own economic

destiny. This gave rise to institutions such as the London Corresponding Society, and

created a movement inspired by Cobbett, Hunt, Hardy and Tooke among others. Thus

instead of being a product of the industrial revolution, the political working class was both

a reaction to, and a creator of modern industrial Britain. Unsurprisingly this attitude to class

may also be found in Dorothy Thompsons work and she focuses heavily on working class

experience in her writing. She, like Edward, is keen to investigate the daily lives of

individuals who were prominent in local movements within Chartism. Other historians such

as Robert Fyson and James Epstein have also seen class as important, with close analysis of

working-class activity surrounding key events. Historians have been in agreement over the

centrality of class to Chartism, with contemporary sources seeing it as being a development

of class consciousness. Indeed Friedrich Engels, writing in 1848, described it as being

essentially a class movement.19

However, traditional approaches to class have been challenged by Gareth Stedman Jones

and Patrick Joyce, who by taking a literary approach have re-imagined the importance of

19Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the English Working Class(Leipzig, 1848).


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class to the movement. Stedman Jones defined Chartism as primarily a political movement,

and as such argues that it cannot be explained simply via the anger of various social groups

or the consciousness of class.20

Patrick Joyce subsequently concurred with this view,

asserting via analysis of Chartist language that traditional views of class were incorrect, and

that class was not at the centre of Chartist ideology. Thus the issue of class remains a

contentious issue, with modern historians aiming to find a common ground between the

spheres of language and class.

Stedman Jones workis also important for being a central part of the so-called linguistic

turn of the 1980s. This was a conscious shift away, by a group of historians, from the social

history of the 1960s and 70s towards a more linguistic approach. This will be more fully

discussed later to consider the effect of this on studies of the Chartist press and more

mainstream journalism. This new linguistic approach focused on the primacy of language,

and the importance of the interpretation of written text in historical analysis. While being a

wide movement covering the entire area of humanities, it was Stedman Jones who applied

it to Chartism. As we have seen, he used it to challenge ideas of class, and also aimed to

bring the politics of Chartism to the forefront of historical analysis. He described how he

felt that social approaches to Chartism had caused assessments to be distorted, and that

the traditional economic explanations give little evidence of why action took a Chartist

form.21

He asserted that it is necessary to analyse the political ideology of the Chartists. He

stated that the rise and fall of Chartism related primarily to the policies of the state.22As it

was such a radical departure, the linguistic approach remains both a controversial and

influential strand of Chartist historiography.

20Gareth Stedman Jones, Languages of Class: Studies in English working class history 1832-1982

(Cambridge, 1983), p. 96.21Jones, Languages of Class, p. 96.

22Jones, Languages of Class, pg 178.


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After looking at writing over the period from the Second World War to the 1990s, we can

see vast development in the variety of work that has been done. The debates created by

the rise in social history proved to be highly important to studies of Chartism, and any

further research owes a huge debt to the pioneering work done by these historians. Miles

Taylor argued in 1996 that the significant conflicting work done by both Thompson and

Stedman Jones had left Chartist historiography in a state of flux, with most work being

done on areas such as Chartisms decline or simply an extension of 1980s research.23

Owen

R. Ashton agreed with this perspective, stating that work done in the 1990s was

tangential

24

. Nonetheless, there has been work undertaken in the last 20 years worthy of

note, and work that has developed the field of Chartist history successfully.

Chartist history was at somewhat of an impasse in the 1990s, with most research focusing

on a linguistic analysis of the Chartists. This research had been influenced by the work of

Stedman Jones during the 1980s.25

In addition to this was research timed to coincide with

the 150th

anniversary of 1848, and as such the decline of Chartism received new insight and

analysis. Margot Finn studied the relationship between British Chartists and European

Republicans, and proved that even when it was in decline, Chartism was a strong force. She

also reinforced the link between Chartist radicals and the emergence of New Liberalism in

the 1880s, and that radicalism of a Chartist nature continued to have a voice after the

decline following 1848. Thus this was important research into the place Chartism holds in

British history. Despite Miles Taylor offering a gloomy outlook to the future of Chartist

historiography in 1996, there has been much vital research done on Chartist activity.26

In

1999, Ian Heywood published Chartist Fiction,which used Chartist newspapers to retrace

two narratives first found within the pages of the Chartist press. This shed new light on an

23Miles Taylor, Rethinking the Chartists, Historical Journal, Vol. 39 No. 02 (1996), pp. 479-495.

24Joan Allen and Owen Ashton, Editorial: New Directions in Chartist Studies,Labour History Review,

vol.74 No. 1, (2009), p. 1.25Taylor Rethinking the Chartists,p. 480.

26Taylor, Rethinking the Chartists,pp. 479-495.


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area often neglected. This current of cultural history was continued with the publishing of

Michael Sanders, The Poetry of Chartism, the first full-length study of more than a thousand

poems published by the Northern Star. Sanders analyses the reasons why poetry became

so important to Chartist opposition, and examines the critical history of Chartist poetry.

Such research into the vital area of Chartist poetry was fuelled by the publication of an

anthology of Chartist poetry by Peter Scheckner, which drew together a vast collection of

poetry from a disparate range of sources.

The area of biographies has continued to be a rich source for historical debate and interest,

and work done on Chartism in the last two decades is no different, with revisionist studies

of both Feargus OConnor and Ernest Jones. Ashton and Pickering have produced a six part

biographical text.27

Friends for the People featured biographies of Peter Mcdouall, Rev.

Henry Solly, Rev. James Scholefield, Richard Bagnall Reed, William Villiers Sankey and Rev.

Benjamin Parsons. It served to shed new light on the various individuals key to the

everyday operations involved in running a national opposition movement.

The work of Malcolm Chase has, in recent years, proven to be vital in breaking new ground

in Chartist studies. Along with innovative work detailing the performances of Chartism at

the polls during the 1840s, Chase has produced a long awaited modern chronological

narrative of Chartism in Chartism: A New History.28

In this, he supported the view of

OConnor as important leader, but is perhaps more critical of him than either Epstein or

Thompson. He painted a picture of him being a maverick politician once in the Commons,

but an able and vital leader on the protest trail. He also has done important research on

the children of Chartism, especially those living in OConnorville following the Land Plan. In

a compelling passage, Chase detailed the research done to find the creator of a particular

27

Allen and Ashton, New Directions in Chartist Studies, p. 3.28Malcolm Chase, Labours Candidates: Chartist Challenges at the Parliamentary Polls, 1839 -1860,

Labour History Review, Vol 74 No. 1, (2009), pp. 6489.


