1848: Feargus O’Connor and the Collapse of the Mass Platform

Abstract

A study of the national structure of popular protest, a study concentrating on the national leaders and public image of the Chartist Movement, might appear a somewhat backward step in historiographical terms. True, there has been some concern at the dominance of the local studies approach since the appearance of A. Briggs’s Chartist Studies. But now that local studies have begun to highlight the ‘cultural’ dimensions of radical commitment, showing how at the branch level at least, Chartists were able to experience an alternative way of life in their own lifetimes, it would seem rather perverse to define the Chartist challenge in terms of political pressure, of national campaigns and mass platform agitation. 1 Furthermore those historians who see strong insurrectionist impulses within the movement are little concerned with the national leaders and evanescent crowds at the great mass meetings, but seek to draw our attention to leaders and activists ‘below the platform’ and to more permanent ‘cells of opposition.’ 2 In short, to concentrate on the platform smacks too much of a ‘spontaneous’ or reductionist interpretation of popular protest, concluding investigation at the very point at which it becomes of interest to the social historian. 3 These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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