Meet the Wyatts: a London Chartist family
The Wyatt family were stalwarts of the City of London Chartist locality. For years, their work kept the City Charter Association, Female Charter Association and Land Company running and the Political and Scientific Institute open. This is their story.
Frances Wyatt was a generation older than the mostly young single women most associated with the City of London Female Chartist Association. But when Susanna Inge asked to stand down from the role of secretary in February 1843, it was the ‘matronly’ Mrs Wyatt who was asked to take over.
Frances turned the nomination down, remarking that she had just given up a similar role elsewhere and did not want to take on anything more; but now fifty years old and with a large household to run alongside any involvement in public life, she was evidently seen as someone capable of the organisation and paperwork the job entailed.
And it would seem Frances was not alone in her family in being active Chartists. Throughout the 1840s, there is barely a time when one of her sons was not similarly centrally involved in the activities of the City of London Chartist Association in one way of another. Although no member of the family made sufficient impression on the movement to appear in any history of Chartism, they were clearly pillars of the local Chartist community. So who were the Wyatts?
Meet the family
The 1841 census provides a good starting point. That day, eight members of the family were at home at 18 Water-lane. Now known as Whitefriars Street, the road runs south from Fleet Street towards the Thames, and at this time was a centre of radical activity. Five minutes’ walk would take you to the radical bookshops run by John Cleave, Henry Hetherington and Jane Carlisle, to the Crown and Anchor tavern at which radicals had met regularly for decades, to Bolt Court where both the 1839 and 1842 Chartist conventions were held, and to the homes of other City Chartists, including William Cuffay and Emma Miles. When the Northern Star came south from Leeds in 1844, it moved into offices on the Strand nearby.
But when the census was taken on Sunday 6 June,1841, the Wyatt household was at the start of its involvement with Chartism. Present that day were Charles John Wyatt1, born and bred in London and a wheelwright by trade, and his wife Frances Wyatt2, who had been born Frances Florous Halfhide at Ware in Hertfordshire and married Charles at Christchurch, Spitalfields in 1815.
Six of the couple’s eight living children were also there, ranging in age from their first-born son Charles William Wyatt, twenty-five years old and like his father a wheelwright, to George Duck Wyatt (23), also a wheelwright, James (18), Emma (12), Thomas (9), and the youngest, Sarah (7). Two more of their children, John (16), and Amelia (14) were elsewhere that day3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10.
George Duck Wyatt the Chartist
As with so many of those involved in Chartism, Feargus O’Connor’s Northern Star is almost the sole source of information on the role played by the Wyatt family. From the start, it is George Duck Wyatt who has the highest profile, when in May 1841 he is named as sub-treasurer of the City of London Charter Association (NS, 22 May 1841, p8).
Having responsibility for the association’s finances, he is subsequently listed regularly remitting penny subscriptions collected for the Victim Fund Committee, for example, the 5s 1½d he sent in that July (NS, 17 July 1841, p7) and to the National Charter Association for the purchase of membership cards (for example, NS, 24 July 1841, p6). But he also represented the City locality at meetings of the National Charter Association’s county council for Middlesex, reporting back to a meeting held at the Political and Scientific Institute at 55 Old Bailey on plans to address trade societies and issue ‘pecuniary exertions of this locality’. He also reported on a code of rules drawn up for the council’s future guidance (NS, 31 July 1841, p7)..
The Political and Scientific Institute was in effect the City locality’s regular meeting room, and could be used for a wider range of political and social activities. Organisations, mostly but not exclusively Chartist, were expected to pay for the use of the building to help pay the rent and upkeep. It later moved a short distance to Turnagain-lane, where it was known as the City Chartist Hall.
On the day after George reported on the county council meeting, ‘the doors were opened to the public as usual, and a portion of the Star was read’. That evening, there was a ‘very excellent Chartist theological lecture’, and on the Monday evening, a concert took place in the Hall for the benefit of the election committee. As the Northern Star reported: ‘The place was elegantly decorated with the portraits of Emmett, Frost, Williams, Jones, F O’Connor, McDouall, Oastler, and many other glorious patriots decorated with laurel, and very handsome banners, &c. Mr J.D. Parker was master of the ceremonies. Many patriotic songs were sung, and recitations given by most of the leading Chartists of London, who kept up the amusement till twelve o’clock with the greatest good feeling and harmony’.