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Chartist sampler, including investigating the records of a Chartist school within OConnors

OConnorville community.29

Biographical research is also contained within the book in the

form of supplementary chapters called Chartist Lives.These sections feature important

insight into the micro-politics of small communities, and important individuals within

localities of Chartism.30

Evidence of the continuing interest in Chartism is found in a special edition of Labour

History Reviewin 2009, designed to profile the most recent work of Chartist historians and

to demonstrate that the field continues to be the locus of dynamic and path breaking

analysis.31

This issue features, for example, an article on Chartist song by Paul Pickering

and Kate Bowan, an article on the anti-Malthusian everyday politics of Chartist supporters

by Robert Hall and an article about late Chartism in the Potteries by Robert Fyson. Thus we

can gain a picture of where Chartist historiography stands in the twenty-first century, with

cultural history being vastly influential, along with the continued popularity of local

histories. Chartist research has certainly come a long way since the likes of Gammage, as

the variety of histories contained in this journal shows. Nevertheless it also demonstrates

the wide variety of research that is still waiting to be done, and without doubt the field of

Chartist history shows no sign of drying up yet.

As this is a study on both Chartism and the press, it is necessary to examine research that

has been done on the British Press, and understand how studies have developed over time.

The study of newspapers and the press has traditionally been in the realm of literary

criticism and linguistics academics. Historians have largely overlooked the writings of the

press, seeing it more traditionally as a useful source of information rather than an actor

worthy of direct analysis in itself. Focus has primarily been on the mainstream middle-class

29

Malcolm Chase, Chartism: A New History(Manchester, 2007), pp. 261-271.30Chase, Chartism, pp. 261-265.

31Allen and Ashton, New Directions in Chartist Studies, p. 3.


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newspapers. The analysis has primarily come from an angle based on the deconstruction of

literary principles used within the press by journalists.

Many early studies of the British press focused on the emergence of journalism in the

seventeenth century. This is understandable for several reasons. One, it is natural to

investigate how such an important facet of modern Britain came into being. Secondly, it is

not common for historians to delve too often into the very recent past. Thus when J. B.

Williams publishedA History of British Journalismin 1908, it likely never occurred to him to

investigate the nineteenth-century British Press.32

Many studies like that of Williams focus

on the period up to the end of Licensing Act, and thus the end of censorship, in 1695.

Key to this study will be the connection between politics (and political language) and the

press. One of the earliest studies to investigate this relationship was Aspinalls, Politics and

the Press, published in 1949. Aspinall places heavy emphasis on the importance of the

press, and describes the passing of measures and acts designed to influence its operation.

One of the key pieces of legislation in relation to the Chartist press was the reduction in

Stamp Duty in 1836. Aspinall details these changes, and the protest for them, which would

later be commented on by Thompson and Haywood.33

Haywood in fact stated how the

wars for the unstamped actually trained (the Chartist) practitioners.34

This idea will be

looked at in detail later, and the Unstampedsimpact on the Chartist press will be

analysed. Ultimately, Aspinalls study describes the key factors which would influence

radical journalists central to the Chartist movement.

In recent years, more in depth study of nineteenth-century journalism has been completed.

A collection of essays entitled Victorian Presswas published in 1998. This again took a

literary approach, downplaying the political significance of journalism in the nineteenth

32

J. B. Williams,A History of British Journalism (London, 1908).33A. Aspinall, Politics and the Press 1780 1850 (London, 1949), pp. 22-23.

34Ian Haywood, The Revolution in Popular Literature (Cambridge, 2004), p. 142.


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century. Nevertheless, it provided valuable insight into larger papers such as the Times.

Although not directly associated with Chartism, the reporting of Chartist activity in the

Timeshas often been of interest to historians; due largely to it representing more closely

the opinion of the establishment of the challenge of Chartism. Aled Jones, has produced a

full length work far more political in nature, and one which provided more background for

a study in the Chartist press than aforementioned studies.35

Key to Jones study, and

subsequently any analysis of the radical political press, is the connection between the

printed word and the changing of an individuals personal opinion. The potentially

explosive power of journalistic prose is also central, and this once again alludes to a

significant factor contained within this research.

Recent research on the nineteenth century British press has been influenced by a more

cultural approach in history more generally, with emphasis on language, meaning and

identity. Indeed the lack of historical research of newspapers has been somewhat

overturned in recent years by these shifts in historiography. This is partly down to the new

digitisation of newspapers in the modern age, allowing vast research to be undertaken

from areas in the country far from original paper archives. Not only this, but new online

archives are easily accessible and searchable via keyword, allowing for quick thematic

surveys to be undertaken. These archives and their impact will doubtless continue to grow

in the future, but they are already having an impression on research. Crucial to recent

writing on the British press and journalism has been Adrian Bingham, who despite being

focused on twentieth century newspapers, has forged a path of analytical approaches to

journalism and the deconstructing of the impact of the press. James Mussel, Lisa Peters,

David Brown and Matthew Rubery have all completed studies into the press of the

nineteenth century. These recent studies are not entirely focused on literary and linguistic

35Aled Jones, Powers of the Press: Newspapers, Power and the Public in Nineteenth Century England

(Aldershot, 1996).


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approaches. Research such as that done by Michael Powell and Terry Wyke has focused on

the cultural impact of publishing journals and newspapers for local areas, and how the

effect of a booming press movement help revitalise urban areas in the nineteenth

century.36

This kind of research is backed up by work focusing specifically on the Chartist

movement by Dorothy Thompson, who describes how the publishers and printers of

literature became important local figures to the radical movement.37

Thus modern research

of the press has moved in a variety of ways, including analysis of both the literary and

cultural impact of the growth of newspapers in the nineteenth century. With digital

archives arguably only just emerging, it remains a burgeoning area of historical interest.

Having considered how historians have looked at the general press in the nineteenth

century it is now necessary to analyse the arguments that have been used in research

regarding the Chartist Press. Early Chartist historians, while using the press significantly to

inform their wider assumptions about the movement; chose not to specifically analyse

either the content or direct significance of Chartist journalists or print.

