Thomas Lovett's The First National Petition

The First National Petition was written by Thomas Lovett in 1938 and published by the London Working Men’s Association (LWMA). The LWMA was an elite organisation made up of 291 members total, all of whom were, “honorary members not of the working classes.” The petition itself contained 1,280,958 names and spanned three miles in length, which showed the magnitude of the Chartist Movement and the popularity in the number of people involved. Chartism was a movement of the working class dedicated to political and social reform. The Chartist Movement was often characterized by radical thinking and a push towards democracy. The name “The People’s Charter” was an allusion to the Magna Charta, which represented the foundation of English freedoms. The main goals of the petition were to provoke the government to reform the electoral system and alleviate the suffering of …show more content…
While the tone on the petition remains respectful throughout the source, and upholds a sense of dignity of the working class, there is an underlying threat that foreshadows revolution if no action is taken by Parliament to alleviate the suffering. Lovett writes, “We come before your Honourable House to tell you, with all humility, that this state of things must not be permitted to continue; that it cannot long continue without very seriously endangering the stability of the throne and the peace of the kingdom…” Although the Chartists may have lacked political power, the fear of revolution was enough to make Parliament aware of the conditions the middle class was facing and put in perspective the livelihood at stake. With a wave of revolutions taking place throughout Europe, most notably the French Revolution and the American Revolution, a political uprising was the last phenomenon the British government wanted to face. The increasing favouritism towards democracy among Chartists became a rising threat to the possibility of a

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