Chartists and the Struggle for the Vote

Some ideas and resources for Key stages 3 or 4

Overview
This topic helps pupils to see the long struggle which has gone into achieving the right to
vote for all adults in this country and should therefore help them to appreciate the value of
the vote which they will have when they are older. The picture sources here in particular are
useful for exercises in the interpretation of images, looking at the motivation of people who
produce cartoons and drawings and the techniques they have for trying to influence the
people who see their work.

Questions
Look at the cartoon (Source 5). What words would you use to describe the people on the
left of the door and the people on the right? Who do you think each group could be? What
are the people on the left hoping for? What are the people on the right afraid of? What is
the cartoonist’s view of the situation – with which side does the cartoonist sympathise?
(Some knowledge of the 1832 Reform Act would be needed to appreciate the cartoon fully.)

Look at the drawing of the procession which is carrying the petition (Source 7). Does the
artist want us to think of the marchers as troublemakers or as peaceful, respectable people?
Explain your answer.

Look at the table from the ‘Chartist Circular’ (Source 4). The final column shows the number
of people who could vote in each county and the second column from the right shows how
many Members of Parliament (MPs) there were for that county. Find a county which
seemed to have fewer voters/MPs than it should have for the number of people in that
county. Then find a county which has more voters/MPs than it should have compared to its
population. What can this table tell us about the voting system at the time?

The Chartists fought for ‘Universal Suffrage’, but only meant male suffrage, rather than
universally everyone. How do the sources below show this?

Other Activities and Cross-Curricular Links

Pupils could produce images which could be held up during the speeches (Sources 3 & 8) to
reinforce the messages in the speeches. For example, there could be pictures of starving
children alongside well fed dogs and horses.

©Working Class Movement Library. www.wcml.org.uk.

Modify the drawing of the procession (Source 7) to change the view of the people who are
marching. Pupils could, for example, add weapons to the hands of the marchers, make the
words on the banners more provocative or make their clothing look less respectable. This
could be done by adding things to a copy of the picture or by doing their own separate (and
simpler) version.

While looking at the table from the ‘Chartist Circular’ (Source 4), ask pupils what they could
find out from it. Pupils could use mathematics to help interpret the information into
statistics and draw conclusions, to give a clearer picture of voting rights in 1841:

-Given the total population, what percentage of people could vote for the laws by which
everyone was governed by?

-Look at a county. What was the percentage of people allowed to vote in this area?

-What percentage of the population in this area was male / female?

-If all men were given the vote, what percentage of the population would be voting?

-If all men were given the vote, what would be the percentage increase on the existing
number eligible to vote?

-Choose 3 counties. What was the average number of people living in each house across
these counties?

Sources 3, 6 and 8 could be seen as ‘Persuasive’ texts. How do the speakers / writers try to
persuade and influence their audience? What choices of words, phrases and language help them
deliver their message? 

©Working Class Movement Library. www.wcml.org.uk.

 Source 1

©Working Class Movement Library, Salford. www.wcml.org.uk.

Extracts from ‘The Struggle for Democracy’, held at the library, published by Cadbury Brothers Ltd, 1944.
 Source 2

©Working Class Movement Library, Salford. www.wcml.org.uk.

Extracts from ‘The Struggle for Democracy’, held at the library, published by Cadbury Brothers Ltd, 1944.
Source 3

Extracts from a speech as quoted in the Northern Star,

February 9th 1839.

“My friends, we demand Universal Suffrage because it is our

right, because we believe it will bring freedom to our
country, and happiness to our homesteads; we believe it will
give us bread, and beef and beer.

We are for Peace, Law and Order, but we must have justice
–we must have our rights speedily; peaceably if we can –
forcibly if we must.

The want of Universal Suffrage has enabled our oppressors

so long to ride rough-shod over us –the want has allowed
the horrors of the factory system so long to continue –that
bloody system, deforming the bodies and debaunching the
minds of our children.

Until I have the right to vote, I consider myself a slave. I

have not the power to vote for the men who make laws,
who press me into the military and marines, and who make
the laws by which food is taxed. And so long as they possess
the power to make these laws without my consent, I shall
consider myself a political slave.

