British and World Historical Medals

The Peoples’ Charter, 1842, a white metal medal signed H, Britannia lying on ground being attacked by figures representing clergy, law and the lords, Wellington behind on horseback, rev. Britannia and Wellington attacking the three figures, 38mm (Eimer –; BHM –; Fearon –). Very fine and very rare £40-60

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Medals Associated with Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington.

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The depression of 1841-2 led to a wave of strikes in which Chartist activists were to the fore and demands for a People’s Charter were included alongside economic demands. On 4 May 1842 Thomas Duncombe presented to Parliament a Chartist petition signed by 3,250,000 people. As well as demanding the six points of the Charter the document also complained about the "cruel wars against liberty", the "unconstitutional police force", the 1834 Poor Law, factory conditions and church taxes on Nonconformists. It also included an attack on Queen Victoria, contrasting her income of "£164 17s. 10d. a day" with that of "the producing millions". The Chartists were furious when the House of Commons rejected the petition by 287 votes to 47 and the Northern Star commented on the rejection: "Three and half millions have quietly, orderly, soberly, peaceably but firmly asked of their rulers to do justice; and their rulers have turned a deaf ear to that protest. Three and a half millions of people have asked permission to detail their wrongs, and enforce their claims for RIGHT, and the 'House' has resolved they should not be heard! Three and a half millions of the slave-class have holden out the olive branch of peace to the enfranchised and privileged classes and sought for a firm and compact union, on the principle of EQUALITY BEFORE THE LAW; and the enfranchised and privileged have refused to enter into a treaty! The same class is to be a slave class still. The mark and brand of inferiority is not to be removed. The assumption of inferiority is still to be maintained. The people are not to be free."
As a result of the vote workers went on strike in the Midlands, Lancashire, Yorkshire and parts of Scotland. These industrial disputes were collectively known as the Plug Plot because, in many cases, protesters removed the plugs from steam boilers to prevent their use. Although the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, advocated a non-interventionalist policy, the Duke of Wellington insisted on the deployment of troops to deal with the strikers. Several Chartist leaders, including Fergus O’Connor, George Harney and Thomas Cooper, were arrested, along with nearly 1,500 others. A total of 79 people were sentenced, with sentences ranging from 7 to 21 years.
“At its height, the General Strike of 1842 involved up to half a million workers and covered an area which stretched from Dundee and the Scottish coalfields to South Wales and Cornwall," wrote Mick Jenkins in his readable and sympathetic account of the event. "It lasted twice the length of the 1926 General Strike, and was the most massive industrial action to take place in Britain – and probably anywhere – in the nineteenth century”