181 years ago today the ultimate Staycation started: the Grand National Holiday
On 12th August 1839 a Grand National Holiday was declared by the Chartists.
Particularly in the north of England there was widespread stoppage of work.
The plan for the Holiday had been laid out, some years before by the veteran radical activist William Benbow. Benbow was pre-emptively arrested on 4th August 1839
A holiday signifies a holy day, and ours is to be of holy days the most holy. It is to be most holy, most sacred, for it is to be consecrated to promote- to create rather- the happiness and liberty of mankind. Our holy day is established to establish plenty, to abolish want, to render all men equal! In our holy day we shall legislate for all mankind; the constitution drawn up during our holiday, shall place every human being on the same footing. Equal rights, equal liberties, equal enjoyments, equal toil, equal respect, equal share of production: this is the object of our holy day – of our sacred day, – of our festival!
William Benbow, Grand National Holiday
Even at this early stage of the radical and labour movement the precise form the Holiday should take was controversial.
An Editorial in the Northern Star (10th August 1839) claimed that the ‘Sacred Month’ had been carried by a ‘mad vote’ at the Chartist General Convention and had now been rescinded following an intervention by Chartist leader Feargus O’Connor.
The Editorial noted that O’Connor had backed a ‘holiday’ of two or three days but argued that a single day would achieve as much as a month.
The Star backed the ‘moral power’ of the people and suggested that the Holiday had been characterised by opponents as an ‘attack on property’
The Editorial concluded that instead of taking a holiday as much as the month’s wages as could be spared should be given to obtaining the means to protect life and property from violence by the authorities.
Suffice to say the Holiday did go ahead although certainly not for a month
A more detailed explanation of what took place:
Benbow’s text is at this link
https://www.marxists.org/history/england/chartists/benbow-congress.htm
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