James Whateley and the Survival of Chartism

by Stephen Roberts

Overview

What happened to the Chartists after the movement was over? Many local spokesmen in fact remained prominent figures in their communities - and carried the principles they had fought for in the 1840s into their later careers. This book tells the stories of two such men who became, respectively, a town councillor and a minister in Birmingham. James Whateley spoke up for working men in the council chamber. He called for polling hours to be extended into the evenings to increase working class participation; and he campaigned on behalf of postmen who made up to eight deliveries a day and who, faced with few letter boxes, had to wait for each door to be opened. Charles Clarke, from his pulpit, inspired members of his congregation to enter local politics and improve their town - six of them became mayors - and campaigned for free, compulsory, secular schooling for working class children. The book is illustrated with twelve contemporary cartoons and photographs.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781983503030
Publisher:	CreateSpace Publishing
Publication date:	01/07/2018
Series:	Birmingham Biographies
Pages:	70
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.15(d)

About the Author

Stephen Roberts is an Honorary Lecturer at the Research School of Humanities and the Arts in the Australian National University and an Honorary Fellow of the Shakespeare Institute in the University of Birmingham. He is the author of nine books and the editor of a further nine, amongst them The Chartist Prisoners (2008), The Parliamentary Career of Charles de Laet Waldo Sibthorp 1826-1855 (2010) and The Dignity of Chartism: Essays by Dorothy Thompson (2015).