The Swing Riots set the mood for this decade, however it would not be the economy that caused greatest anger but state legislation.  The 1832 Reform Act was described by A. L. Morton as a “mere trick to strengthen the tottering exclusiveness of our blessed constitution”.   As the middle classes were drawn closer to the elites, the working classes were pushed further away.  Immediately protests returned, the unstamped press, factory movement, and trade unionism resurfaced with more energy than ever.  However it was the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act that provoked the greatest reaction, seen as “the most thoroughly detested act of the nineteenth Century from a working class viewpoint”.   This resulted in sporadic riots across the country, and the setting up of the Anti Poor Law league.  It was during the 1830s and the so-called ‘Age of Reform’ that the working classes realised their complete lack of power, and exploitation within society.  The only way they saw they could make any change would be to organise and operate within the system. The original mass trade union to form was the Grand National Consolidated Trade Union movement yet this proved unwieldy and soon disbanded.  It was in 1836 that the more successful London Working Mans Association was formed and principally worked on a charter for parliament.  With the Birmingham Political Union working on a national petition the two saw they had a common interest in reform. In 1838 these two groups joined forces and became known as the Chartists, formed out of a tradition of articulate, politically conscious Artisan radicalism they carried the Slogan, “Peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must”.   This would later be echoed in their work.
Chartism represented the final evolution of working class radicalism, an organisation with the sole intention of the implementation of political reform through the Peoples Charter. Now it is important to identify whether Chartism continued the previous radicalism I have already highlighted or if it took a new direction.  Thus if Chartism was a backward looking, or forward-looking movement, meaning whether it employed old methods or new ones.  Earlier Jacobin and many Luddite uprisings were mainly locally based, they were violent, and concerned with social and economic conditions.  However Jacobin and Artisan movements had believed in the relief of this through parliamentary reform, whilst the majority of the working class had taken part in Luddism, which stayed within the constraints of industry.  It was the trade unions and Hampden clubs in the 19th Century that demonstrated to workers that the state was responsible for poor conditions.  Chartism continued this early Jacobin and trade union political ideology that had called for annual parliaments, and universal manhood suffrage, developing them in to the six points of the People’s Charter.  As Jacobins failed to achieve a national voice, trade unionism and luddism had demonstrated working class radicalism could exist on a national scale.  Therefore although Chartism’s roots lay in London it tried to gain support from around the country, as Major Cartwright had toured the country so to did Chartists. They affiliated with other workingmen’s clubs and the Anti Poor Law League to give them national representation. In addition, support was quick to grow in the heavily industrialised areas like Manchester and Leeds.  This also allowed another old tactic of radicalism to be used, the petition, and in 1839 the National petition achieved 1,280,000 signatures, and one later in 1842 would achieve over 3million names.  However when these democratic methods failed, Chartism also proved to use violent methods such as the uprising in Newport in 1839, again a trait of old radicalism. There was also a radical press used to represent the movement called the Northern Star; this was similar to how the Poor Man’s Guardian had been the mouthpiece of the National Union of the Working Classes. Therefore it appears Chartism continued all the methods and tactics employed by previous working class radicalism, it did not stop using old methods, but simply employed them all. Where Chartism differed was that it attempted to organise this radicalism and give it one voice, taking local problems on to a national scale. By being solely focused on political reform through democratic means and if failing violent means, Chartism hoped to solve social and economic discontent from within the government.  All that was new was that it was a mass movement in comparison to the movements that had existed before, it seemed the Artisans who had run previous movements had grown to appreciate the power of numbers. 

Establishing that Chartism was a continuation of working class radicalism still leaves the question of whether it was the voice of a class-conscious industrial proletariat. The suggestion of a proletariat in Britain in the mid 1800s suggests Marxist ideology, a property-less class that would confront the capitalists. As Perkins suggested it was between 1815 and 1820 the working classes were formed, Marx believed following this formation of class there would be conflict. However Marx also believes that at the time of Chartism the British working classes had not reached class maturity, and what existed was as Lenin described “trade union class consciousness” . Lenin believed during the 1840s this evolved and “genuine working class consciousness appeared for the first time in the Chartist movement” .  This is a view that many historians agree with, G. D. H. Cole sums up that consciousness had developed due to trade unions, factories, Anti Poor Law, and Chartism, importantly the impetus for this had been the 1832 Reform Act.  Another prominent historian Hobsbawn also agrees that after the 1832 Reform Act class-consciousness had developed.  In my opinion industrialisation changed the lives of workers in Britain, when war with France ended economic conditions united the working classes, however it was not until the frustration of the thirties that they truly became class-conscious.  Assuming Chartism represented a class-conscious working class Hobsbawn raises another important point that before the 1840s there were not enough industrial workers to constitute an Industrial Proletariat.  J. H. Clapham agrees with this suggesting only a small percentage of workers were involved in the mechanised large-scale factories.  As there were still a lot of traditional craftsman existing in places like Birmingham, industrial areas centred on different areas like Manchester and Leeds.  Hence although the working classes were conscious of class whether we can define them as an industrial proletariat is still debateable. Hobsbawn and Thompson both agree there was not “ a strictly proletarian movement in the Marxist extreme”.   This was because Marxism believed the working classes would have become a revolutionary force, Chartism threatened this but never saw it through.  In this definition I agree, there never were enough workers to support the cause and threaten revolution, however Chartism was always at it most popular during economic slumps.  Rostow’s Economic buoyancy and social unrest pictorial graphs demonstrate that in, 1839, 1842, and 1848 when the country was experiencing downturns in the economy Chartism had greater support.  What this may mean is that although there was not enough national support to make Chartism revolutionary it did represent the mass of a small, infant, industrial proletariat that had already formed in the towns at the time.  Hence in the narrower terms of an industrial proletariat it did represent the mass, but on a national scale involving all the working classes it did not.  Friedrich Engels believed Chartism was the first genuinely proletarian political movement, I agree with this claim, as this is where the Artisan leaders of Chartism found their support.
Therefore in conclusion I believe that working class consciousness was evident in the early 1800s and continued to develop through the economic and social distress after the French wars.  It was the events of the 1830s that truly made the working classes aware of their position in society, as they were ignored by the 1832 Reform Act, and exploited by the Poor Law Amendment.  Hence Chartism was born from within the Artisan groups of workers who continued working class radicalism by hijacking the industrial proletariat during times of economic hardship for political means.  Chartism was a backward looking movement that attempted to look forward to reform by intimidating the government with it sheer numbers of support.  Its aims were far to ideological and its support undervalued in society, in fact Chartism’s only success was that it managed to form and last so long.  By the 1850s it had virtually disappeared, and by the 1860s had done.  Thus in answering the question Chartism was the continuation of previous working class radicalism employing the mass of an early industrial proletariat.  The problem was that previous working class radicalism was never successful, and the industrial proletariat to small to be effective.

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