The Dignity of Chartism by Dorothy Thompson

Author:Dorothy Thompson [Thompson, Dorothy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Verso
Published: 2015-05-01T05:00:00+00:00

James Stansfeld, a student with Chartist sympathies, wrote from Halifax after the Newport Rising of 3–4 November ‘that secret organization was going on to a great extent I knew before as far as this neighbourhood was concerned. It was known here (among the Chartists alone, of course) when the attack was to have been made; if successful a similar movement would have been attempted here.’ Reports from magistrates in Halifax give some idea of the confusion that followed the failure of the Newport Rising. A letter written a week later to the military authorities reports:

There is a large meeting room in this town used by the Chartists … Last Sunday evening my informant went out of curiosity and got admittance and stayed there about three hours. Fifty persons or thereabouts were present, mostly strangers with a few townspeople … From the expressions of the speakers, their idea is to ‘go to work’ (meaning an outbreak for the purpose of plunder) and to do it in a better fashion than it had been done in Wales, where they consider it to have been sadly mismanaged. It was also said that they might as well fight ‘to death’ as be starved ‘to death’ … Their plan as respects this town appears to be that one of the out-townships (Ovenden, which is the worst of them) is to send its force to join friends here, and the others are to march to Bradford.45

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