Feargus O'Connor
Encyclopedia
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
Chartist
Chartism
Chartism was a movement for political and social reform in the United Kingdom during the mid-19th century, between 1838 and 1859. It takes its name from the People's Charter of 1838. Chartism was possibly the first mass working class labour movement in the world...
leader and advocate of the Land Plan.
Background
Feargus O'Connor was born into a prominent IrishIrish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
Protestant family, the son of Irish Nationalist politician Roger O'Connor (1762–1834). They claimed to be the descendants of the late Independent King of Ireland or perhaps King of Connaught, Roderick O'Connor, Rory O'Connor
Rory O'Connor
Rory O'Connor may refer to:* Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair, , king of Connacht and High King of Ireland* Rory O'Connor , an Irish Republican of the 1920s, who fought in the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War...
, Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair
Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair
Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair , often anglicised Rory O'Connor, reigned as King of Connacht from 1156 to 1186, and from 1166 to 1198 was the last High King before the Norman invasion of Ireland .Ruaidrí was one of over twenty sons of King...
, (1116 - succeeds to his father Turlogh O'Connor, Toirdelbach Ua Conchobair, Turlough Mor O'Connor, the High King of Ireland
High King of Ireland
The High Kings of Ireland were sometimes historical and sometimes legendary figures who had, or who are claimed to have had, lordship over the whole of Ireland. Medieval and early modern Irish literature portrays an almost unbroken sequence of High Kings, ruling from Tara over a hierarchy of...
, in 1156 - deposed 1186 - Cong Abbey
Cong Abbey
Cong Abbey is a historic site located at Cong, on the borders of counties Galway and Mayo, in Ireland's province of Connacht. Founded in the early 7th century, by Saint Feichin, the abbey was destroyed by fire in the early 12th century. Turlough Mor O’Connor, the High King of Ireland, refounded the...
, 1198).
He was also the nephew of Arthur O'Connor (1763- General with Napoleon, 1804 - Permanently exiled 1807 - 1852), Member of the Irish Parliament between 1791 and 1795, (abolished by the British Government in 1798), the agent in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
for Robert Emmet
Robert Emmet
Robert Emmet was an Irish nationalist and Republican, orator and rebel leader born in Dublin, Ireland...
's rebellion; both of whom were famous for belonging to the United Irishmen.
His elder brother Francis
Francisco Burdett O'Connor
Francisco Burdett O'Connor was an officer in the Irish Legion of Simón Bolívar's army in Venezuela. He later became chief of staff to Antonio José de Sucre and minister of war in Bolivia....
, (June 1791 - October 1870) became a general in Simon Bolivar
Simón Bolívar
Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Yeiter, commonly known as Simón Bolívar was a Venezuelan military and political leader...
's army of liberation in South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
.
Much of his early life was spent on his family's estates in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin , formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I as the "mother of a university", Extracts from Letters Patent of Elizabeth I, 1592: "...we...found and...
, where he studied law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
before inheriting an estate from his uncle in 1820. During the 1830s he emerged as an advocate for Irish rights and democratic political reform as a notable critic of the English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
Whig
British Whig Party
The Whigs were a party in the Parliament of England, Parliament of Great Britain, and Parliament of the United Kingdom, who contested power with the rival Tories from the 1680s to the 1850s. The Whigs' origin lay in constitutional monarchism and opposition to absolute rule...
government's policies on Ireland.
Political career
In 1832, he was elected to the British House of CommonsBritish House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
as Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
for County Cork, but was disqualified in 1835 because he failed to satisfy the property requirement for MP
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
s.
Radicalism & Chartism
In newspaper, the Northern StarNorthern Star (chartist newspaper)
The Northern Star and Leeds General Advertiser was a chartist newspaper published in the United Kingdom between 1837 and 1852.-Foundation:Feargus O'Connor, a former Irish MP forging a career in English radical politics, decided to establish a weekly newspaper in 1837...
, based in Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
, (Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
), and workeonnor being the Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
representative of the London Working Men's Association
London Working Men's Association
The London Working Men's Association was an organization established in London in 1836. It was one of the foundations of Chartism. The founders were William Lovett, Francis Place and Henry Hetherington. They appealed to skilled workers rather than the mass of unskilled factory labourers...
, (LWMA).
He was 18 months in prison because an article published there in 1840 as told below.
He was a leading figure in Chartism
Chartism
Chartism was a movement for political and social reform in the United Kingdom during the mid-19th century, between 1838 and 1859. It takes its name from the People's Charter of 1838. Chartism was possibly the first mass working class labour movement in the world...
. For years he travelled the country giving meetings, and was one of the movement's most popular orators. Many chartists named their children after him. He was at various points arrested, tried and imprisoned for his views, and also involved in quite bitter internal struggles within the movement.
When the first wave of Chartism
Chartism
Chartism was a movement for political and social reform in the United Kingdom during the mid-19th century, between 1838 and 1859. It takes its name from the People's Charter of 1838. Chartism was possibly the first mass working class labour movement in the world...
ebbed he founded the Chartist Cooperative Land Company in 1845. The Land Company aimed to buy large agricultural estates in order to sub-divide the land into smallholding
Smallholding
A smallholding is a farm of small size.In third world countries, smallholdings are usually farms supporting a single family with a mixture of cash crops and subsistence farming. As a country becomes more affluent and farming practices become more efficient, smallholdings may persist as a legacy of...
s which could be let to individuals.
