Chartism, a movement in Great Britain for the extension of political power to the working-classes, rising out of widespread national distress and popular disappointment with the results of the Reform Bill of 1832. Before that period the middle classes had sought popular aid towards obtaining their own enfranchisement. The assistance was given, the people expecting to receive help in their turn. After the passing of the Reform Bill, agitation ceased for a time, and the members returned to parliament were indifferent, or opposed, to any further change in the political arrangements of the country. The middle classes were satisfied with their own success, and generally looked with small favour on projects for the further extension of political influence among the masses. Lord John Russell especially deprecated further change as a breach of faith with those who had carried the Reform Bill of 1832. This political discontent on the part of the workmen was greatly increased by the misery due to failing harvests and to a season of commercial depression which set in about 1837. Food became dear, wages fell, factories were closed, and work was scarce. The people associated their sufferings with their want of direct influence upon the government, and agitation for an extended franchise began.
In 1838 the representatives of the working-men drew up a programme embodying their views on political reform, and called the 'People's Charter.' Its six 'points' were: (1) Manhood suffrage; (2) equal electoral districts; (3) vote by ballot; (4) annual parliaments; (5) abolition of property qualification for members of the House of Commons; and (6) payment of members of parliament for their services. The programme thus drawn up was received with enthusiasm. Immense meetings, attended by enormous crowds of people, were held all over the country. The most prominent leader of the Chartist agitation was Feargus O'Connor, an Irishman, whose paper the Northern Star had a circulation of 50,000. Others were Attwood, Lovett, Stephens, Vincent, Ernest Jones, and Thomas Cooper. The mass of the working-men in the industrial centres supported the movement; and while many of them exclusively advocated an appeal to moral force, a great number insisted on violent methods. A body calling itself the National Convention, elected by the Chartists throughout the kingdom, met in London and afterwards in Birmingham in 1839. It proposed to the people various means of coercing the legislature into submission, recommending, among other things, a run on the savings-banks for gold, abstinence from excisable articles, exclusive dealing, and in the last resort, universal cessation from labour. During its sittings a collision took place with the military in Birmingham. Public meetings were forbidden, and alarming excesses were committed by the irritated mob. In June 1839 a petition in favour of the Charter was presented to the House of Commons signed by 1,280,000 persons. The House refused to name a day for its consideration, by a majority of 237 to 148, and the National Convention retaliated by advising the people to cease from work throughout the country. Fortunately, this advice was not followed; but the disturbances increased, and in November an outbreak at Newport, in Monmouthshire, took place, which resulted in the death of ten persons and the wounding of great numbers. For taking part in this wild insurrection, three of its leaders were sentenced to death, but their punishment was afterwards commuted to transportation. In 1842 great riots took place in the northern and midland districts, not directly originated by the Chartists, but encouraged and aided by them after the disturbances began. It is a strong proof of the revolutionary spirit which animated the Chartists, that they opposed the agitation for the Repeal of the Corn Laws as a measure likely to make food cheap, to keep wages down, and thereby to benefit only the middle classes. In 1848 the Chartist movement came to a head through the agitation consequent on the revolution in France. Great uneasiness prevailed, especially at many of the industrial centres, and risings were feared. But the greatest demonstration of the movement took place in London, where a gigantic meeting on Kennington Common was announced for the 10th of April. It was to be attended by half a million of men, who were to carry to parliament a petition for reform signed by six million names. Such rumours excited great alarm. The procession was forbidden. Military measures were taken by the Duke of Wellington to prevent violence, and about 200,000 special constables were enrolled (amongst whom was Louis Napoleon, afterwards emperor). After all this preparation the demonstration proved a failure. Only 50,000 gathered on Kennington Common, and their leaders shrank from a conflict with the authorities. On examining the monster petition it was found that the signatures were fictitious to an unheard-of extent, yet the genuine ones amounted to nearly two millions.
Since 1848 Chartism has gradually died out. Its political principles were not new. The Duke of Richmond in 1780 introduced a bill into the House of Lords to give universal suffrage and annual parliaments, and earlier than this John Cartwright (q.v.) had advocated earnestly not only these but also vote by ballot. In 1780 Charles James Fox declared himself in favour of the identical six points which were afterwards included in the Charter. And in 1792 Grey, Erskine, Mackintosh, and many others, formed a 'Society of Friends of the People,' which aimed at obtaining a very large extension of the franchise.
But while the political side of Chartism was the most prominent, it should be recognised that the essence of it was economic and social. As one of its leaders said, it was a 'knife and fork question.' The movement was primarily due to economic suffering, and many of the remedies proposed were strongly socialistic in tendency. The reviving and increasing prosperity of the country after the collapse of Chartism in 1848 effectually prevented a return of the same spirit of discontent. This prosperity was due not only to the Repeal of the Corn Laws, but to the great industrial and colonial expansion of Britain which took a fresh start about the same time. Through the Reform Bills of 1867 and 1885, and the Ballot Act of 1872, the most important demands of the Charter have been substantially conceded. Industrial prosperity and political reform, with the development of trades-unions and of the co-operative system, have worked a decided change in the position of the working-classes as contrasted with their wretched lot in the period about 1840. See the articles on COOPER and O'CONNOR; Cooper's Life, written by Himself; Carlyle's Chartism; Kingsley's Alton Locke; Walpole's History of England; and R. G. Gammage's History of the Chartist Movement (1894).