Radical Tiverton

Tiverton Chartists (Continued)

2005-12-31T06:40:00.000-08:00

More thoughts: Apparently Rowcliffe was elected to the (Presumably Town) Council in 1848, I am going to try and find out what position he attained, and how long he remained a Councillor, and if any other Chartists joined him in getting elected.

There must have been some kind of Chartist group, it would be interesting to know where they met and how many there were in attendance. They may still have been meeting when the Gazette started publication, although the movement was already much reduced by then.

It surprises me that the Tiverton Museum, who have a special educational website called 'Virtual Victorians' make nothing at all of this Mass movement which had huge popular support in the Town. I will try and get them more interested in the subject, I believe it's an important part if Tiverton's History, and therefore one that needs more acknowledgement.

Chartist Tiverton

2005-07-19T04:21:00.000-07:00

The Chartists were a radical group of self-organised workers and artisans in 19th Century Britain, who put forward a 'peoples charter' to change the Country. You can look up more information about them generally on the web.

In Tiverton the Chartist movement was very strong, it grew on the back of the movements that went before it in the Town and the strong tradition of working class self-organisation which had started with the non-conformists, as well as the woolcombers and the weavers.

At the height of the movement in the 1840's, the Chartists stood a Parliamentary Candidate in Tiverton against Palmerston, the well know Chartist leader George Julian Harney.

Tiverton's leading Chartist at that time was one William Rowcliffe, who was a Butcher and nominated Harney as Parliamentary Candidate. Other Chartists mentioned by name in various publications are:

Mr Burgess - Shoemaker, seconder of Harney in the Poll.
Mr Norman - Draper, Put Harney up at his house in Fore Street, Harney spoke from his window.
Henry Land - Employee of Heathcoat's, Prospect Place, was a representative of O'Connor's 'Land Company'
T M Wheeler - Delegate from Exeter & Tiverton to 1851 Chartist Convention in London.
Mr Wilkinson - Ex-Mayor of Exeter – who spoke in support of Harney during his campaign in Tiverton.

I would be very interested to hear from anyone with any connections to any of these individuals, or who has any information about any of them.

Radical Tiverton

2005-07-17T08:55:00.000-07:00

That's right - I said Radical!

On this site I will post interesting bits of Tiverton's History which I am developing into a Book. Hopefully others will also contribute, and help with my research. I am particularly interested in hearing from anyone with family connections to individuals I name from Tiverton's Radical History. If they have any passed down knowledge, tales, or documentary / Photographic material, I would love to hear or see it.

This all stems from an article I stumbled across by Friedrich Engels (Who wrote, along with Karl Marx, the Communist Manifesto) from the Socialist publication 'La Reforme' October 26, 1847:

"It will be recalled that at the last elections Mr. Harney, editor-in-chief of The Northern Star, was put forward as the Chartist candidate for Tiverton, a borough which is represented in Parliament by Lord Palmerston, the Foreign Secretary. Mr. Harney, who won on the show of hands, decided to retire when Lord Palmerston demanded a poll. Now something has happened which shows how the feelings of the inhabitants of Tiverton differ from those of the small number of parliamentary electors. There was a vacancy to fill on the borough council; the municipal electors, a far more numerous class than that of the parliamentary electors, gave the vacant seat to Mr. Rowcliffe, the person who had proposed Mr. Harney at the elections.