People's Charter
In 1838 a national petition was submitted to the Parliament to address ‘The People’s Charter’, which called for 6 reforms: every man over the age of 21 made allowed to vote, ballots done in secret, Members of Parliament to be opened to anyone (rich or poor) disregarding qualification, Members of Parliament to be paid, each member represents equal amount of voters, annual elections. When the Charter was written in 1838 18% of the male population could vote with only 10% before 1832 the growth in voters provided more meant that the people were contributing more in the government. Every male over the age of 21 could vote excluding those convicted of a felony or medically declared insane. Before only people with the ownership of property holding significant value are qualified to become MPs, by removing this requirement candidates would no longer consists of only the upper class. MPs were not paid for their work therefore only people with extreme wealth could afford to be MPs but since they will be gaining wages for their work it opens the door for the less wealthy. At the time voting was done in public in ‘show of hands’ at the ‘Hustings’ and landlords and employers can see what their tenants and employees were voting, they could potentially threaten or intimidate them to influence their votes. Votes were made secret in 1871 through the People’s Charter and offered a more confidential and honest votes. However, it was not until 1888 that only men with certain criteria could freely contribute to the votes. Therefore, the introduction of the People’s Charter had eventual success in the industrial revolution but offered little initial achievement.
Chartism
Chartism was a working class movement from 1839 to 1848. The working class had high hopes for the Reform Act in 1832 and the People’s Charter which would increase the influence the workers had in Parliament and political affairs, however the poor ultimately remained voiceless and they felt betrayed. As a result, it lead to Chartists to use force to get Parliament to accept the Charter, Chartists joined Trade Unions in an attempt to persuade the Parliament and made violent protests like riots. Violent protests weren’t the only method the Chartists used to try to persuade Parliament, one method of persuasion was to collect petitions. The petitions would be proof of how much people supported the idea of Chartism and that Parliament would be impressed that they would approve of the change. Petitions were collected in 1839, 1842 and 1848, many of these petitions had millions of signatures. The last petition held over five million signatures but unfortunately many of the signatures were faked, even Queen Victoria’s signature was on one of the petition. Eventually, the Chartists movement collapsed, however through their efforts their voices were heard and five out of the six reforms were met excluding the demand for an annual elections as Parliament believed that a government needed more than one year to prove how much it had influenced and improve society. Therefore, through Chartism it paved the way for worker’s rights.