I want the poor man to be paid for his labour, to enable

him to sit by the fireside comfortably, I do not want to see
the children half famished, but to see them fed as well as the
dogs and horses of the Aristocracy.

I mean to tell the government and the Aristocracy that they

should not amass fortunes out of the sweat and blood of the
poor- that the poor should no longer be starved to supply
their luxuries.”

©Working Class Movement Library, Salford. www.wcml.org.uk.

Extracts from the Northern Star, 9th February, 1839.

 Source 4

*County Members shows the number of people to be elected to represent the county in parliament.
* Register’d County Electors shows the number of people allowed to vote for their county representative.
©Working Class Movement Library, Salford. www.wcml.org.uk.
Edited extract from The English Chartist Circular, No.47 1841.
Source 5

©Working Class Movement Library, Salford. www.wcml.org.uk.

Source 6

A PUBLIC MEETING will be held on KERSAL

MOOR, on the TWENTY FIFTH of MAY, 1839, for the
purpose of taking into consideration the best means of
obtaining the PEOPLE’S CHARTER.

MEN OF SOUTH LANCASHIRE!

You are hereby called upon once more to come forth

in your myriads, to show that you will no longer
tamely submit to the arrogant and withering Rule
which has so long disgraced this beautiful Land of
Promise, poisoning and impairing the energy of its
industrious and overburdened Population; -that you
are determined to be free; that you are ready to lay
down your Lives to purchase Liberty, as an inheritance
to your children.

Come then, under the motto of “Peace, Law and

Order,” and demonstrate to the World that British
Freedom must be something more than a name –that
it must be really seen and felt, enjoyed, and
appreciated by you who have so long groaned and
suffered depriving you of every natural right of
Citizenship.

Prepare, and make the 25th of May,

In Liberty’s era a grand and glorious day.

©Working Class Movement Library, Salford. www.wcml.org.uk.

Extract from the Northern Star, 18th May 1839.

Source 7

©Working Class Movement Library, Salford. www.wcml.org.uk.

 This source is available to
Source 8 listen to. Check
www.wcml.org.uk/learning
Extracts from a speech as quoted in the Northern Star,
February 9th 1839.

Address of the Female Political Union of Newcastle­Upon

­Tyne, to their fellow country women.

“Fellow Country-women, -We call upon you to join us and help our
fathers, husbands, and brothers to free themselves and us from political,
physical and mental slavery, and urge the following reasons as an
answer to our enemies.

Is it not true that the interests of our fathers, husbands and brothers
ought to be ours? If they are oppressed and impoverished, do we not
share those evils with them?

We have seen that because the husband’s earnings could not support
his family, the wife has been compelled to leave her home neglected
and, with her infant children, work at a soul and body degrading toil.

We have learnt from bitter experience that slavery is not confined to

colour or clime, and that even in England cruel oppression reigns. We
are a despised caste; our oppressors are not content with despising our
feelings, but demand the control of our thoughts and wants! We are
oppressed because we are poor.

Our husbands are over worked, our houses half furnished, our families
ill-fed, and our children un-educated. The fear of want hangs over our
heads; the scorn of the rich is pointed towards us, the brand of slavery
is upon on us and we feel the degradation.

We have searched and found that the cause of these evils is the
governments of the country being in the hands of a few of the upper
and middle classes. The working men who form the millions, the
strength and wealth of the country are left without the pale of the
constitution, their wishes never consulted, and their interests sacrificed.

For these evils there is no remedy but allowing every citizen of the
United Kingdom the right to vote for the members of parliament, who
make the laws that he is governed by and grant the taxes he has to pay.
-In other words, to pass the people’s charter into a law, and emancipate
the white slaves of England.

This is what the working men of Britain are struggling for, and we
have banded ourselves together in union to assist them; we call on all
our fellow countrywomen to join us. ”

©Working Class Movement Library, Salford. www.wcml.org.uk.

Extracts from the Northern Star, 9th February, 1839.