What do you know about the topic of suffrage in the UK?

I’m not talking about votes for women here, although that comes into it of course. No, what I’m talking about is the right of every man to vote freely, without pressure and in secret. I’m talking about the original people’s charter...

The "People's Charter," drafted in 1838 by William Lovett, was at the heart of a radical campaign for parliamentary reform of the inequities remaining after the Reform Act of 1832. The Chartists' six main demands were:

1. votes for all men;
2. equal electoral districts;
3. abolition of the requirement that Members of Parliament be property owners;
4. payment for M.P.s;
5. annual general elections; and
6. the secret ballot.

The Chartists obtained one and a quarter million signatures and presented the Charter to the House of Commons in 1839, where it was rejected by a vote of 235 to 46. Many of the leaders of the movement, having threatened to call a general strike, were arrested. When demonstrators marched on the prison at Newport, Monmouthshire, demanding the release of their leaders, troops opened fire, killing 24 and wounding 40 more. A second petition with 3 million signatures was rejected in 1842; the rejection of the third petition in 1848 brought an end to the movement.

The leaders of the Chartist march on Newport were John Frost, William Jones and Zephaniah Williams; they’re regarded as heroes now of course, but at the time they were thought of rather differently...

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