Feargus Edward O'Connor was an Irish Chartist leader and advocate of the Land Plan, which sought to provide smallholdings for the labouring classes. A highly charismatic figure, O'Connor was admired for his energy and oratory, but was criticised for alleged egotism. His newspaper Northern Star (1837–1852) was widely read among workers, becoming the voice of the Chartist movement.
Feargus O'Connor
Photograph of the Great Chartist Meeting on Kennington Common, organised by O'Connor
Feargus O'Connor commemorated at Heronsgate
O'Connor's grave at Kensal Green Cemetery, London, photographed in 2014
Chartism was a working-class movement for political reform in the United Kingdom that erupted from 1838 to 1857 and was strongest in 1839, 1842 and 1848. It took its name from the People's Charter of 1838 and was a national protest movement, with particular strongholds of support in Northern England, the East Midlands, the Staffordshire Potteries, the Black Country and the South Wales Valleys, where working people depended on single industries and were subject to wild swings in economic activity. Chartism was less strong in places, such as Bristol, that had more diversified economies. The movement was fiercely opposed by government authorities, who finally suppressed it.
A photograph of the Great Chartist Meeting on Kennington Common, London, 1848
The meeting of the Birmingham Political Union on 16 May 1832, attended by 200,000
Chartists' riots
The national convention, meeting on Monday 4 February 1839, at the British Coffee House