One of the first pieces of research into Chartist journalism was James Epsteinswork on

Feargus OConnor and theNorthern Star.38

This was published as a journal article in 1976,

and sought to place the Northern Star at the heart of Chartism, and indicated the

importance of the paper to the movements vitality. It established many now assumed

truths about Connor and the Star, such as the heritage in the radicalism of Cobbett and

Hunt, and the importance of OConnor to the movement (continuing the rehabilitation of

him via his journalism). Some of Epsteins ideas will be discussed later, with particular ideas

giving useful impetus to further examination in the wider Chartist press. Epstein concluded

36John Hinks, Catherine Armstrong, Matthew Day (eds), Periodicals and Publishers: the newspaper

and journal trade, 1750-1814 (London, 2009).37

Thompson, The Chartists, pp.120-173. [make sure you continue to use short titles]38James Epstein, Feargus O'Connor and the Northern Star, International Review of Social History,

21 (London 1976) pp. 5197.


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his argument by extolling the virtues of the Starin the history of the working class, stating

that: many Chartist regarded the establishment of the Star as OConnors greatest

contribution to the cause of popular rights.39

Also worth noting is the importance of

Epsteins appendix, providing a summation of the estimated circulation of the Northern

Star during its run, using Stamp sales as an indicator. This research is vital for anyone

evaluating the importance of the Star to Chartism and the working class as a whole.

Another early analysis of the Chartist Press was produced by Dorothy Thompson, and

appears as a section of her book The Chartists.40

Thompson was perhaps influenced by her

husband E.P. Thompson who assessed the role of radical journalists in The Making of

English Working Class, specifically those from the period 1800-1830.41

Dorothy Thompson

emphasised the importance of the press to Chartism, and drew a link between it and the

unstamped press of the 1830s. These papers, according to Thompson, provided an

important influence on radicals who would later go on to found the most significant

Chartist periodicals. As has been previously mentioned, it was not just the papers

themselves which were an influence. Thompson reiterated the point that the battle to save

the unstamped press provided many Chartists with their first taste of political action.

The significance of Thompsons research in The Chartists is obvious. Rather than analysing

the literary side of Chartist journalism, Thompson uncovered the nature of the whole press

movement in Britain during the period. Likely influenced by Epsteins analysis of the Star,

she gave an account of numerous different Chartist journals and their editors and

contributors. Also, she sought to explain, like Epstein, how and why the Northern Star was

so massively popular and influential on the movement. The reasons given are numerous,

but central to Thompsons appraisal is the importance of OConnor in directing it and

39

Epstein, Feargus OConnor and theNorthern Star,p. 96.40Thompson, The Chartists, pp. 37-56.

41Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class.


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ensuring it was profitable.42

She also argued that that its readers believed that the paper

represented Chartism as a whole and not just OConnor. Thus those purchasing the Star

were doing so to not only learn about Chartist Intelligence (a regular feature within the

paper), but also to buy into the Chartist phenomenon. Thompson sums up the importance

of the paper by stating:

the success of the Northern Star would have been impossible without the Chartist

Movement, but is equally impossible to imagine the Chartist Movement without

the Star.43

Both Epsteins and Thompsons appraisal of the Chartist press may be brief, but both

occurred when a new age of cultural studies of Chartism was just over the horizon, and as

such they can be seen as an important precursor to such research. Since then there have

been several key studies, into both radical journalism and literature from the Chartist

period and this also needs due attention.

Perhaps the most significant study of the Chartist Press that has been published is a

collection of essays edited by Joan Allen and Owen R. Ashton entitled Papers for the

People: A Study of the Chartist Press. Despite being a collection of essays, it nevertheless

marks the first direct analysis of the Chartist journalism so far published in book form. It is

probable that this work will inspire many different areas of research, as it features a diverse

range of contributors and subject matter. Among these are Aled Jones explaining the place

of Chartist journalism within the overall development of the press in Britain, a detailed

analysis of the Western Vindicator by Owen R. Ashton, along with local press studies

featuring Scotland, Ireland and the Antipodes. As mentioned, many of these areas are

42Thompson, The Chartists,p. 48.

43Thompson, The Chartists, p. 49.


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breaking new ground, and as such can be seen as springboards for future research, and this

research hopes to build on the work contained within this collection.

What this literature review has shown is that the fields of both Chartist history and press

history remain areas where new research is needed. Crucial to this study will be the areas

where these two historiographies share pitfalls. As with many academic disciplines, the

effect of new approaches has been to unfairly denigrate the advances made by previous

studies. In the case of Chartism and press, this comes following the literary turn of the

1980s. Many studies of the combined field of the Chartist Press have subsequently fallen

sharply between two stalls.

Writing about the Chartist Press has largely been either literary, analysing the romantic and

cultural undertones of the enlightening power of the Chartist press. Often this research,

such as in the case of Haywoods Revolution in Popular Literature, combines analysis of

press with wider literature such as books or poetry.44

On the other hand, historians have

rightly sought to place the Chartist press within the movement as an integral part of it,

emphasising functional and structural factors. Much research has been done on both

approaches, and the study that follows is in part an attempt to synthesise the two strands.

In doing so, we can gain a more coherent understanding of the rhetoric which pervaded the

Chartist press, and its relationship to the wider movement. As stated earlier, this study

aims to combine close literary analysis with ideas influenced by social historians such as

E.P. Thompson and James Epstein. The result should be the identifying of the most

important rhetorical techniques, the reasoning behind them, and an attempt of an

appraisal of their effect.

The first chapter will detail the direct forerunner to Chartism: the campaign against the

newspaper stamp. These taxes on knowledge were deemed by radicals to be a direct

44Haywood, The Revolution in Popular Literature, pp.139-162.


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attempt by the ruling elites to suppress intelligence and prevent the politicisation of the

working class. The unstamped newspaper press that this movement created possessed

many links with the later Chartist press. Individuals were often involved in both,

organisational connections were common and also the movement helped create a working

class audience for journalism that would prove vital for the success of the Chartist press. To

fully understand the Chartist press and its audience it is necessary to analyse the

newspapers of the unstamped.

The second chapter focuses on the use of oratory journalism in the Chartist press. This

technique was multi faceted, using both transcriptions of speech as well as imitated speech

on paper in order to better integrate with the reader. This technique was created with the

practice of reading aloud in mind. Papers such as the Northern Star were often read aloud

in a group, and the style of writing in the press reflected that. The result of this awareness

of oratory style was to create a genuine public sphere of newspaper readers and

consumers that felt connected and appreciated by their radical newspapers.

The third chapter will analyse the common practice of printing letters within the pages of

the Chartist press. Letters came in many forms, with those from readers and those from

prominent chartist leaders all making the pages of the press. This served to better integrate

the papers within the movement. Examples come from ordinary working class men and

women expressing their views on a national stage, and they respond with appreciation

when they are printed. The printing of letters shows how Chartism was able to create such

cohesion, giving people a voice when they otherwise wouldnt have had one.

