THE 19th-century Chartist movement, which predated the development of trade unions and the establishment of the Labour Party, stands out as an example of organised resistance from below against the capitalist mode of production and its social consequences.

This broad movement, most active in the 1830s and 1840s, is associated with putting forward the 1838 People’s Charter, a series of six demands calling for political reforms considered radical at the time.

The late social historian Dorothy Thompson devoted her life to researching Chartism. Through her years of meticulous research, she was able to provide new insights into and a deeper analysis of a movement, comprising millions of men and women, which created consternation for factory owners and the parliamentary representatives of the upper class.

The Dignity of Chartism is a collection of Thompson’s published essays and book reviews on the subject and also includes her musings on the strengths and flaws of some of Chartism’s key players. A lengthy chapter, co-authored with her historian and peace campaigner husband, EP Thompson, illustrates the rise and fall of Chartism in Halifax, one of the movement’s strongholds.

Thompson’s writings explain the factors leading to the rise of Chartism, its achievements, setbacks, the differences in opinions between its radical and more moderate leaders and, ultimately, its legacy.

Her examination of Chartism’s aims and its leaders illuminates a working-class movement which brought dignity to the disenfranchised. Thompson explains how Chartism provided the inspiration for later activists to develop trade unions and found the Labour Party. Her writings assume a degree of knowledge of the subject and thus a reader without some background knowledge of Chartism may find certain chapters taxing.

But persistence is rewarded. It permits a greater understanding of an extraordinary historical period which followed the transition from feudalism to capitalism and the change from an individual to a socialised mode of production, where the working class cut its teeth in the first of many struggles.

Review by Tomasz Pierscionek