The Chartist Grand National Holiday was called for 12th August 1839, 180 years ago. The aim was to stop work, withdraw any savings and abstain from excisable products such as tobacco and alcohol until capitalism ceased to be.
As capitalism is still with us clearly it didn’t work.
However in the short term certainly in industrial districts it did.
The Times 14th August 1839 reported a successful effort by what would now be called a Chartist flying picket to shut down mills in Manchester:
‘A second party of Chartists..took the mills in Oldham Road and Ancoats. The party was up to 1,000 strong and marched in procession, headed by a band of music. A man named John Holmes..marched at the head of this procession with a banner on which was the cap of liberty with these inscriptions- on the obverse, ‘The earth, the right of man’ on the reverse ‘He that will not work, neither shall he eat’. This party had turned the hands out of six mills before they were interfered with by the police. They were ultimately attended by a body of about 60 policemen, supported by two troops of Dragoon Guards and a party of the 86th infantry’
Serious stuff indeed..
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