A conclusion will then seek to provide a summary of what this research has uncovered, and

analyse what overall analysis can be brought from this. The aim is to better understand the

press and its audience, and contextualise the language of the press with regard to the

wider Chartist movement.


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Chapter 1: The Taxes on Knowledge.

The Chartist press may be seen as having two distinct forms, separate but nevertheless

overlapping in content and styles. On the one side, there are the stamped newspapers such

as the Northern Starand The Charter, and on the other there are the unstamped journals

such as the Western Vindicatorand the Chartist Circular, as well as later more literary

minded journals such as The Red Republican and The Labourer. Crucial to the printing,

publication, distribution and content of these unstamped journals was the legacy of the

War of the Unstampedin the 1830s. This legacy was also crucial to the development of

London based moral force Chartism which grew immediately following the end of

newspaper taxation agitation. The War of the Unstampedhelped foster class-based anger

for a wide number of physical forceChartists including Feargus OConnor. This multi-

faceted influence has been recognised by historians, with Edward Royle stating that the

consequences of the War of the Unstampedare difficult to be over-estimatedand

Dorothy Thompson describing it as the most important and influentialprecursor to the

Chartist Press.45

The War of the Unstampedestablished a basis of journalistic opposition

for all Chartist newspapers. This deserves further exploration as it occurred during an

influential period of journalistic development. It has been relatively understudied when it

comes to historiography; therefore a detailed analysis upon the stamp and its opponents is

needed fully to grasp the nature of the Chartist press.46

The War of the Unstamped ran from 1830 to 1836, when, under the waves of middle class

and working class pressure, the government reduced the newspaper tax from 4d. down to

1d. The radical opposition to the so-called taxes on knowledge was not a new

45Edward Royle, Chartism (York, 1980), p. 13; Dorothy Thompson, The Chartists (London, 1984), p.

37.46Joel H. Weiner, The War of The Unstamped (New York, 1969); Patricia Hollis, The Pauper Press

(London, 1970).


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phenomenon unique to the 1830s. Ever since the government had first rallied against

radical working class journalism in 1819 the radicals had opposed such interference on

what they considered a right to knowledge. The Six Acts of that year served to render the

possibility of a popular working class literature almost impossible, with a prohibitive tax of

4d. per copy sold of any regular publication deemed to be reporting news and

occurrences. The specific terms of this act would come to be challenged by not only the

newspapers of the unstamped, but also the unstamped journals of the Chartist period.

Henry Hetherington published what was in effect an irregular weekly publication under a

different name each week, and later George Julian Harney stated in his paper, the Red

Republicanhow he was forbidden to report on news occurrences and eventsto preserve

his papers status as a legally unstamped publication.47

Despite the fact that the Stamp Act would be deliberately flouted, and eventually create a

new form of journalism, the initial impact was to damage the influence and importance of

radicalism. Weiner described the act of 1819 as being instantaneously successful; as the

increased tax meant that most influential journalists and publishers were forced into

charging upwards of 6d. for their publications (the penalty for publishing an unstamped

publication was 20 per violation).48

This served to decrease readership and subsequently

the influence of radicals such as William Cobbett.

What followed was a period of working class political apathy throughout the 1820s, the like

of which had not been seen in England since before the publication of Paines Rights of

Man in 1791-2. The weakened state of radicalism was compounded by reviving economic

conditions and subsequently, as McCalman stated: overt political radicalism declined and

47

G D H Cole and A W Filson, British Working Class Movements: Selected Documents 1789-1875(London, 1967), p. 306; George Julian Harney, The Red Republican, Vol. 1 No. 5 (July 20, 1850).48

Weiner, War of the Unstamped,pp. 5- 6.


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disappeared during the 1820s.49

The Stamp Act had eradicated radicalism and there was a

paucity of unstamped journals in the 1820s, any existing publications were shut down

quickly and few had any kind of political pretensions. Weiner demonstrated that during this

period newspaper consumption was stationary, a surprising statistic in comparison to the

trends in the United States, where circulations were rapidly rising in a country with a far

smaller population.50

Thus we can see the effect of the newspaper taxes of 1819. Firstly

they served to kill off (in conjunction with other factors) radicalism and working class

political organisation, and secondly severely weakened working-class appetites for radical

newspapers. As long as the 4d. stamp remained, the prospects for a legal newspaper with a

working-class readership were slim. Such a venture needed an individual of considerable

wealth, a radical nature and an ability to take considerable personal risk. Even if such an

individual existed, the price of such a publication would be prohibitive to virtually all of its

working-class target audience. It was these obstacles, in the light of a new radical mood in

the country; that led to radicals deliberately flouting the stamp and using the illegality of

their papers to bolster their own arguments from 1830. The legal status of these

newspapers was specifically the cause of their being, and the brazen attitude of publishers

came to define the War of the Unstampedin the 1830s.

The sudden burst of radicalism that emerged in 1830 was, like the opposition of the 1790s,

inspired by the ideals of a revolution in France.51

The July Revolution also occurred during

the same year as the Wellington government was in dissolution and preparing for a General

Election. This served to ignite the embers of the political reform movement and set in

motion not just the reform agitation but also the War of the Unstamped. William

Carpenter was among the first openly to challenge the censorship of the press by

49

Iain McCalman, Radical Underworld (Cambridge, 1988), p. 181.50Weiner, War of the Unstamped, p. 8.

51Hollis, The Pauper Press, p.64.


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representative newspapers meant the working class did not realise this educational

disenfranchisement was taking place. Thus by informing the working classes of the

oppressive nature of the political system the new press could open the door for a free flow

of knowledge. This two sided, fractional controlling of knowledge was crucial to the

arguments of the War of the Unstamped.

Separate to the political ideas of enlightenment enunciated by the unstamped papers was

the very real sense that they were trying to grow working-class intelligence more generally

into cultural and social areas. Weiner stated how an unprecedented desire for political

knowledge was predicated on increasing literacy as well as increasing the extent of cultural

experience.55

This is reflected in the wide range of non-political unstamped journals

published in the 1830s. There were publications based on science, literature, religion and

law, and all were representative of the extent of education of the working class via cheap

accessible reading material. In addition to this there was the cheap book crusade of 1828-

1832, where the public gained a new desire for literature in various forms. As a response to

this, pressure groups tried to widen the availability of reading material for the working

class.56

The extent to which the newly literate working class were able to embrace books as

well as such a wide variety of journals was used as an example for the need for a legal,

cheap and honest press available to the working class. Education, thus far denied, was to

be cultural as well as political.

