Henry
Hetherington,
the son
of a London tailor, was born in 1792. When
he was thirteen he began work as an apprentice printer at Luke Hansard's
printing works. In the 1820s Hetherington became influenced by the
ideas of Robert Owen and joined the co-operative
printers association. He also became active in the Radical Reform
Association.
In 1822 Hetherington started his own printing and publishing company.
This was a time when reformers like Richard
Carlile were being imprisoned for publishing material that was
critical of the government. However, for people like Hetherington
and Carlile, the publication of newspapers and pamphlets were vitally
important in the political education of the working class.
In the 1830s Hetherington published a series of radical newspapers
including: The Penny Papers (1830);
The Radical
(1831) and The Poor
Man's Guardian (1831-1835). In 1833 Hetherington was
selling 22,000 copies a week of thePoor Man's
Guardian. Hetherington was punished by the authorities several
times for these activities. This included being fined on numerous
occasions, imprisoned in 1833 and 1836, and having all his printing
presses seized and destroyed in 1835.
Hetherington played a leading
role in the campaign against the heavy taxes on newspapers and pamphlets.
This campaign resulted in several reforms in the law. In 1833 when
the four-penny tax on newspapers was reduced to one-penny. The same
year Parliament agreed to remove the tax on pamphlets.
In his newspapers Henry Hetherington campaigned
against child labour, the 1834 Poor Law
and political corruption. Hetherington joined William
Lovett, James Watson and John
Cleave to form the London Working Man's Association (LWMA) in
1836. Hetherington, who became the LWMA first treasurer, helped draw
up a Charter of political demands. By 1836 Hetherington was one of
the leaders of the Chartist movement. Hetherington
was a moral force Chartist and was very
critical of the ideas of Feargus O'Connor
and in 1849 helped create the moderate Peoples Charter Union.
Hetherington
continued his campaign against taxes on newspapers and in 1849 formed
the Newspaper Stamp Abolition Committee. A few months later, on 23rd
August 1849, Hetherington died of cholera. Two thousand people gathered
at Kensal Green cemetery to pay their respects to the the man who
had spent his adult life fighting for social reform.
Child
Labour Debate Activity (International School of Toulouse)
Child
Labour Simulation (Spartacus Educational)
(1)
The Poor Man's Guardian (24th September,
1831)
We,
the Poor Man's Guardian, proclaim that we represent the working, productive,
and useful but poor classes, who constitute a very great majority
of the population of Great Britain. We proclaim that some hundreds
of thousands of the poor have elected us the Guardian of their rights
and liberties.
(2)
The Poor Man's Guardian (29th April,
1832)
To
talk of representation, in any shape, being of any use to the people
is sheer nonsense, unless the people have a House of working men,
and represent themselves. Those who make the laws now, and are intended,
by the reform bill, to make them in future all live by profits of
some sort or another. They will, therefore, no matter who elect them,or
how often they are elected, always make the laws to raise profits
and keep down the price of labour.
(3)
Letter published in the last edition of the Poor
Man's Guardian (26th December, 1831)
I
am, with many more of my friends and brother Radicals, sorry to hear
that the Poor Man's Guardian is to be continued no longer.
It has been my leading star, and I have no doubt of hundreds more
like me. I hope and trust that when the name and fame of such men
as the bloodstained hero of Waterloo shall be sunk in oblivion, or
only thought of with contempt, the name of the Editor of the Poor
Man's Guardian will be celebrated with songs of joy. That you
may meet with success in your next undertaking, is the sincere wish
of a working man.
(4)
The Observer (25 March,
1830)
About eleven o'clock nearly 20,000 men, chiefly
belonging to the Union of the Working Classes, assembled in Finsbury
Square. The leaders of the people consisted of five or six individuals,
amongst whom were Mr. Hetherington (lately released from prison, where
he had been confined for non-payment of fines for publishing unstamped
penny newspapers), Mr Lovett and Mr. Watson. A conflict took place
between the police and the people, the former of whom used their starves,
and the latter stones, which wounded several of the officers. In a
little time some persons were taken into custody, and conveyed, amidst
the most defening yells, to the station.