Unfortunately the scheme as it had been established was illegal (the impossibility of ALL the subscribers to the company acquiring one of the plots effectively meant it was a lottery) and the company was declared illegal in 1851.
When Chartism again gained momentum he was elected , 1847, MP
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
for Nottingham
Nottingham (UK Parliament constituency)
Nottingham was a parliamentary borough in Nottinghamshire, which elected two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons from 1295. In 1885 the constituency was abolished and the city of Nottingham divided into three single-member constituencies....
and organised the Chartist
Chartism
Chartism was a movement for political and social reform in the United Kingdom during the mid-19th century, between 1838 and 1859. It takes its name from the People's Charter of 1838. Chartism was possibly the first mass working class labour movement in the world...
meeting on Kennington Common, London, in 1848.
O'Connor never married, but according to his biographers had a succession of affairs and fathered several illegitimate children, including Edward O'Connor Terry
Edward O'Connor Terry
Edward O'Connor Terry , English actor, who became one of the most influential actors and comedians of the Victorian era.-Life and career:...
, later to become the celebrated music hall artist and theatre owner.
In 1852, O'Connor visited the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
On his return, he insulted lawyer fellow lawyer Sir Edmund Beckett Denison
Edmund Beckett, 1st Baron Grimthorpe
Edmund Beckett, 1st Baron Grimthorpe, Q.C. , known previously as Sir Edmund Beckett, 5th Baronet and Edmund Beckett Denison was a lawyer, horologist, and architect...
, QC, MP, (who later became the 1st Baron Grimthorpe in 1886), best known as a designer of clocks, the inventor of the gravity escapement which is used in turret clocks.
Member of the Parliament Feargus O'Connor was then certified a lunatic
Lunatic
"Lunatic" is a commonly used term for a person who is mentally ill, dangerous, foolish, unpredictable; a condition once called lunacy. The word derives from lunaticus meaning "of the moon" or "moonstruck".-Lunar hypothesis:...
, and therefore, as not unusual in Victorian times, he was committed to an asylum in Chiswick
Chiswick
Chiswick is a large suburb of west London, England and part of the London Borough of Hounslow. It is located on a meander of the River Thames, west of Charing Cross and is one of 35 major centres identified in the London Plan. It was historically an ancient parish in the county of Middlesex, with...
, where he died 3 years later, in 1855, aged 61.
Most of the early historians of Chartism
Chartism
Chartism was a movement for political and social reform in the United Kingdom during the mid-19th century, between 1838 and 1859. It takes its name from the People's Charter of 1838. Chartism was possibly the first mass working class labour movement in the world...
were quite negative about his role. In recent years, however, there has been a trend to reassess him in a more favorable light.
The Lion of Freedom is come from his den;
We'll rally around him, again and again;
We'll crown him with laurel, our champion to be:
O'Connor the patriot: for sweet Liberty!
from Lion of Freedom, a Chartist Chant by Feargus O'Connor
Introduction
No history of the British Chartist movement of the early 19th Century is complete without consideration of the strongest of its leaders. Though he had not been involved in the drafting of the People's CharterPeople's Charter
People's Charter may refer to:* People's Charter of 1838 in the United Kingdom* People's Charter for Change, Peace and Progress in Fiji* The People's Charter A political movement in the United Kingdom...
, Feargus O'Connor had agitated for the points embodied in the Charter long before it was actually drafted.
As early as 1835 O'Connor agitated in factory areas for the "Five Cardinal Points of Radicalism," which were five of the six points later embodied in the People's Charter
People's Charter
People's Charter may refer to:* People's Charter of 1838 in the United Kingdom* People's Charter for Change, Peace and Progress in Fiji* The People's Charter A political movement in the United Kingdom...
.
See: http://chartists.net/The-six-points.htm
Even earlier than this, in 1833, he spoke before working organizations advocating the five points.
However, he was not one of the more thoughtful and intelligent leaders in the movement. He was a leader not much given to careful consideration; he was inclined more to action. It can be said with little doubt that had O'Connor and the revolutionists who worked with him not been in the movement, the drafters of the Charter could not long have retained the support of the workers. The Chartist movement would have found only a small space in history books.
On the other hand, O'Connor was loved and worshiped by millions, hated by many, but despised by few. Sooner or later he had a bitter quarrel with almost every other leader of the movement, but those in the movement who knew him only as a speaker and a writer had no quarrel with him.
Early life
Feargus O'Connor the best loved and most hated of all the leaders of the Chartist movement was born 18 July 1794 in Connorville, County CorkCounty Cork
County Cork is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and is also part of the province of Munster. It is named after the city of Cork . Cork County Council is the local authority for the county...
, Ireland. He was the son of the famous Irish Nationalist Roger O'Connor.
Little is known of his early life, and what is known comes to us from O'Connor himself. His tales should not be taken too seriously for he was never known for accuracy.