If we can see the principle argument used by the unstamped agitators as being one of a

two sided struggle between the need for working class enlightenment and the desire of the

establishment to control this enlightenment then we must explore both views. Thus we

must understand the desire for the aristocracy to keep the people ignorant. The basis for

the newspaper tax, in the eyes of the elite, was to preserve public order by limiting political

55Weiner, War of the Unstamped, p. 117.



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press. For most reformers, the newspaper stamp acted as a symbol on which all of their

other ideas could hang, and an untaxed press came to represent the ideal of a better and

fairer society. Though some intimated that a free press would act as compensation for the

lack of universal suffrage, the reality was far different. R. E. Lee stated that universal liberty

and happinesswould result following the removal of the tax.60

George Petrie stated, that

taught by an unshackled honest press, the people quietly would command redress for all

their wrongs!61

An issue of the Poor Mans Guardian asserted that the fraud and

usurpation of the rich, can only be vanquished with the enlightenment of the mind with the

truth, intimating a grand scale of change on behalf of the removal of the newspaper tax.

62

Therefore significant weight was placed on the taxes on knowledge. If the enlightenment

of the working class was not a strong enough reason, working-class agitators placed

intangible changes to the whole of society on the need for a free press.

Thus for radicals the effect of the removal of the stamp was the possible achievement of

the most important goal for all of radicalism, universal suffrage. Bronterre OBrien

intimated as much by saying he believed it would result in the working class gaining

representatives in parliament.63

There was a sense then, within the rhetoric of the

unstamped, that all social and political strife could be averted with the removal of the tax.

We now know that this did not happen, and subsequently radical activity turned to the

Chartist movement. We must now analyse what the legacy of the unstamped was for the

Chartist movement and its press.

As this is a study of the Chartist press, we must now draw together what influence the War

of the Unstamped had upon Chartism and its print culture. Historians have long

acknowledged the link, citing not just the individuals involved but also the way in which the

60R.E. Lee,A Whisper to the Whigs (London, 1831), pp. 1-2

61

George Petrie, Equality (London, 1841), p. 4.62Hetherington, Poor Mans Guardian, July 7 1832.

63Bronterre OBrien, Hetheringtons Twopenny Dispatch, Vol. II No.84. September 5 1835


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respective movements operated and the political development of the working class. E. P.

Thompson confirmed this last point by stating:

The line from 1832 to Chartism is not a haphazard pendulum alternation of

political and economic agitations but a direct progression, in which simultaneous

and related movements converged to a single point. This point was the vote. There

is a sense that the Chartist movement commenced... at the moment the Reform

Bill achieved Royal Assent.64

Despite being noted by historians, the link between the Unstamped and the Chartist

Movement deserves full discussion. The historiography of Chartism shows a shortfall with

regard to how the 1830s influenced later Chartist agitation, and this is especially the case

with regards to the Press. Without the unstamped, Chartism would not have happened,

and as Thompson stated they share a lineage which places them as part of the same

movement, albeit with different names. Thus the agitations of the 1830s, of which the

newspaper tax is most relevant with regards to the press, can be seen as being critical to

the development of a singular movement with the name Chartism. The drawing up of the

Peoples Charter in 1838 largely served simply to give the nascent movement a new name

and to fortify its aims. The agitation from which it was born is just as crucial to its existence

as are the Newport rising of 1839 and Plug Plot Riots of 1842. With this background, we can

further appreciate the central importance of the Unstamped to the Chartist Press.

One factor of the Unstamped which served to influence the Chartist movement was the

divisive split which emerged between the working class and middle class. In Weiners view

the war against the newspaper tax engendered a sharp degree of class bitterness.65

This

bitterness was fostered on the narrative of the betrayal of the working class by the middle

64Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, p. 909.

65Weiner, War of the Unstamped, p. 124.


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class around the Reform agitation surrounding the 1832 Reform Act, which subsequently

served to galvanise working-class opinion into an us and them scenario respecting class

relationships. Throughout the 1830s working-class radicalism became increasingly wary of

the middle classes, who were now to form a separate movement for the repeal of

newspaper taxes. This movement used pressure on parliament to try and achieve a free

press, and was predicated on considerably more commercial grounds than the equivalent

working-class agitation. However, the divide came principally because of the middle classes

dislike of the unstamped working class papers such as the Poor Mans Guardian and Man.

For the working class this was further evidence of a fundamental, unbridgeable divide

between the classes. Thus the galvanising effect of alienation gave the radical campaigners

fuel, and the sentiment of class alienation would live into the Chartist movement and the

Chartist press.

Much of the most extreme class tensions directly prefigured physical forceChartism.

Evidence for this influence may be found in much of OConnors editorship of the Northern

Star around the time of the strikes in the summer of 1842. During this period, OConnor

sought to distance himself and Chartism from the strikes, despite the fact that many

involved waving Chartist banners and calling for the Charter to be passed. The reason for

this was a deep mistrust on OConnors behalf with regard to the middle classes. He

believed that it had been the middle-class Anti-Corn Law League which induced workers to

strike, pressuring government to meet their aims. OConnor stated in the Northern Star

that it was the league-men which have caused all this hubbub.66

He accused the members

of the League of seeking to poison the minds of the people, using hellish sentiments. This

deeply held mistrust of the middle classes was partly influenced by the divisions felt during

the War of the Unstamped', which OConnor was privy to. Therefore, Chartism was never

able to affect any kind of unity with the middle class. Partly because of the perceived

66Feargus OConnor, The Northern Star, August 20 1842, p. 4.


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superiority of the middle class, and their distaste for universal suffrage which rendered the

classes incompatible, but also because of a distrust on behalf of the working-class Chartist

movement. They felt they had been betrayed too many times to let the middle classes

muddy the waters again and thus excluded them from their radical activity, as well as

criticising them in their Chartist newspapers. This attitude towards class relations can be

seen similarly in the agitation of the Unstamped.

A further important influence of the War of the Unstampedwhich affected Chartism was

that it served to set up a coherent network of vendors, editors and distributors throughout

the country, all primed to promote the radical press. Although radical newspapers had

been distributed previously, it was the 1830s which had instated a coherent system of

literary radical opposition. The key reason for this was the illegality of the papers.