(5)
R. G. Gammage was friend of Henry Hetherington
and wrote an account of the man in his book History of the Chartist
Movement published in 1894.
In
the great battle of the unstamped press in which he bore so conspicuous
a part, sustaining as he did several government prosecutions, his
name became a household word amongst the members of the radical party.
Possessed of indomitable courage and inflexible perseverance, defying
persecution, and trampling on the Stamp Act, he had earned for himself
a reputation which caused the more advanced of the working class to
gather round him in scores, sometimes in hundreds. His rough strong
logic struck conviction into every mind, while his dry and essentially
English humour, gave to it an agreeable zest.
(6)
William
Lovett,
Life and Struggles (1876)
When
Mr. Hetherington first commenced the publication of the Poor Man's
Guardian he was established in Kings Gate Street, Holborn, as a printer,
with a fair run of business, which for a tome was nearly ruined by
the resolute course he pursued. For his name as a Radical became so
obnoxious to many of his customers that they withdrew their printing
from him. I remember being present on one occasion when one of Mr.
Hetherington's customers, in a large way of business, offered to give
him as much printing as he could do on his premises, provided he would
give up his Radical publications; but he nobly refused. The first
time he appeared at Bow Street to answer the charge of printing and
publishing the Guardian and Republican he honestly told the magistrates
that he was determined to resist the efforts of a corrupt government
to suppress the voice of the people.
(7)
Henry Hetherington, last testament (21st August 1849)
As
life is uncertain, it behoves everyone to make preparations for death;
I deem it therefore a duty incumbent on me, ere I quit this life,
to express in writing, for the satisfaction and guidance of esteemed
friends, my feelings and opinions in reference to our common principles.
In the first place, then
- I calmly and deliberately declare that I do not believe in the popular
notion of an Almighty, All-wise and Benevolent God - possessing intelligence,
and conscious of his own operations; because these attributes involve
such a mass of absurdities and contradictions, so much cruelty and
injustice on His part to the poor and destitute portion of His creatures
- that, in my opinion, no rational reflecting mind can, after disinterested
investigation, give credence to the existence of such a Being.
Second, I believe death
to be an eternal sleep - that I shall never live again in this world,
or another, with a consciousness that I am the same identical person
that once lived, performed the duties, and exercised the functions
of a human being.
Third, I consider priestcraft
and superstition the greatest obstacle to human improvement and happiness.
During my life I have, to the best of my ability, sincerely and strenuously
exposed and opposed them, and die with a firm conviction that Truth,
Justice, and Liberty will never be permanently established on earth
till every vestige of priestcraft and superstition be utterly destroyed.
Fourth, I have ever considered
that the only religion useful to man consists exclusively of the practice
of morality, and in the mutual interchange of kind actions. In such
a religion there is no room for priests and when I see them interfering
at our births, marriages and deaths pretending to conduct us safely
through this state of being to another and happier world, any disinterested
person of the least shrewdness and discernment must perceive that
their sole aim is to stultify the minds of the people by their incomprehensible
doctrines that they may the more effectively fleece the poor deluded
sheep who listen to their empty babblings and mystifications.
Fifth, as I have lived
so I die, a determined opponent to the nefarious and plundering system.
I wish my friends, therefore, to deposit my remains in unconsecrated
ground, and trust they will allow no priest, or clergyman of any denomination,
to interfere in any way whatsoever at my funeral.
These are my views and
principles in quitting an existence that has been chequered with the
plagues and pleasures of a competitive, scrambling, selfish system;
a system by which the moral and social aspirations of the noblest
human being are nullified by incessant toil and physical deprivations;
by which, indeed, all men are trained to be either slaves, hypocrites
or criminals. Hence my ardent attachment to the principles of that
great and good man Robert Owen. I quit this world with a firm conviction
that his system is the only true road to human emancipation .
(8)
R. G. Gammage was a member of the large
crowd that attended Henry Hetherington funeral in 1849.
In 1849 Henry Hetherington died of cholera. Hetherington was followed
to his grave by a large number of friends. Five hundred walked in
procession and not less than two thousand were at the grave. G. J.
Holyoake delivered an appropriate address on the occasion, as did
James Watson, one of his oldest political associates.
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