He was educated mainly at Portarlington Grammar School. He had some elementary schooling in England but this is known only from his references to adventures there. After some trials at work he ran away with his brother, and encountered various adventures in England and Ireland. Later, he was financed on a farm in Ireland by Francis Burdett, who was a friend of his father, but he could not make a go of it. Soon he was dealing in horses in a small way but finally gave it up to enter Trinity College in Dublin to become a barrister. He took no degree, but he was called to the Irish bar about 1820.
Since he had to take an oath of allegiance to become a member of the bar, his father disinherited him because he regarded it as inconsistent with the dignity of a descendent of the Kings of Ireland.
If there were any important permanent influences on O'Connor they most probably were the colorful and rebellious adventures of his father, Roger (who was a member of the United Irish), and the tales of his ancestry. He never tired of telling those about him of his descendency.
His first known public speech was made in 1822 at Enniskene, County Cork, at which time he denounced the iniquities of the landlords and the Protestant clergy. During that year he composed a pamphlet entitled "State of Ireland." As far as is known he had taken no part in politics until this year.
Around this time, it was said, he was a member of the Whiteboys
Whiteboys
The Whiteboys were a secret Irish agrarian organization in 18th-century Ireland which used violent tactics to defend tenant farmer land rights for subsistence farming...
(an anti-Anglican organisation), received wounds in a fight with the King's soldiers and, after fleeing to London to escape arrest, attempted to eke out a living by writing. He produced five manuscripts at this time, but none were ever published. It appears that he had little literary ability.
In 1831 he agitated for the Reform Bill in Cork
County Cork
County Cork is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and is also part of the province of Munster. It is named after the city of Cork . Cork County Council is the local authority for the county...
and, after its passage in 1832, he traveled about the county organising registration of the new electorate. His success in this work brought him before the people as a Repealer candidate in opposition to a Whig whom he defeated.
The Irish M.P.
Feargus O'Connor came into Parliament as a follower of MP Daniel O'ConnellDaniel O'Connell
Daniel O'Connell Daniel O'Connell Daniel O'Connell (6 August 1775 – 15 May 1847; often referred to as The Liberator, or The Emancipator, was an Irish political leader in the first half of the 19th century...
. His speeches during this time were devoted mainly to the Irish question. He was described as active, bustling, violent, a ready speaker, and the model of an Irish patriot, but he did nothing, suggested nothing, and found fault with everything. He always voted with the radicals; he voted for tax on property, for Attwood's motion for an inquiry into the conditions that prevailed in England, and supported Ashley's Factory Bill.
Soon he quarreled with O'Connell, repudiating him for his practice of yielding to the Whigs, and came out in favor of a more aggressive Repeal policy.
In the general election of 1835 he was reelected, but disqualified from being seated because he lacked property qualifications. However, it appears that he did have property valued at £300 a year.
Off on a new venture, O'Connor next planned to raise a volunteer brigade for the Queen of Spain, but soon forgot this when William Cobbett
William Cobbett
William Cobbett was an English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist, who was born in Farnham, Surrey. He believed that reforming Parliament and abolishing the rotten boroughs would help to end the poverty of farm labourers, and he attacked the borough-mongers, sinecurists and "tax-eaters" relentlessly...
died in April 1835. He decided to run for the vacated seat. He lost, but his candidacy weakened the strength of John Cobbett, (son of William), enough to allow the Tory candidate to win.
O'Connor and the New Poor Law
As early as 1833, while M. P. for Cork, O'Connor had delivered an address to the National Union of the Working Classes, a political society of London workingmen, in which he expressed radical sentiments and made strong attacks on the Whigs. At the same time he had fought the New Poor Law Bill in Parliament with Cobbett and a handful of Radicals and Tories. Thus his next move, after his defeat for Cobbett's place in the House of Commons, followed logically from these earlier agitations.O'Connor began to spend a large part of his time traveling through the northern and midland districts, addressing huge meetings, denouncing the New Poor Law, and advocating the "Five Cardinal Points of Radicalism". He had decided that the best centers for popular agitation were the northern factory districts. It was there that the Poor Law Guardians began to enforce administration of the Poor Law.
Thus, it was the ideal area to conduct his crusade against the law, since what the main body of workers wanted was higher wages, shorter hours, better factory conditions, more assured employment, and release from the Poor Law tyranny. They were not just interested in the vote as such.
Speaking to the uneducated workers, O'Connor was a typical demagogue, today described as "populists". His speeches were full of absurdities and seditious talk flavored with comic similes and anecdotes. He immediately became popular with the working class in England despite its "insane" hatred of the Irish. But, though he was a demagogue, neither the "cunning nor the ferocity usually ascribed to demagogues was present" in his makeup. Even at the height of violence he maintained a good natured expression on his face as though he expected all would be done in good humour and fair play.
His fine physique was to his advantage when he spoke to workingmen, as he was over six feet, muscular and massive, the "model of a Phoenician Hercules". His head was large and round, with fair hair and eyebrows, large protruding eyes, and capacious mouth. He radiated an air of command that inspired an unexplainable fear in his listeners.
