Latest History
Your top twenty questions about Chartism - and some answers
Who were the Chartists and what were the six points of the Charter? Why was Chartism important? Were there any women involved - and why didn't the Chartists demand the vote for women?

Find the answers to these questions and many more on Chartist Ancestors, then find out whether you have Chartists in your family tree. More...

Charles Dickens survives a train crash
The author describes his brush with death in the 1865 Staplehurst rail crash while travelling with his mistress.

Eyewitness to the Peterloo Massacre
Manchester radical Samuel Bamford saw the flash of the sabres, the bloodshed and death dealt out in 1819.

Battle of the Somme
Private Walter Hutchinson describes the first days of the battle, from 1 to 4 July 1916.

Taken into slavery
Olaudah Equiano describes life on board a slave ship heading for the Americas in the 1750s.

Jacobite armies seize Manchester
Charles Edward Stuart, grandson of the deposed James II, heads south towards London in 1745.

Samuel Pepys' Christmas
To chapel to see King Charles II take communion, home to dine, and then to the office. Pepys' Christmas Day in 1662.

Black Death in England
Henry Knighton describes the plague that swept England in 1348, claiming the lives of a major part of the population.

Coronation of King William I
William the Conqueror became King of England on Christmas Day 1066, but all did not go according to plan.

King Alfred defeats the Danish armies
The first king of England rolls back the tide of invading Viking armies to save Wessex in the years 894-897.

Boudicca's revolt
The Iceni rising of 60AD caught the Romans by surprise and nearly forced their eviction from England.

Full list of eyewitness history

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

Chartist timeline - 1836-60

History image

Shop workers protest in 1901 against being forced to live in at their employer's premises. See Tribune History for more.

History guides and eyewitness accounts

Everything about Chartism and the Chartists

Trade union history

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Trade Union History
Trade union family trees
See how today's trade unions have grown through merger and amalgamation.
Transport and General Workers Union
Amicus
Unison
The teaching unions
National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers
More union family trees...

Trade union A to Z
Complete listing of all British trade unions known to have existed at any time over the past 200 years .
A , B , C , D
E , F , G , H , I , J , K
L , M , N , O , P , Q , R
S , T , U , V , W , X , Y , Z

Chartism in the localities
Black Country
Cornwall
Leeds - Municipal Chartism
Manchester
Middlesbrough
Scotland
Sheffield
Todmorden

Chartists named
Chartist executives, 1840-58
Gammage's index
Red Republican subscribers
Friend of the People
Chartist children
General Strike 1842
Trafalgar Square rioters, 1848

Chartist conferences and conventions
First Convention, 1839
Manchester, 1840
London Convention, 1842
"Unity" conference, 1842
Convention and Assembly, 1848
London Convention, 1851

Crime and punishment
Chartist prisoners 1839-40
Political prisoners 1840
Newport rebellion, 1839
Lancaster trial, 1843
London conspirators 1848
Ashton-under-Lyne rising 1848
William Dowling on trial
Chartists arrested in 1848
Policing the Chartists

Variants on Chartism
Chartist land plan, 1845-50
Land Company officials, 1849
Christian Chartists
Knowledge Chartists
Trade unions
Chartists and the Corn Laws

Chartism's i nternational dimension
Chartists in America
Transported to Australia
Chartists in Australia

Chartists' life stories
Brief lives - mini-biographies
Where are they now - Chartist graves
Obits and pieces
John Arnott
Benjamin Lucraft