The Reform Act of 1832, which increased the franchise, did not satisfy the working-classes because it still excluded the vast majority of them from participation in both national and local government. It was beneficial to the middle-classes, i.e. factory owners. In order to qualify for voting a man needed to earn at least £150 a year. An ordinary worker earned under £50.
In 1836 William Lovett and others founded the Working Men's Association which drew up a Charter containing six political demands:
• abolition of the property qualification for membership of the House of Commons.
The Chartists appealed to workers to found their own organisations and to agitate for the Charter by presenting petitions to Parliament (1839, 1842, 1848).
However, by 1848 the Chartist movement had lost its momentum. Some leaders turned towards revolutionary socialism. They attempted to create a mass organisation with a distinct working-class ideology. Others were attracted by the ideas of the Christian socialists led by Charles Kingsley and Frederick Maurice, or by the positivism propagated by a small group of intellectuals from London University. Although the Chartists did not achieve a direct political victory, they were successful in encouraging workers to organise themselves and to struggle for economic and political reforms. In 1867, a Conservative government gave voting rights to a large number of urban working men. From that time the working classes steadily advanced to politic power. In 1844 twenty-eight Lancashire weavers each invested £1 in setting up a grocery store in Toad Lane, Rochdale. This was the beginning of the Cooperative Movement. Goods were sold at normal prices but profit (dividend) was shared among the customers in proportion to the amount of goods they had bought. Dividends could also be left in the business to accumulate. This encouraged members to build up savings.
Working-class activism in the 19th and the early 20th centuries was closely connected with the Trade Union movement, radicalism, and the lay activity of some churches. The London Trades Council established in 1860 soon became an important and influential body. In 1868 the Labour Representation League was formed. Its primary aim was to help elect working-men representatives to parliament. In 1871 a Trade Union Act was passed by Parliament giving the trade unions the status of legal social institutions. Although the number of labour representatives in Parliament grew steadily, they were still insignificant in a House which consisted of 600 members in 1906.