The ease with which he could handle his audiences and give out with denunciations is demonstrated in the following comment made by him when he was hissed by some wealthy listeners in Sunderland:
Yes — you — I was just coming to you, when I was describing the materials of which our spurious aristocracy is composed. You gentlemen belong to the big-bellied, little brained, numskull aristocracy. How dare you hiss me, you contemptible set of platter faced, amphibious politicians? . . . Now was it not indecent of you? Was it not foolish of you? Was it not ignorant of you to hiss me? If you interrupt me again, I'll bundle you out of the room.
Very often, though, his statements were incoherent and loaded not unlike many politicians much later:
I am one of those who from experience has learned that consideration of foreign interests has been forced upon us by neglect of our domestic resources: and I believe that overgrown taxation for the support of idlers and the unrestricted gambling speculations upon labour, applied to an undefined and unstable system of production without regard to demand, is the great evil under which manual labourers are suffering.
To O'Connor industrialism was just a great ugly beast that roused a desire for reaction in him. But it was this quality that for a time heightened his appeal. This reaction exhibited itself in his call for a return to the "good old days" of spade husbandry. His Land Plan, which is covered later, was an attempt to bring about this return.
Along with his agitation against the New Poor Law O'Connor revealed his hate of machinery:
This act was framed by Lord BroughamHenry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and VauxHenry Peter Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux was a British statesman who became Lord Chancellor of Great Britain.As a young lawyer in Scotland Brougham helped to found the Edinburgh Review in 1802 and contributed many articles to it. He went to London, and was called to the English bar in...
, as the champion of the middle classes, who were most strongly represented by the steam producers, and it was framed purposely with a view to seduce those into a delusive market who would have risen in their might and annihilated any government that dared thus violate their trust by the commission of wholesale plunder, had it not been for the safe retreat promised to the abandoned in the artificial market. It is the nature of man to use all means to better his situation, and the poor countryman who gave up his house and home under the compulsion of the Poor Law Amendment Act, in the hope of going to a permanent situation, was unconscious in the "hey-day" of manual labor, as then applied to infant machinery, that each improvement in the one would be a nail in the coffin of the other. Estates were cleared of willing immigrants seduced by the spirit of the moment, and when anticipation had failed, they then framed the stringent rules under which the hellish law had placed them, when they sought for an asylum in the parish of their fathers. Had it not been for machinery, the Poor Law Amendment Act never would have passed — nay, never would have been ventured upon, because the whole force of popular indignation would have been directed against the general plunder, while opposition was much mitigated in consequence of the casual provision which machinery offered as a substitute; thus has the Poor Law Amendment Act been another direct effect upon machinery.
Machinery opens a fictitious, unsettled, and unwholesome market for labor, leaving to the employer complete and entire control over wages and employment. As machinery becomes improved, manual labor is dispensed with, and the dismissed constitute a surplus population of unemployed, system-made paupers, which makes a reserve for the masters to fall back upon as a means of reducing the price of labor. It makes character valueless. By the application of fictitious money, it overruns the world with produce, and makes labor a drug. It entices the agricultural laborer, under false pretenses, from the natural and wholesome market, and locates him in an unhealthy atmosphere, where human beings herd together like swine. It destroys the value of real capital in the market, and is capable of affecting every trade, business, and interest, though apparently wholly unconnected with its ramifications. It creates a class of tyrants and a class of slaves. Its vast connection with banks, and all the moneyed interests of the country, gives to it an unjust, injurious, anomalous, and direct influence over the government of the country.
Lord Chancellor Brougham, the father of the New Poor Law, was a firm believer in the wisdom of Malthus, and frankly stated that the Law was designed to prevent unlimited increase in population. O'Connor held nothing but contempt for him and displayed it openly:
Harry [Brougham] said they wished no poor law as every young man ought to lay up provision for old age; yet, while he said this with one side of his mouth, he was screwing the other side to get his retiring pension raised from £4,000 to £5,000 a year. But if the people had their rights they would not pay his salary. Harry would go to the treasury, he would knock, but Cerberus would not open the door, he would say "Who is there?," and then luckless Harry would answer, "It is an exchancellor coming for his £1,250 a quarter's salary"; but Cerberus would say, "There have been a dozen of ye here to-day already, and there is nothing for ye." Then Harry would cry, "Oh! what will become of me! What shall I do!" and Cerberus would say, "Go into the Bastile that you have provided for the people!" Then when Lord Harry and Lady Harry went into the Bastile, the keeper would say, "This is your ward to the right, and this, my lady, is your ward to the left; we are Malthusians here, and are afraid you would breed, therefore you must keep asunder." If he witnessed such a scene as this he might have some pity for Lady Brougham, but little pity would be due to Lord Harry.
In 1837 O'Connor and George Julian Harney
George Julian Harney
George Julian Harney was a British political activist, journalist, and Chartist leader. He was also associated with Marxism, socialism, and universal suffrage.-Early life:...
founded the London Democratic Association
London Democratic Association
The East London Democratic Association was founded in January 1837 by George Julian Harney in opposition to the LWMA, later supported by James Bronterre O'Brien and Feargus O'Connor. In April 1838 ELDA was reconstituted as the London Democratic Association with an eight point resolution covering...