Unstamped journals could not rely on the state assisting the distribution of papers which

stamped weeklies could. In addition to this, established booksellers refused to handle the

toxic newspapers and so radical journalists were forced to establish an underground

network of individuals and organizations willing to assist in the exercise. Street vendors and

proprietors in London were the first to be recruited, before a more national network was

set up. Campaigners such as Hetherington toured the North of the country recruiting

agencies, and this was what laid the foundations for a truly underground movement of

popular journalism; Cleave, Carlile and Morrison used Hetheringtons agents and profited

from his success.67Thus the press became a cohesive network of writers willing to

reciprocate their efforts for the cause of the wider movement. By the time of the Chartist

movement in 1837, and the launch of the Northern Star, this network was widely

established and rich with experience of a literary radical opposition. Although the Star itself

carried a stamp, it was able to use the agents and vendors of the 1830s to establish itself as

the nations most popular newspaper. G.J. Harney had been a vendor in the 1830s, and

67Hollis, The Pauper Press, pp. 108-111.


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later served as editor in the Star. Henry Vincent exploited the building blocks laid by

Hetherington and Cleave by using the same coffee house keepers, newsagents and vendors

as they did when he started the Western Vindicator.68

As Thompson has identified, many of

the vendors arrested during the age of the Unstamped later become involved in the

distribution of Chartist papers. Examples come in the form of James Ibbotson, Titus Brooke,

Christopher Tinker and Joseph Lingard, all of whom are listed in reports of 1830s vendors

as well as later serving the same role for the Star, throughout the country.69

Many of these

individuals had been arrested and sometimes imprisoned, but were willing to risk similar

punishments again. This therefore also shows the determination instilled by the War of the

Unstampedin fighting for the cause of radicalism.

In addition to this was the culture of petitions, meetings and public speaking which

developed around the cause of the unstamped press which gave future Chartists

experience of radical opposition on the national stage. Individuals involved in both the

Stamp agitation of the 1830s and Chartism included Henry Hetherington, Joshua Hobson,

William Lovett and Feargus OConnor. Although too young himself, Henry Vincent

surrounded himself with individuals involved in the Stamp campaign when starting his

Western Vindicator, and thus some of the fathers of the Peoples Charter had their roots in

the battle for a free press.70

Naturally, this influence does not stop with individuals simply

spanning the two movements. One of the key ancestors of the London Working Mens

Association (a key organ in the development of early Chartist thought, responsible for the

Charter newspaper) was the Association of Working Men to Procure a Cheap and Honest

Press formed in 1836.71

These groups were essentially one and the same, in all but name.

Following the reduction of the stamp in 1836 it adopted a new moniker, but continued to

68Owen Ashton, The Western Vindicator and Early Chartism, in Joan Allen and Owen Ashton (eds),

Papers for the People: A Study of the Chartist Press (London, 2005), pp.54-81.69

Thompson, The Chartists, pp. 38-39.70Ashton, The Western Vindicator and Early Chartism, p.56.



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seek the removal of those cruel laws that prevent the free circulation of thought through

the medium of a cheap and honest press.72

In time this Association came to represent

metropolitan Chartism and was a key to moral forceChartism in the capital. Thus we can

see that through individuals with experience of earlier struggles for a free press, influences

could be carried into the nascent Chartist movement. The next factor influencing Chartism

is how these individuals and associated organisations were able to learn from the

journalism of the 1830s in order to increase the effectiveness of their own rhetoric.

One important inspiration which was carried by the aforementioned individuals to their

new radical venture of Chartism, was their appreciation of the press as a weapon to be

used. Newspapers had been an integral part of radical opposition since the beginning of the

nineteenth century, but the War of the Unstampedhad taught radical leaders how much

the working class had an appetite for a representative printed press. Radicals needed the

press, and the working class needed it just as much in return. The large circulation of

papers such as the Poor Mans Guardian showed them just how many people could be

influenced by papers, and the potential market for a publication associated with the

nascent Chartist movement. As with the establishment of the mechanics for printing and

distributing papers which developed in the 1830s, a culture of reading and digesting

material emerged amongst the working class in the same period. In the Chartist period,

working men would often join together in order to subscribe to a publication, thus sharing

the financial burden. As Dorothy Thompson pointed out, this practice occurred prominently

in the 1830s, along with the culture of alehouses and coffee-shops maintaining a steady

supply of the contemporary radical print.73

This served to create a cohesive culture of

reading and disseminating radical thought, on a scale not before seen. This was further

72London Working Mens Association, Prospectus and Rules (London, 1836).



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enhanced by a new, largely literate, working class, to be found especially in cities.74

The

result was therefore a network of readers primed for a popular radical source to represent

Chartism. This was undoubtedly in Feargus OConnors mind when he established the

Northern Star. He was well aware of the need for a paper to utilise the power of the press,

and wanted to combine this with the power of the platform.75

He was mainly inspired by

William Cobbett in his desire to begin a weekly newspaper, however his experience during

the years of the Unstamped had taught him two valuable lessons. Firstly, that a popular

paper could help unify a movement and serve to organise it nationally. Secondly, that the

working class were now hungry for such a paper, and that their development politically had

led them to this point. The circulation figures for the Star are proof of its success, and this

was due in no small part to the development of working-class attitudes to newspapers in

the 1830s. Bronterre was convinced of the presss significance when he stated:

With representatives in the press, we shall have representatives in the

corporations and popular societies, and with representations in these, the

transition will not be impossible with regard to the House of Commons.76

It is therefore clear the grand importance which radicals placed on the press following the

1830s. The Chartists considered it as the centrepiece of their rhetoric, and the readers felt

likewise. Chartism maintained a core audience of readers committed to its press, and the

reciprocative need for a healthy press movement for both Chartists leaders and the

working class ensured Chartism a strong literary presence in the form of newspapers.

Further evidence of the influence felt by the War of the Unstampedupon Chartism is the

extent to which political ideas generated in the 1830s carried over into Chartist ideology.

74W. B. Stephens, Education, Literacy and Society 1830-70: The Geography of Diversity in Provincial

England(Manchester, 1987), pp. 2-25.75

James Epstein, Feargus OConnor and the Northern Star, International Review of Social History21(1976), pp. 52-97.76

Bronterre OBrien, Hetheringtons Twopenny Dispatch, Vol. II No.84. September 5 1835


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Unstamped, and the sense in which the working class had found a political consciousness,

helped Chartism become the grand movement it was. In addition to this, the unstamped

papers of the 1830s provided a blueprint of recurrent radical literature for both journalists

as well as the working-class reading public. By combining these two central factors, the

Chartist press could use the campaign against the newspaper tax as a springboard for

developing the highly influential Chartist press movement, a movement which was critical

in making Chartism the national movement it became. It is therefore clear that the War of

the Unstampedis a crucial part of the creation of Chartism, and as such its literary,

political, social and economic ideas, as well as the advances it made in the printing,

publishing and distribution of radical papers, should be kept in mind in a comprehensive

study of the Chartist press.


