Chartist Ancestors
What did your family do in the revolution?

Millions signed the three great Chartist petitions of 1839 to 1848. Thousands were active in those years in the campaign to win the vote, secret ballots, and other democratic rights that we now take for granted.

Chartist Ancestors lists many of those who risked their freedom, and sometimes their lives, because of their participation in the Chartist cause. The names included on the site are drawn from newspapers, court records and books of the time, from later histories and other sources.

I would like to thank the many historians, researchers and the descendents of those associated with Chartism who have helped with this site since it was launched in 2003.

Mark Crail, Editor

How to...
Make the most of your visit to an archive or records office

Research your trade union ancestors

Find Chartist records in the National Archives

© Mark Crail

Conferences and conventions
Great meeting of Scottish delegates, 1839: Glasgow seizes the organisational initiative

This page looks at the Great Meeting of Scottish Delegates held in Glasgow on 14-16 August 1839 to reorganise Chartism in Scotland, and lists the names of delegates and members of the Central Committee elected there.

More about Scottish Chartism on this website
Scottish Chartists – biographical details
Scottish Convention, 1842
Scottish women Chartists

In the lead up to the first Chartist Convention, the moderate Edinburgh Chartists had taken the lead in ensuring that delegates from Scottish associations were firmly committed to peaceful means of achieving the Charter.

But the brutal way in which the authorities were seen to have policed the Convention, using London metropolitan police to confront Chartists on the streets after its move to Birmingham, undermined the authority of the Edinburgh leadership.

By mid 1839, the more radical Glasgow Chartists in the Glasgow Universal Suffrage Association were coming to the fore. The Chartists of Glasgow had been more successful in collecting signatures to the petition, they had contributed more to the National Rent set up to fund the movement, and the trade unionists who formed the backbone of the city's Chartist movement were proving to be effective organisers and propagandists.

The emergence of Glasgow as the centre of Chartist influence was reinforced by the launch of the Scottish Patriot newspaper on 6 July 1839.

Unexpectedly, the city's pre-eminence was also boosted by fears over the confrontational approach now being taken by the Convention in Birmingham. Concerned about a proposed “national holiday” (or general strike) on 12 August, a number of smaller local Chartist groups turned to Glasgow for advice. The Glasgow leadership advised against active participation, and in the event the day was to pass peacefully.

In the mean time, the Glasgow Universal Suffrage Association had circulated the main Scottish Chartist bodies to ask whether they favoured a delegate conference to discuss the ways in which the movement could be organised in Scotland. Forty-nine of the 50 respondents said yes, and 40 of these (including those from Edinburgh) favoured holding it in Glasgow.

The delegate meeting was duly summoned to take place in Glasgow on 14 August, 1839. Feargus O'Connor travelled north to represent the General Convention in Birmingham, and Mr Mason from Newcastle was appointed delegate for the Northern Political Union.

The Scottish delegate conference met at the Universalist Church in Dovehill. Fifty-two delegates were present for the opening. Late arrivals boosted their number so that eventually at least 84 towns and villages were represented by 64 delegates.

John Duncan, a newsagent and small shopkeeper who had played a leading role in the Edinburgh and Midlothian Universal Suffrage Association, was elected to the chair, and it was agreed that there should be a Central Committee of 15 which would meet monthly, and an executive of seven which would meet weekly. The general secretary, Thomas Gillespie, would be paid, and funds would be raised from district associations to pay for lecturers and print costs.

When the conference dispersed on 16 August 1839, it had firmly cemented the leadership of the Glasgow Chartists. Of those elected to the central committee, only Duncan lived more than five or six miles from the centre of the city. Six were directors of the Glasgow Universal Suffrage Association.

Information for this page was drawn mainly from The Chartist Movement in Scotland, by Alexander Wilson (Augustus M Kelley, 1970) and the Address to the Chartists of Scotland from the Great Meeting of Scottish Delegates (Chartist Circular, 1839).

More about Scottish Chartism on this website
Scottish Chartists – biographical details
Scottish Convention, 1842
Scottish women Chartists

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