, which appealed to the "unshaven chin, blistered hands, and fustian jackets" for membership as a counterbalance to the previously founded London Working Men's Association
London Working Men's Association
The London Working Men's Association was an organization established in London in 1836. It was one of the foundations of Chartism. The founders were William Lovett, Francis Place and Henry Hetherington. They appealed to skilled workers rather than the mass of unskilled factory labourers...
which O'Connor claimed consisted of skilled mechanics.
The association's objects, besides universal suffrage, included agitation for liberty of the press, repeal of the Poor Law, eight-hour work day, and prohibition of child labor.
The voice of the organization was the Northern Star
Northern Star (chartist newspaper)
The Northern Star and Leeds General Advertiser was a chartist newspaper published in the United Kingdom between 1837 and 1852.-Foundation:Feargus O'Connor, a former Irish MP forging a career in English radical politics, decided to establish a weekly newspaper in 1837...
, which first appeared on 18 November 1837 in Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
. It met with immediate success. In fact, it became so successful, that at the peak of Chartist strength it had a circulation of 50,000, most copies of which were read by many people since they were placed in taverns and such public houses.
Its editor was William Hill
William Hill
-People:*William Hill *William Hill , British colonial Proprietary Governor of the Province of Avalon, Newfoundland*William Hill...
, an Owen
Owen
Owen may also refer to:-Places:Australia* Owen, South Australia, a small townUnited States* Owen, Indiana* Owen, Wisconsin* Owen County, Indiana* Owen County, KentuckyGermany* Owen, Germany, a town in Baden-Württemberg-Vessels:...
Socialist and former Unitarian Church
Unitarianism
Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....
minister; Joshua Hobson
Joshua Hobson
Joshua Hobson was a British Chartist and socialist who was the first publisher of the Book of Murder, a pamphlet attacking the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act...
, another Owenite, was printer and manager; and Bronterre O'Brien, former editor of the Poor Man's Guardian, became the principal leader-writer.
Thus it can be seen that the Star began not as a Chartist organ but as an expression of working class protest against the Poor Law
Poor Law
The English Poor Laws were a system of poor relief which existed in England and Wales that developed out of late-medieval and Tudor-era laws before being codified in 1587–98...
and demands for factory reform.
It advocated, when it became an organ of Chartism, the Chartist demands primarily as a means to these ends. O'Connor wrote of "a means of insuring a fair day's wages for a fair day's work, which, after all is the aim and end of the People's Charter."
When the London Working Men's Association drafted the Charter, the London Democratic Association consolidated with other radical working men's associations and officially took up the Charter, but O'Connor and the Star were not ready to accept the political leadership of the London Working Men's Association. He knew that the workers wanted something more immediate than political education.
Therefore, he gave speeches filled with what they wanted to hear and became the "constant traveling, dominant leader of the movement" from the first, and his paper practically became the official organ of Chartism.
Physical Force vs. Moral Force
The number and length of the speeches delivered by O'Connor during the next ten years were extraordinary, and from the beginning he was attacked by William LovettWilliam Lovett
William Lovett was a British activist who was a leader of the political movement Chartism as well as one of the leading London-based Artisan Radicals of his generation....
and other leaders of the London Working Men's Association
London Working Men's Association
The London Working Men's Association was an organization established in London in 1836. It was one of the foundations of Chartism. The founders were William Lovett, Francis Place and Henry Hetherington. They appealed to skilled workers rather than the mass of unskilled factory labourers...
. He answered them with charges that they did not really have the labourer's cause at heart.
When the Chartist convention assembled in London on 4 February 1839, O'Connor became the dominant force from the beginning. Despite the attempt of Lovett and others to confine the meetings to a gathering of peace, O'Connor used words that threatened violence upon the heads of those who resisted acceptance of the Charter though he claimed to want to try peaceful means first.
This caused a split of the delegation and leadership of the convention into those who favored forceful means and those who would only work for the Charter through peaceful channels. O'Connor called for cessation of political action on behalf of the Charter at the end of Michaelmas. On this question of moral and physical force he said:
I have always been a man of peace. I have always denounced the man who strove to tamper with an oppressed people by any appeal to physical force. I have always said that moral force was the degree of deliberation in each man's mind which told him when submission was a duty or resistance not a crime; and that a true application of moral force would effect every change, but in case it should fail, physical force would come to its aid like an electric shock — and no man could prevent it; but that he who advised or attempted to marshal it would be the first to desert it at the moment of danger. God forbid that I should wish to see my country plunged into horrors of physical revolution. I wish her to win her liberties by peaceful means alone.
This vacillation must have been one thing that weakened his position with the inner circle of revolutionaries of the movement, for he was distrusted even by them. In addition, he did not seem prepared to gamble. He knew that if he could not frighten the governing classes into surrender, he could not win in an armed insurrection. Strangely enough, however, he never faced this fact until the prospect of an armed rising was an immediate possibility. He never had the foresight to see where he was heading until he was almost there, and never crossed a river until he came to it.
