Inspired by the rich history of social movements in the UK, our Revolt Artivism Workshops aim to empower Key stage 2 and 3 students to create change through drama, storytelling, songwriting and poetry. Below you can read about some of those movements that shaped our nation when ordinary people asked for change.
Peterloo
On 16th August 1819, around 80,000 people gathered on St Peter’s Field in central Manchester to demand democratic representation.
Most of them were industrial workers from Manchester and its surrounding towns, who had suffered from an economic depression and left without support from the government.. They peacefully came together to demand the right to make their lives better.
Under colourful banners hand stitched with slogans like “Unity and Strength” ,and “Liberty and Fraternity”, they listened to radicals like Henry Hunt speak up for their rights and democratic reform.
It ended with the government cavalry – instructed to keep the ‘peace’ – armed with swords, charged the crowd of men, women and children. 18 people were killed and 700 people were injured.
Masque of Anarchy
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) wrote this in the aftermath of Peterloo. Due to government censorship and fear that the poem would lead to greater civil unrest, the poem wasn’t published for another 13 years. It was never actually published in Shelley’s lifetime.
Henry Hunt
1773 -1835
Henry “Orator” Hunt was a British radical speaker and pioneer of working-class radicalism and an important influence on the later Chartist Movement. He campaigned for parliamentary reform. He was the first member of parliament to advocate for women’s right to vote.
Hunt, encouraged people to attend a meeting at Peterloo on the 16 August ‘armed with NO OTHER WEAPON but that of a self-approving conscience’.
After the massacre at Peterloo, Hunt and nine others were charged with ‘unlawful and seditious assembling for the purpose of exciting discontent .’
Hunt was found guilty in March 1820 and sentenced to two and a half years in Ilchester Gaol. In prison, he wrote his autobiography and two book titled “To the Radical Reformers, Male and Female of England, Ireland and Scotland”.
‘I am determined the Working Classes shall have the reform they want.’
Henry Hunt
In 1830 he became a member of Parliament for Preston. As a consistent champion of the working classes, He gave speeches addressed to the urging them to press for full equal rights and hold politicians to account.
The Chartists
The Chartist movement was the first mass movement driven by the working classes. It grew following the 1832 Reform Act which didn’t offer voting rights to people unless they owned property.
In 1838 a People’s Charter was written, it had 6 demands:
- All men to have the vote
- Voting should take place by secret ballot
- Parliamentary elections every year
- Constituencies should be of equal size
- Members of Parliament should be paid
- You shouldn’t have to own property to be become a Member of Parliament
Chartist Anthem
Here’s Flick singing the Chartist Anthem (1847) by Ben Boucher which dates from the Chartist struggles of the 1840s. Ben Boucher (1769-1851) was a miner who turned to making a living by selling his poems at a penny each in the streets. He died in Dudley workhouse.
You can read all about the different creative Revolt workshops that we offer here