William Lovett (8th May 1800-1877) was born in Newlyn, Penzance, the son of the Captain of a small fishing vessel. His father, also called William, drowned before William Junior was born. His mother, Keziah Davey Green, came from Sancreed; she was a strict Methodist and so naturally, William was sent to the local Methodist Sunday school. At the age of thirteen he became an apprentice rope maker.
After a few years, William realised that the use of rope was diminishing in favour of chains, and so decided to leave that trade, managing to persuade a local carpenter to train him in the skills of working with wood, believing it would give him a more prosperous future.
At the age of 21 he left to find work in London and eventually secured a position as a carpenter with a cabinet maker. Later, he applied for membership of the Cabinet Makers Society but is application was denied, it being considered that the training he originally received back home in Penzance was not of a good enough standard. It wasn’t until 1826 that he was accepted. Later the same year William married Mary Solly, a lady’s maid who was also working in London.
About this time he joined an evening course at the London Mechanics Institute. It was there that he met Henry Hetherington, the radical publisher, and John Cleave. They introduced him to the socialist ideas of Robert Owen. This connection led Lovett to set aside his Methodist beliefs to become a supporter of the Civil and Religious Library Association. Additionally, Lovett joined Hetherington and Cleave in the London Co-operative Association working as the Association’s Shopkeeper. In 1828 he replaced James Watson as the secretary of the British Association for the Promotion of Co-operative knowledge.
In 1831, Lovett’s name ‘was drawn’ for service in the London Militia. (I am unable to find a reference to the term ‘drawn for service’, but conclude it refers to the time that he was conscripted or Press Ganged. As a punishment, Lovett’s household goods were seized. He responded by forming the Anti-Militia Association, which adopted the slogan, ‘No Vote, No Musket’. His campaign was a great success, so much so that the authorities abandoned the idea of militia drawings. This victory brought Lovett much attention and he immediately became a national political figure.
Lovett decided that parliamentary reform was the most important issue facing working people. He joined the National Union of the Working Classes which had been formed by Richard Carlisle, Henry Hetherington, James Watson, John Cleave and William Benbow. It proposed universal male suffrage, annual parliaments, votes by secret ballot and the removal of property qualifications for MPs. Ian McCalamon has stated that it became the “most effective working-class radical organisation in the early 1830s.”
Lovett also became a member of Robert Owen’s Grand National Consolidated Trade Union. In March 1832, he was arrested by the Police during a peaceful demonstration but 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 which were by this time known as the Chartists.
R G Gammage, who wrote The History of the Chartist Movement in 1885, later recalled:
“This gentleman (Lovett) was a native of Cornwall, and sprang from the poorest class. Lovett was secretary of 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.”
In 1939, Lovett was arrested again, 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. He was found guilty and sentenced to twelve months imprisonment in Warwick Gaol. In his biography, Life and Struggles he describes his experience in that place.
“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 pail full of filth left by the previous occupants, the smell of which was overpowering. There was a bench fixed to the wall on which to sit, but the walls were literally covered with water and the place was 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.”
While in Warwick Gaol, Lovett and fellow prisoner John Collins, wrote the book, Chartism, a New Organisation of the People. After nine months in prison, Lovett refused to accept three months remission for good behaviour because, he argued, it implied admission of guilt.
Twelve months in Gaol severely damaged Lovett’s health and he was forced to spend time recuperating in Cornwall. When he eventually returned to London, he opened a bookshop in Tottenham Court Road. He was seen as the leader of the Chartist Movement, but he was under constant attack from people like Fergus O’Connor and Bronterre O’Brien who raised doubts about his ‘Moral Force’ campaign.
Upset by these criticisms, in 1842 Lovett decided 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. He continued to run his bookshop, wrote school text books and taught evening classes. However his bookshop failed to make any money and he died in extreme poverty on 8th August 1877 and was buried in Highgate Cemetery.
He is honoured in his home village of Newlyn by the erection of a plaque on the external walls of the Smugglers’ Inn. The plaque was designed and crafted by the sculptor vicar, Rev. A G Wyon.
WHAT A WORTHY BUT UNSUNG CORNISHMAN
Compiled by Paul Phillips from details by Mike Kiernan with his permission.
End Notes
Robert George Gammage (1820 Northampton – 1888 Northampton) was a leading British surgeon.
Robert Owen (14th May 1771 – 17th November 1858) was a Welsh textile manufacturer, philanthropical reformist and best known for his efforts to improve the working conditions of his factory workers and for his promotion of experimental socialistic communities.
Richard Carlisle (8th December 1890 – 10th February 1943 Ashburton, England) was an important agitator for the establishment of universal suffrage and freedom of the press in UK.
Henry Hetherton (17th June 1792 – 23rd August 1849, Soho, London) A leading Chartist and worked as a shopman for Richard Carlisle, later going to Ghent, Belgium where he worked as a printer. (He had nine children) He was influenced by the ideas of Robert Owen.
John Cleave (1790 – 1847) was a printer in London and also ran a bookshop and coffee house.
William Bembow (5th February 1787, Middlewich – 1841 Sydney, Australia) A nonconformist preacher, pamphleteer, pornographer & publisher. He promoted the Reform Movement in Manchester and London.
James Watson (Nothing relevant found)
Fergus O’Connor was an Irish Chartist Leader and an advocate for the ‘Land Plan’ which sought to provide smallholdings for the labouring classes.
Paul Phillips was born on 26th November 1937, at 2 Elm Cottages, Leedstown, near Hayle and lived there for the first nine years of his life. He attended Leedstown County Primary School, Helston Grammar School and, at the age of 16, he decided to join the police force. He applied to become a Metropolitan Police Cadet. His application was successful, and he spent 17 years in the Met. On his return to Cornwall, the day that the Torrey Canyon hit the rocks off Land’s End, he took over a small hotel in Porthleven. To supplement his income, and putting his police driving training to good use, he set up a driving school where he taught approximately 1,000 pupils. During all this time Paul maintained a fond interest in Cornwall and all things Cornish and today he is the Federation of Old Cornwall Society