When the Chartist petition with 1,283,000 signatures was rejected by parliament, tension grew between the starving workers and the authorities. A few clashes resulted, and culminated in the Newport rising
Newport Rising
The Newport Rising was the last large-scale armed rebellion against authority in mainland Britain, when on 4 November 1839, somewhere between 1,000 and 5,000 Chartist sympathisers, including many coal-miners, most with home-made arms, led by John Frost, marched on the town of Newport,...
, the purpose of which was to release a favored leader, Henry Vincent
Henry Vincent
Henry Vincent was active in the formation of early Working Men's Associations in Britain, a popular Chartist leader, brilliant and gifted public orator, prospective but ultimately unsuccessful Victorian MP, and later an anti-slavery campaigner.- Early life :Henry Vincent was born in High Holborn,...
, from prison. Evidence points to the fact that O'Connor was ignorant of the event, but he was tried with the others involved for seditious libel and was found guilty.
A sentence of eighteen months in York Castle
York Castle
York Castle in the city of York, England, is a fortified complex comprising, over the last nine centuries, a sequence of castles, prisons, law courts and other buildings on the south side of the River Foss. The now-ruinous keep of the medieval Norman castle is sometimes referred to as Clifford's...
was passed on him in May 1840. He was always one to take advantage of any event to inflate his reputation and so, in his farewell message, he completely neglected the activities of the other leaders of the movement when he said:
Before we part, let us commune fairly together. See how I met you, what I found you, how I part from you, and what I leave you. I found you a weak and unconnected party, having to grace the triumphs of the Whigs. I found you weak as the mountain heather bending before the gentle breeze. I am leaving you strong as the oak that stands the raging storms. I found you knowing your country but on the map. I leave you with its position engraven upon your hearts. I found you split up into local sections. I have leveled all those pigmy fences and thrown you into an imperial union...
While in prison O'Connor continued to write for the Northern Star
Northern Star (chartist newspaper)
The Northern Star and Leeds General Advertiser was a chartist newspaper published in the United Kingdom between 1837 and 1852.-Foundation:Feargus O'Connor, a former Irish MP forging a career in English radical politics, decided to establish a weekly newspaper in 1837...
, probably by smuggling his articles out, and was thus able to keep the Chartists, who rallied around him, united.
After his release on 30 August 1841, we see his ascendency to absolute personal supremacy in the movement. Earlier, Thomas Attwood and his followers had left the movement because they were keenly opposed to attainment of the Charter by any means other than legislative. It was not long before Lovett's group also was out of the movement.
As soon as he was released, O'Connor started out on a great speaking tour. He received great ovations, and his speeches were almost entirely vituperations against the other leaders of the movement who disagreed with him. The group led by Lovett felt that the workers were too weak to attain the Charter, therefore it was for enlisting the aid of middle class reformers. This raised the heat of O'Connor's attacks and soon he succeeded in driving Lovett and the rest of the "moral force" elements out of the movement.
Any of the leaders of the movement who worked closely with O'Connor at the start finally found themselves at odds with him. One week he would have nothing but the highest complements to pay to a man, and the next he would be pouring vituperations upon him.
A convention of the newly formed National Charter Association was held in order to draw up a new petition that was finally signed by 3,315,752 persons. The petition was denied a hearing, which added strength to the "physical force" elements since it became apparent that any number of signatures would not change Parliament's mind.
The Anti - Corn Law League
From its inception the Anti - Corn Law League continually vied with the Chartists for the support of the workers. The appeal of the League was popular with the workers since bread was high, and it claimed that repeal would cause the price to drop, but three factors were important in resisting exodus from the Chartist movement to the League:- Argument that without the Charter a repeal of the Corn Law would be of little use;
- Distrust by the masses of anything favored by the employers;
- Fear that free trade would cause wages to drop still lower and would ultimately give greater power to the manufacturers
This last point was stressed by O'Connor. He made bitting attacks on the Anti - Corn Law League in attempts to strengthen the Chartist movement. Thomas Cooper, a Chartist leader, revealed in his autobiography that "it was a part of Chartist policy, in many towns, to disturb Corn Law repeal meetings". When hope of Corn Law repeal was strengthened by statements of PM Robert Peel
Robert Peel
Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet was a British Conservative statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 December 1834 to 8 April 1835, and again from 30 August 1841 to 29 June 1846...
, many Chartists left the movement for the League. Discouraged with the slow progress and declining strength of Chartism, O'Connor soon turned to an idea of land parceling that he had developed earlier.
The National Land Company
- Main article: National Land CompanyNational Land CompanyThe National Land Company was founded as the Chartist Cooperative Land Company in 1845 by the chartist Feargus O'Connor to help working class people satisfy the landholding requirement to gain a vote in county seats in Great Britain. It was wound up by Act of Parliament by 1851.-Chartism:The...
While he was in prison, O'Connor had written a series of letters for the Northern Star under the heading "Letters to the Irish Landlords" in which he advocated a scheme of peasant proprietorship. Even before this, in 1835, he had moved in Parliament for a bill:
to compel landlords to make leases of their land in perpetuity — that is, to give to the tenant a lease for ever, at a corn rent; to take away the power of distraining for rent; and in all cases where land was held upon lease and was too dear, that the tenant in such cases should have the power of empaneling a jury to assess the real value in the same manner as the crown has the power of making an individual sell property required for what is called public works or conveniences according to the evaluation of a jury.
