Essay on The Emergence of the Chartist Movement

forced to work harder to make a living. Often times, the work the lower classmen are forced to

The Poor Law The Poor Law was a system established since the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, about two hundred years before the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834. In this system the able-bodied poor should be set to work, whilst the others had to be provided for by their parish of birth. By 1795 when the whole system was under strain, an attempted solution was the Speenhamland system also know as the allowance system that was devised in 1795.

Between 1450 and 1700, attitudes toward the European poor changed dynamically, roughly following a three-part cycle. In the late 1400's, the poor were regarded with sympathy and compassion; generous aid from both public and religious institutions was common. By the 16th Century, however, the poor were treated with suspicion and harsh measures, to ensure that they were not becoming lazy, using welfare as a substitute for labor. Beginning in the 17th Century, the attitudes toward the poor again shifted, returning to more sympathetic views and responses, though many members of the upper-class still retained the negative outlook on the destitute of the 16th Century.

The Working class that made up around 80% of society had little or no bargaining power with their employers resulting in the continuation of unfair working hours, bad wages, and unsanitary and hazardous working conditions. The workers could not even fight for their rights in the political system as only the rich were eligible to vote.

Over the last century health and social care has changed and developed immensely with the implementation of the NHS and becoming a welfare state. Prior to this health care was only available to a minority of people, those who could afford it. In 1815 the old poor law was passed, it stated that each parish must look after its own poor and those who could not work were provided enough money to help them survive. By 1830 the poor law cost around £7 million, which came from taxing the middle and upper class, causing a sense of resentment towards lower class, unemployed people. In 1834 the new poor law was passed, its aim was to reduce the cost of looking after the poor. Workhouses helped with this, they provided clothes, food and healthcare in return for manual labour. Despite

People in authority tend to disregard those who and that which does not benefit them, since the poor did not seem to benefit anybody, people in authority found them useless. For instance, Emperor Charles V wrote an imperial decree for the Netherlands in 1531, where he stated that alms should not be given freely to the Europeans living in poverty, in doing so not only does he believe they will fall into idleness but he thinks they will take advantage of this and live their lives based off of alms, and that it will soon lead to all evils (document 2). He states that “beggars and their children will abandon their trade or occupation for a wicked and contemptible life… above all those who are poor and sick, and other indigents unable to earn

This act set up local 'parishes' that were responsible for taking care of the poor in their own district. However, the government provided no funds to facilitate this program?the parishes were responsible for levying and collecting taxes to finance their programs. Though it would be considered a very primitive form of welfare by today?s standards, it was a large step toward government-mediated welfare compared to the English system 250 years before that. In 1349, Parliament forbade charity on the grounds that it might encourage laziness. Since then, public attitudes have changed about the responsibility of the citizens and the government to provide for the assistance of the needy. Limited federal assistance was given to war veterans and their families beginning during the Civil War, but large scale assistance to the general needy community was not available for almost 75 more years (Komisar 48). A large contribution toward the assistance of the poor in the United States came during the Progressive movement around the turn of the century. Activist groups championed not only workers rights in the form of unions, but also the right of every citizen to have access to decent living conditions (Komisar 67).

Although disillusioned to the cause of the strike action Wilson still attempted to pull together an act that would limit the pull of the trade unions, and through Barbara Castle’s optimistically titled “in place of strife” it appeared that they may prevail against the vigilante controlling of the government; through relatively mild controls on their ability to resort to strike action. The act had popular support in the country as many people did not want to see their country being run by the trade unions. However inside the labour party the bill met much opposition and even with a majority of 100 it was clear that the bill would not get passed; the majority reason for which being that many labour party members believed, that with the economy in the state it was in, and the failure of the party to meet the measures promised in the manifesto, the working class were the last people they wanted to alienate, if they wished to run for re-election. In being too week at the time that the government needed to enforce stern measures they were humiliated by their leader having to slump back to the trade unions to sign a “solemn and

Before the “Age of Jackson”, voting was only permitted to white property owning males and taxpayers; however, during the 1820-1830’s, most states extended the voting requirements to now include factory workers, artisans, laborers, and non-landowners or major taxpayers. The arguments used to recruit voters to help expand suffrage to the “common man”, or to recruit voters to help maintain the same voting system, during the “Age of Jackson” are debated throughout documents one through six and provide viable evidence to support each side.

The Poor Law act 1601 was introduced and classified the poor into three groups, setting policies for each, the impotent poor, able bodied poor and persistent idler. It viewed poverty as the fault of the person, not their situation. Following industrialisation and a decrease in agricultural jobs, workers moved to factories working for low pay and in appalling conditions, but those needing employment outweighed the availability of such.

Even though the Stamp Act aroused vehement resistance and although most colonists continued to accept the authority of the British Parliament in respect of regulating their trades, “they insisted that only their representative assemblies could levy direct, internal taxes, such as the one imposed by the Stamp Act” (“STAMP ACT”, n.d.). But their plea was actually overlooked by the British government which argued that “all British subjects enjoyed virtual representation in Parliament, even if they could not vote for members of Parliament” (“STAMP ACT”, n.d.). Looking at the failure of the moderates in forcing the British government to reconsider the taxation process, the radicals started hinting on extreme measures for repealing the Stamp Act. It is to be noted that “These radical voices warned that the tax was part of a gradual plot to deprive the colonists of their freedoms and to enslave them beneath a tyrannical regime” (“STAMP ACT”, n.d.). But still there were opponents to such radicals but such opposition failed to resist the tide of extreme resistances that would change the face of American politics

Lovett pursued in increasing emphasis on educating the working population whilst increasing trade union activity and support for the Anti Corn Law League (Brown, 2000, p195), whereas O’Connor pursued the Chartist Land Plan by purchasing land through shares, he had ideas to relocate the working class to ease the unemployment situation and give the settlers freedom and self-respect (Murphy et al, 1997, p120). As depression hit all the major industrial areas leading to high masses of unemployment, this provoked O’Connor into action again who at this time was elected as MP for Nottingham; he drew up plans for the relaunch of a national convention and the presentation of a new petition to Parliament (Murphy et al, 1997, p118), however the authorities were uneasy with the Chartist’s plans to present a third petition, there were fears that the revolutions sweeping across Europe would affect Britain and they knew that some Chartists were in touch with European radicals. In addition the Chartists hijacked a middle class radical meeting to abolish income tax which resulted in police intervention and three days of rioting, although the crimes were committed by non-chartists the chartists were classed as being responsible by association (Brown, 2000,

Prior to the Poor Law Amendment Act there was the Elizabethan Poor Law 1601 which was more generous towards the poor. It was becoming impossible for the government to sustain this law due to the growing costs. Statistics show that in 1802 the expenditure on poor relief was costing the government £4,078,000, this figure continued to

The Poor Law was introduced because it was too much money to pay to look after the poor, so in hopes to take the poor off the streets and to stop money going to the poor the government introduced the law in 1834. The law was also put in place to embolden the poor to get back into work and support themselves, There was a law before 1834 called the "Old Poor Law" this was found to be insufficient because there was nothing in place to help the poor because even though they set up workhouses for the poor they didn't offer accommodation for the poor. There was an act passed in 1795 called "The Speenhamland System" which allowed employers to pay their workers exceptionally low wages during these years the middle and the upper classes were getting more angry because they were the ones paying for the poor who would avoid not going to or do any work.

While politically, the working class doesn’t satisfy with the 1832 Reform Act and several later Acts, which they heavily support