Was Chartism an inevitable failure?

1. Was Chartism an inevitable failure? • “The Chartists were doomed to failure even before the final form of their Charter was drafted” A. Briggs • “The historian of Chartism… can hardly fail to be saddened by the extraordinary feebleness of the greatest of all the mass movements of British labour”E. J Hobsbawm

2. Was Chartism an inevitable failure? • After 1848 – According to J. K. Walton in ‘Chartism’, economic explanations carrying weight in determining in its failure; “railway building and expanding world markets helped to stabilize the early industrial economy, depressions bit less deep and real wages began to rise more convincingly”

3. “Working people had shown that they could organise a movement for themselves, and this experience of self-help, working class culture and fellowship provided a foundation for the building of the Labour movement…. • These were small rewards for the optimism and commitment of those who had marched for the Charter.” H. Martin

4. Divisions in the Working Class contributing to the inevitable failure of Chartism? • Walton – Rise of “a new kind of ‘labour aristocracy’ of the skilled and the secure, with its own institutions and a stake in the system, for whom the Charter began to seem an irrelevance” • “Fierce opposition to Irish Catholics whose numbers increased considerably and controversially in the wake of the potato famine after 1846”

5. “Expected to batter down prejudice with petitions says more about their naivety than their understanding of the reality.” • No chance of House of Commons support of the Charter. • Why should the Middle Class support Chartists? • Effective handling by both Whig and Tory Governments – prison sentences in most cases “relatively short, to avoid creating martyrs” H. Martin – Britain in the 19th Century

6. A powerful force that resulted in an increased awareness of social issues and created a framework for future working-class organisations. • Mark Hovell - from The Chartist Movement • Despite apparent failure, Chartism had a part of its own in the growth of modern democracy and industrialism." • Edward Royle – Chartism “The Chartists’ greatest achievement was Chartism, a movement shot through not with despair but with hope.” Raising ‘The Condition of England Question’

7. Successes of Chartism – feel free to disagree – from a PhD student • At the time, it gave a much-needed and severe shock to the established order. • It made the extent of the 'Condition of England Question' clear to the government and the middle class. • It improved working-class morale • It provided excitement and a sense of community and purpose. • It showed the more intelligent leaders the necessary, contemporary methods of agitation and indicated the importance of middle-class support. • It provided the prototype for later working-class movements by demonstrating the importance of a working-class voice: intelligent, ordered, and philosophical. • It marked the rise of class-consciousness. • It showed the necessity for action in response to the conditions and limitations of the social system for the worker. • It is too easy to dismiss Chartism for its failure - but it is important to set it in its mid-19th century context. • It enabled the working class to learn from its mistakes. They needed a self-generated leadership for success (TUs; Keir Hardie etc.)

8. “To use a hazardous comparison then, it can be said that the Chartist movement resembles a prelude which contains in an undeveloped form the musical theme of the whole opera. In this sense the British working class can and must see in Chartism not only its past but also its future...” Leon Trotsky writing in 1926 http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=10341