He felt that the "law of primogeniture is the eldest son of class legislation upon corruption by idleness". However, at the same time, he was opposed to socialism:
I have ever been, and I think I ever shall be opposed to the principles of communism, as advocated by several theorists. I am, nevertheless, a strong advocate of cooperation, which means legitimate exchange, and which circumstances would compel individuals to adopt, to the extent that communism would be beneficial. I have generally found that the strongest advocates of communism are the most lazy members of society, — a class who would make a division of labor, adjudging to the most pliant and submissive the lion's share of work, and contending that their natural implement was the brain, whilst that of the credulous was the spade, the plough, the sledge and the pickaxe. Communism either destroys wholesome emulation and competition, or else it fixes too high a price upon distinction, and must eventually end in the worst description of despotism . . . whilst, upon the other hand, individual possession and co-operation of labor creates a wholesome bond between all classes of society.
O'Connor declared that Great Britain could support her own population if her lands were properly cultivated. As has been pointed out, he had no use for cooperative tillage; his plan was for peasant proprietorship. In his book 'A Practical Work on the Management of Small Farms' he set forth his plan of resettling surplus factory workers on little holdings of from one to 4 acres (16,187.4 m²). He held that the only possible way to raise wages was to remove surplus labor out of the manufacturers' reach, and thus compel him to offer higher wages. He had no doubts of the yields obtainable under such spade-husbandry.
A stock company in which working men could purchase land on the open market was proposed by him. The land was to be reconditioned, broken up into small plots, equipped with appropriate farm buildings and a cottage, and the new proprietor was to be given a small sum of money with which to buy stock.
There were obvious defects in O'Connor's land plan that he either did not see or consider important. Consideration was not given to the difficulty that would be encountered by town people, many who had never lived in the country, in becoming farmers. In addition, if his plan worked, the more land he bought the higher would become the price of future purchases. His plan was built upon the assumptions that land could be bought in unlimited quantities and at reasonable rates, and that all subscribers would be successful farmers who would repay promptly. In addition, few persons would have agreed with his optimistic calculations that prosperous farming could be carried on on such small scale and with the primitive methods that he advocated.
His plan to push the Charter in the background in favor of his land plan caused a storm in the movement. But on 24 October 1846 the Chartist Cooperative Land Company, later known as the National Land Company, came into being after three years of preparation. A total of £112,100 was received in subscriptions, and with this six small estates were purchased and divided into smaller parcels. In May 1847 the first of the estates was opened with ceremony at Herringsgate, renamed O'Connorsville. Of the development, O'Connor's assistant, Ernest Jones, wrote:
See there the cottage, labour's own abode,
The pleasant doorway on the cheerful road,
The airy floor, the roof from storms secure,
The merry fireside and the shelter sure,
And, dearest charm of all, the grateful soil,
That bears its produce for the hands that toil.
Money came in at a remarkable rate, considering the poverty of most of the subscribers. The subscribers who got the land were chosen by ballot. They were to pay back with interest and ultimately all subscribers would be settled. The Labourer magazine was started by O'Connor and Jones to promote the project. Soon hundreds of households were settled, and an outcry of opposition went up from hostile Chartists, the press, the Poor Law authorities who feared the weight of their failures, and other quarters.
Among the working men the prestige of Chartism was growing again. The land plan offered more immediate promise of help than the Charter with its long-range promises. O'Connor's carelessness and inaccuracy with financial matters, as well as the free hand he had in purchasing land as he saw fit, were inherent weaknesses in the administration of the scheme. The plan would have soon collapsed had he not been an able promoter.
In the same year O'Connor ran for parliament again and won over Hobhouse
Hobhouse
Hobhouse is a rare English surname, generally belonging to members of a family originally from Somerset. Those currently with this surname are members of several branches of this patronymic that achieved prominence from the 18th century...
for the Nottingham
Nottingham
Nottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...
seat. When he had taken his seat he proposed in The Labourer that the government take over the National Land Company
National Land Company
The National Land Company was founded as the Chartist Cooperative Land Company in 1845 by the chartist Feargus O'Connor to help working class people satisfy the landholding requirement to gain a vote in county seats in Great Britain. It was wound up by Act of Parliament by 1851.-Chartism:The...
to resettle the English peasantry on a large scale. His opposition within the Chartist movement accused him of being "no longer a 'five point' Chartist but a 'five acre' Chartist." O'Connor replied to his critics in an appearance before a mass meeting of his partisans in Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
. His followers demonstrated at this meeting how devoted they were to him.
When O'Connor's mismanagement began to take its toll, and the new farmers were having difficulties making a living, Parliament ordered an investigation.
In the meantime, in April 1848, a new petition was produced with about 6 million signatures, but an investigating committee in Parliament found that it contained not quite 2 million bonafide signatures. This came as a shock to O'Connor since his lieutenants had not let him know that all was not in order.