Although no other member of the Wyatt family is mentioned in the report, they would not have wanted to miss out on the Chartist social life taking place a short walk from their front door, and if they were not present at this event, would certainly have attended others.
Such activities were a regular part of the locality’s activities – and there were opportunities to weave politics into the entertainment – as when Feargus O’Connor was released from prison in the summer of 1841. That evening, a ‘splendid concert and ball’ took place at the institute. Entertainments included ‘a very pleasing and nautical hornpipe dance in character’. ‘In the midst of the harmony, Mr Andrew Hogg (one of the masons) claimed the indulgence of the numerous and highly respectable company, to announce good news from York Castle; the company instantly became as silent as death, and the evening Sun was read, announcing the liberation of their unflinching champion, Feargus O’Connor, from the tyrant’s claws. The company instantly rose and uncovered uncovered simultaneously; they burst forth their feelings of loud and protracted cheering, to the alarm and consternation of the “Blue Devils” that nightly prowl the streets, the astonishment of the poor wretches in the gloomy cells of Newgate, and the chagrin and envy of sycophants and apostates. The amusements were afterwards kept up till a late hour, with patriotic songs, recitations, and dancing, interspersed with the drolleries and odd sayings of Mr G. Wyatt, which created the best of humour and merriment (NS, 28 August 1841, p3).
George was obviously something of a comedian, but his role as sub-treasurer also made him the main point of contact for many people with the locality, and entailed a fair amount of work. His name and address at 18 Water-lane are given for those wanting to buy tickets for events such as the benefit for Bronterre O’Brien held at the Theatre near Catherine Street on the Strand (NS, 11 September 1841 p5). He also sold the tickets, at 2d each, for a concert the following spring, ‘to consist of Songs, Duets, Recitations, &c’ (NS 26 March, 1842, p6).
The City locality did not neglect their campaign for the Charter. When George backed proposals to form a City Political Loan Tract Society ‘to saturate the city with a knowledge of the doctrines of the People’s Charter’, he duly found himself chairing the committee to make it happen (NS, 18 September 1841, p7; 13 November 1841, p2). He also chaired quarterly meetings of the Political and Scientific Institute’s shareholders, and was elected to serve on its management committee (NS, 23 October 1841, p5).
George’s Chartist activities continue to be documented, sporadically, for some years, chairing a Finsbury Locality meeting as late as 1848 (NS, 3 June 1848).
Frances Wyatt and the Female Chartist Association
The City of London Female Charter Association first met in July 1841. The Northern Star reported that, ‘Its meetings are holden for the present on Thursday evenings, in the hall of the Political and Scientific Institute, 55 Old Bailey, the gratuitous use of which has been granted by the shareholders for one month’ (NS, 31 July 1841).
Little more was heard of the organisation beyond the occasional brief mention that the female Chartists had met ‘as usual’. But in the spring of the following year, ‘it was resolved that an address be written, calling upon our sisters in the metropolis to come forward and assist in the glorious struggle for freedom’ (NS, 23 April 1842), and this duly appeared in print (NS, 2 July 1842). Perhaps as part of a concerted effort to increase membership, a Metropolitan Delegate Meeting (all men, but numbering among them George Duck Wyatt), then issued its own address ‘To the females of the Metropolis and its Vicinity’, urging them to ‘come then and assist us’ (NS, 10 September 1842).
There is no mention of Frances Wyatt or any other member of the Female Charter Association other than its secretary, Susanna Inge, before October 1842, when its public meetings seized the attention of the London papers. But from that point on, she appears regularly in supporting roles, including as having been present at its meetings (for example, NS, 5 November 1842, p1), and seconding a proposal that it adopt new rules (NS, 17 September 1842).
There is, unfortunately, no complete list of the association’s committee. Where its members can be identified, they are younger single women: its president, Miss Emma Miles, was 23 in 1842; Susanna Inge was 22; and its leading speaker, Miss Mary Ann Walker appears to have been of a similar age; nothing at all is known of Miss Pickup (NS, 5 November 1842, p1), or of Miss Holman and Mrs Windder, who were elected as delegates (to an unnamed body) (NS, 17 September 1842). Frances Wyatt was older (50), married, and had children of similar ages to Emma and Susanna.
