William Lovett, the son of the captain of a small fishing vessel,
was born in Penzance, Cornwall on 8th May, 1800. His father was drowned
at sea before William was born. William's mother, who was a strict
Methodist, sent him to the local school
and at the age of thirteen he became an apprentice rope-maker. After
a couple of years of training William realised that ropes were gradually
being replaced by chains and decided to leave the trade. William managed
to persuade a local man to train him as carpenter, a trade that he
believed would give him a better future.
At the age of 21 William Lovett decided to try and find work in London.
Lovett eventually found work as a carpenter in a cabinet making company.
He applied to join the Cabinet Makers' Society but he was rejected
as the training he received in Penzance was not recognised as being
good enough. It was not until 1826 that he was finally accepted as
a member of Cabinet Makers Society. Later that year Lovett married
a lady's maid working in London.
Lovett began attending evening classes at the London's
Mechanics' Institute. It was at the Institute that he met the
radical publishers, Henry Hetherington
and John Cleave. These two men introduced
Lovett to the socialist ideas of Robert Owen.
William Lovett now abandoned his Methodist
beliefs and became a supporter of the Civil and Religious Library
Association.
Lovett also joined Hetherington and Cleave in London Co-operative
Trading Association. Lovett worked for a while as the Co-operative
Trading Association's storekeeper and in 1828 replaces James
Watson as the secretary of the British Association for the Promotion
of Co-operative Knowledge.
In 1831 William Lovett's name was drawn for service in the London
Militia. As a punishment Lovett's household goods were seized.
Lovett responded by establishing the Anti-Militia Association. Lovett's
organisation adopted the slogan "No Vote, No Musket". The
campaign was a great success and the authorities decided to abandon
the idea of militia drawings. Lovett's victory brought him a great
deal of attention and he was now a national political figure.
Lovett decided that parliamentary reform was now the most important
issue facing working people. He joined the National Union of the Working
Classes that was actively involved in the campaign for universal manhood
suffrage. He also became a member of Robert Owen's Grand
National Consolidated Trades Union. In March 1832 Lovett was arrested
by the police during a peaceful demonstration. However, he was released
without charge.
In June 1836, Lovett, Henry Hetherington,
John Cleave and James
Watson formed the London Working Men's Association (LMWA). Although
it only ever had a few hundred members, the LMWA became a very influential
organisation. At one meeting in 1838 the leaders of the LMWA drew
up a Charter of political demands. When supporters of parliamentary
reform held a convention the following year, Lovett was chosen as
the leader of the group that were now known as the Chartists.
In 1839 Lovett was arrested for making a speech in Birmingham.
The authorities claimed that his description of the Metropolitan police
as a "blood thirsty and unconstitutional force" was seditious
libel. Lovett was found guilty and sentenced to twelve months imprisonment
in Warwick Gaol.
While in Warwick Gaol, Lovett and a fellow prisoner, John Collins,
wrote the book Chartism, a New Organisation
of the People. After nine months Lovett refused to accept
three months remission for good behaviour because, he argued, it implied
admission of guilt.
Twelve months in Warwick Gaol severely damaged Lovett's health and
he was forced to spend time recuperating in Cornwall. When Lovett
returned to London he open a bookseller's shop in Tottenham Court
Road. Lovett was still seen as the leader of the Chartist movement
but he was under constant attack from people like Fergus
O'Connor and James Bronterre O'Brien
who raised doubts about his Moral Force
campaign.
Upset by these criticisms, Lovett decided in 1842 to retire from politics
and devoted the rest of his life to the development of working class
education. He formed the National Association for Promoting the Political
and Social Improvement of the People. Financed by workers' subscriptions,
the association provided circulating libraries and employed educational
"missionaries".
Lovett continued to run his bookshop, wrote school textbooks and taught
evening classes. His bookshop failed to make money and William Lovett
died in extreme poverty on 8th August, 1877.
(1)
William Lovett, Life and Struggles (1876)
I was very fond of attending debating places, especially Tom's
Coffee House, in Holborn, and Lunt's Coffee House, on Clerkenwell
Green, where, among other celebrities who took part in the discussions,
I heard Gale Jones, the Rev. Robert Taylor, Richard Carlile, and others.
I commenced also about this time the collection of a small library
of my own, the shelves of which were often supplied by cheating the
stomach with bread and cheese dinners.
(2)
William Lovett, Life and Struggles (1876)
I joined the First London Co-operative Trading Association;
a society first established in the premises of the Co-operative Society,
Red Lion Square, and subsequently removed to Jerusalem Passage, Clerkenwell.
I think it was about the close of the year 1828 that the first of
these trading associations was established at Brighton, by the name
of Bryan; and its success was such that between four and five hundred
similar associations were very soon established in different parts
of the country. Some few months after I had given up my shop in May's
Buildings, I was induced to accept the situation of store-keeper to
the 'First London Association', the late store-keeper, Mr. James Watson,
having resigned. Much good resulted from the formation of those co-operative
trading associations, notwithstanding their failure. Their being able
to purchase pure and unadulterated articles of food.
(3)
William Lovett was arrested while demonstrating in favour of parliamentary
reform. He recorded what happened in , Life and Struggles (1876)
I was locked up in a dark cell, about nine feet square, the
only air admitted into it being through a small grating over the floor,
and in one corner of it was a pailful of filth left by the last occupants,
the smell of which was almost overpowering. There was a bench fixed
against the wall on which to sit down, but the walls were literally
covered with water, and the place so damp and cold, even at that season
of the year, that I was obliged to keep walking round and round, like
a horse in an apple-mill, to keep anything like life within me.
(4)
R. G. Gammage, an active member of the
Chartist movement, wrote an account of William Lovett in 1854.
The London
Working Men's association had several men possessing very considerable
talents: some as men of practical business, others as writers, and
as orators on the platform. The ablest as a writer and a man of business
was undoubtedly William Lovett. This gentleman was a native of Cornwall,
and sprang from the poorest class. Lovett was secretary to the Association,
and, without exaggeration, it may be affirmed that he was the life
and soul of that body. Possessed of a clear and masterly intellect
and great powers of application, everything that he attempted was
certain of accomplishment; and, though not by any means an orator,
he was in matters of business more useful to the movement than those
who were gifted with finer powers of speech.
(5)
William Lovett, Life and Struggles (1876)
I was brought up for judgment with my friend Collins, and both
of us were sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment in the County
Gaol. On the morning after my trial, when my little bucket of gruel
was served out to me, I took up a black-beetle in about the first
spoonful; this, together with the feverish state in which I was, caused
me to take a loathing against this part of my prison fare. I therefore
tried to satisfy my appetite for a few days with a little bread soaked
in cold water for breakfast, and a morsel of bread and cheese for
dinner. But this diet in a short time brought on a horrible diarrhea,
under which, I believe, I should have speedily sunk had not my weakly
appearance attracted the notice of William Collins, the member for
Warwick, one of the visiting magistrates, on his going his rounds
through the prison. Seeing me look so ill, he came up to me and questioned
me about my health, and at once ordered me to be taken into the hospital.
Mr. Thomas Duncombe very nobly brought my case before the House of
Commons, together with that of other political offenders. To all of
which the authorities turned a death ear, the only favour granted
being a pint of tea instead of the prison gruel.
(6)
William Lovett, Life and Struggles (1876)
As regards the best means of obtaining our Charter. We are of
those who are opposed to everything in the shape of a physical or
violent revolution, believing that a victory would be a defeat to
the just principles of democracy. The political despots; and as such
a sanguinary warfare, calling up the passions in the worst forms,
must necessarily throw back for centuries our intellectual and moral
progress.
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