Dry January, Chartist leader Feargus O’Connor on Teetotal Chartism (3rd April 1841)
In Britain the temperance movement and working-class radical organisation in the form of Chartism appeared during the same period the 1830s and 1840s. There was to an extent a shared aim- to improve the position of working men (and women, although this was not a central position of either).
Temperance aimed to do this by encouraging sobriety and/or making it more difficult to get drunk. Most Chartists had no issue with that. However as Feargus O’Connor argued in the Chartist Northern Star on 3rd April 1841 it was an issue that divided rather than united. Some did like to drink but that mean they were against working class rights. Equally some middle class supporters of temperance were against political radicalism except to a very limited degree.
O’Connor’s argument was that the Charter united and would bring progress on all fronts including a more sober and a more radical working class
Leave a Reply