‘Resolved in defiance of fool and of knave’: children in Chartism

Malcolm Chase

With a frequency unique among Victorian political movements, Chartism placed children and youth at the forefront of its conflict against forces opposed to reform. Neither historians of Chartism nor childhood have, however, given much thought to this phenomenon. The occasional practice of dedicated Chartists naming their children after prominent figures in the movement is routinely noted in studies of Chartism. All too often, historians have allowed the humorous aspects of this practice to deflect attention from the substance of what it meant to grow up in a Chartist household, perpetuating a view of children within Chartism as essentially passive objects, serving only to signify the political convictions of their parents.

My paper explores the implications of the stress placed by Chartism on the integrity of the family in the face of the destructive forces of industrialisation. This was a recurrent theme in Chartist rhetoric. It inevitably placed children at the heart of the social reforms for which the movement strived; and in turn it meant their physical presence was a central feature of many Chartist activities. The participation of children in Chartist demonstrations was everywhere apparent and, even, demanded by the movement’s leaders. The addition of children’s names to Chartist petitions was done not clandestinely, in order to boost the number of signatures, but openly. It is debatable whether the Chartists ever truly believed that petitioning would succeed. Rather, it had a totemic significance as the righteous expression of a people’s will and the people in this context was frequently construed to include children of all ages.

No other Victorian social movement posed so extensive or searching questions to the social or political establishment of its day than did Chartism. A more-rounded appreciation of the role of children within it helps us to understand more fully the political work that issues of gender and patriarchy undertook within the movement. The involvement of children often stemmed from the initiative of their parents, but there is sufficient evidence to suggest that in many cases it could be autonomous and even spontaneous. Children’s participation reflected Chartist notions of active citizenship, a concept that (although with increasingly emphatic gender distinction) embraced both males and females, and – although less typically – their overt politicisation. Chartism itself privileged childhood through its emphasis upon a particular version of the domestic ideal and the integrity of the working-class family in the face of the corrosive effects of industrialism. As a social institution, families lay at the heart of Chartist rhetoric. The family and childhood were not merely among those things male Chartists mobilised to defend: they were themselves primary locations of Chartist conflict against the economic, social and political establishment of the period.