Armed campaigners march through Newport, South Wales, on 3/4 November 1839
GETTY IMAGESTHE CHARTIST MOVEMENT
On 13 June 1848, Queen Victoria spent the day walking in the peaceful environs of Osborne House, her summer residence on the Isle of Wight. But on the mainland, political trouble had been brewing for some time. The Chartist movement, a working-class campaign for democratic reform and the extension of voting rights, had gained momentum since the beginning of the year, and the Oprevious day saw simultaneous organised demonstrations across the country. Several violent skirmishes had already broken out during mass protests and riots. Luckily for Victoria, the Solent – the strait between the Isle of Wight and the mainland – provided a barrier between her royal domain and any disturbance. Or so she thought.
“There was an alarm…” Victoria wrote in her journal, “of 40 Chartists having come over to Cowes, with the intention of coming up here.” A makeshift army was hastily armed with rifles. The men were “placed in readiness”, Victoria recorded, but fortunately it “ended in nothing” and she was able to resume her walk. The was feeling sanguine about the bluster. “The Twelfth of June has come and gone, and there has been no Revolution in Great Britain,” the newspaper reported later that week. “Queen Victoria has still her crown beside her and may put it on whenever she chooses.” The was also pleased to report that the House of Lords had “not been curtailed”, and neither had the House of Commons “been dissolved”. The riots and violence had not generated any direct reforms. It would be a further 70 years before full suffrage was achieved for men over the age of 21, and 80 years for women. In the summer of 1848, the Chartist movement really had “ended in nothing”. Which prompts the question, what did the Chartist Movement achieve?