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Chapter 2: Oratory Journalism and the Mass Platform in the

Chartist Press

This chapter will analyse the rhetoric and oratory in key elements of the Chartist press and

argue that through an oratory style Chartist journalists brought the arena of the Mass

Platform to working class public spheres. While Chartist historians have accepted that

newspapers were read aloud, and that the Mass Platform provided vital experience to

prominent Chartists, there has been little written about how these worlds are connected.

The experiences of the Mass Platform informed Chartist writing, and the distinct style of

Chartist journalism had a lot to do with the attempt to draw on these experiences. This

chapter intends to provide examples as to how this was done. Also much of the research

that has been done on the Chartist press has focused either too heavily on a structural

approach, concerned chiefly with the setting up and running of newspapers with little

attention given to the content of the papers; or too focused on language with a paucity of

analysis with regards to its effect. This chapter aims to address this shortcoming by

analysing the content of Chartist newspapers while giving some account as the wider

implications of such writing.

A central tenet of the Chartist press was the way in which it provided a medium by which

the Mass Platform could reach and influence a wider variety of areas and thus individuals

than it ordinarily would. The role of the press was significant in engaging the public, and as

Epstein suggested for OConnor, the Northern Star marked the convergence of the powers

of the press, with the dominance of the platform.1The attitude of combining techniques

and ideas of the platform with those of the press pervades the wide diversity of Chartist

1James Epstein, Feargus OConnor and the Northern Star, International Journal of Social History, 21

(1976), p. 51.


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periodical literature. Through the use of oratory journalism, the writers and editors of the

Chartist newspapers could echo the rhetorical and sometimes inflammatory language of

the platform. Not only did this writing educate and inform, but it also served to solidify

connections to the provincial fringes of Chartism and give connections to those who

otherwise would not be involved with orators on the circuit. The hallmarks of oratory

journalism will be discussed in detail later, as will the effects of this style, but first it is

necessary to explain just what the Mass Platform represented and why the press aimed to

replicate it.

The role of the Mass Platform has long played a significant role in the organisation and

development of radicalism in Britain. The use of speeches and the Mass Platform had been

embraced by radicals in earlier times, most notably perhaps with Henry Hunt and the post-

war crisis of 1815-19. The age of Chartism and its increased organisation gave rise to a new

era of oratory politics. R. G. Gammage was an observer of Chartism, and a prominent

figure in Chartist circles, especially in later years. His history of the Chartist movement

provides a valuable insight into first hand experiences of the Chartists. He noted

contemporaneously that:

The dawn of the Chartist movement was quite an era in working class oratory. It

gave to the humblest the opportunity of raising his voice in public meeting, and

that opportunity was not disregarded, but, on the other hand, was embraced with

avidity.2

Like the use of the press, Chartists realised that the Mass Platform could be highly

influential, and provided what was the frontline in recruiting the people to the Chartist

cause. Meetings could draw huge crowds, and a rabble-rousing speech from the likes of

2R. G. Gammage, The History of the Chartist Movement (London, 1854), p. 24.


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to the press should not be overlooked. Vincent combined his speaking with his writing for

and publishing of The Western Vindicator. Julian Harney would use the expertise gained on

the platform to help him become editor of the Northern Star and produce the Red

Republican, and in doing so become one of the most prominent figures of later Chartism.

This analysis of the experience of key individuals has clearly demonstrated the links

between the Mass Platform and the Chartist press.

The impact of the Mass Platform and these orators was important. The personal style of

orators and the methods which they used to articulate their intense political feelings

helped touch a chord with the ordinary working class man who might attend a meeting. By

looking through reports within Chartist newspapers we can try to understand the

excitement and power of a Chartist meeting. An example is of a meeting in Liverpool, with

Feargus OConnor in attendance. The description in The Northern Star evokes the

atmosphere, by stating that the venue of the Queens Theatre was crowded in every part,

boxes, gallery, pit and stage, to suffocation., and that OConnor was received with loud

and enthusiastic applause, which lasted for several minutes.6This atmosphere is reflected

in other reports of other meetings in other newspapers; the public Chartist meeting was a

vibrant and exciting event, due in no small part to the orators and the skill of their rhetoric.

While the press can be seen as being the political and organisational bedrock of Chartism,

the Mass Platform and Chartist meetings can be equally seen as being the social fabric of

the movement. This was where direct political discourse took place, and where the masses

of the movement could liaise with the intellectual heart of Chartism, and where the

foundations of the national petitions could be discussed.

Therefore we have seen just how important the Mass Platform was to Chartism. It provided

its most famous and influential commentators a voice, and it gave supporters a social base.

6The Northern Star, 19 May 1838, p. 8.


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As Ashton has shown, the role of oratory increased the membership in the National Charter

Association (N.C.A.) rapidly, and in a way that could not have been achieved by the printed

word alone.7It is for these reasons that Chartist journalists used their experience of the

platform to instruct their writing. It is the convergence of the powers of the platform of

those of the press which created the literary strength of Chartist journalism. By using

rhetorical methods found on the platform, and techniques such as punctuation for

emphasis and other stylistic flourishes, journalists could increase the appeal of oratory to

those who were not at the meetings or did not attend the rallies. For all the success of the

oratory platform, they could never reach the same audience of a stamped newspaper such

as the Northern Star. While the Northern Star could expect a circulation of 35,000 plus

each week, and public meetings varied between 10,000 and 200,000, the geographic reach

was where the Star and other papers found their strength.8While a meeting in Manchester

drew large numbers, it could not supply the provinces with the same efficacy as a press

network. In addition to this was regularity of readers for the papers. Public meetings

typically drew most numbers during periods of high Chartist activity, and as such their

occurrence is patchy. Papers such as the Northern Star could rely on a much more regular

audience through the course of a year, building up a solid relationship with a core

readership. Therefore we can see a reason for the style of oratory journalism which

developed. It was an attempt to expand the reach of platform speeches, increase the

effectiveness of rhetoric, and to better engage with the Chartist public. It is now necessary

then, to show just how we can tell it existed, and ultimately attempt to explain the impact

of this technique.

Oratory journalism was based on the fact that many newspaper articles were read aloud.

