James Watson, 1799 – 1874
James Watson was a radical publisher, free-thinker and member of the London Working Men’s Association
Read MoreWhat did your family do in the revolution?
Chartist Ancestors tells the life stories of dozens of people who played their part in the movement. Some are well-known historical figures, but others have been erased from the history books by the passage of time.
The biographies included below are just the most recent of all those on the site. For a full list, take a look at the Contents page.
James Watson was a radical publisher, free-thinker and member of the London Working Men’s Association
Read MoreRobert Kemp Philp served on the Executive of the National Charter Association and co-authored the 1842 Chartist petition, but he
Read MoreJoshua Hobson was printer, publisher and later editor of the Northern Star, launching and briefly part-owning with William Hill what
Read MoreAn energetic publisher of radical tracts whose newspapers flourished thanks to a judicious mix of politics and true crime stories,
Read MoreWhen a little known portrait artist named Frederic Riddle died in 1875, an obituary in Charles Bradlaugh’s secularist National Reformer
Read MoreBorn in Ireland and among the most prominent radical intellectuals of his age, James Bronterre O’Brien became known as the
Read MoreHenry Vincent was, by many accounts, the most effective public speaker in the Chartist movement. His talent won him a
Read MoreGeorge Julian Harney was among the first and the last Chartists – a revolutionary whose political journey through Chartism linked
Read MoreBorn on 25 January 1819 into a well-connected family, Ernest Jones spent much of his childhood in Berlin, returning to
Read MoreJoseph Williams was imprisoned in 1848 after speaking at a series of meetings at Clerkenwell Green and Bishop Bonner’s Fields
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