O'Connor, FEARGUS EDWARD

O'Connor, FEARGUS EDWARD, Chartist, was born in 1794, and was educated at Portarlington and Trinity College, Dublin. He was called to the Irish bar, and entered parliament for Cork in 1832. At first a supporter of O'Connell, he became estranged from his leader, and devoted himself to the cause of the working-classes in England. His great stature and strength, his eloquence and enthusiasm, gave him vast popularity as a leader, and by his paper, the Leeds Northern Star (1837), he did much to advance the cause of Chartism. Elected for Nottingham in 1847, he presented the monster petition in the April of the following year. In 1852 he was found to be hopelessly insane, and in 1855 he died.