Shortly after, on 6 June 1848, the result of the House of Common investigation was released. It was found that the National Land Company was an illegal scheme that would not fulfill the expectations held out to the shareholders and that the books had been imperfectly kept; in fact, O'Connor had lost by the company. The land plan was thus ended and the strength of the Chartist movement declined rapidly.
These events so affected O'Connor that he steadily underwent a mental deterioration. He took to drinking more and more.
Finally, in July 1849, the House of Commons voted on the Chartist petition and rejected it by 222 votes to 17. This was a considerable decline from the 46 and 49 votes, respectively, received for the two previous petitions. In 1850 O'Connor once more made a motion in favor of the Charter, but would not be heard.
O'Connor was soon quarreling with all his old standby aides such as Ernest Jones
Ernest Charles Jones
Ernest Charles Jones , was an English poet, novelist, and Chartist.- Background :Born in Berlin, he was the son of a British Army Major, equerry to the Duke of Cumberland, afterwards King of Hanover. In 1838 Jones came to England, and in 1841 published anonymously The Wood Spirit, a romantic novel....
and Julian Harney. The Star's circulation dropped and it began losing money. His actions became more and more those of a person in mental straits. When he was involved in a scene in 1852 in the House of Commons with MP Becket Denison, he was removed by the Sergeant at arms, pronounced insane, and sent to Dr. Thomas Harrington Tuke's private asylum at Chiswick
Chiswick
Chiswick is a large suburb of west London, England and part of the London Borough of Hounslow. It is located on a meander of the River Thames, west of Charing Cross and is one of 35 major centres identified in the London Plan. It was historically an ancient parish in the county of Middlesex, with...
, where he remained until 1854.
His nephew, against doctors' advice, took him at this time to his sister's house at Notting Hill
Notting Hill
Notting Hill is an area in London, England, close to the north-western corner of Kensington Gardens, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea...
, and here he died penniless and insane on 30 August 1855. A public burial was held at Kensal Green
Kensal Green
Kensal Green, also referred to as Kensal Rise is an area of London, England. It is located on the southern edge of the London Borough of Brent and borders the City of Westminster to the East and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea to the South....
on 10 September 1855, and 50,000 people attended. Most Chartists preferred to remember his virtues rather than his faults.
Conclusion
O'Connor had one fatal defect: his ideas were such a jumble that he could formulate no consistent policy. Among the jumble there did seem to be a consistent belief that he held throughout his days. He believed in a sort of democracy contingent upon a happy state of peasant tillage, a state in which each man was his own master and had his own land to work. He hated oppression, and was truly sympathetic for the conditions of the Irish peasant who was ground down by absentee landlordship. In addition, he was very conscious of the vain struggle going on against the might of the machine and of the plight of the workers involved.Because of this he was looked upon by the wretched and oppressed all over England as a friend, and they continued to forgive and love him whatever he did amiss. With Chartism in ruin and his land scheme tumbling about him, he never lost his popularity, in spite of the fact that thousands had lost their money on the project.
His agrarian plan had offered the worker hope of escape back to the blessed country of his childhood or of his parents' tales, away from the Malthusian Bastile, and in support of it he was ready to give his every pence.
Lovett, the drafter of the Charter, felt nothing but disgust for O'Connor, and considered him the arch misleader of the people. From the first O'Connor was observed to be the type of gentleman adventurer that the drafter of the Charter wanted to keep out of the movement. Lovett had called him "the great 'I am' of politics"; Bronterre O'Brien nicknamed him "the dictator"; Leeds MP Roebuck
Roebuck
Roebuck may refer to:* male Roe Deer, a type of deerPeople* Alvah C. Roebuck , American businessman and co-founder of Sears, Roebuck and Company* Henry Disney Roebuck, builder of Midford Castle in 1775...
called him "a cowardly and malignant demagogue,""a rogue and a liar"; Francis Place
Francis Place
Francis Place was an English social reformer.-Early career and influence:Born in the debtor's prison which his father oversaw near Drury Lane, Place was schooled for ten years before being apprenticed to a leather-breeches maker. At eighteen he was an independent journeyman, and in 1790 was...
said of him that he would use every means he could to lead and mislead the working people.
These statements are as one-sided as they are unfair. He was a leader who possessed great power of reading the minds of the people and of designing his plans of action according to the conditions and circumstances. He was a large hearted person whom George Holyoake
George Holyoake
George Jacob Holyoake , English secularist and co-operator, was born in Birmingham, England. He coined the term "secularism" in 1851 and the term "jingoism" in 1878.-Owenism:...
characterized as "the most impetuous and most patient of all tribunes who ever led the English Chartists."
Most historians have followed the leaders of the movement in judging O'Connor harshly. If the Chartist movement had been a winning movement, he might have been judged differently and have been called a shrewd strategist, but he was in the position of leading a movement that did not succeed in its time. The aims of the Charter were things that were to come only gradually.
Who strove for the patriots — was up night and day
To save them from falling to tyrants a prey?
Twas fearless O'Connor was diligent then:
We'll rally around him, again and again.
from Lion of Freedom