Chartist chair-carver of London who sat on the General Council until the Commune drove him out
Born in Exeter in 1809, he made his name as a chair-carver in Shoreditch, London. A Chartist, he shared the chair of the last Chartist conference in 1858 and sat on the Council and Executive of the Reform League. Elected to the provisional committee at the founding meeting in St Martin's Hall in 1864, he was a member of the General Council of the International until 1871 and a delegate to the Brussels Congress of 1868 and the Basel Congress of 1869, where he argued for land nationalisation and large-scale cultivation by the state. Vacillating over the Paris Commune in 1871, he resigned from the International after a dispute over his signature on Marx's The Civil War in France. In 1870 he was the only working man elected to the first London School Board, and he stood unsuccessfully for Parliament in 1874 and 1880. He died in 1897.
Activities and affiliations
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1846–1858
Social movements and organizing
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1864–1871
International Workingmen's Association (First International)Main
Social movements and organizing -
1865–1869
Social movements and organizing
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1869–
Social movements and organizing
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1870–1890
School Board for London (London School Board)Member of the London School Board
Education
Career Timeline
- 1858Co-chaired the last Chartist conference
- 1864–1871Member of the General Council of the International
- 1870Elected to the London School Board
- 1871Resigned from the International over the Commune