But when Susanna tried to resign as secretary, the meeting turned to Frances as a possible successor. It was not to be. ‘Mrs Wyatt, who was proposed as more matronly, declined on the ground that she had just given up a secretaryship at another place, and did not wish to enter public life again’ Hereford Journal, 8 February 1843, p1).
The Wyatt brothers and the land company
After 1842, when many Chartist leaders were arrested and imprisoned, and the movement lost its momentum, much of the focus moved away from political campaigning and towards the Land Plan, which sought to raise money to buy land to place workers on smallholdings in newly created Chartist settlements. As a Chartist cause, it drew strong support from many local activists; and local branches of the Land Company set up to manage its affairs often shared members and meeting places with existing Chartist localities.
This was certainly the case for the City District Land Society, which held its meetings at the Political and Scientific Institute and could call on George Duck Wyatt for support (NS, 19 July 1845, p5). But it was his younger brother James who was most associated with it. The names of those sending in cash to the Land Company, sometimes their own contributions but often on behalf of others, appeared regularly in the Northern Star, with James Wyatt among them. In the autumn of 1845, he was unanimously elected sub-secretary of the City District Land Society, a job which included being at the Political and Scientific Institute every Sunday evening ‘to enroll members and receive instalments’ (NS, 18 October 1845, p1).
Early the following year, James was also elected to a large committee of delegates representing both the trades (unions) and London Chartist localities tasked with organising a soiree at the Crown and Anchor, a well-known radical meeting place on The Strand, in honour of ‘Labour’s Parliamentary Champion’, Thomas Slingsby Duncombe (NS, 3 January 1846, p1). Now living at 202 Hoxton Old Town (NS 17 Jan 1846), James continued to submit cash to the Land Company throughout 1846.
It also seems likely that the Charles Wyatt and John Wyatt listed in the Northern Star regularly from 1846 to 1848 contributing small sums to the Land Company were George and James’s older and younger brothers respectively. And surely the Mr Wyatt of Tower Hamlets who presented a portrait of the Irish rebel leader Robert Emmett and a view of Monmouth Court House to be auctioned for the Victims Fund was one of the brothers (NS, 3 February 1849).
In addition to Frances, then, at least two and more likely four of her five sons were Chartists. Her youngest son Thomas (just 11 in 1842) and daughters Emma (13) and Sarah (8) would have been too young. There is, however, an interesting indication that Amelia (then aged 15) may have been a part of the City of London Female Charter Association. For when she married on Christmas Day 1845, Mary Ann Walker was one of two witnesses to sign the register. The same Mary Ann Walker also witnessed the marriages of George Duck Wyatt in 1846 and Emma Wyatt in 1852.
After Chartism
As the 1840s progressed, so the Wyatt family moved on. When Charles John Wyatt died at the at the age of sixty, early in 1846, Charles William, George and Amelia had all married and set up households of their own.
By the time of the 1851 census, only Emma and Sarah were still at home with their mother Frances – and home itself had moved a little further west to New Church Street, just off the Strand. No occupation was recorded for their mother, but both girls were working as dressmakers. Frances can be found in subsequent census records – living south of the Thames in Southwark in 1861 (when her eldest sister, 84-year-old Mary Halfhide was visiting), and at Mile End in 1871, where she was lodging with a younger couple. There is some uncertainty about when she died, but the deaths of two women named Frances Wyatt are recorded in London, in 1879 and in 1885, and one of these is almost certainly her.
Most of her children, however, had decided on a fresh start, emigrating to Australia with their families.
On 1 January 1853, a ship named the ‘Alice Milne’ arrived at Portland, Victoria, after a voyage of 83 days from Gravesend during which 20 passengers died, 17 of them infants. On board were George Duck Wyatt, his wife Emma, and three young daughters – Emma (5), Eliza (2) and Alice (1). Also on board were John Wyatt and his wife Sarah and daughter Emily (1).