The reading clubs of the 1830s had highly popularised the idea of reading aloud a

7

Ashton, Orators and Oratory in the Chartist Movement, p. 54,Thompson, The Chartists, p. 69.8James Epstein, Feargus OConnor and the Northern Star, p.97; Sunday Observer, 16

thApril 1848 p.

1.


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contemporary book or paper, with the unstamped press providing radical reading material.

The practice was encouraged in new industrial towns and cities through these reading

clubs. In the political and social maelstrom of Chartism this practice drew into sharper

focus. Prominent Chartists were aware of the significance of the practice. William Lovett,

who was not an orator nor did he approve of the OConnor brand of Chartism, nevertheless

wrote about the reading aloud of newspapers. In the political pamphlet titled: CHARTISM:

a new organisation of the people, Lovett described what may be the ideal format for a

public reading, emphasising the communal experience.9He also noted in his autobiography

the set-up at his co-operative store in Greville Street:

One of the rooms was set-up as a conversation room, so as to separate the talkers from

the readers. I took in what was at that time was considered a large supply of

newspapers and periodicals... The conversation room was well attended of an evening,

in which debates were held, and classes, critical readings and recitations carried on by

the young men who attended.10

The formative experience of attending Lovetts evening sessions was noted by some of

those young men who attended such readings. Daniel Merrick, the Leicester based

working-class spokesman, noted in his memoir that the Northern Starwould often be read

aloud after dinner, and then the matter contained within it would form the discussions for

the evening.11

W.E. Adams noted in his memoir of the moment the Star was delivered, and

the reading aloud of its sacredtext formed an important part of life as a Chartist and

radical.12

So we can see that from first-hand accounts that the reading aloud of Chartist

papers was considered common practice, in this case the Star formed part of political

discussions and was treated with reverence. This reverence comes in part due to the

9William Lovett and John Collins, CHARTISM: A new organisation of the people (London, 1840).

10

William Lovett, The Life and Struggles of William Lovett (London, 1876), p. 71.11Daniel Merrick, The Warp of Life (Leicester, 1876), pp. 1-8, 12-15.

12W. E. Adams, Memoirs of a Social Atom(London, 1968)


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communal spirit of reading it aloud. The reading of the newspaper was not an individual

act, but a social one, based on these accounts.

The scale of this practice has been noted by historians. When estimating the real circulation

of Chartist literature, many have placed a caveat on all figures; such was the effect of the

reading aloud of newspapers. Haywood argued that during its peak, the Northern Star may

have sold as many as 50,000 to 60,000 copies a week, with collective reading habits

accounting for the possibility that actual consumption may well have been into six figures.13

Curran and Seaton also discuss this issue, stating:

Sharing of high-cost papers, together with the widespread practice of reading

practice of reading papers aloud for the benefit of the semi-illiterate and illiterate,

resulted in a very high number of readers for each newspapers sold.14

Epstein echoes this when addressing reading habits of Chartists, noting how radicals

combined to have copies read aloud at home.15

Therefore, we can be confident that the

intended audience of Chartist journals and newspapers was not primarily an individual

(though of course some individual readers would have existed), wishing to keep abreast of

Chartist activity. Instead, the picture that emerges is one of a vibrant communal

atmosphere, predicated on the dissemination of political ideas via the open discussion of

newspapers. The fostering of what Haywood describes as an alternative public sphere was

highly dependent on the practice of reading newspapers aloud and for those whom the

literacy boom of the 1830s did not encourage to learn to read, it was vital.16

While literacy

rates generally improved between 1800 and 1850, there remained areas where illiteracy

remained stagnant or indeed fell. This will be discussed in greater detail later, but it is


14James Curran and Jean Seaton, Power Without Responsibility: Press and Broadcasting in Britain,

Fifth Edition (London, 1985) p. 1415James Epstein, The Lion of Freedom (Beckenham, 1982) p. 68.

16Haywood, The Revolution in Popular Literature, p. 143.


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suffice to say that for some illiteracy was still a problem, and for these people the ability to

hear newspapers being read meant an increased audience for Chartist journalists. Along

with the use of drama and imagery which will be discussed later, the practice of reading

aloud widened the scope of platform oratory politics.

An aspect that must be broached here is the issue of gender with Chartist readership.

While the description above of young men attending reading rooms may indicate a

primarily masculine audience, there remains a possibility that women may make up a

proportion of those hearing the words of the Chartist press. The role of women in Chartism

was not insignificant, and so it stands to reason that they would have been interested in

the Chartist press. When looking at literacy levels however, this does not initially seem the

case. W.B. Stephens indicated that when looking at brides and grooms in official marriage

records, it is the grooms which primarily are the more literate.17

This reflects on overall

levels of literacy, regardless of geographic location; women regularly fall behind men with

regard to reading and writing. This much said, it does not mean that women can be

excluded from an imagined audience of the Chartist press. The boom in womens

newspapers in the later nineteenth century may indicate that women were in fact in the

early stages of a literary awakening during this time.18

Regardless of this, there a few

factors which indicate the Chartist press may have also counted women among its

audience. As will be discussed later, women regularly contributed both in letter and report

form towards newspapers.19In addition to this, women set up an estimated 150 Female

Chartist Associations between 1838 and 1852.20

One can safely assume that the discussions

these associations would have hosted would have been predicated on the language and

17W.B. Stephens, Education, Literacy and Society 1830-1870: The Geography of Diversity in

Provincial England (Manchester, 1987), pp. 9-12.18

Barbara Onslow, Preaching to the Ladies: Florence Fenwick Miller and her Readers in the

Illustrated London News (Basingstoke, 2005), pp. 1-3.19Jutta Schwarzkopf, Women in the Chartist Movement (London, 1991), pp. 196-197.

20Schwarzkopf, Women in the Chartist Movement, p. 199.


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rhetoric of the Chartist press. In addition, lower levels of literacy meant that amongst

women, the oratory style and the practice of reading aloud would have been even more

significant. It opened up the world of radical journalism to a gender hitherto excluded, if

not by active disassociation then at least excluded via educational shortcomings. Therefore,

when discussing the audience of oratory journalism, we should take into account the

unique effect it had upon the women of Chartism.

The oral discussion of radical literature enabled in a very real way the transference of the

platform to everyday arenas, such as Lovetts conversation room, public houses, womens

associations and working class homes. It is now necessary to analyse directly the ways in

which Chartist journalists facilitated the reading aloud of their newspapers, and the

methods adopted to ensure the rhetoric of the platform could be interpreted on the page.

An analysis of editorials and