Three years later, they were joined by James and his wife Maria, and by Thomas, his wife Mary and daughter Rachel (1), who sailed from Plymouth on the ‘Anna Maria’, arriving at Portland on 10 February 1856. Finally, Sarah, who had married at St Bride’s, Fleet Street, 1853 but was then widowed, joined her brothers, arriving at Melbourne on 18 December 1870 with her 14-year-old daughter Emily. Sarah subsequently remarried in 1876.
Not surprisingly, it was George who maintained his involvement in public life in Australia. Moving to Mount Gambier in South Australia, where he established a livery stable and general store, he was elected a member of the town council, and in 1878-79 served as Mayor. He is commemorated by a plaque in the town’s Lake Terrace Cemetery, where he was buried, and by Wyatt Street, named in his honour.
Biographical details
1. Charles John Wyatt. Born 1786, baptised at St Mary’s, Whitechapel; married Frances Florous Halfhide at Christchurch, Spitalfields, 24 April 1815; died Q1, 1846.
2. Frances Wyatt. Born Frances Florous Halfhide (or Halfhyde), and baptised 1 August 1792, Ware, Hertfordshire; married Charles John Wyatt at Christchurch, Spitalfields, 24 April 1815; date of death uncertain (after 1877), possibly 1879 or 1885.
3. Charles William Wyatt. Born, 2 March 1816, baptised St Mary Whitechapel, 11 September 1818; married Mary Ann Weedon, 25 December 1842, St Sepulchre, Holborn; died 30 November 1892, West Ham, Essex.
4. George Duck Wyatt. Born 15 January 1818, baptised St Mary’s, Whitechapel; married Emma Ralph, 26 April 1846, Trinity Church, St Marylebone; emigrated to Australia 1853; died 14 March 1885, Mount Gambier, South Australia.
5. James Wyatt. Born 2 September 1822, baptised St Mary’s, Whitechapel, 30 March 1823; married Maria Nolan, 1851; emigrated to Australia, 1856; died 13 November 1899, Hawthorne, Victoria, Australia.
6. Emma Maria Wyatt, born 18 March 1829, baptised 9 October 1829, St Mary’s, Whitechapel; married William Haggett, 25 April 1852, Saint Bride, Fleet Street; died 1854, Hoxton, Uxbridge, Middlesex.
7. Thomas Lewis Wyatt. Born 1 July 1831, baptised 2 August 1840 • St Mary’s, Whitechapel; married Rachel Pryer, 10 July 1853, St Bride, Fleet Street; emigrated to Australia 1856; died Hamilton, Victoria, Australia, 15 April 1918.
8. Sarah Halfhyde Wyatt. Born 15 December 1834, baptised 2 August 1840, St Mary’s, Married John Williams Cutler, 23 October 1853; emigrated to Australia, 1870; married Thomas Brydon, Mount Gambier, 3 May 1876; died Kew, Victoria, Australia,1918.
Not at 18 Water-lane in the 1841 census
9. John Henry Wyatt. Born 7 December 1824, baptised at St Mary, Whitechapel, 8 June 1828; married Sarah Capps, 21 October 1850, St Bride, Fleet Street; emigrated to Australia, 1853; married Elizabeth Mary Pace, 22 September 1864, Robe, South Australia; died 3 February 1891, Mount Gambier, Australia.
10. Amelia Sarah Wyatt. Born on 2 February 1827, baptised at St Mary, Whitechapel, 8 June 1828; married William Smith Batho, St Leonard’s, Shoreditch, 25 December 1845; died 18 Grosvenor Street, Commercial Road, London, 31 May 1881.
Notes and sources
Citations for the Northern Star in the text are taken from the version in the British Newspaper Archive.
Details of births, baptisms, marriages and deaths are taken from Ancestry and FindMyPast. The Wyatt family have many descendants in Australia whose research published on Ancestry has been very helpful, and I am grateful for permission to use the photograph of Frances.
A montage of photographs of the Town Council of Mount Gambier in 1876, including George Duck Wyatt, can be found in the State Library of South Australia.
George Duck Wyatt’s burial is recorded on the website of Lake Terrace Cemetery. Mount Gambier historian Sonya Beare has written about the life of George Duck Wyatt and his descendants in Australia on the Growing up in the Mount public Facebook group.
Thomas Wyatt merited an obituary in the Hamilton Spectator (16 April 1918) when he died. It can be accessed via Trove.